of God but we see Mercy triumph against Judgment in that very blood He could have shew'n his detestation of Sin otherwise even in the Sinners punishment and so demonstrated his holiness and justice but it was impossible that he should otherwise shew mercy at these rates by crucifying his Son who was himself that he might spare Sinners Meer pardon had bin no such kindness as to let us see that God would do all this and suffer so that he might pardon us So that mankind forgiven and in glory had not bin so great an evidence of his compassion nor in torments so great an evidence of his holiness and detestation of iniquity He had such compassion of us as inclin'd him to deliver up his Son to torment that he might shew mercy to us yet all that compassion tho his bowels yern'd so over us that he would shed his blood for us could not incline him to forgive Sin without such an instance of his detestation of it nor yet with it but to such as will forsake their Sins For how should he appear by those inflictions to detest Sin if he should accept the Sinner that amends not give his pardons and rewards to one that will not part with his iniquities To such Christs sufferings are the Copy of their expectations he do's let them see how he detests and will for ever plague Sin unrepented of who thus torments the imputation of it on the innocent the blessed Son of God So that Christs sufferings not only are a perfect vindication of the honor of Gods person and his Government as to Sins committed but the most astonishing caution against committing them that can be imagin'd With us the Law is satisfied by the offenders suffering somtimes in effigie if we execute his picture any thing that by the fright of the example helps to guard the Law from being broken But see here an example which to make cost God the life of his own Son which to make dreadful he provided all the Agonies imaginable to assure us he that spared not his own Son will not spare the guilty neither can the Sinner possibly be able to endure that to Eternity which his Son the Son of God sunk under presently 'T is not a satisfaction that will give us leave to enjoy our vices and atone for us a price that will buy off the guilt of all our Sins and let us have them The satisfaction of this infinite value looks at vindication of Gods Honor and his Laws and serves the ends of Government and assures the Sinner which amends not that he must for ever perish And thus this Sacrifice for Sin condemned Sin to death by his own death Which death that we would imitate we did engage in Baptism which brings me to the second thing Whosoever are baptiz'd into Christ Jesus are baptiz'd into his death i. e. that which the efficacy of his death did work to that by Baptism we did engage our selves to Now as to this 1. Christs death was as we have now seen undertaken for the death of Sin Now Baptism imports the undertaking the same thing it being as Oecumenius upon this place do's say a Baptism unto that death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Because when we are baptized we do most solemnly profess and undertake to die to Sin renounce the Devil c. and put upon our selves the strictest obligations in the world to do this That Baptism from its institution was administred with express engagements to this in the very form of it I could prove out of that office in all ages that have any extant of it in the rest out of express testimony of Fathers thro every one to the Apostles Which so universal practice makes St Hieroms Primas and others explication not seem strange when they expound that good profession Timothy profest before many witnesses 1 Tim. 6. 12. to be that in Baptism However 't is sufficient evidence that St Peter when he says that the Baptism that saves us is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the whether question in St Cyprian or the Answer in Tertullian or indeed the stipulation which is both of a good conscience towards God do's as much as say there was in Baptism an obligation entred in that form of Law that stipulation was with questions an answers to them For they were askt and they did answer Dost thou renounce I do renounce Dost thou forsake I do c. And he that at Sacrament says that he do's this with a good sincere and upright Conscience hath the Baptism that saves But the importance of the Rite may be best known from them that us'd it first and whence it was deriv'd even from the Jews who when they did initiate a Proselyte into their Covenant did it with that Ceremony in this manner when any man desired to be of their Religion and they had by several scrutinies examined what the motives were of his conversion what his aimes if they were hopes of any thing of this world they refus'd him least his conversion should die or change as quickly as his worldly hopes or desires But if they saw all reason to believe he was sincere then they expounded to him all the Commandments laid before him the difficulty in keeping them if this did not affright him they explain'd to him the mysteries of their faith and the Commandments again together with the punishments that were allotted to transgression the Rewards to them that did observe them After all which if the man continued stedfast in his purpose they circumcis'd him sprinkling his own blood on him as a ceremony to affright him into the Observance And one would think it were sufficient engagement to have sign'd his resolutions in his blood and seal'd to them with Circumcision as the Targum words it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and carried the impression of his promise in his flesh to his lifes end But as if Baptism had obligation beyond that and it hath most certainly with those that are baptiz'd into the death of Christ for there the blood of sprinkling is Christs blood the blood of God but with them also after they had don this to the man he was no sooner cur'd of the wound of his circumcision but they put him having by him three Witnesses into the water and as he was there in it read to him once again all the Commandments and if he did profess his resolutions still to keep them they baptiz'd him and he was admitted thus into their Covenant the Conditions and the Hopes of it And by Baptism they did admit the children also if the three Magistrates of the place would undertake for them they should be brought up in the Jews Religion And this lets us see 't is the assuming to keep Gods Commandments to give over sinning to die to that and to live to righteousness to all holiness and vertue And with what strength of obligation this was understood to be perform'd
by the Ancients we may perceive in that as if there either really were or at least analogically whatsoever gives solemnity or force in Law to an engagement so as that it may become inviolable that they word this with They seem to think it was an oath Tertullian calls the Answers Verba Sacramenti So they might call a vow made with hands lift up as that was They were to do it before many Witnesses for more assurance in the face of the whole Church Yea that profession too was registred in the Church records always and St Austin says it was in heaven too Deo Angelis ejus conscribentibus dixisti Renuncio And tho there were not really in fact what Vicecomes dream't a signing and sealing this their compact with Almighty God meant when Cyril says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in Tertullians ring Signaculo lavacri quo fidei pactionem interrogatus obsignat yet the meer allusion does assure us they intended to convince us that as in Covenants amongst men when there 's no one Ceremony wanting of all the formalities and ties of Law to make a compact sure and not to be rescinded or avoided then performance of Conditions only will serve turn and is necessary so this Sacrament puts all the same necessities upon the baptized And it is no wonder therefore if the same Tertullian word that men are intinctione alligati tied from Sin by it Nay more St Paul says we are held from it by the bonds of Death for here he says we are baptiz'd into Death to Sin as if he did suppose us no more able to have any motion to it then a carkass hath yea shut up sequestred from the practice of it as it were in the grave buried with Christ or as Christ was in that Death 'T is plain this Scripture does suppose a baptiz'd person dead to Sin as truly as they are suppos'd dead who are buried for the Ceremony represents a burial upon that account and signifies the bonds or obligations that by Baptism are put upon a Christian to restrain him from Sin are in moral speaking of like force as those bonds and swaths in which they wind up dead men grave-cloaths that do bind them hand and foot in natural speaking are of to restrain from motion and a Christian that hath burst all these engagements and walks in the way of Sinners that courts pleasures and embraces lusts pursues the world or runs to the excess of riots is a great prodigy in manners as a corps that had broke his coffin thrust away his grave-stone and that lapt up in his winding-sheet should yet come and converse and practise all the offices of life would be a prodigy in nature And therefore 't is not strange if our Apostle press hard and suppose that they never do again return to live to Sin to which they were already dead and buried with Christ for they that are baptiz'd into the death of Christ are they were so to die as Christ that is to die to Sin once so as to live always afterwards to God having engag'd to keep Gods holy will and commandments and to walk in the same all the days of their life the 3d thing that I was to speak to That Baptism does bind us so to die to Sin as that we never live to it again i. e. be given up to it so that it come to have dominion of us and that we obey it in fulfilling of its lusts and go on in a known deliberate habit in a course of its repeated acts is the thing my text is brought to prove for in the verse before he says We that are dead to Sin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 How shall we yet again live to it That cannot be for they that are baptiz'd are baptiz'd into the death of Christ a death like his who in that he died to Sin died but once v. 10. but ever afterwards he lives to God and cannot die again So also reckon yee your selves to be dead to Sin v. 11. He therefore that is truly dead to Sin must be so dead as that he cannot live to it for then there would be a necessity that he should die to it again which can no more be it should seem by the importances of Baptism then that Christ can die again We read indeed of those that crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh Heb. 6. 6. but he dies not for them again there remains no more sacrifice for sin which words being said of those who being once by Baptism inlightned fall away and do not persevere to their lives end makes it look fearfully as if it were meant of every one that after having undertaken this in earnest do's relapse to Sin so far as that it lives in him and reigns over him again In the race that is set before us he that runs with all his might and heart may stumble and fall but 't is impossible that he can wilfully turn back again walk contrary in full cariere Our Savior seems to state the question perfectly John 13. v. 8 9 10. where he tells St Peter and the rest of the Apostles that they that were washt were clean wholly save their feet need only have them afterwards washt but they had so much need of that otherwise they had no part in him The Traveller that had cleans'd himself and had preserv'd his body carefully from all defilements let him do his best his journey yet must needs foul his feet and therefore 't was the custome always there to wash them So in your Pilgrimage here those that have by Baptism bin cleans'd for so the Author in St Cyprian expounds it and Tertullian from this verse proves the Apostles had bin baptiz'd and according to the vow there made renounced sincerely rid themselves of all the gross unclean habitual courses of their life yet their conversing with this Earth will certainly contract such sullages that if that which is typ'd and meant here by my washing of your feet be not don to them however they have bin baptiz'd into me they can have no part in me no benefit from me All of you my Apostles must be cleans'd from your ambitions your contentious pride which puts you upon frequent strifes whiâ—h of you shall be greatest Math. 20. c. Some of you from the fury of your passion and revengeful heats that would needs call for fire from heaven Luke 9. 54. Peter in one night some think in this that he was washt did also find there was occasion that his arrogant presumtion of his own strength how tho all should be offended he would not but would die for his Master Math. 26. 33. should be washt away his negligence and carelesness in duty also watching not even in temtation when he saw his Master by him in an Agony v. 40 his wrath so great as that it made him draw his sword and wound without autority and beyond all that evil
