love to have others to handle it severely All this bad men may do upon the score of natural fear and self-love and the apprehension of a future judgement And now such convictions will naturally beget some endeavours A convinced understanding will have some influence upon the will and affections The mind in the unregenerate may lust against the Flesh as that doth against it So that 2. such a meer animal man may promise and purpose and endeavour in some considerable measure but then he goes not on with full Resolution but wavers and stops and turns about again and lets the law of the members that of death and sin to prevail over him His endeavour is remiss and consequently ineffectual it makes no conquests and will not signifie He sins on though with some regret and his very unwillingness to sin while he commits it is so far from lessening that it aggravates his fault It argues that he sins against conscience and conviction and that sin is strong and reigns 'T is true indeed St. Paul Rom. 7. makes such a description seemingly of himself as one might think concluded him under this state he saith vers 8. That sin wrought in him all manner of concupiscence vers 9. That sin revived and he died vers 14. That he was carnal and again sold under sin vers 20. That sin dwelt in him and wrought that which he would not vers 23. That the Law of his members led him into captivity to the law of Sin and vers 25. That he obeyed the law of sin If this be so and St. Paul a regenerate man was in this state it will follow that seeking and feeble endeavour that overcometh no difficulty may yet procure an entrance and he that is come hitherto viz. to endeavour is safe enough though he do not conquer This objection presseth not only against this head but against my whole Discourse and the Text it self Therefore to answer it I say That the St. Paul here is not to be understood of himself He describes the state of a convinced but unregenerate man though he speaks in the first person a Figure that was ordinary with this Apostle and frequent enough in common speech Thus we say I am thus and thus and did so and so when we are describing a state or actions in which perhaps we in person are not concerned In this sense the best Expositors understand these expressions and those excellent Divines of our own Bishop Taylor and Dr. Hammond and others have noted to us That this description is directly contrary to all the Characters of a regenerate man given elsewhere by this and the other Apostles As he is said to be dead to sin Rom. 6. 11. Free from sin and the servant of Righteousness Rom. 6. 18. That he walks not after the Flesh but after the Spirit Rom. 8. 1. That the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made him free from the Law of sin and death Rom. 8. 2. That he overcometh the world Joh. 5. 4. He sinneth not 1 Joh. 3. 6. He hath crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts Gal. 5. 24. Which Characters of a truly regenerate person if they be compared with those above-cited out of Rom. 7. it will appear that they are as contrary as 't is possible to speak and by this 't is evident that they describe the two contrary states For can the regenerate be full of all manner of concupiscence and at the same time be crucified to the Flesh and its affections and lusts one in whom sin revives while he dies and yet one that is dead to sin carnal and yet not walking after the flesh but after the Spirit sold under sin and yet free from sin Having sin dwelling in him and a captive to sin and obeying the Law of sin and yet free from the law of sin and death how can these things consist To tell us 'T is so and 't is not so and to twist such contradictions into Orthodox Paradoxes are pretty things to please Fools and Children but wise men care not for riddles that are not sense For my part I think it clear that the Apostle in that mistaken Chapter relates the feeble impotent condition of one that was convinced and strove a little but not to purpose And if we find our selves comprised under that description though we may be never so sensible of the evil and danger of a sinful course and may endeavour some small matter but without success we are yet under that evil and obnoxious to that danger For he that strives in earnest conquers at last and advanceth still though all the work be not done at once So that if we endeavour and gain nothing our endeavour is peccant and wants Faith or Prayer for Divine aids or constancy or vigour and so Though we may seek we shall not be able to enter But 3. an imperfect Striver may overcome sin in some Instances and yet in that do no great matter neither if he lies down and goes no further There are some sins we outgrow by age or are indisposed to them by bodily infirmity or diverted by occasions and it may be by other sins and some are contrary to worldly Interests to our credit or health or profit and when we have in any great degree been hurt by them in these we fall out with those sins and cease from them and so by resolution and disuse we master them at last fully which if we went on and attempted upon all the rest were something But when we stop short in these petty victories our general state is not altered He that conquers some evil appetites is yet a slave to others and though he hath prevailed over some difficulties yet the main ones are yet behind Thus the imperfect Striver masters it may be his beastly appetite to intemperate drinking but is yet under the power of Love and Riches and vain Pleasure He ceaseth from open debauchery but entertains spiritual wickedness in his heart He will not Swear but will backbite and rail He will not be Drunk but will damn a man for not being of his opinion He will not prophane the Sabbath but will defraud his Neighbour Now these half conquests when we rest in them are as good as none at all Then shall I not be ashamed when I have regard to all thy Commandments saith the Kingly Prophet Psal 119. 6. 'T is shameful to give off when our work is but half done what we do cast the greater reproach upon us for what we omit To cease to be prophane is something as a passage but nothing for an end We are not Saints as soon as we are civil 'T is not only gross sins that are to be overcome The wages of sin is death not only of the great and capital but of the smallest if they are indulged The Pharisee applauded himself that he was not like the Extortioners Adulterers and Unjust nor like the Publican that came to
