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a Sorrow proceeding from the Fear of Hell into true and saving Repentance By which Doctrin they have most directly superseded all the Obligations of Righteousness For what need I put my self to the Trouble of a holy and righteous Life when for allarming my self before I go to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
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
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
Hearts and subdue our stubborn Wills to the Obedience of his most righteous Laws So that the Holy Ghost doth now preside in the Church as the supreme Minister and vicarous Power of our Saviour and is continually imployed even as our Saviour himself was whilst he abode upon Earth in driving on the Interest of Righteousness for hitherto tend all his secret Operations on the Minds of Men this is the Reason why he suggests so many good Thoughts and by repeating them thick upon us keeps our Minds so fix'd upon them that so if possible he may recollect our dispersed Minds that are continually wandring to and fro in this infinite Maze of sensual Vanities and engage them to attend to such Motives of Righteousness as are most apt to excite them to wise and vertuous Resolutions So that as in the Beginnings of Christianity before Christian Motives to Righteousness were believed the Holy Spirit did operate more visibly and miraculously to confirm and demonstrate the Truth of them so now they being believed and thereupon the Necessity of such miraculous Operations superseded his great Work is to object and present them to our Minds and fix our Thoughts upon them till they have effected in us those good Resolutions for which they were designed and intended And how diligently he pursues this Work our own Experience certifies and informs us For how often do we find good Thoughts and Motions injected to us we know not how nor whence and how many times do these unexpected Thoughts kindle holy Desires in us before we are aware Which Desires being fed by a fresh Supply of holy Motions and Suggestions are many times nourished into good Resolutions and these being still back'd with those repeated Motions which do frequently press with strong Importunity upon us are at last perfected into firm and lasting Principles of Action Thus does the Holy Spirit continually knock at the Door of our Souls and sollicit us with the greatest Earnestness to sober and righteous Resolutions and this is his constant Imployment among Men and will be so to the End of the World till Jesus whose Vicegerent he is and whose Absence he supplies returns in Person from Heaven to keep his last and general Assizes upon Earth And can we imagin that God would have all this while imployed his Holy Spirit in the Service of Righteousness to drive on its Interest and sollicit its Cause if it had not been infinitely dearer to him No certainly he sets a greater Value on the Pains of his Son and Spirit than to busy them about a Trifle to imploy them so industriously as he has done in an Affair which he had little or no Regard for If his Heart had not been extremely set upon it he would have found out some other Imployment for those divine and illustrious Persons and not have engaged them so everlastingly as he hath done in the Service and Ministry of Righteousness Having thus explained and proved the Proposition That the Righteous Lord loveth Righteousness I shall conclude with some few Inferences drawn from the whole Argument 1. From hence I infer that no Religion or Proposition of Religion can be true that either directly or by true Consequence is an Enemy to Righteousness For all true Religion is from God and therefore to be sure that cannot be true which either directly or indirectly opposes that which God so dearly loves This therefore is a plain Conviction of the notorious Falshood and Imposture of Popery that in all those Doctrins it hath superinduced upon the common Principles of Christianity it is an open Enemy to Righteousness As for Instance it is a common Principle of Christianity that God alone is to be worshiped as the supream Author and Fountain of our Beings upon which the Church of Rome hath superstructed the Invocation of Saints and Angels which they perform in the same Words and with the same Address as they do the Invocation of God himself For though they pretend to pray to them only for their Prayers yet in their Publick Offices they do not only beg their Prayers to God for them but also invocate them as sovereign Gods and independent Disposers of the Mercies they pray for Thus in the Hours of Sarum they implore the Angels to direct their Thoughts and Words and Actions in the way of Salvation that so they may be able to fill up the Number of the Angelical Orders which by the Fall of Lucifer was diminished to protect them from the Devils and comfort them when they are dying Particularly St. Michael they beseech to be their Coat of Mail St. Gabriel to be their Helmet St. Raphael to be their Shield St. Vriel to be their Defender St. Cherubim to be their Health St. Seraphim to be their Truth and all the holy Angels and Arch-angels to keep protect and defend them and bring them to eternal Life And as for Raphael to whom they seem to bear a more particular Affection they stile him the best Physitian both of Body and Soul and pray him to inlighten both their spiritual and carnal Eyes And then as for the Saints they do as immediately address to them in their Forms of Prayer for Sanctification Pardon temporal and eternal Blessings as they can possibly do to God himself particularly the Blessed Virgin they adorn with the most glorious Titles of God and in her Psalter address to her in the same Forms of Invocation which David uses in his Psalms to God they stile Her the Lady Almighty the Author of Mercy the Queen of infinite Majesty and the Hope of all the World praying that her Mercy may lighten upon them as they do put their trust in her and a great deal more to this Purpose And as for Joseph her Husband they stile him the Support of their Lives and the Pillar of the World beseeching him with his Carpenters Ax a Tool fit only to work upon such wooden Souls to hew down their Sins that they may be adopted Timber for the Palace of Heaven In a word in their present Breviary they implore St. Peter to loose them by his Word from the Bonds of Sin and supplicate the Apostles who by their Word if the Prayer lies not do lock and unlock the Gates of Heaven to loose them from all Sin by their Command They humbly intreat St. Genovesa to have pity on those that hope in Her to blot out their Sins and send them Relief and Comfort and implore St. Sebastian to preserve their Country from the Plague to preserve their Bodies and heal their Minds and to win him thereunto assure him that all their Hope is in him These and several other such like Instances there are of their Prayers both to Angels and Saints in which they do as immediately invoke them both for temporal spiritual and eternal Blessings as they can do God himself who is the sole Disposer of them And is not this most palpable Unrighteousness towards God to strip him thus of