their lusts advance but their lusts are their plague and torment them and they extremely hate and curse those things which they do passionately desire Now that habitual Sinner his sins they are his emploiment his delight too he longs as those other but he satisfies also and finds pleasure in them and then if those others be fit company for the Devils onely canst thou believe thy self fit company for Christ that he should bid thee come to him No begin to act thy Hell a little sooner account them here thy torments hate them in time perceive them to be burdens while they may be laid down and then come unto Christ and he will give thee rest And evermore O Lord give us of thy rest a rest from sin here and a rest from misery eternally Yea O Lord give us to labor and to find trouble under that intolerable burden of our guilt that we may with eager hast fly to the refreshment that we perverse obdurate Sinners whom thy mercies cannot invite our own miseries may force to be happy and tho our wickednesses are multiplied into an infinite mass and weight yet despise us not when we fall under them for thou didst invite us to come and bring all that load to thee despise us not tho heavy laden for thou thy self didst bear this weight and didst die under it And O thou who didst thy self thus suffer by reason of this load pity us that labor with it ease us of the burden of our former guilt free us from the slavery of our iniquity from bearing any longer Sathan's loads then shall we at last sit down with thee in the Land of everlasting rest deliver'd from all weights but that eternal weight of glory and resting from all labors save that of praising thee and ascribing all Honor Power Praise Might Majesty and Dominion to Father Son and holy Ghost for evermore SERMON X. OF THE CHRISTIANS VICTORY Over Death Sin and the Law 1 Cor. 15. 57. Thanks be to God which giveth us the victory thro our Lord Jesus Christ. THE words are the close of an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Song of joy and triumph for a victory Now a victory supposeth Enimies and the verse before names them and the Text shews us the means that they art conquer'd by and who they are that are partakers of the Victory I shall declare and treat of both 1. The Enimies here mention'd and we may account them three if that which gives both aid and strength to fortifies our Enimy be so as sure it is 1. Here is Death which sin arms with a sting and do's envenome it 2. Sin it self empower'd and strengthned by the Law 3. That Law also In the second place here are the means by which the Victory is gotten and for whom us the victory thro Jesus In handling all which I shall shew First that the Law gives Sin all its strength and how it do's so 2ly That Sin is the sting of Death and how it is so 3ly That by Christ both the Law which is the strength of Sin is taken away and Sin which is the sting of Death pull'd out and so both Sin and Death so weaken'd that they cannot hurt now and they shall be swallowed up in perfect victory and who they are all this is don for Of these all in this order which I crave leave to speak to directly without any least diverting from the Text or Subject First I am to speak of the first preparations that are made against us in behalf of our Enimies and that is to shew you that the Law gives all the strength to Sin which it hath and how it do's so Sin hath its very being from Law it being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the transgression of the Law 1 John 3. 4. and Sin is not imputed where there is no Law Rom. 5. 13. yea where there is no Law there is no transgression c. 4. 15. But this is not all for in the Law besides the Precepts there is also Sanction and it lays a twofold obligation first to duty secondly upon transgression to punishment 1. To duty and that perfect and unsinning strict obedience for the terms are these Cursed is he that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the Law to do them And to this the whole man is oblig'd the soul as well as body caro spiritus Dei res est saith Tertull. God made the soul as well as body one 's his creature as much as the other and the one hath as much reason then to pay him honor and obedience as the other if indeed the spirit hath not much more to obey him in its own motions and actings than in those of the body which are onely under it and guided by it So that thoughts are criminal against this Law as well as doings by them the Soul fulfils its part of the transgression more it may be than its own share while it robs the Flesh seizes its satisfactions and makes them her own against her nature And indeed whatever part the Law is broken and transgrest by 't is transgression and sin still whether by the mind for lust when it hath conceived onely sin is then begotten James 1. 15. or by the tongue for of every idle word we must give an account at the day of Judgment Matth. 12. 36. and by thy words thou shalt be condemn'd Or lastly by the works So that according to the Tenor of this strict and severe Law whatever we can do or indeed whatever we do not is Sin besides commissions that are sinful there is still defect and so transgression in our thoughts our words and deeds even in the best and in not doing also there 's omission and so failing But besides this severe obligation of the Law to duty upon this our faileur there is a severer obligation 2. To punishment for every sin is cursed as we saw Upon this account the Law saith St Paul worketh wrath Rom. 4. 15. we are children of wrath Eph. 2. 3. whose inheritance is destruction and who are of right to possess onely the sad issues of God's indignation for to this the Law condemns us all by reason of our Sins and upon that account the Law is said to be the strength of Sin Because by force and vertue of this threatning of the Law we that have sinned are therefore liable and obnoxious to the condemnation of it And this I take to be the meaning of that place Rom. 7. 7 8 9 10. I had not known sin but by the law for I had not known concupiscence except the law had said thou shalt not covet But sin taking occasion by the commandment wrought in me all manner of concupiscence for without the law sin was dead but when the commandment came sin revived and I died and the commandment which was ordain'd to life I found to be unto death The Apostle's drift here is not to evince how the commandment begets sin but
how it makes sin condemning begets death and therefore I believe they are mistaken who expound sin taking occasion by the commandment wrought in me all manner of concupiscence as if it meant the Law onely prohibiting but not quelling sin in me the more it was restrain'd the more it wrought all manner of concupiscence in me especially since there was no punishment assign'd to that sin in the Law it took advantage thence more powerfully to engage me in the pursuit of all my lusts since thence I might have hop't without any fear of punishment to pursue them For this seems perfectly to thwart his aim which was to shew us how the Law wrought condemnation and inflicted death by threatning it It seems to mean I had not onely not known sin to be so dangerous but I had not known some things to be sins and by consequence condemning things but by the Law particularly I had not known concupiscence to be so had not the Law said thou shalt not covet The next words do not seem intended to declare how the Commandment work sin that being brought in by the by as it were thus but sin the corruption of my nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had wrought in me all manner of concupiscence all actual lusts and wickednesses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 got advantage over me or strength against me by the Law which he there proves for without the law sin is dead not as to stirring in us by its sinful motions sure corruption would not fail to do that and more if there were no check but dead had no strength nor power to condemn me For it follows when the commandment came sin reviv'd got strength to do that and I died was sentenc'd to death by it and the commandment which was ordain'd to life could I have obey'd it I found to be unto death by condemning me to death for my transgression of it For sin by the Commandment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 getting advantage over me slew me not onely made me liable to death but by its guilt envenoming that death for the sting of death is sin which that it is and how it is so is the second thing I am to speak to Sin is the sting of death which I could make appear two manner of ways in relation to two senses that may be given to the words both pertinent and the one but the Anticipation of the other The first is this Sin is the sting of death 't is Sin makes the thoughts of death pungent and stinging the wicked man cannot think of his last dying day without horrors the onely imagination of a sickness stings him because he is conscious to himself of sin and he knows that that after Death cometh the Judgment and he dares not think of beholding the face of his Judg with his guilt upon him To prove this to you I shall not need to fetch any heathen Testimonies that call the Conscience of Sin a whip a sting a goad a lancing knife things that gash and prick and gall and fret all words of all kinds of terrifying punishment but if there be any gross customary Sinner that now hears me I shall need no other way of proof but by appealing to his own conscience whether when he comes hot from his iniquity he dares entertain the thought of dying And why not Alas he is too deep in arrears to venture upon account with so impartial a Judg books must be laid open if he come there the closet curtain sins nay the bosom villanies must be displaied and every one receive his doom he hath heard that all the refuge of a deplored Sinner at that great and terrible Day of the Lord is but to fly unto the Mountains to cover him and to the Rocks to hide him A wretched hope for how shall the Hills hide him whose iniquities are like Mountains or how shall the rocks cover him whose rebellions are like the great deep as the Scripture words it To such a person Death and Judgment are words of too dangerous a sense and it 's easier for him as many do to resolve there is no such thing as one of them than to think of them and go merrily on in sinning For tell me what is the design of that variety of iniquities in which thou dost ingulf thy self that circle of sins wherein one relieves and succeeds another Sure by such a perpetuity of diversified delights to stave off those severer thoughts which if there were an intermission of sinning or a nauseating of one sin for want of variety would creep in the noise of our riots is not to please the ear but to drown the barking of our consciences When the Sinner's candle is put out if weariness in wickedness do not at once close up his eyes and thoughts if the dark solitary night do but suggest some melancholly thoughts into him how do's he tumble up and down as if he thought to role away from his imagination and he do's ransack his fancy and call up the memory of his past sins about him to entertain himself with all and keep out the torturing remembrance of that sad Day which the Scripture calls putting far from them the evil day for the truth is he dares not give it place least it should happen to him as to a man upon a pointed precipice as himself is indeed situated to whom the apprehension would be as mortal as the danger and he would tumble down for fear of falling So here his sin adds such sharps to the imagination of death that he dares not entertain the thought And if Sin be such a sting in the onely thought of death that the mere remembrance of it is insupportable the use is very natural by the frequent calling of death to mind to stop the current of sin For if the wicked cannot endure to think of death he that does think on it cannot well go on to be wicked Remember thy latter end and thou shalt not do amiss I would give this counsel Think thou art to die while doing it The original of the Turks Turbant which was but by continual wearing of his winding sheet by wrapping his head in his grave-cloaths to have always a shrowd and death upon his thoughts and the Philosophers defining their wisdom to be but contemplatio mortis are not such pregnant inforcers of this use as this practical apprehension of it The man that liv'd among the Tombs tho he had a legion of Devils in him yet when he saw Jesus afar off he ran and worshipped him Mark 5. 6. The sight of graves and conversation with monuments will make even Demoniacks Religious and is so far from thrusting Praiers out of the Liturgy of Burial that it brings the very Devils on their knees But there is yet another and a fuller sense of these words which St Paul repeats out of the LXX translation of Hosea 13. 14. tho not verbatim for there insteed of 〈◊〉
