contrariety of sin to God who is all Light and to walk in sin is to walk in darkness the unsuteableness of such ways to the glorious Promises they expected the vileness of earthly things in comparison of things heavenly and the like And in the Words of my Text he adds two Reasons more taken from two things which he says they did know but did not duly consider The first from the purpose of the manifestation of Christ in the Flesh which was to take away sin And the second from the Sanctity of his Life which was an even course of righteousness Christ purposing to take away Sin by his Example as well as by his Death and Sufferings And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins and in him is no sin We may observe in the Words these three things I. The Purpose of the manifestation of Christ in the Flesh It was to take away sin II. The Purpose of his holy Life That was also to take away sin For S t John alledges this for a Motive as well as his manifestation in the Flesh That in him was no sin III. The Inference from these two Purposes imply'd in the Argumentation of the Apostle though not express'd in his Words That it is the Duty of all Christ's Followers as far as 't is possible for frail men to be without sin I begin with the Purpose of Christ's Manifestation in the Flesh To take away sin And first a few things Of his Manifestation Christ's coming into the World is express'd in Scripture by this Term of Manifestation to shew that 't was of a different kind from other mens who had no Being before their productions into the World unless in a very imperfect way of conceiving it viz. in their Causes and Principles But Christ before he was born into the World had a full and perfect Existence even from all Eternity and did only assume our Nature to his Pre-existent Being thereby to enable him to perform the Work of our Salvation and more familiarly to converse with Mankind as our Apostle says that we might see and hear and handle the Word of Life And 't was in reference to his Being before he was born of the Virgin that Old Zachary compares his Manifestation in the Flesh to the rising of the Sun above the Horizon Whereby the Day-spring says he from on high hath visited us The Sun 's Rising we know is not his first Being as some ignorant People of old conceived who thought he was extinguish'd every Night in the Sea and a new one lighted every Morning But the Sun before he comes forth to us as a Bridegroom out of his Chamber has run his Course to many People and Nations So likewise Christ the Sun of righteousness before he shone to us here on Earth had run the Course of Eternity as I may say with his Father being the power of God from all Ages the Image of his Goodness and the brightness of his Person And this by the way may arme us against the errour and seduction of the Ebionites Samosatenians reviv'd again by the Socinians in later days who teach That Christ had no Being before he was conceived by the Virgin of the Holy Ghost Christus non fuit ante Mariam Virginem Mary the Virgin say they and Christ the Saviour were Cotemporaries Thus these Hereticks while they feared to worship a Man denyed the Son of God and ran into the highest Infidelity and Sacriledge to avoid only a supposed Idolatry But to proceed The Manifestation of Christ unto the World in our Nature the Appearance of the Son of God in the Flesh to speak strictly was rather an Obscuration than a Manifestation of him As the interposition of a Cloud between the sight of our Eyes and the Sun is a veiling and not a shewing of him so the exhibiting of Christ in the beggarly Raggs of our Flesh and Bloud was a disguising not a revealing of him That God who is incomprehensible and unconceiveable hid from our senses and hid from our understandings not by Darkness but by excess of Light and Glory and our incapacity to behold him would stoop to manifest himself to mortal eyes though in the most excellent created Form whatsoever was an infinite diminution of his Majesty But to manifest himself not only to but in our Nature must be confest to be the greatest Clouding and Absconding and not Revelation of the Deity imaginable and such as could never have entred into the thoughts of Man to believe if it had not been done and seen But however that this is most true yet if we consider this Mystery rightly for though the Evangelists set down the Manifestation of Christ in the Flesh Historically S t Paul speaks of it as of a high Mystery we shall find that God could no way have more eminently declared his Wisdom and consulted the infirmity of Men in the manifesting of his Son to the World than after that mean manner which he did that such his eclipsing and obscuring him was the most advantageous and effectual way of revealing him For in the first Place how was it possible