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 〈◊〉
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and signifies O Death where is thy plea by which thou didst attaint men before God's Tribunal where is the right thou hadst over all men to seize and take possession of them what 's become of the sentence that was awarded thee by which all of us were adjudg'd to be thy bond-slaves where is that punishment which thou didst inflict upon us all and by it ruin us To all these rights Sin did entitle thee O Death or as it is here in the Text Sin is thy sting whatsoever power thou hast of hurting man as the Scorpion's venom lies in his sting that power Sin hath given thee and in that it lies without Sin Death were no plague and it is this that makes Death insupportable Now to prove this I need not urge more than what I have already said for if Sin be a sting in the very thought of Death much more pungent will it be when Death it self approaches when the Feaver shall lay hold upon the bloud not onely to revenge the former heats of that lustful or that riotous bloud but to be dawnings of those eternal Burnings which do await the Sinners and shall do more than represent unto thee the heats of that unquenchable brimstone which is to be thy lot and which already doth begin to flash in upon thee Which part of thee do's labor with the more intolerable Feaver thy Body or thy Soul Alas the frost of the Grave would seem to thee a Julip a cool refreshment onely if Sin did not make thee look upon the grave as a downlet to that bottomless pitt which is the lake of fire that is not quencht Nothing possibly can keep an unrepentant Sinner that on his death-bed apprehends his guilt from the horror of despair from being his own Devil and suffering his own Hell in his own bosom upon earth I shall demonstrate this invincibly to you that Sin do's and nothing else do's make Death most insupportable when it approaches Now to evince this my Argument is none other than our Blessed Savior himself in whose Passion the onely imputation of guilt seems to have rais'd the greatest contradictions imaginable If you look upon him preparing for his Passion it seems his onely and most pleasing design as he came into the world for that end so his whole life before it was but a Prologue to it onely a walk to mount Calvary it was his extreme desire I have a baptism to be baptiz'd with baptiz'd indeed with fire and his own clotted sweat of bloud yet this Baptism how am I streightened till it be accomplished Luke 12. 50. He had longing throws after it he did as much desire it as a woman to be deliver'd of her burden Nay it was his contrivance he did lay plots that he might not escape it for when a glorious Miracle had broke from him that did extort the confession of his Deity from Men and Devils he charges these to hold their peace and bids the other tell it no man one reason of which was least the knowing him to be the Son of God should hinder him from suffering He gives it himself Luke 9. 21 22. he straitly charg'd and commanded them to tell no man that thing saying the Son of man must suffer many things and be rejected now should they know I were the Son of God they would not crucify the Son of glory You see what care he takes least he should not suffer and just before his passion he come in triumph to Jerusalem with songs and joy about him as if Death were the onely pleasant thing and his passion so desirable that he would go ride to meet it which he never did at any other time And add to all this that the person was the Son of God to whom nothing could be truly insupportable yet when this person comes to meet it see how he entertain it his soul is exceeding sorrowfull he fell on his face to pray against it and while he was in this condition an Angel from Heaven came to strenthen him yet he is still in an agony and prays more earnestly and his sweat was like drops of bloud Now 't was the sense of Sin upon him that made his bloud run out in clotts as it were flying from that sense it was the apprehensions of the guilt imputed to him and the wrath which he knew was due to it did make him apprehend his God who was himself was gon from him made him cry out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Now to say that all this dread were from the mere apprehension of death were horrid blasphemy the meanest Martyr was never guilty of so much weakness No 't was from the sense of the iniquity that was upon it 't was because he was made sin for us he was a man of sorrows saith the Prophet Isaiah because in representation he was a man of sins for he bore our iniquities saith the same Prophet c. 53. The Lord had laid upon him the iniquities of us all and therefore he was oppressed And so I have made appear that Sin is the sting of Death more than if your selves did feel it by an experimental despair for it is more that Sin should make Death terrible to the Son of God than that it should make it insupportable to you And therefore before Death seize you and prostrate you into his dust this consideration may humble you into the dust and ashes of Repentance this I say if Sin were a sting that made Death so insupportable to Christ what will it be to us If the apprehension of it when it came arm'd onely with the imputation of our guilt for he himself knew no sin was so terrible to the Son of God how shall we stand under it when it brings all our own iniquities to seize upon us If he that was a person of the Trinity could not bear the weight how shall we sink under it That which made our Jesus in an agony as if he meant to pour out his soul in his sweat and pray and roar and die will certainly be to us most infinitely beyond sufferance Alas what then will be our hope We have certainly none except we can by Faith and Repentance rid our selves of this Sin which is the sting of Death and makes it to be thus intolerable which how it comes to pass I must now shew 2. Why and how Sin is the sting of Death Sin may seem very properly to be call'd a sting of Death for it was the Serpent that brought Death into the World and Sin was that by which he did inflict it now a sting is a Serpent's proper instrument and a venomous sting it was that could blast Paradise and shed destruction there where the Tree of life bore fruit But that is not all the reason why it should be call'd the sting of Death because it makes us obnoxious to Death but it is that
which makes Death a miserable condition as it is the sting of the Serpent that makes him a poysonous creature so it is that which makes Death destructive For were Death the expiration of that little spark in the moving of our heart and if our spirit utterly vanisht as the soft air and were it as the Atheist in the Wise man says we are born at all adventure and shall be hereafter as tho we had never bin Death would be so far from all sting that it would be perfect rest and the end of troubles but Sin makes it onely the beginning of sorrows it changes the very nature of death by making that which seems to be the cessation of sensible function to be the very original of the sensibility of torments Then the Sinner doth begin indeed to feel when he dies Death were but the term of a miserable life did not Sin make it the birth of a more miserable life or death I know not whether to call it for it is of so strange a nature that the very uniting of a Sinner's body and soul which is the onely thing we call life God calls death Rev. 22. 13 14. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it and death and hell or the grave deliver'd up the dead which were in them that is the bodies to be joyn'd to the souls and they were judg'd every man according to their works and in that case all are cast into the lake of fire this is the second death Sin makes Resurrection to be dying and it must needs be so because as afflictions are in this life call'd death as St Paul saith in Deaths often so much more then may those torments of hell be call'd death So that in that death that Sin engages to it is necessary to live always that we may for ever die and it must be so because this makes us liable to the eternal indignation of the offended God which we were not capable of suffering were it not a death of this nature This is indeed death with a sting in it and it is the sense of this approaching that wounds the dying soul when it do's at once call to mind the wickedness of its past life and the wrath that do's await it when he recollects how sinful he hath bin and withall how hateful sin is to God so hateful that it was easier for God to send his Son to suffer death than to suffer sin to go unpunish'd then his own expectations sting and stab his very soul for if God did thus use his own Son how will he use me that have both sinn'd and trod under foot the death of that Son by going on wilfully in my sins Would you then my Brethren find out a way to make death easy and familiar to you you must pull out this sting The Jews say if Adam had continued righteous he should not have died but after a long happy life God would have taken up his soul to him with a kiss which they call osculum pacis he would have receiv'd that spirit which with his mouth he did inspire a kiss of taking leave here to meet in Heaven Wouldst thou have thy death to be the same thing 'T is but becoming righteous with the righteousness of Christ thro whom we have this Victory here in the Text the other part I am to speak to who giveth us the victory thro Jesus Christ our Lords where we have those that are partakers of the Victory and the means thro Jesus Christ our Lord and as to both these this I shall demonstrate over all those enimies in order who the us and how the Victory is gotten First the Law Now that Christ hath redeem'd us from the curse of the Law is said expresly and that by his being made a curse for us Gal. 3. 13. and what that curse of the Law was is set down in the tenth verse cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the Law to do them which no man besides Christ did ever or can do and consequently all mankind lay under that same dreadful curse obnoxious to the wrath of God and the effects of everlasting indignation but Christ by undergoing that curse and by that means satisfying that strict Law procur'd an easier to be set us upon gentler terms not perfect and unsinning strict obedience which was impossible but instead thereof the Law of Faith obsequious Faith that works by love endeavors honestly and heartily and where it fails repents that is grieves and amends and perseveres in doing so For as St Paul assures us we are not under the Law but under Grace Rom. 6. 14. tho we be under the directions of it the duty of it is most indispensable vertue always yet we are not under those strict terms of it according to the tenor of that curse but in a state of favor under terms of grace where there is mercy pardon to be had upon repentance thro faith and where there is encouragement and aid to work that faith and that amendment in us And thus far the Victory accrues to all mankind for all that will accept these terms of this remedying Law of grace the other killing strict Law hath no power over them For the Gospel was commanded to be preach'd to and its terms offer'd every creature under heaven all mankind a victory this that could not be obtain'd but by Christ's bloud the grace and favor of these easier terms for our obedience valued equal with his life for to take of this curse cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do it these strict terms he himself was made a curse and 't will be certainly a most unkind return if that which he thought worth the dying for to get us we shall not think worth the accepting slight these blessed terms and do not care unless we can be free from all necessity of an endeavor freed from vertue too as well as Law But secondly the Law being as we have shew'd it is the strength of Sin in giving it a power to condemn us that Law being taken off that power also cannot but be taken off from Sin and by that means the great strengths of that Enimy defeated Accordingly St Paul do's tell the Romans c. 6. v. 14. Sin shall not have dominion over you that is it shall not have by vertue of the Law a power to condemn you for you are not under the Law but under grace are in that state where men are not condemn'd for every gross or heinous sin altho too long continued in but there is pardon to be had for them that will but faithfully endeavor to amend turn from their sins return to Christ receive him and his pardon and where there is also help to do this 't is a true state of grace so that unless men will resolve to force their own
guards that are set about them to preserve them and break thro the strengths of grace and conquer all the strivings of Almighty God's compassion and goodness to them and beat off the very victory that Christ hath gain'd for them refuse all the kind offers of the Law of grace and chuse sin with damnation they are safe There is now as St Paul saith by the Law no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus to them who walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit Rom. 8. 1. in which words we have both an assurance that the strengths of Sin are broken and the persons too are partakers of the Victory that are in Christ Jesus for as it is by him the Victory is gotten so it is in him that we must get an interest in it Now to be in Christ if as most certainly it doth it mean here as in other places where 't is said of Churches housholds and of single persons then it means the Christians so in Gal. 1. 22 the Churches of Judea that are in Christ i. e. that have received the Gospel and the Faith of Christ Rom. 16. 11. greet them that be of the houshold of Narcissus that are in the Lord i. e. that are Christians and the seventh verse who were in Christ before me i. e. were converted e're I was But it means Christians not in judgment and opinion onely but in life and practice such as are in Christ by St Pauls character and description of it in the 2 Cor. 5. 17. If any man be in Christ he is a new creature he lives the life of Christ as a member does the life of that of which it is a member and so he walks not after the Flesh but after the Spirit For as members live by the vertue of the influence of spirits from the head into them and walk after its directions so those that are in Christ his members they must walk live act and practise by the Spirit of Christ guided not by carnal appetite the lusts and the desires of the Flesh but by Christ's directions Such they are who have this Victory to whom there is no condemnation For as he adds Rom. 8. 2. The law of the Spirit of life that is in Christ Jesus sets us free from the law of sin and death and so there is thro him a Victory over the third last enimy Death in which freedom from Sin and Death two things are intimated 1. That Sin the sting of Death is taken away which being once removed Death is the softest thing that can be 't is but falling asleep so it is call'd v. 18. of this chapter faln asleep in Christ it is so far from being hurtful that it is the first great happiness that does befall us 2. That Death it self also shall be swallowed up in Victory that we shall be recovered from its powers and triumph over it in Immortality of blessed life For if we be in Christ his members and so live the life of Christ and consequently when we die die in the Lord then tho the body be dead and corruptible yet if the Spirit of life that is in Jesus be in us he that rais'd up Jesus from the dead shall also quicken our mortal bodies by his Spirit Rom. 8. 11. It is this life in him that verifies the saying of St Paul Eph. 2. 6. He hath raised us up and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ as sure as if we were already there for there we are already as his members in our head And to the full and personal enjoyment of the blessings of those heavenly places it is death that lets us in that vale of Achor is the door of hope and Canaan the grave the avenue to God's right hand that death 't is but the Pascha in St Bernard 't is our Passover a repast of bitter herbs indeed but at the going out of Egypt from the house of bondage And tho the body seem in death a piteous despicable thing sown in corruption dishonor as St Paul expresses yet death gives that a relation too to Christ the Prophet Isaiah brings in the Lord calling His dead 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cadaver they my dead body shall aris◠saith he c. 26. 19. So that the corps of a good person is so far a member that 't is call'd the very body of his Savior into such a title Death translates it to such not to live onely but to die is Christ. And sure if they that die in him did live in him as none can die there where they did not live at all that is live as his members they that die in Christ must die his members But in the expression of the Prophet they do also die himself and are Christ's own dead body Death to such is as it were transfiguration and do's not so much strip and make them naked as cloath them and that with glory the shrowd may seem but their white wedding linnen and their dress for the marriage of the Lamb. Whoever is a faithfull sincere Christian if Death seem to make approaches to him arm'd with all his instruments of cruelty and terror charge him as assuredly as a Prophet could to set his house in order for he must die if he can say with Hezekiah in Isaiah 38. 3. Remember now O Lord how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart and have don that which is good in thy sight then if he have not fifty years yet he shall have a numberless Eternity added to his life and notwithstanding the dark solitude of the Grave to which he is retiring he shall have that which will accompany him to his infinite joy when he is torn from friends and all his dearest things do leave him yet he shall not be alone his faith and piety his vertues all go along with him and appear for him at that tribunal on the Judgment day All his relations even his bosom-guest the other half of his own soul forsake him bring him it may be to the grave and tho they carry blacks upon them to refresh and keep alive the memory of him yet in a while take comfort and forget yet the true conjugal affections of an untainted undefiled bed shall go along present the Soul white as a Virgin that 's unspotted And after this 't is in vain to say his riches will forsake him they go not so far as the grave afford nothing of themselves but the price of a sheet and coffin But then Charities will mount Alms will ascend as fast as the Spirit the wealth one piously bestow'd will meet him he shall eternally possess that which he gave away and tho his place know him no more they shall receive him into everlasting habitations Wherefore my beloved Brethren be ye stedfast unmovable always abounding in the work of the Lord which is the real way of giving thanks to God who giveth us the Victory SERMON XI
lives and so prepar'd themselves for Baptism on Easter Eve for that was their most solemn time as Tertullian do's assure us in the 2d Century just when that death and passion into which they were baptiz'd was celebrated Diem Baptismo solenniorem Pascha praestat cum Passio Domini in qua tinguimur odimpleta est And that they did prepare for it with watchings fastings weepings and all rigid mortifying discipline and before him Justin M. And they had in the Greek Church their forty daies for these severities and a while too in the Roman in St Hierom's time and Pope Siricius it was so but quickly sunk into this single weeks performances But in all those times they had their scrutinies their strict examinations to try whether their performances were real and sincere So nice and so severe a thing they thought it to become a Christian. The man was to be mortifi'd and die into the very name But now God knows as for the former discipline for Penitents one Church hath lost it and the other hath debaucht it into Pageantry and taught it to countenance and bolster mens continuance in Sin and minister to vice So for the other discipline too if that did import that Baptism hath such engagements in it men in every Church live now as if they either never had been Christian'd or had never known or had perfectly forgot the obligations of that Sacrament the thing which St Paul reproves here by his question Know you not c. And which therefore 't is impossible there can be a more proper time to call to your Remembrance then this is before you are to celebrate that death you were baptiz'd into Now to inform such he disputes here very closely The sum is this They that are dead to Sin cannot live any longer in it Now as Christs Death was a death to Sin for in that he died he died unto Sin once v. 10. i. e. there was an efficacy in that death of his to put an end to all the powers of Sin which being so it was impossible he could dye more then once but must be alive always afterwards to God So in like manner whoever is baptiz'd he is baptiz'd into the likeness of that death v. 5. namely into a death to Sin inasmuch as by solemn profession and express undertaking he do's die to it for he renounces it and if he answer that his undertaking do's so really and really as Christ died once so as to live always afterwards to God engaging himself to keep Gods holy will and commandments and to walk in the same all the days of his life So that the words suggest these things to be discours'd of 1. Christs death was a death to Sin 2ly They that are baptiz'd are baptiz'd into that death namely into a death to Sin 3ly They that are baptiz'd into that death are to die as Christ did i. e. to die to Sin once so as to live always afterwards to God 1. Christs death was a death to Sin i. e. there was an efficacy in Christs death to put an end to all the powers of Sin And here I mean not that extrinsic efficacy of his death as it confirm'd the Covenant of the Gospel whose rewards and punishments engage us against all those powers nor as his blood did also purchase grace whereby we are enabled to resist them but the direct influence of that death tends to destroy all the power that the Devil World or Flesh had either to command us or condemn us The Scripture tells us that by Death he destroy'd him that had the power of Death i. e. the Devil Heb. 2. 14. Christ tells us he hath overcome the world for us John 16. 23. and St Paul says by his Cross the World is crucify'd to us and assures us that God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and a Sacrifice for Sin condemned Sin in the flesh that the Righteousness of the Law might be fulfill'd in us Rom. 8. 3. Which place discovers how all was effected namely as he was a Sacrifice for Sin and that not only as that Sacrifice did consecrate him to and install him in a power to pardon Sins upon Repentance and so whomsoever by vertue of that motive he took off from serving Sin from them he took away the guilt of it but as that Sacrifice did take away the guilt of Sin from us by bearing it in his own body on the tree the direct consequence of which as to its tendency and efficacy is that we being dead to sin might live to righteousness And in both these manners by his stripes we are healed I do not mean to entertain you with the controversy that there is on the account of these two Schemes concerning the effects and uses of the death of Christ. Only I cannot choose but wonder why it should be said to be unjust in God to lay upon him the iniquity of us all so as that he bore death as the punishment due to sin by making satisfaction for us Sinners For I would gladly know to whom the wrong were don in this that makes the injustice and on whose part it was unjust not on his part that made the satisfaction sure For whether it be wrong to force an innocent person without his consent to suffer for the guilty I shall not dispute But here Christ gave himself for us Tit. 2. 14. and had power to do so John 10. 18. And having power to lay down his life and power to take it up again if he had so much love and pity for lost mankind as to lay it down for three days to prevent their everlasting death and misery no justice certainly nay no self-love forbids this Much less was there wrong don to them for whom the satisfaction was made unless eternal redemtion and eternal blessedness purchas'd at such dear rates with such infinite kindness be accounted injuries Nor yet was it unjust in him that did receive it for none charge it upon that account That death which all confess Christ did justly submit to God most justly might accept since he could so dispose it as not only by it to work the Salvation of those whom it was undertaken for but also the advancement of his humane Nature that did undergo it to the highest pitch of glory to all power in heaven and earth Phil. 2. 9. and withal thereby declare his own Righteousness Rom. 3. 26. and work the honor also of his other glorious attributes And therefore if there had bin no injustice as they say altho Sin had bin pardon'd without any Satisfaction much less could the receiving this be a wrong to him Indeed it seems as if there had bin no right don him by it because he furnisht all that makes the satisfaction and he could not receive it therefore since he gave the value to it And 't is most true in compensation of rights of real possessions and
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
our selves de malo conjuncto for as appetite is implanted for the use of him in whom it is implanted so it is not proper to it to have any aversation to evil except it be some way evil to him whose appetite hath that aversation and to greive at misery I must some way conceive it to concern my self Now then as he that does not conceive himself a member of a Church nor a fellow member nor any way relating to it he cannot truly greive so he that does not greive declares no communion with it he is another thing a member quite cut off or dead and so stupid and insensible Such a judgment doest thou pass upon thy self whoever doest not mourn outlawest and excommunicatest thy self neither belongst to Church nor State nor yet to Christ. 2. As thou hast no charity to thy Brother nor to thy afflicted Mother so neither hast thou any love to God whose glory tho it be asserted by the punishment of a sinful Land or Church he is also still dishonor'd by the sins which do then reign and to which he does permit for the most part the punishment of sin and that power and authority or discipline which divisions in the Church cut short hath for its consequent all unbridled looseness and profaness Blasphemy and Atheisme the calamities of a State are embitter'd by all sorts of licences that grow when Government is weakn'd to see a whole Land mourn with the dark purple of its bloud all which bloud as it is the punishment of that Nation so it is the guilt also to see the wickedness of a Kingdom plagu'd with the ruin of many thousands of men's lives and thousands of souls too that fell in actual iniquity and yet to think that this plague is the greatest wickedness of all arm'd with the most crying sins that are that the very punishment must call for punishment and revenge of it self and help to make up the measure of judgment that the sentence of desolation may be irreversible and utter to see two inundations overflow the Land two abysses of bloud and guilt and one deep calling upon another to meet and swallow us and bury us in their graves of sin and deep ruin yea to see iniquity become impudent and sin triumphant which is the great sign of utter ruin as it was to the Jews an omen worse than Comets or Blazing-stars the dismal voice of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yea and in this ruin too I do not see how any will well free themselves from guilt for if they be the ruiners they are the great spoilers the sinners if the ruined they have contributed to make those others the sinful inflicters and if in all this there be not matter for a little mourning if God dishonor'd souls destroi'd lives perishing Church ruining and nothing but sin flourishing and ourselves not unguilty and if this be not an object for our tears we are the most uncharitable most obdurate creatures in the world Niobe's stone is not fit to be our embleme for that stone could sweat tears we are more rock than that which Moses struck whom the rod of God cannot make weep we are next degree to Lucifer himself for onely Hell is sure at ease to see its company increase 3. Lastly this not mourning in the judgment of a Nation is a sin which God does most heavily characterize and threaten Amos 6. 1 6 7 8. Isaiah 22. when the Prophet had describ'd how it should be in the day of desolation v. 4 5. then because they did not do it see the judgment v. 12 13 14. yea this very thing that men are insensible is as it were the very last judgment on a Nation and the sign of utter rejection Jer. 16. 5 6 7. But how can this duty of mourning consist with those so frequent Gospel-Commands to rejoyce in utmost afflictions James 1. 2 3. Count it all joy when ye fall into diverse temtations knowing this that the trying of your faith worketh patience and St Paul most often 'T is true indeed we are to rejoyce in them because they are Gods methods of bettering us by them he does purge ad cleanse us Isaiah 4. 4 5. and c. 1. 25 27. Redeem'd with judgment even with the judgment that I shall execute upon them But then 1. What reason have we to mourn also that we are such foul sinners as to need such ways of purging that Christs death should not have motive enough in it to turn us from iniquity that his bloud should not be sufficient laver enough to wash us but our own must be pour'd out also that our air should be so infected that nothing but an universal conflagration can purify that we should be such refractory stubborn persons whom nothing but wounding will do good upon nothing but ruin will reduce But then 2. How are we more to mourn that this very method should not be able to reduce us that we will run upon lashes swords and deaths to sin that in the midst of judgments and against them too we commit iniquity that every stripe does encrease our reckoning add to our iniquities no possible method left to reduce them whom correction will not make sensible but our villanies grow up with our sufferings and our sins are fatned by our bloud as the land is Yea lastly how are we to mourn that to the rest of our sins this also is added by us of not mourning at our judgments but using all possible means to prevent it to lay a sleep the sense of any judgment that is upon the Nation to be so far from bestowing one hour of sadness upon those so grand motives to it that they do all they can to keep it from them and if those judgments happen to some they look upon it carelesly as a thing that does not concern rather as a matter onely of rejoycing if to others whom they wish well to they search out wine and vice to quench and to divert the memory and thought of it to drown sad news in sadder sin this is to labor hard lest sadness and a virtue should creep upon me to search out means to assist me to keep Gods last method from doing any good upon me this is one cause of greatest judgment Isaiah 5. 11 12 13 14. The second and indeed the great exercise of this duty in the text is to mourn for our sins and First for the infirmities of our nature that stain that we were born with that engagement to death that we brought into the world with us and which is a clog and weight upon us throughout the whole course of our lives to disable us from doing our duty as we ought Secondly for the sins of our habits whereby we have advanc't those infirmities into customs made a covenant with that death to which we were born engag'd and our whole practice is the exercise of those things whose wages is death eternal or if we are not gon so far
