from whom we are so called And that consists not in demure Looks and affected Phrases in melting Tones and mimick Gestures in Heats and Vehemence in Rapture and Ecstasie in systems of Opinion and scrupulosity about Nothing But in Faith and Patience Innocence and Integrity in Love to God and Charity to all the World in a modest sweetness and humble Deportment in a peaceable Spirit and readiness to obey God and Those He hath set over Us Where-ever These are there is the Image of our Lord and There ought to be our Love though the persons thus affected are Ignorant of many things and err in many though they differ from us in some Opinions we count Orthodox and walk not in the particular ways or Circumstances which We esteem Best And thus briefly of the Extent of the Duty we ought to Love ALL MEN but especially ALL Christians I descend to the Third general viz. III. The Excellency of Christian Love which I represent in the following particulars I. IT is the Image of God and of all the graces renders us most like our Maker For God is love and the Lover of men and his tender Mercies are over all his Works And the most sutable apprehension we can form of his Being is to look on him as an Omnipotent Omniscient Immutable Goodness And is it not a glorious Excellency that makes Men like the fountain of all perfection Our unhappy first Parents lost Paradise by aspiring to be like God in Knowledge and if we endeavour to be like him in Love we shall be in the way of gaining a better Paradise than they lost II. LOVE is the Spirit of Angels Glorified Souls and the best of Men. There is nothing by which the Angelical nature is so much distinguish'd from the Diabolical as Love and Goodness for the Devils have Spiritual and Immortal natures and great degrees of Power and Knowledge and those perhaps not much inferiour to what is to be found in some of the better Spirits so that the great difference is not in the excess of natural perfections which the Angels of Light have above those of Darkness but in this that the former abound in Love Sweetness and Benignity and the latter in Malice Cruelty and Revenge these are the very Image of Satan and Spirit of Hell Whereas all the Celestial Inhabitants live in the joyful exercise of uninterrupted Love and endearments Nor is that Love confined to the blessed and glorified Company but it sheds it self abroad upon the nether world and they are Ministring Spirits for our good Heb. 1. 14. They so far Love us that they can stoop from Heaven to serve us There is Joy there at the Conversion of a Sinner and no doubt there is Love to converted Saints and care and pity for all the rest of Men. For the spirits of the just made perfect are freed from their froward humours and pettish natures their mistaken Zeal and fondness of Opinions which straitned their Affections while they were on Earth and now they are inlarged by the vast improvements of their Knowledge and accomplishment of their Vertue by a fuller sense of Divine Love and of their Duty by the genius of their company and the imployment of the happy Place So that in Heaven all are truly Catholick in their Affections And the better any man is the more he is so upon Earth The good man makes not himself his center nor are his thoughts wholly engrost about his own concernments but he is carefully solicitous for the general benefit and never so much pleased as when he is made an instrument of Divine Goodness to promote the interests of his Christian brethren 'T was an high strain of Love in Moses exprest towards the Transgressing Israelites when he was content to be blotted out of Gods Book rather than that their Sin should not be blotted out Exod. 32. 32. And St. Paul was no less Zealously affectionate towards the Jews when he said he could wish himself accursed from Christ viz. separated from Christian communion as a most vile and abject person for their sakes Rom. 9. 3. These were spirits whom Religion and Divine Love had enlarged and the more any man advanceth in Christianity the nearer he approacheth to this generous heroick temper III. LOVE is an eminent branch of the Divine Life and Nature Love is of God and every one that Loveth is born of God saith the Apostle 1 John 4. 7 8. The Divine Nature in us is the Image of God Pourtray'd and lively drawn upon the regenerated Soul and I noted before that Love is the vital Image of our Maker 't is His spirit infused into us and growing in us and upon that account to be preferred before all Gifts and natural Perfections as St. Paul hath done it in the mentioned 1 Cor. 13. And the common Gifts of the Spirit differ from this special Grace as the Painters Picture doth from his Son His Counterfeit may indeed in a superficial appearance to the Eye resemble him more than his Child but yet it is but an empty shadow destitute and incapable of his Life and Nature So there are a sort of Gifts that have a spiritual appearance and may to those that see things at distance or have not their senses exercised seem more like the divine nature than this modest vertue But those that come near them and are better able to discern perceive that in themselves they are without the Divine Life and Motion and are meer Lifeless Pictures And here I dare say that the happiest faculty to Preach Plausibly and Pray with Fluency and Eloquence to Discourse Devoutly and readily to Interpret Scripture if it be not joyned with a benign and charitable spirit is no participation of the God-like life and nature nor indeed any more Divine than those common gifts and natural parts which those that think highly of themselves upon these accounts despise For very Evil men have been eminent in these accomplishments and Wicked Spirits are without question endowed with them and they are of themselves arguments of nothing but a faculty of Imitation a devotional Complexion and warm Imagination Whereas on the other hand Charity and Christian Love are good Evidence of a Renewed state and nature Our Saviour made it a Character Joh. 13. and the Apostle concludes from it 1 John 3. 14. By this we know that we are passed from death to life because we love the Brethren And if this be a Mark and St. John be not mistaken I doubt that some who are very gracious by many Signs of their own will want one of Christs to prove their comfortable presumption IV. LOVE is the bond and tye of Christian Communion How can two walk together except they are agreed The Church is a Body consisting of many Members which unless they Unite and send their mutual supplies one to another the whole is distempered and in the ready way to Death and Dissolution Now Charity is that vital Cement whereby they