for mortal eyes to have seen the Immortal God otherwise Alas we cannot behold the Sun but in his setting as one says Spectantes oculos infirmo lumine passus our weak Eyes are not able to gaze on that glorious Luminary in its Meridian strength but if we will see its Beauty we must watch the opportunity of its infirmity For otherwise the greater its lustre is the greater is our darkness to perceive it How then could we have beheld the Glory of Christ the ineffable Glory I say which he had with his Father from all Eternity His three Disciples were as dead men beholding only his Transfiguration and those that apprehended him in the Garden upon the streaming-forth only of some Rays of his Divinity through the Cloud of his Flesh fell twice to the Ground who could then have stood or supported the Fulguration as I may say of his Deity in its full Glory It was not possible for Christ to have appeared but in some exinanition or being stript of his Majesty the Son of God to have convers'd with Mankind but in the Clothing of Humanity 2. If we consider the Purpose of his Manifestation which was to take away sin it was not possible again to have effected this by any other Manifestation but such as was also an Obscuration of him For how could he have been subject to the Law in his Divine Nature delivered up into the hands of wicked men suffered Death and the like How could he have fulfilled the Types that shadow'd him in the Law the Paschal Lamb the Goat for the Sin-Offering the Ram caught by the Horns in the Bush c. unless he had been hamper'd as I may say and caught in our Flesh intangled in our infirmities found as St. Paul says in the similitude of a man There had been no Sacrifice no Propitiation
me advise you Not to weep for what Christ suffer'd more than sixteen hundred Years ago for your sakes seeing he is now at the Right Hand of his Father in Glory but to weep for your Own Souls that you have made no more Advantage by his Sufferings Weep not therefore because he was mockt and spit on and set at nought by the Souldiers but weep because thou thy self hast despis'd him set his Gospel at nought perhaps derided it Sigh not because Christ was scourg'd and crown'd with Thorns and hung so many hours upon the Cross but sigh truly and deeply that all these things have not moved thee to forsake one Sin or to mortifie one Lust mourn sensibly and pungently that he drunk the bitter Cup of his Passion in vain as to thee or for thy greater Condemnation For if it be a Sad Reflection that he liv'd a persecuted and afflicted Life and dy'd a Calamitous Death 't is yet a much Sadder that such his Sufferings do not Expiate but aggravate thy Guilt and Damnation The second Use I shall desire you to make of the painful and ignominious Death of so Divine a Person as the Messiah is to consider the Malignant Nature of Sin which however easily and hourly regardlesly and remorslesly we commit cost our Lord his Heart bloud to expiate and after we were once infected by it nothing less than his being Accurs'd could put us into a Capacity again of being Blest nothing but his being Cut-off could restore us to Life and Felicity Let the third Use we make of the Messiah's Death be To consider how precious a Thing the Soul of a Man is that 't is such a Jewel that the Son of God came down from Heaven to save from perishing compass'd the Earth like a greedy Merchant to purchase set his Glory and Life at nought to ransome And now 't is ransom'd at so Immense a Rate is of more Value than before and he that sells it now for Gold or Pleasure or any other Worldly Consideration sells not only an Immortal Spirit but a Divine Purchace sells his Soul Redeem'd parts with his Soul and his Messiah too delivers it up together with the Ransom and Satisfaction after no more can be expected When the Devil therefore offers to barter with us his beggarly and deceitful Wares for this Divine Treasure as the Satyrist said with indignation to a Gluttonous Person that gave more for a Fish than would have bought the Fisherman Hoc pretium Squamae all this Revenue for Finns and Scales So let us say with no less Indignation Shall we give our Immortal Souls the Bloud of Christ and Eternal Glory for a little Momentary Pleasure such as the very Slaves to it set often below a contemptible Summ of Money even when they have drawn their Purse and bid for it put it up again as thinking it too dear I proceed to the Circumstance of the Time of the Cutting-off the Messiah After threescore and two Weeks From what Epocha or Computation of Time these threescore and two Weeks begin to be reckon'd or in what King 's Reign they determin'd is very difficult to pronounce by reason that the Scripture is silent in the Extent or Number of Years of the Reigns of the Kings of Persia and those Accounts we have