thinks 't is witty to Scoff at it But in process of time and practice his understanding through the withcraft of this vice and the secret judgement of God grows into the very nature and temper of the sin And he comes insensibly at last to believe that in earnest which he entred on at first in jest and so Satan and his Lusts have decoy'd him into a down right serious Infidelity If the horrid Articles of impiety and unbelief had been offer'd him at the beginning in a way of serious argument he would have entertain'd them with some intellectual detestation and abhorrence But having a long time droll'd upon Religion and represented it as ridiculous rather than so much wit and sport should be lost he is willing to believe it is so and such a will quickly draws such an understanding to it But especially the consideration of full liberty in his Lusts indears and recommends the opinion to him and the intellect so prepar'd is quickly convinc'd having so great an interest to incline it so that now the foolish mind is darkened Rom. 1. 21. and the Conscience made a party with the lusts It is become reprobate Rom. 1. 28. and given up to strong delusions 2 Thes 2. 11. The Scoffer now believes his Jests as if they were arguments of Reason and pleads for his lusts as if they were actions of vertue And thus his Conscience is debauch'd Or if he have not proceeded so far as this Yet 2. He stupifieth it at least There are two main acts of Conscience to inform us what is our Duty and to judge how far we do it or do it not And this sort of wicked men deal so with Conscience as to stupifie both For Duty they think of none who is Lord over them and for reflection on their actions they are strangers to it They follow on with their eyes and thoughts upon their Lusts but never consider whither the way leads They pursue sense and appetite but reflect and think no more than Beasts Whither am I going and what have I done are no questions with them All the soul and mind they have is employ'd in seeking means to gratifie and please their Lusts and while those are satisfied the men are content and quiet be their actions what they will They feel no inward trouble or disturbance from the greatest villanies They can blaspheme the name of God by horrid Oaths every moment and debauch themselves by drunkenness and vile sensuality every day without the least remorse or sense that any thing is a-miss yea they make sport of their Sin Prov. 14. 9. and glory in their shame Phil. 3. 19. They live undisturbedly in a course of hellish wickedness and die in the same without any thought or apprehension of Sin Death or Judgement They laugh and debauch themselves into a state past feeling Ephes 4. 19. and sear their Consciences as with an hot iron 1 Tim. 4. 2. They are twice dead plucked up by the roots Jude 12. dead by nature to the spiritual Life and now by these vile usages dead to the moral also And when they are come thus far they are freed too 3. From the Restraints of the Ministers of Gods Providence the Holy Angels They are Instruments in the distribution of mercies and judgements by which God restrains sinners from their Lusts Ministring spirits for our good Heb. 1. 14. and are perhaps concern'd about us in more things than we imagine throwing bars a-thwart the way where danger or temptation lies inwardly and secretly exciting good thoughts and desires as Satan doth evil ones and defending us in many instances from the power and subtilty of that enemy But the derider of Religion who is forsaken of God and Conscience is also left by These And that there is such a dereliction of incurable sinners we may see Jer. 51. 9. We would have healed Babylon but she is not healed forsake her and let her go Spoken as some of the learned Ancients suppose by the Presidential Angels like the voice in the Temple a little before the last destruction of it Let us go hence Thus Psal 71. 9. the Septuagint reads They that keep my soul take counsel together saying God hath forsaken him let us persecute and take him for there is none to deliver him The good Spirits depart from the incorrigible sinner and leave him to the evil ones Thus of the first dreadful consequence of Scoffing at Religion the Scoffers are given up to follow their Lusts without restraint Another is 2. That they follow without power to leave or disobey them They follow as Vassals and Slaves yea they follow as a Beast that is led Their wills are but the motions of their Lust their Reasons but the impure Phantasms and Imaginations that are raised by their Lusts and their affections but the various inclinations of their Lusts So that what ever may be said of the liberty of less degenerate men these have none Our power consists in the aids of the Spirit of God in the informations convictions and reproofs of Conscience and in the offices of kindness we receive from the Ministring Spirits When these are gone all our power is gone So that those reprobate men are dead in sin Eph. 2. 1. and Sold unto it Rom. 7. 14. They are led into Captivity by the Law of sin and death Rom. 7. 