Law And we shall find a reason for this way of working in that prayer of the same King David Help me O Lord my God O save me according to thy mercies that they may know that this is thy hand and that thou Lord hast don it When our distresses are beyond the succors of means power and counsels if deliverance come we must needs know 't is from above The Prophet speaks of men as apt to sacrifice to their net and burn incense to their drag with which they catch ascribing their successes to themselves But when the Apostles use their net all night and can take nothing then if one upon the shore whom they know not bid them cast in and they do catch strait one of them crieth out it is the Lord. When out of a desperate condition of affairs we see hope drawn we know it is the day spring from on high Whatever several of the late discoverers of the Popish conspiracy may have said or don to disparage their evidence and the credit of what they testify or men Popishly affected have contriv'd to make it be disbeliev'd yet surely while the trial and the letters of the late apostate busy Factor for the party remain upon record it will be manifest as the light that there was a practice and endeavor to subvert the present establishment in Church and State and introduce the superstition and tyranny of Rome among us And that God will be further gracious in the sending forth his light to discover and to disappoint their dire attemts there is ground to hope because it always was the ordinary method of his working making the day of Extremity the day of Salvation 1. In the Jewish Church and Nation And here I shall not mention their deliverance from the Egyptian bondage tho it be a demonstration of my Proposition but name that from the designs of Haman who had satisfied the King their Laws and their Religion and their Worship differ'd from those of all people 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Josephus and that were still occasions to embroile the State that if he would give order they should be destroi'd he would bring 10000 talents near two millions of our mony into the Exchequer whereupon the King allows him to make what declarations he shall please against them and signs an Edict to his Governors and his Lieutenants for the massacring the whole Nation which might easily be don the Jews then being in captivity and mixt among them Mordecay adviseth Ester to present her self before the King remonstrate the injustice of the fact that being death to do she would decline it but as one acquainted with Gods methods Mordecai does answer her think not with thy self that thou shalt escape in the Kings house more then all the Jews for if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place here is a pregnant instance of the assurance of my text but thou and thy fathers house shall be destroi'd And who knoweth whether thou art come to the Kingdom for such a time as this Hereupon she and her Nation fast and pray and she adventures and God gives her favor with the King and he reverses all and the whole Nation on that very day it was to perish is secur'd and the design returns upon their heads that plotted it on all their Enimies I need name no more but there is one pregnant one on which there lies an imputation from great men I mean when throout that Nation their Religion was so persecuted that it was almost extinct false Heathen worship planted in its place possessed the Temple and the Sanctuary and all was profan'd by Antiochus Epiphanes the state so lively propheci'd of by the Prophet Daniel Now when it was thus there was so universal a defection as already had subverted the whole Government Religion and almost the whole Nation God stirs up the Spirit of the Maccabbees on that day three years that all was profan'd ' was again purified and they deliver'd I instance so least that which Grotius satih that nothing can defend that action of the Maccabbees besides extreme certain necessity and what our Thorndike saith 't is manifest the Arms which they took up against their lawful Soveraign are by God approv'd and their Faith commended Hebr. 11. least these should misguide men it may be seasonable to declare that it is plain Antiochus Epiphanes altho he call that land his Kingdom was not then their rightful King for after Alexanders death the first that got possession of it was the King of Egypt It was after violently taken indeed from him by the King of Syria the Jews gave up themselves to the protection of Antiochus the Great but he gave it in dowry to the King of Egypt with his daughter so parted with all right whatever right the Kings of Syria could be suppos'd to have Antiochus Epiphanes had none of that as being not a lawful King of any place usurping from his Nephew the right Heir and with all injurious angry violence when he was driven out of Egypt the attaques Jerusalem and enters it and sets up all the Heathen Exercises and Religion and forbids Gods Worship ravages and spoils and murders all refusers till the Maccabbees oppos'd his fury and till Judas three years after as I said restor'd all having fought against a violent Aggressor not his rightful Prince and he is by Grotius made the very man that typ'd out Christ and was seen by the Prophet in Isaiah 63. Who is he that cometh from Edom with dyed garments from Bozra to which he makes Judas Maccabeus answer I that defend Gods Worship and the true Religion against Antiochus and all his power and to save my People cast my self upon extremest hazards Once more when Caius Emperor of Rome had sent Petronius into Syria charging him to make war on the Jews and by all utmost force to make thew condescend to let his image the statue of himself I mean be set up in their Temple at Jerusalem the Jews when he came into Syria to their Country met him several thousands several times with supplications and entreaties to divert him if they could from doing it But he declaring his Commission to them let them see it was not possible for him to contradict the Emperor and they declar'd also since he durst not transgress the commands of the Emperor he must not think it strange if they durst not transgress Almighty Gods command resolving to endure whatever should be inflicted on the rather then violate that Doing this often and in multitudes Petronius askt them whether they did mean on that account to fight with Caesar and make war against him they repli'd they would not fight but they could die on that account and prostrating themselves and offering their naked throats shew'd their readiness to entertain their death and this for
the advice and by Will dispos'd of such Legacies as he thought fit to leave to the poor and to his friends and gave the remainder among his sisters and their children Tho he hung thus loose from the world he neither was negligent in secular affairs nor unskilful in the managery of them which was made manifest by his dextrous discharge of the private trusts committed to him in behalf of his dead friends and the administration of his public emploiments He was for several years Tresurer of Christ-Church in a busy time of their repairing of the ruins made by the entruding Vsurpers and amidst the necessary avocations of study found leisure for a full discharge of that troublesom emploiment The College of Eton as I intimated before he found in a very ill condition as to its revenue and fabric and what was no less a mischief unstatutable and unreasonable grants of Leases to all which excepting one whose reduction must be the work of time he applied effectual remedies The Schole he found in a low condition but by his prudence in the choice of a learned discreet and diligent Master by his interest in bringing young Gentlemen and Persons of Quality thither and by his great kindness to them when there and taking care for the building fit accommodation for their reception within the precincts of the College in few years the Schole grew into that great reputation and credit which it yet maintains And here we may not pass by another considerable service don in behalf of the said Schole and also King's College in Cambridge whose Seminary it is that whereas both those Societies were formerly under the discouragement that the Fellowships of Eton were generally dispos'd of to persons of foreign education by the vigorous interposition of Dr. Allestree added to the petition of the Provost and Fellows of King's College his sacred Majesty was pleas'd to pass a grant under the broad Seal that in all future times five of the seven Fellows should be such as had bin bred in Eton Schole and were Fellows of King's College which has ever since took place and will be a perpetual incitement to diligent study and vertuous endeavor in both those roial foundations In the managery of the business of the Chair of Divinity as he performed the Scholastic part with great sufficiency in exact and dextrous untying the knots of argument and solid determination of controverted points so that he was not opprest by the fame of any of his most eminent Predecessors his prudence was very remarkable in the choice of subjects to be treated on for he wasted not time and opportunity in the barren insignificant parts of Schole Divinity but insisted on the fundamental grounds of controversy between the Church of England and the most formidable Enemies thereof With an equal steddiness he asserted the Gospel truth against the usurpations of Rome the innovations of Geneva the blasphemies of Cracow and the monsters of our own Malmsbury never intermedling with the unâ—athomable abyss of God's decrees the indeterminable five points which in all times and in all countries wherever they have happen'd to be debated past from the Scholes to the State and shock'd the government and public peace By his judicious care herein tho he found the Vniversity in a ferment and a great part of its growing hopes sufficiently season'd with ill prepossessions he so brought it to pass that during the whole tract of seventeen years that he held the Chair there was no factious bandying of opinions nor petulant sidings on the account of them which thing disturb'd the peace of the last age and help'd forward to inflame those animosities which ended in the execrable mischeifs of the civil war There is nothing at this day which learned men more desire or call for than the publishing of those Lectures which were heard when first read with the greatest satisfaction of the Auditory it may therefore be fit to give some account of the reason why those expectations are defeated which in short is this Dr. Allestree a little before his death having communicated to the Bishop of Oxford several particulars concerning his intentions for the disposal of his goods and papers the Bishop observ'd that there was no mention made of his Lectures and knowing how his modesty had during his life resisted all importunities for the publishing of them suspected that the same motive might be more prevalent at his death therefore he wrote to him thereupon desiring him that his Lectures might be preserv'd which had cost him so much study and labor and would be useful proportionably to others His answer by letter bearing date Jan. 19. 1680. was that having not had opportunity to revise what he had writen which was not every where consistent with his present imaginations tho in nothing material yet in some particulars which he should have better examin'd especially diverse of the Act Lectures which being upon the same head the thred of them was not right nor didactical and Nectarius 's Penitentiary not expounded the same way in one place as in another and the first blundring and not true therefore he adds that if the Bishop had not writ and for that he himself would not go out of the world without satisfying him in every thing he had resolv'd to have sent for his papers and burnt them but now he gave them up all to the Bishop upon this inviolable trust that nothing of them should be publish'd as a Scheme of his but to be made use of to serve any other design the Bishop should think fit Dr. Allestree's words are here transcrib'd for that the plainest account of things is alwaies the most satisfactory His Sermons not lying under the same interdict so many of them as were thought needful to make up a Volume are here publish'd The variety of Auditors for whom they were first design'd makes them not to be all of the same finess of spinning and closeness of texture but in them all there will appear the same spirit of perswasive Rhetoric and ardent piety whereby tho dead he yet speaketh Vpon the 28th day of January in the year 1680. this excellent person after a life spent in indefatigable studies and faithful endeavors for his Religion his King and Country and after the patient sufferance of a long and painful sickness with Christian resignation and full assurance render'd his soul into the hands of God and on the first of February was decently interr'd in the Chore of the Collegiat Church at Eton where his Executors erected to his memory a Monument of white Marble with the following inscription H. S. I. RICARDUS ALLESTREE Cathedrae Theologicae in Universitate Oxoniensi Professor Regius Ecclesiae Christi ibidem Praebendarius Collegii hujus Aetonensis Praepositus Muniis istis singulis ita par ut omnibus major In Disputationibus irrefragabilis Concionibus flexanimus Negotiis solers Vita integer Pietate sanctus Episcopales infulas eadem industria
