therefore those who have sowed plenteously shall reap plenteously and that nothing but actual Holiness and Obedience can fit us to see God and enter into Heaven and make us meet and qualify us for the inheritance of the Saints in light These are such plain and undeniable principles both from Reason and Scripture that no Doctrine which orposes them and is inconsistent with them can be true and therefore a late and dying Repentance that brings forth no fruits of Obedience cannot be sufficient for Salvation as not coming up to those conditions which are absolutely requir'd by the Gospel to make us capable of Heaven since none but good Men who either always were so or at least who become such after they were otherwise can go to Heaven and the more good and the more obedient and vertuous any Man hath been in his life the greater and higher rewards he shall have in another World for as one Star differeth from another Star in Glory so also shall it be at the Resurrection of the dead as the Apostle speaks where some shall shine in a higher Orb and with greater Lustre and have Crowns of greater weight and brightness who have either done or suffer'd more for Christ and God and Religion than others and therefore they who have been more constantly and more highly Vertuous all their lives shall be more highly rewarded by a Just and Righteous God in that Heavenly Kingdom where Christ tells us are many Mansions and where no doubt are several degrees of Happiness according to Mens several Actions and Vertues Tho' the Penitent and the Prodigal shall upon their return be received into their Father's house and be kindly embraced and entertain'd by him yet their Portion shall not be equal to the Son that was always Dutifull and always Obedient Son thou art always with me and all that I have is thine God grant that all good Men may so persevere in Holiness and Obedience and all Sinners may so timely Repent and be brought off from their Sins that we may all in due time be received into those Mansions of Joy where all Sin shall be done away and there shall be no more Repentance and all Virtue and Obedience Crowned with Glory and Immortality thro' Jesus Christ The Sixth Sermon ACTS XVI v. 30. latter part Sirs what must I do to be saved THis great question is ask'd by one in great trouble and concern when he was affrighted in the night by a sudden Earth-quake which shook the Foundations of the House or Prison where he was v. 27. and so he was awakened into a sense of present danger and this brought him to consider what was future and greater God does often rowse up Men's sleepy and senseless and Lethargic Minds by some present Terror Judgment or Affliction which brings them to consider the concerns of their Souls and an another World when nothing else will This shakes off their thoughtless security and alarms their stupid and unthinking Minds to look about them and see what a dangerous condition they are in and fear is a very proper principle for beginning Religion it 's one of the greatest passions that belong to our Nature and then there is a good ground for it and it only opens our Eyes to let us see a real danger that so we may avoid it and keep out of it It is very usefull and a great branch of that self-preservation which is a principle that lies at the root of our very beings had we no sense of an Evil coming upon us we should run into it blindfold and leap down the precipice we did not see which would be never the less hurtfull to us when fear indeed makes a danger where there is none or represents it greater than it is when it frights the mind with fancied Spectres and imaginary Mormo's or makes it afraid of its own shadow it 's then a weak a mean an unmanly Passion but when the danger is real and great and likely it 's stupid blindness not to see it and rash madness for that reason to run upon it The concerns of another World are both certain and important and he whose Mind has no reasonable fear or just dread and apprehension of them is like Damocles with a naked and pointed Sword hanging over his head by a single hair but he sits securely and does not see it The evils and dangers of a future state are very terrible and may be as far as we know very near us and they are never the less near nor never the less real for our not believing or not having a sense of them It 's very happy therefore if our fear awakens us to consider of them whilst we have means and opportunity to take care to prevent them that before we feel them we think of them and do not like Dives then lift up our Eyes when we are in the midst of Torments it 's then too late to have a sense of them when we cannot get out of them A wise man would therefore so consider them before-hand either out of a just fear or dread of them or from a wise care and concern for his own Happiness that whether any extraordinary providence startl'd his Mind or it were more freely left to its own thoughts yet it should frequently and seriously ask it self this question what shall I do to be saved To be saved is strictly to be delivered from a great danger we were likely to fall into to be snatch'd like a fire-brand out of the fire and like one that was sinking to be catch'd hold on and preserved but it also includes in it a positive Salvation as well as a negative and so comprehends that Happiness which is contrary to the misery we are secured from he who is saved from death gains life by that means and he who is saved from Hell gains Heaven and so both are meant and included in the word Salvation I shall consider at present the great importance of this question What shall I do to be saved and secondly the true answer and resolution to it First of the importance of it and it is certainly the greatest question to us in the World how we may be delivered from the dangers and evils of the next World and how we may escape as the Scripture speaks the Wrath to come and so secure to our selves that eternal Good and Happiness which we call Heaven We can none of us expect to live always here there must be a time and we know not how soon but we are sure it 's not very long when we must take leave of this World and all that is in it and it concerns us to think what shall become of us when that fatal minute shall come as it certainly will that shall make this body of ours a cold lump and put an end to all our present Enjoyments When darkness and the shadow of death shall let down the Curtain and put an end to all these lower Scenes
and Duties of it Take my Yoke upon you and learn of me and ye shall find rest to your Souls I shall premise a few cautions to prevent any mistake in this matter and the better to state and explain it Then show how we may by the help and means of Religion attain to this Rest Peace and Tranquility of Mind 1. First then I do not pretend that Religion and Virtue will set Men free from all the evils of this World and be a protection against any manner of outward Troubles or Calamities ever falling upon us This cannot be For Man is born to Trouble as the Sparks fly upwards Job 5.7 They are a great many of them natural and necessary and unavoidable and God must alter the nature of Things and the nature of the World and work perpetual Miracles to free us always from them to have our Bodies subject to no Diseases and Indispositions our Estates subject to no Losses and Casualities or Children or Friends not subject to Death or to be taken away from us this is impossible and what no good Man must expect that the Rain or Drought should not sometimes spoil his Corn the Sea shipwrack his Goods or Vessel the Fire burn his House as well as anothers these common misfortunes which happen alike to all and a great many Losses from the fraud and injustice of others as well as abundance of natural evils arising from the Mechanism of our selves and the World these the most Virtuous cannot expect to be exempted from but like Travellers through this World they must all pass thro' the common Road with others and sometimes meet with bad and unpleasant way and now and then with a shower that may fall upon 'em but the Religious Man is however much better provided against those against the common and unavoidable evils of life than another who is but equally subject to them his Mind is Armed against all the darts of Fortune and they shall not enter so deep nor smart so grievously as to the wicked he has something within to support him under all the Calamities and Afflictions of this World a good God a good Conscience and a good Prospect and Hopes of Heaven when a wicked Man has none of those to keep him up but must wholly sink and fall under them The one will have the Peace of his Mind and a Comfort within that shall pour Oyl and Balsam into all the Wounds of Fortune and make Afflictions more easie and tolerable but the other will increase the smart of them by his wickedness that will then lie heavier upon him when his Spirit is oppressed with other troubles the load of those