future Happiness is very consistent with our present and true Godliness may inherit the promises of this life as well as of another as the Scriptures assure us â— Tim. 4.8 It is not necessary to part with our present Happiness in order to the purchasing the Reversion of that in Heaven tho' if it were it would be great gain and advantage to us there is but one instance in Religion wherein this is to be done and that is in suffering persecution for Christ's sake and the Gospels in quitting all our Worldly Interests for the sake of Conscience and Religion and rather endure any evils here than to renounce Christ or any true part of Christianity this indeed is bearing the Cross and is the only hard part of Religion for which there shall be an abundant recompense hereafter and the hopes and expectations of that with the present Comfort and Satisfaction of Mind takes off from the burden and uneasiness of it and tho' without hopes of another life Christians might be of all Men most miserable in this when they fall under those Circumstances as the Apostle says 1 Cor. 15.19 yet with those hopes they are far from being so but with exception to that particular case which does not often happen Religion at the same time secures to us the greatest Happiness of this life as well as another and without losing any one Comfort or true Enjoyment of this World we may make sure of the next We may therefore put that question to our selves which is something like to that which Naaman's Servants put to him 2 Kings 5.13 Had God bid us do some great thing that we might be saved would we not have done it how much rather then when he bids us do nothing else in order to this but what is very reasonable and what tends to our Good here as well as our Salvation hereafter We must be therefore very bad judges of our own interest and very little understand that and so be very regardless of our selves as well as very ungratefull to the great God if we do not comply with whatever he has Wisely and Graciously appointed us in order to our Salvation What that is I shall now briefly consider and so give the true resolution to this question What shall I do to be saved And it is not very hard to resolve it God has not made it any difficult or abstruse thing to understand but the meanest Christian may easily comprehend it it 's not a Secret reserved only for the Wife and Learned but the poorest Soul if it be but sincere and honest may come to the true knowledge of it and there is hardly any without it tho' it may lie less clear and distinct in their thoughts Natural light teaches all men that such and such Actions are displeasing to God and that those who commit them shall be punished hereafter There is no Man who is guilty of any great wickedness but he finds some inward apprehensions of this in his own Mind and his own Conscience directs him in great measure what he must do to be faved but Revelation has made this so plain and evident that a Man must use great Art to deceive himself if he ever mistake it to believe the Gospel and live according to it is so plain a path-way to Heaven that there is no Christian but must see it and if he thinks of any other he cannot but know that he cheats himself and willfully puts a trick upon his own Soul St. Paul here told tho Jailor That he must believe on the Lord Jesu Christ and he should be saved v. 31. but this belief which is made the condition and means of Salvation must include all that which is consequent and ought to follow from such a belief all that Obedience to the Laws of Christ and that Repentance for past Sins and Newness and Holiness of life which is made as plain and indispensible a condition of Salvation as Faith it self and therefore St. Peter in answer to the same question to those who were greatly concern'd and prick'd in heart and said Men and Brethren what shall we do Acts. 2.37 answered Repent and be Baptized every one of you in the name of Christ for the remission of sins Believing and embracing Christianity was the only way for a Jew or a Heathen to be saved and to have remission of Sins and when St. Peter bids them Repent and St. Paul bids them Believe they mean the same thing Faith is the first great Principle and Foundation of Repentance and all Christian Vertues and therefore as including and containing all those it is made the condition of our being saved by a Metonymy whereby the cause comprehends also the effect Faith in Scripture is not taken only for an assent to another's Words or a trust in them but it denotes a principle that worketh by love and is manifest by good works without which the Scripture expresly says it is dead and then it must be a strange mistake to make a bare faith the condition of our Justification and Salvation It is to be observed and I think it may be a little usefull to clear that matter that when Faith and Believing is made the only condition of being saved and nothing else is mention'd this is always spoken to those who were not yet Christians or Believers as when Christ says John 3.15 Whosoever believeth on the Son of Man shall not perish but have everlasting Life This is spoken to Nicodemus who then exprest his dis-belief of Christ's words and was not brought fully to believe in him tho' he was disposed for it So John 6.40 when Christ saith This is the will of him that sent me that every one which seeth the Son and believeth on him may have everlasting Life This is spoken to the Jews who murmured at Christ and were far from believing in him and so Christ bid the Apostles preach this to the unbelieving World Whosoever believeth and is baptized shall be saved Mark 16.16 i.e. Believing and Professing Christianity puts them into a salvable state and if they live according to this faith they shall certainly be saved as if we should say to a person who desires to know how he may be a Scholar Go to School or to the University this would put him into a certain way to Learning but he must not only be entred and enrolled there but he must study and read and do such things as belong to a Scholar When St. Peter bid the Jews and St. Paul the Jailor to believe and they should be saved they were such as yet had not embrac'd Christianity and Faith was the only means to bring them to that and so put them into a salvable state which ordinarily they cou'd not be in without it but then they must do all those other things which belong to Christians after they are brought to believe or else they wou'd lose and forfeit this their good state and therefore when Christ
