more Sons to bestow upon us he being the only begotten of his Father Heaven and Earth are not able to furnish him with such another Gift to bestow upon us and if he should lay a Tax upon all his Creation to raise one great Contribution to the Happiness of Mankind and exact the utmost of every Creature that it is able to Contribute it would all fall infinitely short of what he hath done for us in this inestimable Gift of his own Son So that if this prove ineffectual it is beyond the Power of an omnipotent Bounty to relieve us For though God can do all Things that can be well and wisely done and do not imply a Contradiction yet this can be no Relief at all to us who reject his Son and refuse to be made happy in the gracious Method which he hath prescribed to us For after this mighty Gift of his own Son to save us according to the Method of his Gospel there remains nothing more to be done for us but either to save us whether we will or no or else to make us happy in our Sins and save us notwithstanding our Continuance in them the former of which can neither be well nor wisely done because by saving us against our Wills he must deal with us in such a Way as is repugnant to that Law of Liberty that is implanted in our Natures and use us not as Free but as Necessary Agents And if considering all things it was best and wisest that he should make us free Agents then it can neither be well nor wise to govern us as necessary ones since by so doing he must alter the Course of our Nature and consequently swerve and decline from what is best and wisest which would be to do Violence to the Perfection of his own Nature And then as for the latter he cannot do it because it implies a Contradiction For to make Men happy in their Sins is to make them happy in their Miseries Misery being as inseparable from Sin as Heat is from Fire and as intimately related to it as the Son is to the Father and consequently he may as possibly make a Father without a Son as a Sinner without Misery When therefore God hath done all for us that can possibly be done and we by our own Obstinacy have rendred all ineffectual we are beyond the Power of Remedy and must necessarily perish in our Sins And when we have no other Hope to depend on but this that the All-wise God will undo his own Workmanship and unravel our Nature by governing us contrary to the most wise Constitution of it or that the All-powerful God will effect Impossibilities and do that for us which is not an Object of Power how deplorable and desperate must our Condition be Wherefore as you would not run your selves beyond the Reach of all Mercy and excommunicate your own Souls from all Hope of Salvation be now at last persuaded to comply with Christ's Coming which was to reduce you from the Error of your Ways and to bring you to a serious Repentance JOHN III. 16 That whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting Life IN these Words you have the Love of God measured by a twofold Standard first by the Greatness of the Gift which he hath bestowed upon the World God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son Secondly by the blessed End for which he did bestow him that whosoever believeth in him should not perish c. The first of these I have already gone through and now I shall proceed to the Second viz. The blessed End for which he gave his only begotten Son That whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life In which Words you have also two very great Instances of God's infinite Love and good Will to Mankind the First is his imposing upon us such a gentle and easie and merciful Condition That whosoever believeth in him Secondly His proposing such a vast Reward to us upon our performing of this Condition I begin with the first viz. His imposing upon us such a gentle and easie and merciful Condition That whosoever believeth in him should not perish In the Management of which I shall do these two Things 1. Shew you what it is that is included in this Condition whosoever believeth in him 2. How good God hath been to us in making the Condition which he hath imposed upon us so gentle and merciful 1. What is it that is included in this Condition To which I answer in general that believing in Christ doth not only denote a naked Assent to the Truth of this Proposition That he is the Son of Cod and the Messenger of Gods Mind and Will to the World and the Saviour of Mankind but that it also includes whatsoever is naturally consequent thereunto For thus it is very ordinary with the Scripture to express the natural Effects and Consequents of things by their Causes and Principles This is the love of God saith the Apostle that we keep his Commandments 1 Jo. v. 3 whereas in strictness of Speaking our keeping his Commandments is only the Effect or Consequence of our loving him So Prov. viii 13 The fear of the Lord is to hate evil whereas indeed this is only the Effect or Consequence of the Fear of the Lord. Thus by knowing and hearing and remembring of God the Scripture usually expresses the consequent Effects of them Thus Act. xxii 14 The God of our Fathers hath chosen thee that thou shouldst know his Will that is that thou mayst not only know it but by thy Knowledge mayst be suitably affected with it for it was not to a bare contemplative Knowledge of it that St. Paul was chosen and then it follows and see that Just one and shouldst hear the voice of his Mouth that is that hearing the Voice of his Mouth thou shouldst thereby be induced to obey it for he was not meerly to hear Christ speaking to him out of the Heavens but that hearing him he might submit to his Will and become his Apostle to the World Many other Places I might easily give you where the natural Effects and Consequents are in Scripture expressed by their Causes and Principles And thus also Faith or Believing whensoever it is used in Scripture to signify the Condition of the Gospel-Covenant always imploies its natural Effects and Consequents that is sincere and universal Obedience to those Rules of Holy Living which the Gospel prescribes for this is the most natural Effect of our believing in Jesus Christ. And hence it is called the obedience of Faith Rom. xvi 26 that is the Obedience which springs from Faith as from its Cause and Principle And accordingly Rom. x. 16 you find that to believe and to obey the Gospel signifies one and the same Thing But they have not all obeyed the Gospel saith he for Esaias saith Lord who hath believed our report that is who hath believed it so
Service into Wages and pays her self with the Pleasures of pleasing she counts all Commands Favours and is highly satisfied with the Honour of obeying and if she can but accomplish the Pleasure of her Beloved she thinks her self wholly recompensed for all her tedious Toils and Labours And certainly if our Souls were but inspired with any considerable Degrees of this Heavenly Passion we should find such Pleasure in pleasing God as would for ever engage us to serve him for then every Service that we rendred him would be a free Sally of an enamoured Will and so our Hearts would be wrapp'd up in every Duty and our Souls would still be ascending Heavenwards like the Angel that appeared to Manoah in the Flames of all our Sacrifices So that this Excellency also Love hath above all other Principles of Obedience that it renders our Obedience most free most chearful and voluntary 4. And lastly Love renders our Obedience constant and steady When a Man's Religion is only animated with Fear as it is weak and languid while it lives so it generally hastens to an untimely Period For Fear is a Passion so burthensom to humane Nature that we cannot but desire to quit and discharge our selves of it as soon as possible may be and accordingly the Apostle tells us that there is torment in Fear 1 Joh. 4.18 for it separates the Soul from the Enjoyment of her self and gives such an ungrateful Tang to all her Pleasures that she can find no Rest or Satisfaction in any Thing so long as she is haunted with it Now when that which is the Principle of our Religion is a Burthen to us we cannot but endeavour if possible to ease our selves of it which we cannot otherwise do but either by going forwards to Love or by returning back again to sinful Presumption For as for Fear it is like the Wilderness through which Israel passed a Place where there is no abiding with Content and Satisfaction so that we must go back again into Egypt or forwards to Canaan or be content to sit down in Misery and Disquiet For we can never be at Rest till our Fear is either sweetned with an Intermixture of Love or stifled with vain Hopes and ungrounded Presumptions And there being so many Arts of Self-deceiving in the World and skinning over the Wounds of Conscience if Men do not speedily cure their Fear by Love they will soon find some other Way to extinguish it either they will promise their Consciences a future Amendment or else they will presently amend by Halves or else they will take Sanctuary in some false Notions in Religion that tend to secure them in their Sins and render them quietly wicked These or some other Ways they will find to quit themselves of this troublesome Passion and then when the Weights of their Fear are down the Wheels of their Religion will stand still immediately So that you plainly see that bare Fear can never be a lasting and steady Principle of Religion and that because it is so troublesome that Men will not long have the Patience to endure it But as for Love that is naturally a most sweet and grateful Passion it sooths and ravishes the Heart and puts the Spirits into a brisk and generous Motion and so long as it continues pure Love is always attended with Joy and Pleasure And being so in it self it is much more so when it is terminated upon God For all the Disquietudes of Love arise from the Imperfections of its Object either the Person beloved is coy and cruel which imbitters the Love with Sorrow and Regret or else he is fickle and inconstant which inflames it with Rage and Jealousy But when our Love fixes upon God it hath neither of these Causes of Disturbance for he is infinitely loving unto all that love him and he never changes the Objects of his Love unless they change and prove fickle and unconstant in their Affection to him For whilst he hath the same Reason to love his Love is always the same and is as constant and immutable as his Being So that in the Love of God there is no Reason for any of those Griefs and Jealousies that are so commonly intermingled with carnal Loves and Affections for it being fixed upon an Object that doth so well deserve and will so amply requite it it can find nothing there but infinite Causes of Pleasure and Complacency For the Object of our Love being infinitely lovely and infinitely loving the Affection must needs be