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
his Body and his Bloud is he himself Therefore thou didst receive him as verily as thou didst those and if the Sacramental food be thine then Christ is thine and thou maist say my God My Brethren it was the Bloud of Christ that purchased all the glorious mercies of the Gospel all the blessed expectations of a Christian that was the price of all the joys of Heaven that reconciled God to us bought us an interest in him and the happy enjoyments of himself for us and then if in the Sacrament Christ do give me his bloud when I can shew God that bring him the price of the remission of my sins the value of those glories even the bloud of Jesus come with the purchase-money in my hands that bought my interest in God cannot I say those are mine my Heaven and my God Yea when I can say O Lord Christ whom I have undertaken to obey my God whom I have vowed to serve and worship thou art even my flesh for there I ate thy flesh and thou becamest flesh of my flesh Thou art the portion of my cup when thy very bloud doth fill full my cup and so thou art my flesh and my bloud then surely I may say with Thomas here my Lord and my God O Holy and Eternal Savior who art made both Lord and Christ and by thy Resurrection didst manifest the Omnipotency of thy person the truth of thy Promises and open a way to the everlasting glory and salvation which thou hast prepared for them that give themselves up to serve and worship thee their Lord and God pour down that blessed influence of this thy Resurrection on our hearts in raising us from the death of sin to the life of Righteousness Be thou our Lord and Christ ruling us by thy laws saving us by thy grace and by thy Spirit applying the mercies of thy death and so making us partakers of thy Resurrection therein turning us from our iniquities hereafter in raising us to Glory O Lord we have this day made a Covenant of this with thee and signed the Articles of it in the bloud of our God swore to them at the Altar give us grace we beseech thee to use the strictest care and watchfulness in our endeavors to perform with thee Regard not how we have in times past onely mock'd thee sacredly in these performances O let it from this day be otherwise We have bin onely on a stage of Religion when we are at our devoutest performances and having turn'd our backs unto the Church turn'd them also to our duty put off the vizards of Religion and we untired our selves of all our Piety almost as soon as the exercises of it were don and howsoever we tied our selves our froward wills have bin too strong for all our obligations and burst out of them broke all thy bonds asunder and cast away thy cords from us altho we tied them with all things that were most solemn and most sacred vows and oaths and tied them before the body of our crucified Lord and Savior with the body and bloud of Christ in our hands as if we had no other desires no other cares that should do us good than as we were careful to keep those resolutions and vows and yet O Lord we did let them instantly loosen and slack pass by and fail Yea we did break them wilfully and would not be held in by thine or our own bonds O Lord if thou look upon us in this guilt sure thou wilt have no more to do with us such false and perjured vow-breakers But O look upon us in thine own bloud which thou hast bid us pour out still to establish and renew our Covenant with thee and let this Covenant wherein we have now taken thee to be our Lord and God and taken thee who art so in us remain inviolable be there then with thy Power and Autority subdue our hearts and our desires and bring them under the obedience of thy laws Thou that art God Almighty that didst conquer Death and Satan bring it to pass that none of them prevail against thee now in our Souls where thou art but use thy strength O Lord to drive their power thence that thy servants and thy people may not be enslaved to corruption and ruin nor thy Enimy gain souls from thee which thou hast purchased with thy bloud that we having attain'd thee for our Lord and God may claim the privileges of thy People here have the watches and cares and securities that thou laiest out upon thy Treasures and the Jewels of thy Crown and by thy body and thy bloud being made one with thee and thou being ours all things may be ours thy grace here and thy joys hereafter thy Spirit may be ours and thy Heaven ours and we in thee and thou in us may all enjoy thy Kingdom Power and Glory for ever SERMON XIII THE BELIEVERS CONCERN to pray for Faith Mark 9. 24. Lord I believe help thou my Vnbelief WHICH are the words of a poor parent passionately earnest and afflicted sadly for his child that from his infancy had bin tormented miserably by a Devil for which having sought help every way but finding none no not from Christ's Disciples at last he repairs to him himself beseeching him to have compassion on him and if he were able to relieve him To whom Christ replies that if he could believe then he could work the miracle and help his child all things being possible to be don for him that could believe but nothing otherwise whereupon strait way the father of the child cried out and said with tears Lord I believe help thou my unbelief In which words we have first the necessary Qualification that is to make all that had ever heard of Christ capable of having any benefit from Christ that is belief in him I believe And since Christ hath made this qualification absolutely necessary and by consequence must be suppos'd to have provided means sufficient to work in us that belief that he requires so peremtorily we shall then In the second place enquire how it comes to pass that they so often fail that men do either not believe or their Faith is so weak that much unbelief do's mix with it as in our Confessor here in the Text who tho he did profess he did believe yet withal acknowledges his unbelief And thirdly to prevent and remedy all that here is discovered whither we are to betake our selves for help and where alone 't is possible to find it and that is Christ himself who alone is able to repair in us whatever degree of true belief is wanting in us Lord help thou my unbelief and how he do's repair it And fourthly when it is repair'd to that due height what that degree is can make us capable of those benefits which he hath promis'd to bestow on true Believers and whether such believers can say with our man here I believe yet say too Help my unbelief First of
by except we will walk on in darkness unto the land of utter darkness But as a lanthorn is no guidance to the blind and a light is of use only where there is an eye so Gods commandments can have no influence upon nor give direction or assistance to our waies except this eye of the mind be enlightned by them for it is Conscience that is the conveiance to all duty to the heart of man that cannot set up obedience but as the Conscience do's press it on it that conveys the immediate obligation My Conscience tells me this I must forbear that I must practise Yea where there was no law to give direction the eye of Conscience looking o're the frame of man a creature reasonable in his making could strait see a necessity of doing things agreable to right reason and viewing the materials of the pile saw he was built of Soul as well as body of of an immortal Spirit as well as a carnal part knew that his life was to be order'd to the uses of the Spirit as well as of the flesh and more indeed that being the better part and easily could gather hence that man was not to serve his lower brutish part the body so as to discompose his soul and when it did so did condemn him for the doing of it And upon this S. Paul affirms Rom. 2. 14 15. When the Gentiles that have not the Law do by nature the things contained in the Law they having not the Law are a Law unto themselves which shew the work of the Law written on their hearts their Conscience bearing them witness Which says that tho the rest of the world had not the Revelation of Gods will and Law as the Jews had yet from the dictats of their reason and the notions of good and evil implanted in them their conscience did oblige them unto the performance of such things as the Law required and upon such performance or omission without any other Law did either excuse them as men that did not culpably wander out of those paths which the light and Eye that God had planted in them did direct them in or else accuse them as transgressors and render them obnoxious to punishment And so it did before the Law So Rom. 5. 13 14. For until the Law sin was in the world but sin is not imputed where there is no Law Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adams transgressions First after Adams time till Moses before the giving of the Law men fin'd and tho it be true that sin is not charg'd to punishment but where there is a Law to forbid it under that penalty and therefore it might be thought that sin without the Law would not have brought death into the world yet from Adam till Moses death reign'd men died that had not sinn'd as Adam did against an express actual precept promulgated as his was and establish't with a positive threat of death but died because they had sinn'd against the laws of their nature the principles of duty that were put into their making which Conscience prest upon their practise and whose guidance they would not follow they pull'd death upon themselvs in the errors of their waies 'T was by the equity of this that when the wickedness of men grew great in the earth the floud grew so too an inundation of waters overspread it when sin had once don so and iniquity against the dictates of conscience struck all the world at once with death except eight persons Conscience therefore where there is law and also where there is none is the great director of our actions and to this I shall apply our Saviors discourse dividing not the Text but Conscience and in the several members verifying what our Savior he reaffirms 1. Conscience either respecteth actions to be don or actions already don First as it respecteth actions to be don telling us this we must do that we must forbear so first as it answers to the single Eye it denotes the pure Conscience the enlightned Eye of the mind as S. Paul calls it that is a truly well inform'd Conscience a Conscience that judges according to its rule and to this I shall first tell you what is the entire rule of conscience and consequently when it s dictates are right when it informs me truly this I must do that I must forbear 2. Prove to you that all our actions that are regulated by such a well inform'd conscience are good and honest so that if this eye be single the whole body shall be full of light If the conscience be pure the man's holy and so the first part of the text is proved 2. As it answers to the evil eye so it denotes an evil conscience a conscience that do's not give true judgment of duty ill inform'd And this either First wholly so and then 't is reprobate sense such as that of them that call good evil and evil good from which men are stil'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Tim. 4. 