our natural faculties or infinite goodness has not been pleas'd to reveal to us proposes it as a Compendious method to all usefull knowledge not to trouble our selves or others with what God has reveal'd because we do not understand all that belongs to its nature or manner of existence and yet after all this concession of the imperfection of our knowledge and that there are some things we cannot comprehend affirms that God and Eternity are no Mysteries for want of an Adaequate and compleat Idea of them and that Infinity and Eternity are as little Mysterious as that two and three make five these are certainly at present great difficulties but he has promis'd to solve them all only he refers this to a second Book but he is so cautious as not to limit himself to any time for the publishing it that depending upon health and leisure which he very wisely says are things in no Mans power to command at his pleasure and yet are much more so than what he has so very vainly made a shew of undertaking The Socinians may take it ill to be ranked with those who speak and write against Religion but 't is too apparent that they joyn with them in their attempts upon revealed Religion and with them carry those on with such Arguments as will at last bear very hard upon Natural which is not wholly without its Mysteries and God himself the belief of whose existence is the foundation of all Religion is as incomprehensible as any the objects of the Christian Faith These men were once strenuous asserters of the Authority of the Scriptures but being press'd hard with the unreasonableness of that Principle not to believe any thing tho' confest to be plainly and expressy revealed unless they saw how the thing could be they have bethought themselves rather to lessen the Authority of those Books than to insist longer on such a sense of 'em as no other Man and 't is hard to think they themselves can judge to be their meaning Is that great principle of the Reformation That the Scriptures are the sole rule of Faith come to this They deserve to be sent to the Island of Anticyra if they have any thoughts of utterly running down revealed Religion but they may prepare the way for that Church which by so many Arts and Stratagems has attempted to overthrow the Reformation and 't is an excess of Charity not to believe that some of 'em are employed to that purpose and designedly write to serve that cause Socinus himself did vigorously maintain the worship of Christ how agreeably with his principles may be seen in his dispute with F. D. but his Followers have given it up and take it ill that any should charge them with honouring the Son as they honour the Father will any man deny this to be a proper season to contend earnestly for the Faith once deliver'd and can a Christian not call to mind on this occasion those words of our Blessed Saviour whosoever shall confess me before men him will I confess before my Father which is in Heaven These considerations awakened the zeal of this excellent Man I am speaking of to stand betwixt the living and the dead and to try to stop the plague that was begun to this purpose he first drew up a discourse of Mysteries in Religion which not publishing at that time he afterwards contracted into two of those discourses that were in the Press at his death After this he applyed himself to examine the Socinian Controversie as it relates to the Doctrines of the ever Blessed and Adorable Trinity about which he spent much time and many thoughts he was fully perswaded that herein lay Christianity as distinct from natural Religion and that upon the Socinian principles it was impossible to clear the Scriptures from being purposely wrote to lead mankind into the grossest Errors and plain Idolatry and that take Christianity at the best it could amount to no more than an Institution of Morals that Mysterious Method of the Redemption of mankind by the Incarnation Obedience and Passion of the Son of God and all the hopes of sinners from a Covenant of Grace being hereby entirely given up These thoughts were enough to startle any one who had a concern for the honour or being of Christianity He first set himself carefully to examine the Sacred Records which speak so plainly of the Son and the Holy Ghost as distinct Persons from the Father and so expresly assert their Divinity that it was just matter of wonder to him how this could be overlook'd or mistaken we are indeed amused with Eastern phrases and proper Idioms of speech long ago out of use which if understood we are told would make that sence easie to us which some are pleas'd to put upon the Sacred Oracles but if the memory of these be perfectly lost how comes it to be known that there were ever any such in use and yet unless they know what they were how can they pronounce them serviceable to their cause but if any remain why are they not produc'd or some other Book instanc'd in wherein any footsteps of 'em remain The notion which the ancient Jews had of the Messias is That he was God who should become incarnate Of this there are sufficient intimations in the Prophets and it was the received sence of the ancient Jewish Church the Conception of him as a meer Man was an error which sprung from that gross expectation they had of him as a Prince and a mighty Conqueror who should advance the Jewish Nation above all the Kingdoms of the Earth And this ancient notion of the Messias is doubtless a better rule to follow in interpreting what is said of him in the writings of the new Testament than to confound these by putting a sence upon them contrary to what the words import and referring us to phrases that no body knows any thing of to make it out But whatever those Eastern Idioms of speech were the Primitive Church could not be ignorant of them and their Faith and Worship must be allow'd to be a full evidence of the sense in which they understood these Sacred Writings 't is true there were some whose Memory can be no credit to any Party who in the very age of the Apostles impugned our Saviour's Divinity but against these St. John wrote his Gospel beginning it with as full and express assertions of our Saviour's Divinity as can be imagined and in his Epistles he calls these Hereticks the Anti-Christ that were already come Afterwards arose Praxeas Noetus and after both about the middle of the third age Sabellius these prest with the Authority of Scripture which so expresly declares the Son and the Holy Ghost to be God asserted only one Person trinominem which was owning a Trinity only of names against these the Church declared the Christian Faith as it was written and as it had received and kept it that the Father is not the Son nor