unspeakably pleasing and grateful So that the Love of God you see must needs be sweet and serene and productive of the most delightful and ravishing Emotions there being nothing in him but what tends to its greatest Content and Satisfaction and being so it must necessarily prove a most lasting Principle of Obedience to him because wheresoever it is it is always attended with such substantial Pleasures and Delights that there can be no Temptation to extinguish it for so long as we feel nothing in it but what is highly grateful to our Natures we shall be so far from using Arts to quit our selves of it that we shall think it our greatest Interest to promote and increase it For still the more we love him the better we shall be pleased and the better we are pleased the more we shall endeavour to love him And so our Pleasure and our Love will mutually provoke and augment one another till both are arrived to the utmost Height of their Perfection Thus the Love of God you see is a lasting Principle 't is a Fire that can live upon the Fuel which it self creates and maintain it self for ever in Strength and Vigour by feeding upon the Joys and Pleasures which it produces So that if this be the Principle upon which we do obey our Religion must needs be lasting and steady because it is acted and animated by a Principle that is so Having thus demonstrated the Proposition in the Text That wheresoever the Love of God is it will express it self in Obedience to his Will I shall now conclude the whole with some practical Inferences 1. From hence I infer how necessary it is to the very Being of Religion to keep up good Thoughts of God in the World because without such Men will never be able to love him and without Love they will never be reduced to a through Submission to his heavenly Will For it is by Love alone that God reigns in our Hearts and doth both acquire and preserve the Empire of our Souls We may be awed into a forced and fawning Submission meerly by the Dread and Terror of his Power and be obliged to serve him as the Indians do the Devil for fear he should do us a Mischief and tear us in pieces but this is meerly the Religion of Slaves who are forced to undergo one Evil for fear of another and to do what they hate for fear of suffering what they cannot endure And as Slaves do
of Will that are in them and doubtless in those good Actions that have Love for their Principle there is much more of Will than in those that proceed from Fear and Terror and consequently our Nature being perfected by good Actions and more or less perfected by them the more or less of Goodness they have in them must needs be much more perfected by the good Actions of Love than by those of Fear Whilst therefore we are acted in Religion by the Love of God our Souls are upon the Wing to Perfection and in a swift Tendency to the heavenly State we are already in the Neighbourhood of glorified Saints and Angels and if we continue our Course shall soon be fit for their Society and Converse This therefore is the great End and Reason why God doth so importunately claim our Love because this of all others is the most perfective Principle of our Natures and consequently the most conducive to our Happiness 4 ly And lastly from hence I infer of what vast Importance it is to us in Religion to love God For you plainly see that Love is not only a Principle of Obedience but that of all others it is the most efficacious and operative that it doth not only engage us to keep God's Commandments but that it enables us to keep them most universally and vigorously and chearfully and constantly So that what the Apostle saith of brotherly Love is more universally true of the Love of God that it is the keeping of the whole Law Rom. xiii 10 that is causally and virtually it is For so Love is that universal Cause which within its fruitful Womb contains all the Particulars of our Obedience and is naturally productive of them all So that virtually it is all Religion it is Godliness and Temperance and Charity and Humility and Righteousness and Patience being the common Cause and Parent of them all For Love hath an universal Respect to the Will of the Beloved it doth not chuse what is easie and refuse what is hard but likes what God likes and disapproves of what he hates his Will being the great Reason of all its Choices and Refusals And whatsoever things in particular are distastful and difficult to us by its powerful Oratory it renders pleasant and easie For he that serves God out of Love serves him with Delight and he that serves him with Delight hath no Clog to incumber him none of those Aversations and Antipathies to his Service that do so load and depress unwilling Minds he doth not row against the Current of Nature but acts with the full Inclination of his Mind and so feels little or nothing of Drudgery in his Religion and being carried on with a full Tide of Delight he goes easily and chearfully down with the Stream Of such vast Importance is the Love of God to our Religion that it not only produces it but renders it easie and pleasant so that without some Degree of this our Religion can have neither Being nor Well-being and it is as possible for us to live without a Soul and to be nourished without Food as it is for our Religion to be and to thrive without the Love of God Wherefore if ever we would be Religious indeed if ever we would connaturalize Religion to our Souls so as to render it easie and delightsome to us let us endeavour to kindle this heavenly Fire within us and certainly if we heartily endeavour it we cannot faâ—â— of success For there are so many mighty Reasons to engage us to the Love of God so many invincible Attractions in his Nature and in his Love towards us as cannot but affect us if we seriously ponder and consider them For how can I reflect upon that amiable Nature of his in which there is an harmonious Concurrence of all Beauties and Perfections where Wisdom and Goodness Justice and Mercy and every lovely Thing that can claim or deserve a rational Affection are contempered together in their utmost Degrees of Perfection How I say can I steadily reflect upon such a Nature as this without being charmed and captivated with the Love of it How can I think of that stupendous Love which he hath expressed towards me in giving me my Being and all the Blessings I enjoy in preparing a Heaven of immortal Joys for me and sending his Son from thence to conduct me thither without being all inflamed with Love to him Wherefore let us seriously set our selves to the Contemplation of God of the Loveliness of his Nature and of his infinite Kindness to us and all his Creation Let us repeat the Thoughts of these Things upon our Minds and never give over pressing our selves with those infinite Reasons we have to love him till we feel the heavenly Fire begin to kindle within our Breasts and then let us never give over feeding and blowing it with these divine Considerations till it rise up into a triumphant Flame And then we shall feel our selves animated with a new Soul and inspired with so much Life and Activity in Religion as that from our Experience we shall be able to subscribe to the Truth of the Text This is the Love of God this the most natural Expression and inseparable Effect of it That we keep his Commandments 1 JOHN V. 3 And his Commandments are not grievous I Proceed now to the next Part of the Text viz. the Motive by which this obedient Love of God is enforced and his Commandments are not grievous 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are not heavy or burthensome they have no such Weight or Difficulty in them as ought in reason to discourage us from keeping them For in these Words the Apostle seems to anticipate an Objection alas if this be the Love of God to keep his Commandments what Man is able to love him for if his Commandments are not absolutely impossible yet are they at least so extremely difficult that scarce any Man can have the Courage to undertake the Performance of them This saith our Apostle is a mighty Mistake or a wretched Pretence for Mens Sloth and Idleness for verily and truly the Commands of God have no such Difficulty in them but are in themselves very gentle and easie to be born And with this Assertion our blessed Saviour doth most perfectly accord Mat. xi 30 My yoke is easie and my burthen is light And the Prophet David makes it not only easie but delightful Psal. xix 8 The Statutes of the Lord are right rejoycing the heart the Commandments of the Lord are pure enlightning the eyes And then in the 10 th Verse he tells us that they are more to be desired than gold yea than much fine gold and sweeter than honey or the honey-comb So far they are from being Toils and Burthens that in Reality they are Pleasures and Recreations But farther to demonstrate this Truth to you That God's Commands are not burthensome and difficult I shall do these two things I. Shew you that they are facile
weaker and that Pleasure and Ease that Tranquility of Mind and Peace of Conscience which we shall feel accruing to us out of the Discharge of our Duty will by Degrees so indear and connaturalize it to us that at last it will be much harder for us to sin than to obey Wherefore let us stand no longer like naked Boys shivering upon the Brinks of Religion wishing that we were in but afraid to venture but let us consider seriously resolve sincerely and then leap in boldly and though at first we may find it difficult to swim against the Stream and stem the Tyde of our own bad Inclinations yet if we can but hold out couragiously a while we shall feel the Current slacken by Degrees till the Tyde of Nature turn and run the contrary Way and then we shall be carried on with Ease and Delight and swim chearfully and pleasantly down with the Stream For when once we have conquered the bad Inclinations of our Nature Religion will be a mighty Ease and Refreshment to us and we shall feel a thousand times more Pleasure and Satisfaction in it than ever we did in all our sinful Enjoyments so that then we shall find the Truth of the Text and be able to pronounce from our own Experience that God's Commandments are not grievous PSALM CXIX 68 Thou art good and thou dost good I Have been discoursing concerning the Necessity of our loving of God in order to our being truly Religious and shewed you at large that this is not only the great Principle of all Religion but that of all others it is the most fruitful and operative And now that I may lay this Foundation of true Religion in you I shall explain to you the infinite Cause and Reason that we have to love him and because Goodness is the Beauty of a reasonable Nature and Beauty is the Object of Love I shall endeavour to demonstrate to you the infinite Goodness of God that I may thereby affect you with his Beauty and if