are United and the Soul by which the common body lives that whereby the League between the members is preserved and health with it When this decays sad symptoms and mortal evils follow We see in Nature the great Fabrick of the World is maintained by the mutual Friendship and conspiracy of its parts which should they universally fall out and break the bond of Amity that is between them should they act their Antipathies upon each other yea should they but cease to serve one another for the general good the whole frame would be dissolved and all things shuffled into their old Chaos and Abyss And the greatest evils that have or can happen to the Church have been the effects of the Decay of Charity and those intestine Divisions that have grown up in it From these she hath always suffered more than from external persecutions The flames within have consumed her when those from without have only sindg'd her garments V. LOVE is the most Catholick grace and upon that account the most excellent since that which promotes the good of the whole is better than any private perfection for which reason things in nature will quit their particular interests when the common good so requireth as heavy bodies will ascend and light bodies descend to prevent a chasm and breach in Nature Now of all the divine vertues there is none of so large an influence as Love 't is a grace designed for the good of the community as the principle of self-Love is for the preservation of particular beings This stirs up our endeavours for the good of others and especially for the general good The Church receives no wound but Love feels the smart of it nor is any member of it afflicted but Love is grieved This is the very Spirit of our dear Lord who was touched with a feeling of our Infirmities And to these I add this last VI. LOVE commends Christianity to those without and cleanseth the Profession of it from many Spots it hath contracted within The generality of men are not able to judge of Religions themselves but usually reckon of them as they do of their Professors Whatever is excellent or else unworthy in a Votary of Religion redounds to the credit or disparagement of the Religion he hath adopted So that were the charity and goodness of Christianity transcribed into the lives of Christians it would ravish the eyes of all Beholders and out-shine all other Professions Men would more easily be perswaded to believe that Religion to be from God whose Professors they saw to be so God-like Love and goodness prevail where nothing else will these win and captivate the Soul And such conquests are better and more noble than either those of Arts or Arms which only bring the body under 'T is but small credit to any Religion to cut its way by the Sword or gain upon the world by Power or Policy That which opens it self a passage by its native loveliness and beauty is the most Illustrious and makes the surest and most generous Conquests And were Christendom but Christian in this regard and the Professors of the true Religion truly Religious that is abounding in that charity and goodness which Christianity enjoyns our Religion would spread its wings through the World and all contrary Professions would lie in the dust before it Whereas the Divisions and fatal feuds of Paganized degenerated Christendom are now the great partition-Wall between Us and the Heathen-World yea they are more particularly the great scandal of the Reformation and make us the scorn of Those of Rome And O that They that speak and pray much against the Beast would not prove instrumental to uphold his Throne We expect and hope for glorious times when the Man of Sin is faln and doubtless there shall be such But then the glory of those times consists not in external rule or dominion of the Church but in the Universal Restauration of it to its primitive Simplicity and Purity Then will the Church be Glorious indeed when all Christians shall unite upon the Foundation of an Holy Life and the joynt Profession of the few plain Fundamentals of Faith When they shall make real Goodness the Object of their affections towards each other and all Differences in Opinions and dispensable Practices the Objects of their mutual Forbearance When such times as these shall come then doth the Reign of Christ begin And this is the true and wish't Millennium Now we cannot expect those glorious days which are to Commence upon the Fall of Anti-christ till we see all Christians sincerely set upon Destroying what is Anti-christian in themselves Anti-christ will not be overthrown by our declaiming against Him and spitting the fire of Rage at the Infallible Chair It will be to better purpose for us to examine what of Anti-christianism remains in our selves And while Rancour and Bitterness Rage and Animosities upon the Account of Difference in smaller Opinions are in our Borders Anti-christ hath a Throne among us and there is nothing could be so Effectual a Blow at the Root of Anti-christianism as the exercise of Charity and Catholick