and of his sins both will be insupportable to him and when his mind is sore by its inward guilt every hard thing from without will more pinch and gall him A good Man may keep this Peace of Mind under any Worldly afflictions but a bad Man cannot 2. Neither will Religion make all things equal as to the outward Happiness of this life arising from Mens different States and Conditions and unequal Circumstances in this World It may be allowed that there is a proper and real good in the Plenty Riches and Conveniences of life and that a good Man is not quite so happy that wants them as if he had 'em but they might be an accession a small Addition to his more true and greater Happiness of Vertue tho' that be infinitely more Great and Valuable and Desirable yet I do not know that Religion takes away or disallows the other we may therefore both Lawfully Desire and Endeavour to make our outward Circumstances in this World as good and easie and comfortable as we can within the bounds of Vertue and 't is both Natural and Lawful to do it and it borders I doubt upon Hypocrisie or Superstition to pretend the contrary and is always confuted by a contrary Desire and Practice in those who have talked otherwise But still a good Man can be contented and easie in a very mean and strait Condition if Providence allots this to him and he will not Disquiet or Disturb himself for what he sees others enjoy if God sees not sit for him to have them and tho he can allow a lesser good and a proper use and conveniency and some small Happiness perhaps as to this life to belong to those outward things in respect of the Wants and Necessities and the State we are in here which made Aristotle and the Peripateticks put the Externa Bona into the Ingredients of compleat Happiness yet he can be very Happy with a few of those as knowing that Man's Life consisteth not in abundance as Christ says Luk. 12.15 and that a few things will suffice nature and having Food and Raiment which is the Apostles as well as Natures competency he can be content and make up a Happiness to himself out of the better and more essential Parts and Ingredients of it to wit Vertue and Wisdom and a good Mind without those Appendages and Ornaments Trimmings and Garnishings of it which we call outward Happiness and Prosperity I am not for maintaining that Stoical Paradox That a virtuous Man was thereby Rich and a King and every thing that 's Great They might as well have said also he is always Strong and Healthfull tho 't is plain he may be both Sickly and Poor and his greatest Virtues may take away neither of those evils and their contraries may be allowed to be both goods in a lower Sence and so Desir'd by us but he will be Happier a Thousand times without those than without his Vertue they can never make him truly Happy without that but he may be Happy without those by the Peace and Comfort the Firmness and Goodness of his own Mind altho' if he had them too they might add something to his present Happiness and Good Condition this I will not Cynically deny Nor yet 3. That Religion will quite alter his bodily Temper any more than his Worldly Circumstances but a good Man may labour under an unhappy Temper and ill Crasis and Disposition of Blood and Humours His Wise and Vertuous Soul may male habitare be lodged not only in a Deformed but a Sickly and Unhealthfull or otherwise ill-framed Body A natural Sulphur and Choler may lodge in his Blood that may be too apt to Fire and heat him or too much dull and heavy Phlegm may clog his Spirits and make them Listless and Unactive and not rise to Warmth and fervor in his Religious Duties the Salts that keep the Humours from putrefying may make them too Sharp or Sowre and apt to make a Temper too Fretfull and Peevish or a black melancholy Humour may be thus produced and become Predominant that will disorder the Spirits and fill the Head and other Parts with dark Vapours and irregular Ferments and draw a Cloud of Darkness and Disconsolateness over the Brain and even the Soul it self Now Religion will not nor cannot
and to all the Actions of this life we cannot think there is then an end of our being hardly any of mankind ever thought so our own thoughts tell us otherwise and Revelation assures us to the contrary and we have as much Evidence as we can have till we come thither as is consistent with Faith and comes not up to Sense We cannot then but be very sollicitous what shall become of our naked Souls when they are stript of these fleshly Bodies and what condition they shall be in in the other world We know in general how different the state is there there are Joys unspeakable on the one hand and Torments intolerable on the other and according as we believe the greatness and reality of both those so must we be concerned about this question How we shall be saved That is how we shall obtain the one and avoid the other We are very carefull here to make a short life that we know will quickly be at an end as Comfortable and Happy as we can We toil and drudge and contrive all we can to acquire the few good things that belong to it and to keep off those evils that are uneasie to us and yet when we have done all we can never hope to be perfectly Happy here and our utmost attainment can be only this that we be but less miserable we rise early and go to bed late and eat the bread of carefullness rather than suffer want and poverty and we are at infinite pains and trouble to gain an Estate that we must quickly leave and whilst we have it we are not more happy perhaps less content than we were before we are very carefull to keep up our crazy Bodies in good repair tho' we know they must quickly decay and fall into the dust A Disease alarms us and we are concerned at the warning of death and are willing to endure almost any thing to prevent it that its a Suffering a greater Martyrdom for this life than ever Christian did for another but how much greater reason have we to be concerned for our future state that life is never to have any end and so we shou'd be more carefull about it it 's to continue to Eternity and what it once is it 's to be ever the same if it be happy it 's so unalterably without danger of changing and if it be miserable it 's irreversibly so without any hopes of relief Oh wonderfull state how is this life a shadow a dream a vapour a bubble a vanishing Nothing in respect of the other it deserves not a thought nor is it worth a thousandth part of that care the other is how foolish are we then to labour so much for a moment of our being and not be more concerned for an endless duration of it But the greatness of the thing is as considerable as the continuance the things we are saved from are the greatest and terriblest evils we can possibly suffer the utmost torments of Mind and Body despair and horror and a dreadfull sense of Divine Anger and Vengeance and all the terrible apprehensions that guilt within and punishment without can bring upon a Soul that can have nothing else to fly to and that must suffer greater torment day and night without intermission than we can have now any conception of Fire and Brimstone and Chains of darkness and a never dying worm are but lesser representations of the unspeakable misery in the other World and who is it that dreads a nights pain under a tormenting despair that knows the torments of a troubled mind or has but tasted the gall and bitterness of a Melancholick humour who would not be infinitely concern'd how he may be sav'd from what we mean by Hell and Damnation and what would not the hopes of Heaven when they are joyned with those fears make us farther do when the one is to fright us from the greatest evil and the most perfect misery and the other at the same time holds out and invites us to the greatest Happiness to endless Pleasures and Joy unspeakable Who that does not either secretly dis-believe or never consider of this would not think it the greatest Question in the World what shall I do to be saved And who would not do all he can and use all means that are in his power to this purpose Who would refuse any pains or labour to accomplish this great End Who would stick at any difficulty that he was able to overcome and surmount to gain this point this greatest point of his own Eternal Salvation Had God required us to have toiled all our lives in the most wearisom drudgery and to have spent all our days in the hardest slavery had he made Religion the greatest burden and uneasiness in the World in order to the attaining of this yet what Wise man would not have thought it worth his while to have endured it and gone through it Had he commanded us to deny every Appetite to have offered violence to every inclination to have stifl'd every natural desires and renounced all the Gratifications and Enjoyments of the Animal life had he obliged us to quit all the comforts of this World and to have retir'd into a barren Wilderness or a Melancholick Cloister and there have worn out our