execution of Judgment till after Death and not dispensing the final rewards and punishments of Men in this Life It is appointed unto Men once to die but after that and not before the Judgment The continual Infirmities and Temptations incident to Mankind the daily Sins committed by us and the fatal Example of our first Parent Adam not able to retain his Primitive Innocence under so many and so great advantages evidently cause us to perceive that few or rather none would ever attain to Happiness if that were bestowed in reward to unsinning Obedience only That therefore to make any considerable part of Mankind partakers of this Reward it was necessary that God should proclaim an Universal Pardon to penitent sinners and forego the punishment due to former sins if an earnest abhorrencâ—… of them and true reformation of Life did succeed If notwithstanding all the highest demonstrations of repeated Mercy and frequent Pardon of sins our Saviour still assureth us that strait is the Gate and narrow is the Way which leadeth unto Life and few there be which find it How unaccessible would it be if every single Act of Disobedience defeated the hopes of it and laid us open to the utmost Execution of the Divine Wrath If therefore we desire that this merciful dealing should be continued to us if a Covenant of this nature be Established it is impossible that the final rewards and punishments of Men should be dispensed in this Life For if a proportionate punishment should immediately follow the Commission of every sin in this Life how can God be said to pardon our offences and await our amendment Or if it should not attend it how can exemplary Justice be executed here since we suppose it not to be executed hereafter Or if God should presently crown every good Action with as great a degree of Happiness as the present State of Human Nature will receive what shall be done when such a Person shall exchange his Piety for Vice or wickedness Or if the reward of Temporal Happiness should not be inseparably annexed to a vertuous course of Life how can God be said to reward Vertue in this Life Must God as often change the Scenes of Human Life as Man changeth the inclinations of his Will Assuredly such an inconstant proceeding would derogate as much from the Honour of God as the Quiet of the World Or must God await the last Scene of every Mans Life wherein to display either his Favour or Anger to him when the shortness of the remaining time defeats the possession of any great reward and rescues the Delinquent from the misery of his punishment So that it is impossible to dispense the rewards and inflict the punishments of Men in this Life but where Rewards and Happiness are annexed to unsinning Obedience only Again such a manner of proceeding is not only unpracticable but unuseful even for those ends for which it is commonly proposed namely to manifest the Justice of God to vindicate the Innocence of Men to deterr them from Sin and Wickedness and to allure them to Piety and Holiness For such is the dissimulation of Men so secret are many of the most enormous Sins so usual is it to palliate the most horrid Crimes and not only to conceal them from the knowledge of the World but to create a contrary Opinion of Holiness and Integrity that no discrimination could be made by Rewards and Punishments in this Life which might conduce to any of the ends before mentioned Hypocrites are no less odious to God than the most prophane and debauched Sinners and are perhaps in no less number Now as it would be unreasonable to bestow any Reward upon these least the Justice of God should be called in question for suffering appearant vertue to pass unrewarded so it would be impossible to hinder Men from censuring the Divine Dispensations in relation to them while they retained a false Opinion of their supposed merits How many Innocent and Worthy Persons are oppressed calumniated and generally esteemed the worst of Men whom if God should therefore refuse to reward his Justice would be destroyed if he Rewarded them while labouring under these false suspicions the opinion of his Justice would perish If then Piety and Wickedness may be hid from the eyes of Men if contrary Judgments may be so easily and so often framed of their merits and demerits the Justice of God can in no wise appear in dispensing Rewards or Punishments to them no Argument can be thence framed in favour of Vertue or diminution of Vice until the Secrets of all Hearts be disclosed and laid open which the present Circumstances of this Life will not permit Not only is the Execution of Judgment in this Life incongruous to the Mercy and Justice of God but also the Nature of the Rewards and Punishments to be bestowed or inflicted And first it is impossible that Punishments should be imposed upon the wicked in this Life proportionate to the Greatness of their Demerits Every single Sin committed against the infinite Majesty of God by a Creature and Dependant of his own is of an infinite Guilt and therefore in Justice requires a not inferiour Degree of Punishment Whereas an infinite Punishment cannot be suffered in this Life and then how shall a Sinner answer for Ten thousâ—…nd Sins of equal guilt If we place the Execution of Punishment in destroying the Existence of a Sinner this is so far from being terrible that many have placed the utmost Degree of Happiness in Indolence or an insensible State which is a necessary consequence of such a Destruction And then since good Men are not reprieved from an immature Death being no less subject to Sickness Dangers and Violence what an horrible Confusion of Justice would it be that both good and bad should undergo the same Punishment and not be diâ—…tinguished in their End Or if the Punishment of the wicked should be placed in insupportable Torments continual Crosses and dreadful Pains what a slight matter would this be to an infinite Guilt which deservedly calls for eternal Torments The greatest Aggravation of the Pains in Hell will be that the wicked will be assured they shall have no end and will be thereby cast into the most extreme Despair whereas in this Case the Sinners would comfort themselves with the hopes of approaching Death which may end their Torments and their Life together Nay they will be able to rescue themselves from Punishment and escape the Divine Anger by laying violent hands upon themselves which they will not fear to do when not awed with the terrour of any ensuing Punishment after Death And after all Punishments in this Life can only respect precedent Sins how then shall a Sinner satisfie for those more dreadful Sins which will escape him in the midst of his Pains such as Blasphemy Malice and Unrepentance Shall God suffer these to go unpunished or not rather reserve them to Judgment in another World But if Judgment cannot
the natural course of Nature to be observed Thus far the Divine Decree is unquestionable and secure from all objections But then the revealed History of the Creation of Man and the Divine Dispensations in relation to him include some apparent shew of injustice which may induce inconsidering Persons to accuse God of overmuch Rigour and even Tyranny in condemning the whole Race of Mankind to the Sentence of Death for the single fault of the First Man and extending the punishment of that to all his posterity which was yet unborn and therefore wholly innocent of it A proceeding and manner of Judicature which would appear harsh and even cruel among Men especially as it hath been erroneously represented by many Writers and Divines who endeavouring to amplifie the unlimited Power of God and meanness of Man would perswade us that herein God had no respect to the merits or demerits of Men that he created the far greater part of Mankind for no other end than to make them miserable and to shew forth in their punishments the effects of his Almighty Power and that in punishing the fall of Adam he subjected his whole posterity not only to Temporal but Eternal Death This would indeed effectually declare the power of God but such a Power as would be Odious and Intolerable Unjust and Tyrannical far unbecoming the purity of a most perfect Being It becomes us to entertain more noble conceptions of God and not fancy him to be the Author of such arbitrary Punishments as are inconsistent with his Holiness and Justice To vindicate therefore these Divine attributes in taking occasion from the fall of Adam to form an Universal Decree of Death to all his Posterity it will not be unseasonable to reflect a little upon it before I pass any further To clear this matter therefore we may observe that the Nature of Man as compounded of Soul and Body is Mortal and subject to Dissolution as all compounded Bodies are It is our Soul alone which being immaterial and void of all Composition can promise to it self an immortal State and that no longer than while it pleaseth God that the ordinary course of Nature shall be observed Death then was the natural effect and consequence of our Constitution even in the State of Innocence from which Man could not be rescued but by a Miraculous and extraordinary assistance of God constantly preserving the Union of Soul and Body removing Diseases repairing the defects of Nature and renewing the vigour of it This extraordinary assistance therefore and means of preservation was a superadded favour of God which he might conferr upon Man upon whatsoever condition himself pleased Subjection Adoration and Gratitude was owing to God the Author and Preserver of our Being even without the Obligation of this supernatural Benefit The Dictates of Reason and Natural Religion were wholly independent of it and although performed exactly and without any intervenient sin could not justly claim any other reward from God than the continuation of Existence as long as the ordinary course of Nature should permit it The gift of Immortality was extraordinary and as such might be annexed to whatsoever conditions or persons God should please to do it God therefore made a Covenant with Adam and promised to him That if besides the observation of the Law of Nature to which he was obliged from the consideration of his ordinary State and condition he would more particularly manifest his Obedience and Subjection to him by abstaining from the seemingly pleasant Fruit of a Tree in the Garden called the Tree of knowledge of good and evil he would in recompence entail upon himself and his posterity performing the same condition a perpetual fruition of the same State of Life which he then enjoyed and continue his Existence beyond the ordinary course of Nature even for ever which because it could not be effected without some extraordinary remedies and assistance God Created for that purpose the Tree of Life by the powerful vertue of whose Fruit the decaying Nature of Man might from time to time be restored and preserved without corruption Whereas if he should neglect to perform this small condition and be tempted to violate the Divine prohibition of Tasting the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil he should forfeit this superadded promise of Immortality not only to himself but to all his posterity descending from him not to be immediately destroyed or put to Death but to be deprived of that extraordinary assistance and so left to the ordinary course of Nature When Adam therefore really broke the condition and violated the Command of God God might justly withdraw as he in effect did the supernatural benefit of Immortality and thenceforward deny it to Mankind The Mystery of the Fall of Adam being thus explained nothing can be more unexceptionable or more agreeable to the strictest Rules of Justice and Reason Hereby no Man is punished for the fault of another For the loss or rather not obtaining a Favour to which we have naturally no right or claim can in nowise be called a punishment Hereby the Justice