possible inflame all your Souls with the Love of him And that I may the more fully convince you of the divine Goodness I shall endeavour to prove it from four distinct Topicks 1. From the Nature of God 2 ly From the Creation of God 3 ly From the Providence of God And 4 ly From the Revelations he hath made to the World And these I intend shall be the Arguments of four distinct Discourses the three first of which lie plainly in the Text Thou art good and thou dost good Thou art good That plainly denotes what God is in himself that he is naturally and essentially good that he is of a most loving kind and benevolent Nature and hath a most vehement Propension to do good to others founded in his immutable Being Thou dost good that denotes the Exercise and Out-going of this his essential Benevolence in the Works of his Creation and Providence and that this his natural Propension to do good is not at all sleepy or unactive that it is not a lazy and restive Woulding or Volition but that it always sallies forth into Action and doth most vigorously exercise it self either in making of Objects to imploy it self about or in upholding and governing them when they are made So that the Words contain these two things 1. What God is in himself Thou art good 2 ly What he is in those Actions that are determined without himself Thou dost good 1. I begin with the first of these What God is in himself Thou art good i. e. Thou art so essentially and according to the unalterable Propension of thy Nature And this as I told you I shall in the first Place endeavour to demonstrate from the Nature of God that is from that intire Complexion of all possible Perfections whereof his Nature is composed For in Order to our handling of this Argument this must be premised that God is a Being endowed with all possible Perfections and consequently thereunto that he is infinitely powerful and infinitely wise and consequently to that that he is infinitely Happy and consequently to this that he loves himself infinitely and that all this is so is very evident from the Nature of the Thing For first we must necessarily suppose one Original Cause of all Things for else we can give no possible Account how those Things that once were not could ever come into Being and we must also as necessarily suppose that this Original Cause was Self-originated i. e. that it received its Being and Existence from none but it self for else it cannot be the Original Cause but must it self be the Effect of some other Cause that was in Being before it That existing of it self without any Cause it is infinitely removed from Not-being for that which is without any Cause can ever be without any Cause meerly from that exuberant Fulness of Essence that is in it self And that which can be for ever without any Cause must necessarily be so because this is a most necessary Act and as such must be exerted ad extremum virium Agentis consequently to which we must also suppose that that which is infinitely removed from Not-being hath the utmost Perfection of Essence in it For the Notion of Essence nakedly considered is to be and therefore by how much the more remote any Essence is from Not-Being by so much the more perfect it must necessarily be Again in Consequence to this we must also suppose that that which hath in it self without any Cause the utmost Perfection of Essence must have in it self also the utmost of all other Perfections that by way of Adjunct or Attribute such an inexhaustible Essence is capable of that is that it must be Powerful and Wise and whatsoever else is a possible Perfection of Essence For Plenitude of Essence consists in being as much as it can be and so long as any Being is capable of being any more than it is it hath not all the possible Degrees of Essence in it for every Perfection that Essence by way of Attribute is capable of is a Degree of positive Entity Thus Wisdom and Power are not meer Privations of Weakness and Folly but Things that have some Degree of real positive Essence in them and consequently what Being soever hath not these must necessarily have it in some Degrees of Not-Being and 't is impossible that any Essence should be infinitely removed from Not-Being which hath any Degree of Not-Being in it Lastly consequently to this we must also suppose that a Being endowed with all possible Perfections being infinitely Powerful and infinitely Wise must needs be infinitely Happy for wheresoever those great Perfections are they must necessarily supply whatsoever is necessary to an infinite Happiness And then from hence it nessarily follows that a Being that is thus infinitely Happy must needs infinitely love and delight in it self because within the vast Circumference of its own Being it hath every Thing that it needs desires or affects
place having obtained eternal Redemption for us And in Virtue of this Blood which he poured out as a Sacrifice of our Sins upon the Cross he now pleads our Cause at the right Hand of his Father and ever lives to make Intercession for us So that you see the Death of Christ had in it all the necessary Ingredients of a propitiatory Sacrifice for the Sins of the World and having so what a prodigious Instance is it of the Love of God to us that rather than destroy us he would give up his own Son to be a Sacrifice for us I do not deny but if he had pleased he might have pardoned and saved us without any Sacrifice at all but he knew very well that if he should do so it would be much worse for us He knew that if he should pardon our Sins without giving us some great Instance of his implacable Hatred of them we should be too prone to presume upon his Lenity and thereupon to return again to our old Vomit and Uncleanness and therefore though it would have been more for the Ease and Interest of his blessed Son to have pardoned us without any Sacrifice at all yet such was his Love to us that because he foresaw that this Way of pardoning would prove fatal and dangerous to us he was resolved that he would not do it without being moved thereunto by the greatest Sacrifice the World could afford him and that no less a Propitiation should appease his Wrath against Offenders than the Blood of his own Son that so by beholding his Severity against our Sins in this unvaluable Sacrifice of the Blood of his Son we might be sufficiently terrified from returning again to them by the very same Reason that moved him to pardon them that we might not think light of that which God would not forgive without such a vast Consideration but might tremble to think of repeating those Sins the Price of whose Pardon was the dearest Blood of the Son of God Hence is that of the Apostle Rom. iii. 25 26. whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his Blood to declare his Righteousness that is his righteous Severity against Sin for the remission of Sins that are past through the forbearance of God to declare I say at this time his Righteousness that he might be just that is sufficiently severe against the Sins of Men so as to warn them from returning and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus So that now he hath reduced Things to an excellent Temper having so provided that neither himself nor we might be damnified that we might not suffer by our doing again what we have done and that he might not suffer by our doing still the same that he might be what he is a pure and a holy Saviour and that we might be what we ought dutiful and obedient Subjects Now what an amazing Instance of God's Love is this that he should so far consult the good of his Creatures as to Sacrifice his own Son to their Benefit and Safety How inexpressibly must he needs love us that for our sakes could behold his most dearly beloved Son hanging on the Cross covered with Wounds and Blood forsaken by his Friends despised and spit on by his Barbarous Enemies that could hear him complain in the Bitterness of his Soul My God my God why hast thou forsaken me And yet suffer him to continue under that unsufferable Agony till he had given up his white and innocent Soul an unspotted Sacrifice for the Sins of the World Yea that notwithstanding the infinite Love that he bore him and the piteous Moans that his Torments forced from him was so far from relieving him that for our sakes he inflicted upon him the utmost Misery that human Nature could bear that so having an experimental Sense of the most grievous Suffering that Mankind is liable to and being touched with the utmost Feeling of our Infirmities and in all Points tempted like unto us he might carry a more tender Commiseration for us to Heaven and know the better how to pity us in all our Griefs and Extremities For in all things it behoved him saith the Apostle to be made like unto his Brethren that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest Heb. ii 17 Hear O Heavens and give Ear O Earth and let all the Creation attend with Astonishment to this stupendous Story of Love which so far exceeds all the heroick Kindnesses that ever any Romance of Friendship thought of that no less Evidence than that of Miracles could have ever rendred it credible Well then might the Apostle say herein is love not that we loved God for after such vast Obligations this is no great Wonder but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our Sins 1 Joh. iv 10 And thus you see what an unspeakable Instance of the Love of God his giving his only begotten Son is I shall now conclude this Argument with a few practical Inferences from the whole 1. From hence I infer what monstrous Ingratitude it would be in us to deny any Thing to God that he demands at our Hands who hath been so liberal to us as to give up his only begotten Son for our sakes O blessed God! If it were possible for us to do or suffer for thee a thousand Times more than at present we are able what a poor Return were this for the Gift of thy Son that unspeakable Expression of thy Goodness And can we deny thee any Thing after such an Instance of Love especially when thy Demands are so gentle and reasonable When he requires nothing of us but what is for our good and the Requital he demands for all his Love to us is only that we should love our selves and express this Love in doing those Duties which he therefore enjoyns because they tend to our Happiness and avoiding those Sins which he therefore forbids because he knows they will be our Bane and Poyson Can any of my Lusts be as dear to me as the only begotten Son was to the Father of all things And yet he parted with him out of Love to me and shall not I part with these for the Love of him How can we pretend to any Thing that is modest or ingenuous tender or apprehensive in humane Nature when nothing will oblige us no not this astonishing Love of God in sending his Son from Heaven to live and die Miserably for our sakes Lord What do thy holy Angels think of us How do thy blessed Saints resent our Unkindness towards thee Yea how justly do the Devils themselves reproach and upbraid our Baseness who bad as they are were never so much Devils yet as to make an ungrateful Return of such a vast Obligation 2 ly From hence I infer how desperate our Condition will be if we defeat the End of this Gift of the Son of God and render it ineffectual to us For God hath no