23. They are slaves and slaves to the worst of Tyrants and the worst of slaves even to him that is held in the chains of darkness to the judgement of the great day Being left of God and good Angels the evil ones take possession of them on which account they are truly Demoniacks and those of the worst sort they are mov'd and acted by the Devil as if they had no other Soul And so 3. They follow their Lusts with none or very little hope of Remedy The condition of the Scoffers of some of them at least is quite or very near desperate This follows from what hath been said already and we may consider further 1. That there is a day of Grace a time in which there is ground for hope when that is done hope is at an end Now this day is the time and possibility of repentance When ever a sinner repents and turns he shall be accepted and live But men may out-live and sin away the power and capacity of repentance And then their Sun is set their day is done Now Repentance begins in Sense and conviction of sin but when a man is arriv'd at a state past feeling he is incapable of that the most powerful word most terrible judgements and most alluring mercies have no effect on such the best Physick in the world will not work on a dead carkass the loudest voice will not rouze a Marble Statue nor the most soveraign Salve close up a cut in the stump of a Tree The summ is When one is past the inward sense of Duty and danger Sin and Misery he is past Repentance
our Natures almost universally rise against as many Bestialities and some horrid Cruelties and all men except Monsters in Humane form are disposed to some Vertues such as Love to Children and Kindness to Friends and Benefactors All this I must confess and say because Experience constrains me and I do not know why Systematick Notions should sway more than that But notwithstanding these last concessions 't is evident enough that our Natures are much vitiated and depraved and this makes our business in the way of Religion difficult For our work is to cleanse our Natures and to destroy those Evil Inclinations to crucifie the Old Man Rom. 6. 6. and to purge out the old Leven 1 Cor. 5. 7. This is Religion and the Way of Happiness which must needs be very difficult and uneasie For the vices of Inclination are very dear and grateful to us They are our Right Hands and our Right Eyes and esteemed as our Selves So that to cut off and pluck out these and to bid defiance to and wage War against our selves to destroy the first-born of our Natures and to lop off our own Limbs This cannot but be very Irksome and Displeasant Imployment and this is one chief business and a considerable thing that makes Religion difficult II. Another Difficulty ariseth from the Influence of the Senses We are Creatures of sense and sensible things do most powerfully move us we are born Children and live at first the life of Beasts That Age receives deep Impressions and those are made by the senses whose Interest grows strong and establisht in us before we come to the use of Reason and after we have arrived to the exercise of that sensible objects still possess our Affections and sway our Wills and fill our Imaginations and influence our Understandings so that we love and hate we desire and choose we fancy and we discourse according to those Impressions and hence it is that we are enamour'd of Trifles and fly from our Happiness and pursue Vexation and embrace Misery and imagine Perversely and reason Childishly for the influence of the Body and its Senses are the chief Fountains of Sin and Folly and Temptation Upon which accounts it was that the Platonical Philosophers declaim'd so earnestly against the Body and ascrib'd all Evils and Mischief to it calling vice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 corporeae Pestes material Evils and bodily Plagues And the Apostle that understood it better calls Sin by the name of Flesh Gal. 5. 17. Works of the Flesh Gal. 5. 19. Law of the Members Rom. 7. 23. and cries out upon the Body of this Death Rom. 7. 24. And now this is our natural Condition a state subject to the prevalent influences of Sense and by this means to Sin and Temptation and 't is our Work in Religion to mortifie the Body Rom. 8. 13. and to cease from making provision for the flesh Rom. 13. 14. and from fulfilling the Lusts thereof Gal. 5. 14. To render our selves dead to the prevalent life of Sense and Sin Rom. 6. 8. and 11. 5. and to arise to a new Life Rom. 6. 4. The Life of Righteousness and Faith Hab. 2. 4. A Life that hath other Principles and other Pleasures other Objects and other Ends and such as neither Eye hath seen nor Ear heard nor any of the Senses perceived Yea this is a Life that is exercised in contradiction to the Judgements of sense It s Joy is Tribulation Jam. 1. 2. It s Glory Reproaches 2 Pet. 4. 14. It s Height is Lowness Luke 14. 11. It s Greatness in being Meanest Matth. 20. 27. And its Riches in having Nothing 2 Cor. 6. 10. To such a Life as this Religion is to raise us and it must needs be difficult to make us who are so much Brutes to be so much Angels us who seem to live by nothing else but sense to live by nothing less This with a witness is an hard and uneasie Work and another difficulty in Religion III. A Third proceeds from the natural Disorder and Rage of our Passions Our Corrupt Natures are like the troubled Sea Isa 57. 