of God is cleared beyond all contradiction seeing that no wrong or injury is done unto any His Goodness is made evident in entailing so wonderful a Reward as Immortality upon the observation of so easie a condition and enforcing the observation of it by an Argument drawn from the happiness or unhappiness of all Mankind ensuing to it which in all reason might be supposed to make Adam infinitely more careful and concerned in it Lastly the Wisdom of God is most manifest herein whereby this Mystery becomes not only just but rational For by this fatal example Mankind cannot but be made sensible how subject they are to Temptations and how prone to Sin That therefore if what they naturally desire an extraordinary reward of their Obedience be expected the hopes of which must be founded in a revealed Covenant it can be obtained no otherwise than in vertue of a Covenant wherein frequent remission of Sin and Disobedience may be bestowed upon Repentance and Reformation and Mercy allowed to Sinners until they should appear absolutely incorrigible That therefore neither plenary rewards nor punishments could be dispensed in this Life and if either were desired they must necessarily be deferred till after Death A Truth which Mankind would very hardly have been convinced of had not the Example and Fall of Adam taught it to us So naturally are Men led to imagine their Supreme Happiness to consist in the perpetual fruition of those worldly pleasures and enjoyments which they now so much value and to suspect the truth of those promises the performance of which they cannot receive till after Death Whereas now neither the Wisdom of God nor the Reason of things can permit it to be otherwise which I will endeavour to shew in discoursing upon the Second Head proposed namely in manifesting II. The Justice and Wisdom of the Divine Decree of deferring the
we are warned by Examples to Repentance and still continue unmoved We hear the voice of our Lord calling to Repentance the Exhortations of his Apostles preaching to the World whose Message was Repent and be baptized We read the dreadful Examples of Punishments inflicted in this World upon notorious Sinners And yet reflect not that we are the Creatures of God as well as they that we are subject to the Laws of Government that the Duty is not remitted but made more severe and that the hand of God is not shortned that he cannot punish us but that his Power always continueth the same and that the Rules of Conduct given to Men are no more changed than is the Nature of them It is somewhat surprizng indeed that Men should know and confess all this and yet not attend to it that it should be possible to form an habit of Acting constantly in opposition to the clearest and no less constant Conviction of mind For can we hear with what Detestation the Scripture speaketh of the hardness of Pharaohs Heart and what a sudden Destruction followed and not reflect that in continuing deaf to so many Admonitions of Repentance we are guilty of the same Crime and that in one respect in a higher Degree inasmuch as he knew not at first that that God who commanded him to let the Captive Jews depart was the true God until he was convinced by many Miracles whereas we are convinced from the beginning of the Divine Authority of him who imposeth this Duty on us Or can we call to mind the severe Judgments which God exercised upon the Jews for sudden and rash Resolutions taken up in heat and as soon repented of such as their frequent Rebellions against Moses their refusing to march to the promised Land after having râ—…ceived a false account from the timorous Spies and many such other occasions Do we remember all this and imagine that God will pass-by unregarded our deliberate and obstinate Rebellions such as is the Continuation of every habit of Sin These things were written for our Example that by them we might receive Instruction being terrified by the knowledge of their Sufferings from following the Example of their Sins It is absurd to think that God hath remitted his Justice herein and will oversee those Sins in us which he so eminently revenged in elder times His Attributes always continue the same his Justice his Holiness and his hatred of Sin The Reasons of his Favour are eternal and unchangeable being Piety and Obedience Although he hath been pleased in ancient times to demonstrate his Justice by more visible Examples than in after Ages which was no more than was necessary at the first Delivery of any general Revelation partly to attest the Authority of those Revelations and partly to deterr Men by such severe Examples from the Prosecution of sin who ought thence to conclude That if God exercised not the same Severity toward them in this Life he reserved it for another it being impossible that God who is no respecter of persons should be so inexorable to some Sinners and unaccountably indulgent to others involved in the same Guilt To be farther convinced of the impossibility of Salvation without Repentance we may consider the Mystery of our Lords Incarnation Death and Passion who having taken upon himself the Sins of Mankind bore our Infirmities upon the Cross and became answerable to God for them Surely if ever God would Pardon the sins of Men without any Satisfaction whether of Punishment or Repentance he would have remitted his Methods of Justice to his only begotten Son and not required him to take upon himself the Shame and Bitterness of the Cross. Yet such was the Divine Hatred of Sin that although earnestly and passionately intreated by Christ in his Prayer in the Garden to remit his Decree therein and receive Mankind to Mercy without requiring so severe a Satisfaction he would not condescend to do it nor would give Pardon to Man upon any other terms than that that ever Blessed Person who had taken the Sins of Mankind upon him should suffer all the Marks of Divine Displeasure which Man in this Life can undergo and expiate it by the shedding of his own Blood Could the Justice of God permit him to Pardon the sins of Man without any satisfaction he would never have put such an hard Condition upon his own Son as that either the World whose Redemption he had undertaken must be for ever lost or himself must lay down his Life in exchange for it When therefore a Life of such inestimable value must be Sacrificed to appease the Anger of God to sinful Men how terrible must that Anger have been how vehement his Hatred of sin the occasion of it Nor did his Hatred of sin expire with the offering up of that inestimable Sacrifice that continueth yet fixed and constant Only now he may remit to men the full and just Punishment of their sins without any prejudice to his Attributes of Holiness and Justice which without that Satisfaction of the Cross he would not do least Man should conclude that he took delight in or winked at their sin which he pardoned so easily or that Sin was not of so deep a Guilt since Man with all his sins was capable of the Divine Favour without any Compensation for it whereas now Man cannot reflect upon the means of Pardon offered by God without conceiving at the same time his hatred of Sin God indeed required ne the Life of every particular Man in Punishment of his Sins which in strict Justice would seem agreeable but he required the Life of his own Son more valuable than the Lives of all sinful Men put together He receiveth to Mercy the most enormous Sinners but condemned to Punishment that Divine Person who took the Sins of them all upon him And even after so much done and suffered by Christ for the Expiation of the sins of Men God distributeth not the Benefits of that Sacrifice indifferently to all who lay any Claim to it Hereby the sins of Men are not actually pardoned nor Man immediately acquitted of the Guilt of them but only made capable of Pardon and the grant of Pardon in God made possible without any Diminution to his Justice This Pardon he distributeth to Men upon those Conditions which himself hath pleased to appoint and those such which farther declare his Hatred of sin being Repentance and Reformation a Confession of the guilt of sin and a forsaking of it such means as may produce in the Soul of Man a like Detestation of Sin Upon no other account can Man claim any Benefit from the Merits of that Sacrifice the sum of the Conditions required being included in that comprehensive form of Speech so often mentioned in the New Testament Repent and be baptized Acknowledge the Guilt of your former sins conceive a Sorrow for them and form a Hatred of them Renounce any farther Exercise of them testifie your Resolutions
are increased How shall I pardon thee for this We have hitherto considered God only as the Author of that revealed Religion which we profess It may not be amiss to consider him also as the common Governour of the world and the Judge of all Mankind To the Execution of these Offices nothing is more necessary than an impartial Execution of Justice which cannot consist if Rewards and Punishments be distributed without any respect to the Merits or Demerits of Men if the Rewards proposed to the diligent observers of the Divine Commands be given in common to the Neglecters of them In vain then would good Men employ so much Industry Zeal and Caution in vain should they forego the Pleasures of Life deny the Desires of the sensual Appetite and Labour in the more arduous Duties of Christianity if by all this they gained no more than what negligent Sinners might secure to themselves and yet retain the use of all those Pleasures which a depraved Will could desire Nor could we account for the Justice of God if he should require such difficult Duties of his most faithful Servants and yet allow the same Rewards to his Enemies to impenitent Sinners which he hath proposed to them Our Lord told the Pharisees indeed those great Pretenders to Holiness That the Sinners and Publicans go into heaven before them and in another place saith That the Kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force But then those Sinners did repent which the Pharisees refused to do and the violence offered to Heaven is there no other than Prayers and Tears Without those the supream Judge would continue inexorable to them who hath promised indeed to lay open Heaven to penitent Sinners but upon no other Condition will admit them into it Otherwise what Abraham said to God Gen. XVIII 25. when he imagined that God would involve the just Inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah in the univeâ—…sal Destruction which he was about to bring upon those Cities That be far from thee to do after this manner to slay the righteous with the wicked and that the righteous should be as the wicked That be far from thee Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right The same we might justly apply if God communicated the Rewards of just Men such as Pardon of sins and hope of future Happiness to impenitent Sinners But sar be it from us to imagine any such uneven Conduct in God who from the in variable distribution of Pardon to Penitent of Punishment to unrepenting Sinners raiseth the Proof of his own Justice Ezek. XVIII 25 26 27. Hear now O house of Israel Is not my way equal are not your ways unequal When a righteous man turneth away from his righteousness and committeth iniquity and dieth in it for his iniquity that he hath done he shall die Again when the wicked turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed and doth that which is lawful and right he shall save his soul alive Therefore I will judge every one according to his ways saith the Lord God Repent and turn your selves from all your Transgressions so iniquity shall not be your ruin I have been so long upon this Head that I have little time left to speak of the Second which is the Usefulness of Repentance in that if it be perfect sincere and rightly applied it averts the Punishment due to sins Not