from Heathen Writers however competently punctual and sutable to their own Chronologies yet to make them fall in and come to a Concurrence with Holy Story one reckoning by Lunary Years and the other by Solary has been found a very hard Task insomuch that some that have labour'd over-curiously in this matter while they have sought to reconcile the Times have lost much of their own and instead of giving Satisfaction have only forfeited their Discretion I shall not therefore engage in so difficult and ambitious an Undertaking but content my self to follow the Conclusion of the soberest Expositors hasting through the ragged Ways and barren Tracts of Chronology and Arithmetick as a Traveller that delights not in his Journey and not sitting down and amusing my self in them as if I took pleasure in the Passage The plain Account is this The Prophet Jeremy long before our Prophets time had foretold that the Captivity of the Jews in Babylon should continue seventy Years Now Daniel being a Captive in Babylon about the End of this time and mindful of Jeremy's Prophecy besought of God by fasting and Supplications an Accomplishment of the promis'd Deliverance whereupon an Angel was sent to him with much more Gladsome Tydings than he expected viz. to assure him that not only at the Expiration of the Seventy Years prefixt the People should certainly return but that after Seventy Weeks of Years more i. e. seventy times seven Weeks a Week of Years consisting of seven Years the righteous and glorious Prince Messiah should be sent And the more to confirm Daniel in this joyful News the Angel according to the Distribution of the Time for the bringing this Counsel and Determination of God to pass divides the Seventy Weeks of Years into three Parts assigns seven Weeks of Years for the rebuilding Jerusalem and the Temple threescore and two from that to the Birth of the Messiah and his Cutting-off or at least for the Preaching of the Gospel by his Disciples and one Week of Years remaining for the destroying of Unbelievers as these things may be collected from ver 21. to the end of the Chapter In which Distribution of Time God's singular Goodness and Wisdom in chusing the Season for sending his Son into the World is very remarkable He sent him not the first seven Weeks or forty nine Years after the Jews return from Babylon that the City and Sanctuary were building and the Nation re-establishing for that was a busie and troublesome Time but sixty two Weeks after that when they were setled and at Leisure to attend Divine things And for this Reason God also so order'd it that Christ should be born in a Calm and Serene Age of the World in the peaceful Reign of Augustus Caesar when as the Historian says universi terrarum orbis aut pax aut pactio that there was either an Universal Peace or Treaty of Peace through the Whole World God thus stilling the Noise of Wars and the Tumults of the Nations that the Voice of his Son might be heard gave men nothing to intend that they might intend Religion But though he offer'd the Jews this Opportunity for their Salvation they laid not hold of it but when they were disengaged from Civil Affairs they engaged and immers'd themselves in all manner of Sin and Wickedness when their Wars ceas'd their Lusts began to rage when the Architects and Builders had finish'd their Work the Contrivers of Iniquity set to plot and contrive theirs So that few were at leisure to compute how Daniel's Weeks for the coming of the Messiah past away and much less to prepare themselves for his Reception and accordingly when he appear'd so far they were
from paying him Obedience that they knew him not from acknowledging him their King that they crucifi'd him They dreamt of a second Joshua for their Messiah not of a Melchizedeck of a fighting not a preaching King when therefore he rebuk'd their Vices they conspir'd his Death and cut him off instead of cutting off their Sins 'T was no wonder therefore that God allow'd but one Week of Years for the destroying so Carnal so wicked so ungrateful a People 'T is an Ominous and Fatal Sign when God has given Eminent Deliverance to a Nation and allow'd it time for the Re-establishing it self if at least in the second place it makes not Religion and his Worship its Business but falls from Secular Employments to Sensual and Sinful never reflecting either why he did so severely punish them or why again so Graciously Restore them We of this Nation attend not the fulfilling of the Weeks foretold by Daniel for the Coming of the Messiah in the Flesh his Cutting off and the Destruction of Jerusalem these things are already past But there are other Weeks in which we are concern'd which are not yet fulfill'd viz. the few Weeks before God may possibly call us to account for the ill Use we have made of his Glorious