lives in the severest Exercises of Fasting and Mortification or to have made them one continued station one constant course of Penance and Devotion all this would have been much more tolerable than to have endured the far greater Evils and Miseries of another World tho but for a little time and for much less than half so long as this life and therefore a thousand times more so than to suffer a miserable Eternity What shall we think then of God's requiring no such hard things at our hands nothing but what is far less than any of those nothing that is extreamly hard or mighty difficult or very burdensome and uneasie to us nothing but what is truly comfortable and delightfull if we rightly understood it and what tends to our present Good Ease and Comfort Interest and Advantage even in this life as well as another God puts no such hard conditions upon us as those I mention'd but we may be saved hereafter and yet enjoy at present all the comforts and good things of this World that a Wise Man would desire Religion debars us of none of them so far as they are Innocent and Lawfull that is so far as they are not Evil and Mischievous to us and plainly Destructive both of our own good and the good of the World There is no natural good forbidden to us nor any inclination to be denied any farther than it is foolish and unreasonable and exceeds the bounds of Wisdom and Virtue nor has God restrained us from any thing but what like the forbidden fruit is poysonous as well as pleasant and it 's not the pleasantness but the poyson is the true reason why it is forbidden so that our
and Irreligion so that here is the extream folly of Wickedness that whilst its dosigns are confined to this World and 〈◊〉 aims at the present pleasure 〈…〉 and good things of this life it loses even those and misses of that present Comfort and Happiness which is a thousand times more likely to be met with in the ways of Virtue and Religion than in a life of Vice and Wickedness for as the one deprives us of no real pleasure or proper enjoyment fit for a wise Man but rather sweetens them and enhances their relish by keeping them Pure and Innocent and free from the filth and bitterness that Vice mixes with them so wickedness brings a great many evils and mischiefs upon it self here and most Mens Vices make them miserable in this life as well as in another Godliness says Saint Paul is profitable unto all things having the promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come 1 Tim. 4.8 and it was the wise Mans observation long before that the most desirable blessings of this life belong to Wisdom and Religion Length of days is in her right hand and in her left hand riches and honour Prov. 3.16 whereas nothing does more generally shorten Men's days than Vice and Debauchery and though those Men value nothing so much as life yet they prodigally squander it away and spend it too fast and consume it upon their Lust and their Lewdness and these make shipwrack of their Estates as well as of their Consciences and bring Poverty and Beggery very often along with them so that the ruined Fortunes of most Men are owing to their vitious and ill Courses and they are undone by their Vices here as well as hereafter an indelible Character of shame and reproach is hereby fixed to their Name and Memory which stains and blemishes their Repute and Credit among Men and their mind reproaches and smites them from within and they feel most of the outward and inward evils which are the most grievous and uneasie to us in this life So that besides the misery in Reversion which is due to them and unavoidable there is a present one which they seldom escape but generally befalls them so foolish are they whose fondness to their Sins makes them hug and embrace them though they at the same time Wound and Poyson them so infatuated are they and almost fascinated by them that they stick to them though to their manifest ruin and against their plainest interest and make themselves such Martyrs and Confessors to their Vices that as they wear their scars always about them so they will endure any thing for their sakes and make their way to Hell through the greatest sufferings and evils that their sins bring upon them here 4. Roligion is the truest Wisdom as it best provides against all the Accidents and Contingencies of this uncertain world and against all the infirmities of our present state and nature A good man may not be secure here that he shall not come into the same misfortune and be plagued like other Men either with some Affliction or Sickness or other common Calamity which the greatest Vertue and Religion may be no protection against but the same chance may happen both to the Sinner and to the Righteous and without respect either to their Vice or to their Virtue a Disease or a Misfortune a Loss or a Trouble may come upon either of them which nothing can keep off or prevent in this uncertain state but here Religion gives us the best relief and stands us in the greatest stead and is the most usefull to us it takes care as we may say of the main chance and makes the best provision for whatever may or can befall us it supports and revives our drooping Spirits under any afflictions of this world with the cheering thoughts of a Heaven above us and a Providence over us and the gladsom reflections of a good Conscience within us and a Comfortable trust in a good God without us whereas when any of the troubles and misfortunes of life fall on a wicked Man he has nothing to keep up his mind under them but they sink and crush him into the utmost despair and disconsolateness and he has no whither to fly for ease and comfort sad and miserable must be his case who when his body is sick and uneasie has his mind so too and feels as much anguish and anxiety in the one as he does pain in the other when his body is under the strugglings and agonies of death has his Mind and Conscience under greater and when he sees death come up behind him sees Hell open before him as ready to devour and swallow him up Tho' nothing can secure us against one of these yet Religion does against the other which is ten times the greatest and so in all other the unavoidable accidents and misfortunes of this worldly state Religion does wisely prepare and provide against them and make the best defence and security for us against all the dangers that may in this hazardous world come upon us and without this a man lies always open to every uncertain accident and shall be miserable at every turn of Fortune and shall have no Happiness but what shall be at the will and pleasure of outward Contingencies and shall have no soundation or root of Happiness within himself which nothing but Religion and Vertue can ever give him 5. Religion makes us wise for our selves and for things of the greatest importance and concern to us makes us wise unto Salvation which is the only true Wisdom that deserves so to be called or accounted for 't is a Wisdom salsely so called and no other than great folly to be wise about all other things wise in our Notions and Apprehensions and Judgments of things wise in the Managery and Conduct of all our outward Affairs wise in searching the policies and fathoming the most cunning Intrigues wise in the greatest Mysteries of Knowledge and researches of Learning so that both our selves and others applaud us for our great Wisdom and yet be a Fool in what is more valuable and more concerning to us a thousand times which is the everlasting Salvation of our immortal Souls He that is not so wise as to take care of that is with all his other Wisdom the worst of Fools and Mad Men and more void of common Prudence and Discretion than he that while he pretends to understand the great secret of being Rich and turning all into Gold yet is Poor and a Beggar or like him in a Frenzy who thought himself an Emperor and to have the greatest Territories and Dominions when he had only a Chain and a little Straw or him who while he was viewing the Stars and observing the Heavens above him did not mind his way but fell into a Pit 6. I shall show the Wisdom of Religion from the two causes of sin and wickedness which are only two sorts of folly and