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
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
with these break with Virtue when their interest cannot consist with it that these false hypocritical pretenders should be offended with the mean condition of this Child and of his followers in this World and with the poor spirited Principles of his Religion In sum they that upon these or any other grounds finally disbelieve or disobey him God design'd this Child to be a means of bringing sorer Punishments even to everlasting ruin upon such A black Decree this one would think He that had so much kindness for Mankind to give away the onely Son both of his Nature his Affections and his Bosom to them could he then design that Gift to be the Ruin of the greatest part of men This Child Simeon said but just before my Text is Gods Salvation which he had prepared before all people and does he now say God hath set him for their fall The Angels preached this was a Birth that brought glad tidings of great joy that should be to all people and is there so much comfort in destruction that most men should rejoyce at that which is ordained to be the great occasion of it to them But we have no reason to complain 'T is not unkind to deny Mercy to them that refuse the offers of it that will not accept Salvation when their God himself does come to bring it to them tenders it upon condition of accepting and amending Which if they despise and prefer Hell before Repentance chuse sin rather than Gods blessed retributions 't is but reason to deny them what they will not have and let them take their chosen Ruine to will their Judgment which they will themselves set and ordain Him to be that to them which themselves do ordain and make him to be to themselves So S. Peter says expresly He is a Stone of stumbling and a Rock of offence to them who being disobedient stumble at the Word whereunto they were appointed Disobedience where it is obdurate alters so the temper of our God that it makes Him who swears he would not have the Sinner die yet set out his Son to make such sinners fall into eternal Death Makes Judgment triumph over Mercy even in the Great contrivances and executions of that Mercy and while God was plotting an Incarnation for the everlasting Safety of Mankind prevails with him to decree Ruins by the means of that Salvation to Decree even in the midst of all those strivings of his Mercies that that Issue of his kindness should be for the fall of such as they Oh! let us consider whether they are likely to escape that which is set and ordain'd for them by God Whether they can hope for a Redemption when the only great Redeemer is appointed for the Instrument of their Destruction and God is so bent on their ruine that to purchase it he gives this Child his Son Yea when he did look down upon this Son in Agonies and on the Cross in the midst of that sad prospect yet the Ruine of such sinners which he there beheld in his Sons Bloud was a delight to him that also was a Sacrifice and a sacrifice of a sweet smell to him For S. Paul says We are unto God a sweet savour of Christ in them that perish because we are the savour of Death unto death to them As if their Brimstone did ascend like Incense shed a perfume up to God and their evrlasting burnings were his Altar-fires kindled his holocausts and he may well be pleased with it for he ordain'd it 'T is true indeed This Child riding as in Triumph in the midst of his Hosannas when he saw one City whose fall he was set for on this very account He was so far from being pleas'd with it that he wept over it in pity But alas that onely more declares the most deplored and desperate condition of such sinners Blessed Saviour hadst thou no Blood to shed for them nothing but Tears or didst thou weep to think they very Bloodshed does but make their guilt more crimson who refuse the mercy of that Bloodshed all the time that is offered Sad is their state that can find no pity in the Tears of God and remediless their Condition for whom all that the Son of God could do was to weep over them all that he did do for them was to be for their fall too sad a part indeed for festival Solemnity very improper for a Benedictus and Magnificat To celebrate the greatest act of kindness the Almighty could design onely by the miseries it did occasion to magnifie the vast descent of God from Heaven down to Earth onely by reason of the fall of Man into the lowest Hell of which that was the cause My Text hath better things in view The greatness of that fall does but add height to that Resurrection which He also is the cause of Behold this Child is set for the rising again of many My remaining Part. Rising again does not particularly and onely refer to the foregoing fall here in the Text which this Child did occasion as I shewed you but to the state wherein all Mankind both in its nature and its Customs lay ingulâ—'d the state of Ignorance and sin A state from which recovery is properly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a resurrection and a reviving in this Life and so call'd in Scripture often as Ephes. v. 15. Wherefore he saith Awake thou that sleepest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and arise from the dead And Rom. vi 13. Yield not your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin but yield your selves unto God as those that are alive form the dead Now to raise us from the death of sin into the life of Righteousness by the amendment of our own lives to recover us into a state of Vertue is the thing this Child is said here to be set for This was that which God thought worth an Incarnation Neither was there any greater thing in the prospect of his everlasting Counsel when he did decree his Son into the World than that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He is set for this The Word was made Flesh to teach practise and persuade to Vertue To make men Reform their lives was valued at the price of a Person of the Trinity Piety and his Exinanition yea his Blood and Life were set at the same rates All of him given for our recovery The time would fail me if I should attempt onely to name the various methods he makes use of to effect this How this Child that was the brightness of his Fathers Glory came to lighten us shining in his Doctrine and Example How he sent more light The fiery Tongues Illuminations of the Holy Ghost to guide us in the ways of Piety How he suffered Agonies and Death for sin to appale and fright us from it How he Rose again to confirm Judgment to us to demonstrate the rewards of Immortality to them that will repent and leave their sins and everlasting Torments to those
interpose to hinder it and hide the possibilities of mercy from their eyes that they may never see them nor recover What can then become of those for whom God does contrive that they shall not escape when instead of those bowels that did make him swear he would not have the sinner die but would have him return and live he puts on so much indignation at such Sinners as to take an order they shall not repent and take an order that they shall be damn'd And yet all this is onely to those men who being dull of hearing the suggestions of the Spirit and not willing to give entertainment to his holy motions grieve him so that they repell and drive him quite away and so by consequence onely make way for the Devil Whereas there are others that directly call him force him to them ravish and invade occasions to serve him Some there are that study how to disbelieve and with great labour and contrivance work out arguments and motives to persuade themselves to Atheism Others practise discipline and exercise themselves to be engag'd in Vice Some dress so as to lay baiâ—s snares to entrap Temptation that they may be sure it may not pass them Others feed high to invite and entertain the Tempter do all that is possible to make him come and to assure him that he must prevail when they have made it most impossible for themselves to stand and to resist Some there are indeed whom he does not overcome so easily but is put to compound with them takes them upon Articles for when he would ingage them to a sin to which he sees they have great inclinations with some fears he is fain to persuade them to repent when they have done to lay hold upon the present opportunity and not let the satisfaction escape them but be sorry after and amend For where these resolutions of Repentance usher in transgression there we may be sure it is the Devil that suggests those resolutions But if he can get admittance once thus by prevailing with a person to receive him upon purposes of after-Penitence he is sure to prosper still in his attempts upon the same condition For Repentance will wash out another sin if he commit it and so on And it is evident that by this very train he does draw most men on through the whole course of sin and life For never do they till they see themselves at the last stage begin repenting When they are to grapple with Death's forces then they are to set upon resisting of the Devil And when they are grown so weak that their whole Soul must be imployed to muster all its spirits all their strength but to beat off one little spot of phlegm that does besiege the avenues of breath the ports of life and sally at it and assault it once again and a third many times and yet with all the sury of its might cannot break through nor beat off that little clot of spittle when it is thus yet then are they to wrestle with and Conquer Principalities and Powers all the Rulers of the utter darkness pull down the strong holds of sin within cast down imaginations and every high thing that did exalt it self against the knowledg of God and bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ and with those feeble hands that they are scarcely able to lift up in a short wish or prayer they must do all this resist the Devil and take Heaven by force Now sure to put it off to such a fatal season is a purpose of a desperate concern In God's Name let us set upon the doing it while there is something left of Principle and vigor in us ere we have so griev'd Gods Spirit that he do resolve to leave us utterly and before the Devil have so broke us to his yoke that we become content and pleas'd to do his drudgery We deceive our selves if we think to do it with more ease when Constitution is grown weaker as if then Temptations would not be so â—rong For the Habits will be then confirm'd Vice grown Heroical and we wholly in the power of Satan dead and sensless under it not so much as stirring to get out But if we strive before he have us in his clutches we have an Enemy that can vanquish none but those who consent to and comply and confederate with him those that will be overcome So that if we resist he must be Conquer'd and Temptation must be conquer'd too for he will flie and then by consequence must cease to trouble and molest us This is the sure way to be rid of Temptations to put to flight the great Artificer and Prince of them subdue and overcome him and our selves And to him that overcometh thus Christ will grant to sit with him on his Throne as He also overcame and sate down with his Father on his Throne To which c. The Fourteenth SERMON Preached at WHITE-HALL Last Wednesday in LENT 1667 8. PHILIPP III. 18. For many walk of whom I have told you often and now tell you even weeping that they are the Enemies of the Cross of Christ. THough many by the Cross of Christ here understand any sort of Suffering for the sake of Christ or Religion it being usual with the Scripture to entitle Christ to every evil that befals a man for doing of his duty yet others looking on it properly as that on which Christ himself suffered by the Enemies of the Cross understand those that set themselves against the whole design and influence of Christ's death upon it Now to name that in few words the Cross of Christ not onely is one of the greatest Props on which our Faith of the whole Gospel leans which it establisheth the truth of as Christs Bloud shed upon it was the sanction of the Covenant on Gods part who by that federal Rite of shedding Bloud engag'd himself and we may certainly assure our selves he cannot fail to make good whatsoever he hath promised in that Covenant who would give the Bloud of his own only Son who was so holy and who was himself to Seal that Covenant and his Bloud is therefore called the Bloud of the Everlasting Covenant But besides this extrinsick influence of it all the blessed Mercies also of the Gospel are the Purchase of this Cross and all the main essential duties of the Gospel are not onely Doctrines of the Cross such as it directs and does inforce but the Cross also hath an immediate efficacy in the working of them in us For S. Paul saith by the Cross of Christ the World is Crucified to me and I unto the World On it the Flesh is also crucified with the Affections and Lusts And to say all that comprehensive Duty of the Gospel Self-denial is but another word for taking up the Cross And then as for the Mercies of the Gospel on the Cross the satisfaction for our sins was made the Price of
the advice and by Will dispos'd of such Legacies as he thought fit to leave to the poor and to his friends and gave the remainder among his sisters and their children Tho he hung thus loose from the world he neither was negligent in secular affairs nor unskilful in the managery of them which was made manifest by his dextrous discharge of the private trusts committed to him in behalf of his dead friends and the administration of his public emploiments He was for several years Tresurer of Christ-Church in a busy time of their repairing of the ruins made by the entruding Vsurpers and amidst the necessary avocations of study found leisure for a full discharge of that troublesom emploiment The College of Eton as I intimated before he found in a very ill condition as to its revenue and fabric and what was no less a mischief unstatutable and unreasonable grants of Leases to all which excepting one whose reduction must be the work of time he applied effectual remedies The Schole he found in a low condition but by his prudence in the choice of a learned discreet and diligent Master by his interest in bringing young Gentlemen and Persons of Quality thither and by his great kindness to them when there and taking care for the building fit accommodation for their reception within the precincts of the College in few years the Schole grew into that great reputation and credit which it yet maintains And here we may not pass by another considerable service don in behalf of the said Schole and also King's College in Cambridge whose Seminary it is that whereas both those Societies were formerly under the discouragement that the Fellowships of Eton were generally dispos'd of to persons of foreign education by the vigorous interposition of Dr. Allestree added to the petition of the Provost and Fellows of King's College his sacred Majesty was pleas'd to pass a grant under the broad Seal that in all future times five of the seven Fellows should be such as had bin bred in Eton Schole and were Fellows of King's College which has ever since took place and will be a perpetual incitement to diligent study and vertuous endeavor in both those roial foundations In the managery of the business of the Chair of Divinity as he performed the Scholastic part with great sufficiency in exact and dextrous untying the knots of argument and solid determination of controverted points so that he was not opprest by the fame of any of his most eminent Predecessors his prudence was very remarkable in the choice of subjects to be treated on for he wasted not time and opportunity in the barren insignificant parts of Schole Divinity but insisted on the fundamental grounds of controversy between the Church of England and the most formidable Enemies thereof With an equal steddiness he asserted the Gospel truth against the usurpations of Rome the innovations of Geneva the blasphemies of Cracow and the monsters of our own Malmsbury never intermedling with the unâ—athomable abyss of God's decrees the indeterminable five points which in all times and in all countries wherever they have happen'd to be debated past from the Scholes to the State and shock'd the government and public peace By his judicious care herein tho he found the Vniversity in a ferment and a great part of its growing hopes sufficiently season'd with ill prepossessions he so brought it to pass that during the whole tract of seventeen years that he held the Chair there was no factious bandying of opinions nor petulant sidings on the account of them which thing disturb'd the peace of the last age and help'd forward to inflame those animosities which ended in the execrable mischeifs of the civil war There is nothing at this day which learned men more desire or call for than the publishing of those Lectures which were heard when first read with the greatest satisfaction of the Auditory it may therefore be fit to give some account of the reason why those expectations are defeated which in short is this Dr. Allestree a little before his death having communicated to the Bishop of Oxford several particulars concerning his intentions for the disposal of his goods and papers the Bishop observ'd that there was no mention made of his Lectures and knowing how his modesty had during his life resisted all importunities for the publishing of them suspected that the same motive might be more prevalent at his death therefore he wrote to him thereupon desiring him that his Lectures might be preserv'd which had cost him so much study and labor and would be useful proportionably to others His answer by letter bearing date Jan. 19. 1680. was that having not had opportunity to revise what he had writen which was not every where consistent with his present imaginations tho in nothing material yet in some particulars which he should have better examin'd especially diverse of the Act Lectures which being upon the same head the thred of them was not right nor didactical and Nectarius 's Penitentiary not expounded the same way in one place as in another and the first blundring and not true therefore he adds that if the Bishop had not writ and for that he himself would not go out of the world without satisfying him in every thing he had resolv'd to have sent for his papers and burnt them but now he gave them up all to the Bishop upon this inviolable trust that nothing of them should be publish'd as a Scheme of his but to be made use of to serve any other design the Bishop should think fit Dr. Allestree's words are here transcrib'd for that the plainest account of things is alwaies the most satisfactory His Sermons not lying under the same interdict so many of them as were thought needful to make up a Volume are here publish'd The variety of Auditors for whom they were first design'd makes them not to be all of the same finess of spinning and closeness of texture but in them all there will appear the same spirit of perswasive Rhetoric and ardent piety whereby tho dead he yet speaketh Vpon the 28th day of January in the year 1680. this excellent person after a life spent in indefatigable studies and faithful endeavors for his Religion his King and Country and after the patient sufferance of a long and painful sickness with Christian resignation and full assurance render'd his soul into the hands of God and on the first of February was decently interr'd in the Chore of the Collegiat Church at Eton where his Executors erected to his memory a Monument of white Marble with the following inscription H. S. I. RICARDUS ALLESTREE Cathedrae Theologicae in Universitate Oxoniensi Professor Regius Ecclesiae Christi ibidem Praebendarius Collegii hujus Aetonensis Praepositus Muniis istis singulis ita par ut omnibus major In Disputationibus irrefragabilis Concionibus flexanimus Negotiis solers Vita integer Pietate sanctus Episcopales infulas eadem industria
apparent Miracle to all Jerusalem the suns prodigious Eclipse when it was impossible by nature he should be eclips'd it being then full moon was so to the whole Hemisphere It serves the use I am to make of this that 't is here recorded but withal Heathen Historians and Chronologes bear witness to it for when they relate that in the 4th year of the 202 Olympiad the year that is assign'd to Christ's death there was such a great Eclipse as never had bin day at noon turn'd into night tâ—e stars appearing and earthquakes as far as Bythyma since 't is apparent by the motions of the Heavens and the calculations of Astronomy there could be none such then according to the course of nature it must be this the â—ospel speaks of But beyond all this 't is registred here that according as he had foretold he rais'd himself from death the 3d day yea and many bodies of the Saints that had bin buried long it may be some of them he rais'd with him That notwithstanding all the art and treachery of the Cheif Priests to conceal it yet that very day he appear'd First to Mary Magdalen 2dly the Women 3dly Peter 4thly to them that went to Emaus last of all on that day to the eleven except Thomas being seen and handled by and eating with them 6thly eight daies after to the same eleven with Thomas 7thly at the sea of Galilee appearing in a miracle of fishes 8thly to all his Disciples and 500 Brethren more in Galilee then to James then to all his Apostles promising them the Holy Ghost and lastly all of them beholding he ascended into Heaven and ten daies after as he promised sent the Holy Ghost upon them in the shape of fiery tongues so as that they spoke all Languages immediatly to the amazement of the Jews of every Nation under Heaven to which they were scatter'd that the Miracle might spread as far Now if all this be true he that did these must have communication with a power above all that we account the powers of Nature such an one most certainly as can perform whatsoever he in this book promises inflict what e're he threatens such as is Divine And since he wrought all these on purpose to evince he came commission'd from that Divine power brought these Miracles as seals of that commission that we might believe him therfore whatsoever he delivers must be embrac't by us as we hope for those blessed rewards that he proposeth and on pain of those eternal torments if we do not of both which it is not possible to doubt if these accounts be true 2d ly Since the most and greatest of these must be don but once he could not be incarnated and born and live and preach and dye and rise again and go to Heaven every day of every age in every place to convince every man by his own senses to all those that did not see the matter of fact therefore faith of all these must be made by witnesses And 3dly If we can be sure the witnesses that do assert a fact understand it exactly if the things be palpable and they must certainly know whether they were really don or no and if we can be sure too that they are sincere will not affirm that which they do not know and do not lye their testimony of it must be most infallible because it is impossible such witnesses can be deceiv'd or will deceive 4thly The witnesses in this case the Apostles and the 70 Disciples for I 'le name no more must needs know most perfectly for they not only saw the Miracles but were instruments parties in some of them sent to cure diseases cast out Devils and knew whether all this were in earnest And most certainly they saw as all the Jews did too Christ crucified his heart pierc'd with a spear and his body buried and whether they did see him risen handle him eat with him they knew And if they might mistake in his Ascention yet the fiery tongues if such did light on them they must needs see and whether they themselves who spoke no Languages could then speak Tongues it cannot be but they must know In these there is no possibility they could err unless they did it wilfully but then 't is as impossible that they could do it wilfully if they were sincere and honest such as would not lye Now that they were such I might urge their simplicity and openness without disguise not covering their own errors men who seem'd to live as well as preach against all artifice and to have no design on any thing but the amendment and salvation of mankind For he that can suppose it possible that they were otherwise men of art and finess that they contriv'd the story must needs know First that such would not seal their falsehood with their blood design no recompense to all their travels but contemt and hatred persecutions prisons whippings wounds and death to be the scum and the off-scouring of the world lay out their lives against their conscience to preach that Jesus who did only call them out to be a spectacle to all the world just such as Malefactors when expos'd to fight with and to be devour'd of wild beasts Their sufferings are too known to stay upon St Pauls own catalogue of his for five whole verses 2 Cor. 11. is such that to sustain them only for this end to put a cheat on mankind count a so laborious vext torn miserable life and an infamous death gain so the fable might be beleiv'd to think they could do this is sure as great a madness as to do it But yet I will suppose that possible that those who wove the fable pleas'd themselves so infinitly with the expectations of imposing on mankind as that those hopes could make misery and death it self look lovely to them But Then 2dly that all and every of them should be of that mind that amongst so many that bare witness of Christs Miracles and resurrection not a man should discover the cheat that when their persecutors did with arts of torment as it were examin them upon the rack they should work not one single confession out of them that no ones courage should be broke nor have a qualm so far as to acknowledg how it was disclose the plot lay open the confederacy the whole mystery and the contrivance of it When of twelve Disciples one was so false to betray his Masters person at a vile rate yet that all of them and many more in a feign'd story of his Miracles should be so true to one another that no engin of mans cruelty ever could screw out the sacret not one should betray the forgery and be a Judas where he ought to be no not that Judas whose concern it was whose treason to his Master had bin justified had he bin an impostor yet that he should stir no least suspicion