Restoration of our King and Nation and his other Illustrious Mercies Or if in his Wisdom he shall think fit to adjourn this Account to the General Audit at the Last Day then the very few Weeks before we that are here present shall be seal'd up for that Dreadful Day by our Departure out of this Life And in the mean time we have daily an Image or representation of that Great Assize of the Whole World in the Absolution which the Church pronounces to Penitent Sinners and consequently in binding over to Judgment the Impenitent For though the Righteous are not juridically and finally absolv'd in this World nor the Wicked condemn'd yet the Issue that both are to expect is foreshew'd and however there seems for a time a Forgetfulness of the one and the other that the Just appear to go away without their Reward and the Unjust to be Tenants to an Easie Lord that will never call them to account yet they will receive their Recompence according to what they have done in this Life and find though Christ suffered for Sin he never suffered or tolerated Sin but that his Death will prove Effectual for their Condemnatition for whom it prov'd not Effectual for their Salvation The Reason that Men put off the Fear of the Lord 's Coming to Judgment or think his Coming but a Fable is because they consider not how far he is already advanc'd on his Way towards them how many Stages he has past and how very near he is come He is advanc'd long since to the Destruction of Jerusalem there 's the first prophesy'd Stage of his Coming and so many Weeks of Years past Secondly His Gospel is preach'd through the World Christ is arriv'd so much Nearer on his Journey towards us Thirdly Anti-Christ is come the Apostle speaks of him as entred into the World though as 't were incognito or conceal'd in his time but now for many Years he has shew'd himself openly and raged in the Church and there 's the Third Sett of Weeks foretold for Christ's coming past So that there remains but one Parcel of Weeks more before we shall see him at our very Doors i. e. coming in the Clouds of Heaven to judge the Quick and the Dead We have seen three Predictions of his Coming actually fulfill'd and is it possible our Sins should perswade us that he will tire by the Way and that the fourth shall not come to pass The Night succeeds not the Day Winter the Summer so certainly as Christ's Second Coming shall succeed in the time appointed And seeing these things shall be so what manner of Persons as S t Peter says ought we to be in all holy Conversation and Godliness My Text says Christ was not cut off for Himself let us take care to be of the Number of those he was cut off For and not of those he shall be cut off From. And so I pass to my Second General Part the Angel's Direction for the right Understanding of his Prediction He shall be cut off but not for himself The Words in the Original ve en lo which our Translators render but not for himself and in the Margent and shall have nothing are so concise and abrupt that they leave place to several Apprehensions to add what they think will best fill up their Sense But all that is offered being merely conjectural and also less edifying than what we read in our own Bibles I shall not decline what I there find And it may be understood in two Respects That Christ was cut off and not for Himself 1. In Respect of any Demerit or Fault of his There were many that pretended to be the Messiah that were Thieves and Murderers and were cut off but 't was justly for their Offences But the Angel prevents here the least Suspicion that the True Messiah should be a Guilty Person cut off for his own Crimes He did no Sin as S t Peter says neither was Guile found in his mouth But he could make that bold Challenge to all the Nations of the Jews Which of you convinceth me of Sin It fared indeed with him as it did with David a good King and his Type who Psal. the 59 th and the 3 d complains of his Enemies after this manner They lye in wait for my Soul the Mighty are gathered against me not for My Transgressions nor for my Sin O Lord they run and prepare themselves without my Fault No if any man could take away our Messiah by justly alledging Impiety against him we would readily deliver him up our selves But when he was Holy in his Life and Doctrine when his Righteousness was attested from Heaven before and in and after his being in the World by Prophecies Miracles by the Voice to use S t Peter's expression which came to him from the Excellent Glory saying This is my Beloved Son in whom I am well-pleased by his Resurrection Ascension and sending the Holy Ghost we may well adhere to such a Saviour and excuse the seeming Shame of his Cutting off for those real Glories which none beside himself ever pretended to 2. Not for himself in respect of any Benefit he received If the Angel had told the Prophet That the Cutting off of the Messiah had been for any Personal Advantage of his own though he had taken Death in the Way to that Advantage his Suffering had not been Relative to Others it had been for Himself But the Scripture disclaims this and affirms 'T was for our Redemption our Salvation our being Reconcil'd to God and instated in Glory that Messiah suffered For he being enthron'd already in Heaven what could he gain to himself by taking our wretched Flesh and undergoing all the Miseries and