evitavit Qua alii ambiunt Cui rectius visum Ecclesiam defendere instruere ornare Quam regere Laboribus studiisque perpetuis exhaustus Morte si quis alius praematura Obiit Vir desideratissimus Januarii XXVII An. M.DC.LXXX Aetatis LX. Nobile sibi monumentum Areae adjacentis latus occidentale Quod à fundamentis propriis impensis struxit Vivus sibi statuit Brevem hanc Tabellam Haeredes defuncto posuere TABLE of the First VOLUME 1 Pet. 4. 1. He that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin Pag. 1. Psalm 7â— 1. Truly God is loving to Israel even to such as are of a clean heart 15. Levit. 16. 31. Ye shall afflict your soul by a statute for ever 29. John 15. 14. Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you 43. Ezek. 33. 2. Why will ye die 57. Psalm 73. 25. Whom have I in heaven but thee and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee 69. Mark 1. 3. Prepare ye the way of the Lord. 81. 1 John 5. 4. This is the victory which overcometh the world even our faith 95. Gal. 2. 20. I am crucified with Christ. 109. Luke 9. 55. Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of 123. Luke 16. 30 31. Nay father Abraham but if one went unto them from the dead they will repent And he said unto him if they hear not Moses and the Prophets neither will they be perswaded tho one rose from the dead 137. Luke 2. 34. Behold this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel and for a sign which shall be spoken against Pag. 151. James 4. 7. Resist the Devil and he will flee from you 165. Phil. 3. 18. For many walk of whom I have told you often and now tell you even weeping that they are the enimies of the cross of Christ. 181. Mark 10. 15. Verily I say unto you whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child he shall not enter therein 195. Acts 13. 2. The Holy Ghost said separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them 209. Hos. 3. 9. Afterwards shall the children of Israel return and seek the Lord their God and David their king and shall fear the Lord and his goodness 227. Matt. 5. 44. But I say unto you love your enimies bless them that curse you do good to them that hate you pray for them that despightfully use you and persecute you 243. TABLE of the Second VOLUME 2 Tim. 3. 15. And that from a child thou hast known the holy Scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto salvation thro faith which is in Christ Jesus Pag. 1. Rom. 6. 3. Know ye not that so many of us as were baptiz'd into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death 21. Matt. 9. 13. Go ye and learn what that meaneth I will have mercy and not sacrifice Pag. 36. Psalm 102. 13 14. Thou shalt arise and have mercy upon Sion for the time to favor her yea the set time is come For thy servants take pleasure in her stones and favor the dust thereof 50. Acts 24. 16. And herein I exercise my self to have alwaies a conscience void of offence towards God and towards man 65. Matt. 5. 4. Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted 79. 1 John 3. 3. Every man that has this hope in him purifies himself as he is pure 93. Isaiah 26. 20. Come my people enter thou into thy chambers and shut thy doors about thee hide thy self as it were for a little moment until the indignation be overpast 107. Matt. 11. 28. Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest 118. 1 Cor. 15. 57. Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory thro our Lord Jesus Christ. 133. Psalm 17. 15. As for me I will behold thy face in righteousness I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness 143. John 20. 28. My Lord and my God 157. Mark 9. 24. Lord I believe help thou my unbelief 170. Matt. 5. 16. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father which is in heaven 191. 2 Cor. 6. 2. Behold now is the accepted time behold now is the day of salvation 201. 2 Tim. 1. 12. I know whom I have believed 215. Luke 16. 8. The children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light 230. Matt. 6. 22 23. The light of the body is the eie if therefore thy eie be single thy whole body shall be full of light But if thy eie be evil thy whole body shall be full of darkness if therefore the light that is in thee be darkness how great is that darkness 247. Serm. 2. 261. Serm. 3. 272. Serm. 4. 284. Serm. 5. 296. THE Divine Autority AND USEFULNESS OF THE Holy Scripture ASSERTED IN A SERMON On the 2 Tim. 3. 15. And that from a child thou hast known the holy Scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Iâ—sus THE words are part of St. Pauls reasoning by which he presseth Timothy to hold fast the truth he had receiv'd and not let evil men seducers work him out of what he had bin taught urging to this end both the autority of the Teacher himself who had secur'd the truth of his doctrine by infallible evidence and beyond that as if that were a more effectual enforcement pressing him with his own education in the Scriptures how he had bin nurst up in that faith suckt the Religion with his milk that it was grown the very habit of his mind that which would strengthen him into a perfect man in Christ and make him wise unto salvation if he did continue in the faith and practice of it which he proves in the remaining verses of the Chapter In the words read there are three things observable 1. Here is a state suppos'd Salvation and put too as of such concernment that attaining it is lookt upon as wisdom wise unto salvation Now since true wisdom must express it self both in the end that it proposeth and the means it chooseth for that end to be pursued with and attain'd by and take care both these have all conditions that can justifie the undertaking and secure the prudence of it and this wisedom to salvation therefore must suppose both theâ—e in order to them both we have here 2. That which with all divine advantage does propose this end and also does prescribe most perfect means for the attaining it and that is Holy Scripture through faith which is in Christ Jesus Thou hast known the holy Scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus Holy Scripture probably of the Old Testament for there was hardly any other Timothy could know from a child scarce any other being written then The faith of
lives and so prepar'd themselves for Baptism on Easter Eve for that was their most solemn time as Tertullian do's assure us in the 2d Century just when that death and passion into which they were baptiz'd was celebrated Diem Baptismo solenniorem Pascha praestat cum Passio Domini in qua tinguimur odimpleta est And that they did prepare for it with watchings fastings weepings and all rigid mortifying discipline and before him Justin M. And they had in the Greek Church their forty daies for these severities and a while too in the Roman in St Hierom's time and Pope Siricius it was so but quickly sunk into this single weeks performances But in all those times they had their scrutinies their strict examinations to try whether their performances were real and sincere So nice and so severe a thing they thought it to become a Christian. The man was to be mortifi'd and die into the very name But now God knows as for the former discipline for Penitents one Church hath lost it and the other hath debaucht it into Pageantry and taught it to countenance and bolster mens continuance in Sin and minister to vice So for the other discipline too if that did import that Baptism hath such engagements in it men in every Church live now as if they either never had been Christian'd or had never known or had perfectly forgot the obligations of that Sacrament the thing which St Paul reproves here by his question Know you not c. And which therefore 't is impossible there can be a more proper time to call to your Remembrance then this is before you are to celebrate that death you were baptiz'd into Now to inform such he disputes here very closely The sum is this They that are dead to Sin cannot live any longer in it Now as Christs Death was a death to Sin for in that he died he died unto Sin once v. 10. i. e. there was an efficacy in that death of his to put an end to all the powers of Sin which being so it was impossible he could dye more then once but must be alive always afterwards to God So in like manner whoever is baptiz'd he is baptiz'd into the likeness of that death v. 5. namely into a death to Sin inasmuch as by solemn profession and express undertaking he do's die to it for he renounces it and if he answer that his undertaking do's so really and really as Christ died once so as to live always afterwards to God engaging himself to keep Gods holy will and commandments and to walk in the same all the days of his life So that the words suggest these things to be discours'd of 1. Christs death was a death to Sin 2ly They that are baptiz'd are baptiz'd into that death namely into a death to Sin 3ly They that are baptiz'd into that death are to die as Christ did i. e. to die to Sin once so as to live always afterwards to God 1. Christs death was a death to Sin i. e. there was an efficacy in Christs death to put an end to all the powers of Sin And here I mean not that extrinsic efficacy of his death as it confirm'd the Covenant of the Gospel whose rewards and punishments engage us against all those powers nor as his blood did also purchase grace whereby we are enabled to resist them but the direct influence of that death tends to destroy all the power that the Devil World or Flesh had either to command us or condemn us The Scripture tells us that by Death he destroy'd him that had the power of Death i. e. the Devil Heb. 2. 14. Christ tells us he hath overcome the world for us John 16. 23. and St Paul says by his Cross the World is crucify'd to us and assures us that God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and a Sacrifice for Sin condemned Sin in the flesh that the Righteousness of the Law might be fulfill'd in us Rom. 8. 3. Which place discovers how all was effected namely as he was a Sacrifice for Sin and that not only as that Sacrifice did consecrate him to and install him in a power to pardon Sins upon Repentance and so whomsoever by vertue of that motive he took off from serving Sin from them he took away the guilt of it but as that Sacrifice did take away the guilt of Sin from us by bearing it in his own body on the tree the direct consequence of which as to its tendency and efficacy is that we being dead to sin might live to righteousness And in both these manners by his stripes we are healed I do not mean to entertain you with the controversy that there is on the account of these two Schemes concerning the effects and uses of the death of Christ. Only I cannot choose but wonder why it should be said to be unjust in God to lay upon him the iniquity of us all so as that he bore death as the punishment due to sin by making satisfaction for us Sinners For I would gladly know to whom the wrong were don in this that makes the injustice and on whose part it was unjust not on his part that made the satisfaction sure For whether it be wrong to force an innocent person without his consent to suffer for the guilty I shall not dispute But here Christ gave himself for us Tit. 2. 14. and had power to do so John 10. 18. And having power to lay down his life and power to take it up again if he had so much love and pity for lost mankind as to lay it down for three days to prevent their everlasting death and misery no justice certainly nay no self-love forbids this Much less was there wrong don to them for whom the satisfaction was made unless eternal redemtion and eternal blessedness purchas'd at such dear rates with such infinite kindness be accounted injuries Nor yet was it unjust in him that did receive it for none charge it upon that account That death which all confess Christ did justly submit to God most justly might accept since he could so dispose it as not only by it to work the Salvation of those whom it was undertaken for but also the advancement of his humane Nature that did undergo it to the highest pitch of glory to all power in heaven and earth Phil. 2. 9. and withal thereby declare his own Righteousness Rom. 3. 26. and work the honor also of his other glorious attributes And therefore if there had bin no injustice as they say altho Sin had bin pardon'd without any Satisfaction much less could the receiving this be a wrong to him Indeed it seems as if there had bin no right don him by it because he furnisht all that makes the satisfaction and he could not receive it therefore since he gave the value to it And 't is most true in compensation of rights of real possessions and
