gave them into the hand of the Heathen and upon their Repentance many a time did he deliver them But all would not do they provoked him more and more till Ten Tribes were quite cast away and the other Two sent into Captivity for Seventy years After this indeed they were cured of Idolatry but they presently fell to corrupt the Moral part of Religion and to make the Temple a Sanctuary for ill Manners How can we forbear deploring the wretched folly and unteachableness of man and admiring the infinite Patience of God! At length God sent his Son into the World to bring in the Everlasting Gospel the clear knowledge of God's Will the certain assurance of a life to come and the Doctrine of the Cross to constitute a Society of Believers to unite them by Sacraments and to establish the Faith upon Miracles and Divine Demonstrations This dispensation did indeed produce mighty Effects and so many Heroical Examples of Virtue and Piety in every one of the three first Ages of the Church that perhaps the whole World for about 4000 years before was not in all that time able to shew an equality to any one of those Ages But by degrees the Purity and Virtue of the Christian Communion abated and though the Church has in the worst times brought forth some Sons and Daughters unto God some genuine Children unto our Heavenly Father yet alas for human Nature Christendom has been a Stage of as gross Hypocrisy as scandalous Errors and as great Sins and Miseries arising from those Sins as ever any part of the Heathen World was Time wears off the sense of extraordinary things and we grow to be but indifferently affected with the noble Works that God has done in the days of our Fathers and by our stupidity we constrain Providence to awaken us to consideration by new warnings and to revive that sense of Duty which is so apt to decay while we are let alone All which things being considered we are bound to bless and praise the Infinite Goodness of God who has not left us without a Testimony of himself both in the Light of Nature and the particular Revelations of his Word and the Footsteps of his continued and unwearied Providence over us For if notwithstanding all this if notwithstanding plain Instructions convincing Examples clear Warnings and undeniable Testimonies Mankind is still so apt to forget God and to run into all miscarriages then how insupportable had the Lusts and Vices of the World been if there had been no Revelation no Providence no Faith or Religion no fear of God at all if he had left Mankind to themselves without his checks and restraints his controul and government undoubtedly the Earth had not been able to bear the violence of its Inhabitants our Reason and Free-will had made us but the more dangerous Brutes to one another and the Societies of Mankind had been long since dissolved The sum of what hath been said is this That good and evil are the same in all Ages of the World that the liberty of humane nature and the passions of humane nature are the same too and therefore the causes of good and evil are the same in respect of man That mankind is very apt to forget former instructions and to need the like warnings that their Forefathers had which therefore God in his Wisdom and Goodness repeats unto them So that since we are of the same mould with those that have been before us and with those that are to come after us and there is the same wise providence over all it follows that the like variety of events must still come about again and that which hath been is now and that which is to be already hath been Amongst other good uses that may be made of such Considerations as these this certainly is one That we should always dispose our selves to receive our portion in this World be it better or be it worse with as much moderation and equality of temper as we can If thou art prosperous and thy Affairs succeed according to thy desires do not for this cherish Pride and Self-conceit and vain Opinions of thy self as if thou only were fit to be regarded others have been as fortunate as thy self and yet examples of this World's inconstancy and perhaps too they thought as highly of themselves and were as meanly thought of Art thou in Adversity this also has been a common case and therefore do not repine at Providence evil men have been punished for their sins and good men tried by afflictions We as well as others before us carry the causes and seeds of much trouble in our frame and constitution and we cannot prevent a great deal of evil that comes by the free-will of others nor hinder the operations of Providence which governs all And therefore we should not suffer our Affections violently to run after any of the desirable things of this World but take the World as it is and then make the best on 't according to the wise man's advice in this Chapter who speaking of the turns and vicissitudes of things I know says he there is no good in them but for a man to rejoyce and to do good in his life that is that every man should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all his labour that no man should deny himself a supply of his reasonable needs and desires whilst he has wherewithal and that upon no pretence whatsoever he should excuse himself from doing good to others whilst it is in his power For this is all the good of this life that is our portion under the Sun to use present comforts wisely and charitably to do good to our selves and others to take reasonable pleasure in the Gifts of God and to admit all reasonable comfort under adversity say and in a word to take in good part our mixture of good and evil as it falls out but