Porphery tells us that the first Rise of the Sacrifice of Animals was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 certain Occasions requiring that a Soul should be offered up for a Soul that is the Life of a Beast for the Life of a Man for it was the constant Opinion that the more worthy the Sacrifice which they offered the more effectual it was to appease their offended Divinities And hence in many Places the ordinary Sacrifice of Attonement which they offered was the Lives of Men and though this indeed was most used in the most barbarous Countries yet in Cases of great Danger and Extremity the Greeks and Romans themselves did frequently Sacrifice humane Lives to their Gods for so it is recorded of the Romans that when their City was in great Danger of being taken by Hanibal they sacrificed a Man to their Tutelar God And Servius tells us of the Massilians that in Time of Pestilence one of the poorer sort was wont to offer himself to be sacrificed for the whole City who being for a whole Year nourished with the purest Meat was then led about the City adorned with sacred Vestments and Cathartick Herbs the People following him making solemn Execrations that the Plague might be removed from the City and fall upon his Head which done they offered him up in a Sacrifice And in other Places they offered up pure Virgins of the noblest Families to propitiate their angry Gods and elsewhere as Servius tells us they were wont to cast a Man into the Sea with this Imprecation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is be thou our Purgament or Redemption So also it is said of the Athenians that they maintained some of the most unprofitable and ignoble of their People that so when any great Calamity befell the City they might offer them up in Sacrifice to appease their Gods And that Passage of Caesar concerning the Gallic Nation is very observable that in Cases of great Danger and Calamity they either devoted themselves to the Altar or else offered up some Man in their Stead quod pro vita hominis nisi hominis vita reddatur non posse Deorum immortalium Numen placari arbitrantur that is thinking that the immortal God's would never be appeased unless they offered up to them the Life of a Man for the Life of a Man All which is an Evidence that they not only thought Sacrifices necessary to appease God but that they also believed the better the Sacrifice was the more effectually it did appease him Nor did they think it less necessary that there should be some Intercessor between them and the Supream Divinity to Solicite their Cause and render Sin propitious to their Desires And hence it was the general Doctrin of their Divines that 't was great Prophaneness for any thing that was earthly and sinful immediately to approach that Pure and Divine Being but that the Demons were to be the Mediators and Agents between him and mortal Men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Plato in his Sympos expresses it that is God is not approached by Men but all the Commerse and Intercourse between him and us is performed by the Mediation of Demons So that howsoever they came by this Principle it is apparent that they generally believed both Sacrifices and a Mediator to be necessary Means to reconcile them to God and that without these they could not satisfy themselves that God would be propitious to them no not upon their Repentance and Reformation Some good Hopes they might have and it is apparent they had from the Goodness and Benignity of the Divine Nature that if they forsook their Sins God would not be inexorable to them at least they could not tell but they might find Mercy but yet they durst not absolutely trust to this without devoting some other to suffer in their Stead and engaging some other to intercede in their Behalf And therefore we see that when the King of Nineveh upon Jonah's Preaching obliged his People to Fasting and Repentance the utmost Encouragement he could give them was only this Who can tell if God will turn and repent and turn away from his fierce anger that we perish not Jonah iii. 9 Wherefore to give us the highest Assurance of Pardon if we repent God hath been so infinitely good to us as to choose that very Method of reconciling us to himself which we had chalked out to him and to meet with us in our own Way thereby to give us a fuller Assurance of his most gracious and merciful Intentions to us for how could he have better satisfied the Anxiousness and Jealousy of our guilty Minds than in granting us our Pardon in that very Way wherein we did so universally hope for and expect it Good God! How indulgent hast thou been to thy poor Creatures that wast not only so ready to pardon them upon their Repentance but so careful to give them the most effectual Assurance of it that so thou might'st remove all discouragements out of the Way to our Amendment and Happiness For doubtless the Reason why he took this Way of Pardoning us more than another was not only because it was best in it self and most for the Interest of his own Government but also because of all others it was the most effectual to satisfy our guilty Fears and assure us of his merciful Intentions to receive us into Favour again upon our Repentance and Amendment For when Mankind were so unanimously agreed in this Belief that without a Sacrifice and a Mediator he would not be appeased how could he more effectually have convinced our Mistrust of his Mercy than by sending his own Son to be our Sacrifice and Mediator to die for our Sins upon Earth and intercede for our Pardon in Heaven So that if now we will heartily repent of our Sins and forsake them we have all the security of Mercy that we can desire our God being attoned by the noblest Sacrifice that ever was and interceded with on our Behalf by the most powerful and prevailing Mediator Having therefore such an High Priest over the House of God we may safely draw near with a true Heart in full assurance of Faith as the Apostle expresses it Heb. x. 21 22. Thus you see how good and gracious God hath been to us in the Way and Method which he hath prescribed of pardoning our Sins and releasing us from the obligation of Punishment for ever which is so wise and good and every way God-like that I think had I no other Reason to believe the Christian Religion but only this wondrous Contrivance of pardoning Sinners revealed in the Gospel this would have been enough to persuade me that none but a God could be the Author and Contriver of it And now I shall conclude this Argument with a few Inferences 1. From hence I infer what a very great Evil Sin is seeing it is such an Evil as binds us over to perish for ever and such as nothing can make Expiation for but only
are now liable by Reason of their Vnion with the Body and having in a great Measure conquered their Wills while they were in the Body and subdued them to the Will of God they shall immediately commense into an high Degree of Perfection For being freed from the Incumbrances of Flesh and Blood from the Importunities of their bodily Passions and Appetites and the Temptations of Sensuality that do now continually sollicit them they shall no longer be liable to those Irregularities of Affection that do here disturb the Tranquility of their Minds and their Actions and Affections being always regulated by their Reason their Consciences shall be no longer bestormed with those Terrors and Affrightments which nothing but the Sense of Guilt can suggest to them but enjoy a perpetual Calm and Serenity And being thus freed from all Evils and Disquietudes both from within and without they shall be at perfect Ease and for ever enjoy a most undisturbed Repose O blessed Day when I shall take my Leave of Sin and Misery for ever and go to those calm and blisful Regions whence Sighs and Tears and Sorrows and Pains are banished for ever more 2. Everlasting Life includes a most intimate Enjoyment of God For God being a rational Good is capable of being enjoyed by rational Beings no otherwise than by Knowledge and by Love and by Resemblance all which Ways he hath promised that we shall enjoy him when once we are arrived into that blisful State For as for the Knowledge of him St. Paul tells us that whereas now we see through a Glass darkly we shall then see him Face to Face And whereas now we know in part then we shall know even as also we are known 1 Cor. xiii 12 and St. John tells us that we shall see him as he is 1 John iii. 2 Which expressions must needs import such a Knowledge of him as is unspeakably more distinct and clear than any we enjoy in this present State For then the Eyes of our Minds shall be so invigorated that we shall be able to gaze on the Sun without dazling to contemplate the pure and immaculate Glory of the Divinity without being confounded with its Brightness and our Understandings shall be so exalted that shall we see more at every single View than we do now in Volumes of Discourse and the most tedious Trains of Inference and Deduction And enjoying a most perfect Repose both from within and without we shall have nothing to disturb or divert our greedy Contemplations which having such an immense Horizon of Truth and Glory round about them shall still discover farther and farther and so entertain themselves with everlasting Wonder and Delight For what an infinite Pleasure will that all-glorious Object afford to our raised Minds which then shall no longer labour under the tedious Difficulties of Discourse but like transparent Windows shall have nothing to do but only to receive the Light which freely offers it self unto them and shines for ever round about them when every new Discovery of God and of those bottomless Secrets and Mysteries of his Nature shall enlarge our Capacities to discover more and still new Discoveries shall freely offer themselves as fast as our Minds are enlarged to receive them This doubtless will be a Recreation to our Minds infinitely transcending all that we can conceive or imagin of it especially considering that all our Knowledge shall terminate in Love that sweet and grateful Passion that sooths and ravishes the Hearts and dissolves it into Joy and Pleasure For God being infinitely good and amicable the more we know him the more Cause and Reason we have to love him When therefore we are arrived to that Degree of Knowledge which the beatifical Vision implies we shall find our