through any intrinsick Merit of its own but through the gracious acceptance of God who hath promised Pardon upon true Repentance That we may not be deceived therefore in the Nature of Repentance we may reflect upon the Reasons for which Repentance is so acceptable to God who as he is a most perfect Being doth nothing without most evident reason God therefore whensoever he taketh the Soul of Man to himself and caâ—…th it to Judgment judgeth it according to the present Disposition of it If a Man hath formerly lived up to his Commands but did afterwards Apostatize from them and gave up himself to the direction of his Lusts and died in that corrupt Habit of Mind he shall be judged according to it If he formerly neglected his Duty but before his Death had changed all the Habits and Dispositions of his Soul into firm Resolutions of Obedience to God into a perfect Hatred of Sin and a love of Piety and dieth in them God will reward him according to that prefent Dispofition Such a Repentance then which God will accept must be an entire change of the very frame of the Mind not a slight Sorrow for past sins nor even a bitter Sorrow for them if founded only upon the prospect of the Punishment attending them it proceeds not to change the Habits of the Soul For with such a Sorrow a love of sin may well consist Nor even if this Sorrow should proceed to a careful discharge of Duty for many days together and often break out into ardent Ejaculations of Devotion yet will not this avail unless the Will be firmly setled in Resolutions of continuing the work so well begun and taken off from all Complacency in sin As the Body of Man is not to be accounted sound or healthful although it hath now and then some intervals of Health unless the whole Crasis of it be strong and uncorrupted That every one may judge of himself herein let him propose to himself the greatest Temptation which he knoweth can affect him let him imagine himself secure from being discovered in this World and not being immediately snatcht away to Judgment then let him impartially examine himself whether in those Circumstances he should preferr his Duty before the Pleasure of sin If he be well assured of his Resolution therein he may then hope well of his own Condition But because Men in such Examinations will be partial to themselves let him take a View of his latest Actions in which if he can find any sin committed deliberately after Consideration in cool Blood and the Suggestions of his own Conscience to the contrary then let him assuredly conclude that the state of his Soul is depraved that the whole frame of it must be changed by Repentance before God will extend any Mercy to him and that without such Repentance he is for ever lost For in every such deliberate sin Man really chooseth Damnation to himself In the precedent Deliberation of it his Conscience sets before him Life and Death on the one hand the Command of God the Authority of his Command and the Promises of Obedience on the other hand the Guilt of sin and the Punishments affixed to it If notwithstanding all this his Will be over-ruled by the seeming Pleasures of Vice to embrace it and violate the Laws of God Man doth therein make an absolute Choice of Damnation for himself and doth as truly renounce Obedience to God as if he made an open and formal Abjuration of it A mind therefore so corrupted can by no means be said to be well disposed or
fitted to receive the favour of God Other Sins there are which may consist with such a pious Habit of Soul as is required namely Sins of Ignorance and Infirmity The first sort arise from an Errour of the understanding when a Man offends against his Duty because he knows it not The second Spring from the disorder of the sensual Appetite as when a Man through a sudden fear or Passion is hurried on rashly to commit a Sin before he well considers what he doth before he hath time to reflect upon his Duty or to consider with himself what he should or should not do But a willful Sin or Sin of Presumption ariseth from a corruption of Will and proceeds upon deliberate Choice and advised Resolution I will illustrate all these by Examples St. Paul persecuted the Church of God not knowing it to be his Church although he was all the while ready to receive and obey the Truth as soon as it should be manifested to him This was a Sin of Ignorance for which he saith of himself that he received Mercy because he did it in unbelief If this Ignorance should be affected because Men will not inquire after Truth or will not attend to it the mis-carriages founded upon it cease to be Sins of Ignorance and become willful Sins Of sins of Infirmity St. Peter is a great Example who through a sudden fear of Death or Punishment was betrayed to deny his Master Although he had before fully resolved against it and as soon as the violence of his Fear was over and his Mind returned to the former Freedom as soon as he thought of it He wept bitterly Of willful Sins that of David against Uriah is an eminent Instance where the Sin of Adultery and Murder was after long Deliberation and a Contrivance of many days together at last put in Execution by him And for this it was that Nathan told him he had deserved to die this created to him that lasting and vehement Sorrow which we often find described in the Book of Psalms and this stuck as an indelible blot to his Memory when lesser offences were passed by And therefore it is said of them 1 King XV. 5. That David did that which was right in the sight of the Lord and turned not aside from any thing which he commanded him all the days of his life save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite We read of many Sins of Infirmity which he committed but these were easily pardoned that stuck close to him and could not be wiped off but by a long and strict Repentance and patient enduring of terrible Calamities inflicted on him Other Sins alter not the Constitution of the Soul of Man and if a good Man should suddenly die even in the Commission of one of them we might still hope for Mercy but for a willful Sin no Mercy is to be expected till the habit of the Mind be intirely changed by Repentance This Distinction of Sins may instruct you in the necessary manner of forming your Repentance For Sins of Ignorance and Infirmity a general Repentance may suffice a hearty Sorrow for having offended God in Thought Word or Deed an humble Supplication of Pardon a sincere Resolution of endeavouring to avoid any such for the future But for every willful Sin a particular Repentance is required a sad reflection of the Mind upon it an earnest and continued Supplication for pardon of it a diligent strugling with the corrupt Inclinations of the Will a long Preparation of it by Prayer by Resolution by Meditation by all necessary Acts of Mortification which may intirely change the Bent and remove the Corruptions of it and subdue it to the Obedience of God Then and not till then may the willful Sinner presume of Pardon believe himself reconciled to God and to have escaped the Sentence of Destruction pronounced in the Text which God of his infinite Mercy Grant that by a true and perfect Repentance we may all avoid for the Sake c. The Twelfth SERMON PREACH'D April 21st 1689. At LAMBETH CHAPEL Acts. X. 34 35. Then Peter opened his Mouth and said Of a Truth I perceive that God is no respecter of Persons But in every Nation he that feaâ—…eth him and worketh Righteousness is accepted with him THE Christian Religion being the ultimate ought also to be the most perfect Revelation of the Will of God And that it is so cannot better be discovered than from its most perfect agreement with the Divine Attributes and subservience to them The end of all Religion is first the Honour and Service of God and then the good of Men. The first is promoted by noble conceptions of God and his infinite perfections the latter is inhanced by the extent of it The primary attribute of God in relation to us is his Goverment of the World and the excellency of that consists in the Justice of it This Justice appears most conspicuously in the Universal diffusion of his Benefits in dispensing his Rewards as well as punishments impartially to all Orders and Ranks of Men in excluding none from his Favour but for Reasons common to them with all Mankind This all Men conceive to be a perfection in God and as such it must be an eternal Attribute of the Divine Nature although the influences and effects of it may be more manifest in some Ages and under some dispensations than in others As his Mercy his Goodness and his Power were from all Ages equal and uniform but more openly declared to the World by external Actions relating to us His Justice was always impartial and universal yet clouded in a great measure under the Mosaick Law while the Divine Mercies were in appearance appropriated to a small division of Mankind not clouded indeed directly and by necessary consequence but by reason of the fond Opinion of Men who from the peculiar Favours of God would take occasion to fancy him partial in their behalf and exclude the rest of the World from the participation of the same Happiness This the Jews in a most gross manner did who imagined themselves to be the only Members of Mankind for whom God had any care or respect fancied themselves dear to God not upon the common account of Piety and Obedience but for peculiar Reasons as their descent from Abraham their separation from the rest of the World by Circumcision and other Typical Rites Upon this account they Treated all other Persons as Prophane and Unclean allowed no share of the Divine Favour to them and believed them to be utterly unregarded by God in his Government of the World A prejudice which the Jews had so far imbibed that the Apostles retained it many years even after the descent of the Holy Ghost and would not receive the Gentiles to their Company or Conversation much less to the hopes and fellowship of the same blessed Calling until God by an extraordinary Vision and by the example of Cornelius taught St. Peter not to call any Man
priviledges of Nature and derogates not in the least from the Rules of Justice but forbids Men to be transported by Passion against their Adversaries and not to seek revenge for revenge sake that is it does not forbid to repair the loss of this Injury or prevent the like Injustice to himself or others for the future but to return the Injury and gratifie his anger in creating a like Inconvenience to his Adversary or maintaining an inward Hatred to him And herein the Spirit of Christianity most eminently discovers it self For to preserve the common Rights of Justice is no extraordinary matter for a revealed Religion to perform This the Dictates of Nature the Sense of our own temporal Interest and the Rules of civil Society may effect But to conquer those violent Passions of Hatred Anger and desire of Revenge to retain a quiet and undisturbed Mind amidst provoking Injuries and Affronts to entertain the insults of an Enemy rather with Pity than Resentment and manifest how little we were affected with them by a constant readiness to forgive them These are the proper Characters and most certain Marks of a Soul filled with the Love of God and plac't above the reach of humane things which hath an intire Command of the inferiour Faculties of the Body and doth in earnest pursue the ends of a Divine Religion These chiefly rendred the Life of Christ admirable and extraordinary and will make us the not unworthy Disciples of so great a Master Lastly the Charity of our Lord was correspondent to all the other perfections of his Mind that is most intense and of the highest degree Indeed this seems to have been the darling Vertue of the Blessed Jesus Which he studiously cultivated above all others to promote which all his designs did in some measure tend and his Example most directly lead All the Actions of his