at no hand to expect more from the world than it will yield and to lay a greater stress upon it than it has been ever able to bear This undoubtedly is one design of the Wise man in this Book to shew the vanity of this world and thereby to lessen our fondness of it and yet to teach us us how to make a wise and good use of the comforts it affords remembring all along that the greatest good of all is to fear God and keep his Commandments And so I proceed to the second particular That God requireth that which is past that is as 't is exprest in the foregoing verse That men should fear before him for therefore does God in the variety of his Providences bring about the same things because 't is the same end which he designs from first to last viz. to teach us the fear of God and to bring us to Religion and Virtue This he hath required from the beginning of the world and will do so to the end of it and therefore no wonder that from first to
hath commanded us And yet I do not think it difficult to give such an account of the goodness and reasonableness of this Law of our Saviour that when we have considered it we shall find that we have far more reason to thank him than be offended with him for it To which purpose I shall first endeavour more particularly to explain what duty that is which is required of us in these Precepts 1. And in the first place Let us consider what Light is offered to them from that Law of the Jews It hath been said An eye for eye and a tooth for a tooth from whence our Saviour takes occasion to introduce his own Precept But I say unto you Resist not evil From which we shall learn what we are to understand by not resisting The Passage to which our Saviour refers we find in Exod. 21.24 There was a Law That if a Woman with child was hurt by men striving together the Judge should return according to this Rule That life should go for life eye for eye tooth for tooth hand for hand foot for foot Which Law of Retaliation was also to take place against the false Witness that he should suffer the same punishment which his Neighbour was in danger of by reason of his Testimony Deut. 19.21 Thine eye shall not pity but life shall go for life eye for eye c. But in Levit. 24.20 The Rule is general If a man cause a blemish in his neighbour as he hath done so shall it be done unto him breach for breach eye for eye tooth for tooth So that this was the Law by which their Courts of Judicature were to proceed in redress of Injuries That he who had injur'd another should suffer as much injury as he had done himself Wherefore when our Saviour does from hence take occasion to say Resist not evil his design was to abridge his Disciples of some liberty that was allowed to the Jews in the matter of impleading their Adversaries in Courts of Judicature For if by these words Resist not evil he had meant only that no private person should upon an injury received proceed immediately to ease himself and redress the wrong by doing the like to the injurious man but stay till the Cause was heard and the Law had decided the Matter he had then forbidden no more than what the Jews knew was unlawful already wherefore it is plain that something is here prohibited which was formerly allowed For says our Saviour But I say unto you Resist not evil But this is not to be understood as if he had prescribed to places of Civil Judicature how to proceed against Offenders that were brought into them but he has still left them to proceed according to their several Laws and Customs For his Kingdom was not of this World he came not to reverse or alter the Forms and Methods of Government but left them upon the same foundation standing as they did before So that although here is an abridgment of some liberty that the private Jew had before yet if after this Prohibition of our Saviour had any of his Disciples demanded Justice according to the Law of Retaliation against an Offender in some case where he ought not to have done it according to his Master's Doctrine yet it had not been only lawful but requisite for the Magistrate to have given Sentence according to Law and the same holds true in all Christian Kingdoms and Commonwealths Thus much concerning the sense of not resisting evil 2. But in the second place Although the Precept seems to be general yet I shall make it plain That 't is not all sorts of Injuries that we are required not to complain of but to sit down tamely and silently under them And that 1. By shewing the nature of those Injuries that are particularly instanced in And 2. By proving from thence that they are only Injuries of that nature which we are not so much as to resist by course of Law 1. Let us consider the nature of those Injuries which are the instances of that evil we are not to resist And 1. It is plain that they are only private Wrongs not direct Offences against the publick good and safety not Contempts of Authority nor the violation of Laws made purposely for the security of Government 2. And these private Wrongs are supposed also to be of a light and supportable nature such as may very well be born by a Wise man without suffering any considerable prejudice while he neglects to prosecute the Offender at Law And that you will see by the following Instances which I come now to explain The first is That of smiting on the cheek Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek c. To smite upon the cheek signifies proverbially that smiting which was intended for a disgrace or a mere affront and this usually was by striking with the Palm of the hand which because it was mostly used by the Greeks towards their Slaves it