perfections which are the bounds also which the Divine power can never violate is so plain that it rather seems to follow and be fairly inferred from them for what more agreeable to Gods goodness than as that he gave us our Souls at first and put those Souls into curious and well framed bodies which are the other part of Humane Nature which makes us to be Men and Beings of such a rank and order in the Creation so that he should continue the same entire nature to us as long as he is pleased to continue us in being It wou'd be a charge methinks upon the Wisdom of God that he should give Man so curious a body above any other Creatures and yet suffer that to continue and last a much shorter time than the bodies of many other not only Animals but Plants and Trees do if he did not design that this noble fabrick should be rebuilt and repaired again after death and that the Soul should have a longer term of aboad in it afterwards and in reversion than it enjoys in this present life It would seem strange if these two Friends should be so closely and intimately united here but for a few days if they were not to meet again and dwell together for ever and that God should make us of such a compound nature in this life and of a quite other nature in the next this would not be to keep that wise order and regular course of thing that he does in the whole System of the Creation As to the Divine Justice that seems to be more exactly answered by raising the same bodies without which we are hardly the same persons that every one may receive in his body according to that he has done whether it be good or bad as the Apostle speaks 2 Cor. 5.10 that not only the same Souls but the same Bodies which have either glorified God by Suffering or any other Vertue or have been the Instrument of any sin should be glorified or tormented in another World and that the whole of Humane Nature and not only a part of it which the Soul is should be made capable of the everlasting rewards and punishments that are proper to it The Resurrection then is every way consistent with the perfections of the Divine Nature and is no way contrary to any natural principle of truth nor implys any contradiction in it and therefore is a proper object of God's Almighty Power and by the help of that may be easily effected and accounted for 4. And without this power of God nothing else can be effected in nature we must take in this not only to give an account of the Resurrection but of every thing else we see done before us and of every effect and appearance in the visible World how we were made at first and how our bodies were formed is as perfectly unaccountable without taking in the Divine Power and Wisdom as how we shall rise again and so is every other Mystery of nature if we well consider it and follow and trace it thro' all second causes it will necessarily bring us to the first and we must resolve all at last into the Power and Wisdom of that How we move our bodies by the thought of our minds we know no more than how God shall raise them what directs the spirits into such Tracts and Muscles and by what pullies they draw up the heavy parts is so admirable a Mechanism that it requires the same Divine Wisdom as to raise the dead how we live how we think and how we speak is to a Philosopher as curious and as secret as how we shall rise every thing indeed is so in the Volume of Nature which has the plainest Characters of Divine Power and Wisdom every where writ upon it as being to teach every one that there is a God To look upward we see the Sun shines but can we tell what light is or how it streams from the Sun to our Eye how such a mass of sire should so long hold together without being quenched or lessened do we know how the Stars are sixt to their Orbs how those glistering gemms are set and fastned to the fluid firmament can we imagine what Pillars there are upon which the Earth is founded and what it is supports the heavy Globe and keeps it from sinking what it is that poizes and makes it swim in the liquid Aether and keeps it at so just and exact a distance from the heavenly Bodies so as to be neither frozen nor burnt up and can we be able to know what it is makes their motions so regular and harmonious so usefull and serviceable to the World what guides their mighty bodies in such even Tracts what draws the crooked Zodiac for the Sun or Earth to move in and keeps the violent and rapid matter from going on in an infinite streight line or some other way sallying and running out of order Can any man who justly considers these things give any account of them without a wise God and Almighty Intelligence not only a Sparrow cannot fall to the ground without our Heavenly Father as our Saviour speaks Matth. 10.29 but not a stone can sall thither nor a spark fly upwards however necessary and natural that be without such a frame and such laws of matter and motion as nothing but a wise Being can establish or cause to be observed Why matter is thus figured and disposed and why such effects come from it we cannot tell as why grass is green blood red and not the quite contrary as we cannot of our selves make one hair white or black as our Saviour saith so neither can we tell why it is so but every Phaenomenon must at last be resolved into the Will and Wisdom of the first cause and thither all true Philosophy must bring us and the same Divine Power is requir'd in every the most common effect of Nature as in the Resurrection But 5. Our not fully knowing the uses and designs our bodies shall serve for after they are rais'd should not make the Resurrection incredible to us What use some say will there be of the body in another World when the Soul alone is capable of the rewards of it I answer who can tell but the body may be of extraordinary use to us in another World perhaps it is a necessary part of Humane Nature and we are not our whole selves without it perhaps the Soul is never to be quite naked and wholly stript of all matter and bodily indowment and that it is cloathed with a thinner Vehicle when it puts off the thicker and grosser flesh perhaps no Beings in the World but God himself are to be pure spirits which was a very ancient opinion of some wise Men perhaps the Angels themselves have material vestures of a slaming fire and a resplendent brightness as they used always to appear and if the Human Souls are not to be uncloathed but cloathed upon with our house which is
from Heaven 2 Cor. 5.2 What more fit than that the materials of this house should be taken out of its former body tho' greatly improved and advanced as I shall show immediately who can tell what proper pleasures God shall fit for our bodies and make them such noble Organs for the Soul as shall be mighty useful to it and who knows whether that can enjoy all that alone without the body as with it and that there is not some new faculty or satisfaction resulting from its animating and being united to a body the Scripture representing the happiness of the other state not to be compleat till the general Resurrection God alone can tell what faculties and powers are fit for his Creatures in any state and while we are in this we can know no more what is proper for us in the other than an Embryo not yet born can conceive what it shall need when it comes into the world were it not absolutely necessary yet it seems very agreeable to Justice to have both the body and soul that were partners in Sin or Vertue to be sharers in the rewards of it And if Christ the Captain of our Salvation is to be perfect Man as well as perfect God in Heaven and his glorious body is probably to be the visible Shechinah of Heaven it self the bodies of all good Christians ought to rise and attend him and be partakers with him of the same Glory that so human Nature even in its weakest and frailest part may eternally triumph over death and the grave and over him who had the power of both 5. And Lastly To take off the incredibility of the Resurrectionn let us consider how far the body that is raised is to be the same with that which is buried and corrupted We must not be too rigorous and exact in insisting upon the same body if we be we cannot be said to have the same body two days together Our bodies are always in flow and several parts of them are always going off by insensible Transpiration and others come in the place of them like a River we call it the same tho' its Water be always running and passing away and scarce any drop of it be exactly the same the next Tide or as we call that the same flame of a Candle all the while it is burning which yet is wasted every moment and supplied with other new parts of oyl so we have the same body in our old Age that we had in our Youth And this very body of ours that was some time animated by our Souls that this shall rise again the Scripture is too plain to have it denied as it is by the Socinians the very word Resurrection supposes it to be in some sense the same body and they which rise again are said to be the same that were asleep and lay in their graves so that if we had quite another new body given us at the day of Judgment this might be said to be new made or created but not to rise again But yet it is not necessary that every part of matter which made up this Body of ours at our Death and was buried in the same Grave should go to the making up of our raised bodies It is sufficient if this Earthly body of ours which we had in this World be the seed or seminal body as it were of the Resurrection body out of some part of which it is as truly raised as the new Corn or Fruit is out of the Corn or Kernell which was set or sowed so the Apostle gives us an account of the Resurrection 1 Cor. 15.36 37 38. in answer to that question How are the