such as can be satisfy'd no otherwise then by that which we call restitution As for example in a debt be I never so willing 't is impossible I can truly restore or satisfy a debt in any part with what the creditor do's furnish me to do it with for that is really his extinguishing and forgiving it and not my paiment But 't is not so in compensation of the rights of estimation or of honor which are satisfy'd by that which we call reparation The man that had brought up a false report of me and lessen'd my just reputation and esteem but yet repents upon his death bed and would fain repair my honor sign a recantation but hath nothing then to make it with nor strength nor skill it may be to subscribe it tho I furnish paper pen and ink write the form and hold and guide his hand to sign it and explain the marks too of the witnesses and publish it which makes the very matter of the Satisfaction yet he truly satisfy's The case here also was a case of honor there was no restitution to be made to God from whom it was impossible we could take any thing or make him sustain any real loss but we had don that which tended to his dishonor infinitely For when God had made man in his Image righteous and Lord of all his creatures built for immortality of happiness and as in order to his Government of the whole Universe he put rules into them to guide their workings so he gave man laws to direct him how to use the other creatures regularly and to steer himself in order to attaining his own ends of blessedness so least he should transgress those laws and so disorder and deprave himself and the whole Government indeed if there were neither check nor fear upon him he did therefore add a Sanction to his Laws decreed death the penalty of each transgression and God knows that could not be but death eternal for it was not possible we could recover and rescue our selves out of it if dead once Now if notwithstanding men did slight this mound and broke out into all excess of licences so as to discompose and vitiate the order the whole frame of things not only using other creatures to irregular ends and so abusing them but themselves also disturbing the whole kind their vices forc'd them to invade other mens proprieties and and liberty and life and consequently to expose their own no one thing could be safe their coffers and their beds and their breasts too were broke into and thrown open and having broke the Government thus far they also set up other Governors fram'd new Gods and forgot him that made them and gave all their service to those forg'd usurping Deities and worship't them with villany and vices so far as that they lost the very rules of vertue and the principles of honesty were quite debauch't Things being thus it is impossible that any thing in the world can be more reproachful to one then this is to God for what can so much tend to the disgrace of an Artificer as that his workmanship should by no means serve those ends which it was made for but the direct contrary to all design'd to work the glory of their Maker and their own Eternal happiness and instead of that they work out nothing but their own destruction and eternal misery and their Makers disservice and what could more reproach the wisdom of the Maker Or what can so much tend to the dishonor of a Supreme Governor as to have his Autority slighted his laws broken trampled on and for any trifling least occasion as if it were don contemtuosly his threatnings all despis'd his person libel'd and before his face his homage worship Throne given to the meanest vilest of his creatures to his basest Rebels If God suffer this and cannot help it where is then his power If he can and will not where his holiness how do's it appear he is displeas'd at Sin or do's indeed not like it He is aware the Sinner cannot chuse but make such Judgments of him for he told him long since these things hast thou don and I kept silence and thou thoughtest wickedly that I was such an one as thy self At least as St Paul asks the wicked Jew thro breaking the Law dishonorest thou God For so it is the name of God among the Gentiles is blasphemed thro you that pretend to his service but live wickedly which makes them think your God is not a God that do's require good life Now if he do not vindicate himself from these aspersions and his laws from violation his autority from contemt how is he just to himself or how a righteous Governor 'T is true he knows to vindicate himself and make appear he is an holy God a righteous Governor namely if he but execute his laws But then alas mankind must perish for evermore and so the whole design of the creation which was made for man to serve God with it and to praise him for it to be religious and be happy had bin lost and still the wisdom of the Maker had bin question'd Hereupon the Son who is the wisdom of the Father is to take flesh and be made man to teach vertue once more and assure immortal blessed recompenses to it and then suffer death the dire expresses of Gods detestation and abhorrence of Sin what ever he should think fit for vindication of his laws and his autority his righteousness and holiness and upon condition that he would receive to favor and to blessedness those that sincerely would believe repent of all their evil deeds renounce them heartily and faithfully endeavor to obey him he would fully satisfy for the dishonor man had don him And truly when he bore the sharp inflictions of the wrath God had for Sin as certainly he did for otherwise scarce any malefactor but did meet death with more alacrity and courage The two Thieves that suffer'd with him did not entertain the apprehensions of it with such agonies nor cry out so with the pain of it nor so soon sink under it It was the sense of this which made his blood run out in clots as it were flying from that sense it was the apprehensions of the guilt imputed to him and the wrath which he knew was due to it and did apprehend must fall on him in such degrees and by such measures as might shew how God detested Sin it was this that did make him apprehend his God who was himself was gon from him since he left him so long lying under it as if he had not yet exprest that detestation full enough Now if we consider that it was the Son of God that did and suffer'd all this we must see more of Gods attributes exalted to a greater height of honor then by mankind's either suffering or performing what the Law requir'd We see his Justice satiate it self in infinitely richer blood then mans the blood
temper of his mind that made him thrice deny his Master Savior God for fear of danger all these must be washt away In fine whatever passions or affections to ill things or single acts that do surprise men in their course all these tho only he that washt us in his own blood can wash away and cleanse us from yet these evidently may be in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the baptized but continuance life dominion cannot he supposeth If these be the washing of the feet does not cleanse these and there 's no other after-washing for he that is washt must not need save to have his feet washt So that he that is washt however carefully he walk he will contract some dust and some foul spots it may be but he will not rowl himself nor wallow in the mire At least Christ seems to think they would not he would not imagine men would live in constant opposition to such obligations of eternal consequence and of their own assuming and after they had ty'd themselves with their own vows yet live most dissolutely letting loose themselves to all the things they had so solemnly abjur'd indeed pursuing them as if the vow were on the other side as if they had renounc'd Religion and the God of it and by their actions did all they could to exorcize and conjure out of them the holy Spirit and the whole Trinity into whose possession they were given in their Baptism As if indeed their bodies were sprinkled to those purposes the Heathens bodies were in the Solemnities of the infernal Gods to consecrate and devote them to those foul Fiends and their fouler deeds And where it is not thus yet those divine engagements are not half so sacred with them as the promises of their debaucht converses or the assignations of their folly they break them without any least reluctancy in sport in the intemperances of their mirth they drown them and with the least puff of scoffing or blaspheming breath blow of all those necessities this Sacrament does put upon them and however St Paul call it death and burial their Sin lives and conquers all Gods obligations to piety and triumphs over vows and oaths and murders resurrection to new life I must confess I know not what it is but it is plain now adays few men seem to consider there is such a binding sacredness in Baptism such things they believe were promised in their names when they were Infants by their Sureties who they think may be concern'd to mind them that they take good courses but sure this cannot be interpreted their own act so formally as to expose them to such dismal guilts as breach of vows and perjury with all aggravations possible when e're they fail They cannot think it the same thing as in the Christians of the first ages who had first perfect conviction of the everlasting miserable state of Sinners and that out of that there was no refuge but in Christianity which not only offered to relieve but make them blessed to Eternity upon which assurance they repented wept and beg'd to be admitted into it and took upon them all the Rules of it with all obligations to keep them and this out of perfect understanding and deliberate choice full resolution Such was the case of the first Christians but theirs does not look so sacredly Indeed if any do believe they can come off from all as from engagements put upon them under age that those vows were but promises made for them in minority and will not hold against them then they might do well to be ingenuous and plead this to renounce the renunciations that were made for them cancel and disown all So we read the men of Congo when their land was first discovered by the Portuguez were easily perswaded into Christianity and baptiz'd in great abundance but when they found it did require some strictnesses they had no mind to bear that they must leave their Heathen practices particularly their multitude of women they came back to the Church renounc'd what they had don and return'd back to their indulgent Heathenism For why they knew not how to reconcile the Christian vow with living in the open breach of it they were too honest for such practices Now such an obligation is most certainly Essential to Baptism in what age soever 't is administred For that being the rite of entring the new Covenant and a Covenant being a mutual contract something agreed on and contracted for on both the parties that do covenant of which that Sacrament is the Seal it is impossible but from the nature of the thing it must oblige them that receive it to the performance of all that the Covenant does require on their part And this obligation was still entred even when Infants were admitted in the way of vow or solemn promise 'T is not St Austins age alone which calls that custom ancient but Tertullian in the second Century assures us Infants promis'd by Sureties and we saw the children of the Jewish Proselytes had undertakers And evidently by Gods own prescription children entred Covenant with him for they were circumcis'd at eight daies old and that is call'd so Gen. 17. 14. and that by that rite they did undertake to keep their whole Law is most certain for St Paul assures us 5. Gal. v. 3. I testify to every man that is circumcis'd that he makes himself a debtor to do the whole Law So here the rite hath that importance the Sureties do but answer what it stands for and if the infant does not understand the vow at present so he is not to perform it for the present it is an obligation in relation to future life then he will understand it when he is to keep it After the leisures of Nature when the Age of temtation and knowledg are come then it will be of force upon him when it is of use to him but 't is entred at the present And that none may think its being made for them by others in their name and their consent not had lessens the engagement give me leave to call to your remembrance 2ly how that was made up and supply'd with all solemnity of obligation possible in Confirmation For as from the beginning upon those that were baptiz'd when they were of Age the Apostles and then afterwards their Successors by solemn laying on of hands and praying did invite call down the H. Ghost who hover'd there over the laver of Regeneration to hatch the new creature as he once mov'd on the face of the waters to warm them into the first creation that so his strengths and graces might be added to their vows so when infants were baptiz'd this was deferr'd for this end as our Church declares that when they come to years of discretion and have learnt what was promised for them in Baptism they may themselves with their own mouth and with their own consent openly before the Church ratify and confirm the same
iniquities The sweats of soul under the sense of the burden of sin the labors of mortifying the flesh and crucifying the affections of putting the body of sin to death will justify this sense The new Birth also hath its pangs and the Child of God as he is not engendred by weak purposes faint resolutions so neither is he brought forth in a sigh or wish of mercy there is a labor in it In this expression you may see the nature of repentance the dawnings and first flashes of that Catholic Duty 't is not that easy thing to change my mind onely and begin to believe That that is not the best course I have hitherto trod in the way of Sinners not the safest and most pleasant path tho few of us will believe that neither is it that easy wish I would I had not don this act for when the pleasure 's gon and dead the memory of it is so unsatisfying if not loathsom that a man can hardly not wish it Nor yet is it that easy desire of mercy that saying Lord Lord. The Penitent they are the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here they are such as even faint under a sense of the horror of their sins whose hearts are broken and wounded with that heavy galling weight of them If I should gather up the racks and tortures the Occultum quatiente animo tortore flagellum that self whip in the dark rooms and recesses of our thoughts conscience dealing with us by the discipline of mad men as knowing the sinner is not onely Solomons fool and Davids man without understanding but even St Pauls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mad-man the tacita sudant praecordia culpa which a Heathen can reckon up to us And add to these the Scripture expressions the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the pains of travel the labor of a woman in child-birth the agony of the Cross and the pangs of death the word repentance would bear them all and they would let us see that the Penitent is truly one that labors under a very heavy burden and so is invited here by our Savior Come Thirdly those that labor and are heavy laden may signify such as groan under a burden of afflictions and look upon them not as chastisements onely but inflictions and are even wearied and affrighted by them Thus those judgments which God did by his Prophets threaten to the Nations are in those Prophets called the burden of those Nations and the cross and calamities are often called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the labor in the Text 1 Tim. 4. 