of thy Strange and astonishing Miseries thy low Condition and sad Wants thy perpetual Dangers and Persecutions What is the meaning of thine Agony and bloudy Sweat thy Crown of Thorns platted and crusht into thy Head thy being Mockt and Spit on What is the meaning of thy Submitting not only to the Dishonours of a Humane Birth but to those also of a Violent and Ignominious Death Being the Son of God why didst thou suffer any Evil Why didst thou not convert the Stable in which thou wert Born into a Palace and the Cross to which thou were Nail'd into a Throne Why didst thou undergo such Miseries and Indignities as made the World doubt of thy Divine Nature and not exert thy Deity and destroy thy Murderers and burn up their City as thou spak'st in one of thy Parables Thy People expected thee a mighty Prince but thou shew'd'st thy self a Destitute Forlorn Person they lookt for a Deliverer but behold one Obnoxious to Bonds and Death for a Redeemer but Alas none needed Redemption more himself Great undoubtedly and wonderful was the Mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God and that he should not only be born in a Mortal but in a Miserable Condition The Apostle might well give it the precedence to all other Mysteries of Godliness Great is the Mystery of Godliness says he God was manifested in the Flesh justify'd in the Spirit seen of Angels c. But that Christ should suffer the things he did in our Nature was no less Necessary than Wonderful And to omit all other Reasons for it I shall insist only on that One Great One Because Sin could not otherwise have been abolisht the End for which Christ came into the World attain'd which was To destroy the Works of the Devil Christ could have destroy'd the Devil with more Facility if he had come in Majesty and Glory as the Apostle says 2 Thess. 2. He shall consume Anti-Christ with the Spirit or breath only of his Mouth and the Brightness of his Coming But our Lord's Business at this time was not to destroy the Person but the Power of the Devil Sin was both the Stratagem by which he conquer'd and the Chain by which he held Mankind in Captivity and Christ undertaking to rescue them from this Thraldom to bind the Strong Man and to take from him the Armour in which he trusted he was not to do this by an Omnipotent Power as he brought the World out of Nothing Light out of Darkness c. but by an Heroick Vertue such as he shew'd when he trampled upon the Temptations of the Devil in the Wilderness He therefore enter'd the Lists against Satan as a Champion or Combatant according to the fair Law of Armes as they say i. e. with a sutable Strength and Appointment to his Adversaries Man was lost by Sin and could only be restored by Righteousness he had forfeited God's Favour and his Felicity by his Transgressions and could recover them again no other way but by Obedience On this Account Christ laid by his Majesty and Glory and took our Nature that in the Infirmity of our Flesh he might foil our Strong Enemy the Second Adam redeem the Glories lost by the First Adam the Seed of the Woman bruise the Serpents head made himself subject to the Law that he might fulfil the Law obnoxious to Death that he might subdue Death and the Author of it by suffering Death as S t Paul says Heb. 2.14 That through Death he might destroy him that had the Power of Death that is the Devil So that we see here was no place for Thunder and Lightning for an O'er-bearing Irresistible Power but only for Divine Graces or Vertues and the Weapons Christ used in this Conflict were only Courage Holiness Obedience Patience Self-denial Meekness and the like such as were in the Power of Men also to make use of he so conquer'd as they might conquer after him For the Great Business was not Christ's Personal Victory that was secure but the Victory of his Followers he indeed was to break the Power of the Kingdom of Darkness but they were to compleat the Conquest every one in his own Particular to subdue Sin and Satan And thus while Christ destroy'd the Power of the Devil disarm'd him and made those that had been his Slaves Lords over him by consequence and in a Political Sense he destroy'd the Devil himself as a Prince is said to be destroy'd that is stript of his Forts and Castles his