these and Discover new Springs to feed and maintain this and to raise it higher and tho' they run into the same Channel namely the Happiness of the Mind yet 't is with a fuller Current and a stronger Stream and they do more perfectly promote that Rest and Peace and Tranquility of Mind which tho' it be various in degrees yet is the greatest Happiness Perfection or Pleasure it is capable of in general either in this or the other World Whoever attains to this is the Happy Man whatever his outward Condition be for while he is easie within himself and has an inward Rest Peace and Tranquility in his own Soul all outward things signifie very little to him Our Saviour did not Promise his Disciples or Followers any good Circumstances or Happy outward Condition in this World but he promised them Peace in him and Peace in themselves and that if they followed his Example and learnt his Temper and lived up to his Religion they should find Rest and Ease to their Souls and be freed from those heavy Loads and Burdens that oppress our Minds and are the causes of Misery to us Religion and Christianity are the true cure for the Uneasiness and Indispositions and Diseases of the Mind and if we could live up to its wise Rules and bring our selves to that Frame and Temper of Mind it would beget in us we should be always Easy and always Happy as Happy as we could be in this World in spite of all the evils of it and Eternally and Compleatly Happy in the next The Third Sermon MAT. VII 13 14. Enter ye in at the strait Gate for wide is the Gate and broad is the way that leadeth to Destruction and many there be which go in thereat Because strait is the Ga'e and narrow is the way which leadeth unto Life and few there be that find it OUR Saviour did not think fit to give the World a set Code of Laws as Moses did the Jews or a Methodical System of Ethicks as other Writers have done since no more did the other wise Teachers of Virtue and Morality Pythagoras Socrates Epictetus Antoninus and other Heathens the Patriarchs of old who were Preachers of Righteousness Solomon or the Prophets afterwards but with greater simplicity and inartificial plainness they dropt their excellent Precepts and sage Directions without any formal Method and thus Christ taught us the best and most perfect Rules of Virtue in his occasional Discourses and Particularly in this his excellent Sermon upon the Mount which is such a Discourse that it carries an internal Evidence and a Heavenly Authority along with it enough to satisfie any Wise and Good Man that the Doctrine is true and that it comes from God tho' it had no Miracles nor other Evidence to prove it for the Soul if it be not vitiated Tastes and Relishes such Congenial truths that are agreeable and natural to it as the Palate does its food and Judges of their inward truth and goodness by an internal Sensation and Perception and an immediate Congruity to its Faculties When our Saviour comes towards the Conclusion of this his Sermon upon the Mount which was an Epitome of Christianity and the Sum of all those Virtuous Precepts which were to make his Followers the best Men in the World to make them exceed all the Righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees and out-doe all the Examples and all the Characters of Heathen Vertue he tells 'em there would be great Difficulty to rise to these Attainments that Religion and Vertue in such a pitch as he had set them and as was necessary to make a good Christian and to fit him for Heaven were not such slight and easie things but that they must use great Care and Pains and Labour in the Attaining and Performing of them that it was very easie to be vitious and wicked and therefore most Men were so but that to be Virtuous as a Christian ought to be in all those Instances and Degrees he had taught them was a more Hard and Difficult matter and that few would come up to it but yet this was a thing absolutely necessary to their Eternal Happiness and they must either take the Pains to do this to come up to these strict Terms or else they must Perish and be undone for ever by falling short of them Enter ye in at the strait Gate From which words I shall consider I. What are the Difficulties of Religion and Vertue or upon what account they are a strait Gate and a narrow Way and Vice a wide Gate and a broad Way II. Press the Duty and propose the Motives for our entering in at this strait Gate and narrow way notwithstanding that it is so 1. What are the Difficulties of Religion and Vertue c. 1. Then our Saviour's words might perhaps have some regard to the hard Circumstances Dangers and Persecutions that Christianity was exposed to at that time in those first ages of it and is liable to afterwards then indeed it was a strait Gate when they who enter'd into it were bound to leave all they had in this World all their Temporal Interests and Possessions for Christ's sake and the Gospel's and all that would live Godly in Christ Jesus must suffer Persecution 2 Tim. 3.12 then it was hard for a Rich Man who had great Possessions and was loath to part with them to follow Christ tho he had a great Desire and Inclination to do so as in the Instance of the young Man Mat. 19.21 so that our Saviour said thereupon it was easier for a Camel to go thro' the Eye of a Needle than for a Rich Man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven i. e. to become a Christian at that time Then the way to Heaven was strait and narrow when it was beset with so many Dangers fill'd with Crosses and Gibbets and a Man must venture his Life as well as Estate whenever he entered into it but this was but a particular and accidental case tho every good Christian ought to come to such a Perfection in Religion as to be prepared and disposed for this whenever God shall think fit to put this hard Tryal and Difficulty upon him But 2. Christianity is thus strait and narrow upon other accounts viz. The standing Terms and Conditions of it as it forbids every sin and every wilfull wickedness upon the Pain of Damnation This is very hard indeed to the generality of Men and makes it a very strait and narrow way when it leaves no room for any one darling Lust undue Liberty or beloved Sin to go along with us for according to the Gospel he that will not part with every willful sin however Pleasant or Profitable it be to him must part with Heaven for it tho' the Temptation to it be never so Great and the Charms of it never so powerfull yet if Religion do not conquer and overcome it we must for the short Pleasures of Sin be Miserable for ever