10. and generally all the troubles and difficulties of this life Rev. 14. 13. of which death is there made the rescue And I need make no application of this interpretation the words labor and heavy laden do in these daies sufficiently apply themselves I shall onely tell you that the whole sense of those words sum'd up make thus much Those that are heavy burdened with sins and the punishment of those sins afflictions and groan under the sense of both of them laboring earnestly to be rid and be delivered from both these are bid to come to Christ which is the invitation and what it means I am secondly to shew Come unto me And first in general the word used 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Come is not onely a word of exhortation but of great encouragement also in the doing so often used Come and let us kill him and then the inheritance shall be ours and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Come ye unto the wedding And indeed such is needful to the persons here spoken to the laboring heavy laden for them to take a journey if there be not the encouragement of some great advantage it will not sound like an invitation but an infliction and therefore our Savior besides the rest he promises used animating words even in the very call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Therefore the whole invitation come unto me tho it be used in the Gospel and may very well signify come to me as to a Teacher and Instructer so Nicodemus is said to come to Christ and they are said to come to the light as that which was to reveal yea and that place in Isaiah 55. 3. whither our Savior do's much reflect when he useth this expression seems to import but so Encline your ear and come unto me hear c. yea and may so signify in this place the words going before being all things are given me of my father and no man knoweth the father but the son and he to whom the son will reveal him it then follows come to me as if he should say therefore if you desire to be instructed in the way to life come to me and tho you do labor under the load of many sins yet I will shew you a way how you shall find ease and rest and that way follows in the next verse take my yoke upon you and learn of me and ye shall be sure to find rest this is very natural yet because to give you rest is more than to shew you a way to it and so may seem a promise and a reward very apportioned to the duty rest to coming therefore it is most probable that come doth not onely signify come to me to learn your duty but that the come should be it self a duty and so I shall consider it and the expression come to me does in the Gospel signify a twofold duty 1. It signifies to obey and serve Thus very often most expresly in the Epistle to the Hebrews to come to God is to serve and worship him c. 11. 6. For he that cometh to God must believe that God is and that he is a rewarder of them that seek him and c. 7. 25. He is able to save them that come to God by him that serve God as he commandeth and enableth c. 10. 1. The sacrifices which they offered year by year could not make the comers thereunto perfect could not perfectly cleanse them that served God by them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 22d verse there Let us come with a true heart worship him with unfeigned piety and obedience And the sense will be fully clear from the expressions that relate to it Seek the Lord draw near to him and then come to him To seek him is to enter upon such a course of life by which his favor is to be obtain'd and what it is you will see Isaiah 55. where when he had bid them come to him that they may do that he bids them seek him v. 6 7. Seek the Lord while he may be found let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let them return unto the Lord. Deut. 4. 29 30. But if from thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God thou shalt find him if thou seek him with all thine heart and with all thy soul if thou turn to the Lord thy God and shalt be obedient
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and signifies O Death where is thy plea by which thou didst attaint men before God's Tribunal where is the right thou hadst over all men to seize and take possession of them what 's become of the sentence that was awarded thee by which all of us were adjudg'd to be thy bond-slaves where is that punishment which thou didst inflict upon us all and by it ruin us To all these rights Sin did entitle thee O Death or as it is here in the Text Sin is thy sting whatsoever power thou hast of hurting man as the Scorpion's venom lies in his sting that power Sin hath given thee and in that it lies without Sin Death were no plague and it is this that makes Death insupportable Now to prove this I need not urge more than what I have already said for if Sin be a sting in the very thought of Death much more pungent will it be when Death it self approaches when the Feaver shall lay hold upon the bloud not onely to revenge the former heats of that lustful or that riotous bloud but to be dawnings of those eternal Burnings which do await the Sinners and shall do more than represent unto thee the heats of that unquenchable brimstone which is to be thy lot and which already doth begin to flash in upon thee Which part of thee do's labor with the more intolerable Feaver thy Body or thy Soul Alas the frost of the Grave would seem to thee a Julip a cool refreshment onely if Sin did not make thee look upon the grave as a downlet to that bottomless pitt which is the lake of fire that is not quencht Nothing possibly can keep an unrepentant Sinner that on his death-bed apprehends his guilt from the horror of despair from being his own Devil and suffering his own Hell in his own bosom upon earth I shall demonstrate this invincibly to you that Sin do's and nothing else do's make Death most insupportable when it approaches Now to evince this my Argument is none other than our Blessed Savior himself in whose Passion the onely imputation of guilt seems to have rais'd the greatest contradictions imaginable If you look upon him preparing for his Passion it seems his onely and most pleasing design as he came into the world for that end so his whole life before it was but a Prologue to it onely a walk to mount Calvary it was his extreme desire I have a baptism to be baptiz'd with baptiz'd indeed with fire and his own clotted sweat of bloud yet this Baptism how am I streightened till it be accomplished Luke 12. 50. He had longing throws after it he did as much desire it as a woman to be deliver'd of her burden Nay it was his contrivance he did lay plots that he might not escape it for when a glorious Miracle had broke from him that did extort the confession of his Deity from Men and Devils he charges these to hold their peace and bids the other tell it no man one reason of which was least the knowing him to be the Son of God should hinder him from suffering He gives it himself Luke 9. 21 22. he straitly charg'd and commanded them to tell no man that thing saying the Son of man must suffer many things and be rejected now should they know I were the Son of God they would not crucify the Son of glory You see what care he takes least he should not suffer and just before his passion he come in triumph to Jerusalem with songs and joy about him as if Death were the onely pleasant thing and his passion so desirable that he would go ride to meet it which he never did at any other time And add to all this that the person was the Son of God to whom nothing could be truly insupportable yet when this person comes to meet it see how he entertain it his soul is exceeding sorrowfull he fell on his face to pray against it and while he was in this condition an Angel from Heaven came to strenthen him yet he is still in an agony and prays more earnestly and his sweat was like drops of bloud Now 't was the sense of Sin upon him that made his bloud run out in clotts as it were flying from that sense it was the apprehensions of the guilt imputed to him and the wrath which he knew was due to it did make him apprehend his God who was himself was gon from him made him cry out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Now to say that all this dread were from the mere apprehension of death were horrid blasphemy the meanest Martyr was never guilty of so much weakness No 't was from the sense of the iniquity that was upon it 't was because he was made sin for us he was a man of sorrows saith the Prophet Isaiah because in representation he was a man of sins for he bore our iniquities saith the same Prophet c. 53. The Lord had laid upon him the iniquities of us all and therefore he was oppressed And so I have made appear that Sin is the sting of Death more than if your selves did feel it by an experimental despair for it is more that Sin should make Death terrible to the Son of God than that it should make it insupportable to you And therefore before Death seize you and prostrate you into his dust this consideration may humble you into the dust and ashes of Repentance this I say if Sin were a sting that made Death so insupportable to Christ what will it be to us If the apprehension of it when it came arm'd onely with the imputation of our guilt for he himself knew no sin was so terrible to the Son of God how shall we stand under it when it brings all our own iniquities to seize upon us If he that was a person of the Trinity could not bear the weight how shall we sink under it That which made our Jesus in an agony as if he meant to pour out his soul in his sweat and pray and roar and die will certainly be to us most infinitely beyond sufferance Alas what then will be our hope We have certainly none except we can by Faith and Repentance rid our selves of this Sin which is the sting of Death and makes it to be thus intolerable which how it comes to pass I must now shew 2. Why and how Sin is the sting of Death Sin may seem very properly to be call'd a sting of Death for it was the Serpent that brought Death into the World and Sin was that by which he did inflict it now a sting is a Serpent's proper instrument and a venomous sting it was that could blast Paradise and shed destruction there where the Tree of life bore fruit But that is not all the reason why it should be call'd the sting of Death because it makes us obnoxious to Death but it is that
which makes Death a miserable condition as it is the sting of the Serpent that makes him a poysonous creature so it is that which makes Death destructive For were Death the expiration of that little spark in the moving of our heart and if our spirit utterly vanisht as the soft air and were it as the Atheist in the Wise man says we are born at all adventure and shall be hereafter as tho we had never bin Death would be so far from all sting that it would be perfect rest and the end of troubles but Sin makes it onely the beginning of sorrows it changes the very nature of death by making that which seems to be the cessation of sensible function to be the very original of the sensibility of torments Then the Sinner doth begin indeed to feel when he dies Death were but the term of a miserable life did not Sin make it the birth of a more miserable life or death I know not whether to call it for it is of so strange a nature that the very uniting of a Sinner's body and soul which is the onely thing we call life God calls death Rev. 22. 13 14. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it and death and hell or the grave deliver'd up the dead which were in them that is the bodies to be joyn'd to the souls and they were judg'd every man according to their works and in that case all are cast into the lake of fire this is the second death Sin makes Resurrection to be dying and it must needs be so because as afflictions are in this life call'd death as St Paul saith in Deaths often so much more then may those torments of hell be call'd death So that in that death that Sin engages to it is necessary to live always that we may for ever die and it must be so because this makes us liable to the eternal indignation of the offended God which we were not capable of suffering were it not a death of this nature This is indeed death with a sting in it and it is the sense of this approaching that wounds the dying soul when it do's at once call to mind the wickedness of its past life and the wrath that do's await it when he recollects how sinful he hath bin and withall how hateful sin is to God so hateful that it was easier for God to send his Son to suffer death than to suffer sin to go unpunish'd then his own expectations sting and stab his very soul for if God did thus use his own Son how will he use me that have both sinn'd and trod under foot the death of that Son by going on wilfully in my sins Would you then my Brethren find out a way to make death easy and familiar to you you must pull out this sting The Jews say if Adam had continued righteous he should not have died but after a long happy life God would have taken up his soul to him with a kiss which they call osculum pacis he would have receiv'd that spirit which with his mouth he did inspire a kiss of taking leave here to meet in Heaven Wouldst thou have thy death to be the same thing 'T is but becoming righteous with the righteousness of Christ thro whom we have this Victory here in the Text the other part I am to speak to who giveth us the victory thro Jesus Christ our Lords where we have those that are partakers of the Victory and the means thro Jesus Christ our Lord and as to both these this I shall demonstrate over all those enimies in order who the us and how the Victory is gotten First the Law Now that Christ hath redeem'd us from the curse of the Law is said expresly and that by his being made a curse for us Gal. 3. 