20. And our Passions are the Waves of that Ocean that tumble and swell and keep a mighty noise they dash against the Rocks and break one against another and our Peace and Happiness is shipwrackt by them Our Passions make us miserable We are sometime stifled by their Numbers and confounded by their Disorders and torn to pieces by their Violence mounted to the Clouds by Ambition and thrown down to the deep by Despair scorcht by the flames of Lust and overwhelmed by the Waters of unstable Desire Passions fight one against another and all against reason they prevail over the Mind and have usurpt the Government of our Actions and involve us in continual Guilt and Misery This is the natural State of Man and our work in the way of Religion is to restrain this Violence and to rectifie these Disorders and to reduce those Rebellious Powers under the Empire and Government of the Mind their Sovereign And so to regain the Divine Image which consists much in the order of our Faculties and the Subjection of the Brutish to the reasonable Powers This I say Religion aims at to raise us to the perfection of our Natures by mortifying those Members Col. 3. 5. our unruly Passions and Desires and crucifying the Flesh with its Affections and Lusts Gal. 5. 24. And thereby to make us humble in Prosperity quiet in Adversity meek under Provocations steady amidst Temptations modest in our Desires temperate in our Injoyments constant to our Resolutions and contented in all Conditions Here is our great Business and our Work is this And certainly 't is no easie thing to bring order out of a Chaos and to speak a Tempest into a Calm to resist a Torrent and to stop and turn the Tyde to subdue a Rebellious Rabble and to change them from Tyrannical Masters to Modest and Obedient Servants These no doubt are works of difficulty enough and these must be our Imployment in the way of Religion and on this score also the Gate is strait IV. Our Work in Religion is yet more difficult upon the account of Custom to which we are subject and by which we are swayed much This is vulgarly said to be another Nature and the Apostle calls it by that name 1 Cor. 11. 14. Doth not Nature it self teach you that if a Man have long Hair it is a shame unto him By the word Nature the best Interpreters say only Custom is meant since long Hair is not declared shameful by the Law and Light of Nature taken in its chief and properest sense For then it had never been permitted to the Nazarites But the contrary custom in the Nations that used it not made it seem shameful and indecent There are other places in Scripture and ancient Authors wherein Nature is put for Custom But I must not insist on this the thing I am about is that Custom is very
to consider whether its pretended friends have not been and are not still great occasions of it The greatest part of Christians are incapable of judging concerning the truth or goodness of any Church or Constitution of Religion but are inclin'd in their opinion and affection by the general temper and practice of its professors and adherents Now 't is an almost universal principle among men that Religion and the Worship of God require the greatest seriousness and zeal where these are observ'd in peoples carriage to their particular Church the most are usually inclin'd to have respect for that on the other side when the members of any Church are cold and unconcern'd or wanton and irreverent in their Religion such a temper when it comes to be general draws popular contempt upon that Church and way This at present is the sad case of ours and I doubt it may be too truly said that there are no retainers to any Church in the world who are so little concern'd for it and the worship of God in it as the pretenders to the Church of England If we survey our several Congregations and consider our people we shall find but very few that carry themselves as if they had any conscientious affection to the Religion they profess If the Estimate be taken from those that are constant or frequent at the publick Prayers in Cathedrals or other Churches certainly the number must be acknowledg'd to be very small and if we reckon only such that carry but the appearance of serious Devotion it will be yet less so that the Church may almost be tempted to say with him There is not one godly man left the righteous are minished from among the children of men There are indeed multitudes who will tell us they are of this Church when they give us no ground but their bare word to believe they are of any While they talk of owning and adhering to the Church they will not afford the solemn worship of it as much as their bodily presence as long as the Devil and their Lusts have employment for them elsewhere They carry themselves to it as to a matter of the greatest indifference will go to Church now and then when time lies upon their hands and they are in the humour for it and then again never think of Religion or Worship till another accident excites them And when they come to such Sacred places as this with what rude boldness do they enter Gods house and how much carelesness and irreverence do they express in their very looks and garb Confident negligence seems at present to be a fashion and the whole carriage after is sutable to this ill beginning What toying talking gazing laughing and other rude follies may we observe in the midst of the most solemn parts of worship and how much slightness and playsomness in speaking of serving God being devout saying prayers and such like serious things after it Now when these carriages are observ'd not to mention worse in those that say they are of the Church of England how readily doth it dispose the generality of men who judge by bare appearance to think amiss of the Church that is ordinarily thus treated by its members and to suppose most others that profess it to be of the same sort or not very different and so to despise the Church and all that adhere unto it This certainly is a very great occasion of her present contempt and if you would not be accessary to its increase and growth if it be capable of any more beware of this carelesness and irreverence to the Religion you profess If Religion be a real thing and not a meer imagination as nothing is more certain it then requires our greatest