2. or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Phavorinus Rom. 1. 31. Or secondly but in part and then 't is either first an erring conscience or secondly a doubtful conscience or thirdly a scrupulous conscience to which also several others will fall in And I shall shew you how every of these do's mislead a man into the dark The scrupulous raiseth clouds and mists about him dark errors and discomforts too the doubtful do's instead of guiding leave him so puzl'd that he knows not which way to be-take himself and the erring conscience lights him into the pit takes him by the hand to thrust him down guides him into a necessity of sin and the no conscience the reprobate sense it is a darkness somwhat worse then that the blackness of Hell here All this I shall do in order Upon the other part conscience as it relates to actions already don so it do's testify and in so doing either excuse or accuse Rom. 2. 15. Now tho conscience in the other former respect hath indeed the greater influence upon our practise and so to it the text do's more directly answer yet this latter having some also in order to the making future actions holy by repentance for when once the soul hath shipwrack't on a sin and she is ready to sink and perish there is no plank on which she can escape but repentance Now 't is this Eye that must look out for that 't is an accusing conscience that must set him upon Repentance this hurry's him about and will not let him rest 'till he get upon the plank that 's fastned to the Anchor even the Anchor of hope by which until it be secur'd a good conscience never is at quiet Because I intend to say but little to this I shall dispatch it now And that in order to its actions excusing and accusing And first if conscience be the
and his Brother's blood upon his Soul to seize his Sentence Go ye Cursed into everlasting Fire 'T is plain against all Interests of this World and the World to come this man will dye And yet this is one of the laudable and generous Customs of the Age. Neither doth this man stand alone the desperate Rebel would come into the Induction that without any hopes sets all on fire to consume all here and to begin his Flames hereafter But I have said enough to prove the Resoluteness of a Sinners Will which is so great indeed that it is this especially which does enhance the guilt of sin into the merit of an endless punishment this persevering obstinacy does deserve Hell and make it just For whatsoever inequality there is betwixt the short-liv'd pleasures of a sin which dye while they are tasted and put out themselves and those eternal never-dying retributions of Vengeance As sure there is also betwixt the life of Man and several of those petty felonies that forfeit it yet the Law does not murder when it Executes I might have instanc'd in the gathering sticks upon the Sabbath day in Israel For since the preservation of publique safety and propriety is valuable with the lives of many men and to secure that and affright the Violation it was necessary to affix such punishments to such offences they that know the penalty and wilfully meerly to feed their other Vices run upon it justly suffer it So that Man might not rob himself of that Immortal Glory which God had ordain'd him when he did see it absolutely necessary thus to hedge Vice with Eternal Death And as he set Angels and Flaming Swords to keep him out of Paradise so to set Fiends and Flames to guard Hell from him and to entail those Torments on Man's sin which he had prepared for the Devil and sealed the Deed in the Blood of his Son If notwithstanding men renounce the blessedness and against all their Interests and Obligations in spight of all the Arts and Powers of Heaven they will have the Torments and what they never would attempt for Paradise invade those flames to get to Hell 't is very just that God should let them have it should not break his Decrees dispence with Holy Laws so confirm'd meerly to gratifie those that are obstinate for ruine and against his whole Gospel quench Hell fires because men are resolv'd to run into them This Will does as it were even the Scales betwixt the Sin and the Damnation equal the pleasure to the punishment and fill the distance from a moment to Eternity But though this Will do clear God's Justice yet it does not satisfie his Reason he seems astonish'd at the choice God himself cannot find a Ground for such a Resolution and therefore does enquire Why will ye dye Which is God's question and my second Part. It is the present pleasure sin does tempt your sensuality withal whose agitations are so quick and strong that they surprize or break the forces of your Reason and your Principles put the Mind in disorder and then seize it with such violence as to lead it captive to the Law of Sin and Death 'T is true indeed thus both of them had their original so they prevail'd in Paradise for when the Woman saw the Tree was good for food and pleasant to the eye and a Tree to be desired to make one wise she took thereof and she did eat although she knew that God had said In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely dye Gen. iii. But there was generous pleasure here such as tempted the Soul assaulted it with the appearances of Wisdom and divine Knowledg Ye shall be as Gods Gen. iii. 5. And sure 't is no great wonder if the proper pleasures of the mind ingage it therefore when God would give a Precept liable to a Temptation of being broke he laid it in the sphere of those things that delight the Soul of Knowledg but far be it that those of sensuality should ever have prevail'd Man may yield to the pleasure of being like God but for pleasure to make himself a Beast is contradiction to Nature For pleasure is but satisfaction of our appetites and the more natural the inclination is the higher and more powerful that Nature and the desire eagerer so much the more delightful is the satisfaction Now it is certain that the reasonable faculty the Soul or Spirit is the highest and most proper nature of a man In all the rest he 's not a step remov'd from Beasts unless it be in shape but in the accurateness of his senses is below them far and therefore must be so in sensual satisfactions but in his Soul he borders upon Angels and does come towards God Now then that Soul being mans peculiar nature the highest part of him It follows its delights Spiritual reasonable Joys must needs be the most natural and most proper for it most conform'd to it and therefore the most taking with it This may be cleared most irrefragably A Beast hath several ingredients of Nature in his making he is an heavy body and a Vegetable and he hath also Sense which is his highest nature Now though the onely inclination of heavy bodies be to fall down to the Earth and this be also natural to a Beast we do not find that 't is his greatest pleasure sure he had rather feed than tumble in the Pasture his chief delight lies in the satisfaction of his chiefest faculties wherein he does excel his Senses and as Beasts differ and transcend in these so do their pleasures also differ and exceed A man also as Aristotle says does live a threefold Life At first he is but a Plant-man a growing span of living Creature and he 's born only into Animality a Life of Sense and at last educated into reasonable Now the delights of his first Stages whilst onely Vegetation and Sense live although proportioned to those states yet have no savour to the mind he grows through Nuts and Rattles to the use of Reason and the pleasures of it also these must keep even with the growing faculties and become higher rational and manly Which if they do not but the man still dwell upon the satisfaction of sense he does confound the Stages contradict the progresses of Nature he hath the age and strength of Reason but to play the Child with to exert it in those things that are but a Man's Rattles hath the sagacity of an Intelligence meerly to find out how to be a brute with greater luxury and rellish Come therefore shew me now the sins which the delights of Reason do betray you to and I 'le admit the Plea But if you live your own reverse that you may dye renounce all your own pleasures first that so you may renounce the joys of God and Heaven and fall from Nature that you may fall into Hell this case hath no pretence and those pleasures cannot toll man on to
likeness of his death by being made conformable to that in crucifying of our sins we are inoculated as it were and both together ingraffed in into the Cross and so there is deriv'd to us the vertue of that Stem that Root of Expiation and Atonement and by this insertion being as the same S. Paul says Phil. iii. 9. found in him we have his Righteousness That poor Soul that does throw himself down in the strict humiliations of Repentance at the footstool of the Cross and there beholds his Saviour dying for him and that is himself by Penitence incorporated into him graffed into his Death and planted in his very Passion as Origen and Thomas interpret He may take confidence to say Behold Lord if the satisfactions of thy Eternal Justice be acceptable to thee if the blood of God that is offer'd up without spot be a well-pleasing Sacrifice look down at once on thy Messiah and on my poor Soul turn not thy face from me for whatever my guilts are I have an equal Sacrifice those are my satisfactions and that blood my Offering the Passion and propitiation of the Cross are 〈◊〉 I am Crucified with Christ. We have gone through all the Parts all the Considerations of this Expression and have no more now to take notice of but this that all of them must go together that they never are fulfill'd asunder but he only whom the efficacy of the Cross of Christ hath wrought on to the Crucifying of sin he onely hath the satisfactions of the Cross imputed to him he is planted with ingraffed into Christ For if any man be i◠Christ he is a new creature old things are done away 2 Cor. v. 17. Whosoever is not such he hath no interest in the Jesus of that day He may perchance in some one of those easie Saviours which these times afford wherein Opinions call'd holy or a sanctify'd Faction give such interests and to be in a party is to be in Christ or else he may depend upon that Christ that may be had with meer Dependance that is ours if we persuade our selves he is so Now sure he that is persuaded he is Christ's is either truly so persuaded or else falsly if but falsly that will not advantage him for God will never save a man for believing a lye but that he should truly be persuaded so without this Duty is impossible for he that is Christ's hath crucified the Flesh with the Affections and Lusts therefore by good Logick he that hath not crucified them is not Christ's and evidently whosoever is not crucified at all he is not crucified with Christ. And sure I need not put you in remembrance that the man in whom sin reigns and whensoever his Lusts and Passions bid him go he goeth or come he cometh or do this he doeth it that the body of sin is not crucified in him that which were nailed and fetter'd on the Cross and slain there could not command and rule him so Or if sins dominion be not so absolute but God hath got some footing so as that his Law hath power in the man's mind so as to make him make resistances against his sin and he dislikes it but alas commits it still yet what he does allows not but returns to do it at the next Temptation afterwards would fain be good yet does not find how to perform something governs in his members leading that Law in his mind into captivity to the law of sin this man although he hath the body of death yet 't is not crucified and slain for it does live and exercise the greatest tyranny upon him forces him to serve and to obey against his mind it overcomes his own heart and all inclinations to good and conquers God within him Till men have left off the custom of the works of sin and all gross deeds of the flesh it were as vain to prove they are not crucified as that he is alive that walks and eats Those works they are the fruits