Territories and Armies his Ammunition and Harness of War though his Person still survives However then that Zipporah upbraided Moses upon the Circumcising of her Child saying factus es mihi Sponsus sanguinum thou art to me a Bloudy Husband we have no reason to quarrel that Christ was to us Salvator Sanguinum a Bloudy Saviour i. e. a Saviour drencht in his own Bloud for without the Bloud of Christ there had been no Redemption But to be more particular and distinct There are two Ways by which Christ destroy'd the Power of the Devil and delivered Mankind from his Bondage and those are Pretio Exemplo by the Price or Satisfaction he paid for Sin And by the Example of his Holy Life By the first he destroy'd the Guilt of Sin And by the second the Dominion or reigning Power of Sin 1. Therefore we may say There was a Necessity of Christ's Death and Sufferings and that he should be a Wounded Saviour that he might pay a Price make Satisfaction to God the Father for the Sins of the World For whether it be that the Vindicative Justice of God for Sin be so natural and intimate to his Essence that he cannot without renouncing his very Nature and Being pardon Sin without a Competent Satisfaction as some would have it Or whether it be only his Declared Will not to pardon Sin without a Competent Satisfaction as others more sutably to the Divine Goodness and Glory affirm I shall not need here to dispute seeing both Sides agree in one and the same Conclusion That it was necessary for Christ to Dye for the Sins of the World The Wages of Sin is Death says the Apostle and in another place Almost all things by the Law were purged by Bloud and without shedding of Bloud there was no Remission Now though the Bloud there mentioned was but the Bloud of Beasts that were sacrificed yet those Beasts were the Proxies and Representatives of Men and also Types of the Great Sacrifice which Christ was once to offer on the Cross and derived from it all their Vertue and Merit and God revealed this Way of atoning by Sacrifice early to the World and afterwards prescribed it to his People the Jews by written Laws from whom it was deriv'd to all Nations though the Mystery that Sacrifices were founded in the Death of Christ was not clearly understood till the Days of the Gospel As a Remedy for Sin was promised from the Beginning so 't was
And this last Way did God Know Israel above all the Families of the Earth for he knew them not only with a Perceptive Knowledge so as he Knows equally all the Nations of the World but Owned favoured and was beneficial to them As the Sun beholds some Countries with a more bounteous Aspect than others not only shedding on them Light and common Influences but enriching them with the Noblest Plants Minerals and Precious Stones Or as he is feign'd by the Poets to have beheld Thessaly when he was in love with Daphne terrâ figit in unâ Quos mundo debet oculos he fixt his Eyes on one particular Soil which ought to have cheered the Universe So God as if he had been Enamoured on Israel of all the Nations of the Earth set his Heart on them alone to the seeming Contempt of all beside he revealed himself to them in a more Especial Manner made a Covenant with them gave them Laws and heaped Blessings upon them vouchsafed to be their King and Governour in his own Person conducted fed protected them by by Wonderful and Supernatural Means and whereas he governed the other Nations by his Ordinary Invisible Power as if he had erected a New Providence in the World for them he brought all things to pass in their behalf by Miracles And thus though by Nature Israel was no better than other Nations by his Grace and Favour God made them Excel them But then though it be the highest Advantage To be Known by God after a particular and Extraordinary Manner yet if a People shew themselves not worthy of it it ceases to be an Advantage nay it turns to their greater Evil. 'T is not enough therefore that men are known by God to make them happy but God must also be known by them they must understand his Will what is pleasing and displeasing to him and hold a reciprocal Correspondence with him by Faith Love and Obedience For as S t Peter says of Apostates It had been better for them not to have known the Way of Righteousness than after they have known it to turn from the holy Commandment So it had been better for Israel if they had not been the Favourites of God than after their being so by their Sins to lose that Grace for Sins against Favour are greater than Sins against a Commandment Men in this Case being not only Disobedient but Ungrateful and whereas God would possibly have past by the Offences of less Obliged Persons he will call such as these to a strict account what he would have pardoned in the Heathen that were Strangers to him he will punish in his own