Life were almost so many Demonstrations of his Love to Mankind Even his Miracles which were primarily wrought to testifie his Divine Power bore eminent Characters of this Loving kindness being employed in healing the Diseases and supplying the wants of Men upon account of which the Apostle saith That he went about doing good and even his Enemies were forced to confess Mark VII 37. He hath done all things well he maketh both the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak But the highest Testimony of the Charity of our Saviour was his inestimable Love in the Redemption of Mankind his descent from Heaven ignominious Life upon Earth and at last most painful Death upon the Cross to rescue his own Creatures who had rebelled against him from the Power of Satan and the consequences of their own sins Hereby perceive we the love of God because he laid down his life for us 1 John III. 16. And greater love than this hath no man A Love so stupendious that it no less confounds the Apprehension than exceeds the imitation of finite Men. To this the highest Expressions of our Charity are but faint attempts and imperfect shadows A perfect imitation of it is beyond our Capacity and therefore not required but whatsoever is possible to us can be but a mean return to so vast an Obligation St. John therefore makes this easie and natural inference from it Beloved if God so loved us we ought also to love one another 1 John IV. 11. If our Creator loved us his Creatures who had nothing in us worthy his Love but had many ways offended and deserved his extreme Displeasure if he loved us to so wonderful a degree surely we ought to love our Fellow Creatures who have in them no less excellent Perfections than our Selves with all possible affection which however to the utmost of our power is yet infinitely beneath the Love wherewith he loved us Especially since our Saviour chiefly imposed this Condition on us in return of his infinite Kindness and that also in respect to his own Example John XIII 34 35. A new commandment I give unto you That ye love one another as I have loved you that ye also love one another By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye love one another So that in this consisteth the very Life of Christianity without this no man can pretend to be the Disciple of our Lord. By this in the Apostolick times Christians were eminently distinguished from the rest of the world when they devoted all their Possessions to the Offices of Charity and had all things common An excess of Charity which however no longer Practicable than while the number of Disciples continued to be small and was therefore laid aside when the Church became numerous as being neither necessary nor convenient nor even possible yet clearly shews what was the primitive Genius of Christianity how exactly they followed the Footsteps of their Blessed Master and with what fervour of Charity they were indued A fervour which expired not with the disuse of that Apostolick Custom of sharing their Possessions in common but continued to exert it self for some Ages after in all possible Demonstrations of a real Charity Insomuch that the Heathens used to cry out in admiration See how these Galileans love one another If then we be unwilling to be accused of having disobeyed the great Commandment of our Saviour forsaken his Example and intirely lost the genuine Spirit of Christianity we must retreive that admirable Charity which was by him so mightily enjoyned practiced and bequeathed to his Disciples Thus I have considered the Example of our Lord in some of the greater lines and strokes of it and shewn it to have been in all respects the most excellent which could possibly be proposed to Mankind It remains that I urge the imitation of it in some few words First then the imitation of this Divine Example is the Duty of every Christian considered in the Notion of a Disciple which includes not only an Obligation of yielding an intire Obedience to the commands of Christ but also of following his Example as near as possible and that in the first place To assent to and obey the Divine Precepts is properly the Notion of a Believer but of a Disciple to imitate the Actions and Conduct of his Master And therefore the Patriarchs and Jews might well be called Believers in God but not the Disciples of God Precepts only were given to them the Divine Example was not proposed as a Rule unto them The Apostles of our Lord are also by way of eminence called his Disciples Because they were the constant Witnesses and Attendants of his Life who did partake of the same manner of living and were supposed to be his Companions as well in moral as natural Actions Although this Title is not so far appropriated to them as to be denied to us if we take the same care to follow the Example of our Lord and Master as they did We may follow it though at a distance we may pursue it though we cannot attain to it And that
imagine that Pomp and Grandeur Riches and Majesty did more become the Messias than Humility and Affliction Poverty and Contempt being things in their own Nature indifferent and of no Esteem any otherwise than in respect to their conducement to some better end Which in the Messias was the Instruction of the world and the Reconciliation of it by his Death to his offended Father To the latter Contempt Affliction and Suffering were absolutely necessary And to the former highly convenient For since our Lord was not only to reform the Errours of Mankind by his infallible Doctrine and attone for the Sins of it by his Passion but also to deliver to us a most compleat Pattern of Vertue and Holiness in his own Person it was highly expedient that he should suffer all the Calamities incident to humane Nature that so he might teach Men by his own Example patiently to endure Affliction undergo Poverty with Contentment and not be affrighted by the terrour of Death from the performance of their Duty No perswasion was necessary to induce Men to admit Riches Pleasures and Prosperity but to suffer all the Miseries of this World with a generous and unrepining Mind nothing less than the Example of God incarnate could perswade them The manner wherein God chose to reveal the Gospel might perhaps seem strange to the Jews as being different from that wherein the Law was revealed on Mount Sina but far from appearing incredible ought rather to have seemed more congruous to the Nature of God certainly more agreeable to the Nature of the things revealed which being Matters of the highest Bounty and Clemency to Mankind required not to be revealed in such a terrible manner as the Law which was employed rather in denouncing the Judgments than the Mercies of God but in a manner which by the sweetness of it might declare the Clemency and Loving kindness of its Author It can be no other than a bruitish Stupidity not to be raised to the knowledge of God any otherwise than by the Effects of his Power and Justice as if Acts of Mercy did not equally declare his Nature and lay a far greater Obligation of Obedience upon us Or if Acts of Power must be employed as indeed they are highly necessary in the second place they were far more numerous and wonderful in the Revelation of the Gospel than of the Law not so amazing but more Divine not so terrible but more illustrious The Jews indeed were wont to require a Sign as the last Proof of the Christian Faith which since it is apparent that Miracles were frequently wrought by the Apostles in Confirmation of the Faith can be understood of no other than either that great and final Miracle which they vainly expected from the Messias the Restitution of their Nation to its temporal Happiness or performing a Miracle as often as every single Person should desire it for establishing the Truth of Christianity Or else relying more upon Miracles than the Testimony of the ancient Prophecies concerning Christ and never urging their Authority to the Jews without some concomitant Miracle In whethersoever of these Sâ—…nses the Jews were wont obstinately to require a Sign of the Apostles nothing could be more unreasonable or impertinent For would it not be unworthy the Majesty of God to violate the ordinary Course of Nature to gratifie either a false Opinion or a fond Desire The Restitution of Liberty was never promised from the Mâ—…ssias to the Jews and therefore was in vain expected from him The Prophecies were sufficiently clear and needed not the concurrent Testimony of constant Miracles and to gratifie the idle Curiosity of every petulant Humour by working Miracles as often as should be required would be such a trifling Extravagance as would more effectually destroy the Authority of such a Lawgiver than all his Miracles would confirm it Or if a constant uniform Miracle attending the Publication of Christianity would satisfie such Men as surely it ought to do they may discover one in that very Circumstance which they use to inforce their Objection namely that it was Successfully propagated in the World by ignorant and illiterate Persons who could neither impose upon Mankind by the Crafty Artifice of Rhetorick or Insinuation nor delude them by the Authority of their Names a Circumstance which unanswerably argueth a Divine Power and Assistance to have attended the first Preachers of the Gospel and affected the Minds of their Auditors And then what greater Argument can we desire of the Wisdom of God in contriving and using this Method than those illustrious Advantages which it administred to the designed End the Conversion of the World and the Glory of God For not only might the wonderful Success of it in all parts even of the learned World wrought by such weak and contemptible means convince all sober Persons of somewhat more than humane directing the Conduct of it but also this method admirably conduced to secure the Honour of God and destroy the Pride and Ambition of Men who if they had been qualified for such an Office by acquired Learning would have been apt to have ascribed their knowledge of Divine Matters to their own Sagacity not the Gift of God and intitled all the Glory of Success to their own Prudence not the Divine Power and further might have induced Men to have attributed the Success of Christianity to the Sophistry and Insinuation of its Teachers not the Power of that Truth which accompanied it and the Providence of that God who founded it Thus we have answered the Prejudices of the Jews and by shewing the Wisdom of God in employing unlearned Persons defeated a like Objection of the Heathen Philosophers But then what the Jews admitted that Supernatural Revelations were both convenient and necessary to the Salvation of Mankind theseMen deny trusting to the supposed Excellency of their own Learning and imagining themselves able by the sole light of Reason to attain the highest Perfection of spiritual Knowledge herein putting themselves into a worse Condition than those whom they treat with so much Scorn Idiots and Barbarians For these are sensible of the failures of their own Understanding and therefore willingly admit a Remedy whereas those disowning all Disease neglect the Cure of it Surely no great Reason is required to confute these Men. For is it unworthy the Mercy of God to assist the Soul of Man by supernatural Revelations even although it might although not without great Difficulty attain to the knowledge of all things necessary This none will say Or is it unbefitting the Goodness of God to provide for the Instruction of unlearned Persons by Revelation although most learned Men may not want it This cannot be doubted Or if a Revelation must be made could it be done in any more prudent and rational manner than was Christianity This none will affirm So then the extraordinary Revelation of Divine Truths is consistent with the Majesty of God and Reason of Man and the necessity