dead raised up or with what bodies do they come i. e. how are those whose parts have been so variously mixt with other bodies and turned into the substance perhaps of other men whose very bodies are again to be raised how shall every part of these men be raised up when perhaps several men might have parts of the same body and therefore in the Resurrection whose body shall it be since many had some of it to be their body and with what body shall every one come if it must be exactly the same and yet that is so very hard if not some time impossible To this the Apostle answers Thou Fool that which thou sowest is not quickned except it die and that which thou sowest thou sowest not that body which shall be but bare Grain it may chance of Wheat or some other Grain But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him and to every seed his own body God does give every Man his own body but not so exactly the same as not to be at all altered but as a building is the same which is repaired tho' with a great many other materials and as an ear of Corn is the same with its seed tho' it has taken in a good quantity of the moisture of the Earth and turned it into its own body Those who have curiously examined the Anatomy of Plants and Seeds tell us that in the little Gemm or Eye of the Seed is contained the whole draught and the perfect Stamina of the Plant with its bark and leaves and fruit and all the lines of it exactly drawn in little which are after to be fill'd up and extended by the heat of the Sun and moisture of the Earth And if so little a seed or kernel can contain all the parts of a large stalk or great tree who knows how much of our present bodies may be sufficient to raise the same bodies out of again and how small a part of this corruptible matter may be the Embryo as it were of our Heavenly bodies It is certain these our bodies shall be so much altered that that which is sown in corruption shall be raised in incorruption and that which is now a natural body shall be then a spiritual not that it shall be turned into a spirit and lose its corporeal nature but that it shall be refined and made pliable to the Soul and Spirit and to all its motions and stand in no need of those things that belong to the animal life And yet it may still be the same body for all those new modes and qualities as a Jewel is the same substance of the Earth which was once a common fluid and is now turned into an Orient Pearl and the most clear Crystal Glass is the same matter that was before Sand and Ashes The best Philosophy tells us there is no specifick difference in matter but it is the same in substance tho' its outward figure colour and other accidents be altered which are but several modifications of the same matter and I can conceive God as easily to change these our mortal corruptible bodies into immortal and incorruptible ones as he turns the substance that every Animal eats into blood and spirits and the moisture and filth of the Earth that nourishes every flower and fruit into the
most beauteous colour and most delicate tast Cannot he give the Soul a shining and a glorious body even out of this corruptible one as well as he made the Sun and Stars and all those luminous bodies out of the dark and gloomy Chaos Cannot he make our bodies to shine as the Stars of glory as well as the Stars themselves which tho' Heavenly bodies yet are of the same substance with Earthly matter Cannot he make our bodies which are now a clog and burden to the Soul to be but like so many fiery Chariots to carry us up to Heaven or like so many Wings to move us nimbly where-ever we please and fleet us thro' all the Heavenly Regions that are above Cannot he do this as well as he has given Wings to the flame and made that which arises out of smoak and foot to cast forth rays and lustre and mount upwards The glorified bodies of Men or Angels are generally in Scripture compared to flame and light their countenance is then like lightning and their raiment white as snow as the Angel is described Mat. 28.3 and as our Saviour when his body was transfigured his face did shine as the Sun and his raiment was white as the light Mat. 17.2 and so shall the bodies of good Men after the Resurrection be turned into such pure and glorious bodies that they shall raise splendour and beauty all about them which tho' it be a great transmutation yet by many the like instances I have given is neither impossible nor incredible to conceive The bodies indeed of wicked Men will be very much altered and lose their animal and mortal nature but they will be gross and heavy and sink their Souls into the regions of Hell and Darkness they will be like so many dismal and filthy Dungeons to keep the Soul in chains of everlasting Darkness or like so many poisoned shirts like that of Hercules that will scorch and inflame and torture them beyond expression and sticking close to them burn them with poisonous flames and fill them with the perpetual stench of sire and brimstone How the bodies of wicked men may be made the Instruments of torment to their Souls is easie to imagine from the exquisite pains they often give them here from whence we may conceive how they may be contrived to be the dreadfull racks of eternal death where the miserable wretches may be always suffering the pains of death without dying and on which they may be made to lie for ever raging and gnawing their Tongues for pain and blaspheming the God of Heaven because of their pains and their sores to wit of their bodies as they are described Revel 16.10 And here I could stop and offer one thought to those who are so fond and tender of their bodies here who are for indulging them in every Lust and every Pleasure and think Happiness lieth in the mere delights of the body what they will think of having these pretious parts these dear bodies thus eternally and exquisitely tormented for the sake of a few paulcry sins which are but for a moment but having defended and consirmed this article of our Christian Faith the Resurrection of our bodies I must name but one general use of it and that is Let us all of us so live as if we heartily believed it without making any the least doubt in our minds about it let no mists of Infidelity overcast this Faith of ours which as it is certain by Revelation so is far you see from being incredible by reason which was the point I was to consider and make out It is a great satisfaction to ease our thoughts from some difficulties about it and have the understanding as the eye see things clearly without a film over it But these articles of faith are not only for Contemplation and the Entertainment of our reason but like Principles and Theorems in other Sciences they are to be made use of in practice and to be drawn out and improved into use and action no truth in Religion no Article of Faith is worth making out or proving or satisfying our selves about if it be not some way or other usefull to the practice of Religion and be not influential to the making us good and vertuous in our lives but the Resurrection has such a direct and immediate tendency to do this as it carries in it the assurance of a future state both of Soul and Body that if we fully believe it and are undoubtedly perswaded of it it will do its own work and will necessarily promote Vertue and Religion and be effectual upon all our lives did not a secret Scepticism and Insidelity which is the Vice of our Age hinder and defeat the power of it Let the belief of it therefore be firm and unshaken upon our minds and let the efficacy of it be powerfull upon our Lives and Conversations there is nothing more incredible in the thing that our bodies should rise hereafter than that they were once formed and born there may be difficulties perhaps equal in the account of both but as no Man doubts the one so he that well considers will have no reason to dis-believe the other or to think it incredible that God should raise the dead Let it raise us to thoughts and to things above whither Christ is raised and where he sits with his glorious body at God's right hand Let us often ascend thither in our minds now whither we hope to ascend hereafter with our bodies as well as our Souls Let us consider that these Bodies of ours as well as our Souls were made for higher designs and better enjoyments then any here of this World and that they ought to be the subjects of Purity and Vertue now as they are to be of Happiness hereafter The Resurrection will raise our minds to a great many noble thoughts if we throughly consider it and really believe it and I hope we may be satisfied by what has been said The Twelfth Sermon HEB. III. 13. latter part Lest any of you be hardned through the deceitfulness of sin THE Author of this Epistle advises in this Chapter those Jewish Christians he wrote to to take care that they fell not into that sad state and temper of mind their forefathers were in in the time of Moses Not to harden their heart now as in the provocation in the day of temptation in the wilderness v. 8. when tho' they saw the mighty works of God forty years and had daily Miracles before their Eyes and were fed and maintained by them and lived under a constant dispensation of them yet still a spirit of Insidelity and Obstinacy was amongst them and their hearts were hardned and they would not hearken unto God nor obey his voice but were kept out of the good Land by reason of their monstrous and unreasonable belief so it was also in the times of our Saviour when notwithstanding all his many Miracles done before their Eyes they were yet