came to be a Proverbial Expression of using a man scornfully and imperiously and to include any kind of smiting which according to the common interpretation of the word redounded only to the disgrace of him that suffered it not endangering the Life or hurting the Limbs So that the Injuries which our Saviour notes in the first place are those which go no further than the exposing of a man to the laughter of the People who take it for a mean and dishonourable part to put up a meer Affront to bear the lightest Indignity or to be content under any contumelious Words or Actions And his Rule in this case is That we should rather venture the suffering such another Injury than make it a matter of publick Complaint The second instance is this If any man shall sue thee at the law and take away thy coat let him have thy cloak also The Injuries that are intended under this instance are against a man's Estate and Possessions as the former were against his Body and Reputation And here likewise it is plain That the damage sustained by this Injury or the like is very supportable and such as can hardly be felt by a man that enjoys a competent Estate as he is here supposed to do who is not to revenge such a loss For the inner and upper Garment which were tokens of men that were well to pass in the World shews that he would be much to blame to trouble himself or any body else about a loss so inconsiderable to him And our Saviour's meaning in this Instance is That if a Controversy arise between thee and thy Neighbour about some little matter of property where thou art sure the right is on thy side and the Money Goods or Land in dispute is as much thine as the Cloaths on thy back and if by a Suit at Law he orders the matter so as to rob thee of thy right Thou shalt trouble thy self no further but sit down quietly by the loss which thou
art very well able to bear And if another man be in possession of something that is thine detaining thy right from thee and the matter be not considerable then if thou hast no other way to relieve thy self but by Law thou shalt not in such cases as these run presently to Counsel and commence a Suit but bear such lesser Injuries with silence and patience So that a Christian ought not to go to Law for small matters not only when his Right is uncertain but when 't is clear not only where there is no danger of inviting such another Injury as he bears at present but where there is And the words of our Saviour are as plain to that purpose as any thing can be and nothing less can be understood by them The third instance is this And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile go with him twain And under this Instance are contained all little infringments of our Privileges and Immunities which some men are exceedingly tender of and are ever ready to make a great Combustion rather than suffer them to be invaded in the least degree The meaning is That if the Officer that is to press men for publick Carriages should compel thee to go a mile unjustly that is one fourth part above the ordinary Stage that the Law appoints which is but a small matter thou shalt not make a quarrel about it tho thy patience may prove an occasion of his compelling thee the next time to go two miles more than there is reason for So likewise in all matters of this nature If our Freedoms and Immunities are lightly invaded if too much service be required if an Office be put upon a man which is some breach upon his Privilege though he may sustain it without great inconveniencie in these and the like Cases it is the plain Command of our Saviour That we should make no publick Complaint nor prosecute the Person at Law for the maintaining of our Privilege This I take to be a plain and true Account of the meaning of the Instances The manner of our Saviour's Expressions was suitable to the Customs of the Place where he was and to the way of discourse in that time but the Doctrine he delivers is a Rule for all times and places and obliges every one of his Disciples i. e. altogether to remit tolerable and small Injuries whether against Body or Reputation as in the first instance or Estate and Possession as in the second or Freedoms and Privileges as in the third And now I proceed to shew That the limitation of the Rules belongs to the general Prohibition Resist not evil And that 1. Because if our Saviour had meant that no kind of Injuries were to be resisted there had been no need of adding any particular instances of evil that were not to be resisted 2. If the greatest as well as the least Injuries were not to be redrest by course of Law then seeing our Saviour was pleased to tell us under what Injuries in particular he would have us to sit down quietly we cannot imagine but he would have instanced in the greatest for all men are certainly more unwilling to bear a greater than a less wrong If therefore no kind of evil were to be resisted if this had been his meaning he would have said If thine Enemy seek to take away thy Life or to ruin thy Estate or to deprive thee of thy Liberty thou shalt not guard thy self against him by the Laws of thy Countrey and then these instances had certainly shewn that the general Prohibition was to be understood without any limitation at all For this is a true Conclusion I must bear the greatest Injuries without complaint therefore I must bear the less but it cannot be concluded I must bear the less therefore I must submit to the greater Wherefore I say since it had been our Saviour's Intention that we were not to right our selves against any Injury by course of Law the Instances mentioned do not come home