of it but should burst choakt with his greif because he had betray'd innocent blood This if he knew it had all bin imposture must be most stupendous But yet we will give them this too that vainglorious hopes of drawing in the world to follow them might make all of them obstinate in secresy against all attemts of cruelty or if some weak brethren did perchance discover we may not have heard of it But For them 3dly to begin their preaching at Jerusalem is yet more strange To hope to draw men into a perswasion and to bottom that perswasion upon Miracles and a Resurrection don amongst them there where if discovery were made it must be made and where it could not but be made if there were fraud For to relate and write those works with every circumstance of persons place and time where they not only could examin every circumstance but where they rather then their lives would find them false if nothing else would this must needs discover it They preach them to the face of the whole multitude and of the Pharisees and tell them they were don before their eyes somtimes 500 and somtimes 5000 being by and the cheif Preists and Pharisees and Doctors so that 't was most impossible they should not know if they were true or false as sure as there was never a Jew in all the Land but knew whether there were a darkness over all the land when Christ was crucified Now if these were forg'd to hope to draw Jews out of their Religion with apparent forgeries which they knew such speaks these Apostles men so far from art to manage a design of changing the Religion of the world that they were mad beyond recovery and president But let us give them that too Yet 't is certain 4thly that the Jews if any such were wrought on by them must be much more stupid to believe them upon the account of such things don in all the country in their Cities and the Temple before all the Nation when they could not choose but know they were not don if they were not don but were fain'd all For what ever might be motive to Christs Followers and his Apostles with the certain danger of their lives to forge the cheat what possible temtation could there be so great to incline Jews the most stiffnecked people the most stubborn in Religion in the world to embrace a faith which nothing but the Cross and shame and misery attended and which they must know false too Had they so great lust to dye as for that to bid farewel to their Moses their Religion and their Law It is impossible had they not known the truth of those things that in waters of affliction in Jerusalem ipsis persecutionum fontibus in that Fountain that spring-head of persecutions as the Fathers call it they would ever have bin baptiz'd into Christ. Yet suddenly in one day at one sermon of St Peter we read near 3000 were baptiz'd Acts 2. at another strait 5000 Acts 4. and such beginnings such sums are requir'd to make good what the Governor of Palestine Tiberianus tells the Emperor that he was not sufficient to put to death all those that confest themselves Christians All which must needs have either bin convinc't those things were true or else as well against their conscience as against the powers thus embrac't that faith and death together Neither was this a first surprize of Christianity as it had seiz'd mens minds at unawares for it went on conquering till the world came into it receiving the Religion with the loss of all that was dear to them in this world For in one age from Christs death what with the Apostles sermons miracles and writings also to confirm and keep men in the truth and to conveigh it better to posterity and their Disciples after them who went forth delivering those writings preaching on and doing wonders also very many Nations are recorded by Historians as converted almost wholly And the truth of it is evident since nothing but almost whole Nations nor yet they but as buoy'd up by the wonders and the graces of Gods spirit ever could be able to endure or be sufficient to employ the Swords the Flames the Lions and the other numberless tortures which the Jews and Nero and Domitian and above all Trajan in that first age rag'd with till they made their Cities villages and provinces so desolate that the Proconsul Pliny being frighted with the multitude of murder'd Christians did advise with him about relaxing his edicts as he himself assures us It was the same the next age when the power of Miracles yet liv'd and those which Christ himself wrought were scarce all dead some liv'd till near that time who rose up with him at his resurrection when these books writ by the will of God to be the pillar and foundation of mens faith in after ages as saith Irenaeus in that age were also read in the assemblies weekly when not only those that did assemble were by Hadrian martyr'd but they put men to their oaths to find out whether they were Christians that they might massacre them And in the third it was the like when Miracles they say were not yet ceast yet sure the greatest was the constancy of Christians in adhering to this book and patience in suffering for it For they report the sands on the sea shore almost as easy to be numbred as the Martyrs of that age what by Valerian Decius Maximinus and Severus but especially by Dioclesian who put so many men to death for not delivering up their Bibles to be burnt and refusing to Sacrifice to his Gods as if he meant to have depopulated the whole earth And this is as notorious as that men do now profess that they are Christians and that these are holy Scriptures Therefore I shall need to go no further Now among so many myriads who on the account of all these Miracles whate're they were suffer'd themselves to be converted to the faith of Christ and then as if they car'd for nothing but Religion and their Bibles for them bore the loss of goods and life it self and engag'd their posterity to do so also that not one of these should know whether indeed any such miracles were wrought if any were restor'd to life or no for if they knew then they were true and that among so numberless a crowd of teachers who by assuming to speak languages raise the dead work signs drew in those Myriads to Religion and the stake and went before them gave them an example both in faith and death that not one of all those should believe either the Miracles or himself that did them for if any one that did them did believe them since he knew who did them they must needs be certain but not one of them to know it sure is such a thing as neither could be don nor be imagin'd He therefore
them as they shall grow capable Why when they are but newly born their children do they take care they shall be regenerate and born again Gods Children if they do not furnish them with necessaries educate them into all the qualities and hopes that appertain to the condition of Gods children as well as they do to that of their own That parent which not only like some delicate ones refuses her own breasts to her own infant but provides no other to sustain it that does only wash her babe from it's first blood and uncleanness to expose it the more handsom prey to wolves and tigers in the desert is more savage then those tigers even the sea monsters draw out the breasts they give suck to their young ones saith lamenting Jeremy but he adds the daughter of my people is cruel like the Ostrich in the wilderness which leaveth her eggs in the earth and forgetteth that the foot may crush them or that the wild beast may break them she is hardned against her young ones such are they who when their children are so born again to God yet as they shall wax capable provide not that which St Peter calls the sincere milk of the word that they may grow thereby but from their being washt so in the laver of regeneration take no more care but expose them forthwith to such lusts and conversations as are much more wild and savage then those beasts in the comparison to which they cannot choose but be a prey They strive indeed they say to educate them into men betime that is make them conversible and bold and since for that they must engage them into frequent company where they see and hear mens follies that I say no worse by that means they come to have their understandings stor'd with nothing but the Modes and sins of conversation fill'd with froth and puddle men betimes only thus as they have forwarded their inclinations to and got an early understanding and experience of those vices which one would think men only could be equal for But by this means the mind that only part that makes us be men is not only not improv'd but dwarft They do not only still continue children in their understanding as to any thing that 's real and solid but the hopes of reason are destroy'd in them and its growth kill'd by turning all its nurishment to feed the beast part and the Christian is quite starv'd There needs no other cause be given for the most part why so many men have no Religion own being Libertiâ—es and profess vice for want of education they have nothing in them that does check this for they had no principles of a Religion instil'd into them And if at any time it comes to pass that they think it is their interest to take upon them the profession of some Religion they therefore since they have no Principles nor rules to judg by are most apt to choose to profess that Religion which is like to be most gentle to the courses they have steer'd and are engag'd in Now that men hope to find such an one whether by its constitution I shall not enquire but by its practice is but too apparent Accordingly when they go over to it they carry with them and preserve in it the vices of their no Religion and by consequence they went not over seriously for Religion and are therefore so much worse now then when they own'd no Religion that they do their wickednesses with certainty of easy absolution and so hopes of salvation and by this are likely to be made two-fold more children of Hell then before and let them triumph in such conquests There 's nothing in the world that contributes so much to this as mens being not acquainted early with instructed in those Divine rules and obligations to piety and vertue which this book the Bible does afford If men had bin season'd first with the knowledg and the sense of duty with the comforts that are in it with the apprehensions of great blessings that attend it and the mischiefs that are consequent indeed essential to impiety and vice here and their minds were furnisht with examples of both which this book abounds with and their hearts too rais'd with expectations of far greater blessedness in a life hereafter and with the belief that both that blessedness and life shall have no end and were made sensible also of strange dreadful torments that await the breach of duty which shall also last for ever if these impressions I say did prevent all other and take up the mind and had in them the stamp and character of God and so there were a reverence and awe of him wrought in them and they lookt upon him as concern'd in all this how it was his word that said it and these sentiments were grown into the very habit of their mind as it would not be easy to corrupt or soften such so 't would be much more difficult to shake them since their faith is founded on the rock of ages Besides the Holy Scriptures carry in them such an obligation of adhering to them and to them alone since they are sufficient to make us wise unto salvation and are Gods word that men would not be apt to exchange them for Legends pious forgeries for things that can make good no certain title from the Lord for let them shew an equal derivation of it bring it down through all the ages as we have don the Scripture's title to him Otherwise it justly may provoke Gods exclamation in the Prophet Jeremy Be astonisht O ye Heavens and be horribly afraid be yee very desolate saith the Lord for my people have committed two evils they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters and hew'd them out cisterns broken cisterns that can hold no water cisterns therefore that may leave them in a state to want a drop of water when their tongue shall be horribly tormented whereas he that drinks that living water which Christ gives his word shall never thirst but it shall be a well of water in him springing up to everlasting life A SERMON OF THE OBLIGATION OF BAPTISM Rom. 6. 3. Know yee not that so many of us as were baptiz'd into Jesus Christ were baptiz'd into his death THE Ancient Severities of this season by which men strove as if they had design'd a fellowship with him in sufferings to celebrate Christs death in mortifying Rigors and Austerities at least to use the body of Sin as cruelly as his was us'd these I say were not only for the discipline of Penitents of Christians that had sin'd against their solemn undertaking and profession so to actuate their Repentance and to mortify their lusts and inclinations and by that prepare them for an Absolution on Good-friday Eve but they also were much earlier employ'd upon the Catechumens that were Candidates of Christianity as by which they did express their sorrow for and detestation of their former
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
things laid to his charge some against God himself as prophanation of his temple v. 6. he was accus'd of being also pestilent a mover of sedition v. 5. to all which he answers in my text that he was so far from prophaness in Religion and his duty towards God and from sedition in the State that he did exercise himself in this alone in laboring to have a conscience void of offence in all things by God or his Governors commanded And this president of our Apostle every one that hears me knows the true sons of this Church always follow'd both in doctrine and in practice even to the Martyrdom not onely of their persons families but of the Church it self Not like those holy Church-men who account themselves exemt no subjects to the secular powers nor those others who withdrawing their obedience in all things which they do not like do seem to own no powers but themselves are Subject onely to their own minds Now he that does thus exercise himself always which is the onely thing that I have left to speak to is in that state of Christian perfection which the Travellers to Heaven while they are upon the way can arrive at for that must needs be a good life which is regulated by a good conscience for if a conscience do its part do neither err nor doubt but is tender in all in a word if it inform truly in all duty and thou doest accordingly thou doest all thy duty therefore all good life is call'd by the name of a good conscience 1 Tim. 1. 19. and plainer Hebr. 13. 18. We trust we have a good conscience willing in all things to live honestly sincere endeavors to obey in every thing a conscience that is right in every thing not boggling with it accepting the persons of duty being very consciencious in some things but taking liberty in others and being so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 always not by fits having onely Paroxysmes of Religion now and then very consciencious otherwise loose enough but to be so in all respect and at all times this was the sum of all St Pauls endeavor he had no stricter aims this was the height of his Religion this his exercise Yet why should I call it his exercise when it is his enjoiment 't is his ante past of heaven it self The applauds of an honest undeceiving heart that is conscious to it self of this in earnest they shed comforts into every state of life beyond all that the earth can give they shed the peace of God that passeth understanding If my conscience be clear let my condition be never so overcast I live in shine let them be troubled with afflictions or with sad expectations who understand no delights but carnalities whose souls are married to some little comforts of this world adversity indeed sweeps all their joys away at once but he that understands the comforts of a good conscience and knows where to find them and who hath a treasure of them in his breast will soon be able to allay the other sadnesses What can I want if I have a continual feast and such is a good conscience let all the world look black upon me as long as I have light within me and in that light can see a pleasantness upon Gods face Yea it is this indeed must make prosperity contentful when to the candle of the Lord the light of his countenance also does add its shine when I have no ill remembrances either as to the possession or to the enjoiment when my heart assures me I did neither get it ill nor use it ill 't was truly Gods gift to me and I strive to make it an instrument of my service to him This is transfigur'd prosperity but without this for all the hurry of mens pleasures something will now and then rejolt worse than surfets and come up bitterer than the gall of ejected riots and they shall find their great provisions are but variety of nauseousness onely plentiful vexation and a jolly restlesness while they are here and then when they but think of going hence O death how bitter is the remembrance of thee to a man that lives at rest in his possessions to the man that hath nothing to molest him hath hath prosperity in all things and if he have the sting of conscience to imbitter it which will be sure to stir at such a time alas how unconceivable a sadness must then dwell upon that soul that can think nothing kinder to it self than hell But he that can at such a time say with Hezekiah Remember now O Lord I beseech thee how I have walk'd before thee in truth and with a perfect heart and have don that which is good in thy sight then if God do not send a message of fifteen years yet he will add to him an everlastingness of years of joy if his days do no return nor the Sun mount back again to give him a more full noon light he shall be taken to the fountain of eternal light Oh let me have that light that will enlighten the sad approaches of the dark grave that when I am going to make my house in a black lonely desolate hole of earth will be like the day spring of immortality like the dawn of heaven and such glimpses will break in thro a clear conscience 'T was that which made the Martyrs run to the fires of execution as to fires triumph and they look'd upon their flames as on Elijah's chariot's flames that flew upwards not with hast to their own Sphere but the Sphere of Martyr's Heaven and whose brightness did prelude and expire into Glory SERMON VI. Of the Blessedness of Mourners Matt. 5. 4. Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted THE 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shecina say the Jewish Doctors will not rest upon a sad person that is God will not be especially with him nor will his holy Spirit keep him company that is a solitary Mourner and indeed we often find in Scripture that when the Prophets would invite Gods Spirit down upon they did heighten themselves with mirth but now saith Elisha bring me a Minstrel and it came to pass while the Minstrel plai'd the hand of the Lord came upon him And he said thus saith the Lord 2 Kings 3. 15. as if the Music had inspir'd him and his soul was tun'd into Enthusiasme and so also 1 Sam. 10. 5. thou shalt meet a company of Prophets coming down from the high place with a Psaltery and a Tabret and a Pipe and a Harp before them and they shall prophecy and the Spirit of the Lord will come upon thee Yea and as God would not dwell with them so neither would he let them keep him company they were not to appear before him sad Deut. 12. 7. And there ye shall eat before the Lord your God and ye shall rejoyce and therefore God hath no worse expressions for unclean Sacrifices than the bread of Mourners Hos.
the comfort died as soon as the smile the very memorial of them is perisht and there is nothing of them left alive but that now all is don I am never the better for them But the comforts of my devouter hours shall never die but when I go to die my self will be like life and immortality to me O the strange acquiescencies of soul in the Consideration the few hours that a man hath spent piously how they will calm death assist in agonies and releive from pains how such a Soul anticipates his Heaven The truth is to such an one death is welcom and life tho it have on it the shadow of death is full of comfort For when all the world about is Egypt a devout man tho he have but his chamber to retire to and his doors be shut upon him he lives in Goshen when the consuming fire did run upon the ground throughout the land there was no storm in Goshen Exod. 9. 26. and when flashes of judgment do burst in upon other persons 't is calm in the Praier-room When the destroying Angel had overrun every house in Egypt with death when there was nothing but carcasses and crying in each dwelling there was not one sick in Goshen Exod. 12. 30. When a thick darkness dwelt upon the Nation the Israelites had lights in all their dwellings Exod. 10. 23. and when a sad dark cloud does sit upon Gods Countenance and pour down inundations of tempest on a people yet then his face does shine in the Closets of devotion there he breaks in and does reveal his comforts God is so there as his Angel was at that time a Pillar of light to them and of cloud to those others Exod. 14. 20. and when in this their pilgrimage he takes off their chariot-wheels v. 25. that they drive heavily prest with the weight of afflictions and the heavier incumbrances of the World striving against the tide and torrent of troubles encountring nothing but rubs and crosses and having on no wheels none of Gods comforts to bear them up they march heavily till at last the waters overwhelm them when as to those others the waters were a wall on the right hand and on the left and to the devout persons the troubles of their times by making them retire into their chambers prove an occasion of security which brings on the next observation from the words hide thy self Whence we draw that Praiers and the exercises of Piety are in sad days the onely great security and the Devotion-chamber a sure hiding place from trouble And indeed where else should we take shelter but in our Sanctuary Where should we seek for refuge but at the horns of the Altar where we offer up the incense of our Praiers and the lifting up of our hands is as the evening Sacrifice I have told you to retire thus into your chambers is to enter Gods bed-chamber and where is safety to be had if it be not there Is there not full quietness and calm in the Lords withdrawing rooms Not to tell you that David plac't his Rock his Fortress his Castle his every word of safety upon this foundation not to reckon up an infinity of places besides Psalm 27. 5. and 61. 2 3 4 5. I shall onely say that 't is impossible for any Sermon to say better what I have to say for him that betakes himself to these secret rooms and nestles there nor more pertinent to a time of sickness and distress than the 91. Psalm hath spoke v. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 c. and to which 't were vanity if not Tautology to add Should I labour to evince this further I could prove strangely to you that good hearty devout Praiers are in time of danger a Security even to a Miracle Security from the fury of men when single Prayers did resist an Army when Moses's hand lifted up in his devotions slew more Amalekites than the armed hands of Joshua and all his Regiments stretcht out for when Moses lifted up his hand then Israel prevailed Exod. 17. 11. Security against the storm of Gods assault for a Praier of Moses is call'd a standing in the breach against the Lord when he came to destroy the People by a plague Psalm 106. 23. so God said he would destroy them had not Moses his chosen stood before him in the breach to turn away his wrathful indignation least he should destroy them They are terms of war and do express the desperatest act of Valour which war hath occasion for when wall and rampart could not resist the storm of shot but the Assault made its way thro stones and bulwarks then must courage become the Rampart maintain the breach and repulse the Assailants This is the danger and the glory of Valour and this very expression do's Scripture make use of to declare the force and courage of a zealous Praier When Gods indignation had storm'd the People when it had made a gap a breach to enter and overrun them in a moment and the Angel with his sword drawn was assaulting had began his deaths in steps Moses arm'd but with single Praier maintains the breach and turns away the Indignation Neither was this all for it did not onely beat off his fury but assail'd him also as it were took God captive and held him that he could not fall upon them For in the 32. Exod. 9 10. he cries to Moses it is a stiff-necked people now therefore let me alone that my wrath may wax hot against them and that I may consume them in a moment let me alone Hebr. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dimitte me 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 permitte me ut invalescat Syr. nunc si permiseris mihi invalescet Arab. dimitte deprecationem tuam à facie mea Chald. Loose me and let me go suffer me let me alone that I may destroy them do not pray to me thy strong desires are as bonds and cords upon me loose me and do not hold me I can do nothing if thou pray my arm of power my stretcht our arm is held in it is restrain'd by thy strong cries thy violent sighs they cool my wrath that it cannot wax hot against them thy zeal it is irresistible do not therefore make use of it do not hinder me do not pray now let me alone and I will make of thee a greater Nation I will bribe thee to silence because my fury will not withstand thy Praiers if thou maintain the breach I shall not take this People now by storm be hir'd then to withdraw let me alone But Moses he would take no bribes from God but he besought the Lord his God as it follows there and the sudden effect of his Praier was the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people Here 's the power of a fervent Praier it hath a kind of force on the Almighty a force that he does seem as it were afraid of would have prevented and
iniquities The sweats of soul under the sense of the burden of sin the labors of mortifying the flesh and crucifying the affections of putting the body of sin to death will justify this sense The new Birth also hath its pangs and the Child of God as he is not engendred by weak purposes faint resolutions so neither is he brought forth in a sigh or wish of mercy there is a labor in it In this expression you may see the nature of repentance the dawnings and first flashes of that Catholic Duty 't is not that easy thing to change my mind onely and begin to believe That that is not the best course I have hitherto trod in the way of Sinners not the safest and most pleasant path tho few of us will believe that neither is it that easy wish I would I had not don this act for when the pleasure 's gon and dead the memory of it is so unsatisfying if not loathsom that a man can hardly not wish it Nor yet is it that easy desire of mercy that saying Lord Lord. The Penitent they are the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here they are such as even faint under a sense of the horror of their sins whose hearts are broken and wounded with that heavy galling weight of them If I should gather up the racks and tortures the Occultum quatiente animo tortore flagellum that self whip in the dark rooms and recesses of our thoughts conscience dealing with us by the discipline of mad men as knowing the sinner is not onely Solomons fool and Davids man without understanding but even St Pauls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mad-man the tacita sudant praecordia culpa which a Heathen can reckon up to us And add to these the Scripture expressions the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the pains of travel the labor of a woman in child-birth the agony of the Cross and the pangs of death the word repentance would bear them all and they would let us see that the Penitent is truly one that labors under a very heavy burden and so is invited here by our Savior Come Thirdly those that labor and are heavy laden may signify such as groan under a burden of afflictions and look upon them not as chastisements onely but inflictions and are even wearied and affrighted by them Thus those judgments which God did by his Prophets threaten to the Nations are in those Prophets called the burden of those Nations and the cross and calamities are often called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the labor in the Text 1 Tim. 4. 10. and generally all the troubles and difficulties of this life Rev. 14. 13. of which death is there made the rescue And I need make no application of this interpretation the words labor and heavy laden do in these daies sufficiently apply themselves I shall onely tell you that the whole sense of those words sum'd up make thus much Those that are heavy burdened with sins and the punishment of those sins afflictions and groan under the sense of both of them laboring earnestly to be rid and be delivered from both these are bid to come to Christ which is the invitation and what it means I am secondly to shew Come unto me And first in general the word used 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Come is not onely a word of exhortation but of great encouragement also in the doing so often used Come and let us kill him and then the inheritance shall be ours and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Come ye unto the wedding And indeed such is needful to the persons here spoken to the laboring heavy laden for them to take a journey if there be not the encouragement of some great advantage it will not sound like an invitation but an infliction and therefore our Savior besides the rest he promises used animating words even in the very call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Therefore the whole invitation come unto me tho it be used in the Gospel and may very well signify come to me as to a Teacher and Instructer so Nicodemus is said to come to Christ and they are said to come to the light as that which was to reveal yea and that place in Isaiah 55. 3. whither our Savior do's much reflect when he useth this expression seems to import but so Encline your ear and come unto me hear c. yea and may so signify in this place the words going before being all things are given me of my father and no man knoweth the father but the son and he to whom the son will reveal him it then follows come to me as if he should say therefore if you desire to be instructed in the way to life come to me and tho you do labor under the load of many sins yet I will shew you a way how you shall find ease and rest and that way follows in the next verse take my yoke upon you and learn of me and ye shall be sure to find rest this is very natural yet because to give you rest is more than to shew you a way to it and so may seem a promise and a reward very apportioned to the duty rest to coming therefore it is most probable that come doth not onely signify come to me to learn your duty but that the come should be it self a duty and so I shall consider it and the expression come to me does in the Gospel signify a twofold duty 1. It signifies to obey and serve Thus very often most expresly in the Epistle to the Hebrews to come to God is to serve and worship him c. 11. 6. For he that cometh to God must believe that God is and that he is a rewarder of them that seek him and c. 7. 25. He is able to save them that come to God by him that serve God as he commandeth and enableth c. 10. 1. The sacrifices which they offered year by year could not make the comers thereunto perfect could not perfectly cleanse them that served God by them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 22d verse there Let us come with a true heart worship him with unfeigned piety and obedience And the sense will be fully clear from the expressions that relate to it Seek the Lord draw near to him and then come to him To seek him is to enter upon such a course of life by which his favor is to be obtain'd and what it is you will see Isaiah 55. where when he had bid them come to him that they may do that he bids them seek him v. 6 7. Seek the Lord while he may be found let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let them return unto the Lord. Deut. 4. 29 30. But if from thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God thou shalt find him if thou seek him with all thine heart and with all thy soul if thou turn to the Lord thy God and shalt be obedient