zeal and venerations and the most serious exercise of our faculties and endeavours no prostrations can be too low in the adoration of the God of Heaven no ingagement of soul too intense in praying for his blessing and praising him for his bounty no attention too serious in hearing of His Word no deportment too awful in His eye and special presence Let us all consider this and demean our selves in our worship as those that are in earnest Let the light of our zeal and devotion so shine before men that they seeing our works may glorifie God reverence the Church and vindicate it and us from the scorning of those that are at ease and the contempt of the proud Let us endeavour so to worship that the fervour of our piety may equal the truth of our profession and our actions in Religion may have some sutableness to our expectations from it And then though the Church and we are filled with contempt yet we shall be clear from any imputation of the guilt and our souls may be at ease though we are scorn'd by the Proud Preach'd at a Visitation SERMON VI. MORAL EVIDENCE OF A Life to Come The Second Edition SERMON VI. MATTH XXII 32. God is not the God of the dead but of the living NOtwithstanding the manifold and immediate Transactions of God with the people of the Jews yet were they a dull and stupid generation addicted very much to the matters of sense and indisposed to things of spiritual and invisible nature Yea there was a great and famous Sect among them that denied a Life to come and the Existence of immaterial beings For the Sadducees say there is no Resurrection neither Angels nor Spirit Acts 23. 8. These put the Question here to our Saviour in a case of a woman who successively had seven Husbands whose Wife she should be at the Resurrection from ver 22. to the 28. which captious Query they intended for an Argument against the Doctrine of another Life Christ answers directly to the objection by telling them their mistake of the state and condition of that Life since they neither marry nor are given in marriage that have attain'd unto it but are like the Angels of God ver 30. and then takes occasion to prove the Resurrection or Living again of the dead out of the writings of Moses the only Scripture the Sadducees allow'd ver 31 32. But as touching the Resurrection of the dead have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God saying I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob God is not the God of the dead but of the living The former clause of the verse cites the Scripture which is the ground of the Argument the latter is a principle of Reason and both together infer That there is a Resurrection Now the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Resurrection of the dead undertaken to be shewn was not the Resurrection of the body though that be a great truth also since the argument doth not reach this For one who believes that the soul lives after death may say That God is the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob though the body doth not rise for they are living in their souls which
the ends of malice and Self-love Which things being so in the present world it is fit that at last Providence should be disintangled and absolv'd that all the world may see the living creatures in the Wheels Ezek. 1. 20. and the eye that is in the Scepter as the Aegyptian Hieroglyphicks represented Providence That we may at length understand that its ways are equal Ezek. 18. 25. and that all the seeming inequalities prove the shortness of our Reasonings not the unevenness of its managements that its strangest and least accountable issues were the Results of Counsel and govern'd by an infinitely wise mind that shoots it self through all things That we may understand the difference between good and prosperous and the reason of the distance between vertue and success Why the fire out of the Bramble is permitted to devour the Cedar and the desert of the wicked is so often the lot of the just These expectations are reasonable and in a manner necessary that mankind may be convinced the events below were not Lotteries but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 full of Providence and that Providence acted by an infinite Wisdom Justice and Goodness That wickedness shall at last reap the misery it hath sown and dwell in the flames it hath kindled And afflicted Vertue lift up its head to receive the Crown and the Glories that are the rewards of its patience and appear to have shot it self up in another world when it was deprest in this And so all shall know that there was a God that judged in the Earth Psal 58. 11. And this is another reasonable account of the appointment of a Future Judgement 3. We may suppose it to be ordain'd for this also That secret wickedness may be disclos'd and shamed The Heart of man is as deep waters hath a smooth surface but is full of rocks and quicksands at the bottom The world is a Theatre and the greatest part of men are but Actors For as They cloathe themselves with Gold and Purple and put on great names and are fine things upon the Stage when behind the Curtain and in their retiremenâ—s they are but common men and like their ordinary Spectators Thus we dress our selves for publique converses set our looks and gild our language and put on the Livery of Wisdom and Saintship and appear what we would be thought not what we are But in our privacies and more familiar conversations in the loose and unconstrain'd order of our words and our actions we are quite another thing we are foolish and frivolous froward and impatient sordid and absurd And in the secret Chambers of our souls we are worse The fairest face would affright us if the skin were taken off it and shew us nothing but ghastliness and deformity And it would amaze us to see the In sides of those whose outward appearance is fair and plausible We now seek coverings for our shame and hide our follies and imperfections under handsome names devout shews and fair pretensions or excuse them by Necessity Temptation the Devil or Providence And though we see much sin and vileness assoon as we open our eyes and look out of doors Yet there is another and a worse world of wickedness shut up from our sight and hid in its own darkness in close designs and private actions in the corners of the heart and recesses of thoughts These make up a dark Region cover'd with fear and shame and the shadows of death open only to Him to whom all things are so and midnight is as bright as noon Psal 139. 