for many years and yet are as solicitous about the affairs of this World as if we were to continue in it many Ages We own that the duration of this Life is even nothing if compared to the Eternity of the next and yet every trifling pleasure can perswade us to exchange Eternity for this nothing If we review all the reasons why God deferreth the Execution of his Judgments till another Life we shall find abundant cause carefully to prepare our selves to undergo it If God in mercy awaits our repentance even till the last scene of our Life how dreadful may we imagin those punishments to be which he would not inflict till the Sinner had filled up the measure of his Iniquities and by dying impenitent declared himself to be absolutely Incorrigible and worthy to undergo the utmost fury of an enraged God If he rather suffers his Providence and Justice to be traduced in this World than consent to dispose of his Rewards and Punishments according to the erroneous imaginations of Men it is because he hath reserved an unerring Judgment to the last times when he will infallibly return to every one the true Reward of their Actions and discovering the most secret faults of every individual Criminal make their demerits as publick as their punishment If in this Life Punishments cannot be imposed with sufficient severity how rigorous and terrible how much exceeding all the Calamities of this World must be the Torments prepared hereafter If the highest and most admired enjoyments here are not worthy to be conferred as a reward to a Pious Christian we may conclude the joys of Heaven to be inconceivable and ought to be powerfully insluenced by the hopes of them If the Final Judgment of Men was not to be executed upon Earth because inconsistent with the exercise of all more noble and Christian Vertues we may be then convincâ—… how necessary they are to fit us for the Judgment hereafter Lastly if God would not inflict the deserved punishments on Sinners here least he should represent a Hell on Earth and affright even good Men with so dismal a spectacle how dreadful must the Torments of Hell be which may in some measure even make the Spectators miserable Such powerful and forcing Arguments have we to oblige us to a careful practice of our Duty and yet all this can scarce induce us even to a serious consideration of it Neither the certain assurance of Death can move nor the Terrours of Hell affright us nor the Hopes of Heaven allure us nor the dread of future Judgment arrest us and then what if none of all these had been if neither Heaven nor Hell Death or Judgment had attended us If God had not appointed Men once to die and we had been permitted to live Immortal Sinners What Sins should we then have scrupled at what Violence should we not then have committed So that even the Final Decree of Death upon all Men is no small benefit to Mankind and far from being repined at ought to be gratefully received by us At least let us take care to improve the knowledge of this Decree to a real advantage by continually preserving it in our minds opposing it to all Temptations and acting under a constant sense of it So shall we not need to fear the Judgment which shall follow it but shall patiently a wait it boldly encounter it and joyfully receive it which God of his infinite Mercy grant for the sake and merits of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The Eighth SERMON PREACH'D February 10. 1689. At LAMBETH CHAPEL 1 Tim. I. 17. Now unto the King eternal immortal invisible the only wise God be honour and glory for ever and ever Amen THE Consideration of the Divine Attributes is of such excellent use to all Christians and tendeth so highly to beget and preserve true Notions of Religion in us that the Spirit of God hath chosen frequently and upon all occasions to inculcate it in Holy Writ St. Paul in this place breaks out in Admiration of the Divine Mercy to himself which he had described in the foregoing Verses and then returneth Praise and Thanksgiving to him in these words words so admirably framed that they express not only the extreme Gratitude of the Apostle but powerfully intice us also to joyn in the same Doxology to God by representing and briefly enumerating his infinite Perfections upon account of which he deserveth to be adored by us And indeed in this chiefly consists the difference between true and false Religions that in the one right Notions of the Divine Attributes are entertained and Worship founded upon them in the other erroneous and mean Conceptions of the Deity are taken up and religious Adoration paid upon Reasons which will not warrant it Religion is the perfection of Man and therefore ought to be placed upon such Foundations as may secure the Honour of it and convince the Consciences of Men of the necessity and reasonableness of it God hath indeed out of his abundantMercy andLove to Mankind provided many other Arguments whereby we may be induced to Fear him to love him to obey his Commands and yield Submission to him He hath sent his Son into the World to save Sinners as we are told in the 15th verse of this Chapter that the sense of so wonderful a Benefit might engage us to gratitude he sheweth forth his long suffering to them which believe and to them which do both believe and actagreeably to their belief he promiseth everlasting Life as it follows in the next verse The consideration of these matters will indeed strike us with a lively concern we cannot but love the Author of these signal Benefits admire his Goodness and fear to displease him least by his displeasure we forfeit the Reward proposed by him These are indeed powerful Arguments to us to be Religious but yet we find nothing whereon to place the most essential Act of Religion Worship and Adoration we know not how to Form it nor to whom to give it till we proceed to consider the Perfections and Attributes of God till we begin to reflect with the Apostle that he is a King Eternal Immortal Invisible the only wise God and then we cannot but conclude with the Apostle also to him be Honour and Glory for ever and ever Amen The words therefore present us with these two considerations of which I intend to Discourse I. The Reasons why Religious Worship and Adoration ought to be referred and paid to God by us namely because he is our King Eternal Immortal Invisible the only wise God II. The Nature of this Religious Worship to be paid to him to him be Honour and Glory for ever and ever Amen First then the Reasons why Worship and Adoration ought to be paid to God are his Infinite Perfections or Attributes That these belong to God we are taught by the light of Nature it being the very first Notion which all Men conceive of a Deity that he possesseth
Promises of Reward annexed to Repentance because these ought so much the more to affect us by how much the more they concern us The Reward proposed to the Jews was no more than the temporary Possession of a fruitful Countrey to which perhaps some Men would not value their Title that they might gratifie their Lusts. Yet it is recorded as a heinous Aggravation of the impiety of the Jews That they thought scorn of that pleasant land and gave no credence unto his words In the Christian Religion more noble Rewards are proposed Rewards with which nothing in this World can stand in Competition and yet all bestowed upon this single Condition of Repentance which if it be neglected may we not reasonably conclude that the Reward it self is despised How then shall God oblige Men to his Service if this be ineffectual He propofeth eternal Felicity they preferr temporal Satisfaction a Satisfaction so far beneath true Happiness that it carrieth no Contentment along with it and in a short time becometh nauseous He grants this upon easie Conditions and yet Men think it not worth the while to bestow that easie Labour he bestows it upon sinful Men who are thereby his professed Enemies and yet they think not themselves obliged by the Gift of it They harden their Hearts against these powerful Impressions and suffer not themselves to be mollified by the most endearing kindness Men may perhaps imagine that it will never be too late to undertake the Acquisition of this Reward that it may be securely neglected till the last Scene of Life But surely it cannot but be highly unreasonable even to endanger the hopes of so great a Purchase for the sake of any worldly Pleasure which so infinitely transcends all the Satisfaction which this Life can afford Not to say that it is impossible to preserve any true Satisfaction in this Life without a probable assurance of the Fruition of the next Men may for a while stifle the natural Desires and Notions of their Souls and cloud the Dictates of Conscience Yet the Soul cannot but sometimes free it self from this affected Stupidity and being by the Light of Reason assured of its own immortal Nature look forward into the Ages to come and be folicitous of its future State It will then perceive that that future state is an Abyss of time in comparison to this present Life and remember the distinction of Bliss and Misery appointed by God to the departed Souls of good or wicked Men. What a dismal Prospect will it then be to a Soul employed in these Meditations to consider that the distinction of these States is most certain but the Application of either of them to themselves most uncertain unless the hopes of Happiness be secured by a timely Repentance Not to say that that Soul cannot appear before God without extream Astonishment which God by all his glorious Promises could not induce to Repentance and Obedience to his Laws when the Devil could tempt it by petty Lusts and foolish Pleasures to its own destruction If then the Propositions made by God to penitent Christians be infinitely more perswasive than all the Temptations to Sin and Disobedience surely to stand out against them and refuse to embrace them till we can Sin no more is a most foolish and deplorable Obduration Further the impenitent Sinner manifests the hardness of his Heart by contemning the dreadful Punishments denounced by God against him And in this beyond other Arguments consists that execrable Obduration which is charged upon Impenitence And upon this account Pharaoh is chiefly said to have hardned his Heart that when he had felt the most terrible Punishments inflicted upon himself and his Nation and saw others yet more grievous ready to be executed upon him after so many Plagues and Threats employed for his Correction he continued yet obstinate and as it were defied God Or that I may come nearer to my Text The most wicked Aggravation of the Obduration of the Jews in the wilderness was their contempt of the Divine Punishments To them the highest Punishment was a temporal Death And although by natural Reason they might conclude that a Judgment and more impartial Execution attended Sinners in another Life yet that was not revealed to them to whom as no more than temporal Rewards were promised so no other than temporal Punishments were threatned God had given frequent and terrible Instances of his Justice in this kind by destroying the most notorious Delinquents among them by Sword Pestilence Earthquake Fire from Heaven and many other ways yet far from being terrified by these and discouraged from displeasing God when their foolish Desires were not gratified in opposition to the Divine Pleasure they feared not openly to declare their Contempt of his punishments and themselves rather willing to undergo them than submit to his Commands As when they cryed out Numb XIV 2. Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt or would God we had died in this wilderness and more remarkably Numb XX. 3. Would God that we had died when our brethren That is Core Dathan and Abiram died before the Lord. A sober Man might perhaps imagine it impossible to parallel so enormous an Obstinacy did not the daily Experience of Christians confute his Supposition who dare withstand the Threats of eternal Fire and harden their Hearts against any impression from them It may perhaps not be unaccountable that resolute and desperate Persons should despise a temporal Death when not affrighted with any succeeding Judgment but to slight a Punishment extream in its sharpness and perpetual in its Duration is such a hardness of Heart as although acccompanied with no other Crimes might justly deserve to undergo the utmost Extremity of the Punishment For the most wise contrivance of God provided the Torments of Hell not only for the Punishment of the wicked after Death but also for the Correction of all in this Life that by the Fears of them they might be affrighted from the Commission of Sin and even enforced to Repentance if a most stupid Obduration of mind did not intervene To all these Aggravations of impenitence I should be unwilling to add that none of the least or less usual Causes of it is a perfect unbelief of the Revelations Promises or Threats of God all Professors of Christianity being unwilling that the sincerity of their Belief should be called in question did not the Apostle ascribe it to this cause who citing the words of my Text Hebr. III. and exaggerating the Obstinacy of the Jews ascribes it chiefly to their unbelief in the last Verse having before warned all Christians least there be in any of them an evil Heart of unbelief And surely not without reason For it cannot well be conceived that the Belief of these things should consist with a willful continuance in Impenitence that any Man should really believe that there are Rewards and Punishments prepared for Men in another Life both infinite and inexpressible