to the purpose it is therefore plain that was not his meaning From what hath been said it will now be very easy to represent from our Saviour's Rule what a Christian may and what he ought to do when he is provoked by the rudeness or injured by the malice or any way usurped upon by the Power and Policy of his Neighbour And First of all It is very plain that all private Revenge whether of greater or lesser Wrongs is utterly unlawful And the truth is for men to go about to right themselves any other way after an Injury received than by course of Law that needed not to have been forbidden by our Saviour for it was unlawful before and 't is unjust in every man tho much more unbecoming a Christian than any one else since he is obliged to set an Example of that forgiveness and meekness of spirit as for some Injuries to seek no redress at all no not by Legal Proceedings How strange a thing is it then that the way of personal Revenge should grow into fashion and credit amongst Christians a way of revenge so directly contrary not only to the Law of our Saviour's Religion but to right Reason and the common Principles of Justice For let but this Principle be once admitted let it be published in the World That every man may right himself his own way when he is injured by another and what horrible consequences must it needs produce For when one man has wrong'd and abused another to allow the injured Party to right himself in the way of personal revenge is to provoke the wrong-doer to a new attempt against him and by consequence to prolong and continue the quarrel till it be ended in the destruction either of the one of the other What a woful thing is it that if once an Injury be done and contention be begun between two men to conclude that they must never be reconciled but proceed to mischief each other till one of them be utterly destroyed and yet that is the natural consequence of private Revenge which therefore no man should give the least countenance to that pretends to Reason and Humanity Besides it is in it self an unjust thing to do evil to another because I have received injury from him for a man cannot justly be both a Judge and a party in his own Cause as every man is who presumes to vindicate his own Wrongs he that complains is not to give Sentence and then to execute it but to refer the matter to indifferent Persons or to Common Justice that the Redress may be according to Reason and Law But if he takes Revenge for himself as he is not fit to be a Judge in his own Cause so neither has he any power to be so Whatever evil he determines to inflict upon his Enemy he is unjustly resolved upon and if he succeeds 't is unjustly done for it belonged not to him to punish his Adversary Vengeance is God's only and
by thy Head and by thy Life and consequently by thy hope of Life and Salvation is indeed to Swear by him upon whom thou dependest for thy life and who only hath all power to save and to destroy so that the general reason why these Oaths are to be avoided is because they are equivalent to formal Swearing by the Creator of all things and contrary to the Opinion of the Pharisees brought an equal Obligation upon him that used them with Swearing downright by our Maker Now they acknowledged that Swearing directly by the Name of God and where that was used was not lawful in their ordinary occasions of speaking our Saviour proceeds upon this supposition and infers therefore it is not lawful to use those other Oaths upon those occasions because they implied an appeal to the Justice and the Omnipresence of God himself And thus I have endeavoured to explain the Prohibition contained in this Law of Christ As for the Precept But let your communication be yea yea nay nay it needs no farther inquiry into the sense of it the plain meaning of them already appearing to be this Content your selves with bare affirming and denying whatever you have occasion to speak of without adding thereto any kind of Oaths and Imprecations And thus much concerning the Law it self which one would think were as easy to be practised as it is to be understood and certainly it is great pity that any man should need much perswasion to keep it but if it should be so we do not want Arguments clear and strong enough to prevail with any considering Person and these are contained in the Sanction of this Law which is the second thing I am to speak to and which I have already told you is founded 1. Upon the Authority of our Blessed Lord and Saviour 2. Upon the reason of the Law it self 1. The Authority of our Saviour who established this Law by these words But I say unto you I do not find any such express Prohibition of Swearing in ordinary Conversation as this before our Saviours time not but that I think the unlawfulness of that liberty which here he abridgeth his Disciples of might by good consequence be inferred from the Writings of Moses and the Prophets but what need we look for any other Rule in this matter besides this which is so plain and express and which we have received from the Son of God himself there can now be no dispute whether we may lawfully Swear in those Cases wherein an Oath is needless for our Lord's Command is so full against it that a question hath been made though upon no just ground Whether it be lawful for a Christian to Swear at all now if the sense of our Saviour's Authority can prevail with us to do any thing in obedience to him it will not fail to govern us in this matter where the performance of his will is so easy and the violation of it is not rewarded by any gain or pleasure nor sollicited by any Temptation that can fasten