Performances that he says to the Jews Hosea 6.6 I desired Mercy and not Sacrifice nay more expresly Jerem. 7.22 I spake not unto your Fathers nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the Land of Egypt concerning burnt-Offerings or Sacrifices but this thing commanded I them saying Obey my voice i. e. this was what in the first and chief place I commanded you and very much preferred and Regarded before the other so Joel 2.13 Rent your Hearts and not your Garments i. e. have an inward Sorrow and Humiliation rather than an outward and a great many other Phrases that seem expresly to forbid a thing in respect to something else that may stand in Competition with it when yet they do not so absolutely but only diminish and lessen it in respect of the other and prefer that before it and so this precept as it lies in my Text whole and entire without breaking it into parts is plainly to be understood and includes in it these several things 1. That we should much more Value and Esteem Heavenly Treasures in our Thoughts and Affections than Earthly 2. That whenever there is a Competition between those and we cannot secure both we part with the Earthly rather than the Heavenly 3. That we use as much Care and Diligence to obtain the Heavenly as the Earthly 4. That we so seek the Earthly as to make 'em Means and Instruments towards the obtaining the Heavenly 1. That we should set a greater value upon Heavenly Treasures in our Thoughts and Affections than upon Earthly that we should account them much more ercellent and desirable things and place our Happiness and chief good in those but not in the other We may allow these outward things such a due place in out Thoughts as they deserve that they are Comfortable Conveniencies and Necessary Accommodations to our present state but not such things as are good in themselves or that can afford us any true Happiness but what we see Men as Miserable in their fullest Enjoyment of as those who have the greatest want of 'em by no means comparable to Wisdom or to Goodness and Vertue or the least improvements of the Understanding and Mind such as is in some measure proportionable to the wants of Nature and the Circumstances of this Life a wise Man may count desirable who is not bound with a Stoical fullenness to think it indifferent whether he be Clothed or Naked whether he Starve or have Food to eat nor in a Cynical Bravado throw away his Earthen Dish because he can drink without it and despise every thing but his Tub and Sun-shine no this is a self-denying kind of Haughtiness that despises every thing because it over-values it self and contemus not only the World but the maker of it too who would never have placed us in such a well Furnished Habitation if we might not have used the Conveniencies that belong to it nor have been at all the better for all the rich stores he has laid in for the use of his Creatures but then indeed we are to account them but as common Utensills that are convenient for our lower and smaller occasions not as our Treasure and what we account of any great Worth or Value or make to be a prime ingredient into our true Happiness tho' they may seem to give some outward Colour and Varnish yet that must be something within and if it be not sound underneath 't will quickly moulder away and consume for all they can do that are no more to be thought parts of our Happiness than our Hair or Nails are parts of a Man such Excrementitious parts as may outwardly adorn but be no manner of cause of the true Life or strength of the Body such Goods as we may value and desire and purchase too according to that low and moderate rate which they bear in proportion to the real needs of this present Condition out to over-prize and esteem them as things equal to Vertue and Goodness or to place our summum bonum or chief Happiness in 'em and let 'em take up the chiefest place in our Hearts and Affections this is to worship Mammon to set up that for an object of my strongest Passion and Devotion which ought to have the lowest place in ' em Thus to set our Hearts upon Riches if they do encrease which the Psalmist forbids Ps 62.10 to trust in 'em as our Saviour speaks Mark 10.24 and place our greatest confidence in those as if we might surely expect Happiness from 'em this is the Idolatry the Apostle Charges Covetousness with Col. 3.5 setting up a Golden Calf to help us in our Distress instead of the God of Israel and making a Deity of that which would do very well in ear-rings and Bracelets the making that which would be serviceable in the matters of this Life to be so highly valued and even adored by us is like the Folly of the Graecians who bowed down and Worshipped that wooden Statue of Hercules which Diagoras made a good Fire of that helpt to dress his Provision that being a much better use of Wood than to be made a God of And he that has a due sense of the meanness the Uncertainty and Transitoriness of these Earthly Treasures in respect of the Heavenly their being subject to be corrupted by Rust to be eaten by Moths Secretly Wasted and Devoured or violently seiz'd upon by Thieves and subject to a thousand Casualties will not be so apt to over-value them or prefer 'em to the other if we compare and bring 'em together we shall find a very great difference between 'em upon many accounts 1. These Earthly Treasures are subject to a great many Hazards and Uncertainties which the others are not Violence and Rapine may force 'em out of our hands tho' we hold 'em never so fast fraud may secretly beguile us of 'em before we are aware or a Pyrate may Rob and a Storm sink all our Fortunes in an Instant and if they come safe home yet they may be lost there a War may Plunder us of all we have or a Fire may make a speedier Destruction and Devour in a moment the fullest Barns or the richest Ware-houses and we may sit like Job mourning upon their Allies the only thing it has left us so many various Casualties are they subject to so little are we insured of them that we hold 'em at the Mercy and Favour of a thousand Contingencies but the Heavenly Treasures are quite out of harms way and not subject to the Chance or Courtesie of Fortune no Man can steal away our Virtue without our own consent it 's safe in our own Breast and lock'd up securely in our Minds the Oppressor that can strip us Naked of every thing else cannot touch our Innocence nor take that from us The Sabaeans could rob Job of his Oxen and his Asses a Fire could consume his Cattle and the fall of a House bury all his Children in the