12. And he will provide that so it shall be to all the world that all sin may be as odious as it is ugly and unobserv'd impiety may not still lie hid in the secrecie and silence it hath sought But that its whispers may be proclaim'd by a voice more loud than Thunder and its conceal'd deformities be brought into the open day That those hidden iniquities which hitherto have escap'd may be whipt with the scorpions of guilt and shame and the divine purity and patience may appear in their Glory and proper lustre And for this Reason also God hath appointed a Day wherein He will Judge the secrets of men That sin may not be the more secure for being close But that it may be feared and shunn'd in Grots as well as in most publique places And I may add That those actions of vertue that no eye sees but that which sees all things and those unknown tendencies and anhelations of divine souls after the adorable object of their Love may be solemnly celebrated and rewarded Again 4. Such a Day is fit and is appointed that all rights and claims may be determined The great Controversies are which and where is the True Church and Religion And if we attend to the Zeal and the confidence the loud talk and bold claims of each of the pretenders All are in the truth and All mistaken Every Sect is in the right if it may be judg'd by the fondness of its own assurance and every one is out by the sentence of all the rest Here 's Religion sayes one Nay but it 's here sayes the next and a third gives the Lie to them both And then they scuffle and contend till they have talk'd themselves out of sense out of charity and out of breath And when they would say on but know not what when their passions are rais'd but their Reasons lost They fall to pelt each other with hard names They squabble and strive and damn one another by turns They gather parties to help up the Cry and fill all places with the noise of their quarrels and triumph and crow after a conquest in Imagination And after all this bustle and all this ado They sit down where they begun Nothing is gain'd on either side but an addition of malice and bitter zeal more rancour and more damning sentences while they are for the most part as far from Truth as from agreement This is the state of the contending world nor can we expect it should be otherwise while Ignorance and Malice Interest and Passion inspire the quarrels Or if Controversies should be ended the Vote would doubtless be cast on the side of Folly and Falshood for their adherents are most numerous and most loud while the friends of Truth and Reason are meek and modest thinly scatter'd among the Herd and still liable to be over-born and out-nois'd by the Tumult But the coming Day will set all right and effectually resolve Pilate's Question What is Truth And then no doubt The meek and the peaceable the charitable and the just who did not dispute but live who were not swoln with rage and notions but big of Charity and universal kindness for mankind Then shall These be declar'd the rightful Heirs of the Kingdom when the presumed Sons of it who hugg'd themselves as the only favourites of Heaven and warm'd their hands by their own fantastick Fires who flew aloft on the wings
of Imagination and proudly look'd down upon the modest and humble Believer who were full of mysterie and rapture scorn and talk but void of justice modesty and love These we have reason to think shall then be cast out and receive their portion with the Pharisee to the shame and disappointment of their confidence and their hopes In this Day shall the Errours and the follies that were recommended to the deceiv'd embraces of the Sons of men by frauds and Art paint and meretricious bravery be expos'd in their naked Deformities to the sight and contempt of all the world And that Truth and those Vertues that were persecuted into Corners and cover'd with dust and shame torn piece-meal by wrath and ignorance and scatter'd up and down in the Tents of Errour shall then be brought into the Light and cleansed from all debasing mixtures and represented in their native loveliness and beauty that they may receive the praises and acclamations of their ancient friends and acquaintance Yea and the acknowledgements of their now blushing and confounded enemies Upon the whole we see That the Faith of a Future Judgement is not misbecoming the severest Sons of Reason and Philosophy but is infinitely agreeable to the faculties of men and the Analogy of things I Come now to the SECOND main thing in the Text II. The Universality of the Subject to be judged the World so it is here And the Scripture elsewhere expresseth it in very general terms The secrets of men Rom. 2. 16. Every man Rev. 20. 13. The Dead small and great Rev. 20. 12. The quick and the dead 1 Pet. 4. 5. Now I shall consider the Universality of the Subject of Judgement in two great solemnities of it viz. The General Summons and the General Resurrection that follows both mentioned together 1 Cor. 15. 