upon our sensual Lusts and Appetites nor can be resolved easily into any other Cause but a Spirit of Contradiction to the Gospel of our Lord which may make us astonished that in an Age pretending to the Worship of God in a Nation formed into a Christian Church so many should be found of almost all Qualities and Degrees who bid defiance to the Authority of our Saviour by refusing to make so small an acknowledgment of it as the keeping of a Law so easy as this that we should thus put into our Discourse a peculiar Character to let the World know that we are no Christians though we were Baptized into the Name of Christ least it should not be observed by our practices that we should take care to discover it by our language that we are none of those who believe Jesus to be the Son of God If we had no other reason but the Will of our Lord and Saviour to rule us in this matter that certainly should be enough to conclude us he that should want a farther obligation deserves to be ranked with Heathens and Infidels and yet the thing which our Saviour here forbids is evil in it self too and contains many foul and detestable Immoralities in its own nature and therefore the common Swearer's Sin how enormous must it needs be who refuseth to do a very small matter to avoid so great a guilt That the heinousness whereof may yet farther appear I shall proceed to the Second Consideration under this Head viz. The Reason of the Law it self which is contained in these words whatsoever is more than the plainness of affirmation and denial in common discourse cometh of evil I will therefore endeavour these two following things 1. To make it appear what those evil dispositions are which this practice implies 2. To examine the pretences that are only possible to be alledged in excuse of it Now if men are led to it by no good Principle if the dispositions thereunto are wholly evil if evil be implied in the very pretences brought to excuse it nothing can be farther desired to demonstrate that this is to be concluded viz. That it is an Immorality to Swear in our Communication and whatsoever is more than that simplicity of Language which our Saviours Rule confines us to cometh of evil The true Principles and Causes enclining men to this practice are these 1. Want of Reverence towards God 2. Carelesness of avoiding the Crime of Perjury 3. Immodesty and Pride 4. Lightness and vanity of mind And indeed there must be all these things together to make up a common Swearer for if he either had reverent Thoughts of God or feared to be Forsworn or if he had but a little modesty and good manners or any tolearable measure of a steddy and serious spirit any one of these things would secure him 1. Customary Swearing betrays great irreverence towards God for unless a man had very mean and dishonourable Thoughts of God how durst he make so bold with him as to affirm nothing so silly and transact nothing so trivial and mean but he must summon God to be his Witness Reverence of the Deity is always expressed by separating holy things from vile and common uses and because an Oath is an appeal to the Knowledge and Justice of God it is greater rudeness to press it to unnecessary Services than it would be for the meanest of People to call the King out of his Throne to hear every idle Tale they brought against one another If an Oath be an holy thing let us use it as we do those holy places which we do not put to all Imployments but reserve them for their peculiar use What a contempt of Religion would it be for men to bring their Markets into the House of God and pretend to sanctify their worldly Affairs and Pleasures by transacting them in the place of his Worship I do not see but 't is altogether as
use left for his Reason that his Conscience is no longer in his own keeping and that he is now fit to herd with the Beasts that follow the foremost without discretion The Laws of Truth and Goodness are immutable and another man's violation of them gives me no dispensation to do so too I may not prostitute my Conscience to the Lusts of other men who are to be governed by the Laws of God as well as I if they call my resolution not to provoke my Maker an humour in this matter I were a Fool not to be tenacious of my own humour in this case there can be no reason why he that is in the right should go over to him that is wrong unless he that sets the evil example could change the nature of things and made evil not to be evil and sin and punishment to be other things than what they are Lastly The common way of excusing rash Oaths by pleading an habit implieth the greatest evil of this nature that can be for this is but to confess that a man is guilty of this sin in the highest degree an evil custom being the heighth of wickedness Thus both by shewing what those dispositions are which lead to common Swearing and by considering the excuses that are usually framed in the behalf of it I have discovered the Immorality thereof and that it cometh of evil I might here add the Authority of wise men who had no particular Revelation to guide themselves by and yet condemned this practice and disswaded all men from it for these Persons could discover the evil of it only by the light of Natural Reason which they could not have done if it had not been evil in its own nature Plato wrote smartly against Swearing upon light causes Hierocles tells us It is a dishonour to truth to confirm it lightly with an Oath Epictetus gives this advice Avoid Swearing altogether if thou canst if not as much as thou canst In a word The wise and sober Heathens were generally of this mind That an Oath was to