Hearts inflamed with such a vehement Love to him as will issue into an unspeakable Delight and Satisfaction and even overwhelm us with Extasies of Joy and Complacency for if those divine Illapses those more immediate Touches and Sensations of God which Good Men do sometimes experience in this Life do so affect and ravish them that they are even forced into Triumphs and Exultations how will they be wrapt and transported in that State of Vision when they shall see him so immediately and love him so vehemently and their Souls shall be nothing else but entire Globes of Light and Love all irradiated and inflamed with the immediate Effluvia's of the Fountain of Truth and Goodness But alas As these Joys are too big for mortal Language to express so are they too strong for frail Mortality to bear and if we but for one Day or Hour should see God and love him as those glorified Spirits do we should questionless die with an Extasy of Pleasure and our glad Hearts being tickled with such insupportable Joys by endeavouring to enlarge themselves to make Room for them all would quickly stretch into a Rupture But then as our Knowledge of God shall terminate in the Love of him so both together shall terminate in our Resemblance of his Perfections for having so immediate a Prospect of his Beauties and being so infinitely enamoured with them with what inexpressible Vigour must we imitate and transcribe them And our Imitation being invigorated with such a clear Knowledge and such a vehement Love cannot fail of producing the described Resemblance so that the more we know God the more we shall love him and the more we know and love the more we shall imitate and resemble him So that then both our inward Motions and outward Actions will be all most pure and perfect Imitations of God which will produce such an exact Agreement between his Original and our Copy that whilst we interchangably turn our Eyes to God and our selves and compare Beauty with Beauty it will fill our Minds with unspeakable Content to see how the Image answers to the Prototype what a sweet Harmony and Agreement there is between his Nature and our own For if from our Love of God there must necessarily result to us such ineffable Joy and Complacency what a ravishing Delight will it afford us to see the Signatures of those adorable Beauties for which we love him stampt and impressed upon our own Natures when the Glory that shines about and inflames us shall shine into us and become our own and those amiable Ideas of him which are impressed upon our Understanding shall stamp our Wills and Affections with their own Resemblance For so the Apostle tells us it shall be 1 John iii. 2 For when he shall appear we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is Lord how must our Souls be enlarged and widened to be able to contain all those mighty Joys that must necessarily spring from our Fruition of thee And to what a Degree of Happiness shall we be advanced when we shall be entertained with all the delights that the Enjoyment of an infinite Good can afford us and have Hearts great enough to contain them all
Apollo So that to conclude that we love God from those corporeal Passions is very unsafe and dangerous and we may almost as certainly judge of the Hunger of our Souls after Righteousness by the Hunger of our Bodies after Bread as of the Love of our Souls to God by our bodily Ravishments and Passions For bodily Passion differs according to the Temper of the Body some Tempers are so soft and impressive that the most frivolous Fancy will affect them others so hard and sturdy that the greatest Reason will hardly move them and consequently Persons of this Temper though they should love God much more than the other and have a much higher Esteem of and more rational Complacency in his divine Perfections yet will have much less of corporeal Passion intermingled with it I do not deny but even this sensitive Passion when prudently managed may be of great Advantage to a rational Love for the Passions being soft and easie and apt to follow the Motions of the Soul do naturally intend and quicken them and render them more vigorous and active and we have very much Cause to bless God even for that sensitive Joy and Complacency which accompanies our Love to him since this I doubt not is many times excited by his own blessed Spirit to quicken and invigorate our rational Affection and render it more active and vivacious But that which I aim at is only this if possible to beat Men off from measuring the Strength or Weakness the Truth or Falshood of their Love to God by any corporeal Passion whatsoever since Men may we see and many times have a vehement Passion without any Reason and all those Ticklings and Ravishments of Heart which too many Men mistake for the Love of God are very often nothing else but the necessary Effects of a chafed and overheated Fancy But that which is really the Love of God is always founded in a rational Conviction of the Beauty and Goodness of his Nature and proceeds from an high Esteem and profound Veneration of his Perfections For no Man loves God but can give very good Reason why he loves him he is not moved to it by a Musical Tone or a gaudy Metaphor or an unaccountable Impulse of Fancy but by the real Charms and Attractions of the divine Goodness and Perfections which darting through his Mind like the Sun-beams through a Burning-glass have kindled his Affections and made him love with infinite Reason so that 't is his Vnderstanding that inamours his Will and that which makes him a Lover of God is the deep Sense of his Reason how much he deserves to be beloved He hath seriously considered how lovely God is in himself how kind and loving unto all his Creation and what particular Obligation God hath laid upon him to return him Love for Love and this gives Fire to his Love and affects his Will with Delight and Complacency and though perhaps he may not feel those passionate Soothings and Expansions of Heart which sensitive Joy is wont to produce yet he finds himself highly pleased with God and his Will acquiesces in the Thought of his Goodness and Perfections with a Calm and even Complacency And thus his Will is inflamed with the purest Light of his Understanding and his Love is nothing else but the warm Reflection of his Reason Thus Psal. cxvi 1 I love the Lord saith David and then he goes on to enumerate the vast and important Reasons why he loved him because he hath inclined his Ear c. And in the 1 Cor. viii 3 If any Man love God the same i. e. God is known of him intimating that all true Love of God is founded in the Knowledge of him 3 dly The Love of God is a fixed as well as rational Complacency in him by which I distinguish this heavenly Affection from those short and transitory Fits of Love that like Flashes of Lightning come and go appear and vanish in a Moment For thus upon some affecting Providence or passionate Representation of the Divine Goodness it is very ordinary for Men to be chafed into an amorous Fit and touched with very tender Resentments of the Loveliness and Love of God so that at present they seem to be in Raptures of Affection and with the Spouse in the Canticles to be wondrous sick of Love but alas It commonly proves but a sudden Qualm that after a Pang or two goes over and so they are well again immediately for upon their next Encounter with Temptation or Intermixture with secular Affairs their hot Love begins to languish and quickly dies into a cold Indifferency and notwithstanding all the Reasons and Obligations that they have to the contrary their fickle Hearts unwind again and by Degrees decline and sink into their old habitual Aversation to God and Goodness which is a plain Evidence that that which at first lookt like the Love of God in them was only a sudden Blush of Passion and not the true Complexion of their Souls For when once a Man is brought to love God upon Principles of Reason and Consideration 't is much more difficult to extinguish this than any Virtue whatsoever because of all the Virtues of Religion this is founded in the greatest Reason and accompanied with the strongest Pleasure For Love it self consisting in Delight and Complacency where the Object of it is an infinite Good there is not only infinite Reason to Love but infinite Occasion of Pleasure and Complacency When therefore our Love of God is back'd with so much Reason and sweetned with so much Pleasure how is it possible we should extinguish it without doing the greatest Violence to our selves For I am verily persuaded that one of the hardest moral Changes that can be made upon a rational Creature is from a Lover to become an Enemy to God for wheresoever this heavenly Affection is it sweetens and endears it self by its own appendent Pleasures which are in themselves a sufficient Counter-charm against all Temptations to the contrary So that when once it is kindled in the Soul like a subtil Flame 't will by Degrees insinuate farther and farther till it hath eaten into the Center of the Soul and turned it all into its own Substance Wherefore this we may certainly conclude upon that he who can suddenly or easily entertain an Aversation to God and Goodness did never truly Love for Love saith the Wise Man is strong as Death and many Waters cannot quench it Cant. viii 6 7. Wheresoever it lights it clings and can never be torn away again without violent Spasms and Convulsions So that whatsoever Passion we may have for God we can never conclude it to be hearty Love till it fixes and settles in our Souls till our Wills are habitually pleased with God and do entertain the Thoughts of his Love and Loveliness with a constant Complacency and Delight and then we may venture to call it Love and to rejoyce in the Nativity of this heavenly Flame within us 4