52. The trumpet shall sound and the Dead shall be raised 1. The Trumpet either some divine universal vertue or the voice of some mighty Angel crying Arise ye Dead and come to Judgement Methinks I hear that voice 't is full of Majesty and terrour 't is more loud than Fame and more general than the Light of Heaven 'T is heard at both the Poles in the Earth and Sea and Air and all Deep places Attend Attend Ye Sons of Adam Ye that are afar off and ye that are near Ye that begun with the Infant World and ye that liv'd in its latest Periods Ye that freeze under the uncomfortable North and ye that are hid under the remotest South Ye that dwell in the temperate Regions and ye that are scorch'd with the heats of the Line Ye that only cry'd and ceas'd to breathe and ye that went slowly and late to the Grave Ye that are yet alive and ye that have been Ages under ground Hearken Hearken to the Proclamation of the great King the Prince of Glory the Judge of Angels and Men The Day the Day of vengeance and recompence is come the Day of Terrours and of Triumphs The night is past Arise ye dead cease sleeping in the Grave Put on our bodies gather up your scatter'd parts summon your thoughts together and make up your Accounts The Tribunal is set the Judge is coming And ye living Inhabitants lay by your designs let fall your Traffique quit your pleasures and pursuits the time for these is done for ever done Eternity is in view Trim your Lamps the Bridegroom is at the door 2. And now the General Resurrection follows Behold the closest Vaults throw away their coverings and disclose the proud Families that lay hid in that stately darkness See how the loose Earth moves about the Cloysters of the Dead and the Grave opens all its doors to enlarge its Prisoners And lo a numerous people riseth from under ground to attend the great Assize of Angels and men They arise but are not yet alive Death sits upon their faces clad in dread and paleness They lose that motion with astonishment which they gained with their restored parts and are ready to be shaken into their former dust by the fear that hath seized their unsettled joynts They wonder at the Light and at themselves and are ready to drop back into the Graves from which they just peep'd out See here the mighty sits trembling by his Monument unconcern'd at the vain Epithets it gave to his flatter'd Memory and the delicate sighs with his first breath willing to return to darkness rottenness and worms rather than to the light that will discover the guilt and the follies of a Life of vanity and sin The Hypocrite droops to consider that his painting and his shame are to be brought out of the night and silence of the Grave into a naked and open day and the vitious dies again to think That he hath taken up his body from one Death to carry it to another and a worse Thus the world of the wicked shall all appear and all be concern'd in the Judgement that follows The Righteous shall rise also They awake with vigour in their souls and life in their eyes with gayety in their looks and transports in all their powers Their new warm'd blood moves pleasantly in its ancient chanels and the restored spirits dance in the renewed veins They are glad to meet the old companion of their pleasures and their miseries rejoycing at its rescue from the infamous dishonours of corruption and that 't is ready to pass with them into the promised and long expected Glories These are the First-fruits and the full Crop is near and their joy is beyond the joy of Harvest and we must leave the degree to be imagin'd that cannot be exprest And thus the universal World both of the wicked and the righteous shall appear on the Solemn Summons The Earth and Air and Sea and Death and Hell shall give up their Dead Rev. 20. 13. And so Adam and the Patriarchs and all the Ancient Sages with their Sons and Nephews to the latest Posterity shall stand up together before the Judgement Seat for all are subjects of the same general Empire and all are accountable for their Actions to the same Soveraign Judge And He is the Man whom God hath ordain'd to judge the world in Righteousness And this is the next thing in the Text to be consider'd viz. III. The person appointed The Man whom he hath ordain'd And this is the Man Christ Jesus even the Man who being in the form of God thought it no robberry to be equal with God Phil. 2. 6. The same is He who is ordain'd of God to be the Judge of the quick and the dead Act. 10. 42. And now under this Head I shall shew how fit he is as man for this great and solemn office in these two particulars 1. He is fit to be the General Judge as Man because he descended to the meanness of our condition 'T is but just that He who laid by his ancient Glory and cloath'd himself in the Livery of guilt and shame should re-assume
labours and their works do follow them THe more attentively we consider the Christian Religion in any of its parts we find greater grounds for the confirmation both of its Author and excellency so infinitely does it surpass all those writings of that nature which the great Sages of the World have with so much superciliousness on their part and admiration from their respective followers I may add too all things considered not without meriting due praise from us delivered to their Scholars And this will appear evident and undeniable if we but parallel them in any of the chief heads for instance in the principles upon which our Religion does proceed the precepts it contains and the rewards it appoints which division will comprize the summ of what we profess In all which the great Masters of Heathen wisdom do plainly discover either a great deal of Ignorance or malice in prevaricating that light they had reflected upon them from Jewish tradition so that it may be well doubted whether their Symbolick Divinity were not design'd rather to concel their own Ignorance in what they pretended to than to