of the flesh the off-spring of its lusts and were that crucified and we by likeness to Christ's death planted into the Cross we could no more produce them than that dead Tree the Cross could bear fruit or than a Carcass could have heat to generate the Grave become a Womb or the dust bring forth Secondly Yea more they perform not the outward actions of life who have but the image of death on them and a man asleep works not yet is alive his fancy and his inwards work and if sin be onely kept from breaking out and men commit not gross deeds of the flesh but yet indulge to these things in imagination and the heart cherish them in phansie and design and wish onely restrain the practice or indulge to spiritual wickednesses you may as well say that a man is dead because he does not walk abroad because he keeps within doors and lives only in his Closet or his Bed Chamber as say that sin is crucified which while it stirs but in the heart it is not dead Thirdly Once more we part from all acquaintance with the dead the Corps of one that had the same Soul with us howsoever we may have some throes of grief to leave it yet we put it from us we admit it to no more embraces but if 't were the loathsom Carcass of a Villain Traytor that was Executed we turn from the sight as from a Fiend it is a detestable and accursed spectacle And so he that hath put his Body of sin to death would have great aversations to it yea how dear soever it had been he would no more endure the least acquaintance with it than he would go seek for his old conversations in the Chambers of Death he would shun the sight of any the most bosom custom as he would the Ghost of his dead Friend he would abandon it as a most ghastly dreadful spectacle he would also bury these his dead out of his sight Thus he must needs be dispos'd that hath crucified his Old man And they that are thus dead with Christ shall also live with him yea those that are thus crucified with him he hath already rais'd up together and hath made them sit together in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus There already in their cause and in their right and pledge and there hereafter in effect and full enjoyment The Tenth SERMON Preached at CHRIST-CHURCH IN OXFORD Novemb. 5. 1665. LUKE IX 55. Ye know not what manner of Spirit ye are of THE state of that great Controversie which the words suppose between the Jews and the Samaritans as it then stood seems briefly thus Those that were planted in the Regions of Samaria by Salmaneser however great Idolaters at first having admitted in a while the God of Israel among their Gods and after having an High Priest of Aaron's Line a Temple too built on that place where Abraham and the Fathers of the Hebrews friends of God did chuse to offer Sacrifice and on that
the practice of those men who minding Earthly things and all their wisdom lying as to them they therefore think themselves concern'd to represent the Doctrines of the Cross which does so contradict their wisdom as meer madness and the Cross it self as the Ensign of folly And accordingly they do treat it en ridicul and make the proper Doctrines of it the strict duties of Religion matter for their jests and bitter scoffs They character Religion as a worship that befits a God whose shape the Primitive persecutors painted Christ in Deus Onochaetes as if Christianity were proper Homage onely to an Asses person as Tertullian words it And the Votaries transform'd by this their service and made like the God they worship were what they were call'd then Asinarii creatures onely fit for burthen to bear what they magnifie a Cross and scorns No persecutions are so mortal as those that Murther the reputation of a thing or person not so much because when that is fallen once then they cannot hope to stand as because those murder after death and poison memory killing to immortality They were much more kind to Religion and more innocent that cloath'd the Christians in the skins of Bears and Tygers that so they might be worried into Martyrdom Than they that cloath their Christianity in fools Coat that so it may be laugh'd to death go out in ignominy and into contempt If to sport with things of sacred and Eternal consequence were to be forgiven yet to do it with the Cross of Christ Thus to set that out as foolishness which is the greatest mystery the Divine wisdom hath contriv'd to make mercy and truth meet together righteousness and peace kiss each other to make sin be punish'd yet the Sinner pardoned Thus to play and sin upon those dire expresses of Gods indignation against sin are things of such a sad and dangerous concern that S. Paul could not give a caution against them but with tears For many walk saith he of whom I have told you often and now tell you even weeping c. Which calls me to my last Consideration Indeed the Cross of Christ does represent Almighty God in so severe a shape and gives the lineaments of so fierce displeasures against sin as do exceed all comprehension There was a passion in Christs Prayer to prevent his Passion when he deprecated it with strong cries and tears yea when his whole body wept tears as of bloud to deprecate it and yet he cryed more dreadfully when he did suffer it The Nails that bor'd his Hands the Spear that pierc'd his Heart and made out-lets for his Bloud and Spirits did not wound him as that sting of death and torments sin did which made out-lets for God to forsake him and which drove away the Lord that was himself out of him Neither did his God forsake him only but his most Almighty attributes were engag'd against him Gods Holiness and Justice were resolv'd to make Christ an example of the sad demerit of Iniquity and his hatred of it Demerit so great as was valuable with the everlasting punishment of the World fal'n Angels and fal'n Men for to that did it make them liable Now that God might appear to hate it at the rate of its deservings it was very necessary that it should be punish'd if not by the execution of that sentence on Mankind as on the Devils yet by something that might be proportionable to it so to let us see the measures God abhors it by to what degrees the Lord is just and holy by those torments torments answerable to those attributes Now truly when we do reflect on this we cannot wonder if the Sinner be an enemy to the Cross and hate the prospect of it which does give him such a perfect copy of his expectations when our Saviours draught which he so trembled at shall be the everlasting portion of his Cup For if God did so plague the imputation of Iniquity how will he torment the wilful and impenitent commission of it But then when we consider those torments were the satisfaction for the sins of man methinks the Sinner should be otherwise affected to them Christ by bearing the Cross gave God such satisfaction as did move him in consideration thereof to dispence with that strict Law which having broken we were forfeit to eternal Death and to publish an act of Grace whereby he does admit all to pardon of sins past and to a right to everlasting Life that will believe on him forsake their sins and live true Christians He there appears the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the World for that he does as being a Lamb slain then he was our Sacrifice and that Cross the Altar And the humbled Sinner that repents for notwithstanding satisfaction God will not accept a Sinner that goes on by all those Agonies his holiness would not be justified if when he had forsaken and tormented his own Son for taking sin upon him he should yet receive into his favour and his Heaven Sinners that will not let go but will retain their sins but the penitent may plead this expiation Lo here I poor Soul prostrate at the footstool of the Cross lay hold upon the Altar here 's my Sacrifice on which my fins are to be charg'd and not on me although so foul I am I cannot pour out tears sufficient to cleanse me yet behold Lord and see if there ever were any Sorrow like the sorrow of thy Son wherewith thou didst afflict him for these sins of mine And here is Bloud also his Bloud to wash me in and that Bloud is within the Vail too now and that my Offering taken from the Cross up to thy Throne thou hast accepted it and canst not refuse it now my Advocate does plead it and claims for me the advantage of the Cross. Now that men should be Enemies to this and when they are forfeit to eternal Ruine hate that which is to redeem the forfeiture that they should trample on the Cross whereon their satisfactions were wrought tread down the Altar which they have but to lay hold on and be safe wage war with beat off and pursue a Lamb that Lamb of God that comes to take away their sins and make a spoil and slaughter of their Sacrifice hostilely spill upon the ground that Bloud that was appointed for their Bloud upon the Altar for their blood of sprinkling and was to appear in Heaven for them If men resolve to be on terms of Duel with their God and scorn that Satisfaction shall be made for them by any other way than by defiance and although their God do make the satisfactions for them to himself yet not endure it but chuse quarrel rather this is so perverse and fatal an hostility as no tears are sufficient to bewail But possibly men sleight these satisfactions because some terms are put upon them which they know not how to comport with the merits of the
Benedictions of those Gods chiefest Officers of blessing those that are consecrated to bless in the Name of the Lord and will have them in love for his works sake Their Third work is Government which may be some do look upon as priviledge and not as work the expectation and delight of their ambitions and not the fear and burthen of their shoulders But ambition may as rationally fly at Miracles as Government and as hopefully gape after diversity of Tongues as at presiding in the Church the powers of each did come alike from Heaven and were the mere gifts of the Holy Ghost 1 Cor. 12. 18. It was so in the Law when God went to divide part of Moses burthen of Government amongst the Lxx he came down and took off the Spirit that was upon him and gave it to the Lxx Num. 11. 25. A work this that may have reason to supersede much of that which I first mentioned For notwithstanding all Saint Paul's Assistances of Spirit he does reckon that care that came upon him daily from the Churches amongst his persecutions and it summes up his Catalogue of sufferings 2 Cor. 11. Such various Necessities there are by which Government is distracted and knows not how to temper it self to them For sometimes it must condescend Paul notwithstanding Apostolical decrees made in full Council that abrogated Circumcision as the Holy Ghost had declared it void before yet is fain to comport so far with the violent humours of a party as to Circumcise Timothy at the very same time when he delivered those decrees to the Churches to keep Act. 16. 3 4. yet afterwards when Circumcision was lookt on as Engagement to the whole Law and to grant them that one thing was but to teach them to ask more and to be able to deny them nothing then he suffers not Titus to be Circumcised nor gave place to them by submission no not for an hour Gal. 2. 3 5. Thus the Spirit of Government is sometimes a Spirit of meekness does it work by soft yieldings and breaks the Adamant with Cushions which Anvils would not do The Ocean with daily billows and tides helpt on with storms of violence and hurried by tempests of roaring fury assaults a rock for many Ages and yet makes not the least impression on it but is beat back and made retire in empty some in insignificant passion when a few single drops that distil gently down upon a rock though of Marble or a small trickle of water that only wets and glides over the stone insinuate themselves into it and soften it so as to steal themselves a passage through it and yet Government hath a rod too which like Moses's can break the rock and fetch a stream out of the heart of quarre and which must be used also The Holy Spirit himself breathed tempest when he came blew in a mighty boisterous Wind nor does he always whisper soft things he came down first in a sound from heaven and spoke thunder nor did it want lightning the tongue was double flame Of some we knowwe must have a Compassion but others must be saved with terror Jude 22. 