in relation to our selves as well as to the World that is the prime and general cause of Mens being deceived into sin and the first part of its deceitfulness is by the immoderate and salse Opinion of those little Goods or present Enjoyments we may obtain by them Thus when our Fancies and vain Imaginations represent Riches and a great Estate as the greatest Good as the greatest Security Credit and Comfort and what will afford and bring in all other good things of this World this makes a Man make Riches his God and put his trust in 'em and Sacrifice every thing to Mammon and use any means to attain 'em because he thinks nothing so evil as to be without them and nothing else so good as having abundance of them So another fancies no happiness like that of being Great and above others of having the knee and the head and the outward marks and acknowledgments of superiority given him or to appear in State and Grandeur with a rich Train and splendid Equipage always attending him and he despises poor and contemptible Vertue in respect of all this and thinks as meanly of the greatest Wisdom without those as that does of him and therefore rather than part with those he will part with his Conscience and change his Religion rather than his place and will stick at nothing either to keep or gain his ambitious Ends and Designs Another who is a Voluptuary and thinks Pleasure the summum bonum the chiefest good he can taste or feel he hunts after it thro' all the Scents and Paths of Sensuality Luxury Lewdness and Debauchery and either Bacchus or Venus is the Deity he worships and the greatest Good and Enjoyment he fancies and imagines and has an Idea of is the Wine sparkling in the Glass or the Charms of Beauty or the other objects of sensual Pleasure and by heating his thoughts and inflaming his fancy his desires of those things grow impatient excessive and ungovernable Now if a man had used himself to consider seriously how little there is in all those things how very little in respect of the greater pleasures of a wise and easie Mind a good Conscience and the hopes of Religion and that all the true Pleasures of Life that are desirable to a Wise Man may be otherwise enjoyed within the bounds of Vertue and that the going beyond those is an unavoidable mischief to himself and to the World and that all those little sensual and temporary goods he is so fond of are at best but short and transitory empty and unsatisfying things but poor trisling satisfactions and mere gilded decaying Vanities that will all quickly perish and pass away so that our proper happiness cannot lie in them This would give us such true Opinions and right Apprehensions of all carnal and Worldly things in which the whole strength and temptations of sin are placed as would disarm and weaken it of all its power strip it of all its fine dress and false attire wash off all its paint spoil all its beauty and shining lustre whereby it imposes upon our vain fancies and weak imaginations and deceives us with a false Opinion of those small Goods Profits or Pleasures it can afford us 2. We do not at the same time compare with those the great evil that is in them and so do not judge rightly and impartially on both sides but determine hastily on one and so are deceived whereas to make a true Judgment and Estimate we should set the evil against the good and so weigh the matter and set the balance right between them but Alass Men are in too much haste to do this when they are so hotly and eagerly pursuing their Lusts when having the fancied good Pleasure and Enjoyment of their sins only in their Eye they never think or consider or take into their accounts the much greater and more numerous and more certain evils that belong to them and are inseparably annext to the commission of them if they did no Man would swallow the thin bait when he saw the satal hook under it None would eat the forbidden fruit tho' never so fair and pleasant to the Eye if he knew and certainly believed that Death was its bittter sauce and in the day he eat thereof he should die No Man would drink the sweetest draught or take down the most delicious morsel if he thought it would kill him Nature without any great deliberation refuses immediately and abhors what it apprehends to be evil as it is extreamly fond and desirous of what appears good and agreeable to it and the fear of the one is perhaps more strong and affecting than the love of the other as the sense of pain is greater and quicker than that of pleasure and therefore did it spy the Snake in the Grass the Serpent hid under the Bed of Roses and Violets it would not be invited by all their beauty and sweetness to lie down upon them and it would be quickly frighted and run from the tempter tho' he appear'd as an Angel of light if it saw his Cloven Foot Vice therefore always uses art to conceal its worst side hides its deformity and rottenness under a false paint and counterfeit colour and varnishes over its real evil with the fucus of some seeming good so the unwary sinner is drawn into its deadly embraces with its meritricious Looks and false Charms The venomous sting lies covered under the sweet hony and the sinner perceives not the Dagger of the Treacherous Assassin till he is stabb'd with it to the heart But a little Wisdom and Observation and looking about us would plainly discern the innumerable evils that sin carries in its bowels and is big and productive of which grow out of it as fruit from its proper root and are inseparably annexed to it as effects to their causes that can no more be divorced or rescinded from it than light clipt from the Sun and are unalterably setled upon it by the nature and constitution of things and the will and appointment of the first cause and Author of them How do many not only shipwrack their Consciences but their Fortunes too by their Vices in this world where we see abundance of those broken Vessels who have split themselves upon Laziness or Luxury Lewdness or Prodigality or some other wickedness by which they have ruined themselves here as well as hereafter How have others wasted their Bodies by the same courses as they have done their Estates And have sinn'd particularly against those as the Scripture speaks as well as against their Souls and been a kind of Martyrs in the service of the Devil and their own Lusts and endured more pains in their bodies to go to Hell than other Martyrs have done to go to Heaven How do they whose hopes and designs are only in this Life and who fear nothing so much as Death and think nothing so happy as to live long yet shorten their lives by their Vices and by
living as they call it too fast that is running on in the full Career of wickedness and galloping as hard as they can to Hell How do they I say Not live out half their days and they are sometimes so hasty to die that their bodies are often rotted before they come into their Graves and their sins in some measure prevent death How have others stigmatized their names with their Vices and brought a lasting reproach and real infamy upon themselves and families where yet nothing has been so dear to them as titular Reputation and the false Image and Idol of Honour How have they madly Sacrificed their Souls and their Lives to redeem that which yet they have basely thrown away by a scandalous Life which has made them base and contemptible to all wise Men Thus how plain is it that sin besides the vast and amazing miseries of another World brings most of the evils of this upon us A blot and reproach to our credit and good names sickness and diseases to our bodies and often beggery to our selves and families and above all spoils and corrupts the Mind takes away the Peace and Improvement of it fills it with inward discomposure and uneasiness and often so impairs a Mans reason and understanding as to leave the old and wretched sinner only the shape of a Man with the nature and qualities of a Beast Now all these a blinded sinner either sees not or considers not either quite forgets or does not at all mind in the hot pursuit of his Lusts and the hurry and tumult of his unruly Appetites he feels not the Wounds that are given him in his hot blood tho' when he grows cool a little he will be very sensible of them his thoughts are wholly taken up with the sancied good and pleasure and he looks to nothing but that nor