speaks to his Disciples who already believ'd in him and St. Paul writes to those who were already Christians or Believers they then tell them not only of Faith which is the first Christian Vertue and the root of all the rest but of Obedience and all good works of living as becometh the Gospel and of adorning their profession with all manner of Vertues which they make as necessary to Salvation as Faith it self Thus if ye keep my Commandments saith Christ ye shall abide in my love John 15.10 and Ye are my Friends if ye do whatsoever I command you v. 14. and Not every one that saith unto me Lord Lord or that meerly believeth in me shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven but he that does the will of my Father which is in Heaven Mat. 7.21 So said St. Paul to the Corinthians Circumcision is nothing nor Vncircumcision but the keeping the Commandments of God 1 Cor. 7.19 and to the Galatians in Christ Jesus i. e. in the Christian Religion neither Circumcision availeth any thing nor Vncircumcision but a new Creature chap. 6. v. 15. that is a new temper of mind and habit of Life for by the Gospel the Wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of Men who hold the truth in unrighteousness Romans 1.19 and when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from Heaven with his mighty Angels he will take Vengeance on all them that obey not his Gospel who shall be punished with everlasting Destruction from the presence of the Lord 2. Thess 1.8 9. and those Christians who do any such works of the Flesh as are mentioned Gal. 5.19 21. shall not inherit the Kingdom of God but for the sake of those the Wrath of God cometh on the Children of disobedience Colos 3.6 tho' they do believe in Christ and have made profession of his Religion It is therefore as requisite for such to live according to all the Laws of the Gospel as it was at first to believe in Christ that they may be saved What a Christian therefore who already believes in Christ and owns his Religion to be true and what we who all do this should further do to be saved and to make sure of Heaven I shall in one general Advice direct to and that is this That we never allow our selves to live in any one known sin that we never willfully violate any Law of the Gospel nor suffer our selves in the Custom of any thing that we know is unlawfull he that does that is in a dangerous and desperate condition and is uncapable of being saved by the Terms of the Gospel for tho' that allows pardon for every sin we repent of yet it allows none to any one of those we do not repent of but live in and therefore as we value our Salvation let no darling Sin nor beloved Lust nor any the most profitable or pleasing Wickedness whatsoever be indulged or continued in by us it 's as much as our Souls are worth if we do for every willfull habit of sin does most certainly exclude and shut us out of the Kingdom of Heaven without timely Repentance and Amendment if we have therefore been ever guilty of any such and so have forfeited Heaven and our own Souls and made our selves liable to Eternal Wrath and Damnation let us endeavour with all speed to recover our selves out of that sad state and to snatch our Souls out of the Jaws of Hell and from the very brink of perdition and let us bless God that he affords us both time and means and power to do this and when we have Emerged out of that wretched Condition let us not throw our selves into it again by any new Sins but let us ever after avoid that rock where we were like to have split and let us spend all the remainder of our lives in perfecting our Repentance and in bringing forth fruits worthy of it and in a constant and unbroken and uninterrupted obedience to all the Laws of Christianity so shall we approve our selves to God and our own Consciences so shall we have good grounds of Peace and Comfort while we live and so shall we be certainly saved when we come to die which God of his infinite mercy grant unto us The Seventh Sermon JOB XXVIII 28. And unto Man he said Behold the fear of the Lord that is Wisdom and to depart from evil is Vnderstanding THE Fear of the Lord is a phrase often used in Scripture to express all Religion by and 't is indeed the true Principle and Foundation of it for whoever has an awfull sense and belief of a Being above him and a just dread of his Almighty Power upon his Mind will take care to avoid all those things that he knows are displeasing to him and to perform all those duties which shall procure his favour and be acceptable to him for all our Happiness depends upon his Pleasure and he can make us miserable when we anger and provoke him Every one tho' he may have lost the sense of love either of God or Religion and the desire of Spiritual and Heavenly Happiness and may be sunk into such a state as to have no great relish of those things yet may have the sense of fear strong upon him and may be greatly affected with what he thinks may destroy and ruin and make him miserable and therefore fear is the strongest and most powerfull passion and the most deeply rooted in humane nature for it arises from a Natural love of our selves and a care and desire of our own self-preservation and every Man has this in him tho' he has no higher or nobler principles of Vertue and Religion and therefore 't is the Character of the most deplorably wretched and wicked Creatures that they have no fear of God before their Eyes Ps 36.1 Sometimes the love of God sometimes the fear of God sometimes the knowledge of God the belief of God is made to express the whole of Religion and the sum of our duty because where one of these is there are all the rest in some degree or other and they cannot be separated or divided for he that believes a God and knows him to be as he is a Being of infinite Power and of infinite Goodness must fear him and love him too his power makes him an object of fear and keeps us from offending him and his Goodness makes him an object of love and so both those do the same thing and as different causes yet concur to the same effect and all Vertue and Religion is produced by them and owes its being and original to them for without respect to God there can be no such thing as Vertue and Religion and where there is a true fear of him there they will always be as necessarily conjoin'd as effects are to their causes and therefore by an usual Metonymy the one is put for the other And this Vertue and Religion which is thus founded in the