Goodness And when we see these take place then may we Triumphantly sing forth BABYLON IS FALN I Come now Fourthly to the Means of attaining this excellent and Catholick Temper And I propose them by way of DIRECTION CONSIDERATION and CAUTION The DIRECTIONS are these I. Acknowledge worth in any man Whatever is good is from God and He is to be lov'd and owned in all things as well in the Paint upon the Butter-flies wing as in the glorious uniform lustre of the Sun as well in the composure of the little Ant as in the vast Bodies of the Whale or Elephant In the least Herb under our feet as well as in the Stupendous Fabrick of the Heavens over us And moral Perfections are to be acknowledg'd as well as these natural ones We are to love Vertue in an Heathen and whatever is Well or Worthy in those whose Apprehensions are most distant from our own And we must take care that we make not our Relish the Measure of Worth and Goodness Say not this is excellent because 't is agreeable to your particular Palates and that on the other hand is Vile and Loathsom because 't is distastful to your Gust and Genius There are various kinds and degrees of Excellency which differently affect the diversity of Tempers and Constitutions And at the best we are Imperfectly good and therefore cannot be the Measure of it Let us then be so Ingenuous as to own the vertue and the goodness that is in all parties and Opinions Let us commend and love it This will be a means to sweeten our Spirits and to remove the Animosities we are apt to conceive against the Persons of Dissenters and 't will ingage them on the other hand to a greater kindness for us and so Lessen our Distance and Disagreements There is a kind of Spirit among some which is so
appearances if they are no more lie on the other side is Bedlam madness I have thus represented to the desperate Scoffer whose Lusts have made him seriously believe that Religion is contemptible that the practice of Scoffing at it be it what it will is very absurd and dangerous But there is yet another sort of Scoffers to be treated with who are not yet come so far as to believe that Religion is a Fable and yet Scoff at the profession of it out of modishness and an humour of imitation They do not in their hearts deny Religion but yet they deride Those that practise according to it they are not content to laugh at the fopperies that many times call themselves by that sacred name but fleer also and spend the silly thing they think to be Wit upon those actions that are undoubtedly religious Such never enter into the consideration of the matter and therefore I shall endeavour to awaken them that they may know what they do by the things that follow 1. They Scoff at the Religious for acting according to Reason that is because they are men and not bruits Because they act like intelligent creatures and not like the Horse and Mule that have no understanding They deride them for passing right judgements and making a right choice for preferring God before the creature the soul before the body and eternity before time For choosing light before darkness beauty before deformity and life and happiness before the extreams of death and misery God hath given to all his creatures a principle to direct their actions Reason to Men and Sense and Appetite to Beasts so that to deride men for governing themselves by their reasons and not by inferiour principles is as absurd as if a man should laugh at the Ox for grazing freely in the field and not standing still to grow like a tree or at the bird because it flies in the air and doth not creep like the worm on the ground He that doth so is an Ideot and a Natural and the Scoffer acts at the same rate of folly 2. He derides men for living by the most Catholick rule of nature viz. that of Self-love and self-preservation He flouts them for seeking health and happiness riches honours and pleasures the truest and the best For endeavouring to obtain the favour of God the peace of Conscience and security of future and eternal well being For striving to avoid the snares of Satan the wrath of God and pains of Hell He laughs at them because they will not thrust their heads into the Fire and leap the precipice into the gulph of woe Because they will not be their own executioners and beat out their own brains 3. He Scoffs at the Religious because they act for the great ends of their Being God made all things for an end and man for a noble one the injoyment of himself for ever Now the exercises of Religion are the way to this end and to deride men for this is to laugh at them for acting and designing pertinently and nobly The Scoffer jeers the religious because he lives for greater ends than the Beasts and indeavours to be happier than his horses and his swine Because he will not be content only to eat and drink and revel and die 4. The Scoffer laughs at the Religious for aiming at the perfection of his nature God made man perfect but we have corrupted our selves Eccl. 7. 