23. which drives me on to the last piece of their work The Censures of the Church the burthen of the Keys which passing by the private use of them in voluntary penitences and discipline upon the sick as they signifie publick exclusion out of the Church for scandalous Enormities and re-admission into it upon repentance have been sufficiently evinc'd to belong to the Governours of the Church The Exercise of these is so much their work that Saint Paul calls them the Weapons of their spiritual Warfare by which they do cast down imaginations and every high things that exalteth it self against the Knowledge of God and bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ 2 Cor. 10. 4 5. A blessed victory even for the Conquered and these the only Weapons to atchieve it with If those who sin scandalously and will not hear the admonitions of the Church were cast out of the Church if not Religion Reputation would restrain them somewhat Not to be thought fit Company for Christians would surely make them proud against their Vices Shame the design'd Effect of these Censures hath great pungencies the fear of it does goad men into actions of the greatest hazard and the most unacceptable such as have nothing lovely in them but are wholly distastful There is a Sin whose face is bloody dismal and yet because t is countenanc'd by the Roysting Ruffian part of the World men will defie Reason and Conscience Man's and God's Law venture the ruine of all that is belov'd and dear to them in this World and assault death and charge and take Hell by violence rather then be asham'd before those valiant sinners Satans Hectors and they must â—ever come into such Company if they do not go boldly on upon the sin is of more force with them than all the indearments of this World than all their fear of God and Death and that which follows Now if Religion could but get such Countenance by the Censures of the Church and every open sinner had this certain fear I should be turn'd out of all Christian company shall be avoided as unfit for Conversation would it not have in some degree the like effect and if the motive beas much exactly would not men be chast or sober or obedient for that very reason for which they will now be kill'd and be damn'd Without all question Saint Peter's Censure on the intemperate 1 Cor. 5. must needs be reformation to him 'T is such a sentence to the drunkard not to company with him whose Vice is nothing but the sauce of Company and who does sin against his Body and against his faculties and against his Conscience is sick and is a Sott and goes to Hell meerly for Societies sake Now the infliction of these Censures is so much the work to which Church-governours are call'd by the Holy Ghost that they are equally call'd by him to it and to Himself both are alike bestow'd upon them Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins ye retain they are retained John 20. 22. And in the first derivations of this office it was performed with severities such as this Age I doubt will not believe and when they had no temporal sword to be auxiliary to these Spiritual weapons And now to make reflections on this is not for me to undertake in such a state of the Church as ours is wherein the very faults of some do give them an Indemnity who having drawn themselves out of the Church from under its authority are also got out of the power of its Censures So Children that do run away from their Fathers house they do escape the Rod but they do not consider that withal they run away from the inheritance And many times in those that do not do so but stay within the family long intermission of the Rod and
into a swoun and forc'd to rise from his seat and walk about his room for some time before he could recover himself To render secure from the inordination of intemperance he frequently abstain'd from lawful satisfactions by the stated returns of fasting and abstinence and continuance in celibacy during his whole life Nor had his singular abilities and endowments the usual effect to make him proud and contemtuous all his discourses were with deference and respect and were spoke with weight becoming a Professor but the softness of a Learner In his conversation he was exceedingly tender of saying any thing that might administer offence or reflect upon any ones reputation and most ready in case of resentment to give the person aggriev'd whoever he happen'd to be the utmost satisfaction A remarkable proof hereof is his dealing with one who had taken part with the Rebels in the late war and who was said to have don an act of cruelty therein which Dr. Allestree in a private discourse had chanc'd to mention The party concern'd hearing hereof wrote to the Doctor professing his innocence and charging him with uncharitableness in believing and injustice in reporting such an untruth Hereupon notwithstanding that the matter of fact had for about thirty years gon on as common fame and also had bin charg'd in print and that collateral evidence by a person now alive and a sufferer from the same hand had bin produc'd to enforce the probability and that here nothing was asserted but on the credit of what had bin formerly heard yet Dr. Allestree by letter desir'd the said Complainant's pardon who without regard to the laws of civility printed it as a vindication of his innocence when indeed it was rather a proof of the Doctor 's candor and an evidence that the Complainant wanted better arguments for his defence But it were to be wisht that they who were in their youth so unhappy to be engag'd in an ill cause would spend their old age which God's and the King's mercy has given them rather in repenting of what they have don amiss than in contesting what they have not don and would more busy themselves in humble retractations than passionat Apologies His contemt of the world was very extraordinary as in his large and constant charities both by settled Pensions to indigent persons and families and occasional Alms so also his bounteous hospitality which will need no attestation being perform'd in so conspicuous a Scene as Eton and in the view of Windsor which for several years his Majesty has favor'd with his Court and Presence Yet a higher instance hereof will be his giving away a fixt and constant revenue that he might have fairly retain'd to the value of above three hundred pounds by the year the particulars whereof are thus At his Majesties return as we have intimated he was made Canon of Christ-Church in Oxford and soon after King's Professor in the Chair of Divinity to which emploiment a Canonry in the said Church and the Rectory of Ewe Elme in the said County and Diocess are annext so that the profit of two Canonries and the Rectory belong'd to him and being earn'd with the labor of that weighty charge no one who made a just estimate of things would have envied it to him but he regretted it to himself and for several years gave the whole profit of one of his Canonries to the repairs of the College and afterwards being mov'd by the right reverend Father in God the Lord Bishop of Winchester in the behalf of an ancient Student of the College who was destitute of a suitable support he entirely quitted the advantage of the aforesaid Canonry to him And as to the Living he never receiv'd a penny from it but left it to a friend whose circumstances requir'd such an accession The revenue of Eton had a suitable disposal the west side of the outward court of the College being built from the ground and finish'd at his single expence And whereas at his coming to Eton he found the Society dipt in a great debt by an ill custome brought in by the pretended godly men of the late times who at the year's end divided what ever mony remain'd after the ordinary paiments were discharg'd incidental ones and debts contracted being still thrown off to the future year which in time grew to a bulk that endanger'd the College's becoming bankrupt To remedy this he by an exemplary retrenchment of his own dues prevail'd on the Society to do the like so that within few years the College has paid above a thousand pound debt expended above two thousand pound in repairs and every day goes on to do things honorable and beneficial to the Society It may not here be omitted tho it be an instance of lesser moment that the Edition of the first Volume of these Sermons was entirely upon an account of Charity For his ingenious Kinsman Mr. James Allestree the Book-seller from a plentiful fortune being by the fire of London reduc'd to great poverty Dr. Allestree besides other assistances bestow'd upon him the copies of eighteen of his Sermons to make some reparation to his losses But the uncontroulable proof of contemt of the world is the dying poor and not to have collected any thing against the hazards of fortune and commonly pretended exigences of old age and sickness which was in a remarkable manner Dr. Allestree's case he having never during his life purchast an inch of ground nor any annuity or lease to the value of a penny nor did he take care to renew the patrimonial estate which he held by a lease for life tho it were the place of his birth which generally gives an endearment and a desire to continue the possession Thereby as the Author to the Hebrews expresses it sojourning in the earth as in a strange country and shewing plainly that he lookt for a better one and a city which has foundations whose builder and maker is God His greatest tresure was his Library which was indeed a considerable one both for the number of Books and choice of them but these he dispos'd of by deed before his death to the Vniversity of Oxford for the use of his Successors in the Chair So that his Executors had only his personal estate to share among them which he took to be so inconsiderable that he thought it not worth the formality of a Will but designing after the distributing some little remembrances among his friends that small pittance which remain'd to his Relations conceiv'd that the Law by an Administration would of course divide it among them But being told by his Friend to whom he communicated this purpose of his that in this malicious world the dying intestate would be a thing of ill fame and interpreted the product of an unwillingness to think of death or part with what he had and that what he so left would come less obligingly to his Relations and probably would occasion contention among them he took
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