would need no farther Motives to persuade them to chuse what he Wills and Commands against all Persuasions to the contrary If I love God above my self I shall certainly chuse his Will before my own If I love him above all my Pleasures I shall chuse his Pleasures before my own and it will be a needless Thing to propose Motives to persuade me to do that which I like best and chuse that which I love above all the World So that whilst a Man hath Need of Motives to persuade him to chuse God and prefer his Will above all Temptations it is apparent he loves him not above all and consequently according to this Doctrine cannot be a good Man in the Judgment of the Law of Sincerity which if it were true I doubt the List of good Men would be reduced to a very small Number Wherefore since loving God above all is a high strain of Piety much above the low Estate of sincere and true Goodness to make it necessary to a good State must needs be very dangerous since it cannot but dishearten beginners in Religion and perplex their Consciences with needless and inextricable Scruples I confess not to love God above all who doth so infinitely exceed all in Degrees of Loveliness and Amability is an Argument of great Imperfection though not of Insincerity but if my Love to him be such as that together with my Hope and Fear excited by the other Motives of Religion it effectually operates on my Will so as to win it to an universal prevalent Consent to the Will of God I know no Reason I have to judge severely of my main State though I should be conscious to my self that my Love singly and apart from those other Motives had not Force enough in it to produce this happy Effect This therefore I conceive is the utmost Degree of Love to God that the Law of Sincerity exacts that we should so love him as by our Love in Concurrence with the other Arguments of Religion to be effectually prevailed on to obey him 3 ly The Law of Sincerity exacts such a Degree of Love of us as together with those other Motives of Christianity is prevalent to sincere Obedience and in this it differs from the Law of Perfection which requires such a Degree of Love of us as together with those other Motives is productive of perfect unsinning Obedience For as I have shewed you the Law of Perfection requires the utmost of our Possibility and consequently that we should love God as much as we can and consider and apply to our selves the other Motives of Religion as well and as closely as we are able and then proceed upon the whole to serve and obey God to the utmost of our Power and Ability which if we do we are perfectly innocent and inculpable unless you suppose that a Man may be blame-worthy for not doing more than he can But should the Law of Sincerity exact thus much of us I doubt it would exclude the best of Men out of the State of Goodness and Salvation for what Man is there that doth always love and obey God to the utmost of his present Possibility Wherefore all that this Law can be supposed to require of us is only such a Degree of Love as is requisite to render it a concurrent Cause of true sincere Obedience that is to say such a Love as in Concurrence with those great Motives of Reward and Punishment produces such an hearty Consent in us to the Will of God as will not suffer us any longer to persist either in carelss or affected Ignorance of it or in known and wilful Disobedience to it and there are no Infirmities or Miscarriages whatsoever inconsistent with such a Degree of Love to God but what are also inconsistent with such a Consent to his heavenly Will If therefore we thus love God to the Purposes of a sincere Obedience the Law of Sincerity acquits us and as for our Sins of Infirmity Surprize or Inadvertency we are accountable for them only to the Law of Perfection 4 thly And lastly The Law of Sincerity requires such a Degree of Love to God as together with those other Motives makes us not only sincere in our Obedience but also careful to improve it to further Degrees of Perfection And indeed this is necessarily included in the former for if our Love of God joyned with the other Arguments of Religion hath so far prevailed upon us as to win us to a sincere Consent to his heavenly Will we shall not only industriously avoid the known and wilful Violations of it but be very careful to correct those Flaws and Imperfections that are intermixed with our Obedience to it 'T is true when there is nothing but slavish Fear at the Bottom of a Mans Obedience that must necessarily contract and shrink up the Sinews of his Care and Endeavours and render him exceeding narrow and stingy in the Discharge of his Duty for having no farther Aim than his own Security he will do no more than what is necessary to avoid the Danger that he stands in Fear of and if he can but escape those known and wilful Sins that layd waste his Conscience and expos'd him to the Wrath of God that is the utmost he desires or aims at but as for those Miscarriages and sinful Imperfections which do only fall under the Cognizance of the Law of Perfection he is not at all concerned about them But when our Fear is intermingled with such a Degree of Love to God as the Law of Sincerity exacts that will make us careful not only to avoid those known and willful Sins that divorse us from the Favour of God but also to indear our selves more and more to him by correcting even those smaller Defects and Imperfections that do still adhere to our Duties and Natures For this is plain that no Man can heartily love God that doth not more and more desire to be beloved by him and that no Man can sincerely desire to be more and more beloved by God that doth not honestly endeavour to render himself more and more lovely in his Eyes that is to reform all those sinful Defects and Imperfections which stain and blemish the Beauty of his Soul Whosoever therefore contents himself with this not to be hated by God did never sincerely love him and whosoever desires more than this will as well be careful to correct those smaller Imperfections which render him less beloved of God as to avoid those known and wilful Sins which do expose him to God's Hatred If therefore our Religion doth not in some Measure improve our Natures if it doth not render us more patient and humble more charitable and heavenly minded it is a certain Sign that it is not acted by Love For if after having a long while continued in a Round of religious Duties we still return to the same Point and are in no Degree better than we were when we first began it is
see those fare well whom we have seen deserve well and when any unjust Violence is offered them our Nature shrinks at and abhors it We pity and compassionate the Miserable when we know not why and are ready to offer at their Relief when we can give no Reason for it which is a plain Evidence that these Things proceed not merely either from our Education or deliberate Choices but from some natural Instinct antecedent to both and that in the very Frame of our Nature there is implanted by the Author of it a Sympathy with Virtue and an Antipathy to Vice And hence it is that in the Beginnings of Sin our Nature is so shy of an evil Action and doth so startle and boggle at it that it approaches it with such a modest Coyness and goes blushing to it like a Virgin to an Adulterers Bed that it passes into Sin with such Regret and Reluctancy and looks back upon it with such Shame and Confusion which in our tender Years when we are not as yet arrived to the Exercise of our Understandings cannot be supposed to proceed from Reason or Conscience but from some secret Instinct of Nature which by these and such like Indications declares it self violated and offended And this plainly shews the mighty Respect that God hath to Righteousness that he hath woven into our Beings such a grateful Sense of it and such a Horror of its Contraries For this natural Sense was doubtless intended by God to be the first Guide of humane Nature that so when as yet 't is not capable of following Reason and Conscience it might be led on to Righteousness by its own necessary Instincts that these might dispose us to our Duty and keep us out of all wicked Prejudices till we come under the Conduct of our Reason that so this may then lead us forward with more Ease and Facility in the Paths of Righteousness What a plain Indication therefore is this of God's Love of Righteousness that he hath taken so much Care to incline our Natures to it that he hath not only given us reasonable Faculties that do naturally direct us to Righteousness but hath also taken so much Care to lead us to it by Instinct till we are grown up to the Exercise of those Faculties and are capable of being guided by them 3 ly Another Indication of God's Love of Righteousness is his coupling good Effects to righteous Actions and bad ones to their Contraries For if we consult the Consequents of humane Actions we shall generally find that all moral Good resolves into natural in the Health and the Pleasure the Credit and Tranquility of those that practise it For so the first Great Mover in that Course and Series of Things which he hath established in the World hath ordered and disposed it that every Action which is morally Good should ordinarily tend to and determine in some natural Benefit and Advantage that the good Government of every Passion should tend to the Tranquility of our Minds and the due Regulation of every Appetite center in the Health and Pleasure of our Bodies that Abstinence and Humility Honesty and Charity should have happy Effects chained to them that they should contribute to our Good both private and publick and that their contrary Vices should be always pregnant with some mischievous Inconvenience that they should either untune the Organs of our Reason or impair the Vigour and Activity of our Tempers or imbroil the Peace and Tranquility of our Minds or invade the Common-weal of Societies which includes the Interest of each particular Member Such contrary Effects as these are as necessary to vertuous and vicious Actions in that Course of Things which God hath established as Light is to the Sun or Heat to the Fire by which he hath plainly demonstrated how contrarily he is affected to those contrary Causes For by those natural Goods and Evils which are appendent to humane Actions he hath plainly distinguished them into moral Goods and Evils and those good and bad Effects which he hath annexed to them are most sensible Marks of his Love of the one and his Hatred of the other For to be sure he would never have made Righteousness the Cause of so much good to us if he had not loved it nor Wickedness the Spring of so many Mischiefs and Inconveniences if he had not hated and abhorred it The Effects of Righteousness are ordinarily a Reward and the Consequents of Sin a Punishment to it self and this by God's own Order and Disposal and pray by what Significations can a Law-giver more effectually declare his Love and Hatred of Actions than by rewarding and punishing them 4 thly And lastly Another Indication of God's Love of Righteousness is the natural Presages and Abodings which he hath implanted in our Natures of the future Reward of righteous Actions and the future Punishment of their Contraries That there are such Abodings as these in humane Nature is apparent by this that antecedently to all divine Revelation Men of all Ages Nations and Religions have felt and experienced them yea and that it hath been experienced not only among the politer and more learned Nations who may be supposed to be persuaded of a future State by the probable Arguments of Philosophy but also among the most barbarous and uncultivated who cannot be supposed to have believed it upon Principles of Reason For though some of them have been so rude as to disband Society and live like Beasts without Laws and Government yet have they not been able to extinguish these their natural Hopes and Fears of future Rewards and Puishments which is an unanswerable Evidence how deeply the Sense of another World is imprinted upon humane Nature And as we have such a natural Sense of a future State as we cannot easily stifle so our Minds do naturally abode that we shall fare well or ill in it according as we behave our selves righteously or unrighteously in this Life When we do well and reflect upon it it leaves a delicious Farwel on our Minds our Conscience smiles and promises glorious Things that we shall reap from it most happy and blessed Fruits in the other World And as the Sense of doing well doth naturally suggest to us the most ravishing Hopes and blisful Expectations so the sense of doing ill fills our Minds with sad and dire Presages our Conscience abodes us a black and woful Eternity wherein we shall dearly pay for our sinful Delights and Gratifications And though for the present we can divert and stifle this troublesome sense of our Natures yet Naturam expellas is true in this also though we thrust off Nature with a Fork yet 't will return again upon us and a Fit of Sickness a sudden Calamity or a serious Thought will soon awake and revive in it these black Prognosticks of our future Torment And hence we generally find that bad Men are most afraid of Eternity when they are nearest to it their Fear like