People whom he has known by so many Great and Distinguishing Benefits You only have I known of all the Families of the Earth therefore will I punish you for all your Iniquities The Words afford us this Proposition or Observation That whatever People God blesses above others if they shew themselves Ungrateful by sinning against him he will punish them above others Which Proposition I shall handle after this manner I. Prove and confirm the Truth of it that it is indeed so And II. Shew the Reason and Equity of it why it should be so I. To clear and confirm the Proposition Sin as soon as it is committed is followed by Punishment except prevented by Repentance Punishment follows it I say sometimes with Slow but always with Sure Paces till it over-takes it Vengeance attends it as the Gaoler in some Countries does Malefactors who is bound in the same Chain with them Or is coupled to it as the After-Birth is to the Birth For as in Natural Productions after the Birth of the Creature there is a second Birth or Protrusion so there is in the bringing-forth of Sin it is no sooner produced in the World but there succeeds a Title to Punishment so close upon it as if it came from the same Womb. If thou dost Evil says God to Cain Sin lyeth at the Door i. e. the Punishment of Sin is at hand to seize thee and says our Lord in regard of mens proneness to Wickedness It is necessary that Offences should come but then also that 't was as necessary That upon them Woes should come and the Scripture makes it a piece of Injustice to detain them no less than a Sin to spare Sin The Wages of Sin is Death says S t Paul and as when the Wages of a Labourer or the Pay of a Souldier is detained a Mutiny or Clamour is raised so when Punishment the Wages of Sin is with-held a Cry is sent up to Heaven and God's Justice is continually sollicited till Guilt receive its due Reward This indeed to the Men of this World is the primum incredibile one of the most Incredible Doctrines that is taught they see not the Link which by God's appointment couples Sin and Punishment and because the Act of Sin is transient and Vengeance deferred they conceive the Guilt and the Bitterness of Death contracted by it are also transient and that they can confute the whole Hypothesis from their own Experience they having not only run on in Disobedience for many Years together but encreased their Wickedness as well as continued in it proceeded from sinning with fear to sin with presumption from offending God to the affronting him from breaking his Laws to the deriding of his Worship and the denying of his Deity and yet say they we have found none of that Vengeance that is spoken of no not the least Disturbance in our Evil Ways But is it then no Vengeance to let a Sinner run on in the Ways of Perdition without any Check Is the Blindness and Darkness of the Soul and Hardness of the Heart no Judgment Is the falling from the Condition of a Man to that of a Beast the despising all things Spiritual and Noble and finding no relish but in things sensual and Brutish no Judgment Is God's giving them up thus to a Reprobate Mind and Vile Affections condemning them to love Necessarily and Finally what they have so long loved Perversely and Wilfully no Judgment Is the visible trailing after them in this manner the Chain of Damnation and going on singing and dancing to Hell without apprehending the least Evil no Judgment What Sadder Arrest can there be of God's Wrath than such an Exemption from it What Plague or Punishment sent upon Less Offending Sinners half so dreadful as the Calm and Peace which these boast of But let it be as these Men imagine that all these things we speak of are Dreams that Obdurateness and Insensibility in Sinning is no Punishment and that nothing deserves the Name of Vengeance but what is Corporal Loss of Life or Liberty deprivation of Health Estate and the like How do these know they shall escape these Evils Those of this Way are for the most part Young or in the Strength of their Days and perhaps God has determined before they depart hence to make them as Eminent Examples
