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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A62326 Twelve sermons upon several occasions by Samuel Scattergood ... Scattergood, Samuel, 1646-1696. 1700 (1700) Wing S845; ESTC R39513 116,309 210

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Life and we must not add to it nor diminish from it but acquiesce in it and make it the sole Rule and Measure of our Faith imposing nothing upon our own or other men's Consciences but what is manifestly consentaneous and agreeable to the Doctrine contained therein Thus ye see that our Righteousness must be thoroughly purged and cleansed from all those Defects with which the Righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees was defiled But still all this is not sufficient if our Righteousness doth not exceed theirs infinitely more than thus it will be nothing worth we shall in no case enter into the Kingdom of Heaven That Righteousness which must bring us thither must be absolutely compleat and perfect without Spot or Blemish such as the All seeing Eye of God can discern no Defect in and that it is impossible for us ever to find such a Righteousness as this in our selves I have already shewed you and yet such a Righteousness we must all of us have or else never expect Salvation for without Holiness ay and perfect Holiness too no man shall see the Lord. Since therefore we our selves are not able to perform such a Righteousness as this and yet such an one is absolutely necessary to bring us unto Heaven we must seek it from some other person and to whom should we have recourse for it but to Christ our Saviour who of God is made unto us Wisdom and Righteousness and Sanctification and Redemption Let us therefore if we desire to be saved not trust in our own Merits as the Pharisees did for by the Works of the Law shall no flesh be justified but with the Hand of a true and lively Faith let us put on the Robe of Christs Righteousness which will be sure to hide our faults and to present us holy blameless and undefiled in the Presence of God But let us not deceive our selves neither and pretend to have this Faith and consequently that we have an interest in the Righteousness of Christ when there is no such Matter but let us try and examine our Faith whether it be a true and lively Faith or no. If it be not a Faith that Works by love if it be not fruitful and productive of good Works it is dead and insignificant it will stand us in no stead at all but if we pretend so to lay hold on Christ we shall only grasp a shadow No though we must not relie upon our own performances yet we must work ay and work as heartily as if our Works were Meritorious too but when we have done all we must utterly disclaim our own Righteousness trusting only in the Merits of Christ and desiring with S. Paul that we may be found in him not having our own Righteousness which is of the Law but that which is through the Faith of Christ the Righteousness which is of God by Faith This is such a Righteousness as will never fail us but whereas the Righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees and of all other Hypocrites and Dissemblers with God shall sink them into the bottomless Pit this Righteousness of Faith will refresh our Souls and chear our Hearts with the sweet Hopes and comfortable Expectation here and bless them hereafter eternally with the joyfull Fruition of that Glory which God hath prepared for all them that love him SERMON X. 1 PET. IV. 18. And if the Righteous scarcely be saved where shall the Ungodly and the Sinner appear THAT there shall be another Life after this in which all Mankind shall reap the Fruit of their Actions done in the Flesh and be adjudged to an unalterable State either of Happiness or Misery to all Eternity is not only an Article of Faith amongst Christians but a Truth of which the wiser sort of the Heathens were generally convinced This I say is a Truth which all Christians profess firmly to believe but yet alas how small is the Number of those that demonstrate the Truth and Sincerity of their Faith by their Holy Lives and Conversations We all of us know and are assured that there is a just God who will render to every man according to his deeds Rom. 2.6 and will by no means clear the guilty Exod. 34.7 We believe that there is an Heaven prepared for Saints and an Hell for Sinners and yet notwithstanding this belief how many thousands that are called by the Name of Christ run on head-long boldly and impudently in Wickedness and pursue with all imaginable Eagerness and Delight those fatal Paths that lead to Destruction as if the Joys of Heaven were a Trifle not worth our Acceptance or the Torments of Hell the object rather of our Desires than Fears But notwithstanding all this Obstinacy and Hardness of our Hearts the Lord God who is ever merciful and gracious long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth leaves us not to our selves but is continually calling and inviting us to Repentance by the preaching of his Word and by the secret and powerful Operations of his Holy Spirit Sometimes Heaven is pleased to smile upon us and as it were kindly to desire and intreat us to come and be its Inhabitants to accept of the glorious Liberty of the Children of God to be made Citizens of Sion and free Denizens of the New Jerusalem and at other times it frowns and awakens us with Thunder out of our sinful Lethargy God tries all ways imaginable to reclaim us and deliver us from the Jaws of Death Sometimes he pours down his Judgments upon our Heads that in our Affliction we may seek him early and sometimes he stretches forth the Arms of his Mercy to embrace us and draws us to him with the Cords of a Man with the Bands of Love Hos 11.4 Sometimes he holds forth the golden Scepter to us and graciously invites us to come and kiss the Son lest he be angry and sometimes he shakes his Rod of Iron over our Backs and threatens to dash us in pieces if we will not hear the Rod and who hath appointed it Hence are those many and gracious Invitations to Repentance which God hath made to us in his Word and those terrible Threatnings which he hath therein denounced to affright us from Sin amongst all which there is scarce one to be found that is more emphatical and piercing than this of my Text which must needs fill the Hearts of all obstinate and impenitent Sinners with Horrour yea and it strikes a Terrour even into the Godly themselves and makes them work out their Salvation with fear and trembling It thunders Hell certain and inevitable Damnation to the Wicked and hardly admits the Righteous into Heaven And if the Righteous scarcely be saved where shall the Vngodly and the Sinner appear The words are propounded by way of interrogation a thing very frequent in Scripture and generally used for the more powerful enforcing of some weighty and material Argument What could have been done more to my Vineyard that I have not done in it