13. and what that curse of the Law was is set down in the tenth verse cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the Law to do them which no man besides Christ did ever or can do and consequently all mankind lay under that same dreadful curse obnoxious to the wrath of God and the effects of everlasting indignation but Christ by undergoing that curse and by that means satisfying that strict Law procur'd an easier to be set us upon gentler terms not perfect and unsinning strict obedience which was impossible but instead thereof the Law of Faith obsequious Faith that works by love endeavors honestly and heartily and where it fails repents that is grieves and amends and perseveres in doing so For as St Paul assures us we are not under the Law but under Grace Rom. 6. 14. tho we be under the directions of it the duty of it is most indispensable vertue always yet we are not under those strict terms of it according to the tenor of that curse but in a state of favor under terms of grace where there is mercy pardon to be had upon repentance thro faith and where there is encouragement and aid to work that faith and that amendment in us And thus far the Victory accrues to all mankind for all that will accept these terms of this remedying Law of grace the other killing strict Law hath no power over them For the Gospel was commanded to be preach'd to and its terms offer'd every creature under heaven all mankind a victory this that could not be obtain'd but by Christ's bloud the grace and favor of these easier terms for our obedience valued equal with his life for to take of this curse cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do it these strict terms he himself was made a curse and 't will be certainly a most unkind return if that which he thought worth the dying for to get us we shall not think worth the accepting slight these blessed terms and do not care unless we can be free from all necessity of an endeavor freed from vertue too as well as Law But secondly the Law being as we have shew'd it is the strength of Sin in giving it a power to condemn us that Law being taken off that power also cannot but be taken off from Sin and by that means the great strengths of that Enimy defeated Accordingly St Paul do's tell the Romans c. 6. v. 14. Sin shall not have dominion over you that is it shall not have by vertue of the Law a power to condemn you for you are not under the Law but under grace are in that state where men are not condemn'd for every gross or heinous sin altho too long continued in but there is pardon to be had for them that will but faithfully endeavor to amend turn from their sins return to Christ receive him and his pardon and where there is also help to do this 't is a true state of grace so that unless men will resolve to force their own
guards that are set about them to preserve them and break thro the strengths of grace and conquer all the strivings of Almighty God's compassion and goodness to them and beat off the very victory that Christ hath gain'd for them refuse all the kind offers of the Law of grace and chuse sin with damnation they are safe There is now as St Paul saith by the Law no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus to them who walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit Rom. 8. 1. in which words we have both an assurance that the strengths of Sin are broken and the persons too are partakers of the Victory that are in Christ Jesus for as it is by him the Victory is gotten so it is in him that we must get an interest in it Now to be in Christ if as most certainly it doth it mean here as in other places where 't is said of Churches housholds and of single persons then it means the Christians so in Gal. 1. 22 the Churches of Judea that are in Christ i. e. that have received the Gospel and the Faith of Christ Rom. 16. 11. greet them that be of the houshold of Narcissus that are in the Lord i. e. that are Christians and the seventh verse who were in Christ before me i. e. were converted e're I was But it means Christians not in judgment and opinion onely but in life and practice such as are in Christ by St Pauls character and description of it in the 2 Cor. 5. 17. If any man be in Christ he is a new creature he lives the life of Christ as a member does the life of that of which it is a member and so he walks not after the Flesh but after the Spirit For as members live by the vertue of the influence of spirits from the head into them and walk after its directions so those that are in Christ his members they must walk live act and practise by the Spirit of Christ guided not by carnal appetite the lusts and the desires of the Flesh but by Christ's directions Such they are who have this Victory to whom there is no condemnation For as he adds Rom. 8. 2. The law of the Spirit of life that is in Christ Jesus sets us free from the law of sin and death and so there is thro him a Victory over the third last enimy Death in which freedom from Sin and Death two things are intimated 1. That Sin the sting of Death is taken away which being once removed Death is the softest thing that can be 't is but falling asleep so it is call'd v. 18. of this chapter faln asleep in Christ it is so far from being hurtful that it is the first great happiness that does befall us 2. That Death it self also shall be swallowed up in Victory that we shall be recovered from its powers and triumph over it in Immortality of blessed life For if we be in Christ his members and so live the life of Christ and consequently when we die die in the Lord then tho the body be dead and corruptible yet if the Spirit of life that is in Jesus be in us he that rais'd up Jesus from the dead shall also quicken our mortal bodies by his Spirit Rom. 8. 11. It is this life in him that verifies the saying of St Paul Eph. 2. 6. He hath raised us up and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ as sure as if we were already there for there we are already as his members in our head And to the full and personal enjoyment of the blessings of those heavenly places it is death that lets us in that vale of Achor is the door of hope and Canaan the grave the avenue to God's right hand that death 't is but the Pascha in St Bernard 't is our Passover a repast of bitter herbs indeed but at the going out of Egypt from the house of bondage And tho the body seem in death a piteous despicable thing sown in corruption dishonor as St Paul expresses yet death gives that a relation too to Christ the Prophet Isaiah brings in the Lord calling His dead 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cadaver they my dead body shall aris◠saith he c. 26. 19. So that the corps of a good person is so far a member that 't is call'd the very body of his Savior into such a title Death translates it to such not to live onely but to die is Christ. And sure if they that die in him did live in him as none can die there where they did not live at all that is live as his members they that die in Christ must die his members But in the expression of the Prophet they do also die himself and are Christ's own dead body Death to such is as it were transfiguration and do's not so much strip and make them naked as cloath them and that with glory the shrowd may seem but their white wedding linnen and their dress for the marriage of the Lamb. Whoever is a faithfull sincere Christian if Death seem to make approaches to him arm'd with all his instruments of cruelty and terror charge him as assuredly as a Prophet could to set his house in order for he must die if he can say with Hezekiah in Isaiah 38. 3. Remember now O Lord how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart and have don that which is good in thy sight then if he have not fifty years yet he shall have a numberless Eternity added to his life and notwithstanding the dark solitude of the Grave to which he is retiring he shall have that which will accompany him to his infinite joy when he is torn from friends and all his dearest things do leave him yet he shall not be alone his faith and piety his vertues all go along with him and appear for him at that tribunal on the Judgment day All his relations even his bosom-guest the other half of his own soul forsake him bring him it may be to the grave and tho they carry blacks upon them to refresh and keep alive the memory of him yet in a while take comfort and forget yet the true conjugal affections of an untainted undefiled bed shall go along present the Soul white as a Virgin that 's unspotted And after this 't is in vain to say his riches will forsake him they go not so far as the grave afford nothing of themselves but the price of a sheet and coffin But then Charities will mount Alms will ascend as fast as the Spirit the wealth one piously bestow'd will meet him he shall eternally possess that which he gave away and tho his place know him no more they shall receive him into everlasting habitations Wherefore my beloved Brethren be ye stedfast unmovable always abounding in the work of the Lord which is the real way of giving thanks to God who giveth us the Victory SERMON XI
accordingly you may see many that otherwise are not very apt to sin yet then they will offer at little Atheistical beginnings of it they will endeavor because they will be in the fashion of the company And this is one of Satans advantageous seasons when as we see if there be but one by of a sober and discreet virtue that dares speak meek reason or dares when they do swill their Souls in filthy folly of one or other sort or are loud in the rants of vice by disliking gestures let them know that such unclean entertainments are detestable to a sober person or withdraws abruptly by such a departure shews that he scorns to stay to behold or hear such impurities this often does not onely hinder those beginners take them off that would have bin dabbling but does somtimes a little damp the progress of the most professed Sinner It is a bridle to his neck he will not march so furiously in his carrier of oaths or of obsceness or whatever other sin he does not indulge himself so full a licence and so by this means God gets some respect and Religion a little repute when they see it hath some followers and God hath some that will not see him dishonored And truly my Brethren do but consider what a storm it does use to raise in any man to hear an absent Friend or Relation abused or evil spoken of If we be in any degree of them the world calls Gentlemen then nothing but the sword must make return to such a word nothing but life and soul can answer nothing but bloud and death repair and 't is this resentment we in whose company the disgrace was offer'd think ourselves more concern'd than that Friend that was the subject of And then methinks you should not think it strange if there be some that do believe they have so much relation to God and that he hath approv'd himself to be so much their Friend they cannot but take it unkindly and speak when they hear him affronted and see him dishonor'd And methinks too it should not be unreasonable to expect this from all of us to whom God hath bin Friend enough that we should do this handsom this noble glorious thing as to right the Lord in companies where we are and to credit our Maker and not let vice exalt over him where we shall chance to be Truly my Brethren this is the least that God hath reason to expect from us even the reproof of our words that of our open holy lives by which as the wicked say in Wisdom 2. 12. The Righteous do reprove their thoughts and upbraid them with their offending the Law and object to their infamy their transgressions This is strictly and to an high degree required by God of every one of us that we may have influence upon others to be open and exemplary to shine before men that they may see our good works and glorify our Father which is in Heaven which was the reason of the command and the end of our very being Now to God the Father c. SERMON XV. OF THE ACCEPTED TIME the Day of Salvation 2 Cor. 6. 2. Behold now is the accepted time behold now is the day of Salvation THE words foregoing of which these I now read are the application run thus for he saith I have heard thee in a time accepted and in the day of salvation I have succour'd thee which God saying in the 49th of Isaiah 8. signified as in the type in relation to the Church and Nation of the Jews he had days of Salvation fit and proper seasons to deliver them from their affictions and calamities for Salvation often signifies that had his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tempus placentiae time of grace wherein he was well pleas'd to hearken to their cries and wants and in those he heard and succour'd them so in the Antitype and in relation of the Christian Church and all the Members of it for of these St Paul here useth it expresly he hath his accepted time days not onely for such temporal deliverance of which some will have the Salvation meant here but much more for Salvation Eternal But then as Kings when they publish acts of grace and oblivion do not onely set appoint but limit out the time for Subjects to come in submit and return to their fidelity and allegiance which if once elapst they are incapable of benefit by any such grant cannot at least plead it so it seems God does too and it is not sure that whosoever at what time soever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved Rom. 10. 13. but as King David told him they shall make their praier to thee in a time of finding Psalm 32. 