or punishments are possible or likely certainly 't is most impossible there can be a temtation of force to invite men to Religion or to any virtue this method of proposal of such infinite after-recompences to our faith demonstrated by such Miracles to evince the power and their certainty being the most vigorous struggle of Divine Compassion towards man the utmost attemt of mercy which alone was hopeful since all others fail'd the tryal 't was his greatest strength apportion'd to the full-grown wickedness of the World At first in one thousand six hundred years from innocence the whole World was grown so bad that God could find out but one whole family to save alive he destroy'd the rest for warning to all future generations yet in less than a quarter of that time immediatly ensuing there was again onely one family that of Abraham which out of all the World he could think fit to take into his favor his care In whose Posterity altho he exercis'd them with strange prodigies of sufferings and reliefs and in the midst of Miracles renew'd his Law to them train'd them up in that by all arts of punishments and rewards kept them as it were in constant discipline with present visible returns of plagues and death for every act of disobedience so that the whole sacred History is nothing but a recurrent Tide of God's mercy and Israels provocations their sin and his punishing it When famin pestilence and war all the separations which might be expected from the furnace of affliction were utterly ineffectual and the People were so settled on their lees that all attempts to purify onely fretted and disturb'd and it was necessary to rack them from those lees and emty them from vessel to vessel so that the Nation was carried captive into Babylon Even this digestion of seventy years together had no more prosperous effect than the preceeding frustrate methods the return of the captivity brought also back the former disobedience and infidelity And when the fulness of time was come that the Messiah should appear and restore all things Matt. 17. 11. he came as the Baptist call'd it to a generation of vipers Matt. 3. 7. When the light shone in darkness the darkness comprehended it not When he came unto his own his own received him not John 1. 5 11. So that as St Luke expresses it When the Son of man came he did not find faith in the earth Where the fairest steps were made to belief 't was exceedingly faint and imperfect his very disciples were of little faith as our Savior Complains Matt. 6. 30. 8. 26. 14. 31. 16. 8. Nor was this frailty superseded in the more establish'd growth of Christianity Tho we hear in the book of Acts of multitudes of them that believed c. 4. 32. yet we hear also of some that oppos'd themselves contradicted and blasphemed c. 13. 45. others there were who made shipwrack of the faith 1 Tim. 1. 19. and of others that doubted and were wavering and weak in faith Rom. 14. And so it is to this day what St Paul said to the Corinthians 1 Epist. 3. 1 2. every Preacher of the Gospel has to say unto the greatest part of his flock I Brethren could not speak to you as unto spiritual but as unto carnal even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk and not with meat for hitherto ye were not able to bear it neither yet now are ye able The Christian flock more partakes of the folly and weakness of sheep than the innocence The faces of both tend to the earth intent on their pasture where they may range and feed with plenty and delight In the greatest part of Professors with their faith there is mix'd unbelief so as sometimes to preponderate for the most part to alloy and weaken it And here I promise not to prosecute those grounds of unbelief so far as to shew how they make men able to resist and conquer all Christ's methods how they work them up into the confidence of profest infidelity and Atheism that 's not my design but plainly and in brief to name some causes of it not in this or the other party or perswasion but in general even in minds not ill dispos'd but such as our Confessor here in the Text who tho he do's profess he did believe yet withal acknowledges his unbelief Lord help my unbelief Now tho it should be granted that the motives and the means of Christian Faith are of themselves sufficient to convince the minds of men that the Revelations of the Gospel are from God so far as that there can remain no place for any reasonable doubt or scruple nor by consequence plea for excusing them who give not up their faith to it yet notwithstanding all this evidence arising from those means and motives still many of the things to be believ'd are so inevident for they are Mysteries and are wrapt up in such obscurity that they astonish and affright apprehension and while the mind is swallowed up in the abyss of such dark contemplations whatever light strikes in from motives yet the mind is maz'd so that if it assent it cannot be without suspition and some fear and tremulously and difficulties often so distract the understanding that it cannot settle but is loose and wavering Now as in the contests that often happen in us betwixt the temporal interests and pleasures of this world and the eternal blessednesses of the next in those that are sincerely satisfied of the real infinite disproportion betwixt them yet if any present object that does flatter appetite with strong delight or other satisfaction chance but to surprise a man so far as that his present whole attention be engag'd upon it and it be not call'd off nor the will apply the understanding to consider and compare the other interests the everlasting ones and weigh them both together 't is certain he will yield against his conscience to satisfy his sinful inclination for to that his surpris'd appetite apply'd him that application did determine him there being no way to resist the forcible assaults of present things that strike the mind with vigor if the will some way excited do not frequently engage the understanding to contemplate on advert to with intenseness even with all its might those blessednesses which God's promises propose to our belief that so the mind by reason of its constant conversation with them may not fail to call them up on all occasions and bring them into the comparison and vie with any present thing that do's allure and then those will preponderate without fail So in the other Objects of our Faith the Mysteries and generally in all Objects whatsoever where the understanding do's not reach the nature so as to discern and look into the truth of them if there be arguments that make a fair shew and flatter natural reason by complying with its principles which opposes that truth and with their difficulties
Orator Men have their shifts of conscience as of clothes their dress is carefuller and their rules stricter much abroad in public then when at home or out of sight As for the conscience of compliance many do not only do things which they have dislike to out of compliance but satisfy themselves because they do them with reluctancy against their inclination to avoid the being singular or offensive For the mode too Men learn to interpret God's laws also by the practice of the age live and judge by imitation and example The man's conscience tho it boggle at first sight of dangerous uncomely liberties yet conversation with them as it takes away the horror of them so he thinks it do's the danger and ill influence And as fashion makes all dresses to be mode and not look uncomely so the custom of these things makes them seem indifferent A Conscience also for the interests of a Profession as in trade for example and in Corporations of it it thinks their combinations for the better keeping up the Company fair and honest and therewithal make tricks and exactions lawful And in single traders such another principle makes Princes Laws be broken their dues stoln without any check of Conscience and I verily believe that many think these are not inconsistent with a good mind I might have instanc'd in other professions particularly in that which satisfies it self in the defending manifestly wrongful and in right causes in protracting suits to mens great molestation and the ruin of just rights But in truth this is paltry trifling with religion having false weights and mesures of what 's lawful and unlawful things that God abhors and indeed these frauds will in the end return upon their authors and the unhappy artist will most certainly deceive his own soul. For he never can arrive at life whom he that is the way do's not lead thither Christ and his rules only can introduce us into the mansions of Eternity 'T is true there may be doubts somtimes about the way of duty for 't is that I speak to in applying general rules for circumstances may perplex vary cases obligations seem to clash and quarrel so that one may be uncertain which to follow what means he should take to attain his great end 2. Now in case of such uncertainty as to the means the Child of this world do's observe a Rule of Prudence better then the Christian for he takes advice For who intends to purchase an inheritance but he goes to Counsel and if there be the least appearance of uncertainty in the Title spares no charge to have it searcht and to be sure The least indisposition drives the man that aims at life to his Physician In every difficulty of a voiage where there 's any apprehension of a shelf or rock the Merchant and the Master will consult the Pilot. But in the voiage towards heaven how many make shipwrack of a good conscience because they will not commit themselves to any conduct How often do they shake their Title to God's inheritance because they will not take advice of him at whose mouth God commanded they should seek the Law And who do's go to the Physician of Souls to prevent death Eternal I do not say men should betake themselves to a director in each action of their lives For who goes to a Doctor to know whether he should eat stones or poison or who asks a Lawyer whether he should keep or burn his evidences Now for the most part what I ought to do what to forbear is every jot as clear as those except where circumstances trouble or else seeming cross obligations a muse our judgment and then for a man not to ask direction in his way to heaven is unanswerable folly in a man that will inquire the way to the next village 't is nothing but a wretchless stupid carelesness in the Eternal interests of his own Soul When he that takes the best directions he can get with this sincere intent that he may not transgress may quiet his own mind in this that he hath don his utmost faithfully towards duty and in doing that with our good God shall be interpreted to have don his duty if he also faithfully pursue the means directed the 3d. property of Wisdom which does set the man upon the use of those means which he must attain his end by the last thing I am to speak too Now as to this I must confess the Child of this world wiser and give up the cause Whoever does resolvedly intend his profit pleasure honor or whatever state in this life 't is the business of his parts his study and his whole life to pursue it and it is so while the appetite of any carnal end is eager in him Anger hate revenge c. And I cannot say it is so with the Christian as to his end But the worldly man besides the zeal in using all means in pursuit of his end he observs two Rules that wisdom dictates with more carefulness 1. Be circumspect then wary both prescrib'd us by St. Paul Ephes. 5. 15. See that ye walk 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 circumspectly not as fools but wise as we translate it and the Vulgar caute warily with caution Now the first of these two Circumspection signifies the looking every way about him to discern or if he can foresee whatever may obstruct him in his progress give him any hindrance in whatever shape it is likely to attemt it whether it do threaten with inconvenience or do flatter with the deceitful appearances of being useful come with treachery or open opposition as a false Friend or a known Enemy and the other Caution sets him upon all the care he can make use of to avoi'd or rid himself of such impediments of what kind soever Now t is evident the man of this world in whatever occupation trade profession or place he may be from the lowest to the highest who proposes any one thing to himself and does not live ex tempore and follow ends and objects as the boy 's do Crows but hath at least some one design so far as he does so looks round him that he may shun every thing that would defeat divert or but disturb him in it and endeavors to move every stone which he may stumble at in his pursuit whatever may be an impediment to his attainments Now the Child of Light hath warning given him by the wise man also My Son if thou come to serve the Lord prepare thy soul for temtation There are those that will attemt to break his progress in pursuit of any such designment His enemy the Devil like a roaring Lyon his false friend the Flesh and a third that will assault him under both appearances the World somtimes by reproches taunts and insolent scorn by turning piety and virtue into raillery discouraging men from the pursuit somtimes by vexatious molesting injuring oppressing good men that they think will bear it making