29. and debased our noble beings We have destroyed our Makers Image and deform'd our natures Now the design of Religion is to repair our ruines and to recover us to the integrity and perfection of our first selves to restore Light to the mind and vertue to the will and order to the affections to heal cleanse and beautifie the soul So that to Scoff at men for living by this is as if one should deride the sick for taking physick and the blind for using a guide As if a man should be scorn'd for washing after he had faln into a mire or for seeking cure for a foul Leprosie that had over-spread him 5. The scoffer derides the Religious for acting according to his own principles He saith there is a God and jeers those that worship Him he believes that God is infinitely amiable wise great and good and yet laughs at men for loving his beauty and believing his wisdom and trusting in his power and goodness He saith that Christ is the Saviour and derides those that are willing to be saved by Him that the Holy Ghost is the sanctifier and laughs at that holiness He teacheth and produceth He will tell you he believes there is an Heaven of eternal happiness and scorns those that seek it that there is an Hell of endless woe and torment and makes sport of all endeavours to avoid it 6. He derides men because they are true to their engagements and professions Because when they have promised to forsake the Devil and all his works they are not willing in practice to forsake God and all his Because when they say Thy will be done they don't resolve to do all they can to cross it Because after they have pray'd an hundred times Incline our hearts to keep thy Laws they do not set themselves every day to break them At such extravagant rates as these doth he act that retains the belief of Religion and scoffs at the practice of it And O that they were wise and would consider this who so far forget God and the Reasonable natures he hath given them I shall now II. conclude with some Directions and Rules of caution for security against this grievous folly And 1. Let us be in earnest in Religion endeavouring to understand what we profess to believe what we understand and to practise what we believe And then we shall feel such a sense of Religion on our souls as will beget the highest reverence to it and effectually secure us from any such impiety For 't is ignorance infidelity and an evil life that are the great causes of mens contempt of Religion 2. Let us take care that we place not Religion in uncertain opinions and vain trifles Mens superstitious fondness of such hath expos'd Christianity to much scorn and derision while its enemies will not or can not distinguish between Religion it self and those fopperies that pretend unto it This hath been a main ground of most of the contempt that is upon it at this day There is nothing in substantial naked Religion that can afford the least just occasion for laughter or malicious sport it being in it self the most reasonable venerable thing in the world Let us take care then that we mingle not any thing that is ridiculous with it 3. When we deride the vanities of errour and superstition let us be cautious lest we give incouragement or ground to others by it to Scoff at Religion it self and consider that the Lusts of men are ready to catch at any occasion to abuse and vilifie their
to consider whether its pretended friends have not been and are not still great occasions of it The greatest part of Christians are incapable of judging concerning the truth or goodness of any Church or Constitution of Religion but are inclin'd in their opinion and affection by the general temper and practice of its professors and adherents Now 't is an almost universal principle among men that Religion and the Worship of God require the greatest seriousness and zeal where these are observ'd in peoples carriage to their particular Church the most are usually inclin'd to have respect for that on the other side when the members of any Church are cold and unconcern'd or wanton and irreverent in their Religion such a temper when it comes to be general draws popular contempt upon that Church and way This at present is the sad case of ours and I doubt it may be too truly said that there are no retainers to any Church in the world who are so little concern'd for it and the worship of God in it as the pretenders to the Church of England If we survey our several Congregations and consider our people we shall find but very few that carry themselves as if they had any conscientious affection to the Religion they profess If the Estimate be taken from those that are constant or frequent at the publick Prayers in Cathedrals or other Churches certainly the number must be acknowledg'd to be very small and if we reckon only such that carry but the appearance of serious Devotion it will be yet less so that the Church may almost be tempted to say with him There is not one godly man left the righteous are minished from among the children of men There are indeed multitudes who will tell us they are of this Church when they give us no ground but their bare word to believe they are of any While they talk of owning and adhering to the Church they will not afford the solemn worship of it as much as their bodily presence as long as the Devil and their Lusts have employment for them elsewhere They carry themselves to it as to a matter of the greatest indifference will go to Church now and then when time lies upon their hands and they are in the humour for it and then again never think of Religion or Worship till another accident excites them And when they come to such Sacred places as this with what rude boldness do they enter Gods house and how much carelesness and irreverence do they express in their very looks and garb Confident negligence seems at present to be a fashion and the whole carriage after is sutable to this ill beginning What toying talking gazing laughing and other rude follies may we observe in the midst of the most solemn parts of worship and how much slightness and playsomness in speaking of serving God being devout saying prayers and such like serious things after it Now when these carriages are observ'd not to mention worse in those that say they are of the Church of England how readily doth it dispose the generality of men who judge by bare appearance to think amiss of the Church that is ordinarily thus treated by its members and to suppose most others that profess it to be of the same sort or not very different and so to despise the Church and all that adhere unto it This certainly is a very great occasion of her present contempt and if you would not be accessary to its increase