should be such as did clearly argue and evince his righteous Severity for otherwise it would have no Force in it to prevent our Presumption And what Motive of Pardon could better evince his Severity than the Suffering of some other in our Room especially the Suffering of his own Son the greatest and dearest Person in the whole Creation For not to be moved to grant a publick Pardon to us upon our hearty Repentance unless this blessed Person would engage to die for us whose infinite Greatness gave such an inestimable Value to his Sufferings as rendred them adequate to what we had deserved to suffer was as great an Argument of his inflexible Severity against Sin as if he should have destroyed at one Blow the whole World of Sinners So that as he hath expressed an infinite Mercy to us in admitting his own Son to die for us so in refusing to pardon us upon any less Motive than his precious Death he hath expressed an infinite Hatred to our Sins and so that very Death which moved God to pardon us moves us to stand in Awe of his Severity the Death of the Son of God upon which we are pardoned being the most terrible Instance that ever was of the Desert of our Sin and God's Displeasure against it Thus our blessed Lord hath not only given us the greatest Encouragement by procuring our Pardon to return from our Iniquities but by procuring it in such a formidable way he hath given us the most dreadful Warning of God's Severity against them So that now we cannot think upon the Reason for which our past Offences are forgiven without being vehemently moved to future Obedience And thus the main Design you see both of Christs Life and Death was to recal us from Sin to the Practice of Righteousness And hence he is said to have given himself for us to redeem us from all Iniquity and to purify to himself a peculiar people zealous of good Works Tit. ii 14 And then he arose again from the Dead to confirm that righteous Doctrine which he had revealed to the World and visibly ascended into Heaven to give us an ocular Demonstration of the heavenly Rewards of Righteousness and there he now sits at the right Hand of God to assure us that if we persevere in Righteousness we shall be continually befriended in the Court of Heaven through his all-powerful Intercession and hath assured us that at the End of the World he will come to Judgment and faithfully distribute those Rewards and Punishments which here he promised and threatned to righteous and unrighteous Persons Thus the main Drift you see of all these great Transactions of our Saviour was to advance the Interest of Righteousness and true Goodness What a mighty Evidence therefore is this of God's great Love of Righteousness that he should send his own most blessed Son upon its Errand to transact such mighty Things on its Behalf For by sending Christ into the World and exposing him to Misery for Righteousness Sake he did in Effect declare that he valued the Interest of Righteousness more than the present Happiness and Enjoyment of his most dearly beloved and only begotten Son and we may most certainly conclude that had not Righteousness been infinitely dear to him he would never have authorized his dearest Son to take such infinite Pains to promote it 4 thly Another supernatural Indication of God's Love of Righteousness is his promising such vast Rewards to us upon it and denouncing such fearful Punishments against us if we despise and neglect it For besides all those temporal Rewards he hath proposed to us if we seek the Kingdom of Heaven and the Righteousness thereof he hath erected a Heaven of immortal Joys and Felicities to crown and entertan it a Heaven that contains in it all the Beatitudes that humane Nature is capable of all that Truth that the most capacious Mind can comprehend and all that Good that the vastest Affections can either crave or contain In a word a Heaven whose Blisses are all as large as our immense Desires and all as lasting as our immortal Beings For 't is a Heaven which consists in an eternal Fruition of the Fountain of infinite Truth and Goodness whose everflowing Streams are abundantly sufficient to quench the Thirst and make glad the Heart of every Being that understands and loves How much therefore God loves Righteousness you may easily guess by these vast Preparations he hath made to entertain it For he built Heaven on purpose to lodge righteous Souls and that they may see he thinks nothing too dear for them he is himself their Feast there as well as their Entertainer He feeds them with his own Perfections and they live for ever as happily as their Hearts can wish upon the Sight and Love and Imitation of his Beauties So vehemently is his Heart set upon Righteousness that he will have every righteous Soul dwell with him and live upon him and partake of all those heavenly Joys in which his own Beatitude consists But as for Vnrighteousness how much his Soul abhors it is evident by those dire Punishments he hath denounced against it by those dark and dismal Abodes which he hath condemned unrighteous Souls to to languish out a woful Eternity to burn in Flames there that never consume and be gnawn with Worms which never devour them to be scared and haunted with Devils without and Furies within and perpetually worried Day and Night without any Ease or Intermission with all the Horrors Griefs and Vexations that an everlasting Hell imports O thou merciful Father of Beings How couldst thou have found in thy Heart to condemn thy Creatures to so wretched a State had not their unrighteous Practices been infinitely odious in thine Eyes No certainly the good God would never have made Hell for a Trifle for the sake of any Thing that his Nature could have endured or dispensed with nor would he ever have cast any unrighteous Creature into it were it not for the implacable Abhorrence he hath to all Unrighteousness And therefore since he hath not only made Hell but warns us of and threatens us with it we may be sure he infinitely abominates that for which he made and threatens it and consequently that he is infinitely concerned for the Cause and Interest of Righteousness 5 thly And lastly Another supernatural Indicaton of God's Love of Righteousness is his granting his blessed Spirit to us to excite us to and assist us in our Endeavours after Righteousness First he sent his Son to propagate Righteousness by his Ministry his Life and Death and upon his Return to Heaven he sent his Spirit to supply his Room and carry on that dear Design of which his Son had already laid the Foundation For in Christ's personal Absence his Spirit acts in his Stead and was sent down from the Father by Virtue of his Intercession to be his Vicegerent in the World to promote and inlarge his heavenly Kingdom to conquer our
disgraces the most righteous Religion and introduces the most gross Unrighteousness Again Thirdly 'T is a common Principle of Christianity that true Repentance is indispensably necessary to the Salvation of Sinners upon which they have superstructed their Sacrament of Pennance which joyned with Absolution is of such Sovereign Virtue as to Transubstantiate a Sorrow proceeding from the Fear of Hell into true and saving Repentance By which Doctrin they have most directly superseded all the Obligations of Righteousness For what need I put my self to the Trouble of a holy and righteous Life when for allarming my self before I go to Confession into some frightful Apprehensions of Hell I can be dubbed a true Penitent and receive the Remission of my Sins For now my old Score being all wiped off I may Sin on merrily on a new Account and when I make my next Reckoning 't is but being afraid of Hell again and I am sure to receive a new Acquittance in full of all Demands and Dues And when I have spent all my Life in this Round and Circle of Unrighteousnss 't is but sending for a Priest at my last Breath confessing my Sins and dreading the Punishment of them and with a few magical Words he shall immediately conjure me to Heaven or at least out of Danger of Hell Once more it is a common Principle of Christianity that the Wages of Sin is eternal Death upon which they have introduced their Doctrins of Purgatory and Indulgencies which like Simeon and Levi Brethren in Iniquity do both conspire to render Righteousness a needless Thing For by the Sacrament of Pennance the eternal Punishment of Hell is changed into the temporary one of Purgatory and by Indulgencies especially plenary ones the temporary Punishment of Purgatory is wholly remitted and extinguished so that the first lessens the Punishment of Sin and the last annihilates it And by this Means are Sinners mightily imboldened to go on being assured that upon the Sacrament of Pennance they shall commute Hell for Purgatory and that upon plenary Indulgence they shall exchange Purgatory for Heaven Many other Instances of this Nature might be given but it would be endless to enumerate all those unrighteous Principles with which their Casuistical Divinity abounds the Frauds and Falsifications the Treasons and Murders the Slanders and Perjuries which their Guides of Conscience do not only tolerate but commend For I will maintain that there is scarce any Villany in Nature so notorious which by the Principles of some or other of their allowed Casuists may not be wholly vindicated or at least extenuated into venial Crimes So that considering the whole Frame and Structure of the