triumphing in the Blood of God To see those dire instances of the deservings of a Sinner those amazing prelusions to his expectations and consider it was easier for God to execute all this upon his Son than suffer Sin to go unpunish'd Indeed they make all that is real in the whole account they give of satisfaction made to God for sin to consist in this that the temporal Death of Christ which God by vertue of his absolute Dominion may inflict on the most innocent taking away that which himself had given especially since Christ who had that right over his own life which none else had did of his own accord submit to it and he laid down his life who had a power to do so That Death I say might justly be ordain'd by God for an Example of his Wrath and Hatred against Sin and then might be accepted in the stead of their death who were warned by that example and affrighted from committing sin And truly there is colour for it for all satisfaction seems either of a loss sustain'd which is acquired by compensation or the satisfaction of our Anger which is commonly appeased by the sufferings of the injurious party or else the satisfaction of our fears and doubts that we may be secure not to sustain the like again which is most likely to be best provided for by punishment For sure one will not venture upon that which he must suffer for the doing Now of all these the first the satisfaction of compensation as it cannot properly be made to God who could sustain no real diminution by Man's sin For though thy wickedness saith Job may hurt a man as thou art yet if thou sinnest what doest thou against God or if thy transgressions be multiplyed what doest thou to him but onely as the breaking of his Law does in S. Paul's expression dishonour him amongst men so also it were easie to demonstrate that this one example does exalt more of Gods attributes and to a greater height than either if his Law had been obey'd or executed if that either were our business or if this sort of satisfaction did not properly belong onely to the offended party not the supream Judg or Governour as such under which notion God is here to be considered As neither does the second satisfaction that of anger the Judg being to be like his Law that hath no passions or affections And truly â—â—e the things that do satisfie our angers and revenges are no real goods the satisfactions of them are unnatural and therefore surely not Divine Monstrous appetite that hath learn'd to desire mischief hath also taught us to delight in misery and be satisfied with the griefs of others which being nothing to us cannot be our good And although we are stil'd Children of Wrath as if our portion were to be onely Plagues our inheritance Perdition and the fearful issues of Gods Fury Yet since to be angry signifies in God no more than this to testifie what great abhorrency he hath to sin how contrary to him how not to be indur'd it is It was impossible for God when he had once resolv'd to pardon sin to testifie that more than by resolving not to pardon it without such an Example so that it did satisfie his anger perfectly But all true satisfaction lies in the provision that is made by punishment against future offences This is that which the Magistrate and Law requires nec enim irascitur sed cavet for by Punishment they cannot call back the offences that are past undo or make them not have been but they can make men not to dare to do them again nor others by their example This is the end why they annex Penalties to their Laws expresly said so Deut. xix 20. Which end therefore when they attain by Punishment the Law and Magistrate is satisfied For it is not so much the Death of the Offender that is satisfaction of the Law as the Example of Terror that it gives and therefore humane Lawgivers have oft thought fit to change the Penalty and where Death was appointed to assign other sufferings that consist with Life and prolong Misery and Terror as Proscription and the Gallies c. Accordingly to propose an Example of Terror to us God laid all the severe inflictions of the Passion-day upon his own Son Now it is evident that the example of a Man suffering for the breach of Laws does certainly hedg in those Laws keep them more safe from violence therefore we see those Laws are best observ'd which the Magistrate's Sword does most guard and Experience would quickly make it good a Land would prove but a meer Shambles and a Man's life cheaper than a Beast's if Murtherers and Duellists shall get impunity more easily than he that steals an Horse or Sheep When on the other side that Nation from whom we most receive the fashions of our Vices also whom the honour of that sin is most peculiar to though they seemed to value it above Estate and Life and Family and Soul yet we know could be beaten from it be some sharp Examples And then when our Lawgiver as he spake his Laws at first with Thunder and with Lightning as if they brought their Sentence along with them and the very promulgation was a Copy and Example of their Execution So also he did write those Laws in Blood to let us see what does await transgression how he that spar'd not his own dear Son will certainly not spare any impenitent this could not chuse but have some influence if 't were consider'd Should we call to mind the kindness God had at this time to lost Man how he so long'd to pity him that he resolv'd not to pity himself how yet in all those turnings of his bowels within him his repentings over Man when his Compassion was at such an height as to give his well beloved Son to satisfie for our transgressions in the midst of all those inclinations to us at that very time how yet he did so hate our sins that â—â—athing else could satisfie him but the Blood of God How he made the Son of God empty himself of his Divinity and of his Soul and all to raise a sum only to purchase one example of that Indignation that attends a Sinner it will be easie then to recollect how unsupportable that Wrath will be to the impenitent in the Day of his fierce Anger when he shall have no kindness left for them but the Omnipotence of Mercy will become Almighty Fury Who shall be able to avoid or to endure the issues of it shall I think to scape them when he spared not his own Son or shall I venture upon bearing that to all Eternity which that Son was not able to support some hours Thus as S. Paul expresses God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh a Sacrifice for sin condemned sin in the flesh that is he shewed what did await iniquity that men by
Tranquillity of the State is committed must have the power to judg and to determine what Faith shall be publiquely profess'd and priviledg'd by the State In which Judgment and administration if they err and priviledg a false Faith and inhibit the true they use their Power ill and are responsible to God for doing so but they do not invade or usurp a Power that is not their own Rather 't is most certain if the Principles of any Sect or else if not they yet the pursuance of any Principles do tend directly towards or are found to work Commotions and Treasonable enterprises the Supreme Power hath as much right to restrain yea and Punish them although with Death according to their several merits as he hath to punish those effects in any other instances wherein they do express themselves Nor must Religion secure those practices which it cannot sanctifie but does envenome For by putting an everlasting concern into mens Opinions and actions their undertakings are made by it more desperate and unreclaimable What Wounds and what Massacres must the State expect from them that stab and murder it with the same Zeal that the Priest kills a Sacrifice that go to act their Villanies with Devotion and go to their own Execution as to Martyrdom 'T were easie for me to deduce the practice of this Power from the best Magistrates in the best times if that were my business who had onely this temptation to say thus much that I might not seem to clash with the Magistrates Power of coercion in Religious causes when I did affirm that to destroy mens Lives or other temporal Rights on this account meerly because they are Apostates Schismaticks or otherwise reject the true Religion or Christ himself is inconsistent with the temper of the Gospel If you would discover what the temper of the Gospel is you may see it in its Prophecy and Picture in the Prophet Isay The Wolf shall dwell with the Lamb and the Leopard shall lye down with the Kid the sucking Child shall play on the hole of the Asp and the weaned Child shall put his hand on the Cockatrice den and the Serpent shall eat the dust Whatever mischief these have in themselves there 's nothing of devouring or of hurt to one another in this state 't is like Paradise restor'd the prospect of the Garden of the Lord. Rather whereas there these Creatures onely met here they lye down and dwell together And the Asp and Serpent that could poyson Paradise it self have now no venomous tooth to bite no not the heel nor spiteful tongue to hiss But to speak out of Figure the Gospel in it self requires not the Life of any for transgression against it self it calls all into it and waits their coming those that sin against it it useth methods to reform hath its Spiritual Penalties indeed whereby it would inflict amendment and Salvation on Offenders But because final impenitence and unbelief are the onely breaches of the Covenant of this Religion therefore it does wait till life and possibilities of Repentance are run out and then its Punishments indeed come home with interest but not till then The Law 't is true was of another temper it required the life of an Apostate to Idolatry whether 't were a single Person or a City Deut. xiii To the Jew that was a Child as S. Paul says and so not to be kept in awe by threats of future abdication things beyond the prospect of his care but must have present punishments the Rod still in his eye and was a refractory Child that seem'd to have the Amorite and Hivite derived into him a tincture of Idolatry in his Constitution that was as ready to run back into the superstitions as the Land of Egypt as eager for their Deities as their Onions and had the same appetite to the Calf and to the fleshpots to make the one a God the other a Meal to such a People Death that was the onely probable restraint was put into the Law by God who was himself Supream Magistrate in that Theocraty against whom 't was exact Rebellion and Treason to take another God and therefore was by him punish'd with Death But the Spirit whom Christ sends breaths no such threats for he can come on no Designs but such as Christ can join in but saith Christ I came not to destroy mens lives Secondly The temper of the Gospel is discovered in its Precepts I shall name but one Matth. v. 43 44. Ye have heard that it hath been said Thou shalt love thy Neighbour and hate thine Enemy But I say unto you love your Enemies c. Where if Enemy did not mean the man whom private quarrel had made such and Him it could not mean it being said to them that they must love that Enemy Exod. xxiii 4 5. But as the Jews neighbour was every one of his Religion and he liv'd near him that lived in the same Covenant with him so enemy being oppos'd to that must signifie one not of his Religion An Alien an Idolater with any of which they were indeed to have no exercise of love or friendship no commerce and to some Enemies the Canaanites no mercy but they were to hate them to destruction Deut. vii If so then our Saviours addition here But I say unto you love your Enemies does say that we must love even these the Christian hath no Canaanites but the most prosligated adversaries of his Religion he must love and pray for them although they persecute him Which makes appear it does at least include Enemies of Religion for Persecutions seldom were on any other ground and Religion which should have nothing else but Heaven in it as if it had the malice and the Flames of Hell breaths nothing else but Fire and Faggot to all those that differ in it But whether it be an addition and mean thus or no since it is sure that both they and we are bound to love the Neighbour and Christ hath prov'd Luke x. that the Samaritan he whom our two Disciples would consume that Schismatick and rejecter of Christ is yet a Neighbour therefore him also we must love and pray for Now 't is a strange way of affection to destroy them to love them thus to the death to get admission to their hearts with a Swords point to pray for them by calling for Fire down from Heaven to consume them S. Greg. Nazian calls the founder of that Faction that began this practice in the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and if so we know well of what Spirit he is that does call for fire to devour those that differ from him in Religion 't is sure one of this Legion or it rather is the leader of them that did dwell in Tombs and does in flames things which he loves so to inflict one that was the first Rebel too which leads me to my second Observation That Secondly To attempt upon or against the Prince on the