last Day for where the Spirit it self is not its Operations cannot be expected 'T is true indeed that Sinners and Infidels shall rise again as S t Paul says Acts 24.15 There shall be a Resurrection of the Dead both of the Just and Vnjust Those that crucified Christ in the days of his Flesh and those that crucifie him by their Wicked Lives now in his Glory shall rise no less than True Believers than his holy Apostles and Martyrs But how and to what Resurrection shall they rise Even to such a Resurrection as is no other than a Second and Worse Death a Death not of Extinction or annihilation but a Death of Eternal Duration in Torment Non-Existence being not the State of the Second Death but Endless and Insupportable Misery insomuch that they shall wish that the Grave had for ever swallowed them up that as they liv'd like the Beasts that perish so they had also dyed like them without the Expectation of any After-Being So that the Resurrection of the Wicked is but an Aequivocal Resurrection as the lifting up of the Head of Pharaoh's Baker on the Gallows and the hanging Haman fifty Cubits high were but Aequivocal Advancements The Bodies of the Saints that rose after the Passion dy'd again the same Death but those that shall rise at the Last Day not having the Spirit shall dye again not the same Death that would be a Happiness but a Death that shall have no End and the Miseries of which we can no more describe than we can the Joys of Eternal Life but we must suffer a Change and be endued with new Powers and Faculties before we can support the Bliss of the one or the Torments of the other The second Property of an Inhabitant or Dweller in a House is to Command and Rule 'T is the Saying of every man to those that withstand the Exercise of their just Authority or but their Civility Give me leave to Command in my own House The Spirit of God must Rule and Command where it dwells we must not only give it House-room but Dominion look upon him as a Tenant but revere as our Land-Lord resign our Actions Wills Affections the Whole Man to his Dispose and Guidance Faith invites the Holy Ghost but Obedience and Submission to his Gracious Motions perfumes his Habitation and makes him delight to stay in it The Spirit of Love Meekness Purity and Holiness will not reside but where these and the like Vertues bear the Sway. Let the Word of Christ says S t Paul dwell in you Richly in all Wisdom So let the Spirit of God dwell in you Richly in all Wisdom it will not Cohabit with the Sons of Men unless it be Richly i. e. in the Abundance of its own Divine Graces and Operations If we will have the Spirit of God quicken our Mortal Bodies hereafter we must suffer him to quicken our Souls in this Life if we hope to reign by his Power in the World to come we must submit to his Dominion in this present World The third Property is Residence and Mansion our Houses are called our Manours and Places i. e. the Places where we ordinarily abide and where the Law presumes we are to be found so that if a Writ be delivered to any of the Houshold or but fastned to the Ring of the Door 't is counted the same thing as if given into our hands Thus our Hearts must be the Holy Spirit 's Manour or Place for what David says of God's constant Abode in his Temple on Mount Sion This is the Hill which God delights to dwell in yea the Lord will dwell in it for ever the like must be said of the constant Abode of the Holy Spirit in our Hearts This is the Habitation of the Holy Spirit and if we grieve him not nor drive him away by our Sins he will delight to dwell in us for ever When we were devoted to God in Baptism we devolved and made-over to his Holy Spirit an Estate in our Hearts even the Whole Term we had to live in this World and if we make good this Grant or Demise he will never abandon his Tenements till he has raised them up to Eternal Glory The Reason that a Great Schole-Man gives Why God punishes the Sins of Men which were but Temporal with an Eternity of Torments is Quia peccaverunt in suo aeterno because they sinn'd out all the Eternity they had i. e. all the Time God allowed them in this World and had he continued their Lives to the End of all Ages they would have continued still the same Wicked Persons The like Reason may be given for God's rewarding the Temporal Obedience of the Righteous with Eternal Glory Quia obedientes fuerunt in suo aeterno because they were Obedient all that little Eternity he allowed them in this World and would have persever'd in their Obedience if he had drawn out their Lives to the last Period of Time Abiding and Persevering in Righteousness is that which will give us Immortality if we give up the Possession of our Souls to the Dispose and Conduct of the Blessed Spirit the Whole Little Aeternum we have in this World we shall certainly obtain an Eternity that shall have no end in the next And thus I have shew'd the Manner of the Spirit 's Dwelling in every