and growth if it be capable of any more beware of this carelesness and irreverence to the Religion you profess If Religion be a real thing and not a meer imagination as nothing is more certain it then requires our greatest zeal and venerations and the most serious exercise of our faculties and endeavours no prostrations can be too low in the adoration of the God of Heaven no ingagement of soul too intense in praying for his blessing and praising him for his bounty no attention too serious in hearing of His Word no deportment too awful in His eye and special presence Let us all consider this and demean our selves in our worship as those that are in earnest Let the light of our zeal and devotion so shine before men that they seeing our works may glorifie God reverence the Church and vindicate it and us from the scorning of those that are at ease and the contempt of the proud Let us endeavour so to worship that the fervour of our piety may equal the truth of our profession and our actions in Religion may have some sutableness to our expectations from it And then though the Church and we are filled with contempt yet we shall be clear from any imputation of the guilt and our souls may be at ease though we are scorn'd by the Proud Preach'd at a Visitation SERMON VI. MORAL EVIDENCE OF A Life to Come The Second Edition SERMON VI. MATTH XXII 32. God is not the God of the dead but of the living NOtwithstanding the manifold and immediate Transactions of God with the people of the Jews yet were they a dull and stupid generation addicted very much to the matters of sense and indisposed to things of spiritual and invisible nature Yea there was a great and famous Sect among them that denied a Life to come and the Existence of immaterial beings For the Sadducees say there is no Resurrection neither Angels nor Spirit Acts 23. 8. These put the Question here to our Saviour in a case of a woman who successively had seven Husbands whose Wife she should be at the Resurrection from ver 22. to the 28. which captious Query they intended for an Argument against the Doctrine of another Life Christ answers directly to the objection by telling them their mistake of the state and condition of that Life since they neither marry nor are given in marriage that have attain'd unto it but are like the Angels of God ver 30. and then takes occasion to prove the Resurrection or Living again of the dead out of the writings of Moses the only Scripture the Sadducees allow'd ver 31 32. But as touching the Resurrection of the dead have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God saying I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob God is not the God of the dead but of the living The former clause of the verse cites the Scripture which is the ground of the Argument the latter is a principle of Reason and both together infer That there is a Resurrection Now the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Resurrection of the dead undertaken to be shewn was not the Resurrection of the body though that be a great truth also since the argument doth not reach this For one who believes that the soul lives after death may say That God is the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob though the body doth not rise for they are living in their souls which
our Natures almost universally rise against as many Bestialities and some horrid Cruelties and all men except Monsters in Humane form are disposed to some Vertues such as Love to Children and Kindness to Friends and Benefactors All this I must confess and say because Experience constrains me and I do not know why Systematick Notions should sway more than that But notwithstanding these last concessions 't is evident enough that our Natures are much vitiated and depraved and this makes our business in the way of Religion difficult For our work is to cleanse our Natures and to destroy those Evil Inclinations to crucifie the Old Man Rom. 6. 6. and to purge out the old Leven 1 Cor. 5. 7. This is Religion and the Way of Happiness which must needs be very difficult and uneasie For the vices of Inclination are very dear and grateful to us They are our Right Hands and our Right Eyes and esteemed as our Selves So that to cut off and pluck out these and to bid defiance to and wage War against our selves to destroy the first-born of our Natures and to lop off our own Limbs This cannot but be very Irksome and Displeasant Imployment and this is one chief business and a considerable thing that makes Religion difficult II. Another Difficulty ariseth from the Influence of the Senses We are Creatures of sense and sensible things do most powerfully move us we are born Children and live at first the life of Beasts That Age receives deep Impressions and those are made by the senses whose Interest grows strong and establisht in us before we come to the use of Reason and after we have arrived to the exercise of that sensible objects still possess our Affections and sway our Wills and fill our Imaginations and influence our Understandings so that we love and hate we desire and choose we fancy and we discourse according to those Impressions and hence it is that we are enamour'd of Trifles and fly from our Happiness and pursue Vexation and embrace Misery and imagine Perversely and reason Childishly for the influence of the Body and its Senses are the chief Fountains of Sin and Folly and Temptation Upon which accounts it was that the Platonical Philosophers declaim'd so earnestly against the Body and ascrib'd all Evils and Mischief to it calling vice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 corporeae Pestes material Evils and bodily Plagues And the Apostle that understood it better calls Sin by the name of Flesh Gal. 5. 17. Works of the Flesh Gal. 5. 19. Law of the Members Rom. 7. 