Popish Religion I do most seriously believe it to be one of the most effectual Engins to undermine and tear up the Foundations of Righteousness that ever the Devil forged or made use of and were it not for those common Principles of Christianity that are intermingled with it and do allay and sometimes I hope overpower the Venom of it I am verily persuaded that the Religion of Heathens would sooner make Men righteous than that of Papists For I do affirm that there is not one Principle of pure Popery that is either a Rule of Righteousness or a Motive to it but contrariwise that the most of its Principles seem to have been purposely calculated to affront Men's Reason and debauch their Manners and if so then we may easily guess whether this be a true Religion or no which in all its Parts is so repugnant to that which God most dearly loves 2 dly Hence I infer upon what Terms a Man may safely conclude that he is beloved of God for if he hath that amiable Quality within him which is the eternal Reason of God's Love he may be sure he is beloved of him If our Souls be adorned with that Righteousness which the righteous Lord loves we may safely conclude that we are his Favourites and shall never cease to be so whilst we continue so adorned For 't is as impossible for God not to love righteous Souls as not to be righteous himself for whilst he continues so his own Nature must needs incline him to love all those in whom he finds his own most amiable Image and Resemblance Let us not therefore persuade our selves that we are beloved of God either upon any inward Whispers and Suggestions or upon any particular Marks and Signs of Grace for both these may abuse and deceive us and flatter our Minds into false and groundless Assurances We may think 't is the Spirit of God that whispers to us when all of a suddain we feel our selves surprized with joyous and comfortable Thoughts and yet this may be nothing else but a Frisk of melancholy Vapors heated and fermented by a feverish Humour For those suddain Joys and Dejections which are so often interpreted the Incomes and Withdrawings of the Spirit of God do commonly proceed from no higher Cause than the Shiverings and Burnings of an Ague and I am very sure that Histerical Fits are very often mistaken for spiritual Experiences and that when Men have most confidently believed themselves overshadowed by the Holy Ghost their Fancies have been only hagged and ridden with the Enthusiastick Vapours of their own Spleen And sometimes I make no doubt but this suddain Flush of joyous Thoughts proceeds from a worse Cause even from the Suggestion of the Devil who though he hath no immediate Access to the Minds of Men can yet doubtless act upon our Spirits and Humours and by their Means figure our Fancies into spritely Ideas and tickle our Hearts into a Rapture And this Power of his we may reasonably suppose he is ready enough to exert upon any mischievous Occasion when he finds Men willing to be deceived and to rely upon ungrounded Confidences Let us not therefore build our Hopes of the divine Favour upon any such uncertain Foundations but impartially examin our selves whether we are really righteous for unless we are so it is not more certain that God is righteous than that these our pretended spiritual Incomes and Inundations of Joy and Comfort are either the Freaks of our own Temper or else the Injections of the Devil For how can you imagin that the God of all Righteousness and Truth can without infinite Violence to his own Nature either love or pretend Love to an unrighteous Soul But then you will say by what Signs and Tokens shall we know whether we are righteous or no To which I answer that there is nothing can be a true Sign and Token of Righteousness which is distinct from Righteousness it self For Righteousness is its own Sign and if any Man judges himself righteous by any Mark which is not an Act or Instance of Righteousness he deceives and abuses his own Soul But then we must have a Care that we do not argue from any one particular Mark or Instance of Righteousness to our being righteous in general For you may as well argue that
as to obey it So that wheresoever Faith is mentioned singly as the Condition of the Gospel-Covenant it is apparent it must be understood in the largest Sense as comprehending that Obedience which is the Effect and Consequence of it So 1 Joh. v. 1 Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God that is whosevever so believes the Truth of this Proposition as to practise upon it and govern his Life and Actions according to the Tenour and Direction of it is truly a Child of God For he who believes Christ to be the Messias but continues obstinately disobedient to his Laws is so far from being truly and really a Child of God that he thereby becomes ten Times more a Child of the Devil for saith the Apostle If I have all Faith and have not Charity I am nothing and Gal. v. 6 For in Jesus Christ neither Circumcision availeth any thing nor Vncircumcision but Faith which worketh by Love and if so then Faith it self is nothing abstracted from this blessed Effect of it i. e. working by love For in Gal. vi 15 he tells us that Circumcision is nothing but the new Creature by which new Creature he means an obedient Temper and Disposition of Mind as he plainly tells us 1 Cor. vii 19 Circumcision is nothing and Vncircumcision is nothing but the keeping of the Commandments of God So that by these different Variations of expression it is apparent that by Faith as significant in the Account of Christ he always means a working Faith the Effect of which is the new Creature or keeping the Commandments of God And so I have done with the first Thing proposed which was to shew you what is included in this Condition whosoever believeth in him which you see is not to be confined to a bare and naked Belief of him but must be extended further even to that whole Course of Obedience which is the natural Effect of such a Belief So that whosoever believes in him is as much as if he had said Whosoever so believes in him as sincerely and universally to obey him 2. I proceed now to the next Thing which was to shew you how good God hath been to us in making the Condition which he hath imposed upon us so gentle and merciful and this will appear if we consider these five Things 1. That he hath put nothing into this Condition but what is in its own Nature exceeding good for us 2. That he hath most mercifully proportioned the Whole to the present State and Circumstances of our Nature 3. That he hath rendred the Whole almost necessarily consequent to our believing in Jesus Christ. 4. That to beget that Belief in us he hath given us the most plain and convincing Evidence 5. That to render this Belief operative he hath engaged himself to assist actuate and inliven it by his ow immediate Concurrence 1. That God hath put nothing into this Condition but what is in its own Nature exceeding good for us For there is no Precept in all the Gospel but what contains either some effectual Means or apparent Instance of what is morally and eternally Good and whatsoever is morally good is naturally so For the moral Goodness of Things consists in the Fitness and Reasonableness of them and that which is the moral Good or Duty of Men consists in doing that which is eternally fit and reasonable for them considering the Frame and Circumstances of their Natures and the different Relations wherein they are placed in the World But now for Men to do what is eternally fit and reasonable is naturally good for and beneficial to themselves because by so doing they perfect and advance their Natures and accomplish their own Satisfaction and Happiness For our Reason being that proper Character of our Natures that distinguishes us from all sublunary Beings and sets us in a Form of Being above them the Perfection of our Nature must necessarily consist in being perfectly reasonable in having our Vnderstandings informed with the Principles of right Reason and our Wills and Affections regulated by them and when once we are released from the Slaveries of Sense and Passion and all our Powers are so perfectly subdued to this superior Principle of Reason as to do every Thing that it commands and nothing that it forbids and we chuse and refuse and love and hate and hope and fear and delight according as right Reason directs and dictates then and not till then we are come to the full Stature of perfect Men in Christ Jesus Now all the Duty of the Gospel being a reasonable Service as the Apostle calls it Rom. xii 1 the End and Tendency of it must be to habituate us to live according to the Laws of right Reason which is all one as to advance us to the Perfection of reasonable Beings and being once arrived at this we shall find unspeakable Satisfaction from within our selves and feel a Heaven of Joys springing up within our own Bosoms For when once our disjointed Powers are set in Order and all our Faculties reduced to their natural Subordination our Nature will be in perfect Rest and Ease being freed from that unnatural Violence and Oppression under which it now groans and cured of all those Spasms and Convulsions of Mind which are the inseparable Effects of its Lapse and Degeneracy And all the Motions of our Wills and Affections being regulated by the eternal Reason of our Minds with what delightful Relishes and sweet Gusts of Pleasure shall we taste and review our own Actions they being always such as our best and purest Reason doth approve of with a full and ungainsaying Judgment So that God's Commands you see being all of them most reasonable must necessarily tend to the Perfection and Happiness of our Nature besides that they generally promote even our sensitive Happiness our Pleasure and Profit and Reputation in this World Now what a most endearing Instance is this of God's Goodness towards us that he should make our Benefit the Measure of our Duty and oblige us to nothing but what is for our good that he should so far concern himself in our Happiness as to impose it upon us under the Penalty of his severest displeasure and to inforce his Laws with such inviting and such dreadful Sanctions only to secure us from running away from our own Mercies So that to be a Christian is in Effect nothing else but only to be obliged to be kind to our selves and bound in Conscience to be happy Good God that thou shouldst be so infinitely Zealous of our Welfare as to make the Means of it the only Matter of thy Laws and to promise such vast Rewards and denounce such dreadful Punishments against us for no other Reason but only to affright and allure us out of Misery into Happiness That thou shouldst hate our Sins so implacably only because they are our irreconcilable Enemies and be so infinitely pleased with our Obedience only because it leads to our