our constant Duty to watch over them to prevent them and if possible at last wholly to remove them Otherwise if the hopes of obtaining Pardon for them betrays us into a neglect or perhaps a voluntary Admission of them they lose their Plea of Infirmity and become Sins of Presumption Sins of a much deeper Contagion To cure therefore and prevent even thofe Sins which alone can take place in a true and real Christian we must endeavour by an assiduous diligence and circumspect Carriage to form Habits of Vertue and Piety For this end the Observation of Lent was wisely instituted by the Church wherein by a more than ordinary vigilance over our Actions by frequent Meditation Prayer and other pious Exercises and if it were necessary by Bodily Austerities and Mortifications also we might seek Remedies to the diseases of our Soul and begin to form Habits of Holiness and Sobriety which should not expire with the Solemnity of the holy Season but be continued and improved through the whole year and even the whole Course of our Lives If then we be indeed convinced that Repentance is a necessary Duty that it ought to be undertaken upon the first Conviction and that to deferr it after That is an unpardonable Obduration let us from this moment resolve to do it let us confirm our Resolutions by a more than ordinary vigilance and attention in this Holy Season and so by making these pious Resolutions become Habits continue the happy Effects of them to our Lives end So shall we not fail of that infinite Reward which is annexed to true Repentance and the consequent of it unfeigned Obedience To which Reward God of his infinite Mercy bring us all for the Sake and Merits of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The Tenth SERMON PREACH'D March 16th 1689 90. At LAMBETH CHAPEL Luke XIII 5. Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish IT is an ancient and most prudent Constitution of the Church to set a part solemn Times for the exercise of Repentance and a more serious application to the duties of Religion founded upon the example of our Lord himself who though he committed no Sins whereof to repent yet before he entred upon his Office prepared himself for the execution by it by an extraordinary abstinence for forty days together and continued by the Church in all Ages although the remissness and degeneracy of latter times hath almost defeated the use of it The design of it was that Men who are always willing to put off their Repentance from day to day and contriving reasons of their delay being loth to fix the time of an unwelcom Duty might be obliged by the Constitution of the Church by the example of their fellow Christians and by the admonition of their Guides to enter upon it at this time to apply themselves in a particular manner to search their Consciences enquire into the condition of their Souls discover their Diseases and seek the remedies of them by confessing their sins to God acknowledging the guilt of them begging pardon of God who is offended by them removing them from the Soul introducing contrary habits of Piety and Religion taming the unruly pafsions of the Body by a serious attention to the Commands of God to his precepts to his Promises and his Threats to the deformity and unhappy Consequences of Sin by inuring the mind to Acts of Religion and Devotion by a constant Meditation both of the Duty prescribed and the Arguments enforcing it and if all this be not sufficient to check and overrule the violent motions of the Body to depress them by abstinence and Fasting in a word to subdue the Body to the Government of the Soul and the Soul to the Obedience of God We are indeed always obliged to watch over our Actions to repent of our Sins as soon as we discover them and to strive against them yet it will be necessary to fix some certain times wherein a more severe examination is to be made the state of the Soul to be exactly searched the imperfections and corruptions of it to be discovered a stricter Course of Piety to be undergone whereby it may make deep impressions in the Mind and as it were take Root in it This time the Church hath most wifely determined and not left her Sons to their own direction who might possibly deferr their Repentance till either it were prevented by Death or Sin had taken such deep root that it could not be removed And such was the excellent discipline of the Church herein in former Ages so Solemn and Devout their Observation of Lent I mean not in abstaining from this or that sort of Meat for that even when rightly used is but â—…ubservient to the great Design but in the Forming an Exercise of a strict Repentance of a more careful Obedience and more constant Devotion that it could not fail to have great effect upon the Minds of all sorts of Christians They were not content to exercise in secret all theâ—…e Acts of Mortification for so I call whatsoever tends to destroy Sin in Man which is the true notion of mortification but did it in publick in the Face of the whole Church and in many external Acts of Life Those who had committed more hainous sins voluntarily underwent a publick Penance fequestred themselves from the â—…ank of the Faithful placed themselves in a particular part of the Church appointed for the Penitents there publickly confessed their sins implored the mercy of God and desired the Intercession of the whole Church for them Not only those but all other Christians who were not conscious to themselves of any flagrant Crimes still applyed themselves during all that holy Season to an extraordinary exercise of all the Acts of Religion denied themselves many of the ordinary and Innocent pleasures of Life that they might without interruption attend to the forming of a true Repentance to the mortifying of their Lusts and to the improving of their good Resolutions into habits of Piety I mean not that they macerated themselves with Hair-cloth or Whippings or unreasonable Fastings those were the Follies of latter and more Ignorant Ages but they afflicted their Souls with the continual thoughts of having offended God by their Sins they endeavoured to Form a hatred of sin by taking the shame of it upon themselves in a publick confession they daily implored the Mercy of God with all the ardent expressions and real signs of Repentance which Pious Souls could invent They fitted themselves for the receiving of that Mercy by raising and fixing steady Notions and Resolutions of their Duty to God and their obligation to all the Precepts of Religion by generous Acts of Charity by a vigilant strugling with all sinful Motions and even rooting them out by maceration if no other means could prevail that so they might present themselves pure and unspotted to their Lord at the ensuing solemnity of Easter when whosoever did not Communicate and had not prepared himself
not the part of a Rational Being considers not what distinguisheth him from a Beast the existence of his Soul after death and the capacity of receiving Rewards or Punishments from his Supreme Judge after the dissolution of the Body Beasts are capable of a good or bad Condition while Life is continued to them and if a Man imagins that nothing attends him beyond this Life he doth therein compare or level him-self with the Beasts that perish Yet perhaps it may be imagined that this mistake was pardonable in the Jews to whom our Saviour spoke whose Religion taught them not to expect any Rewards or Punishments beyond the extent of this Life whose Arguments of Obedience were an Earthly Canaan a fruitful Land a long Life and abundance of Temporal Blessings their punishments no other than the loss of these by Captivity Oppression Calamities or sudden Death Their Fathers received no other promises their Law taught no other and therefore it was but natural for them to believe that signal Calamities were the Indications of the Divine displeasure arising from Sin and freedom from Misfortunes Arguments of the continuance of the Divine Favour to particular Persons Thus the Apostles seeing a blind Man presently asked their Lord whether for his own sin or for the sin of his Parents that Calamity was inflicted on him And in this Chapter the Jews not partaking with the Galileans in their miserable end immediately concluded that neither had they partaken with them in the guilt which they supposed drew that end upon them Yet notwithstanding all this the Error of the Jews was not excusable Their Religion did not warrant them to make any such conclusions which proposed indeed no other than Temporal Rewards or Punishents to them yet did not Teach that no other were to be expected by them The cause of their mistake was that what God had only promised to the whole Nation of the Jews together they applyed to all the Members of it in particular He engaged by his promise to bestow upon that Nation a Fruitful Land to continue the possession of it to them while his Worship and Obedience to his Laws was publickly and generally maintained to make them fruitful to multiply them and bless them by giving them Fruitful Seasons secure Peace or at least Victory over the disturbers of their Peace He threatned to deprive them of their Possessions to afflict thém with the Sword and Pestilence to deliver them up to the Will of their Enemies and deny the kind influences of Heaven to them if they sorsook his Worship or generally violated his Laws In this general Prosperity and Calamity of the whole Nation the promised Rewards or threatned Punishments of every particular Man were included and no otherwise God no where promiseth to them that he would by an extraordinary interposition preserve the Possessions the Peace and Plenty of a few good Men when the prevailing and almost Universal Apostacy of the Nation did require a general Punishment In that case those few good Men were to share in the common Calamity and retain no advantage beyond the others besides the peace of their own Conscience and the hopes of receiving from God hereafter a Reward of their Obedience Neither did he threaten that he would extraordinarily punish the wickedness of a few Men when the generality of the Nation should continue in Obedience to him They shared in the common Benefits of their Nation and for the punishment