secure the rites and mysteries thereof from the vulgar's profanation For example 1. Take first the Principles those truths that are the Basis and foundation of our Religion such as are the Being and Nature of God the Creation of the World the Fall of man and his Redemption by a Messias the Immortality of the Soul and the Resurrection 't is plain the whole Philosophick world had none or but a very imperfect knowledge of almost all of them However some of their lavish Charity have endeavour'd to squeeze as much from their writings Nay that they were not without some knowledge of our greatest Mysteries viz. of a Messias under their Daimono-Latria and even of the Trinity in Plato's Triad and the Resurrection of the body under the Indians Palin-genesis But no body that has any veneration either for the Scriptures or but for Truth in general but must see and acknowledge that all this is but tortur'd from them Nor may we deny this further that whatever Notions of this kind they had were but traditional in respect of their Origine and conjectural in reference to their ambiguity and uncertainty 2. The like is to be said of their Rules and Precepts of virtuous living For we may not detract thus much from them that they have recommended many excellent Institutes to their Sects You shall collect among them many very admirable sayings such as these To know our selves to abstain from vice to bear afflictions to do justly and speak truly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do as we would be done by and many more Indeed for that kind of Divinity which was deducible from the Rules of common prudence and observation and depended not chiefly or solely upon Divine Revelation they have done extraordinary well And if they had not furnish'd us with so many famous examples of Vertue too it would not reflect so much upon the Professors of Christianity which in the spirituality of its precepts has as far exceeded all that they have writ as some of their Lives have most of ours though that be not to be imputed to our Religion unless it were justly chargeable upon the vitiosity or defect of its Principles or Rules Thus miserably however do we compensate the Divine culture and as if Nature abhorring so great a disparity betwixt mankind would thus ballance the Heathen with the Christian World by opposing their Imperfect Knowledge but severer Vertue to our diviner Laws but greater licentiousness in Practice Many of them having by as great proportions exceeded us in their endeavours after goodness as we do them in the knowledge and other means of it 3. Last of all which brings it to our present subject Christianity propounds nothing but upon the fairest and surest encouragement imaginable For the happiness of our Religion is both transcendently superiour to their discoveries and accompts of it and then also we are sufficiently and unquestionably assur'd hereof i.e. 't is not recommended to us upon plausible perswasions and inconclusive arguments but in the genuine sence of St. Paul's expressions 1 Corinth 2. 4. in demonstration of the Spirit and Power So that we see there is a kind of peculiar excellency in the Holy Scriptures above all the Systems of the greatest Moralists the foundation of our Obedience being laid upon clearer and better principles the practice of our obedience being carried higher by the spirituality of its commands and the rewards of our obedience being incomparably greater than what we can conceive much less could they promise or bestow 'T is the last of these that is contain'd in the Text and for which I am to be further accomptable to ye in the prosecution of the words I have read And I heard a voice from Heaven saying unto me Write Blessed c. Wherein we have these following particulars principally to be observed 1. The happiness of good men describ'd by its general nature they are blessed and by its integral parts they rest from their labours and their works do follow them 2. The Security and Evidence upon which this happiness is promis'd and asserted yea saith the Spirit 3. The time of its perfection and accomplishment partly in this life but not fully nor completely till death saying Blessed are the dead that dye in the Lord. 4. And lastly the Influence which the consideration of these premisses ought to have upon us both in Life and Death in reference to Obedience and Patience And I. To begin with the description of that happiness those rewards which are propounded to us for the encouragement of our Obedience and Patience Which are so great that I am utterly ignorant by what measures to describe them to ye The nature of that Celestial bliss as far transcending all our present felicities by which we should judge of it as it does the very capacity of our meriting it Sir Francis Bacon has observ'd We can have but a very imperfect accompt of those things which receed any whit near those extreams of Nothing and Infinity because either by their parvity or immensity they elude or confound our knowledge And especially the latter which choak the understanding and is like the beholding of the Sun whose light and lustre by which we discern other objects marrs and dimms our sight Such is the transcendent excellency of our future bliss at once the delight and amazement of our Intellectuals In the description whereof our highest expressions are so far from being hyperbolical that they amount but to a Litotes so that after our utmost endeavours we must content our selves with St. Pauls account of it in his First and Second Epistles to the Corinthians his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unutterable for that I take to be the meaning and not as we render it unlawful of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and also unconceiveable So inevitably should we diminish