23. and cries out upon the Body of this Death Rom. 7. 24. And now this is our natural Condition a state subject to the prevalent influences of Sense and by this means to Sin and Temptation and 't is our Work in Religion to mortifie the Body Rom. 8. 13. and to cease from making provision for the flesh Rom. 13. 14. and from fulfilling the Lusts thereof Gal. 5. 14. To render our selves dead to the prevalent life of Sense and Sin Rom. 6. 8. and 11. 5. and to arise to a new Life Rom. 6. 4. The Life of Righteousness and Faith Hab. 2. 4. A Life that hath other Principles and other Pleasures other Objects and other Ends and such as neither Eye hath seen nor Ear heard nor any of the Senses perceived Yea this is a Life that is exercised in contradiction to the Judgements of sense It s Joy is Tribulation Jam. 1. 2. It s Glory Reproaches 2 Pet. 4. 14. It s Height is Lowness Luke 14. 11. It s Greatness in being Meanest Matth. 20. 27. And its Riches in having Nothing 2 Cor. 6. 10. To such a Life as this Religion is to raise us and it must needs be difficult to make us who are so much Brutes to be so much Angels us who seem to live by nothing else but sense to live by nothing less This with a witness is an hard and uneasie Work and another difficulty in Religion III. A Third proceeds from the natural Disorder and Rage of our Passions Our Corrupt Natures are like the troubled Sea Isa 57. 20. And our Passions are the Waves of that Ocean that tumble and swell and keep a mighty noise they dash against the Rocks and break one against another and our Peace and Happiness is shipwrackt by them Our Passions make us miserable We are sometime stifled by their Numbers and confounded by their Disorders and torn to pieces by their Violence mounted to the Clouds by Ambition and thrown down to the deep by Despair scorcht by the flames of Lust and overwhelmed by the Waters of unstable Desire Passions fight one against another and all against reason they prevail over the Mind and have usurpt the Government of our Actions and involve us in continual Guilt and Misery This is the natural State of Man and our work in the way of Religion is to restrain this Violence and to rectifie these Disorders and to reduce those Rebellious Powers under the Empire and Government of the Mind their Sovereign And so to regain the Divine Image which consists much in the order of our Faculties and the Subjection of the Brutish to the reasonable Powers This I say Religion aims at to raise us to the perfection of our Natures by mortifying those Members Col. 3. 5. our unruly Passions and Desires and crucifying the Flesh with its Affections and Lusts Gal. 5. 24. And thereby to make us humble in Prosperity quiet in Adversity meek under Provocations steady amidst Temptations modest in our Desires temperate in our Injoyments constant to our Resolutions and contented in all Conditions Here is our great Business and our Work is this And certainly 't is no easie thing to bring order out of a Chaos and to speak a Tempest into a Calm to resist a Torrent and to stop and turn the Tyde to subdue a Rebellious Rabble and to change them from Tyrannical Masters to Modest and Obedient Servants These no doubt are works of difficulty enough and these must be our Imployment in the way of Religion and on this score also the Gate is strait IV. Our Work in Religion is yet more difficult upon the account of Custom to which we are subject and by which we are swayed much This is vulgarly said to be another Nature and the Apostle calls it by that name 1 Cor. 11. 14. Doth not Nature it self teach you that if a Man have long Hair it is a shame unto him By the word Nature the best Interpreters say only Custom is meant since long Hair is not declared shameful by the Law and Light of Nature taken in its chief and properest sense For then it had never been permitted to the Nazarites But the contrary custom in the Nations that used it not made it seem shameful and indecent There are other places in Scripture and ancient Authors wherein Nature is put for Custom But I must not insist on this the thing I am about is that Custom is very
consequence from it And thus also are our differences heightned and rendred almost incurable If then we have any kindness for Charity and Christian Love let us take care of such dis-ingenuous practices A true Catholick should not take any Name to himself but that of a Christian nor Reproach any other with any Style of Infamy He should not and cannot in Modesty or Justice charge his brother with any Opinion which he will not own though he never so clearly see that it may be concluded from what he believes and teacheth If men would learn to be thus Fair and Candid to each other our Differences would be reduced to a narrower Circle and there might be some hopes that Peace and Love would revive and flourish in our Borders IF any now should ask me Whether this Doctrine of Universal Love do not tend to Universal Toleration I should answer that thus far it doth viz. that all private persons should Tolerate each other and bear with their brothers Infirmities That every man should allow another that Liberty which he desires himself in things wherein the Laws of God and the Land have left him Free and permit him his own Opinion without Censure or Displeasure Such a Toleration I think Christianity requires in Private men But as to the Publick I do by no means think it Modest for Us to determine what the Government should do And in This case 't is as unfit as in Any whatsoever since this matter depends upon the Consideration of so many Things that 't is very Difficult to state the Bounds of Just Permission and Restraint Leaving That therefore to Their Prudence whom Providence hath called to determine in It I shall only say that so much Toleration as may consist with the Interests of Religion and Publick Safety may