6. in a time when his good pleasure it the very word here Psalm 69. 13. and this time St Paul restrains here to the present now meaning not onely in the general now in times while they are under grace are in the Covenant of it and when the day-spring from on high hath visited them and while they had the Gospel that word of this Salvation for whilest men live under this gracious dispensation they may let the opportunities of laying hold of it go by them while the light of the Gospel shines upon them yet the day of Salvation may be quite gon out of which St Paul here seems sollicitous for his Corinthians who had receiv'd the Gospel least yet they may have receiv'd that grace in vain and the Salvation should escape them To prevent which saith he there is no other sure way but by seizing on the present Behold now is the accepted time now is the day of salvation so that the words afford these subjects of discourse 1. There is a time wherein we may be certainly accepted if we come to God and there is a day of Salvation offer'd us 2. This time is limited 't is a day of salvation consequently we may possibly outstand it and may suffer it to pass irrecoverably 3. The onely sure way to prevent that is to lay hold on the present to begin now 1. There is a time wherein we may be certainly accepted if we come to God and there is a day of Salvation offer'd us The Text does make sufficient proof of this for if the accepted time be now and if now be the day of salvation then there is such a day and time which our Lord commanded to be preached to every humane creature in the world Indeed the preaching of the Gospel is nothing else but publishing this truth the Gospel being but a tender of Salvation upon pardon of whatever we have don amiss and the accepting us whenever we repent and truly turn to God believing on him and resolving to continue faithful to him and all this assur'd to us by Covenant such as God himself both made and ratified in the bloud of Christ and to prevent exception since he gave command to have this Gospel preach'd
those few that allow it not Sardanapalus and yet place the Prophet Jonah not long after him must be put hard to it to find out then so great a City as he tells you Niniveh then was and so great a King of it But he altho as men of his vice possibly are apt to be somtimes a little tender hearted easily affected on some sudden passionate occasion yet that being as it mostly is a fit of penitence returning to his old abominable practices after a short Reign his Kingdom was quite rent in pieces and the City utterly destroied himself beginning it He had before inflam'd it with his lust then he set fire to it and left nothing after him besides his Epitaph a greater and more lively character of sensuality than his whole life had bin and so that City tho it did lay hold upon the time of acceptance seize the day of salvation yet it quickly let it go again And as for persons I shall need to give one onely instance since 't is of more than six hundred thousand men and each in their personal capacity All whom Males able to go out to war God brought from Egypt with a mighty hand on purpose to conduct them to the Land of Canaan and possess them of it every one of whom saw more of God's immediat presence and his Glory had more express miracle of grace and favor and forbearance also than yet ever any People in the world had yet these had their time of favor limited had their day for God's performance which time while it lasted he endur'd their provocations of the highest measure even when they made another God to lead them But when that day came and they were at the point to enter and he bid them go in and possess it and they would not make use of it being scar'd with news of Enimies taller than they and so distrusting God's help they repin'd they had not staid in Egypt rather then as I live saith God because all these men have seen my glory and my miracles which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness and have temted me now these ten times surely they shall not come into the Land concerning which I sware to make you dwell therein neither shall any of them that provoked me see it Num. 14. 22 23 30. And of all that number but two onely who provoked him not Joshua and Caleb enter'd it This very instance and the Prophe Davids application of it also Psalm 95. to the Jews of his time that they would not be as their Forefathers stubborn and untractable to all God's methods standing out against them till it was too late but that to day if they would hear his voice they should be flexible and plaint this I say St Paul in the third chapter to the Hebrews urges to the Christians that they should also be so while 't is called to day while that their â—odie their day that was allow'd them lasted least they should outstand it and they also be excluded from the everlasting rest in the Heavenly Canaan And he presses further in the sixth how God do's finally withdraw his grace from those who in the day of it resist it and makes no more tender of it to them and illustrates this in the twelfth chapter with the history of Esau who to satisfy a present appetite did sell his Birth-right and the Privileges and the Blessing that of course attended it and altho he sought it afterwards he was rejected and â—ound no place of Repentance nothing that could make his Father change his mind altho he sought it carefully with tears and with the Parable of ground which if when 't is long water'd with the dew of Heaven and hath drank that fatness which the clouds drop down it shall bring forth onely briars or continue barren 't is no longer cultivated but rejected reprobated no more fit to be water'd with the shours of Heaven but burnt up with scorching heat Our Savior's Parable about the Fig-tree too hath the same Apologue which if with three years husbandry it bear no fruit and in the fourth too being manur'd more expresly it fail also cut it down then least it cumber the ground Whether the term that limits this accepted time be meted out by years and months so much time I will bear with them and expect as the instance of the old world gives some color for or whether it be not set to days and hours but measured by their reckonings of iniquity when they have made up and filled the Epha their time shall be out as the Amorites example and the Israelites in the wilderness would evince or whether both ways as Jerusalems and Ninivehs seem plain for 't is not for me to determin Each or any of them does assure us that the time is bounded beyond which there is no term no day left if we do outstand that O that thou hadst known in this day saith he but that being expir'd then is the hour of darkness now they are hidden from thine eyes nor are they onely hidden from their eyes but God also shuts their eyes sends them the spirit of slumber on them that they may not see not perceive not understand nor be converted least he heal them The Predeterminations that do limit out the Age of mens Repentance seem much more unalterable than those are that bound the Age of Life Good Hezekiahs tears and praiers got him fifteen years accession to his days time did go back for him and he liv'd part of his Age over again But when the life that is allotted for the possibilities of Repentance is spun out when the day of God's expectation is once gon we have no instance to produce that he will call back or protract it to us death may let go its hold but obstinacy in sin does not marble Monuments have heard and bin obedient yielded up but the stony hard heart will not And indeed to be innexible arises from the very nature of that course and progress in sin that does weary out God's forbearances outstands all his offers wasts the whole day of salvation For to pass by the instances of the old World and of the Amorites of which we have no more account but that these Amorites were given up so to unnatural sin and uncleanesses that the Land spued them out in the other that the Daughters of men had effac'd all the thoughts and knowledg of God out of the very Sons of God that the wickedness of man was so great that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was onely evil continually But in Israel whom St Paul represents to us for caution thus their state was they had set their hearts on present satisfactions so eagerly and impotently that whenever there was the least want of any they repin'd that God had brought them out of Egypt that their Jehovah should be at that distance from them as in Heaven and their sustenance
of his Son who useth all the artifice of Words affirmative and negative to tell us so as if on purpose to preclude all doubt and subterfuge calls it Eternal fire and Eternal punishment where their worm dieth not their fire is not quenched Torment for ever and ever and the like Your Faith and certainty of which is as strong as your Christianity and therefore by attempting any farther proof of this to imply there is reason and necessity for doing so were to suppose my Hearers Infidels But then this being granted that such is the Sinners Fate to lay down positively that it is his Choyce and that he doth resolve for Death is to suppose them worse than Infidels more than irrational and brutish Beasts cannot so desire against the possibilities of Appetite break all the forces and instincts of Nature as to will destruction and choose misery Yet that the Sinner does so is the ground of Gods Expostulation here Why will you dye David enquires as if it were a Prodigy to find What man is he that lusteth to Live And sure the vicious man does not for Wisdom that is Virtue says He that sinneth against me woundeth his own Soul and all they that hate me love death Prov. viii 36. And 't is most evident that they who eagerly and out of vehement affection pursue and seize those things to which they know destruction is annex'd inseparably they love and choose destruction though not for it self yet for the sake of that to which it clings He that is certain such a Potion howsoever sweetned and made palatable is compounded with the juice of deadly Nightshade if notwithstanding he will have the Poisonous draught it is apparent he resolves to dye And that I may evince this is a setled obstinate incorrigible resolution in him and by what ways and steps it comes to be so I will lay before you the violent courses he does take to break through difficulties and obstructions that would trash and hinder him And when the avenues to Death are strongly guarded how he storms and forces them overcomes all resistance possible that he may seize on Sin and Death And First When such persons have entred the Profession of Christianity in Baptism and by early engagements tyed themselves to the observation of its duties if Principles of probity in Nature fomented by others instill'd with Education have made impressions of duty on the mind and wrought a reverence and awe of God and of Religion which is a fence about them and does keep off Vice by making it seem strange uncouth and difficult while these fears and aversations are rooted in them why then the first thing that they do as soon as Youth and the Temptations do stir within them is to poyson these their own Principles by evil Conversation and from that and Example take infusions which shall impregnate them with humours of being in the fashion of the World Thus they labour to strangle the then troublesom modesties of Nature and of Virtuous breeding thus they look out ill Company to infect themselves And surely they that seek the Plague and run into infection we have cause to fear they have a Resolution to dye But Secondly If notwithstanding this in the first practices of Vice their former Principles stir and ferment within and fret the Conscience set that on working why then if the sin sting gently do but prick the heart and make an out-let for a little gush of Sorrow then in spight of Scripture they do teach themselves to think that grief Repentance and by the help of that conceit this sorrow cools and doth allay the swelling of the mind washes away the guilt and thought of the commission they have been sad and they believe repented as if those stings opened the fountain for transgression and those little wounds did flow with Balsom for themselves And by this means that sting of the old Serpent sin while it pretends to cure by hurting thus proves indeed the Tempter to go on For if this be all why should a man renounce all the Contents and satisfactions of his Inclinations and mortifie and break his nature to avoid a thing which is so easily repented for No if it be no worse they can receive this Serpent in their bosom dare meet his sting and run upon these wounds and they do so till the frequent pungencies and cicatrices have made the Conscience callous and insensible the heart hardned But if their first essays of sin were made unfortunate by Notoreity or some unhappy circumstance and so the wound were deep and the Conscience troublesom and restless because this is very uneasie these inward groans make discord in their chearful airs make their life harsh they therefore find it necessary to confront the shame with Courage of iniquity go boldly on that so they may outlook it fear their own Conscience that its wounds may not bleed And as those Fiends of Men who Sacrific'd their Children in the fire to Moloch that they might not hear their Infants shreek nor their own Bowels croak had noises made with Timbrels to out-voice them So these to drown the cries and howlings of their wounded mind put themselves in perpetual hurry of divertisement and Vice make Tophet about themselves and with the noise of Ryots overcome all other because they will not hearken to those groans that call for the Physician of Souls and then sure these resolve to dye Nay if this will not keep them quiet you may see them sometimes ruffle with their own Consciences desire present Convictions in the very instant of Commission men so set on Death that they Condemn themselves in that which they allow And though a man would think there should be little satisfaction in those pleasures which Condemnation thrusts it self into and which have an alloy of so sad apprehensions yet such are it seems the satisfactions of sin For while it slabs and gashes He brave Hero of Iniquity can charge the wounds and take the Vice Yea Thirdly though the Lord himself appear and take part in the Quarrel joyn with our Principles and Conscience against the sin and with importunate Calls alarm us give us no rest ordain a Function of men by whom he does beseech us dresses their Messages with Promises of that which God is blessed in and arms them too with Terrors such as Devils tremble at and joyns his Holy Spirit too that Power of the Highest sends him in Tongues of Fire that he also may Preach this to our very Hearts and fright us with more flame And yet the Sinner breaks these strengths and vanquishes the Arts and strivings of Divine Compassion If these Embassadors speak Charms it is but what God tells our Prophet in this Chapter ver 32. And lo thou art unto them as a very lovely Song of one that hath a pleasant voice and can play well on an Instrument And it does dye like that as it there follows They hear thy