which he found death from till we labor under that which he sunk under we have no regard of his mercies to us but renounce all relation to him and close with his mortal enimy and cannot then hope to be received by him And thus you have the reason why these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are the onely fit persons to be invited by him because till we are so we cannot truly come unto him depend upon him and till we are so we are not fit to be received by him And now for application But what cannot we truly come til we find our selves to be heavy laden till we labor and are tired and wearied with iniquity We see the perverse conditions of man whom nothing but misery can perswade to Heaven Heaven is no bait tho it prostitute all its glories Happiness is a word that hath no musick in it the pleasures with which God entertained himself from all eternity have no temtation in them compared to those of sin Come unto me is not an invitation till we labor till we find our selves perishing in our choice ruined in those sins we have embraced we never will uncling nor come to Christ we must have our happiness inflicted on us and be goaded into bliss But then 2. Learn hence how willing Christ is to have us come to him when he makes use of Hell not to punish onely them that will not come but to drive us to come to him Had it not bin enough for him to set before us life and death and bid us take our choice No he knows our blind and unadvised appetites would chuse the guilt poison the painted the pleasant death and make a Covenant with Hell and therefore he lets us feel part of that Hell to fright us and yet then receives us To force us to love ease he lets us travel under the burdens of our own desiring and yet after that invites us to rest he do's not onely accept them whose choice he is not but refuge when as he might reject us You would none of me but chose weight load and labor go and look for ease thence But alas if I should bid you seek refreshment from your pleasant sins what comfort would you find when you are tired with those sins and the pleasures of them do forsake you and leave you nothing but the stings and horror of the after expectations No no come to me yet I will receive you after all your refusals and tho you come to me but as to a last hold having nothing else to trust to tho you have already tri'd all other and slighted me you shall yet be welcome my pierced side is yet open to receive all of you that will yet come and let you into my very heart my arms are yet as wide as on the Cross at their full length to take you into their embraces Ah my Brethren Christ doth not send us back to our beloved miseries when we come to him but he makes those miseries a part of his Rhetoric to invite us uses our labour and weariness to perswade us to come makes those burdens the indearment of and provocation to his ease and Hell it self a part of his wooing And how will he receive and embrace us who doth thus desire and court us The story of the Prodigal is hugely evictive of this and so indulgent that it would almost invite a man to sin but then it do's far more invite a man that will repent him of his sin to be secure of God's acceptance He that had so villanously betraied his Father's dearness to his own beastliness and ruin to whom all kindness would seem lost and to receive him in again and to assist him would be but to encourage him and to furnish him for a return back to the prodigalities of sin and to the former riots of iniquity yet when he do's repent he do's obtain far more than he desires he is received to feast and bosom is entertain'd much more than the first born and had he never gon away he had not bin so dear Do but consult the story Luke 15. When weary and fainting under the burden of himself which his languishing spirits were scarce able to sustain he came at last to himself v. 17. and began to wonder that he chose to stay with husks with famine rather than to go to daily plenty and chose to dwell in the unclean uncomfortable company of swine before his Father's houshold and then strait to think of leaving that condition and society and to resolve on a return When he began to put those resolutions into act and his impotent starv'd limbs would scarce serve his desires at least he was unable to make hast in the pursuit of his intentions for he was yet a great way off v. 20. yet then his Father had compassion and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him His compassions did not keep state or stand expecting till his ungracious son should come and humble himself and deprecate and beg but he ran to meet him and made far greater hast to receive and entertain than the other could do to be received and as if the humiliations or weaknesses had bin on his side he fell at least the impotencies of his affection did vie with those of the others condition for he fell on his neck and kissed him And whereas his repenting son did resolve to become prostrate and low in condition as well as posture I will go to my Father and say unto him Father I have sinned before heaven and against thee and am no more worthy to be called thy son make me as one of thy hired servants v. 18 19. I dare not hope for favor from any tie of nature which I have broken all I do not beg thy kindness as the issue of thy Relation but as the wages of my labor I will serve for thy affections and let me have it as the hire of my repentance and endeavors but 't was enough it seems to have resolv'd thus lowly in earnest for when he comes to act it v. 21. as he had said I am unworthy to be called thy son his Father cuts him off and calls for the best Robe and for a Ring and for the fatted Calf will not let him so much as beg to be a servant but if he once acknowledge himself unworthy for a son he puts him strait in such an equipage as he may owne him in with credit in the best Robe and he rejoyces quickens and sets out his joy with Feasts and Music Now saith Tertullian Quis ille nobis intelligendus Pater What Father is this in the story Why certainly 't is God No one so much a Father no one so compassionate if the Sinner once come to himself as the prodigal son is said to do for while he do's go on he is indeed beside himself and in a fit and when he has collected sober thoughts about him and do's compare his wanting husks with the
it does require is very obvious Lord is a word of power and autority it requires service and obedience Nothing more frequent in the Prophets than when they have from God severely worded their commands to add this sanction I am the Lord and as applied to Christ St Paul does say I serve the Lord Christ. A servant is the necessary relative to a Lord and truly doing what he doth command was the use he assigned of all that power he had given him teaching them to observe whatever I have commanded And truly if those Scriptures be remembred which secure his Autority thus let us know that Power was the reward of his sufferings and he endured them partly for the Title 's sake therefore says as much and Heb. 12. 2. For the joy that was set before him he endured the cross despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of God did all this that he might gain that place or if that be not plain enough then this is most express Rom. 14. 9. For to this end Christ both died and rose and revived that he might be Lord both of the dead and the living Verse 8. That whether we live we live unto the Lord and whether we die we die unto the Lord that is that both our life might be consecrated to him our lives spent on his service and our deaths be at his command and this was part of the end of his death And then I appeal to your own hearts for what end think you he did so desire and obtain this power Do you think when he was set at the right hand of God he was exalted onely to a name that by all those sufferings he did acquire but a bare title to be call'd Lord of Lords as he is call'd Rev. 19. 16. but neither to look after our obedience nor indeed to set us any law to obey as some would have it Was this power so dear to him as that he would suffer all those torments to compass it and yet when he hath it that it should be so little regarded by him as to suffer us to neglect contemn it to go on in a continued course of disobedience to all his precepts to rebel against his Power never submit our appetites to it but let every lording passion fly in his face every lust defy his Autority let us be proud against that Lord be higher than our duties and all the temper of virtues and let every ebullition of our proud wrath trample on a statute back'd with hell-fire yea and so believe that his death should procure us an impunity in doing this What a wretched mistake is this to think his bloud which purchased him a power to command us should purchase us a leave to disobey him This is to make Christ's bloud divided against it self and to make it spill and dash it self That we should go on in a course of iniquity or allow our selves some peevish vices and stop our own consciences and a Preacher's mouth with saying Christ died for us when as 't is clear he died that he might be Lord that is that we might live and dy to him do both at his command and canst thou think that that death will excuse thee for not obeying which was undertaken for that very end that thou mightest obey him Christ died to be thy Lord and thou wilt have that death a plea for thee when thou obeyest sin and the Devil his greatest Enimies His Cross was his very Ensign and Standard against these Enimies his Passion was his grappling with them and his death his Victory And yet thou dost again submit to their authority becomest a subject to their power and settest them Lord over thee and fetchest the justification of this thy defection from that death and victory and that is the same thing as to make them of no autority nor power yea the captivity and ruin of those Enimies to be the reason of thy obeying them to excuse thy disservice to Christ by saying he is thy Lord and for thy rebellion and waging war with him pretend thou dost it under his own standard No certainly his Title claims Obedience and does assure thee thou must serve This is the first thing what thou must do The second what thou maist expect from it is easily discover'd that is wages For he will recompence every man according to his deeds Rom. 2. 6. To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honor and immortality eternal life v. 7. And glory honor and peace to every man that doth good v. 10. For he is the Lord of glory the Prince of peace and Lord of life the Scripture saith in a word to sum up both what his Title doth require and what we may expect from it it saith Service and it saith Wages and both are set down in that to the Heb. 5. 9. He is the Author of eternal salvation to all them that obey him and both here are applied to him who does in earnest owne the relation to this Title and can say in truth My Lord the next part and first of the applying what it does require Service as it is the assuring of performance My Lord. And truly had we not entred any voluntary obligation and had we not contracted formally to take him for our Lord and not onely owned all that the relation does import to be due from us but engaged also to render it yet he is to us both 1. By an Original right he made us and there is not a workman in the world hath so much right to require the uses of his own handy-work to dispose of that same utensil which himself shap'd or fram'd as the Lord hath to require our service Did I perchance furnish the Lord with some materials for my self or did I find any piece towards my making contribute any least thing to my being then let me claim somthing for my share in my self and by the rule of fellowship with God have some use of my self to my self and as to that let him not be my Lord. But there is no such thing he called me into being out of the infinite resistance of vacuity and nothing He gave me body soul and every power and faculty and he upholds every motion and inclination of those faculties and gives me opportunities and objects for them There is no considerability of any thing within me is from my self but entirely owes its being from his store and comes from the Almighty and then what least imaginable pretence or plea can I have why every motion and inclination both of soul and body should not be bound to look towards his service and every action and thought acknowledge him My Lord. And 2. By purchased Title He did redeem us from the service of those cruel Lords Sin and the Devil whose service is unreasonable and unmanly slavery and whose wages is eternal ruin and he bought the right and title to our service
accordingly you may see many that otherwise are not very apt to sin yet then they will offer at little Atheistical beginnings of it they will endeavor because they will be in the fashion of the company And this is one of Satans advantageous seasons when as we see if there be but one by of a sober and discreet virtue that dares speak meek reason or dares when they do swill their Souls in filthy folly of one or other sort or are loud in the rants of vice by disliking gestures let them know that such unclean entertainments are detestable to a sober person or withdraws abruptly by such a departure shews that he scorns to stay to behold or hear such impurities this often does not onely hinder those beginners take them off that would have bin dabbling but does somtimes a little damp the progress of the most professed Sinner It is a bridle to his neck he will not march so furiously in his carrier of oaths or of obsceness or whatever other sin he does not indulge himself so full a licence and so by this means God gets some respect and Religion a little repute when they see it hath some followers and God hath some that will not see him dishonored And truly my Brethren do but consider what a storm it does use to raise in any man to hear an absent Friend or Relation abused or evil spoken of If we be in any degree of them the world calls Gentlemen then nothing but the sword must make return to such a word nothing but life and soul can answer nothing but bloud and death repair and 't is this resentment we in whose company the disgrace was offer'd think ourselves more concern'd than that Friend that was the subject of And then methinks you should not think it strange if there be some that do believe they have so much relation to God and that he hath approv'd himself to be so much their Friend they cannot but take it unkindly and speak when they hear him affronted and see him dishonor'd And methinks too it should not be unreasonable to expect this from all of us to whom God hath bin Friend enough that we should do this handsom this noble glorious thing as to right the Lord in companies where we are and to credit our Maker and not let vice exalt over him where we shall chance to be Truly my Brethren this is the least that God hath reason to expect from us even the reproof of our words that of our open holy lives by which as the wicked say in Wisdom 2. 12. The Righteous do reprove their thoughts and upbraid them with their offending the Law and object to their infamy their transgressions This is strictly and to an high degree required by God of every one of us that we may have influence upon others to be open and exemplary to shine before men that they may see our good works and glorify our Father which is in Heaven which was the reason of the command and the end of our very being Now to God the Father c. SERMON XV. OF THE ACCEPTED TIME the Day of Salvation 2 Cor. 6. 2. Behold now is the accepted time behold now is the day of Salvation THE words foregoing of which these I now read are the application run thus for he saith I have heard thee in a time accepted and in the day of salvation I have succour'd thee which God saying in the 49th of Isaiah 8. signified as in the type in relation to the Church and Nation of the Jews he had days of Salvation fit and proper seasons to deliver them from their affictions and calamities for Salvation often signifies that had his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tempus placentiae time of grace wherein he was well pleas'd to hearken to their cries and wants and in those he heard and succour'd them so in the Antitype and in relation of the Christian Church and all the Members of it for of these St Paul here useth it expresly he hath his accepted time days not onely for such temporal deliverance of which some will have the Salvation meant here but much more for Salvation Eternal But then as Kings when they publish acts of grace and oblivion do not onely set appoint but limit out the time for Subjects to come in submit and return to their fidelity and allegiance which if once elapst they are incapable of benefit by any such grant cannot at least plead it so it seems God does too and it is not sure that whosoever at what time soever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved Rom. 10. 13. but as King David told him they shall make their praier to thee in a time of finding Psalm 32. 6. in a time when his good pleasure it the very word here Psalm 69. 13. and this time St Paul restrains here to the present now meaning not onely in the general now in times while they are under grace are in the Covenant of it and when the day-spring from on high hath visited them and while they had the Gospel that word of this Salvation for whilest men live under this gracious dispensation they may let the opportunities of laying hold of it go by them while the light of the Gospel shines upon them yet the day of Salvation may be quite gon out of which St Paul here seems sollicitous for his Corinthians who had receiv'd the Gospel least yet they may have receiv'd that grace in vain and the Salvation should escape them To prevent which saith he there is no other sure way but by seizing on the present Behold now is the accepted time now is the day of salvation so that the words afford these subjects of discourse 1. There is a time wherein we may be certainly accepted if we come to God and there is a day of Salvation offer'd us 2. This time is limited 't is a day of salvation consequently we may possibly outstand it and may suffer it to pass irrecoverably 3. The onely sure way to prevent that is to lay hold on the present to begin now 1. There is a time wherein we may be certainly accepted if we come to God and there is a day of Salvation offer'd us The Text does make sufficient proof of this for if the accepted time be now and if now be the day of salvation then there is such a day and time which our Lord commanded to be preached to every humane creature in the world Indeed the preaching of the Gospel is nothing else but publishing this truth the Gospel being but a tender of Salvation upon pardon of whatever we have don amiss and the accepting us whenever we repent and truly turn to God believing on him and resolving to continue faithful to him and all this assur'd to us by Covenant such as God himself both made and ratified in the bloud of Christ and to prevent exception since he gave command to have this Gospel preach'd
those few that allow it not Sardanapalus and yet place the Prophet Jonah not long after him must be put hard to it to find out then so great a City as he tells you Niniveh then was and so great a King of it But he altho as men of his vice possibly are apt to be somtimes a little tender hearted easily affected on some sudden passionate occasion yet that being as it mostly is a fit of penitence returning to his old abominable practices after a short Reign his Kingdom was quite rent in pieces and the City utterly destroied himself beginning it He had before inflam'd it with his lust then he set fire to it and left nothing after him besides his Epitaph a greater and more lively character of sensuality than his whole life had bin and so that City tho it did lay hold upon the time of acceptance seize the day of salvation yet it quickly let it go again And as for persons I shall need to give one onely instance since 't is of more than six hundred thousand men and each in their personal capacity All whom Males able to go out to war God brought from Egypt with a mighty hand on purpose to conduct them to the Land of Canaan and possess them of it every one of whom saw more of God's immediat presence and his Glory had more express miracle of grace and favor and forbearance also than yet ever any People in the world had yet these had their time of favor limited had their day for God's performance which time while it lasted he endur'd their provocations of the highest measure even when they made another God to lead them But when that day came and they were at the point to enter and he bid them go in and possess it and they would not make use of it being scar'd with news of Enimies taller than they and so distrusting God's help they repin'd they had not staid in Egypt rather then as I live saith God because all these men have seen my glory and my miracles which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness and have temted me now these ten times surely they shall not come into the Land concerning which I sware to make you dwell therein neither shall any of them that provoked me see it Num. 14. 22 23 30. And of all that number but two onely who provoked him not Joshua and Caleb enter'd it This very instance and the Prophe Davids application of it also Psalm 95. to the Jews of his time that they would not be as their Forefathers stubborn and untractable to all God's methods standing out against them till it was too late but that to day if they would hear his voice they should be flexible and plaint this I say St Paul in the third chapter to the Hebrews urges to the Christians that they should also be so while 't is called to day while that their â—odie their day that was allow'd them lasted least they should outstand it and they also be excluded from the everlasting rest in the Heavenly Canaan And he presses further in the sixth how God do's finally withdraw his grace from those who in the day of it resist it and makes no more tender of it to them and illustrates this in the twelfth chapter with the history of Esau who to satisfy a present appetite did sell his Birth-right and the Privileges and the Blessing that of course attended it and altho he sought it afterwards he was rejected and â—ound no place of Repentance nothing that could make his Father change his mind altho he sought it carefully with tears and with the Parable of ground which if when 't is long water'd with the dew of Heaven and hath drank that fatness which the clouds drop down it shall bring forth onely briars or continue barren 't is no longer cultivated but rejected reprobated no more fit to be water'd with the shours of Heaven but burnt up with scorching heat Our Savior's Parable about the Fig-tree too hath the same Apologue which if with three years husbandry it bear no fruit and in the fourth too being manur'd more expresly it fail also cut it down then least it cumber the ground Whether the term that limits this accepted time be meted out by years and months so much time I will bear with them and expect as the instance of the old world gives some color for or whether it be not set to days and hours but measured by their reckonings of iniquity when they have made up and filled the Epha their time shall be out as the Amorites example and the Israelites in the wilderness would evince or whether both ways as Jerusalems and Ninivehs seem plain for 't is not for me to determin Each or any of them does assure us that the time is bounded beyond which there is no term no day left if we do outstand that O that thou hadst known in this day saith he but that being expir'd then is the hour of darkness now they are hidden from thine eyes nor are they onely hidden from their eyes but God also shuts their eyes sends them the spirit of slumber on them that they may not see not perceive not understand nor be converted least he heal them The Predeterminations that do limit out the Age of mens Repentance seem much more unalterable than those are that bound the Age of Life Good Hezekiahs tears and praiers got him fifteen years accession to his days time did go back for him and he liv'd part of his Age over again But when the life that is allotted for the possibilities of Repentance is spun out when the day of God's expectation is once gon we have no instance to produce that he will call back or protract it to us death may let go its hold but obstinacy in sin does not marble Monuments have heard and bin obedient yielded up but the stony hard heart will not And indeed to be innexible arises from the very nature of that course and progress in sin that does weary out God's forbearances outstands all his offers wasts the whole day of salvation For to pass by the instances of the old World and of the Amorites of which we have no more account but that these Amorites were given up so to unnatural sin and uncleanesses that the Land spued them out in the other that the Daughters of men had effac'd all the thoughts and knowledg of God out of the very Sons of God that the wickedness of man was so great that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was onely evil continually But in Israel whom St Paul represents to us for caution thus their state was they had set their hearts on present satisfactions so eagerly and impotently that whenever there was the least want of any they repin'd that God had brought them out of Egypt that their Jehovah should be at that distance from them as in Heaven and their sustenance
mercy are upon their death-bed gasping the accepted time and the day of Salvation just ending there is no doubt his will his appetite and resolutions to it are immortal and 't is therefore also fit his worm should be so and there is no security against this but by laying hold upon the present for behold now is the day of Salvation the last thing I am to speak to I shall not press this from the common place of the uncertainty of this life of which whatever we have past as death possesses so the succeeding moments Judgment may lay hold of we are sure of nothing but the present But if we had not onely the assurances which constancy of health and strength of constitution give but a lease of years as Hezekiah had from God himself we have no assurance of the time of acceptance Many men tho they live fast furiously spend the stock of Nature sin yet with a much fiercer carrier as the horse in Jeremies expression rusheth into the battel and they spend the day of Salvation faster Men may deceive themselves by reckoning to repent hereafter We cannot conclude with reason we have space left for it while our life lasts since those opportunities are not always and perchance not frequently commensurate with the life or being of a profligate man or Nation and when they end together 't is not that their whole life or being was allotted to those opportunities but when these are forfeit or extinguisht God cuts off the other Thus indeed he did destroy the old World when the one hundred and twenty years for their repentance were expir'd and several men are cut down out of time as Job saith c. 22. 16. men that shall not live out half their days as David saith of the deceitful and the bloudy men that drink their own Bloud when they thirst for others men whose time for their acceptance went not out while their life lasted because when it went out God cut off their life But 't is not always so Not first in Nations four Generations filled the measure of the Amorites iniquity but five were past before destruction made approaches to them Judah had its sentence of excision in Manasses reign but its execution was suspended till the time of Zedekiah near a hundred years And again the things that belonged to the peace of Jerusalem were taken from them when they kill'd the Peace-maker their day of Salvation too was darkned at Christ's Crucifixion but the City liv'd yet fourty years Nor secondly in persons Pharaohs time was out at the sixth plague but God at once upheld and hardned him until the tenth was past And those six hundred thousand that were doom'd for murmuring were afterwards near fourty years in dying liv'd so long to rebel against more miracles Now all that time the state of all these whether men or Nations was irreversible as to the doom past upon them Did we know indeed our measure of iniquity how many crimes we wanted to fill up our Ephah make an end at once of sin and the day of Salvation also 't were no wonder if we did not think it necessary now to seize the opportunity having yet so many sins good But there are commissions of great bulk few of which will do it the men that sin post soon arrive at the end of the race that is set before them There are whose life is nothing else but perpetual variety of wickedness and they will quickly make up their account the constancy inflames the reckoning and the sum does advance mightily how know they but the next of any of these greater magnitudes may fill up the score To such now onely may be the accepted time However 1. They that whenever such considerations are suggested will not at that present even now resolve to attemt to break their sins off by repentance it is plain they are intangled in them love them so that they resolve expresly not to part with them yet tho they are made to consider by the course of all God's several workings for them and their own provokings that they may have wasted almost all the stock both of God's methods and their own opportunities and will venture doing it completely rather than forego their darling customs Now such a love to sin as it works induration as I shew'd you hardens mens hearts so it does betray it and evince they are in some degree so Such a resolution is sufficient not onely to provoke God to contract the measure and cut short the account Rom. 9. 28. but it self bids fair to fill it up The present therefore must be their accepted time and they do all that in them is to put out the day of Salvation who do thus put off from them this Now. 2. Of this that hath bin said whether Almighty God be now about to make the application either as to what concerns the Nation or particular persons is not may part to determine or debate It is not for us to know the times and seasons which the Father hath put in his own power Many seem indeed to have uncomfortable expectations great fears both as to the Nation and I must say they have reason we may justly fear those judgments which we have deserv'd most justly and provok'd most heinously wilfully impudently and great fears too as to Religion nor without good cause yet not because those men that earnestly desire a change talk of it as at hand with comfort False ungracious treacherous Sons to their poor Mother who do what they can to blast and weaken her that they may have color to forsake her But this they have talkt oft with great confidence and he that sits in Heaven always laught their confidence to scorn we hope he will do so to the world's end Sure I am there could be no fear of what they expect and wish so from comparison of the Religions or if we would answer our Religion by our living But there is great cause of fear we may provoke God to desert that reformation we deform so with our manners and put out the Worship we unhallow And inded a flood of Atheism and contemt of all Religion and Virtue or the having a Religion that is next to that itself looks like just dereliction of them who would not let God be in their thoughts nor Piety or Morality in their actions Now if this be so and by consequent these fears be reasonable just there can be no prevention but by closing now with the proposal of my Text by laying hold upon the present Any least forbearance may make our state irreversible and does certainly provoke God towards it whereas if now when God shews us the rod we would break off our sins reform our selves live up to our Religion there would be no cause to fear destruction since God's work were don whatever shall happen all would work together for the everlasting good of those that did so This if earnest