Christian and they that pretend to his In-dwelling without these Properties boast of an In-mate which they have not and as they want this Divine Guest so they will want the Blessed Effects and Consequence of his inhabiting in them the quickning of their Mortal Bodies at the last Day to Glory Which is the second thing I propos'd to explain The Effect or Consequence of the Spirit 's dwelling in us If the Spirit dwell in you He that raised up Jesus from the Dead shall quicken your Mortal Bodies The Words suggest two things to our Consideration 1. What shall be done to such Persons in whom the Spirit dwells He shall quicken their Mortal Bodies 2. Who shall be the Author to effect or bring this to pass He that raised up Jesus from the Dead 1. What shall be done to such Persons in whom the Spirit dwells 'T is said He shall quicken their Mortal Bodies Our Bodies are Mortal three Ways by Natural Death the Dissolution of the Substance of them by Eternal Death which succeeds the Natural that Riddle of a Death which by its Existence is in truth a Life but by the Torments belonging to it may deservedly be called a Death and by Spiritual Death which is the Cause of the other two Now our Mortal Bodies may be quicken'd or reviv'd again to three Lives To a Life of Eternal Duration to a Life of Eternal Joy and to a Spiritual Life or a Life of Grace which is the Cause in us of the other two Lives Some understand these Words shall quicken our mortal bodies only of Spiritual Proselytism of the raising us from the Death of Sin and
it being rarely seen that a Good Understanding goes along with a Great Estate that the same Person should be born both to much Wealth and to much Wit my Text informs men how to reconcile these together how the Rich having the advantage of Wealth may have also the advantage of Wisdom how with their Transitory things they may purchase things Eternal nay and which is yet a higher Strain of Wisdom how being but Stewards of the Riches they possess they may make after the example of one of the craftiest Dealers in this World and best practis'd in the Double ways of Cozenage the gainful Purchace of Heaven at anothers Cost and do this Innocently as he did it Fraudulently Lastly Men are taught how to remove the Difficulty and almost Impossibility of a Rich man's entering into the Kingdom of Heaven how to make its Narrow Passage which is as the Eye of a Needle to a Camel as wide as the Gate of a City or the Royal Way leading to it A Lecture which undoubtedly must be very acceptable to Great and Rich men instructing them how to possess the Good Things of this World without forfeiting those of the next how to join Celestial Joys to Earthly Felicity immortal Glory to Secular Prosperity Again which can be no less grateful to the Penurious and Covetous who love to enjoy their Wealth after they have parted with it to have it their Friend when they can hold it no longer their Servant who desire to dwell for ever if it were possible with their beloved Gold to cohabit with it in the next Life as they brooded over it in this my Text comports and complies with all these Desires Make to your selves Friends of the Mammon of Vnrighteousness that when ye fail they may receive you into Everlasting Habitations The Words offer these two things in general to our Consideration I. The Necessity of our Faâ—ling in these Habitations When ye fail II. The Policy taught us how to procure Admission into Everlasting Habitations when we fail in these and that is By making Friends of the Mammon of Vnrighteousness And without troubling you with any further Division at present I begin with the first of these The Necessity of our failing in these Habitation These Words when ye fail are by some understood two ways by our failing in Duty and our failing in our Being or Dying As the Steward in the Parable fail'd two Ways 1. In his Honesty as at ver 1. he had wasted his Master's Goods And 2 dly In his Office as at ver 2. where his Master says to him Thou may'st be no longer Steward And after the like manner all Men fail more or less in their Fidelity and Justice But all equally and necessarily in their Mortal Being But whether we fail in the one of these Ways or the other whether we come short in our Duty or are cut short in our Lives in both these Failings the Unrighteous Mammon will stand us in stead 1. If we fail in our Justice Eleemosynae sunt instar Justitiae Alms are a kind of Justice and not only to Forgive but also to Give will cover a multitude of Sins So that if we fail viz. in our Integrity we may again be restored by our Charity and when we have wasted and consumed our Graces we may recruite them by exhausting our Purses and in this Shipwrack also casting our Goods overboard may be a Means of our Preservation But though this Sense of the Words has nothing in it contrary to sound Doctrine yet it cannot be that which our Lord points at in them For the Failing here