of their particular Sins were reserved to a future Judgment We find indeed in the History of the Old Testament that God did oft-times rescue good Men from a general Calamity as Caleb and Josh'ua in the Wilderness Jeremy in the Captivity of Babylon and many others On the other side he sometimes inflicted exemplary punishments upon private Sinners while the whole Body of the Nation preserved intire their Obedience and therefore still enjoyed their Peace as in the case of Achan and Uzziah But these are to be esteemed so many extraordinary Acts of Providence exercised for the vindication of his Justice and Government not in vertue of the Covenant which he made with that People which we find chiefly in the Book of Deuteronomy and therein can discover no other than general threats or promises made not to particular Persons but to the whole Nation taken in Society That the Covenant of God included no more is manisest from the practice of following Times For far be it from us to imagine that God violated his Covenant yet we find that in after Ages the Good were involved in the general Calamities of the Nation and the Bad often escaped unpunished in this World An undeniable proof that the contrary practice was never any part of the Covenant made by God with that People Thus Mordecai and Daniel were carried away in the Captivity thus Jeroboam and Ahab reigned securely The Psalmist complains that the Wicked enjoyed all the satisfactions of Life and came in no misfortunes like other Men while the Good were Persecuted Afflicted and Killed all Day long Whereas if God had promised external Happiness to every good Man of that Church in particular or denounced visible Punishments upon the hainous Sins of every single Sinner it is no more possible any such Conduct should have followed than that God should lye It was therefore no other than a falsé perswasion of the Jews that such sensible Rewards or Punishments were entailed upon every one of them in particular That terrible Calamities were certain Arguments of every hainous Crimes though unknown to Men and that eminent prosperity was a certain mark of the Favour of God was the Opinion of the Jews whom our Saviour here opposeth and before them of the Friends of Job whose Arguments do all proceed upon this Principle and which occasioned all those querulous expostulations with God in the Book of Psalms concerning the prosperity of the Wicked and the afflictions of the Pious Rather the Jews ought to have concluded that since God distinguished not always the Good and Bad by visible Marks of his Favour or Disfavour since he suffered his Prophets and Devout Worshippers to be Stoned to be Sawn asunder to Wander about in misery and suffer all those afflictions which the Author to the Hebrews Elegantly describeth since he permitted the most notorious Sinners to go on still in their wickedness to live in Plenty and dye in Peace themselves had grosly mistaken the Intent of his Promise and the Nature of his Covenant and that a visible Impunity in this Life was no more an Argument of their own Innocence than it was of those prosperous Sinners at whose continued Happiness they murmured and whose impiety at the same time they could not deny A right Notion concerning the manner of the Divine Conduct and distribution of Justice under the Jewish dispensation will contribute much to remove a like prejudice from our Minds with what they entertained For if under the Jewish Law which confined it self wholly
Old Law shall be saved through Faith and the Merits of a Crucified Saviour even as we are but what provision shall be made for the far greatest part of Mankind who never heard of this Mystery nor knew any revealed Religion For as for those who have rejected the Gospel when preached and sufficiently proposed to them no Doubt can remain concerning them But for the rest who know not the Gospel nor have heard of Christ hath God concluded them in an Universal Sentence of Damnation as some Men Dogmatically pronounce This seemed so hard and unjust to the Ancient Christians that rather than conceive such partiality to be in God they framed to themselves diverse Erroneous Systems whereby Salvation might be rendred equally possible to all Men. Some fancied that Christ descended into Hell on purpose to Preach the Gospel to all departed Souls Imprisoned there that so he might carry with him into the Regions of Bliss all those who embraced it and leave in deserved Torments those who rejected it Others Taught that the Souls of all Men should be so often reunited to the Body and live again until the Gospel fhould be in order proposed and Preached to all the Sons of Adam that so their Salvation or Damnation consequent to their belief or disbelief of it might be an Act of their own deliberate choice Some believed a particular place should be appointed to receive them after Death where they should enjoy a State of Indolence And not a few of the most Learned of them Taught that they might be saved for that whatsoever they did rationally and in compliance to the Law of Nature they did it by a Reason Light and Instinct derived from Christ himself who is the Eternal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Word and Wisdom of the Father It becomes not us indeed to dive too curiously into the secrets of Heaven or to pretend to discover what is hidden from us much less to propose such unwarrantable Opinions which have no certain foundation in the Word of God However it will be neither unlawful nor unuseful to carry our inquiries in this matter as far as Reason and Scripture and modesty will permit us whereby we may satisfie our selves of the impartial conduct of God and vindicate his Honour in the World Those who include all the Gentiles without distinction in an universal Sentence of condemnation have certainly no warrant from the Word of God and it is at least more charitable to err on the other hand If by Gentiles we understand all those who being unacquainted with any supernatural Revelations acted only by direction of the Law of Nature almost all the Patriarchs before and after the Flood till the days of Abraham will come under that denomination and surely none will deny the hopes of Salvation to them But if we mean by thâ—… Gentiles those who lived as without God in the World who obeyed not the Law of Nature but delivered themselves up to Idolatry and Immoral Sins under which notion the Name of Gentiles is almost every where to be understood in the New Testament we cannot doubt of the Justice of God in giving Sentence of Condemnation on them and the certainty of the execution of it The doubt then remaineth only concerning those Gentiles who lived since the Covenant made with Abraham and performed the Law of Nature as far as Human Infirmity would permit who studiously observed the precepts of Piety Temperance and Justice who cultivated all the Faculties of their Soul with all Noble Perfections and above all made a right use of their free will who yeilded not to the common corruptions of Idolatry and Immorality but yet never received the knowledge of any divine Revelation nor heard of the Name of Christ at least heard it not sufficiently proposed to them That there have been such brave Persons in the World it cannot be denied and that God cannot be unjust to them we are no less assured although we know not certainly his Decrees in relation to them Only let us take care of affixing such Decrees to him as cannot be accused from partiality It must be confessed that all Men do in strict Justice deserve Damnation in as much as all have sinned and come short of their Duty But since God hath pleased to pardon the infirmity of Men his Holiness requireth him to grant his pardon by such general Rules as all may if they will partake of it It must also be acknowledged that all are saved by the merits of Christ and that there is no other Name under Heaven by which any one can be saved that we â—…all obtain salvation and remission of sins by the application of his merits to us But then how shall those lay hold of his Merits and apply them to their selves by Faith who knew not of them or must they be condemned merely for involuntary Ignorance Surely if we consider the State of the Jews before the coming of Christ we all believe and confess that they shall be saved through the merits of Christ and yet they had no distinct knowledge of him They knew indeed and believed that a Glorious Messias should be given to them who should redeem them and make them happy but as for the Sacrifice of the Cross by which the eternal Redemption of Mankind was chiefly wrought and remission obtained for sins they knew little of it and even the Apostles understood it not after the performance of it until our Lord rising from the Dead and pouring the Holy Ghost upon them instructed them in the mystery of it So that a distinct knowledge of the Redemption wrought by our Saviour seems not in all absolutely necessary to the application of his Merits Besides since it is by all confessed that the Gentiles before the Covenant made with Abraham were by the observation of the Law of Nature capable of Salvation it cannot well be imagined how a particular Covenant and that a Covenant of Temporal Blessings only made with Abraham should exclude them from any further hope especially since the observation of Moral vertues is even in all revealed Religions that which chiefly recommends us to the Favour of God and is the most necessary condition of Salvation If then as St. Paul saith Rom. II. 14. The Gentiles which have not the Law that is not any revealed Law do by nature the things containÄ•d in the Law exercise the same Divine Vertues which are enjoyned and reinforced in revealed Religions these having not the Law are a Law unto themselves And then we may charitably conclude with the Apostle also Glory Honour and Peace to every Man that worketh good to the Jew first and also to the Gentile For there is no respect of Persons with God ver 10 11. After all it must be confessed that we are wholly in the dark in this matter And what I have said is not so much to perswade you that the Gentiles may be saved for that we have no certain warrant to determine as