deportment so does the superstitious make shows and appearances of courtship to Heaven but he is out in all of them and does not what is proper what is really obliging and acceptable to it The Devil not being able to destroy the religious sense that is in our minds not being able to root out that which Nature has planted in every man's breast a sense of a God and a Divine Being above us he endeavours to spoil and corrupt that as much as he can and to sow such cockle and tares among the good and natural seed of religion as may quite choke it and make it unfruitfull as may alter its kind and make it produce such fruit as is not true and genuine but quite of another nature as looks like religion and like the Apples of Sodom seem more fair outwardly but is another thing within because he cannot hinder men from being Religious but there is something within themselves will make them so in spite of all his attempts and designs to the contrary therefore he will make 'em superstitious because he cannot stop the religious instinct and inclination of their minds he will determine and set it wrong because he cannot dry up that natural spring of Religion that rises up in every ones breast he will poyson and corrupt it and because Religion is so deeply and strongly rooted in human nature that it can never be wholly pluck'd up by him therefore he will graft upon it such false and superstitious principles as shall quite alter it's nature and tho' they are fed and nourish'd by a religious sense at the bottom yet this vine shall bring forth Thorns and this Fig-tree Thistles and from this sweet Fountain shall come forth Salt and bitter Waters by a superstitious mixture Religion shall be changed and perverted both in its nature and its effects This is the saddest mischief to true Religion that it should be thus made to destroy it self that its force and power should be turned upon its self and it should be consumed like some Animals by what grows out of it self 'T is thus the Devil most successfully countermines God and destroys Religion by turning it into superstition which how it is done and by what means effected I shall endeavour to show you in three prrticulars 1. By making Men vitious and wicked for tho' superstition may often grow up in weak and silly minds that may be innocent and far from being guilty of very great and notorious vices yet I believe the first and most general cause of superstition in the World is Vice and Wickedness the Devil has first drawn Men to that and then has led them into all manner of errors and falshoods he has first debauch'd their morals and then their understandings he has first wrought upon their Wills and Affections by abominable Lusts and Vices and then he has quickly corrupted their Judgments and led 'em into all manner of mistakes in Religion The superstition of the Heathen World arose I doubt not from that horrible corruption of manners that was among them they would never have set up such a Religion as they did made up of nothing almost but obscenity and filthiness cruelty and blood apishness and folly had not they been as the Apostle represents the Heathen World Rom. 1. Vain in their imaginations and fill'd with all manner of unrighteousness implacable and unmercifull in their own tempers and given up to the most beastly Lusts and unnatural Lewdnesses these Vices in themselves naturally lead them to such a false Religion and such superstitious abominations as they were guilty of But as their manners decay'd so did the true Religion and the right worship of God and as vice got ground so did superstition and they always grew up and encreased and like Hippocrates his Twins lived and died together What hidden cause thus linked them together and how they came to be such inseparable Companions may seem strange when superstition owns and acknowledges a God has a great sense of him upon the mind but if we consider that this sense of a God when it has not had such a due effect as it ought upon it so as to preserve it vertuous and Innocent but Lust and Wickedness and the Temptations of the Devil have overcome it this sense of its own Wickedness joyned with the sense of a God does very naturally and easily bring it to superstition If it had no sense of a God nor no belief of such a being at all if it could get rid of that which it never can then indeed there would be no ground of superstition and this way the Atheist would free himself from all superstitious fears or if it were not vicious and so not sensible of its own horrid guilt and wickedness and its obnoxiousness to this God above neither then would it be superstitious but when it is thus sensible of a great and just God which is the avenger of such crimes as it knows it has been highly guilty of this is the first thing that brings it to superstition because in the 2. Second place this causes a dreadfull fear and terrible apprehension of God upon it it s own guilt scares and affrights it and draws terrible Ideas and Images of God upon its mind so that it looks upon him only as a Malefactor does upon his severe Judge his Jailor or his Executioner it sees nothing but frowns in his face and anger in his eyes and Thunder and Lightning in his hand and fancies all the Instrumenes of Torture and Punishment ready to be applied to it And in such a case as this is what would it not do to pacifie and appease this Deity that it thus dreads what a dreadfull fright and passion must it be in when it can think of nothing that will do it how will it be trying every thing it can think of Come before his altars and bring thousands of rams and ten thousand rivers of oyl if it were rich enough and give its first born for its transgression and part with the fruit of its own body for the sin of its soul Micah 6.7 and shed its own blood for to make some expiation for its guilt Nothing is so mean and servile nothing so cruel and bloody so shamefull and scandalous but a Soul overwhelmed with a superstitious fear will be attempting and trying be it never so unagreeable to the Divine Nature and never so unfit and unsuitable to please him there is just ground of being afraid of God when we are sensible of our guilt and 't is not this is superstition but when this fear puts Men upon foolish and undue and abominable ways to appease him and gives us such a dreadfull Idea and Apprehension of him as quite excludes all the thoughts of his Goodness and Mercy and puts the mind only into an excessive fright and fit of horror then it is so I cannot think that ever mankind would have formed such a conception of God had not their