spoken of is supposed to be Inevitable Necessary and Universal when ye fail indefinitely when ye All fail neither can the Words be supposed to allude to the Common Pardonable Failing or Miscarriage of an honest Servant but to the Purloining and Cheating of a Thief which the Steward was and for that cause was turned out of his Office If therefore we say the Failing here is meant of our Duty it must be of our General Total Duty which is Apostasie or else it holds no proportion to the Steward's failing in the Parable and if we do it holds no proportion with the Truth for we must affirm our Lord supposes it Necessary and Inevitable for all Men Universally to be Apostates We must take the Words therefore in the other Sense For Failing in our Being or Mortal Bodies which are often resembled in Scripture to Houses and Tabernacles but I shall instance only in 2. Cor. 5.1 For we know if the Earthly Houses of this Tabernacle were dissolved we have a Building of God a House not made with Hands Eternal in the Heavens There is in the Words the Figure Euphemismus which terms things by more gentle and Favourable Names than properly belong to them Death sounds harsh to those 't is denounced to alleviate therefore the ungratefulness of it 't is render'd Failing But the plain Importance of these Words when ye fail is no other than this When ye Die But now though this be the true Meaning of the Words it may seem to be a Theme less necessary to be insisted on than any other To tell men they must Die Not that the Admonition is not weighty and of the highest Concern but because it is so well known by all and none needs this Information Linquenda domus tellus pavens uxor that our Houses Lands and tender Relations must be left by us that nothing which is either dear to us or we dear unto can exempt us from the Law of Death is News to no man all men of what Sort and Condition soever can assume Saint Paul's scio We Know that this Earthly Tabernacle shall be dissolved The Ignorant see it daily demonstrated in the Mortality of other men and the Infirmities they find in themselves the Learned yet further by Philosophy and Reason which tell them That their Bodies being made up of a Mass of contrary Humours continually jarring and fighting with one another the Victory on either side must certainly be the Destruction of the Subject in which they are contained Divinity adds to these a third Demonstration teaching men that there is a Law of Death in their Members not that which I but now spoke of a Natural Law of Mortality but a Spiritual Law of Sin and consequently of Death which Law had its Sanction from God 's own Mouth Gen. 2. In the hour thou eatest thou shalt dye This present World is but a Nursery or Seminary to another in which nothing is to be seen more common than the transplanting of Men from this to that Or it may be likened to a Tree that has at the same time upon it some Fruit decaying some ripe and some blooming the one continually succeeding and thrusting off the other till the Tree it self at last fails as not being design'd to stand for ever All Men I say are of sufficient Learning to preach such Lectures as
necessarily be a Consequence of his by the very Law as I may say of the Body or the Inseparable Conjunction of the Limbs to one another for it is not possible that the Head should be quickened and the Body mortified that the Head should be raised to Life and crowned with Glory and the Members remain in Death and Dishonour And 't is on this account that Christ is said To be the First-fruit of those that Sleep and not only in regard that none went before him but the First-fruit in relation to them that were to follow after him The First-fruits in the Law were Part of the Fruits of the Season one Sheaf of the Harvest which being lift-up and consecrated to God in the Name of the rest sanctified the Whole Crop So Christ being lift up as the First-fruit of the Dead consecrated and sanctified the Whole Harvest of the Dead And as Saint John says of every true Believer in point of Impeccability He cannot Sin because the Seed of God abideth in him i. e. none can be a Child of God's and a customary Sinner for these are irreconcileable So we may affirm with unspeakable Comfort in the point of our Immortality A true Believer cannot be held in Death because God's Seed abideth in him i. e. Death and a Seed or Principle of Immortality are inconsistent with one another And thus we see we have not only Matter of Congratulation for Christ's Victory over Death and the Grave but the highest Cause of Jubilee and Rejoycing for our own Deliverance from this heavy Curse and Punishment of Sin As Sin subjected us to the Dominion of Death the Spirit of Sanctification breaks the Bonds of the Tyrant asunder and enables us to conquer this Conquerour of Mankind as Disobedience shut the Gates of Heaven against us Obedience sets them open again Holiness of Life in the Faith of Christ in this World is the Ticket whereby we receive Happiness and Immortality in that to come The Young Phoenix is said to spring out of the perfum'd Ashes and Reliques of the Old but though this be never so fabulous I am sure we shall be renewed and quickned to Eternal Life from the perfum'd Reliques of a Holy Life the remaining Good Works and Graces the Spirit of God wrought in us which as S t John says can never dye but will follow us into the other World If therefore we give our selves up to be led and governed by the Spirit of Christ in this Life conform our selves in all things to his Divine Will if the Spirit of Christ conducts us safely to use the Psalmist's Expression through Fire and Water i. e. through the Sharper Tryals of Afflictions and the Softer Allurements and Temptations of the Flesh and the World he will carry us also safe through the Regions of Death and the Grave pass us indemnified by the Gates of Hell and neither the Malice of Devils the Weight of our Tomb-Stone the Load of our Flesh or the yet greater Load of our Infirmities shall hinder but our Bodies shall be raised and so winged that they shall overtake their Souls and be joined to them that took their Flight so long a time before them and both of them together shall be transported in Triumph to Heaven and crown'd with Immortality and Glory the Assurance and Pledge of which Christ has given us this Day in his own Resurrection To God the Father Son and Holy Ghost be ascribed all Honour Glory Worship and Thanksgiving this Day forth and for evermore Amen The Seventh Sermon PSALM ii 6 Yet have I set my King upon my holy Hill of Sion WIsdome does not only do her Works well but perceives that she does so delights in their Beauty exults in remembrance of the master'd difficulty and triumphs over the conquer'd Opposition Thus God stood-off as 't were from his great work of the Creation when he had finish'd it applauded and bless'd it prided himself as I may say in his noble performance in that he had brought Light out of Darkness Order out of Chaos a World out of nothing In the like manner when he had here compos'd the Distractions and Confusions both in the Church and State of Israel by establishing David literally and Christ mystically on the Throne of the Kingdom he glories in having brought about his great Design laughs at the fruitless Opposition of his Adversaries at home and abroad of the Philistines the Moabites the Ammonites the Damascens the Amalekites of the King of Zoba and of all the turbulent and ambitious Spirits of the House of Saul delights to recount their Might and their Machinations the more to signalize their Overthrow and to make his Victory illustrious For after all their rage their malice their Counsels their Combinations their seeming successes against him the Issue was this Yet have I set my King upon my holy Hill of Sion We may observe in the Words these three things I. The Person establisht My King i. e. David Literally so called and Christ Mystically II. His Establishment I have set my King upon my holy Hill of Sion III. God's Glorying in the Fact that he had done it with such a Non obstante notwithstanding such Opposition and Contradiction Yet have I set my King I. The Person establisht My King God's King Not only holy Scripture but the Writings of Heathens declare Kings to be Sacred Persons descended more immediately from the Gods and more particularly depending on them Kings are from Jupiter says Callimachus and nothing ever descended more sacred from him And Theocritus Kings are the special Care of the Gods And this Epithet's affected by Homer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God lov'd Kings Indeed all Kings in general are God's derive their Authority from him govern by his Permission and Providence as himself testifies By me Kings Reign But then he delights in a more especial manner to style Good Kings his to appropriate their Persons and owne their Causes to interpret all things done to them as done to himself as at Verse 2. Why do the Rulers take Counsel together against the Lord and against his Anointed Conspiracies against the King are reckoned Conspiracies against God the resisting his Anointed the resisting himself And thus if it be a Glorious thing to be a King 't is a Blessed to be a Good King for as splendour attends Majesty and Greatness protection and safety and felicity and the love of Heaven attend Righteousness But let us see why David is here more particularly call'd God's King than others The First Reason we may say was Because he was a King of God's Making because he brought him to the Throne having no Title by Birth to it à Caulis Ovium tuli te I called him from the Sheep-hook to the Sceptre And as those Persons which are of our Election preferring or favouring we call Ours this is my Scholar my Souldier my Officer because he was of my nomination my chusing my advancing so David was called God's King