be reserved for Cases of necessity and the practice of common Swearing was not in use amongst any but Stage-players and Slaves nor do we ordinarly meet with Oaths in any of their Writers excepting the Comedians and some of their dissolute Poets but the grave men and Philosophers took not the liberty themselves and dehorted others from it And this may serve to confirm us in the belief of its Immorality for what so many wise men agreed in condemning seems to be condemn'd as evil by reasons common to all men and possibly such as I have offered to your consideration so great a shame and ignominy it is to Christians to allow themselves in a Custom so easy avoidable that is condemned by the light of Nature however by the Authority of the Son of God whose Disciples we profess our selves to be Thus have I finished what I had to say upon this subject having been willing to say all that was any way proper to oppose a custom tending so manifestly to the dishonour of our Nation and the discredit of our Church and the scandal of Christian Society and finally to the ruin of Mens Souls for ever for without universal obedience to the Laws of Christ whereof this is one which I have been preaching to you we cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven for which reason if I had chosen any other command of our Lord and Saviour to discourse upon I had been as vehement in urging you to the obedience of that as I have been in pressing this Now the God of mercy grant that we may walk before him blameless and be holy in all manner of Conversation as becomes the followers of Jesus To Him with the Father and the Holy Spirit be ascribed all honour praise and glory now and for ever Amen The Tenth Sermon MATTH VII 21. Not every one that saith unto me Lord Lord shall enter into the kingdom of heaven but he that doth the will of my father which is in heaven THE Point determined in these words is of the highest concernment to us in the world viz. Who of those that hope for Salvation by Christ shall not and who shall enter into the kingdom of heaven The former is described in that part of the Text Not every one that saith unto me Lord Lord The latter in the close of it But he that doth the will of my Father which is in heaven Let us first consider the former part Not every one that saith unto me Lord Lord which being compared with the Clause opposed to it is evidently to be thus interpreted Not any one that saith Lord Lord and does no more than say so but neglects the doing of God's Will not any such person shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven By calling Christ Lord is meant an open profession of Christianity and by calling him Lord Lord is meant a vehement profession of it such a Profession as is to be seen in all the ways of making known to the World what Religion we are of For instance When we do not only not renounce our Baptism and suffer our selves to be called Christians and call our selves so which is common to the most careless Professors of Christianity in the World but when also we do solemnly confess that Faith in the Assemblies of the Church into which we have been baptized and frequent the Table of Our Lord to shew forth his death and join in publick Prayers and are zealous for the purity of Christian Profession and contend against Error then we are those that call Christ Lord Lord i. e. who make a vehement profession that we are his Servants and Followers Now whereas our Saviour says Not every one that doth this shall enter into the kingdom of Heaven the plain meaning is That he doth not exclude this outward profession as unnecessary but that he makes it insufficient of it self in order to salvation 1. He doth by no means exclude it as unnecessary or as a Condition that may well enough be spared he said upon another occasion Ye call me Master and Lord and ye say well for so I am John 13.13 And St. Paul tells us That as with the heart man believeth unto righteousness so with the mouth confession is made to salvation Rom. 10.10 Nay it is so necessary if we will be saved to confess Christ and his Truth publickly in the World that no danger will excuse us from it For the doing of this if need be we must venture all that is dearest to us in this life nay and life it self It was on this account that our Saviour told his Disciples Whoever will come after me must take up his cross and follow me It is the confession of the true Faith added to holy living that hath made Martyrs of Saints since it was properly for confessing Christ with their mouths for contending in the behalf of Truth against Error for serving God in Religious Assemblies
and therefore to be sure when it brings little or none at all And upon this account it had doubtless been a true saying if it had been said Notevery one that in other things doth the Will of my Father shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven but he that also saith unto me Lord Lord i. e. who doth moreover make an outward profession of being my Disciple This I say had been true but then it had not been so instructing and useful an Admonition as it is in the Text because it is incomparably more certain that he who doth the Will of God in all other things will out wardly profess the truth of the Gospel than that every one who doth profess it will live according to it And therefore our Saviour laid his Caution where the danger was and so I come to the 2d Point That an outward profession of Christianity is not of it self sufficient in order to our Salvation inasmuch as it is moreover necessary that we should do the Will of God i. e. that we should do his Will in all other things and in general that our Affections and Practices should be answerable to the truth we profess which is a thing so plain if we once come seriously to consider it that there is as little need of proof to make it out as one would think there was of this Caution of our Saviour not to trust in outward profession when our hearts and lives are contrary to what we profess What is a professed Christian but one that declares himself to believe That the unrighteous the unmerciful the unclean the ungodly shall never enter into the Kingdom of Heaven one that declares to the World that his chief business is to be saved and that without holiness no man shall see the Lord And therefore whilst himself lives in ungodliness and is led away by worldly Lusts he is the most absurd person in the World and so much more ridiculous than a man that has skill in any thing but the proper business of his Calling by which he must live as the Concerns of another World are above all our Interests in this For such a man to maintain the hope of Everlasting Life is a contradiction to his own Faith and Profession such a contradiction to his Profession that he exposes himself to have the lie given him by the World such a contradiction to his Faith that his own Conscience one would think should give him the lie too But yet as plain a case as it is that meer profession without doing the Will of God is not enough to save us our Saviour nevertheless thought fit here and elsewhere plainly to admonish us of it that we might not deceive our selves And the Apostle foretold there would be men having a form of godliness and denying the power thereof and therefore it should seem that how plain soever the mistake is of trusting to profession without a practice answerable to it yet men would be very apt to fall into that mistake There are these two things which I shall hereupon take occasion to speak to 1. That Experience has proved the proneness of Mankind to this folly of presuming upon mere profession that God is pleased with them 2. What are the causes and occasions of so wretched a conceit so void of all shadow or pretence to reason 1. As to the proof of it that it has been so I shall need to insist but little upon it because alas the thing is too apparent in our own days and every man that is guilty has a testimony of it from his own Conscience if he will hearken to it too plain to be denied Our Blessed Saviour himself found a great deal of this folly and madness among the Jews especially amongst the Scribes and Pharisees when he came into the World Their Fathers had for 400 years been cured of Idolatry and the fondness of the gods of their Neighbours round about them they had smarted too severely for that ever to return to it again But they soon fell to make the Profession and Worship of God according to the Law a dispensation for Luxury and Injustice and Unmercifulness and wicked living instead of a restraint from it plainly shewing thereby that their Fathers did not like the True Religion because it was too good for them since their Posterity not daring to revolt from the outward profession of it yet soon learned to reconcile it with a licentious practice Nay if we will take St. Paul's word who did not use to reprove without cause they thought that the same sins which they were guilty of with the Gentiles would not have so bad a construction made of them nor be so displeasing to God as they were in the Gentiles For as it appears from Rom. 2. they judged the Gentiles for doing evil things and did them themselves thinking all the while to escape the righteous judgment of God And what was the reason of all this They had the Temple of God amongst them the Promises made to Abraham and to his Posterity God's Service according to the Law of Moses Sacrifices according to the Law and Washings and divers Ordinances in the observation of which they put their trust and believed that no Israelite should go without his portion of happiness in the life to come In this state our Saviour found them they trusted in Moses and said we have Abraham to our Father they built and garnished the Tombs of the Prophets those very Prophets that had been so ill entertained by their Forefathers for declaring against their sins and because they did this external honour to the Monuments of those good men they excused themselves from following their Instructions being full of hypocrisy and iniquity and all uncleanness Now this being so notorious in our Saviour's time and having been so for some Ages before it seemed needful that his Disciples should be warned against the like fatal mistakes into which there was no little reason to be jealous they would fall For by how much a greater Person Jesus was than Moses and his Sacrifice more excellent than the Sacrifices of the Law and his Religion a more rational and perfect Religion than any that had been before so much greater danger there might be least men should trust to their relation to Christ and to the Sacrifice of Christ and to the profession of the Faith of Christ without an holy heart and life If the Jews could say We have Abraham to our Father and this were enough to quiet their guilty fears it was to be feared Christians would say We have Christ Jesus our Lord and Master our Deliverer and Saviour and make the same use of it If they trusted in Moses there was some reason to suspect that others would hereafter lay hold upon Christ and think themselves safe enough by making their boast of him no less than the Jews had done before of Moses and consequently great reason for this earnest admonition Not every one