perfections which are the bounds also which the Divine power can never violate is so plain that it rather seems to follow and be fairly inferred from them for what more agreeable to Gods goodness than as that he gave us our Souls at first and put those Souls into curious and well framed bodies which are the other part of Humane Nature which makes us to be Men and Beings of such a rank and order in the Creation so that he should continue the same entire nature to us as long as he is pleased to continue us in being It wou'd be a charge methinks upon the Wisdom of God that he should give Man so curious a body above any other Creatures and yet suffer that to continue and last a much shorter time than the bodies of many other not only Animals but Plants and Trees do if he did not design that this noble fabrick should be rebuilt and repaired again after death and that the Soul should have a longer term of aboad in it afterwards and in reversion than it enjoys in this present life It would seem strange if these two Friends should be so closely and intimately united here but for a few days if they were not to meet again and dwell together for ever and that God should make us of such a compound nature in this life and of a quite other nature in the next this would not be to keep that wise order and regular course of thing that he does in the whole System of the Creation As to the Divine Justice that seems to be more exactly answered by raising the same bodies without which we are hardly the same persons that every one may receive in his body according to that he has done whether it be good or bad as the Apostle speaks 2 Cor. 5.10 that not only the same Souls but the same Bodies which have either glorified God by Suffering or any other Vertue or have been the Instrument of any sin should be glorified or tormented in another World and that the whole of Humane Nature and not only a part of it which the Soul is should be made capable of the everlasting rewards and punishments that are proper to it The Resurrection then is every way consistent with the perfections of the Divine Nature and is no way contrary to any natural principle of truth nor implys any contradiction in it and therefore is a proper object of God's Almighty Power and by the help of that may be easily effected and accounted for 4. And without this power of God nothing else can be effected in nature we must take in this not only to give an account of the Resurrection but of every thing else we see done before us and of every effect and appearance in the visible World how we were made at first and how our bodies were formed is as perfectly unaccountable without taking in the Divine Power and Wisdom as how we shall rise again and so is every other Mystery of nature if we well consider it and follow and trace it thro' all second causes it will necessarily bring us to the first and we must resolve all at last into the Power and Wisdom of that How we move our bodies by the thought of our minds we know no more than how God shall raise them what directs the spirits into such Tracts and Muscles and by what pullies they draw up the heavy parts is so admirable a Mechanism that it requires the same Divine Wisdom as to raise the dead how we live how we think and how we speak is to a Philosopher as curious and as secret as how we shall rise every thing indeed is so in the Volume of Nature which has the plainest Characters of Divine Power and Wisdom every where writ upon it as being to teach every one that there is a God To look upward we see the Sun shines but can we tell what light is or how it streams from the Sun to our Eye how such a mass of sire should so long hold together without being quenched or lessened do we know how the Stars are sixt to their Orbs how those glistering gemms are set and fastned to the fluid firmament can we imagine what Pillars there are upon which the Earth is founded and what it is supports the heavy Globe and keeps it from sinking what it is that poizes and makes it swim in the liquid Aether and keeps it at so just and exact a distance from the heavenly Bodies so as to be neither frozen nor burnt up and can we be able to know what it is makes their motions so regular and harmonious so usefull and serviceable to the World what guides their mighty bodies in such even Tracts what draws the crooked Zodiac for the Sun or Earth to move in and keeps the violent and rapid matter from going on in an infinite streight line or some other way sallying and running out of order Can any man who justly considers these things give any account of them without a wise God and Almighty Intelligence not only a Sparrow cannot fall to the ground without our Heavenly Father as our Saviour speaks Matth. 10.29 but not a stone can sall thither nor a spark fly upwards however necessary and natural that be without such a frame and such laws of matter and motion as nothing but a wise Being can establish or cause to be observed Why matter is thus figured and disposed and why such effects come from it we cannot tell as why grass is green blood red and not the quite contrary as we cannot of our selves make one hair white or black as our Saviour saith so neither can we tell why it is so but every Phaenomenon must at last be resolved into the Will and Wisdom of the first cause and thither all true Philosophy must bring us and the same Divine Power is requir'd in every the most common effect of Nature as in the Resurrection But 5. Our not fully knowing the uses and designs our bodies shall serve for after they are rais'd should not make the Resurrection incredible to us What use some say will there be of the body in another World when the Soul alone is capable of the rewards of it I answer who can tell but the body may be of extraordinary use to us in another World perhaps it is a necessary part of Humane Nature and we are not our whole selves without it perhaps the Soul is never to be quite naked and wholly stript of all matter and bodily indowment and that it is cloathed with a thinner Vehicle when it puts off the thicker and grosser flesh perhaps no Beings in the World but God himself are to be pure spirits which was a very ancient opinion of some wise Men perhaps the Angels themselves have material vestures of a slaming fire and a resplendent brightness as they used always to appear and if the Human Souls are not to be uncloathed but cloathed upon with our house which is