considers the much greater evils and mischiefs of them so he pursues his Game and follows the Chase and sees not the pit or the precipice just before him 'till he is faln into it he leaps into certain danger without looking into it and without any fear or foresight runs upon Death and Destruction as the horse rushes into the battle as Scripture represents it Jer. 8.6 An inward heat and ardor spurs him on and he is wholly driven by other principles than those of his reasonable nature and the serious thoughts and considerations of things or observing the consequences of his own Actions And thus sin deceives him in the next place 3. By taking off his Mind from considering and examining things or reflecting upon his own Actions or using his own Thoughts it makes him live only by the suggestions of sense and the propensities of his animal nature and lower inclinations without the Exercise or Government of his thoughts or reason Like brute beasts that have no understanding as the Scripture compares sinners Ps 32.9 His Passions and Lusts and irregular Appetites grow masterless and unruly and get an intire Power and Dominion over him and his reason has no check or controul over them his Vices keep him always warm and heated and never suffer him to cool or grow sober they ply him close with what shall more intoxicate and besot him and keep him from ever coming to himself so his mind is always dozed and he lives under a perpetual kind of drunkenness and loss of his reason his thoughts are always drowned in Hurry Business or Company Drink Noise or Diversion or scattered and dispersed in mad freaks and pranks of extravagance and with a sort of practical incoherent nonsense or else amused with Phantastick Whimsies and Romantick Conceits and imaginary Representations of things as they are drawn by Plays and Poets contrary to all sober thinking and the right knowledge of the nature of things as God has constituted them in the World Thus it is with our either dull or witty unthinking Debauchees who live a rambling careless thoughtless Life without any true principles or any serious consideration or reflection and examining of things who care as little as can be to think at all and therefore avoid themselves as much as may be and never love to be alone for nothing is so troublesome and uneasie to them as themselves and their own thoughts and therefore they keep from them all they can and would be quite without them if they could And upon this account we find them often declaiming against reason and thinking and extolling the condition of Beasts above Men which is only another way of commending themselves for at the same time they are endeavouring to be as equal and like to them as may be 4. To show the deceitfulness of sin we cannot but observe that Vertue is much the likelier way to attain most of the present goods of this World which sin aims at but generally loses and destroys Thus Sobriety Chastity and Temperance pick up that bodily pleasure which is lost and dropt by Vice and Debauchery when they are so hastily running after it the ambitious and covetous miss often their aims whilst others unexpectedly meet with what they are in vain seeking and generally most of the good things of this World are by Nature and Providence settled upon Vertue and lost by Vice the one is a Tree of Life as the Wiseman speaks Prov. 3.18 and even literally Health to our Navel and Marrow to the Bones while the other is a Disease and trouble to the Flesh and rottenness to the bones The one is a Crown of honour that circles the head of the Wise and Vertuous while the other is a foul stain and blemish to a mans Credit and good Name the one is Peace and Joy and Gladness to the mind the other is a worm to the Conscience a tormentor to the Soul and an inward Hell in a Man 's own breast Wisdom has in her right hand length of days and in her left hand riches and honour her ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace as the Wiseman long ago observed Prov. 3.17 whereas most of the temptations to sin are Vain and Phantastick Cheating and Delusive and have only appearances but no real good in them like Zeuxis's Grapes they are only painted artificially but have no real sweetness they deceive the eye and the fancy at a distance but there is nothing of true pleasure and delight to be tasted in them but often a real bitterness instead of it like the vines of Sodom and Gomorrah Deut. 32.32 their grapes are grapes of gall their clusters are bitter their wine is the poyson of dragons and the cruel venom of Asps Men always find themselves deceived and disappointed in their vain expectations of what their sins will afford 'em and therefore always come off with repentance shame and remorse and can never answer it to themselves afterwards nor find any good account in the reckoning when they come to cast it up and ask themselves seriously the Apostle's question What fruit had ye in
need it or make use of it for tho' the goodness of it be never so great yet 't is but in order to an end which is to recover health that was lost and to restore us to that soundness that we wanted 'T is the great Mercy of God and the great Grace and Favour of the Gospel and the great Purchase of Christ's Blood to have the Privilege of Repentance granted to Sinners in so large and full a manner so as to be restored to God's Favour and reconciled to him upon their return as if they had never offended him to have all the guilt and punishment of their past Sins wholly taken off as if they had never committed them to be recti in curia pardoned and in as good state as if they had been always Innocent This should mightily encourage and prevail upon Sinners to Repent and leave their Sins when they are sure of this as they are by the Gospel When tho' their Sins be as Scarlet they shall be white as Snow tho they were red like Crimson they should be as Wool as the Evangelical Prophet speaks Isai 1.18 i. e. tho' they were sins of the deepest Die or highest Nature yet they should be wholly done away and forgiven upon true Repentance from which no Person is excluded How must this encourage the greatest Sinners if they have any sense of Religion or another World left upon 'em to come off from their Sins how comfortable must it be to a poor wretch lying under the sense of his own guilt and the fears and horrors of his own Conscience and the dread of God's Judgments and of Eternal Misery to have these glad Tydings proclaimed to him how will this revive his desponding Soul and chear his sunk Spirit and like a pardon brought to a Condemned Malefactor in the Cart or upon the Gibbet restore him to life and to unspeakable joy and gladness Now this is offered to every Sinner by the Gospel if he repent and turn from his Sins however great they have been and lead a new life and become a new Man and a new Creature before he dies What can be desired more by any reasonable Creature or what more can God offer Would any desire to live and go on in his Sins and yet be forgiven This is for God to give up his Laws his Government and to grant a Liberty to his Creatures to be Rebellious and Disobedient and have no Check or Controul upon them 't is the utmost a good God can grant or a wicked man can desire to be pardoned upon his Repentance and Amendment but his Repenting and Amending is with sorrow for what is past doing his duty for the future as he ought always to have done it performing that Obedience which he ought always to have performed and now this is the best thing next to the having done it and performed it always but it can by no means be thought to be so good as that Repenting is like a Man's setting up again that was once broke and compounding with his Creditors and paying a part he owed them instead of the whole God is pleased to accept of the broken and after-obedience of a Sinner for some part of his Life instead of that entire and unbroken one which is due from him all his life 'T is God's great Grace and Mercy to do this and what he is no way obliged to for he might have damned us for every willfull sin and never have pardoned us tho' we had afterwards Repented of it this is meer free Grace which we owe to Christ and the Gospel and God was no way obliged to it either in Justice or by his natural Goodness but he might have denied it to mankind as he has done to other of his Creatures the Devils and the fallen Angels but still the design of God in granting us this Favour and this mighty privilege by the Gospel is to encourage us to Obedience to perswade us to leave our Sins and to bring us to true Holiness and Goodness of Life when we have been faulty and defective in these before 't is not to encourage us in our Sins or give us any Licence or Dispensation to commit 'em because we may Repent of them this is a horrid abuse and perverting the Grace of the Gospel and turning it into Wantonness and Looseness but the End and Design of all this is to make those good men who have been