hope by mortifying and changing our former vicious Course of Life into a new and Heavenly Life or by conceiving firm hopes and assurance of the Divine Promises concerning our own Resurrection by the Example of our Lords Resurrection The former manner indeed is purely Allegorical but an Allegory as well most natural in its self as most familiar to the Apostle who treats of it often and largely and inculcates it in almost all his Epistles As in the Chapter preceding my Text he tells the Colossians Col. II. 12 20. Ye are buried with him in Baptism wherein also ye are risen with him and ye are dead with Christ from the Rudiments of the world Galat. II. 20. I am Crucified with Christ. Philip. III. 10. That I may know him and the power of his Resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his Death 2 Cor. IV. 10. Alwayâ—… bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body But more especially in the III. and IVth Chapters of 1 Pet. and Rom. VI. this Conformity between our Lord and us in dying and rising again is at large explained We were baptized into his death therefore we are buried with him by Baptism into death that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the Glory of the Father even so we also should walk in newness of life c. These Allegorical Conclusions were not the mere products of Fancy but the designs of the Divine Wisdom which so admirably contrived the Christian Religion that all the Actions of our Saviours Life tend no less to our Instruction than his Precepts and could not but have exceeding influence upon the Minds of Christians whose thoughts were then and ought now to be chiefly employed about our Saviours Resurrection They were excellently fitted to the Genius of the World at that time when both Heathen Philosophers and Jewish Doctors employed themselves almost wholly in Allegorical Explications of Natural or Divine Truths and were more particularly adapted to the Religion of the Jews and the Writings of the Old Testament concerning the Messias consisting in Types shadows and symbolical Representations of things to come And lastly least we should conceive any unreasonable prejudice against these Allegorical inferences besides that they are recommended by the Authority of the Divine Pen-man the present Allegory drawn from our Saviours Resurrection doth most excellently describe to us the Nature and Duties of our spiritual Regeneration as it will appear if we consider it more fully The design of the Christian Religion was to recover Mankind from his lost Condition free him from the Subjection of the Devil reform his Life and fit him for the Reception of those infinite Benefits which God had designed for him in another Life To this end a total Desertion of that corrupted state of Life wherein he was before engaged was absolutely necessary As well in the Nature of the thing it being wholly impossible that a vicious Soul should receive that Reward as by the Appointment of God who had determined not to grant the Reward on any other Condition And therefore our Saviour had assured his Followers That unless a man be born again he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven It was required that every one should relinquish all those temporal Enjoyments and Satisfactions which were contrary either to right Reason or the express Command of God and because the greatest part of Mankind placed the whole Satisfaction of their Life in these unlawful Enjoyments whoever renounced the use of them might well be said to die unto the world And this was it which all Christians were obliged to Promise at their Baptism solemnly to renounce the World the Flesh and the Devil and give themselves wholly to a new Life instituted by God which was excellently represented in the antient Form of Baptism to which the Apostle in all the places before mentioned referrs wherein the Person baptized was wholly immerged in the water so that the Immersion represented his Resolution of dying to the World and imitation of our Lord who was by Death taken from the World and then his Emersion presently following signified his entrance into a new state of Life and the Resurrection of our Saviour reviving and appearing after Death It is not sufficient therefore to mortifie one single Lust or to give up this or that sinful Affection in exchange for eternal Rewards and retain the rest This is not to die in imitation of our Saviour whose Soul was fully separated from his Body and continued in a separate state till the Resurrection He satisfied not himself to have endured Scourgings Reproaches and Buffettings he descended not from the Cross after he had endured most bitter Torments till he had completed his Sufferings by Death and laid down his Life as a Sacrifice to God which it could not be till it were destroyed It being the necessary Condition of all Sacrifices to be annihilated If then we be really baptized into his Death if we resolve to offer up our selves a Sacrifice to God we must yield up all our Pretences to the Pleasures of this World and enjoy no more of them than God permitteth to us we must absolutely free our selves from the Slavery of Sin and Satan and devote our selves intirely to the Divine Pleasure To die unto the World supposeth a full Conviction that the true Interest of a Christian is not placed on Earth and that his great Concern here is only to improve his short term of Life to the Acquisition of a more excellent and more durable Happiness hereafter From this perswasion it will easily follow that different Interests from this are not to be pursued in this Life which ought to be no other than a Preparation for a better And herein a Christian truly imitates the Death of his Lord and Saviour who best of all manifested that his Kingdom was not of this world by laying down his Life willingly that his Designs were far from founding an Empire and procuring to himself worldly Advantages when he submitted to undergo the Pains of Death Thereby teaching us that we are not truly Crucified with him until we as absolutely forsake all Desires and Inclinaons to our former sinful Life as if we were deprived of Life it self that we retain not the least Claim or Title to our former vicious Satisfactions but by a total relinquishing of them even put it out of our Power to recal and re-establish them In the next place if we view the dreadful Horrour and Anxiety under which our Saviour laboured while he bore the Sins of Mankind upon the Cross if we reflect on the Melancholy state of the Church his ignominious Condition and the Triumphs of the infernal Powers while he was detained in the Grave we may perceive the desperate and deplorable State of Man while yet detained in Sin labouring under the just Displeasure of an angry God
and not broke loose from the Chains and Dominion of the Devil The state of our Lord and his Church were indeed at that time in the highest confusion without any Consolation or apparent possibility of Recovery Yet much greater is the Misery of an unrepentant Sinner who suffers all this thro' his own Fault and until he be regenerate seeth no approaching Delivery From all these Calamities our Saviour and his Church were rescued by his glorious Resurrection And from all these Miseries is unhappy Man delivered by his Regeneration Our Lord by his Resurrection vindicated his Honour from the Blasphemies of Jews and Gentiles who had argued against his Divinity from the seeming Imperfections of his Sufferings overthrew the design of wicked Spirits endeavouring to defeat the Success of his Mission by the Ignominy of the Cross and delivered his Church from that Disgrace and Despair which it had by his Death incurred Such were the Benefits and Glories of this days Resurrection and no less are the Advantages of rising with Christ from Sin unto a new Life which removeth that Stain and Imperfection introduced into our Nature by Sin restores it to that primitive Glory which it obtained in the State of Innocence rescueth us from the Slavery of the Devil repairs the Honour and Integrity of our Souls and renders us infinitely Happy by making us Partakers of the Divine Favour For this was none of the least Arguments which inhanced the Glory os Christ's Resurrection that God by interposing in so extraordinary a manner in his behalf evidently manifested how dear he was unto him whom he would not leave in Hell in a state of Disgrace nor suffer to see corruption This raised him beyond the Degree of all mortal and corruptible Men and placed him in such an height of Glory as cannot be resembled by any thing but the Regeneration of a Christian wherein God interposeth by his Power not so visibly indeed but no less miraculously converting assisting and confirming him by his Grace without which this admirable Change cannot be effected A Change which however in an inferiour Degree declares the Power and the Love of God who produceth Habits of the most exalted Vertue in a Soul before overwhelmed with Sin and Wickedness For Resurrection denotes not only a Deliverance from the Calamities of Death and Corruption but also an enabling any one to renew an active Course of Life Our Lord was not barely content to rescue his Body from the Grave and the insults of his Enemies but he carried it with him triumphantly into Heaven and there sitting at the right hand of God employeth it in Conjunction with his Divine Nature to mediate continually the Redemption of Man If then we be risen with Christ we must manifest the truth of our Resurrection by vital Actions proper to a new and spiritual Life which are the Exercise of all spiritual Vertues and a strict Conformity to the Laws of that new Society with Heaven wherein we are engaged Farther a bare recovery of Life deserveth not the Title of a Resurrection for then the intermediate Death would have been of no advantage at least it reacheth not the illustrious Example of our Lord's Resurrection who after that was endued with a farr more glorious State than before his Death Before his Crucifixion he was subject to all the Infirmities of humane Nature Sin only excepted after his Resurrection exempted from them all-Before his Passion subject to change and decay after his Resurrection instated in an eternal and immutable Possession of Glory For as St. Paul amplifies this very matter Rom. VI. 9. Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more Death hath no more Dominion over him His Life preceding and following his Resurrection were infinitely different that contemptible and mean this glorious and terrible that common with the rest of Mankind this exalted above all the Infirmities of humane Nature And this is the Reason why our Saviour conversed not openly among the Jews after his Resurrection as he had done before from that time a new and different State of Life was to commence never any more to be altered or relinquished Whence we are taught that to come up to the Resurrection of our Lord and Master and express it nearly in our Lives we ought to exceed what is required of us in a Natural State and improve our Obedience farther than was exacted of us in a State wherein no more than temporary Rewards were promised at least that after our Entrance into a new Life after our Profession of Christianity we walk invariably whereunto we have attained that we suffer not our selves to relapse into our former State which we relinquished bydying with Christ and deprive our selves of the Benefit of partaking in his Resurrection by a similitude in this Life which might otherwise secure to us a nearer imitation of him by a glorious Resurrection in the next Of this the Resurrection of our Lord giveth us the greatest assurance Without that signal Confirmation of the truth of the Divine Promises Men would have been prone to dis-believe them It seemed a matter incredible both to Jews and Gentiles that God should after many Ages recollect the scattered parts of a dead Body and reuniting them into their former Frame once more animate them with a living Soul This to some seemed impossible to others improbable But both were refuted by the Example of our Lord's Resurrection which was to that purpose always urged by the Apostles in their Preaching and is employed by St. Paul as the chief Argument against the incredulity of the Corinthians in the 1 Epist. XV. Chapter God had promised as well to raise up Mankind at the last day as to raise up his Son on the Third day and the certain Completion of this latter Promise secured the Belief of the former there being no more effectual Argument to perswade Men to rely upon the Promise of future Benefits than to demonstrate to them how all preceding Promises were infallibly performed And thus in some sense all Mankind may be said to rise with Christ inasmuch as Christ being risen from the dead is become the first fruits of them that slept 1 Cor. XV. 20. That as the whole Mass is sanctified by the Dedication of the first Fruits so all Mankind received an earnest of the Divine Promises concerning their Resurrection in the Person of Christ. But then in a more particular and proper manner all faithful Christians may be said to rise with Christ. There is a Resurrection to Death as well as Life a terrible as well as a desireable Resurrection To rise therefore with Christ is the happy Resurrection and That as St. Peter tells us 1 Epist. I. 4. is to rise to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away reserved in Heaven for us That this will be the Reward of all good and pious Christians the Resurrection of their Lord and Master is sufficient assurance to them To such Christ is a Head