intention if there be no other unhandsom circumstance will serve to make the common actions of life innocent and not blameable but without the Religious intention the action cannot be accounted duty and upon this score 't is in Religion reprovable Among all creatures here below man is the only one that hath a faculty to chuse his ends consequently that can direct his intentions Things without life are carried only to the makers ends not to their own the stone however by its own weight it hurry downwards to it's sphere of rest and as it does approch goes faster still and faster as if there were it's inclination and that inclination were more sensible as it came nearer and so increas'd upon it yet 't is determined to it's line 't is bound to move by plummet and cannot possibly turn one point aside not make the smallest crook to meet a nearer knob of earth that stretches up it self to give it soonest rest and all it's hast is only weight not inclination not choice but natural violence as it were Things that have life and sense have inded aims and these do prosecute those aims with eager strong intentions but they also are limited determinantur ad unum as the Schools speak their end is set to them nor do they pick and chuse upon comparative considerations that which strikes their present sense with strongest relish that they necessarily fix upon and therefore Buridan tells us of an Asse that was so justly plac'd between two bottles of hay of so exact and equal sent and goodness that neither of them being able to determine his appetite to the one more then the other his inclinations stood divided equally betwixt those equal invitations and being not able to preferr nor consequently chuse any he wanted both and two bottles sterv'd him whom one would have preserved But 't is not so with man for as there is as great a difference betwixt his ends as does distinguish Hell from heaven in obedience on one side and transgression on the other life and death eternity of blessedness and immortality of misery are set before his choice one of these everlastingnesses sets out it self before every action of his that is not merely indifferent and offers it self to be his aim So also he hath as it mostly proves a most unhappy privilege that he can chuse his ruine and as by the assistance of that Grace which God does not deny he can intend those actions that look directly towards happiness so he can by the power of his will prosecute his own destruction Now then as for him that can thus chuse his ends that can direct his intentions either to good or evill to limit this his freedom to the choice of evill would be most unreasonable God knows 't is too much so for him to let the lawful delights of his senses according to their degrees and strengths fix and determine much of his intentions and to employ his soul to spring and start such pleasures and let his appetite still hover over them and the fairest quarry alwaies engage it in the pursuit tyed to that object that does strike his sense with greatest vigor of temtation for this is to live merely a life of sense 't is to degenerate from man into the rank of lower creatures for just these are their aims and so they make their choices and did God place an immortal and Angelic Spirit in a man only to make him be a more sagacious brute But then much more then brutish would it be when as two objects court his choice as different as Hell and Heaven in desireableness for him to chuse the terrors to pursue that which carries with it inconsistency to all his happinesses The beasts cannot do so they cannot chuse the worse but man will preferr misery and make his choice of wretchedness And truly thither every action of man does tend that is not otherwise level'd and directed by honest intentions It is the meaning that distinguisheth the deeds and as the mind intends so it alters the exterior action into good bad or indifferent If I do take a walk to the next town whether I do it for fresh aire and recreation or else to make a charitable Christian visit so to relieve or help a weak sick soul or go to meet companions of my sin and to appoint or execute a vice the walk is still the same but those so different ends do make the action tend to consequences of an eternal difference Nay the aim hath so great an influence upon the deeds that tho the action be an action of a vertue or Religion yet according to the quality of the mans meaning that performs it so it may either lose its vertue or transmute into a vice and the very Religion become sin The first part of this chapter is all demonstration of this 't is lawful without question by all good humane means to seek to advance my reputation but he that does endeavor it by his devotions tho his life be all strictnesses and he do spend himself in alms and fasts and praiers by all these holy practices he does not purchase the reward of piety but only praise of men so that all that Religion ceaseth to be holy and if it mainly aim at that becomes hypocrisy And all the reason in the world it should be so for he that merely in order to his ends does chuse and practise such means 't is certain he does love those means no otherwise then as they serve that end and therefore tho the means be vertue he does not love the Religion of that vertue but the convenience of it as it does contribute to his aim Now if it be convenient to an ill end 't is an evill convenience and so in chusing vertue he chuseth evill if but to an indifferent end 't is an indifferent convenience and so the Religion becomes insipid and indifferent and tho there be honesty in the thing yet 't is by accident as to his mind 't is not for that he chuses it but for its usefulness and ordinarily 't is not that males it convenient or useful for ends or if it do yet the appearance of it is as good as it is it self and so 't is clear howsoever he chuse vertue yet the vertue hath no interest in his performance not in his intention nor election Thus he that is charitable to one in distress on purpose to oblige him afterwards for some designs he hath in using him he does contract not give and 't is not alms but commerce 't is rather earnest of wages then a liberality She that abstains from vicious and suspected company and observes strictest chastity merely to avoid an ill name or worse consequences does not fear God but shame and being undone and 't is not vertue this but care of reputation she 's no more chast as to the Religion of it then she that does abstain from places suspected of diseases that would spoil her face
as the Swine were drowned on the one side so two men possessed with Devils were recovered and that Christ had don this since his coming thither Hereupon the whole City as being very much concern'd in that which had happen'd came out to meet and see Jesus who did such Miracles and instead of being wrought on by his cure on the men to desire his continuance among them the consideration of the loss of their Swine made them desire and beseech him that he would depart out of their Coasts Behold an equal Enemy to Christ and all his Miracles an Enemy that was too hard for them even a little worldly advantage The Senate of Hell hath no project like this to keep out Religion as this making Religion thwart an interest rather no Christianity than abate gain or greatness or any earthly satisfaction rather the Swine than Christ himself But we have a worse instance yet than this and more comprehensive as to our purpose An evil eie could not endure to see the Son of God alive and when the second Person of the Godhead was to be betraied and crucified the Devil had no other passion to employ on that design but these same discontent and envy and a greedy mind and all these but at little trifles We find that Judas bore the purse and S. John saies that he robb'd it John 12. 6. was deceitful in the discharge of his office of relieving the poor Now it happen'd that a woman spent a box of precious ointment upon Christ at which Judas was discontent and envied it his Master Matt. 16. 8. Mark 14. 4 5. he murmur'd and had indignation at it saies the places his evil eie could not endure to see such a sum should pass his purse of which yet he could have purloin'd but very little for the sum was not great and missing that for very envy for it was immediatly upon it Mark 14. 10. his own covetous heart by the Devil's suggestion put him upon his project of gain to make some advantage by delivering Christ to the hands of the Jews and upon his consenting to this suggestion the Devil was permitted by God to have this power over him to enter into him John 13. 2. and doing so incited him to make a bargain with the Rulers of the Sanhedrim their great Council and with their Officers to deliver up Jesus unto them and he yielding to his incitation and after Christ's talking with him and telling him distinctly of it and the sin and danger attending it Mark 14. 21. and his not yet relenting the Devil entred into him again more forcibly than before John 13. 27. hurried him to the speedy execution and he went and covenanted with them that he should have thirty shekels Matt. 26. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luke 22. 6. and thanked them altho it were a low and a vile sum as could be the price of a slave Exod. 21. 32. yet Judas thankt them for the offer so covetous he was and glad of an occasion to get mony We see the Devil enters at an evil eie if that be envious Satan gets in strait at that eie himself in person and he possesses hearts set upon gain and then no wonder if the Kingdom of darkness be in such an heart when as the King of Hell the Devil dwells there Satan entred into him and when he was there what design hath he to fill an heart with nothing but that of getting mony this is effect enough of his possession The Devil hath don work enough in such a heart as he is entred into really if he but make it set upon desire of mony tho it be but a trifle of gain but three pounds fifteen shillings But Lord God what will not a worldly heart adventure on what will not a mind undertake which envies at another and is greedy for it self When such an one did set Judas upon betraying Christ for almost nothing one vanity one sport one dress one sin's engagement to damnation costs a man more than what an envious covetous Soul did sell the Son of God the Ransom of Mankind the price of all the Souls in the whole world for yea and was thankful for it too so low so fordid and so base a soul it is that loves increase And now my Brethren there is no need that I should tell you that you must bring no evil eie to the Lord's Table to see his body crucified and his bloud poured out in the Sacrament no discontents no murmurs no envious intentions nor covetous desires must come near that for they were these betraied him If such a soul come thither Judas is there again the things that sold him come again to tear his body and to shed his bloud And do you think that such shall be receiv'd and entertain'd by Christ Oh no the bread of the Sacrament will be their Sop and not Christ but the Devil enters into such Oh sure no heart so fit to come to that same feast as the charitable those that feed him he will feed and I could tell you charity the offertory I mean an offering for the poor was used as an essential part of the Sacrament and was a service of so high esteem that preparation was requir'd for it as for the Sacrament and by the first Councils men guilty of gross sins might not offer their charities would not be receiv'd by the Church Yea and there was an excommunication from this duty and to be excluded from bringing their gifts for the poor was a greater censure than to be shut out from the Sermon or the Praiers But these are things our world do's not take notice of nor will understand to be censur'd from liberality and to be excommunicate from bounty and that receiving of mens alms should be a grace and an indulgence to the givers are talks that men now have no notions of nor much care for But let them be sure no time so proper for our relieving the members of Christ as when the body of Christ is relieving us to life eternal no occasion more urgent for us to contribute towards the clothing of the naked body of Christ than when Christ is clothing us with the crimson glorious garment of his Righteousness no opportunity more pressing than this to visit his sick members than when he administring to us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nothing do's preach Charity like a Sacrament nor no Sacrament more than this at the time of his Incarnation when the Son of God did so exhaust himself for us as to emty immensity of God-head into a span of weak poor helpless flesh to become really one of the meanest objects of compassion one that had no revenue in the world but Charity for while he liv'd he had not an hole to put his head in nor when he died a grave to put his body in but as thro all his life his sustenance was alms so at his death his burying place was alms too and yet this was
still proves them in the right But I shall do it from a plain notorious effect nor do I know what else can be more seasonable than while some men seem to stand candidates for sufferings and choose Sedition and Schism rather than lose the reputation of not being afflicted with their Party and while others plead the merits of affliction and Trumpet out their having suffered as a pretence for the ambition and the covetousness the luxuries and intemperance and all the other vices of prosperity which their late sufferings have before hand expiated while it is thus on each side to give both a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereby to judg the Case which my Text here presents for He that hath suffered in the Flesh hath ceased from Sin The words make a single Proposition and therefore cannot well be taken asunder nor indeed need they the Terms being very well understood The Subject every one is willing to assume to himself no one I believe that hears me but will say he hath suffer'd in the Flesh. Therefore we have no more to do but to see whether the other Term agree as universally which certainly it must if our Proposition here hold good if He that hath suffered in the Flesh hath ceased from Sin Therefore in order to this I shall offer at Three things First Discourse of the truth of the Proposition in General and see if we can discern how necessary and how effectual this Instrument of Reformation is whether it be such as may build a confidence of asserting That He who hath suffered hath ceased from Sin Secondly Because discoursing in General is not so practical and useful I shall endeavour to discover in particular By what Artifice of method the Flesh engageth men into courses of sin and how it works them up to the height of it and then see how sufferings blast that method and make the Arts of the flesh either unpracticable or too weak Thirdly I will attempt to view our own concerns in all this propose to consideration Whether this method hath had this effect on us or Whether indeed it be as easie to confute God's Word as to break his Commandments and contrive that his truth shall no more stand than his will does but notwithstanding Scriptures bold affirmation here yet they that have suffered have not ceas'd from Sin and if so then to propose the danger and infer Christ's Application that at least we begin to cease and sin no more least a worse thing come unto us I. He that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from Sin None but He and He certainly When it appear'd that Eden had too much of Garden for innocence to dwell in and although man were made upright yet amidst such delights he could not be so a whole day but of the many inventions he found out the first was to destroy himself immediately and under the shadow of the Tree of life he wrought out death and made the Walks of Paradise lead him towards Hell God saw himself concern'd to take another course He sets a guard of fire about Eden about the place of pleasure as well as in the place of torments and there was as much need of flame to keep man out of Paradise as flame to fright him from Hell He makes the Earth not spring with Garden any more but bring forth thorns and briars that might scratch and tear man in the pursuit of things below which if the Soul should cleave and cling unto the Earth might gore and stab it in the embrace Nothing but sufferings will do us good The Earth was most accurst to man when it was all Paradise nothing but the malediction could make it safe and bless it to us our happiness must be inflicted executed on us and we must be goaded into blessedness and therefore God hath put afflictions into every dispensation since the first Among the Jews sin did receive immediate punishment by the tenour of the Covenant and though the retributions of our Covenant be set at distance as far remote as Hell yet Christ has drest his very promises in sackcloth and in ashes tears and trouble when he would recompence heroick vertue he says it shall receive an hundred fold with persecution Mar. x. 30. and he does grant us sufferings To you it is given in the behalf of Christ to suffer Phil. 1. 29. so that the sting of the Serpent is now the tempter his bitings and his venom moving us to obedience as much as his lying tongue did our first Parents to rebellion and when he does fulfill Gods threat and wound the heel he only drives us faster away from him and makes us haste to him that flies to meet us with healing under his wings This method God hath always us'd and the experience confirm'd by the blood of all Ages even from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of this season of all the Prophets that went before us and the Apostles that came after them as if those were men inspir'd for ruine and what ever Judgment they denounc'd it was their own burden and as if these were men chosen out for and delegated to Persecution men appointed unto death as St. Paul expounds their Office none escap'd and the next succeeding times of Primitive Christianity were but Centuries of Martyrdom so many years of Fire and Faggot and worse tortures This method hath not past by any Grandeur but of those great ones that have been eminently good their afflictions have vy'd with their Majesty the Calendar hath had as much share of them as the Chronicle the Martyrology as the Annals and their blood not their Purple put them in the Rubrick Gods Furnace made Crowns splendid gave them a Majesty of shine and an Imperial glory and so all our Crowns indeed must be prepar'd in the Furnace he that told us we must be Baptiz'd with fire saw there was something in us that the Christians water will not cleanse Baptism may wash sullays but not dross away That must be washt in flame and nothing else but fire will take away our base alloy And it cannot be otherwise never was there any other way to Glory for when God was to bring many Sons to glory he sanctified the very Captain of our salvation through sufferings Heb. ii 10. Who though he were a Son and that the Son of God yet learned he obedience by the things that he suffered Heb. v. v. 8. This therefore is the only and most effectual way of teaching it when God speaks in Judgment and indeed he counts all other of his Voices but as silence in comparison of this and though he gave his Law in Thunder and sent his Prophets dayly to denounce wrath to transgression yet he reckons of all this as if he had said nothing till he speak Plagues and command afflictions Psal. l. 21. after a Catalogue of sins he tells the man these things hast thou done and I kept silence though my Law
Riotous that Eats to eat eats to hunger and provoke not satisfie how will he content himself there where their happiness is they shall neither hunger nor thirst or the Incendiaries that love to set all on fire what should they do there where there are no flames but such as kindle Seraphins so that flesh and blood not only shall not but cannot enjoy the Kingdom of God And why then should they long after or think of it Nay I would this unhappy Age and an unlucky axiome of Aristotles did not convince that they do think there are no such things Sensual pleasures are corruptive of Principles saith he and indeed where Damnation is the conclusion 't is a much quieter and more easie thing for Men of Wit and Understanding to deny the Principles than granting them to lie under the torture of being liable to such an inference they therefore that resolve to love this Life and all the sinful pleasures of it at the next step resolve there is no other Life And now this pamper'd and puft Flesh is got into the Psalmists Chair the Chair of Scorners and 't is one of the Luxuries of their life to scoff at them who are so foolish as to be Religious and to deny their flesh its present appetites and pleasures on such thin after-hopes here their Wit also is an Epicure and feasts and triumphs dictates and professes in that Chair 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Chair of Pestilences as the LXX translate and very truly for such men shed a Sphere of Contagion about them and their Discourses are effluvia of the Plague and the breath of Pestilence But how to get Flesh down out of this Chair that 's the difficulty yet that my Text will tell us for all this progress of the Flesh is trasht and checkt by Sufferings for He that hath suffered hath ceast from Sin Which how I will briefly shew The Fleshes first Art was by immersing it self in the full Lawful use of Pleasures and by consequence in the immoderate to prevail with the Soul to find a gust in them and from a continued enjoyment to conclude them necessary and so from the importunities of a perpetual temper and an accustomed satisfaction to think of nothing else in this life Now it is plain Affliction made this Art unpracticable for that it did do so was every ones complaint it rob'd them of the immoderate and even of the lawful use of Pleasures it took off those customary Delights by which the mind was habituated and glued to them by not allowing them and made them so far from being necessary that they were not acquirable Thus by denying us even the Lawful use of them it stabs the Flesh in its first onset Indeed it does that for us which every man in every state of life in his most plentiful prosperity must sometimes do for himself that is Deny himself what he desires and might enjoy without offence Which he that does not do but constantly gives his Appetite every sort and degree of lawful thing it asks does teach it to crave on and be importunate and insolent and not endure to be resisted when it did always find him to be so obsequious to it If David never checkt Adonijah did not at any time displease him saying Why hast thou done so he easily takes confidence to say I will be King and step into the Throne 1 Kings i. 5 6. But he that mortifies sometimes that does acquaint even his most innocent desires with a denial how can unlawful ones assault him For can my Appetite hope to betray me into superfluities who have taught my self not to wish for necessaries Will he be tempted with Excesses or hearken to the invitations of Luxury that will not hear his bowels when they croak for bread Or he gape for intemperate satisfactions who will not let thirst call but shuts his mouth against it Why should he covet more that hath learnt to give away and want that which he hath Now Sufferings inflict this temper on us and acquaint us with the necessity of all this and in a while with the liking of it teach us Content without Lawful Delights yea by degrees make that content appear better than an assured enjoyment For were I offered the choice either of an uninterrupted Health or of a certain Cure in all Diseases sure I had rather never need a Potion than drink Antidote and Health it self And even so the lawful good things of this Life are at the best but Remedies and Reliefs never good but upon supposition Therefore while Affliction taught us to want it hath destroyed this Art of the Flesh. As for the Second Then the lulling asleep all sense or thoughts of any Life hereafter neither minding the fear of one or hopes of the other Affliction surely met with this too For Sufferings bring both the hereafters to remembrance the Sad one while every Punishment was an Essay and tast of that which is prepared for those that live after the Flesh and the more insupportable our Fiery Tryal was the more it caution'd us to beware of that Fire which is never quenched And for the other Life surely when our Condition was such that if we lookt unto the Earth behold nothing but Darkness and dimness of Anguish and darkness as of the shadow of Death we could not choose but turn away our Eyes and lift them up to Heaven When the Soul is thrown down by Oppression it mounts by a resiliency and with the force of pressure is crush'd Upwards or if the Load be heavy so as to make it grovel and lie prostrate it is but prest into the posture of Devotion When she 's disseised of all turn'd out of every possession then she begins to think of an abiding City and eternal Mansions For the Soul that is restless when it sees nothing here below to stay upon but all is hurried from her roams about for some hold to rest on and being able in that case to find nothing but God there she does grasp and cling and when the storms splits all enjoyments and devours Friends which â—â—ke enjoyments comfortable all perish in one wrack then she sees she must catch at him that sits above the Water-Floods I told you out of Job Affliction did discover better than Revelation and in the dimness of Anguish we might see more than by Vision and truly of two Visions which our Saviour gave to his most intimate Apostles Peter James and John the one of Glory on Mount Tabor the other of Sufferings in Gethsemane shewing in the one Heaven and Himself transfigured a glimpse of beatifical Vision and in the other Hell transfigured and a sad Scene of all its Agonies he thought this a more concerning sight for when they fell asleep at both at his Transfiguration Luke ix 32. Peter and they that were with him were heavy with sleep yet he does not rouse them up to behold his Glory when they did awake