be Granted But such a Liberty as is prejudicial to any of These should not be expected For Christianity and all other Considerations oblige the Government to provide for the Common Good And were the Duty of Catholick Charity duly practised and Private Christians once perswaded to Tolerate one another it might then be safer for the Government to give a Larger publick Toleration than possibly now is fit In the mean while without troubling our selves with fansies about the Duty of our Governours Let us mind our Own especially this great one of Charity and Christian Love And if we mind this and practise sutably God will be Glorified and Religion Advanced the Church will be Edified and our Souls Comforted Government will be Established and the Peace of the world Promoted And the Peace of God which passeth all Understanding will keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus To whom with God the Father and God the Holy Ghost be ascribed all Glory and Worship henceforth and for ever SERMON III. Christian Loyalty Preach'd on the KING'S MARTYRDOME The Second Edition SERMON III. A FAST SERMON ON THE King's Martyrdom ROM XIII 2. And they that resist shall receive to themselves Damnation AS there are some Ages and Times that are more infested than others with unhappy influences from the Heavens and noxious reeks from the Earth which by poysoning the Air Roots and Herbs convey that pestilential venome into mens bodies that even wearies Death and gluts the Grave with its slaughters and was matter of our late miseries In like manner there are Times when poysonous Doctrines from the Pulpit and malign humours in the Populace infect the Publick Air and spread a fatal Contagion into mens Principles and Manners which flies like Infection and destroys like the Plague And if ever Times were under cross and unlucky Aspects if ever there were a publick Spirit of Phrensie and mischief in the World in any days since the first certainly this Lot is fallen upon ours wherein mens Principles and Practices contend which shall out-do the other in the degree of Evil And 't is hard to say which are worse Mens actions or opinions We are fallen into Times wherein among some 't is a piece of Gallantry to defie God and a kind of Wit to be an Atheist among others 't is Religion to be Humorous and Phantastick and Conscience to be Turbulent and Ungovernable Nor have mens Practices come short of the malignity of their Belief but if possible have out-done it Atheism hath not rested in the judgement but proceeded to all enormities and debauches And we had not been called to the sad solemnity of this Day if Rebellion had stopt in Opinion But alas the venome of the Asp hath swoln into deadly Tumors and those seditious Principles have shot their poysonous arrows into the vitals of the publick Body We yet feel the smart of those wounds and the Generations to come will wear the scars and the marks of our misery and our guilt What is past we may lament but cannot help What we may do and what we ought is to inform our selves better of the Duty we owe to God and those he hath appointed over us and to endeavour the suppressing those principles and affections which breathed the Plagues that destroyed the Nation and would again burn us up in hotter Flames than those And if that fatal Fire which so lately prey'd upon our Peace and our Properties our Religion and our Government our Persons and our Friends hath not yet convinced us of the evils and danger of Resistance yet there is another and a greater one as certain and more fatal threatned by the Apostle They that resist shall receive to themselves damnation Which words were spoken in the days of NERO who besides that he was an Heathen was a Persecutor and a Tyrant and the most infamous instance in Nature and yet this Monster is not excepted as to the Tribute of Obedience Whereas had this been said in the days of such a Prince as our CHARLES the First it might have been supposed that the vertue of the person claimed the reverence and subjection and not the character of the Prince And that 't was damnable to resist because he was Good not because he was Supream because he was a Nursing Father of the Church not because the Ruling Father of his Countrey 'T was an happy coincidence therefore to secure the Authority of the Magistrate which answers the greatest pretensions of Rebellion If Religion be pretended an Heathen must not be resisted If Tyranny 't is damnation to oppose a Nero. They that resist shall receive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the wrath and judgement of God which implies the guilt and expresseth the danger Now to resist lawful Authority is so sinful and so dangerous principally upon this three-fold account RESISTANCE 1. Affronts the Authority of God 2. 'T is contrary to the Spirit of Religion And 3. Destructive to the Interest of Societies The two former express the Guilt and the latter both the Sin and the Punishment Of each in order 1. RESISTANCE is an affront to the authority of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lord sets up Kings saith