words but they do them not And if they flash in Hell against their Vices in torrents of threatning Scripture they concern themselves no more than they would in the story of a new Eruption of Mount Aetna or Vesuvius Yea they do quench the Spirit and his fires do not like the deaf Adder stop their ears against his whisperings and the charms of Heaven that were a weaker and less valiant guilt but are Religious in hearing them curious that they may be spoke with all advantages to make it harder not to yield and live that so they may express more resolution to perish and with more courage and solemnity may sin and dye Nay more when God hath found an Art to draw themselves into a League and Combination against their Vices bound them in Sacraments to Virtue made them enter a Covenant of Piety and seal it in the Blood of God and by that foederal Rite with hands lift up and seizing on Christ's Body and with holy Vows oblige themselves to the performances or to the Threats of Gospel which they see executed in that Sacrament before their eyes see there death is the wages of iniquity they shew themselves its damned consequences while they behold it tear Christ's Body spill his Blood and Crucifie the Son of God yet neither will this frightful spectacle nor their own ties hold them from sin and ruine they break these bonds asunder to get at them The Wiseman says that wicked men seek death and make a Covenant with it and so it seems But sure they are strange wilful men that seek it at Gods Table in the Bread of Life that will wade through an Ocean of mercy to get at Perdition and find it in the Blood of Christ will drink Damnation in the Cup of blessing men that poyson Salvation to themselves They that contract thus for Destruction and tye it to them at the Altar with such sacred Rites and Articles are sure resolv'd and love to dye Fourthly God had provided other Guards to secure men from sin and Death the Censures of the Church of which this Time was the great Season and the discipline of abstinence we now use is a piteous relique all that the World will bear it seem But as the Lord appointed them they were so close a fence that our Saviour calls them Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven as if they lock'd us in the Path of Piety and Life and we must pick or break all that the Key of Heaven can make fast burst Locks as well as Vows before we can get out have liberty to sin God having bounded in the Christians race as that among the Grecians was which had a River on one side and Swords points all along the other so that Destruction dwelt about it on the borders And God hath mounded ours with the River of Hell the Lake of Fire and with these spiritual Swords as S. Cyprian and S. Hierome call the Censures But yet a Mound too weak alas to stand the Resolution and assaults of Vices now adays which do not onely make great breaches in the Fence but have quite thrown it down and slighted it and the Church dares not set it up again should she attempt it they would scoff it down Men will endure no bar in the way to Perdition they will have liberty of Ruine will not be guarded from it so far from brooking Censures they will suffer no Reproof nor Admonition not suffer one word betwixt them and Death eternal But Fifthly Though we will not let Almighty God restrain us with his Censures yet he will do it with his Rod and set the sharp stakes of Affliction in our walk to keep us in thus he makes sins sometimes inflict themselves and then we straight resolve to break off from them and while we suffer shame and feel destruction in the Vice we shrink and uncling And now the Sinner would not dye especially if his Precipitance have thrown him to the confines of the grave and while he took his full careers of Vice the fury of his course did drive him to the ports of Ruine and Death seemed to make close and most astonishing approaches when standing on the brink of the Abyss he takes a prospect of the dismal state that must receive him and his Vices then he trembles and flyes his apprehensions swoon his Soul hath dying qualms caused as much by the Nausea of sin as by the fear of Hell he is in agonies of passion and of Prayer both against his former courses he never will come near them more and now sure God hath catch'd him and his will is wholly bent another way now he will live the new life if God will grant him any But alas have we never seen when God hath done this for him stretch'd out his Arm of Power hal'd him from the brow of the Pit and set him further off how he does turn and drive on furiously in the very same path that leads to the same Ruine and he recovers into death eternal And now this Will is grown too strong for the Almighties powerful methods and frustrates the whole Counsel of God for his Salvation neglects his Calls and Importunacies whereby he warns him to consult his safety to make use of Grace in time not to harden his heart against his own mercies and perish in despight of mercy And when he can reject Gods Graces and his Judgments thus defie his Conscience and his own Experience too there is but one thing left wherein this Resolution can shew its courage and that is Sixthly His own present Interests All which the Sinner can break through and despise to get at Death It is so usual to see any of the gross wasting Vices when it is once espoused murder the Reputation and all those great concerns that do depend upon a mans Esteem eat out his Wealth and Understanding make him pursue pernicious ways and Counsels besot him and enslave him fill his life with disquiet shame and neediness and the sad consequents of that Contempt and all that 's Miserable and unpitied in this Life and yet the sin with all these disadvantages is lovely not to be divorc'd nor torn off from him that I were vain should I attempt to prove a thing so obvious I shall give but one instance of the power of the Will the violence and fury of its inclinations to Ruine The man who for anothers inadvertency possibly such as their own rules of Honour will not judg affront yea sometimes without any shadow of a provocation meerly becaue he will be rude does that upon which they must call one another to account and to their last account indeed at Gods dread Judgment-seat whither when he hath sacrific'd two Families it may be all their hopes and comforts in this Life two Souls which cost the Blood of God having assaulted Death when it was arm'd and at his heart and charged Damnation to take Hell by Violence he comes with his own
death which till the man be dead and the brute onely live within him cannot be his pleasures And it is plain they are not pleasures to a Sober man that lives the life of Reason not to say of Grace Nor are they such to any man till he have train'd and exercis'd himself into an habit of enduring them and by a discipline of Torment made himself experienc'd for Vice and for Damnation Nor is there ever any pleasure in some Vices What is there in the dismal Wishes of mans imprecating passion there cannot be musick in those harsh horrours and yet the Sinners will destruction so as that they call to God to pour it on them and tear it down from Heaven so that Pain and Disease seem to sauce those delights and Death to be the tempter to the pleasure 't is evident mens reasons and their Practices must be first debauch'd that they may count them Pleasures and therefore pleasure cannot be the first mover in the Sinners race to Death But I will grant that the Spirit and Flesh of Man by their so strait alliance and perpetual converse may grow to have the same likes and dislikes have but one appetite and this alas be that of flesh to whose onely satisfactions the man useth himself by long Custom of which the Soul doth so imbibe the Inclinations of the Body that nothing of another kind can possibly be relish'd In this case sensuality hath pleasures yet such as cannot answer Gods enquiry for do but consult mans other Choices and you find a present satisfaction cannot work his Resolutions to forego great after-hopes or run upon a foreseen ruine Who will exchange his right to the Reversion of a Crown which from his Father he shall certainly inherit and succeed to if he do out-live him for a present Scene of Royalty and choose a painted Coronet the pomps and adorations of a Stage and the applauses of a Croud before the real Glories of his Kingdom the love and the obedience of his Subjects And yet my Soul the disproportion of the Sinners terms is infinitely greater and there is no hazzard which to make his choice of present things more flattering the others hopes are liable to For that Heir of the Crown may die before the Crown fall to him but it is impossible that we should miss of ours except we put our selves by by such choices except we change it thus And on the other side we know men will adventure the Sentence of the Law by Robberies and murders to provide for Lusts while they hope to be undiscovered But sure a Prison made delightful by all arts of pleasure and all plenties of it will not hire a man to own those actions which shall forfeit him to certain shameful Execution the next Sessions and yet this is the Sinners state exactly he is ti'd and bound in the chain of his sins they are it may be chains of Gold and softned with delices but they reserve him to the Judgment of the great Assise And yet he chooses these and puts them on as Ensigns of delight and honour Once more Do not men choose a present Agony to keep off an afterevil they tear their bowels with a Vomit to prevent a Surfeit they cup and scarifie and with all artifice or pain upon themselves kill a Disease yea they are well content to prolong torment so they may but prolong life and though the preservation of it prove onely continued pangs and all they can effect is onely this that they are longer dying yet they are glad to be so in all cases except where the prescription is Virtue and the death prescribed against Eternal Now why do you choose thus onely in Sin and Hell 'T is clear the very pleasure you change Heaven for cannot invite you from this Life and then you that will suffer any thing rather than you will dye Why against all resistance will you dye for ever It is Secondly because you know not what it is to dye the second Death at least your notions of it are so slight and easie that they cannot fright you from a pleasure or cope with a temptation to it and so though present satisfactions are not able to engage you upon present ruin they can upon the after-death Indeed the Sinner would have reason if it meant no more than hath been taught of late by one that hath gained many Proselytes among the Virtuosi of Religion After the Resurrection the Reprobates shall be saith he in the state that Adam and his Posterity were in after his Sin i. e. the state we are now in Live as we do Marry and give in Marriage and cease to be when they have got some heirs to succeed them in Tophet Poor unhappy Souls these that never had any sin to merit being there nor any Sentence to condemn them thither but this mans Who must put them there successively one after other to find employment for Everlasting fire A Doctrine such as had an Angel Preach'd from Heaven by S. Paul's award he must have been Anathema when the Devil made Religions and Theology came from the bottomless Pit he never found out such an Engine to conveigh men into it as this pleasant notion of the punishment of sin therein as if Leviathan were made to take his pastime in that Lake also by such interpretations which surely were contrived to make out the Assertion of that Romish Priest who says that those in Hell love to be there nay more that 't was impossible for God to do a kinder thing for them than to put them there Doctrines to be abhorr'd as Hell it self and yet upon these grounds he builds their Church by demonstration so strong as that the Gates of Hell cannot prevail against it and in truth they have no reason to assault it on these terms But to pass by such dotages and frenzies you will be able sure to check all those presumptions which grow from sleight impressions of the second Death if you but take that prospect of it which the close of this time gives look forward through this season which is designed for you to prepare the way of the Lord to his Passion in and you shall see the Death that does await iniquity If you behold him coming to Jerusalem with Hosannas and Palms about him as if Death were his Triumph his Passion so desirable that he rode to meet it which he never did at any other time and then complaining he was straitned until it were accomplish'd as he had throws of Longing after it and singing when he went out to it you would believe the Sinner never chose his death sweetned by his most pleasant sin with a more chearful eagerness But then open the Garden and you see his apprehensions of it throw him on his Face to pray against it See how he sweats and begs his very Prayer is a Passion the zeal of it is Agony and canst thou choose that he so dreads