8. which if after all the Husbandmans methods of Care and Art it brings forth only thorns and briars it is rejected by him he will bestow no more labour on it but can hardly forbear cursing such an ill piece of ground and its end is to be burnt So we after Gods Husbandry of Afflictions when the Plowers plowed upon our backs and made long furrows and the Iron teeth of Oppressors as it were harrowed us if we bring forth only the fruits of the Flesh we are rejected reprobated God will bestow no more Arts on us we are not far from his curse and there remains only a fearful looking for of Judgment and fiery Indignation If any did continue refractory to the Rod sinn'd under and against Judgment and did commit with an high hand even while the Lords hand was stretch'd out against them what shall reform what can express their guilt To have beheld that tragical iniquity we read of Lyons where when the City was so visited with the Pestilence that scarce any were free that the Dead without a figure buried their dead falling down one upon another each being at once a Carcass and a grave the Soldiers of the Cittadel would daily issue forth and deflour Virgins now giving up the ghost defile Matrons even already dead committing with the dust warming the grave with sinful heats and coupling with the Plague and Death would not this have seemed the Landskip of Hell to us when they suffer and sin together Yet when a Church and State were on their death-beds Gods Tokens on them visited with the treasures of his Plagues and our selves sinking in that our Ruin if any went a whoring after their own flesh still fulfilling the lusts thereof and in the midst of Deaths searching for sins what was this but to do the same things whose story does affright us while the actions please and in this case what method will be useful do we think our selves of that generous kind that will do nothing by compulsion but will for kindness and though we would not be chained yet we will be drawn to Vertue by the cords of Love and now God hath shewn mercy on us we will return him service out of gratitude Truly I make no question but most of us have promised some such things to God how if he would but save us from our Enemies that we might serve him without fear that we would do it in holiness and Righteousness before him And if he would restore his opportunities of Worship how we would use them Thus we did labour to tempt God and draw him in to have compassion and this was Ephraims Imagination just I heard Ephraim bemoaning himself saith the Prophet as a Bullock unaccustomed to the yoke turn thou me and I shall be turned turn my Captivity and I will turn my life But this was as a Bullock unaccustomed to the yoke that did not like the straitness and pressure of it and would promise any thing to get it off thought it more easie to reform than bear Affliction But is this hopeful think you The Soldiers of Lyons that would ravish Death and break into the Grave for Lust it may be would have been modest and retired from the fair Palaces that are prepared to tempt and entertain that Vice Cold and insensible of all those heats that Health and Beauty kindle but remember it was the taking off Gods hand that hardened Pharaohs heart and a release from punishment was his Reprobation And as for those that were humbled under the Rod and when God had retrench'd from their enjoyments did put restraints upon themselves gave over sinning I have a word of Caution for them that they examine well and take a care it be a ceasing from sin like that in the Text a dying to it that they no longer live the rest of their time in the flesh to the lusts of men For if this Old Man be only cold and stiff not mortified by the calm and sunshine of Peace likely to be warm'd into a recovery if thou owe all thy Innocence to thy Pressure wert only plunder'd of thy sins and thy Vertue and Poverty hand in hand as they were born so they will die together thy Vices and Revenues come in at once What is this but to invite new Desolations which God in kindness must send to take away the opportunities and foments of our ruining sins 'T is true when God has wrought such most astonishing miracles of mercy for us when he did make Calamity contribute to our Happiness when we were Shipwrackt to the Haven and the Shore when Ruins did advance us and we fell upwards it is an hopeful argument God would not do such mighty works on purpose to undo them we have good ground of confidence that he will preserve his own mercies and will not throw away the issues of his goodness in which his bounty hath so great an interest and share But yet if we debauch Salvation and make it serve our undoing if we order these opportunities of mercy so that they only help us to fill up the measure of our sins if we teach Gods long-suffering only to work out our eternal sufferings these Mercies will prove very cruel to us and far from giving any colour for our hopes When the Prodigal was received into his Fathers house and arms had a Ring put on him and the fatted Calf killed for him if he should strait have invited the companions of his former Riot to that fatted Calf and joyn'd his Harlot to him with that Ring he had deserved then to be disinherited both from his Fathers house and pitty who would have had no farther entertainment nor no bowels for him To prevent such a fate let us make no relapses but quite cease from sin which if we do not a little Logick will draw an unhappy inference from this Text if he that hath suffered hath ceast from sin then he that hath not ceast from sinning hath not suffered and then what is all this that we have felt and so lain under What is it if it be not suffering If this be but preparative then what is the full Potion the Cup of Indignation when all his Vials shall be poured into it If such have been the beginnings of sufferings what shall the issues be If the morning dew of the day of punishment have been so full of blood what shall the Storm and Tempest be the deluge and inundation of Fury Take heed of making God relapse 't is in your power to prevent it your Reformation will be his preservative and Antidote That is the way to keep all whole to settle Government and Religion both at once to establish the Kings Throne and Christs For notwithstanding mens pretensions these Thrones are not at all inconsistent For that there must be no King but Christ that there cannot be a Kingdom here of this World because there is a Kingdom that is not of this World is such
I now described hath none of that hath no good wishes nothing else but hate is worse than a perpetual Pestilence Yet neither is this state so comfortless in respect of this life as not to have a Friend in the concernments of the Life to come none that hath so much kindness for my Soul as every man hath for his Enemies Beast which if he see fallen in a Ditch he will at least give notice that it may be help'd out thence No one that when a sin like to that Falling sickness in the Gospel and it is such indeed without a Parable is casting me into the water quenching my parts my Reason and the Immortal spark within me or throwing me into the Fire raising Lascivious heats within which after will break out into Hell fires none yet that will stretch out his hand to catch me or to pull me out None that does care to see me perish to Eternity or that values my Soul which yet did cost the Blood of God at a word speaking This is to be like Dives in the Flames to whom they would not lend the help of the tip of a finger or give the kindness of a drop of Water I am as it were on the other side the Gulf already Here is the use of Friendship the only noble one that 's worthy of that blessed quality When I have one that will be an assistant Conscience to me who when that within me sleeps or is benummed will watch over my actions will testifie them to my Face will be as faithful to me as the Conscience should be hold a Glass to my Soul shew me the stains and the proud tumours the foul Ulcers that are there and then will fret and rub or prick lance and corrode to cure those Tumours and do off those spots such an one is a familiar Angel Guardian is truly of that blessed Heavenly rank and onely less than the Friend in the Text the Person related to and my next Part. My Friends There are three things from which men use to take the measures of a Friend First From the good things he bestows on them He that thinks to keep friendship alive onely with Air that gives good words but parts with nothing that entertains onely with Garbs and Civilities is but the pageant of a Friend They that own having but one Soul and seem to clasp as if they would have but one Body too cannot keep such distinct and separate proprieties in other little things as not to have communication one from the other And Secondly The friendship of these benefits is rated by the measures of our need of them When Midas was ready to die for hunger his God was kinder to him in a little bread than in making all that he touch'd turn into Gold Great things engage but little where there is but little use of them And all these Thirdly Are endeared by the Affection they are given with Good turns done with design what need soever I have of them are hire and not friendship it is the kindness onely that obligeth the gift without the love does but upbraid and scorn my want Now to measure the Friend here in the Text by these were an impossible undertaking whose Friendship did exceed all bounds and measures I shall do no more towards it but read the words before my Text which were the occasion of it Greater love hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for his Friends and then it follows Ye are my Friends The token therefore of his Friendship the gift he gave them was his life rather that was the least he gave He gave his glory first that so he might be qualified to give his life for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phil. ii 7. He lessened himself from the condition of being Lord of all into that of a Servant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. ii 9. being diminished made lower meaner than his Creatures for the suffering of Death Now with the price of such Divine essential glory to buy onely a life rather onely a possibility of Death that after he might give that life for us and with his Death purchase us an immortal life is such a gift as no Romance of friendship ever fancied or did aim at We may have heard of two Companions that would die for one another that never quarrelled in their lives but for this who should suffer first to save the other and strave onely for Execution But for a Person of the Trinity to leave his Heaven to come down to us to dwell with Agonies that he might be at one with us and be tyed to the Cross that he might be united to us this is a friendship fit for Ecstasies of apprehension Of all the things that court thy kindness here below that spread snares and lay baits for thy friendship if any bid so fair so temptingly if any will give such a price in Gods name let it have thy love I shall not blame him that engageth his Affection there But sure Heaven cannot give a greater gift than this for what can God give greater than himself Yea I may say God could not give so much for he must be Man too to give his life and this saith he he gave for his Friends even in our stead who must have perish'd else eternally which intimates the second thing the need we had of this A need great as the gift necessity invincible that could break into Heaven rifle the Trinity to serve it self throw Death into those Regions of Immortality and which would not be satisfied but with the Blood of God And now is not the kindness and the condescension of Friendship in his expressions too when he saith greater love than this hath no man which was the third Endearment There never were such wounds of Love as those that tore this Heart never such meltings of Affection as dissolv'd this Lover into sweats of Blood There was no motive to all this but his meer love For all this he designed to us before we were and therefore sure before we were deserving And O our God! thou that from all Eternity didst lay Contrivances to give thy Life for us so to redeem and then to glorifie us what were we then that thou shouldst do this for us what were we then when we were not and yet that thou from the Abyss of Everlastingness shouldst think thoughts of such kindness to us and such blessedness for us who then were not and deserved nothing and who since we were have deserved nothing but Damnation And as there was no other motive to all this design but love so neither was there any thing but love in the fulfilling Look on your Saviour in the Garden and upon Mount Calvary and you shall find him there in as great Agonies of Affection as Torment and hanging down his head upon the Cross with languishments of kindness more than weakness His Arms stretched out and rack'd as if on purpose to the
that day appear against their Friends and Masters and prove their Adversaries to eternal Death Let others joy in Friends that Wine does get them such as have no qualification to endear them but this that they will not refuse to sin and to be sick with their Companions Men that do onely drink in their affections as full of friendship as of liquor and probably they do unload themselves of both at once part with their dearness and their drink together and alike I know not whether in be heats of mutual kindness that inflame these draughts and the desires of them so as if they did drink thirst but sure I am that these hot draughts begin the Lake of fire Let others please themselves in an affection that Carnality cements These are warm friendships I confess but Solomon will tell us whence they have their heat Her house saith he doth open into Hell and Brimstone kindles those libidinous flames There are strait bands fetters in those affections indeed for the same Wiseman says The Closets of that sinner are the Chambers of Death That none that go unto her return again or take hold of the paths of life it seems she is a friend that takes most irreversible dead hold she is not onely as insatiate but as inexotable as the Grave and the Eternal Chains of Fate are in those her Embraces But God keep us from making such strict Covenants with Death from being at friendship with Hell or in a word that I say all at once with any that are good Companions onely in sinâ—ing Such men having no virtue in themselves must needs hate it in others as being a reproach to them and therefore they are still besieging it using all arts and stratagems to undermine it and having nothing else to recommend them in mens affections but their managery of Vice no way to Merit but by serving iniquity they not onely comply with our own evil Inclinations that so they may be grateful and insinuate into us but they provoke too and inflame those tendencies that they may be more useful to us having no other means to work their ends And then such friends by the same reason must be false and treacherous and all that we declaim at and abhor in Enemies when that shall be the way to serve their ends because they have no Virtue to engage them to be otherwise And to be such is to be constant to their own designs their dispositions and usances These are the Pests of all Societies they speak and live infection and friendship with them is to couple with the Plague These do compleat and perfect what the Devil but began in Eden Nurse up Original sin chase inclination into appetite and habit suggest and raise desires and then feed them into Constitution and Nature In a word are a brood of those Serpents one of which was enough to destroy Paradise and Innocence 'T is true a man would think these were our Friends indeed that venture to Gehenna for us Alas they are but more familiar Devils work under Sathan to bring us to Torments and differ nothing from him but that they draw us into them and he inflicts them And when sinful contents come home in Ruine and pleasures die into Damnation then men will understand these treacherous loves and find such Friends are but projectours for the Devil then they will hate them as they do their own Damnation discerning these are but the kindnesses of Hell Nay it is possible I may slander that place in speaking so ill of it Dives will let us see there are affections of a kinder and more blessed strain in Hell Luke xvi from the twenty seventh Verse you find he did make truce with Torments that he might contrive and beg onely a message of Repentance for his Brethren he did not mind at all his own dire Agonies he minded so the reformation of his Friends Good God! when I reflect upon these pieties of the Damn'd together with the practices of those who have given their names in to Religion when I see Fiends in Hell do study how to make Men virtuous and Christians upon Earth with all their art debauch them into vice and ruine I cannot choose but pray Grant me such Friends as are in Hell Rather grant us all the Friendship in the Text. But then we must have none with any Vice Friendship with that engageth into Enmity with God and Christ I shew'd you And to pass over all those after-retributions of Vengeance Christ hath studied for his Enemies when he that now courts us to be our Friend and we will make our Adversary must be our Judg For were there none of this and should we look no further than this life yet sure we of this Nation know what it is to have God our Enemy who for so many years lay under such inflictions as had much of the character of his last execution they had the Blasphemies and the Confusion the dire Guilts and the black Calamities and almost the Despair and Irrecoverableness of those in Hell And though He be at Peace with us at present at least there is a Truce yet I beseech you in the presence and the fear of God to think in earnest whether the present provocations of this Nation do not equal those that twenty years ago engaged him into Arms against us and made him dash us so in pieces Whether those Actions of the Clergy be reformed that made the People to abhor their Function and their Service the Offerings and Ministers of the Lord and made God himself spew them out 'T were endless to go on the prophaneness to the loose impieties and the bold Atheisms of the Laity especially of the better sort in short what one degree or state or Sex is better Sure I am if we are not better we are worse beyond expression or recovery who have resisted every method and conquer'd all God's Arts of doing good upon us been too hard for his Judgments and his Mercies both 'T is true when we lay gasping under his severe Revenges we then pretended to be humbled begg'd to be reconciled and be at peace with him and vow'd to his Conditions promising obedience and aliened our selves from our old sins his Foes But then when Christ came to confirm this Amity came drest with all his Courtship brought all the invitations of Love along our Prince and our Religion our Church and State Righteousness and Peace and the Beauty of Holiness every thing that might make us be an Happy and a Pious Nation thus he did tempt and labour to engage that Friendship which we offered him and vowed to him And we no sooner seiz'd all this but we break resolutions as well as duty to get loose from him and laden with the spoyls of our defeated Saviour's goodness we joyn hands with his Enemies resume our old acquaintant-sins enrich and serve them with his Bounties make appear that we onely drew him in to work such
words but they do them not And if they flash in Hell against their Vices in torrents of threatning Scripture they concern themselves no more than they would in the story of a new Eruption of Mount Aetna or Vesuvius Yea they do quench the Spirit and his fires do not like the deaf Adder stop their ears against his whisperings and the charms of Heaven that were a weaker and less valiant guilt but are Religious in hearing them curious that they may be spoke with all advantages to make it harder not to yield and live that so they may express more resolution to perish and with more courage and solemnity may sin and dye Nay more when God hath found an Art to draw themselves into a League and Combination against their Vices bound them in Sacraments to Virtue made them enter a Covenant of Piety and seal it in the Blood of God and by that foederal Rite with hands lift up and seizing on Christ's Body and with holy Vows oblige themselves to the performances or to the Threats of Gospel which they see executed in that Sacrament before their eyes see there death is the wages of iniquity they shew themselves its damned consequences while they behold it tear Christ's Body spill his Blood and Crucifie the Son of God yet neither will this frightful spectacle nor their own ties hold them from sin and ruine they break these bonds asunder to get at them The Wiseman says that wicked men seek death and make a Covenant with it and so it seems But sure they are strange wilful men that seek it at Gods Table in the Bread of Life that will wade through an Ocean of mercy to get at Perdition and find it in the Blood of Christ will drink Damnation in the Cup of blessing men that poyson Salvation to themselves They that contract thus for Destruction and tye it to them at the Altar with such sacred Rites and Articles are sure resolv'd and love to dye Fourthly God had provided other Guards to secure men from sin and Death the Censures of the Church of which this Time was the great Season and the discipline of abstinence we now use is a piteous relique all that the World will bear it seem But as the Lord appointed them they were so close a fence that our Saviour calls them Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven as if they lock'd us in the Path of Piety and Life and we must pick or break all that the Key of Heaven can make fast burst Locks as well as Vows before we can get out have liberty to sin God having bounded in the Christians race as that among the Grecians was which had a River on one side and Swords points all along the other so that Destruction dwelt about it on the borders And God hath mounded ours with the River of Hell the Lake of Fire and with these spiritual Swords as S. Cyprian and S. Hierome call the Censures But yet a Mound too weak alas to stand the Resolution and assaults of Vices now adays which do not onely make great breaches in the Fence but have quite thrown it down and slighted it and the Church dares not set it up again should she attempt it they would scoff it down Men will endure no bar in the way to Perdition they will have liberty of Ruine will not be guarded from it so far from brooking Censures they will suffer no Reproof nor Admonition not suffer one word betwixt them and Death eternal But Fifthly Though we will not let Almighty God restrain us with his Censures yet he will do it with his Rod and set the sharp stakes of Affliction in our walk to keep us in thus he makes sins sometimes inflict themselves and then we straight resolve to break off from them and while we suffer shame and feel destruction in the Vice we shrink and uncling And now the Sinner would not dye especially if his Precipitance have thrown him to the confines of the grave and while he took his full careers of Vice the fury of his course did drive him to the ports of Ruine and Death seemed to make close and most astonishing approaches when standing on the brink of the Abyss he takes a prospect of the dismal state that must receive him and his Vices then he trembles and flyes his apprehensions swoon his Soul hath dying qualms caused as much by the Nausea of sin as by the fear of Hell he is in agonies of passion and of Prayer both against his former courses he never will come near them more and now sure God hath catch'd him and his will is wholly bent another way now he will live the new life if God will grant him any But alas have we never seen when God hath done this for him stretch'd out his Arm of Power hal'd him from the brow of the Pit and set him further off how he does turn and drive on furiously in the very same path that leads to the same Ruine and he recovers into death eternal And now this Will is grown too strong for the Almighties powerful methods and frustrates the whole Counsel of God for his Salvation neglects his Calls and Importunacies whereby he warns him to consult his safety to make use of Grace in time not to harden his heart against his own mercies and perish in despight of mercy And when he can reject Gods Graces and his Judgments thus defie his Conscience and his own Experience too there is but one thing left wherein this Resolution can shew its courage and that is Sixthly His own present Interests All which the Sinner can break through and despise to get at Death It is so usual to see any of the gross wasting Vices when it is once espoused murder the Reputation and all those great concerns that do depend upon a mans Esteem eat out his Wealth and Understanding make him pursue pernicious ways and Counsels besot him and enslave him fill his life with disquiet shame and neediness and the sad consequents of that Contempt and all that 's Miserable and unpitied in this Life and yet the sin with all these disadvantages is lovely not to be divorc'd nor torn off from him that I were vain should I attempt to prove a thing so obvious I shall give but one instance of the power of the Will the violence and fury of its inclinations to Ruine The man who for anothers inadvertency possibly such as their own rules of Honour will not judg affront yea sometimes without any shadow of a provocation meerly becaue he will be rude does that upon which they must call one another to account and to their last account indeed at Gods dread Judgment-seat whither when he hath sacrific'd two Families it may be all their hopes and comforts in this Life two Souls which cost the Blood of God having assaulted Death when it was arm'd and at his heart and charged Damnation to take Hell by Violence he comes with his own
death which till the man be dead and the brute onely live within him cannot be his pleasures And it is plain they are not pleasures to a Sober man that lives the life of Reason not to say of Grace Nor are they such to any man till he have train'd and exercis'd himself into an habit of enduring them and by a discipline of Torment made himself experienc'd for Vice and for Damnation Nor is there ever any pleasure in some Vices What is there in the dismal Wishes of mans imprecating passion there cannot be musick in those harsh horrours and yet the Sinners will destruction so as that they call to God to pour it on them and tear it down from Heaven so that Pain and Disease seem to sauce those delights and Death to be the tempter to the pleasure 't is evident mens reasons and their Practices must be first debauch'd that they may count them Pleasures and therefore pleasure cannot be the first mover in the Sinners race to Death But I will grant that the Spirit and Flesh of Man by their so strait alliance and perpetual converse may grow to have the same likes and dislikes have but one appetite and this alas be that of flesh to whose onely satisfactions the man useth himself by long Custom of which the Soul doth so imbibe the Inclinations of the Body that nothing of another kind can possibly be relish'd In this case sensuality hath pleasures yet such as cannot answer Gods enquiry for do but consult mans other Choices and you find a present satisfaction cannot work his Resolutions to forego great after-hopes or run upon a foreseen ruine Who will exchange his right to the Reversion of a Crown which from his Father he shall certainly inherit and succeed to if he do out-live him for a present Scene of Royalty and choose a painted Coronet the pomps and adorations of a Stage and the applauses of a Croud before the real Glories of his Kingdom the love and the obedience of his Subjects And yet my Soul the disproportion of the Sinners terms is infinitely greater and there is no hazzard which to make his choice of present things more flattering the others hopes are liable to For that Heir of the Crown may die before the Crown fall to him but it is impossible that we should miss of ours except we put our selves by by such choices except we change it thus And on the other side we know men will adventure the Sentence of the Law by Robberies and murders to provide for Lusts while they hope to be undiscovered But sure a Prison made delightful by all arts of pleasure and all plenties of it will not hire a man to own those actions which shall forfeit him to certain shameful Execution the next Sessions and yet this is the Sinners state exactly he is ti'd and bound in the chain of his sins they are it may be chains of Gold and softned with delices but they reserve him to the Judgment of the great Assise And yet he chooses these and puts them on as Ensigns of delight and honour Once more Do not men choose a present Agony to keep off an afterevil they tear their bowels with a Vomit to prevent a Surfeit they cup and scarifie and with all artifice or pain upon themselves kill a Disease yea they are well content to prolong torment so they may but prolong life and though the preservation of it prove onely continued pangs and all they can effect is onely this that they are longer dying yet they are glad to be so in all cases except where the prescription is Virtue and the death prescribed against Eternal Now why do you choose thus onely in Sin and Hell 'T is clear the very pleasure you change Heaven for cannot invite you from this Life and then you that will suffer any thing rather than you will dye Why against all resistance will you dye for ever It is Secondly because you know not what it is to dye the second Death at least your notions of it are so slight and easie that they cannot fright you from a pleasure or cope with a temptation to it and so though present satisfactions are not able to engage you upon present ruin they can upon the after-death Indeed the Sinner would have reason if it meant no more than hath been taught of late by one that hath gained many Proselytes among the Virtuosi of Religion After the Resurrection the Reprobates shall be saith he in the state that Adam and his Posterity were in after his Sin i. e. the state we are now in Live as we do Marry and give in Marriage and cease to be when they have got some heirs to succeed them in Tophet Poor unhappy Souls these that never had any sin to merit being there nor any Sentence to condemn them thither but this mans Who must put them there successively one after other to find employment for Everlasting fire A Doctrine such as had an Angel Preach'd from Heaven by S. Paul's award he must have been Anathema when the Devil made Religions and Theology came from the bottomless Pit he never found out such an Engine to conveigh men into it as this pleasant notion of the punishment of sin therein as if Leviathan were made to take his pastime in that Lake also by such interpretations which surely were contrived to make out the Assertion of that Romish Priest who says that those in Hell love to be there nay more that 't was impossible for God to do a kinder thing for them than to put them there Doctrines to be abhorr'd as Hell it self and yet upon these grounds he builds their Church by demonstration so strong as that the Gates of Hell cannot prevail against it and in truth they have no reason to assault it on these terms But to pass by such dotages and frenzies you will be able sure to check all those presumptions which grow from sleight impressions of the second Death if you but take that prospect of it which the close of this time gives look forward through this season which is designed for you to prepare the way of the Lord to his Passion in and you shall see the Death that does await iniquity If you behold him coming to Jerusalem with Hosannas and Palms about him as if Death were his Triumph his Passion so desirable that he rode to meet it which he never did at any other time and then complaining he was straitned until it were accomplish'd as he had throws of Longing after it and singing when he went out to it you would believe the Sinner never chose his death sweetned by his most pleasant sin with a more chearful eagerness But then open the Garden and you see his apprehensions of it throw him on his Face to pray against it See how he sweats and begs his very Prayer is a Passion the zeal of it is Agony and canst thou choose that he so dreads