Sinners to make those Obedient who have been Disobedient either in general or any instance Now therefore 't is much better to have been always thus to have been always Good and always Obedient thro' the whole course of our lives this is the best thing and the very same End more fully and perfectly attained this is designed by Repentance As Health is the design of taking Physick and to be well and sound of using Remedies and Medicines and those who are always healthfull and always sound and always well are in a much better condition than those who stand in need of a Cure tho' it be never so certain and infallible 2. I speak this all the while of Repentance from great and wilfull sins from a habit of them in our lives or at least a voluntary practice of them at some time or other and this Repentance I hope there are many that need not who were never ill persons all their lives nor ever guilty of any such one great and mortal sin as should put them into an ill and damnable state and exclude them out of Heaven had they died I speak not now of the ill state of all mankind by the fall or by our original Corruption and Depravation for that is took off by Christ the second Adam and we are put into a good state by the Gospel and by our Baptism so that no Man is in any danger of Damnation but upon his committing some wilfull and known sins such as the Scripture declares are damnable and exclude from Heaven He therefore that has been free from those tho' not free from all sins which no man is or can be all his life no not in his best state but some Infirmity some Imperfection some sin of Frailty or Ignorance or Surprize will beset him He I say that has lived free from all wilfull known sins and not allowed himself in any voluntary breach of God's Laws tho' he has not kept them so perfectly and exactly as he ought to do but has always had a regard to Religion and his Duty and never violated them in any great instance he was always a Child of God and never forfeited that Title he was never a Prodigal and run away from his Father's house nor wasted his Substance in Riotous living but like the dutifull and elder Son always served his Father neither at any time transgress'd his Commandments He never wandered out of the paths of Vertue nor never let his steps take hold of death he never defil'd his Virgin Innocence nor sullied
and blemish'd his Baptismal Purity nor fell into nor wallowed in any great sin and so needeth not to be washed and cleansed and purisied as a sinner in a higher sense needeth and this is the Happy the Blessed Person whom I prefer to the best Penitent and the truest Convert as the Parable here does 3. This shows the good of early Obedience and the great Happiness and Advantage of a Vertuous and Religious Education and the great Obligation there is for Parents to take care of this and the great thankfullness which those owe to God and their Parents who have had the benefit of it for nothing makes Virtue and Religion so easie or so acceptable to us as to have them taught and instill'd into us in our tender yearâ— when like soft Wax we are capable of any impressions and yet grow hard and retain them afterwards When the Seeds of Virtue are early Planted in our hearts before Vitious Habits or Inclinations are grown up in them and a sense of Religion takes the first possession of us and anticipates and prevents the power of our own Lusts or of evil Examples then Virtue becomes natural to us and Custom makes it both very easie to be practis'd and hard to be overcome for let the Habit and Custom be equal and I doubt not but there is as much difficulty for a Vertuous Person to become Vitious as for a Vitious Person to be made Vertuous It must be with great violence and reluctancy that such an one is brought to commit a wilfull Sin as well as the other to forsake it and therefore Scripture represents both the one and the other as if they were morally impossible As they who are accustomed to do Evil can as hardly learn to do Good as the Aethiopian can change his Skin or the Leopard his Spots so he that is born of God cannot Sin 1 John 3.9 I doubt not therefore but most of the good men that are or ever were in the World are such as have been Vertuously and Religiously Educated and brought up and but few of those in proportion who have been otherwise have been reclaim'd and brought off from the Lewdness and Debauchery they contracted when they were young T is a very hard and difficult thing to make a bad Man a good one the hardest thing in the World what the powerfull Operation of God's Grace is necessary to and what it often cannot effect thro' the stubbornness of the Will and indisposition of the Subject hence those complaints and expostulations I would have healed them but they would not be healed Jerem. 51.9 Turn ye turn ye why will ye die Oh that my people would have hearkned unto me and of Sinners resisting grieving and quenching the Holy Ghost and that God's Spirit shall not always strive with them and the like which shows the strength and power of ill habits and how hard 't is even by all means to get rid of them and how much happier it is to be engaged in an early Obedience and determined by a Vertuous Education than to be afterwards struggling with them 4. This prevents the common and dangerous mistakes about Repentance whereby Men make it a reserve to themselves to excuse them from a Religious and Vertuous and Holy life and think that by means of that they shall avoid all the mischief of their sins at last and be as safe and as secure of Heaven and their eternal Salvation tho' they live never so loosely and carelesly as if their whole lives had been spent in a course of Vertue and Religion 'T is but Repenting before they die and that as little before as they can if they can nick it right and are not cut off suddenly and unexpectedly which is but an accident that happens only to few and the great work and business is done by a true Sorrow and some sincere Resolutions and an Instantaneous change of mind as well as by the most intire Vertue and constant Obedience of a Man's whole life If so most Men's Sins and Lusts will perswade 'em to indulge and gratify 'em the greatest part of their lives if they cannot wholly bring 'em off from a sense and belief of Religion they will thus corrupt Religion and make it thereby comply with them and by these false notions of Repentance raise hopes to themselves of escaping all the mischief of their Sins and their ill lives and saving themselves by virtue of this Repentance at the last without leading a good life which they will therefore be glad to excuse themselves from as not absolutely necessary and so wholly trust and depend and venture upon the other way Now this is putting a trick upon God and Religion and being too hard for 'em upon their own Terms as they think tho' it is indeed putting a trick upon themselves and miserably deluding themselves into destruction by thus abusing this privilege of Repentance and making this Grant and Concession of the Gospel to destroy the Gospel it self and all the design of it which was to make men live well and bring them off from their Sins and not at all encourage them in 'em whereas by thus perverting the Grace of the Gospel and by wrong notions and wretched mistakes about Repentance the Obligations to actual Holiness and Obedienâ—â— are taken off and a Man may secure Heaven and his own Salvation without those by another and much shorter and easier way which is by Repentance at the last which shall be as safe to our selves and as acceptable to God and as well rewarded by him as the other Now I know but one way of saving a Man's Soul and going to Heaven and that is by a good life and by actual Holiness and Obedience Repentance is the bringing a sinner to these and if he do not do this tho' the Sorrow be never so great it is not true Repentance nor will be effectual to his Salvation 't is the Obedience and Holiness that he performs after his Disobedience and Wickedness which constitutes and compleats his Repentance and entitles him to the Divine favour and acceptance and to the rewards of Heaven and another World and the greater and perfecter and more entire this Obedience hath been the more it will be accepted and the more rewarded by a Righteous and Just God who will be Mercifull to Sinners when they Repent and turn to their Duty and Obedience and will accept and reward their broken and imperfect Obedience but not in so high a degree as the constant and unbroken and early and entire Obedience of Vertuous and Good men all their lives Lastly this Notion of an early Virtue and constant Obedience being prefertable to the truest Repentance stands upon the plainest principles of Religion and secures those evident Doctrines upon which all Practical Religion and the obligations of it are built such as these that God will reward every one at the last day according to their works and therefore in proportion to them and