fear of God is the greatest and truest Wisdom in the World he is the Wisest man who is the most Vertuous and Religious and he is the greatest Fool who lives Vitiously and Irreligiously and without the fear of God the fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom or the first and chief Wisdom and the Foundation of all other a good understanding have all they that do his Commands i. e. they are the truly wise Men who live Vertuously and Religiously and they Fools who live Vitiously and Wickedly Behold the fear of the Lord that is Wisdom and to depart from evil is Vnderstanding There is no greater blemish contempt or imputation upon any Man than that he is a Fool and that he acts as such in whatever he does for it supposes the utmost decay and depravation of his Nature the loss of his Reason and that he wants that which makes us to be Men and is the proper perfection of our Being which is Wisdom and Understanding It will therefore greatly recommend and be for the honour of Religion if that appears to be the greatest and only Wisdom and it will justly reproach and expose Vice and Wickedness if that be made out to be nothing else but folly in the highest degree which I shall therefore endeavour at this time 1. First then Religion proposes and attains and secures the greatest End the chief Good and utmost Happiness that we can desire or are capable of and this is the truest part of Wisdom whereas Vice has but low and mean Ends such as are below the excellency of our Nature and are so far from promoting our Happiness that they defeat and destroy it all beings indeed aim at their own Happiness and have a blind and general design to compass and attain it self-preservation is a principle lies at the root of our Beings and we cannot chuse open and bare-fac'd misery but Vice and Wickedness takes down the poyson that is a little Guilded over and swallows the fatal hook that is baited with an appearing pleasure or profit and Men are led away in the dark and deluded with a shadow till they are brought into the deepest misery Vice proposes either bodily and sensual pleasure or worldly gain or some such present End and Design to be its greatest Happiness but alas it often loses those and Vertue and Religion picks up what the other drops and le ts go and secures those by ends a thousand times better than Vice does whilst it looks yet further and still aims at greater ends and a more true and compleat Happiness than any of those can yield to it for what is the most gustfull and luscious sensuality of body to an unquiet and uneasie and disturbed Mind Is not that worm of Conscience that gnaws it within and is bred from the filth and putrefaction of its own sins a greater torment than all the pleasures of sense can make amends for And what could a Man hope for if by his wickedness he could gain the whole world which yet many have even lost by it if thereby he loses his Soul the peace and quiet of it here and its Eternal felicity hereafter All the ends we can aim at and all the objects we can wish and desire are very little and inconsiderable without Religion and such are all the things and enjoyments of this World but Religion has great and noble aims and designs to make our Minds as well as our Bodies pleased and easie and to give a pleasure and satisfaction infinitely above the highest bodily delights which the Brutes are capable of as well as we to perfect and improve and fit our Souls for the greatest pleasure and happiness here and for that which is endless and unspeakable hereafter and to see this more particularly let 's consider 2. Secondly that all Ends and Designs but those of Religion are consined only to this World whereas those of Religion reach beyond this to a never ending Eternity how little and short and narrow are all the poor designs we can have here when in the compass of a few years they all cease and perish and come to an end when but a small time hence they shall be as useless and insignificant as if we had never been or ne'er had any of them Death which we all expect and which will certainly come in a little time whether we expect it of no puts a speedy end and conclusion to all other projects and designs but those of Virtue and Religion it covers all worldly Pomp and Grandeur with a cloud of night and darkness and draws a sable mantle over all it's glistering and shining vanity its honours lie here buried in the dust it's riches take leave of it at the Grave and all its bodily pleasures are exchanged for stench and noy fomness and its greatest strength and beauty is turned into weakness and gastliness This mortifying consideration should one would think make this World and every thing in it be very contemptible and all ends and designs but those of Virtue and Religion which teach beyond this World to be very poor and little and inconfiderable for like a Dream they are all quickly past and gone and when we awake into another World into a better and more substantial life all these images and shadows and fancies of happiness will then vanish and disappear and we shall be no more affected with them than with a last nights dream or the past visions of slumber and imagination but then Religion and Vertue will stand us in stead then they and a good Conscience will stick by us and attend and bear us Company into the other World and there we shall meet with those Ends and Designs which Religion has proposed to us and our greatest hopes and wishes shall be turned into greater fruition and enjoyment then a long Eternity shall reward and recompense our short Labours here and we shall never lose or be depriv'd of that great End and compleat Happiness which Religion recommended and directed us to Vice with all its delights is but for a very little time and the pleasures of sin are enjoy'd but for a Season Heb. 11.25 Men not only lose those and be for ever depriv'd of the End it aimed at but shall receive its sad and miserable portion laid up for it and be eternally tormented with unexpressible misery And what extream Folly will it then be found to have pursued no other End nor aimed at no other Happiness but that of this World which is so soon gone and at an end and for the sake of that to have exposed it self to a misery that shall never have end to have preferr'd a present moment before an endless Eternity and to gain some poor and little Ends here which yet are often lost rather than attain'd by Mens Vices to lose Heaven and everlasting Happiness 3. Religion and Virtue secure the Comfort and Happiness of this life as well as of another much better than Vice