Boy seeing all this and drown'd in Tears would not be comforted by them who promised him all friendly usage but he desired rather to go Die with his Father than live with such wicked people Being reprehended for that Speech Would you know said he why I said it Because I saw you when you had fill'd your Bellies praise your God with hands lift up and yet for all that like Hypocrites never care for making restitution of what you have stollen but be you sure that after Death you shall feel the rigorous Chastisement of the Lord Almighty The Captain admiring would needs persuade him to be a Christian Whereunto earnestly beholding him he answered I understand not what you mean declare it first and you shall know my mind And being told by them of the blessed Authour and the purity of our Religion what God did to Redeem us from our sins and what holy Laws he hath left us With Eyes and Hands lift up he weeping said Blessed be thy Power O Lord that permits such people to live on the Earth that speak so well of Thee and yet so ill observe thy Law as these blinded Miscreants do who think that Robbing and Preaching are things that can be acceptable to thee And so return'd to his Tears and obstinacy To see the strictness of the Christians Obligations and the loosness of their Lives to see their Practices dash against their Professions 'T is such a thing as makes them be the Scorn of honest Heathen Children And is this all that men are required to prepare the way of the Lord for Is this all he can do after so many Centuries of the abode of him and his Religion among us While there is no more of his influence appears I must suspect he is not here the Lord is not among us but is gone And certainly if it be possible to drive him out if there be any Art of doing that we have Professors of that Mystery and the Drolls are they That men should sin against him by transgressing of his Laws is no wonder for there is invitation to it in the Blood That some did count him an Impostor is not strange they had not met it may be with means of Conviction or were prepossest with prejudice but while men own his Person and Religion to have a God onely to make them sport as it hath no temptation so it hath no measures of its guilt Atheism is an honest refuge from this Vice it being much more sober and rational to think there is no God than 't is to make a mock of him whom they profess to be so This is indeed to prepare his way to his Cross for so the Jews and Soldiers did they put a Scepter in his hand onely to take it out and smite him with his Scepter they bowed the knee and cry'd Hail King and so humbly spit in his Face and they put a Crown but 't was of Thorns on his Head thus they Worship'd him in scorn and Crucify'd him with his Dignities And so we serve Religion When we would have a Scene of Mirth that must be put in a ridiculous disguise to laugh at the Son of God must enter Travesty and our Discourse is nothing but the Gospel in Burlesque And is it not time for him to retire But O prepare not this path for him to go away in The Heathens thought it much more possible to Chain their Deity than to be safe if he were gone Any the strangest contradiction is more easie than Security without him Now if you but make up S. Peter's Chain that will hold your God sure Add to Faith that 's the first Link that unites us to him Vertue and to Vertue Temperance and the other Graces nam'd there If he were going yet Return unto me and I will return unto you saith the Lord If you do but prepare to meet him in the Duties of this Season you are sure to find him at his Cross and if we do but lay hold on him there and by the mortifications of a true Repentance partake in his Death He that is the Way and the Life will through that dust and ashes from that Death make a way for us to his Eternal Life To which c. The Eighth SERMON Preached at WHITE-HALL October 9. 1664. 1 JOHN V. 4. This is the Victory which overcometh the World even our Faith THese Words though they explicitly make onely one single Proposition yet they imply several First That the State of Christianity is a state of Warfare He that is born of God must fight we see for he must overcome which is the Second In this War he must not satisfie himself with being on his Guard defensive looking to secure himself but he must Assault and Conquer nothing else will serve his turn but Victory Thirdly The Enemy which he must have no Peace with but must vanquish is the World Fourthly Faith is sufficient forces to assist him in his Conquest Fifthly Faith where it is rightly made use of is a certain Victory But I shall not handle these in Thefi thus but for the more practical treating of them shall make and answer three Enquiries First What the way is that the World does wage War in where its Strength lies and how it manages that force so as to get advantage over men and how it does improve each such advantage till it gets a perfect Conquest Secondly What the strengths of Faith are how it charges breaks the forces of the World and does enable the Believer to overcome Thirdly How far the Believer must pursue his Conquest what must be the measures of his Victory that he may know how to vanquish it so as that the World may not rebel again not do like Joash smite three times then leave but Smite until he make an end of danger Having answered these I shall endeavour to apply all to our selves Now for the better handling of the first of these I must shew you how the Will of Man may be attaqued and taken To which purpose I observe that whatsoever liberty there is in humane choice yet every appetite seems in some sense determin'd in its tendencies to fix on that which appears simply best for it for that instant which it chooseth in I do not say that whensoever Reason peremptorily concludes a thing is best that the Will is determined instantly to that for by a too unhappy evidence we know that if the lower Soul does but becken the Will another way she can suspend and stop her prosecutions and too oft finds cause to go along with that against the dictates of the Mind But this I say that in her last Executive Determinations she always tends to that which hath the fairest and most vigorous appearances of being best for her at that present time If it seem strange how since the Understanding can account the certain expectations of an happy everlastingness much better for the present than a momentany worldly
hold on any noble part take in some Nerve or Artery then he must cut the thread of Life that cuts it off So he must rent my heart indeed that tears my pleasures from me Life it self does seem to have so little salisfaction without them that it is a death to me to part with them Or else hath the Old Man no Soul is he all Flesh and hath Iniquity debas'd the whole of him so that his very Spirit is become Body of Sin so as that Wickedness should be our very Being be all one with us and I and my corruptions prove denominations of one importance signifie the very same so it is indeed Besides the carnal part that is sold under sin and consequently does deserve the Cross that punishment of Slaves the part also that is in the quite opposite extream that lusts against the flesh that must be made away Be ye 〈◊〉 ansform'd by the renewing of your mind Rom. xii 2. And if there be any sublimer and more deâ—â—â—cated past in that it must submit to the same Fate 〈…〉 in the spirit of your mind Ephes. iv 23. Corruption hath invaded that To 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the diviner ruling part is grown a slave to the Beast part of him it hath debauch'd its notions whereby it should discriminate good from evll so that now it can discern no natural difference between them but does measure both meerly by his present inclinations and concerns and the eternal Laws of Honesty are blotted our and principles of interest and irreligion rais'd there in the place and buttress'd by false reasonings and Discourses Now all these Fortresses of Vice that maintain and secure a man in sin must be demolish'd all such imaginations cast down and every high thing that exalteth it self against the knowledg of God and every thought brought into Captivity to the obedience of Christ That Spirit of the mind must be destroyed and we transformed into persons of new notions and reasonings But above all the remaining part of Man his own Will must be mortified which besides its natural 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by perverse inclinings to sollicitations of flesh is most corrupted and most dangerous in that which way soever it inclines it draws the whole Man after it If any thing in us be crucified in a Conformity to Christ it must be this for in that death wherein Christ offered up himself upon the Cross where although the Divine Nature gave the value 't was onely the Humane Nature made the Offering there it was the crucifying his own Will that above all other the ingredients made his Death a Sacrifice and the price of our Redemption God that had given him his Blood and Life might call for it again when and how he saw good and being due it was not properly a price that could be given him for sin but his free voluntary choice his being willing to endure the Agonies and Contempts of the Cross his stabbing his own natural desires with a resolute determination Not my will but thine be done This his own Will was his own Offering and such is ours if we be Crucified with Christ made conformable to his death if we present our selves a Sacrifice acceptable to the Lord for our will is not given up to him till it do perfectly comport with his but that it cannot do till we renounce our own desires till we have brought our selves to an indifference in outward things to such a resignation as she is storied to have had who being in her Sickness bid to choose whether she rather would have Health or Death made answer Vehementissimè desidero ut non facias voluntatem meam Domine this above all I desire that thou wilt not do my will I would have thee not do what I desire and would have So that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the whole of us the Spirit Soul and Flesh go to make up this Person and the body of Sin is the Old man entire I whole I am nothing but a mass of guilts my Senses are the bands of wickedness that procure for my evil inclinations my members are the weapons of unrighteousness my Body is a Body of Sin and Death and the affections of my Soul are Lusts its faculties are the powers of Sin yea and the Spirit of my mind that Breath of God is putrefied that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Angel-part of me is fall'n and turn'd Apostate and however I be partly Son of Man and partly Son of God yet I am wholly Child of Wrath and so fit to be Crucified Which calls me to the next Enquiry to the nature of the duty here intended I am Crucified What is design'd by it S. Paul does perfectly declare Rom. vi 6. Our old man is crucified with Christ that the body of Sin might be destroyed that we should no longer serve sin So that it means a through Repentance and abandoning of former evil Courses A Duty which there are few men but in some instants of their life think absolutely necessary and persuade themselves they do perform it At some time or other they are forc'd to recollect and grow displeas'd and angry at their sins and have some sad reflections on them beg for mercy and forgiveness and do think of leaving them and when they have return'd to them again they shake the head and chafe and curse at their own weakness and renew their purposes it may be and do this as oft as such a Season as this is or other like occasions suggest it to or move them And with this they satisfie themselves and hope if God do please to take them hence in some such muddy gloomy fit of their Repentance all 's well Now shall we call this being Crucified are there Racks and Tortures in this discipline hath a Spear prick'd them to the heart and no blood nor no water no tears gush out thence hath it made no issue for some hearty Sorrow to purle out Indeed I must confess the Scripture does sometimes word the performance of this Duty in expressions that are not so sower but of an easier importance as first put off the Old Man as if all were but Garment put it off I say not as they strip'd our Saviour in order to his Scourgings and his Cross but intimating to us what an easie thing it is to cast off Sin for them who do begin with it betimes before it get too close to the heart 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. saith Theophyl even as easie as putting off thy Cloaths and thy Repentance is but as thy Shift thy change of life like changing thy Apparel But alas for all the easiness which this expression hints where the sins also lie in the Attire as besides emulation pride vainglory great uncharitableness and inhumanity cruel injustice and oppression often do when many are undone through want of those dues which do furnish other men with the excesses of this
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
you not seen him in that state when he supposed that sinning was now done with him and the next thing was Judgment when God's Tribunal seemed to be within his view and Hell to gape for him as wide as the Grave both opening to receive their parts of him at the same time and himself ready to divide himself into those two sad Habitations With what effectual Sermon will he then Preach to himself against his sins and that you may be sure shall work upon him he instantly resolves against his Vices he will not carry them along with him out of this Life but cast them off as too sad dangerous Company nor yet if God shall lend him life will he retain them but it shall be a New Life which he will lead And yet when God hath rais'd him up after a while he returns to his Vomit his Sins recover with his Body he owes his Innocence but to his Weakness nor is it more long-liv'd his holy purposes decay as his strength grows and die as soon as setled health does come And he who never would commit the Sin again when he was Dying mends into it again And then what hopes is there in this mistaken Method when we see men come themselves from the Deadunto themselves yet cannot make themselves Repent But if we are not all concerned in this take a more spreading and more visible experiment If ever one came from the Dead this Church and State came thence And by as great a Miracle of Resurrection But where is the Repentance such a Miracle may have flattered our Expectations with as I am confident the resolutions of it did in that sad dying state are not some men as violent in those wicked practices that merited our former Ruin and others in those cursed Principles that did inflict it as they ever were 't is said by many that have evil will at Sion and it is our concern to take a care they speak not truth that in the Church some that are risen up again have still the silence of the Grave upon them and are as dumb as if their mouth were yet full of their monument Earth And yet as if it were not full of Earth nor had been satisfied with it in the Sepulchre they gape still like the Grave that never can be satisfied And we see others who as if this Resurrection were but a start out of a sleep or lucid interval of former madness have their hands ready not onely to tear off the hair the unessential accessary beauties of the Body of the Church and State but to scratch the Face pull out the Eyes and tear open those Wounds which their last fit of Fury did inflict so to let life out again And as for the Community of the Nation 't is true we are as it were risen from the Grave but have we not brought up with us the Plague sores are not the Spots upon us still the Venom Ulcer and infection about us Yea more contracted Stench and Putrefaction such as Death and the Grave do add and coming from the dead we will not yet part with these but dress our selves in those infected and defiled grave-cloaths and rise into corruption and so confute Gods Method of a Resurrection 'T were happier if we would so far confute the Text that coming our selves from the dead we would renounce communion with all Deaths adherencies begin the incorruptible which shall be consummated when we shall rise again a Church triumphant when Death shall be swallowed up in Victory and neither Sin nor Repentance shall be any more but Holiness and Life and Glory too shall be Immortal and unchangeable To Which c. The Twelfth SERMON Preached at CHRIST-CHURCH IN OXFORD Decemb. 31. 1665. LUKE II. part of the 34. verse Behold this Child is set for the Fall and Rising again of many in Israel and for a sign which shall be spoken against AND Simeon Blessed them and said c. A Benediction sure of a most strange importance If to bring forth one that is to be a large Destruction if to be delivered of a Child that must be for the Fall of many and the killing of the Mothers self be blessed if Swords and Ruins be Comforts then my Text is full of these But if this be to Bless what is it to forespeak and abode ill Yet however ominous and fatal the words are they give us the event and the design too of the Blessed Incarnation of the Son of God the Child of this Text and of this Season A short view of Gods Counsel in it and the Effects of it The Effects in these Particulars 1. This Child is for the Fall of many 2. For the Rising again of many 3. For a Sign With the quality of that sign he is for a sign that shall be spoken against 2. The Counsel and Design of this is signified in the word here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he is set and preordain'd to be all this First of the first Effect This Child is for the Fall of many And here I shall but onely name that way whereby many men set this Child for their own Fall while they make his holy Time to be but a more solemn opportunity of â—â—â—â—ing We know many celebrate this great Festival with Surfeits and Excesses the usual appendages of Feasting Oathâ— and Curses the ingredients of Gaming Dalliance and Lasciviousness the attendants of Sporting of all which this seems as it were the Anniversary a set time for their return Thus indeed the Israelites did solemnize the Birth of their Idol-Calf They sate down to Eat and Drink and rose up to Play And must we celebrate this Child too like that Calf because he was born among Brutes And must his Votaries also be of the Herd And he live and be worship'd always in a Stable Because God became Man must Men therefore become Beasts Is it fit to honour that Child with Iniquity and Loosness that did come into the World upon designs of Holiness to settle a most strict Religion Nothing can be more incongruous than this and certainly there is nothing of Gods Counsel in it But to you whose time seems nothing else but a constant Festival always hath the Leisure and the Plenties and the Sports of one who as to these things keep a Christmas all your life this Season as it does not seem to challenge those things to it self peculiarly so I shall not now insist on them but proceed to those ways by which Simeon did Prophecy This Child would be for the fall of many in Israel And they are three 1. This Child whom I but now declar'd God had prepar'd to be the Glory of his People Israel yet his Birth was so inglorious and his Life answerable to it shall be so mean and poor and his Death so full of shame and curse that these shall prove a scandal to his People who shall be offended at them and being prepossess'd with prejudices of
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that mind earthly things the fourth sort in whicâ— all their wisdom lies Which two last sorts of Enemies I shall attaque together The Cross of Christ amongst its other ends was set to be an instrument whereby the World is to be Crucified to us and we unto the World to be the means whereby we are enabled to prevail upon and overcome our worldly lusts and inclinations and to sleight yea and detest all the temptations of its Wealth Delights and Heights when they attempt to draw us into sin or take us off from Duty Now to this it works by these three steps First shewing us the Author and the finisher of our Faith nailed himself to that Cross his joints rack'd on it his whole Body strip'd and nothing else but Vinegar and bitter potions allow'd his thirst and thus convincing us that if we will be his Disciples we must take up his Cross and follow him at leastwise we must have preparedness of mind to take it up when ever it is fix'd to Duty to renounce all profits honours and delights of this World that are not consistent with our Christian profession This is the Doctrine of the Cross of Christ it being otherwise impossible to to be the Disciples of a Crucified Master And when this great Captain of our Salvation was himself consecrated by his sufferings and had for his Standard his own Body lifted up upon the Cross we that are listed under him and with that very badg the Cross too crucis Consecranei Votaries and fellow Soldiers of that Order if we shall avoid our Duty when it is attended with a Cross or straitned any ways and the provisions of this World are cut off from it and betake our selves rather to the contents of Earth we do not onely shamefully fly from our Colours Fugitive and Cowards Poltrons in the Spiritual Warfare but are Renegadoes false and traytours to our selves too such as basely ran away not onely from our Officer but from Salvation which he is the Captain of and which we cannot possibly attain except we be resolv'd to follow him and charge through whatsoever disadvantages to attend Religion vanquishing all those temptations with which the World assaults us in our course to Duty Thus the Cross of Christ first shews us the necessity we have to renounce and Crucifie the World But to encourage and enable us to do so it does also shew us Secondly The certainty of a good issue in the doing it assures us that those who deny themselves forbidden satisfactions here that will be vertuous maugre all the baits and threats of Earth will embrace Duty when it is laden with a Cross although so heavy as to crush out life and kill the body assures us that those lose not but exchange their lives shall save their Souls and that there is another World wherein their losses shall be made up to them and repaired with all advantage To the truth of this the Cross of Christ is a most pregnant and infallible testimony For as by multitudes of Miracles Christ sought to satisfie the World that he was sent from God to promise all this and justified his Power to perform it by experiment raising some up from the dead so when they said he did his Miracles by Beelzebub he justified it â—urther with his Life affirming that he was the Son of God no 't is impossible but he must know whether he were or no and consequently sent and able to do all he promised and resolv'd to do it also for our more assurance in himself that he would raise himself up from the dead within three days and saying this when he was sure he should be Crucified for saying so and sure that if he did not do according to his words he must within three days appear a meer Impostor to the world and his Religion never be receiv'd Now 't is impossible for him that must needs know whether all this were true or no to give a greater testimony to it than his Life For this that Bloud and Water that flowed from his wounded side upon Cross which did assure his Death is justly said to bear witness to his being the Son of God and consequently to the truth of all this equal to the testimony of the Spirit whether that which the Spirit gave when he came from Heaven down upon him in his Baptism or the testimony which he gave by Miracle for there are three that bear witness upon Earth the Spirit the Water and the Blood Thus by his Death Christ did bring Life and Immortality to light his choosing to lay down his own life for asserting of the truth of all this was as great an argument to prove it as his raising others from the dead and Lazarus's empty Monument and walking Grave-cloaths were not better evidence than this Cross of Christ. 4. Once more this Cross not onely proves the certainty of a future state but does demonstrate the advantage of it and assures us that it is infinitely much more eligible to have our portion in the life to come than in this life That to part with every thing that is desireable in this World rather than to fail of those joys that are laid up in the other that to be poor here or to be a spoyl to renounce or to disperse my wealth that so I may lay up treasures for my self in Heaven and may be rich to God never to taste any one of these puddle transient delights rather than to be put from that right hand where there are pleasures for evermore to be thrown down from every height on Earth if so I may ascent those everlasting Hills and Mount Sion that is above that this is beyond all proportion the wisest course it does demonstrate since it shews us him who is the Son of God who did create all these advantages of Earth and prepare those in Heaven and does therefore know them both Who also is the Wisdom of the Father and does therefore know to value them yet for the joys that were set before him choosing to endure the Cross and despising the shame On that Beam he weigh'd them and by that his choice declar'd the Pomps of this World far too light for that exceeding and eternal weight of Glory that the whole earth was but as the dust upon the Ballance and despis'd it and to make us do so is both the Design and direct influence of the Cross of Christ. But as at first the Wise men of this World did count the Preaching of the Cross meer folly to give up themselves to the belief and the obedience of a man that was most infamously Crucified and for the sake of such an one to renounce all the satisfactions suffer all the dire things of this Life and in lieu of all this onely expect some after Blessednesses and Salvations from a man that they thought could not save himself seemed to them most ridiculous So truly