of Imagination and proudly look'd down upon the modest and humble Believer who were full of mysterie and rapture scorn and talk but void of justice modesty and love These we have reason to think shall then be cast out and receive their portion with the Pharisee to the shame and disappointment of their confidence and their hopes In this Day shall the Errours and the follies that were recommended to the deceiv'd embraces of the Sons of men by frauds and Art paint and meretricious bravery be expos'd in their naked Deformities to the sight and contempt of all the world And that Truth and those Vertues that were persecuted into Corners and cover'd with dust and shame torn piece-meal by wrath and ignorance and scatter'd up and down in the Tents of Errour shall then be brought into the Light and cleansed from all debasing mixtures and represented in their native loveliness and beauty that they may receive the praises and acclamations of their ancient friends and acquaintance Yea and the acknowledgements of their now blushing and confounded enemies Upon the whole we see That the Faith of a Future Judgement is not misbecoming the severest Sons of Reason and Philosophy but is infinitely agreeable to the faculties of men and the Analogy of things I Come now to the SECOND main thing in the Text II. The Universality of the Subject to be judged the World so it is here And the Scripture elsewhere expresseth it in very general terms The secrets of men Rom. 2. 16. Every man Rev. 20. 13. The Dead small and great Rev. 20. 12. The quick and the dead 1 Pet. 4. 5. Now I shall consider the Universality of the Subject of Judgement in two great solemnities of it viz. The General Summons and the General Resurrection that follows both mentioned together 1 Cor. 15. 52. The trumpet shall sound and the Dead shall be raised 1. The Trumpet either some divine universal vertue or the voice of some mighty Angel crying Arise ye Dead and come to Judgement Methinks I hear that voice 't is full of Majesty and terrour 't is more loud than Fame and more general than the Light of Heaven 'T is heard at both the Poles in the Earth and Sea and Air and all Deep places Attend Attend Ye Sons of Adam Ye that are afar off and ye that are near Ye that begun with the Infant World and ye that liv'd in its latest Periods Ye that freeze under the uncomfortable North and ye that are hid under the remotest South Ye that dwell in the temperate Regions and ye that are scorch'd with the heats of the Line Ye that only cry'd and ceas'd to breathe and ye that went slowly and late to the Grave Ye that are yet alive and ye that have been Ages under ground Hearken Hearken to the Proclamation of the great King the Prince of Glory the Judge of Angels and Men The Day the Day of vengeance and recompence is come the Day of Terrours and of Triumphs The night is past Arise ye dead cease sleeping in the Grave Put on our bodies gather up your scatter'd parts summon your thoughts together and make up your Accounts The Tribunal is set the Judge is coming And ye living Inhabitants lay by your designs let fall your Traffique quit your pleasures and pursuits the time for these is done for ever done Eternity is in view Trim your Lamps the Bridegroom is at the door 2. And now the General Resurrection follows Behold the closest Vaults throw away their coverings and disclose the proud Families that lay hid in that stately darkness See how the loose Earth moves about the Cloysters of the Dead and the Grave opens all its doors to enlarge its Prisoners And lo a numerous people riseth from under ground to attend the great Assize of Angels and men They arise but are not yet alive Death sits upon their faces clad in dread and paleness They lose that motion with astonishment which they gained with their restored parts and are ready to be shaken into their former dust by the fear that hath seized their unsettled joynts They wonder at the Light and at themselves and are ready to drop back into the Graves from which they just peep'd out See here the mighty sits trembling by his Monument unconcern'd at the vain Epithets it gave to his flatter'd Memory and the delicate sighs with his first breath willing to return to darkness rottenness and worms rather than to the light that will discover the guilt and the follies of a Life of vanity and sin The Hypocrite droops to consider that his painting and his shame are to be brought out of the night and silence of the Grave into a naked and open day and the vitious dies again to think That he hath taken up his body from one Death to carry it to another and a worse Thus the world of the wicked shall all appear and all be concern'd in the Judgement that follows The Righteous shall rise also They awake with vigour in their souls and life in their eyes with gayety in their looks and transports in all their powers Their new warm'd blood moves pleasantly in its ancient chanels and the restored spirits dance in the renewed veins They are glad to meet the old companion of their pleasures and their miseries rejoycing at its rescue from the infamous dishonours of corruption and that 't is ready to pass with them into the promised and long expected Glories These are the First-fruits and the full Crop is near and their joy is beyond the joy of Harvest and we must leave the degree to be imagin'd that cannot be exprest And thus the universal World both of the wicked and the righteous shall appear on the Solemn Summons The Earth and Air and Sea and Death and Hell shall give up their Dead Rev. 20. 13. And so Adam and the Patriarchs and all the Ancient Sages with their Sons and Nephews to the latest Posterity shall stand up together before the Judgement Seat for all are subjects of the same general Empire and all are accountable for their Actions to the same Soveraign Judge And He is the Man whom God hath ordain'd to judge the world in Righteousness And this is the next thing in the Text to be consider'd viz. III. The person appointed The Man whom he hath ordain'd And this is the Man Christ Jesus even the Man who being in the form of God thought it no robberry to be equal with God Phil. 2. 6. The same is He who is ordain'd of God to be the Judge of the quick and the dead Act. 10. 42. And now under this Head I shall shew how fit he is as man for this great and solemn office in these two particulars 1. He is fit to be the General Judge as Man because he descended to the meanness of our condition 'T is but just that He who laid by his ancient Glory and cloath'd himself in the Livery of guilt and shame should re-assume