kind when the sins therefore lie in the Attire and they may put them off without a Metaphor yet it is so hard that it cannot be done sometimes the worth of a whole Province hangs upon a slender thread about a Neck a Patrimony thrust upon one joint of one least Finger and these warts of a Rock or a Shell-fish with the appendages eat out Estates and starve poor Creditors for whom indeed they should command these stones to be made bread but that 's a Miracle too stubborn for their Vertue And then how will they proceed to the next expression of this Duty Circumcise your selves to the Lord and take away the foreskin of your hearts Jer. iv 4. These are harder and more bloody words they differ in the pain and anguish that they put us to as much as to uncloath and flea would do It appears indeed this punishment of fleaing often went before the Cross. To 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Ctesias of one having his Skin pull'd off he was Crucified And the scourges in some measure did inflict this on our Saviour when they put off his Cloaths they strip'd his Skin also left him no covering but some rags of that which whipping had torn from his flesh Yet this expression sounds harsher when it bids us circumcise the foreskin of our hearts and tear it from thence flea that When long Conversation with the pleasures of a sin hath not onely given them Regallias but hath made them necessary to us so as that we cannot be without them when Custom craves with greater feaver than our thirst when if we want it we have qualms saintings of Soul as if the life were in that blood of the grape when men can part as easily with their own bowels as the Luxuries that feed them if you take away their Dishes then you take their Souls which dwell in them when the sins of the Bed are as neâ—dful and refreshing as the sleeps of it when to bid a man not look not satisfie his lustful eye is every jot as cruel as that other Iâ— thine eye offend thee pluck it out For if he must no more find pleasure in his sight he hath no use of it yea if this be indeed a kindness not to leave him Eyes to be to him the same as Appetite to Tantalus that which he must not satisfie and is his hell 'T is easie if the Lust be got no further than the Eye to pull them out together but if through that it shoot into the Blood and Spirits mix heats with those if it enwrap the heart twist with its strings and warm the Soul with its desires so that it Spirit all the motions all the thoughts and wishes of the heart when it is thus to make the heart to stifle its own motions stab its thoughts and strangle all its wishes to untwist and disentangle and to tear it thence if this be to be Circumcised with the Circumcision of Christ and he that hath not the sign of this the Seal of the New Covenant as he that in the Old had not the other was must be cut off our long habituated hardned Sinners must not think that there is any thing of true Repentance in their easie perfunctory sleight performances there is something like Death in the Duty which yet is required of us farther under variety of more severe expressions for we are bid thirdly to slay the Body of Sin Rom. vi 6. to mortifie our members Col. iii. 5. and to Crucifie Gal. vi 14. which how it may be done the next consideration of S. Paul's condition in the Text and my next part declare I am Crucified with Christ that is first as he was by being made conformable to his Death And truly should we trace him through all the stages of his Passion we should hardly find one passage but is made to be transcribed by us in dealing with our sins First he began it with Agony when his Soul was exceeding heavy for it labour'd with such weight of indignation as did make the Son of God to sink under the meer apprehension And he was sorrowful unto Death so as that his whole Body did weep Blood The Sinners passion his Repentance is exactly like it it begins always with grief and sense of weight whoever is regenerate was conceiv'd in sorrow and brought forth with pangs and the Child of God too is born weeping And for loads the Church when she does call us to shew forth this Death of Christ as if she did prescribe that very Agony requires that we should find that Garden at the Altar makes us say we are heartily sorry for our misdoings the remembrance of them is grievous unto us the burden of them is intolerable So that the Sinner's Soul must be exceeding heavy too Secondly There he is betrayed by his own domestick sold for the poorest Price imaginable as a Slave for thirty pieces of silver I shall not mind you what unworthy things the love of Money does engage men to to sell a Christ a Saviour and a God! and rather than stand out at such a base rate as we scorn to buy a sin at every single act 's engagement to Damnation costs more than the Ransom of the World is sold for and the Blood of God is purchas'd cheaper than any one opportunity of Vice does stand us in But I onely mind you here that he shall have a better hire that will but be a Judas to his own iniquities do but betray the Regent sins deliver them up and thou shalt have everlasting Heaven Thirdly We find him next carried before the High Priest And the strictest times of Christianity would serve their sins so to receive his doom upon them to be excommunicated into Reformation But I shall not urge how we can discover to a Physician our shames all our most putrid Guilts as well as Ulcers and make him our Confessor in our most secret sins neither will I be inquisitive why the Physicians of our souls are balk'd but will pass this part of the Conformity and follow Christ to Pontius Pilate And for this part we our selves are fitted the whole furniture of a Judicial Court all that makes up both Bench and Bar is born within us God hath given us a Conscience whereby we are a Law to our selves Rom. ii We have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Jews did want such evidence as is sufficient to condemn us the same Conscience that is privy to our doings and stands by our thoughts and sees through our intentions is a thousand witnesses And that there may be a Prosecutor our own thoughts accuse us saith S. Paul and if we will give them way will aggravate each Circumstance of guilt and danger bark and howl and cry as loud against us as the Jews did against Christ for Sin is of so murthering a guilt it will be sure to slay it self and that he may not want his deserved Ruin the Sinner makes his
a discourse and it hath filled so many that there is nothing left unsaid or to be said against as to the main And they that pick some little sayings seeming against this order out of those Ancients which were themselves of it and wrote much expresly for it and think by those means to confute it do the same thing with that Romanist who tore some little shreds that look as if they favour'd some opinions of the Romanists out of the Books of Protestants most of which were directly writ against the Church of Rome and putting those together went about by them to convince the world there never were any such things as Protestants but they that did profess to be so were all Papists But I will say no more then my Text hath done which evidences it not a separation only of Degree but Order by a new Ceremony and commissionating to new powers If I would stay on words 't is expressed here by one that speaks very great distances 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 separate which does in Scripture word the distances that the censures of the Church do make Luke 6. 22. and still in the Greek Liturgies when absolution is given 't is said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to free them from all curse and separation as if to pass into the bounds of this uncall'd were such a thing as to leap over the Censures of the Church over the Line of Excommunication and to break through this wall of separation were to break through Anathema's and Curses Yea 't is used to express the distance betwixt the Lord's two hands his right hand and his left at the day of Doom Mat. 25. 32. betwixt which hands there is a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a most insuperable gulf But these I shall urge Indeed the Fathers of the Church have been in these last days counted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 separate in the severest sense cast out as the dung of the Earth and the calling it self was under reprobation as if it separated only to the left hand of God But so it was with their Predecessours in the Text Saint Paul says of himself and the rest of his Order that they were counted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the filth of the World and the off-scouring of all things 1 Cor. 4. 13. and as if they were called only to ruine and consecrated for a sacrifice he says the Lord hath set us forth as men appointed to death vers 9. Indeed since God hath pleased to own you as his Churches Angels we are not troubled if some have counted you as the off-scouring of the Earth while we know Angels do relate to Heaven And let them consider how they will reprobate those to the left hand of God whom Christ calls stars in his right hand and he is at the right hand of his Father and while you were accounted so you did but follow them that went before in Sufferings as well as Office and to do so was part of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the work that they were separated to which is the next part For the work I shall but run this over and reflect upon it as I pass according as it is of persent Concernment and First Saint Paul's work was to Preach the Gospel and we find him doing it from this time forward to his End The high Priest of the Jews was called the Angel of the Lord of Hosts of which name an Heathen does give this account that he was call'd so because he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Angel or the Messenger of Gods Commands so Diodorus Siculus And Malachy gives the same reason Mal. 2. 7. he was the Substitute to him upon Mount Sinai and gave the Law also only without the thunder Our Governours succeed into the Name they are the Churches Angels and when we hear the word from them we have it as it were from Heaven again and we receive our Law too 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the disposition of Angels Indeed the Case now is not like Saint Paul's the Gospel then was to be first revealed to all the World and by continual inculcating secur'd against the depravations which all the malice of the Devil and the World sought to infuse and the unskilfulness of infant Christians did make them apt to entetrain But now we are all confirm'd Christians Yet truly the time is now such as did give occasion for Saint Paul's charge to Timothy 2 Tim. 4. 1 2 3. a time wherein they will not indure sound doctrine but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers He therefore that is in Timothy's place must heap up Reproofs and Exhortations or he must heap good sound dispensers of them Such as will feed the Lambs with sincere milk not chaf'd and heated with commotion and busie restless Faction not embitter'd with overflowings of a too-ful gall not sour'd with eager sharpnesses of a malicious or a dissatisfied mind not impoisoned with the foul tinctures of a scandalous life nor the Corrosive infusions of Schismatical and turbulent opinions He that caters thus for his flock and provides such as by doctrine and by practice do instruct them to live quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness and honesty He like the Angel on Mount Sinai gives the Law to a Nation together preaches to his whole Diocess at once Continually The second work was praying for and blessing them This does begin and close every Epistle that he asserts of himself constantly and 't is well known the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gifts of those times inspir'd for this Work Now thus our Angels also are Angels of Incense the High Priests Office in especial Those that did daily Minister performd a service of Incense too that did accompany the prayers of the people and sent them up in perfume but the High Priests Incense was part of the Expiation and was the Cloud that cover'd the transgressions of the people when he came with them all about him before the Mercy-seat And they who shall consider that the prayer of Moses Now Moses and Aaron were among the Priests Psal. 99. 6. and He was the chief Priest did withhold the Arm of God when it was stretcht forth in fury to destroy and did commit a violence upon the Lord such as he could not grapple with but seems to deprecate and fain avoid and says Let me alone that I may destroy them Exod. 32. 10. If thou wilt permit me my fury shall prevail upon them saith the Arabick but if thou pray it cannot therefore let go thy prayer saith the Chald. and let me alone And they who shall consider also that his prayer did maintain a breach against the Lord when he had made one and was coming to enter in a storm of indignation then this made head against him and repuls't him Psal. 106. 23. They that consider these effects will certainly desire the Prayers and