demonstrations had not convinc't them it had been no fault not to believe So when he had made appear he was that person whom their prophesies had pointed out the Messiah the Son of the living God and this not only his Disciples had acknowledg'd but the multitudes yea when his miracles had made one of the Pharisees confess Rabbi we know thou art a Teacher come from God for no man can do these miracles except God be with him Then if the Pharisees dispute against his Doctrine of Divorce urge the authority of Moses and Gods Law and the Disciples press the inconveniences that will happen If the case of Man be such with his wife he may answer them He that will not receive my Doctrines without dispute that is to say He that will not receive the Kingdom of God as a little Child shall not enter therein This King that cometh in the name of the Lord may well determin how we shall receive the Kingdom of God If he propose strange precepts to our practise it appears that he is sent from God and Gods commands are not to be disputed but obey'd if his revelations present dark unintelligible Mysteries to our faith his promises offer seeming impossibilities to our hope why yet he hath made proof he comes from God and surely we are not so insolent as to doubt that God can discover thing above our understanding and do things above the comprehension of our reason Therefore since we are as Children to all these it is but just we should receive them even as little Children With a perfect resignation of our understandings and of our whole souls Here 't is most true what S. Austin says Those are not Christians who deny that Christ is to be believ'd unless there be some other certain reason of the thing besides his saying Si Christo etiam credendum negant â—isi indubitata ratio reddita fuerit Christiani non sunt For to them that are convinc't of that 't is such a reason that he is the Christ. There is indeed no other name now under heaven to whom we are oblig'd to give such deference for however the modern Doctrines dare assert that Christ hath given the very same infallibility which himself had to all S. Peters successors as often as they speak ex Cathedrâ and that in matters both of right and of particular fact yet not to countenance this monster by admitting combate with it nor to put my self into the circle which these men commit who talk of the Authority of the Church to which they require us to resign our Faith I shall not stay to rack them on that their own wheel This I dare affirm it is impossible for any person or assembly to produce a delegation of authority in more ample terms then the great Councel of the Jews could shew sign'd both by God and Christ. According to the sentence of the Law which they shall teach thee and according to the Judgment which they shall tell thee thou shalt do thou shalâ— not decline from the sentence which they shall shew thee to the right hand nor to the left faith God Deut. 17. 11. compar'd with 2 Chron. 19. 8 9 10 11. And our Saviour says They sit in Moses Chair all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe that observe and do Mat. 23. 2. Let them of Româ— produce you a better and more large commission Yet did not this suppose that Councel was infallible either in the interpreting the Law or in attesting of tradition or in judging of a Prophet or that the Jews were blindly to give up their assent and their obedience to their sentence God did not mean the people should imagin that when he prescrib'd a Sacrifice for expiation of their errors in their Judgment when they found it out Lev. 4. 13. As their own Doctors do expound it Therefore God suppos'd that they might err and we know that their Traditions did evacuate the Law Mat. 23. 15. They judg'd and slew true Prophets v. 37. They declar'd the Messiah an impostor Mat. 27. 63. and blasphemer and for that condemn'd him Mat. 26. 65. and decreed what the Apostles told them they must not obey Act. 5. 25. But though there be no such Authority that 's absolute over the Faith of Men now upon Earth yet if this Jesus did acquire such by his Works if by the Miracles he wrought his raising others from the Dead his own Death and his Resurrection he sufficiently justified the Divinity of his Doctrine And if those Miracles were true they were not doubt sufficient and if those that did pretend they were eye witnesses and ministers of all this his Apostles and the Seventy Disciples and those others that accompanied him who conversed with him continually and could not therefore be deceived if they profess they heard and saw all this and Preacht it in the face of those that would have contradicted if they could and rather than their lives have proved all false yea Preacht it every where the Lord working with them and confirming the Word with signs following If they consign'd that Word in Writing also which they Preacht to be a measure and a Standard of that Doctrine to fnturity which Word so Preacht and Written by agreeing would in aftertimes give mutual illustrious evidence to one another and if any Heter â—â—â—â—ies should at any time creep by degrees into the Articles or the external practice of the Church they might he easily discovered by those Records And if the multitudes that heard and saw and did receive all this and which were grown extreamly numerous almost in every Nation of the then known World while those Apostles and Disciples liv'd if these deliver'd what they must needs know whether 't were true or not deliver'd both that Doctrine and those Books of it as most certain truth by Preaching and by Writing and by Living to it and by Dying for it and engaging their Posterity to do so and they also did that to all Ages if all this I say be true then it is easie to conclude that we are to receive the Doctrine of that Jesiâ— and this Book the Records of it with the resignation of a little Child and absolutely to submit our Faith to them But that it was thus first as sure as any of us here who have not seen the thing can be that Christianity is now profest the Bible now received in all the Regions round about us throughout Europe or indeed that there are â—â—ch Regions and places so sure we may be for we have the testimony of the World that for example in the days of Dioclesian 't was over the World profest both with their mouths and lives owned in despite of Spoyl of Torments and of Death and they did value the Records of this Doctrine so much dearer than their Lives or their Estates that in prosecution of those Edicts wherein the Christians were required to deliver up
St Paul to such a one was that Saint crucified for thee that he should be more concerned for and more sensible of thy condition and that thou shouldest have a greater confidence of his good will than of his that did and suffer'd all that for thee that he might be merciful and faithful toucht with thy necessities that I mention not the rest of those qualifications that do make one fit to be relied upon 'T is to be fear'd such persons do not know well whom they have believ'd But I pass them There are that trust their being here to Policy and Prudence to their own contrivances that is trust to themselves and give credit onely to what interest or their ambition suggests and accordingly design ends and devise means weave plots spread their nets abroad with cords and lay snares and do all this with that confidence of success as if they did believe they were fulfilling Prophecies and mov'd by the directions of Heaven for many times they seem to do this in the fear of God and in subserviency to Religion but whatever fair pretences some of them may have to wash or color their intentions God you may be sure hath no hand there in those designs where his Commandments are broken Where you discern either as to particulars treachery or fraud or falseness undermining and supplanting to serve interests or pride or malice or revenge or as to publick interverting justice and the due course of Laws or mutiny sedition raising discontents and making breaches 't is not he on whom they have believ'd And did they but consider what they see perpetually how false interests are and how unstable high place how this tumbles men down headlong those change daily and altho men thrive so that they wash their steps with butter they are only so much more in slippery places where God also leaves them somtimes overturns them suddenly Or did they consider who the great Patrons of interest and ambition are Mammon the fomenter and encourager of almost all the mischiefs upon Earth and Lucifer that was discontent in Heaven had ambition to be greater there too mutinied and stirred sedition up against God and got by it to be chief of Devils onely Prince of Hell Did these designers but reflect on these things they would know then whom they have believ'd a deceitful world a false glistering light that mocks them and a treacherous malicious Devil that hath bin a Liar and a Murderer from the beginning I might ask the sensual person whether he that hearkens to the cravings of the one or other of his inclinations and is so perswaded overcome by their insinuations that whenever any of his appetites is high he thinks there is no joy that is like the satisfaction of that appetite and is mad till he have it yet hath found himself betraied fool'd cheated every time he serv'd it but still courts and embraces the false treacherous mischief and will not be disenchanted whether he considers whom he hath believ'd whether he knows that he lets his horse ride him and is guided animated by and believes the beast Once more whether he knows whom he hath believ'd that ownes being an Infidel any one of those that with great seeming gravity or wit and railery declares dissatisfaction at the proof of those things which the world for many hundred years continued so convinc'd of that they chose to die rather than say that they did not believe them when as for them good Souls they think they can believe nothing but upon demonstration yet if a man consider but the men themselves the method and the means of their conviction into that their unbelief he would find that themselves are always vicious and that they examin little but converse much and keep company with them that in the heat and confidence of drink and vice swear 't is impossible those things can be and rally them that give heed to or profess them and then themselves give easy credit to this and their own inclinations that would have them all impossible for it is their concern they are eternally unhappy if they be not so that we know whom they have believ'd their debaucht company and their evil inclinations and these stupid Infidels are the most credulous we see on the least grounds of any in the world It is not my emploiment at this time to make comparison betwixt the one and others grounds the several motives of belief and infidelity 't is plain Christ Judg'd the arguments and grounds of faith were so sufficient that he positively gives his charge thus Go and preach the Gospel to the whole world he that believeth is sav'd and he that believeth not is damn'd And if his threats are as inviolable as his promises 't will be but ill knowing him whom we would not believe the conviction will be very fatal when their unbelief will become vision And this gives me yet occasion to ask what temtation Sinners can have not to believe to be willing to come in to Christ and be sav'd They cannot chuse but see all others whom they have believ'd betraied them and will fail them all their satisfactions must go out their expectations die and perish and why will ye not take up here then why will ye die for ever Is your case think you desperate and have you gon too far to be receiv'd if you should turn Why our Saint here the person of the Text declares he was the chief of Sinners that obtain'd mercy for encouragement to all that would believe and turn and if you did but know whom he believ'd you must know one that went to meet the Prodigal in his return when he was yet far off that sought the lost sheep while he straied and ran away still till he found him and when he was gon so far that he could not return he carried him And will you neither be invited into life nor carried into it Why will ye die Can ye not help it Have your inclinations and customs think you so prevail'd upon you that to leave them looks impossible Then 't is plain you know not whom you have believ'd Is any thing impossible for him that is Almighty whose grace is sufficient Or can he command too hard things who enables to perform what he commands who as St Paul saith worketh in us both to will and to do if we will suffer him He never praied and tried in earnest watched endeavor'd and comported with God's workings that complains thus You cannot but believe indeed they are too hard while you hearken to the cravings of your lusts your customs and your inclinations but why will you believe them still Why will you die Is it not in fine worth while to strive against it but e'en go on with the stream abandon all consideration of concern for that life Indeed if that which God thought worth the concern of all his Attributes the contrivance of his Wisdom the assistances of his Almightiness the
invitations of his Promises the engagement of his Justice Truth and Faithfulness worth all the issues of his Goodness Mercy and Benignity worth the Incarnation Death and Passion of his Son worth Christ's Bloud to purchase worth the giving him all Power in Heaven and Earth exalting him to his own right hand a Prince and Savior to give us repentance and remission that we might be capable of that life and then to bestow it on us if this be not worth the while to strive for not in opposition to Hell eternal then indeed we know not whom we have believ'd Consider how it is this issue that such put it to a most fatal issue but the sure one of all those that will give credit to the suggestions of their flesh and this world Lord Christ we believe thee help our unbelief SERMON XVII THE CHILDREN OF THIS WORLD are wiser than the Children of Light Luke 16. 8. The Children of this world are in their Generation wiser than the Children of Light BY the Children of this World are meant those that look after and take care for onely the advantages and satisfactions of this World have no thought of or at most design for any other by the Children of Light all those that see farther into one to come and who look after that accordingly all Christians are called so 1 Thess. 5. 5. of whom howsoever some are more and some less Christian all yet are suppos'd to have bin visited by that day-spring from on high enlightned in some measure by the Gospel which brought Life and Immortality to light 2. Those former are said here in their generation in their own affairs of this World which alone they busy and concern themselves in or in their contrivance for their Age or time in this life to be wiser than those others Now Wisdom tho it import many offices and of highest concernment which have place in every serious action of our lives it weighs interests and obligations and considers circumstances which do somtimes make necessities and somtimes void them and which cannot all fall under Rules and Precepts and are therefore left to the decisions of Prudence which does judge of them and then accordingly direct and steer the actions yet these offices of Wisdom do not come directly into this comparison of our Savior It s main office in the general is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to consult and counsel well and rightly which acts since they cannot be emploi'd but about things that must be don in order to an end therefore 1. The Wise man always looks at and intends some end and 2. He pitches on such means as seem most useful and directly tending to that end yea 3. Since this Wisdom is not speculative but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is Ratio agibilium deals in things that must be don it therefore sets the man upon the use of those means in pursuit of that end it applies him to it and guides him in the execution and does all by Rules proper to each one of these Offices Now as to these three Offices of Wisdom we will try to find out how far and in what respect the Children of this World are wiser than the Children of Light the Worldling than the Christian than the most of them yea than the best and how this comes to pass that so if men will not be wrought upon by any Rules not by God's Precepts nor by means examples yet comparing themselves with themselves how much they fail of the observance of the Rules of Prudence that concern the next World in comparison of their observance of those very same Rules as to this World they may shame themselves into discretion and may learn to be a Rule and an Example to themselves which I must first enforce by that property of Wisdom which I mention'd in the first place that the wise man always looks at and intends some end I suppose this and I may well do so for the World allows the action that hath no end to be to no purpose vain and foolish Now the worldly man as such proposes as I told you to himself the satisfactions of this world either more particularly of some one kind or else all in general and the Child of Light so far as he is so designs especially the happiness of the world to come But then if in relation to their aims those men be wisest that propose the best end to themselves the Child of Light is as much wiser than the worldling as eternal Blessedness above is better than the little broken dying starts of satisfaction here below And truly 't is not in relation to their several ends in general that our Savior here compares them but the one saith he are wiser in their generation in their own concerns and that first in relation to their ends For the worldly man is intent upon his end his will is fixt to it and his affections all concenter in it We are most assur'd of this by the pains he takes to compass it all which are carried on and sweetned and made easy merely by his aims and expectation which his heart is therefore passionately set on for mens actions will be chearful vigorous and lively onely by those measures that the Soul breaths spirit into them If the will and outward faculties lookt several ways all his external motions would be force and violence not nature but since his pursuits are eager his affections are in them I should enter into an Abyss of matter and should find no end of the discourse should I attemt to shew this in the several states of men of this World in relation to their several inclinations to this World's advantages Some pour out and sell the bloud and souls both of their own and other Nations but to purchase some accession to their Territories to enlarge their bounds and glory And it is matter of astonishment how 't is possible that humane nature should attain to such a monstrous excess of barbarous bloudy villany to acquire their ends as Sylla and Marius practis'd Yet neither should men wonder and complain of these so much for every little great man that hath power would be enterprizing upon others outing and supplanting catching at more power cutting short diminishing the rights of others to extend their own and altho these Aggressors be not bloudy as the former which 't is possible they would be if they durst yet they are as unjust and false and they that are not able to do so much are not in a state to put a force on others force themselves break their own natures into soft compliances and servile attendances to reach their ends 'T is thus in all conditions the Soldier charges and storms fire and the Merchant storms the raging Sea and Tempests and if the man's heart be once bent on getting wealth he â—ells his meals his sleeps his sweat the whole emploiment of his life and his anxieties for that which onely
out his own Bowels and cut off his hopes will Sacrifice his onely Son and Sacrifice Gods Promises to his Commands And then he that will trust to Abraham's example of believing yet will not follow him at all in doing will obey no Commands that is so far from offering up an onely Son he will not slay an onely evil Custom nor part with one out of the herd of all his vicious Habits will not give up the satisfaction to any of his carnal worldly or ambitious appetites not sacrifice a Passion or a lust to all the Obligations that God and Christ can urge him with he hath nor faith nor friendship no nor forehead 'T is true indeed he that hath Abraham's faith may well assure himself he is Christs Friend but 't is onely on this account because he that believes as Abraham believed he will not stick to do whatever Christ commands which is that universality of obedience that is the next condition that entitles to Christs friendship and my last Part. Ye are my Friends if ye do whatsoever I Command you There is no quality so necessary to a Friend or so appropriate to friendship as sincerity They that have but one Soul they can have no reserves from one another But disobedience to one Precept is inconsistent with sincerity that hath respect unto all the Commandments and he that will not do whatever Christ prescribes hath reserves of affection for some darling sin and is false to his Saviour He is an Enemy indeed so that there is no friendship on either side S. Paul says so of any of one kind the minding of the flesh saith he whether it be providing for the Belly or any other of the Organs of Carnality is desperate incurable Rebellion Now such a Rebel is we know the worst of Enemies S. James does say as much of any of those vicious affections that are set on the World Whosoever will be a friend of the World is an Enemy of God James iv 4. And he calls them adulteresses and Adulterers who think to joyn great strict Religion to some little by-love of an Honour or a profit of this World Such Men are like a Wife that not contented with the partner of her Bed takes in another now and then she must not count her self her Husbands Friend though she give him the greatest share in her affections no she is but a bosom Enemy And so any one Vice allowed is a paramour sin is whoredom against Christ and our pretended friendship to him in all other obediences is but the kindness and the caresses of an Adulteress the meer hypocrisie and treachery of love If it be necessary to the gaining Christ's friendship that thou do his Commands 't is necessary that thou do them all that thou divorce thy self from thy beloved sin as well as any other Because his Friendship does no more require other obedience than it does that but is as inconsistent with thy own peculiar Vice as with the rest Indeed it is impossible that it should bear with any they being all his murderers If thou canst find one sin that had no hand in putting Christ to Death one Vice that did not come into the garden nor upon Mount Calvary that did not help to assassin thy Saviour even take thy fill of that But if each had a stab at him if no one of thy Vices could have been forgiven had not thy Jesus died for it canst thou expect he should have kindness for his Agony or friendship for the man that entertains his Crucifiers in his heart If worldly cares which he calls Thorns fill thy head with Contrivances of Wealth and Greatness of filling Coffers and of platting Coronets for thee as the thorns did make him a Câ—own too wouldst thou have him receive thee and these in his bosom to gore his Heart as they did pierce his Head If thou delight in that intemperance which filled his deadly Cup which Vomited Gall into it can he delight in thee That Cup which made him fall upon his face to deprecate will he partake in as the pledge of mutual love He that sunk under could not bear this load of thine when it was in his Cross upon his shoulders will he bear it and thee in his Arms when thou fallest under it When thou wilt cast a shameful spewing on his glory too if he own such a Friend Thou that art so familiar with his Name as thou wer't more his Friend than any in the World whose Oaths and imprecations Moses says strike through that Name which they so often call upon thou mayst as well think his Heart did attract the Spear that pierced it and the Wound close upon its head with Unions of Love as that he hath kindness for thee If Christ may make Friendship with him that does allow himself a sin he may have fellowship with Belial For him to dwell in any heart that cherisheth a Vice were to descend to Hell again But as far as those Regions of Darkness are from his Habitation of Glory and the Black Spirits of that place from being any of his Guard of holy Myriads so for is he from dwelling with or being friend to him that is a friend to any wickedness to him that will not do whatever he commands And now if these Conditions seem hard if any do not care to be his Friend upon these terms they may betake themselves to others Let such make themselves friends of the Mammon of unrighteousness A Friend indeed that hath not so much of the insincerities as many great ones have For this will furnish them with all that heart or lust can wish for all that necessity or wantonness proposeth to it self to dress out pomp or Vice But yet when with enjoyment the affections grow and become so unquiet work them so as not to let their thoughts or actions rest make them quicken themselves and like the motions of all things that go downwards tending to the Earth increase by the continuance grow stronger and more violent towards the end then when they are most passionate it fails them And having filled their life with most unsatisfied tormenting cares it leaves them nothing but the guilt of all When their great Wealth shall shrink into a single sheet no more of it be left but a thin shroud and all their vast Inheritances but six foot of Earth be gone yet the iniquity of all will stick close to them and this false Friend that does it Self forsake them will neither go along nor will let its pomp follow them raises a cry on them as high as Gods Tribunal the cry of all the Blood all the oppressed rights that bribery till then had stifled the groans of all those Poor that greatness covetousness or extortion had groun'd or crush'd the yellings of those Souls that were sâ—arv'd for want of the Bread of life which yet they payed for and the price of it made those heaps which will
their Bibles to be burnt in one Month 17000 were put to death And the Persecution lasted at that rate for ten years time so that in Egypt only it is said there were slain 144000 and 70000 banisht The Laity it seems were allowed Bibles then Or put the case higher in Adrian's or Trajan's time who both lived within an Hundred years of Christ who Martyr'd them 'till weariness slackned the Execution and they gave off onely as it were that so they might cease to persecute themselves and we have the Officers engaged attesting this all which must needs be as notorious as the Light Now Secondly 't is most impossible those so vast multitudes of every Nation should have met together forg'd a Code of Doctrines and agreed so uniformly in professing a Religion and in dying for it for we may as easily believe that there were never any men before this Age we live in but that these began the kind as that those of that Age began the Christian Religion Thirdly 't is as impossible that their immediate Ancestors who lived in the Apostles Age who heard their Preaching received their Writings saw the Miracles they did if they did any and many of them must have seen Christ also after he was risen if it were so yea multitudes of them were themselves parties in the gifts of Tongues and Miracles if there were any and so could not be impos'd on but must necessarily know whether they were truths or forgeries It is as Impossible I say so many should agree together to betray all their Posterity into the profession of a Religion from which they could look for no advantage but the certain total Ruin of themselves and their posterity it was not possible they could have done this if they had not thought all this was true and since they did know whether it were true or not if they thought it was true they did know it was and if they knew it was then it is certain that it was so and these Scriptures and the Doctrines Christians deliver so far as they have not varied since that time from these Authentical Records they have the Seal of God Miracles to attest they come from God I might have urged completion of Prophecies to prove the same First those in the Old Testament of the Messiah which so eminently came to pass in Christ that they sufficiently clear those Books to be Divine Next Christ's predictions in the New particularly those about Jerusalem which saith Eusebius He that will compare with what Josephus an eye-witness and no Christian writes of it or what our selves know of that Nation and that place indeed he must acknowledge the Divinity of his words But enough hath been said to prove they come from God and therefore we must so receive them as the Word of God with perfect resignation of our Souls and submission of our judgments denying every apprehension that would start aside from and not captivate it self to that prime truth which cannot be deceived nor lye and renounce all discourses Reason offers that resist such abnegation of it self and all our other faculties that is receive this word of the Kingdom as a little Child I do not here affirm by saying this that our Religion does disdain or keep distance from the service of any of Mans faculties for it sometimes admits them not as Ministers only but as Judges 'T is plain the senses were the first I do not say conveyance onely but Foundation of Faith which was built on the first believers eyes and ears they heard the Doctrine saw the Miracles were sure they saw and heard them and so supposing the signs sufficient to confirm the Doctrine to have come from God were certain of their truth without any Authority of a Church to influence that faith into divine And S. John therefore does not onely call in and admit and urge their testimony That which we have heard which we have seen with our Eyes which we have lookt upon and our hands have handled of the word of Life that declare we unto you But our Saviour in the highest point of Faith appeals directly to their Judgment Reach hither thy finger and behold my hands and reach hither thy hand and thrust it into my side and be not faithless but believing And S. Austin also gives them the decision of a point of Doctrine which of all others now troubles the Church most for speaking of the Eucharist he says that which you see is Bread and 't is a Cup it is that very thing which your eyes tell you ' t is Tertullian also long before that had appealed to them in that very cause And in an instance where their sentencè passes 't is not strange if Reason also take the Chair and do pretend to Judge And truly when the Scripture that does call those Elements Christs Body and his Blood does also call them after Consecration Bread and Wine and since they must be called one of them by a figure for they cannot be in Substance both and since that Scripture hath not told us where the Figure lies hath not expresly said 't is this but in resemblance that in Substance Here if Reason that hath Principles by which to judge of Bodies which are expos'd to all the notices and trials of our several faculties and to which a Trope is not a stranger it can judge of figurative speeches when it therefore finds if it admit the figure in that form This is my Body 'T is but just the same which was in the Jews Sacrament the Paschal Lamb which they call'd the Body of the Passover though it were but the memorial a figure which was always usual in Sacraments and is indeed essential to Sacraments And which is used in all things that are given by exhibitive signs But if it should resolve it to be Bread and Wine onely in a figure besides a most impossible acknowledged Consequence that a man can be nourisht by them which the Romanists dare not deny nor yet dare grant that men can feed upon a trope be nourish't with a figure besides this if reason shall resolve that it must judge against all Rules it hath of judging by and judge in contradiction to known Principles and trample on all Laws of sense and understanding which especially when the Scripture hath no where defined expresly must be most unreasonable yea most impossible to judge that true that is to say believe that thing which it sees is most irreconcileable with known truths Here therefore Reason is not insolent if it give verdict by its proper evidences men are not bound to swallow contradictions as they do the Wafer or receive as a little Child that discerns the Lords Body no more then it does the repugnancies that are consequent to their Hypothesis concerning it Or to make another instance when the Scripture says God is a Spirit yet does also give him hands and eyes