these and stand not in need to have their Understanding instructed or their Reason convinc'd in this Particular But yet I know not how though Demonstration and Experience assure this Truth on the one side there is something in Life it self on the other something in Prosperity Youth Greatness the Businesses of this World and the like which strangely contradict it and though we believe nothing more certainly than that All Men must Dye we believe nothing more hardly than that we our Selves must Dye Those that burn in a Feaver feel no Cold that are encompass'd with much Light discern no Darkness no more can those that are incircled with the Splendour of a high Fortune see through it the gloomy Shades of the Grave nor those that are within the warm embraces of Youth and Health apprehend the Cold remote Hand of Death Paracelsus was perswaded that there was a Certain Spirit of Salt that gave Vegetation to all things in the World which if he could have found out he would have preserved himself and others Immortal All men have generally a Tincture of this foolish Chymical or rather Chimerical Salt in their Fancy which though it preserves them not from Dying yet it gives them a Perswasion of long Living and though it cannot defer the Fatal Hour one Moment it can make them forget it and put the Consideration of it far from them Our Reflections upon our own Dying are much like those of Raving Lovers upon the Loss of those they Immoderately affected who at the very Instant that they embrace their Dead Bodies in their Arms cry out They cannot they must not they shall not Dye What they are not able to support they are not willing to acknowledge the Sorrow which is too Great for their Hearts to bear is too Great also for their Tongues to pronounce And after the like manner though we see and feel Death daily marching towards us we being not able to brook its Approach we endeavour to disbelieve it and hope to avoid the Evil by disowning it to delude or delay our Destiny by entertaining Fictions of a Long Life and I may say There is nothing that we at once so much Believe and so much Disbelieve as the Necessity of our Dying 'T is not therefore Superfluous to teach Men the so Known Lesson of Dying to put them in mind of that which is daily presented before their Eyes And the Wisest in all Ages as well Heathens as Christians have used studied Arts to preserve a Memory of their Frail Condition some have brought Urns and Skulls and Coffins into their Bed-Chambers and Closets that where the Scene of their Business or Pleasure lay there they might be admonish'd that they must one day bid a Farewel to those things Others have served up Skeletons at their Feasts the whole Frame of a Dead man's Bones made with Art to turn to all the Guests and with a horrid Aspect to survey the Table and to insinuate that Death was always near though forgotten in the Noise of Mirth and Wine sate President of many Feasts though invisibly through the Reek of Jollity and Meat Others upon the Days of their Coronation and Triumph have placed those among the Multitude that might mingle Admonitions of their Mortality together with the general Applauses and Acclamations that they might not forget while they conquered or commanded many People themselves were Subject to Death and that their Heads which were now crown'd with Gold or Laurel must after a short time be laid in the Dust. All these confessing that it was not enough that Men should believe they must Dye when they Considered and Reasoned of it but that they ought frequently to Consider and Reason of it And now after all is done though these Courses may seem of great Power and Efficacy to take off the Strangeness and Terrour of Death yet they have been found to fall short of the End they aimed at For though men by these Artifices have become acquainted with the Name and Images of Death they have still been miserably Strangers to Death it self neither is it possible to strip the King of Terrours of his amazing Circumstances merely by remembring him and making Pictures and Representations of him but men must fit and prepare themselves to entertain him they must lye under no Guilt of Sin nor be too much in love with this Life before they can Master this Apprehension for 't is no less than a Contradiction that those that are fond of this Life should welcome Death that are inferior to every Lust and Temptation should be Superior to the Greatest of Evils We must make Death Harmless before we can make him not to be Dreadful take away his Sting and Curse by Repentance and a holy Life before we can take away his Terrour make him Beneficial and Advantageous before we can reconcile him to our thoughts and render him Familiar to us For to retain Sin and yet to hope to free our Selves from the Punishment of Sin would not be to set our selves to conquer the Unreasonable Fears of our Nature but to conquer God to wrest the Vengeance of Iniquity out of his hands which the Pain and Fear of Death are And if it be objected that the antient Heathen out of a Principle only of Magnanimity and an Emulous Bravery despised Death I answer That they cannot so truly be said to have Despised Death as to have been Ignorant of it they promised themselves after their departure hence a Being of Fame and Renown they knew nothing but Fables of the Punishments of another World for 't is not Courage but Madness to despise Torments that are Intolerable and Eternal If it be urged again That many Professors of Christianity who have heard the Doctrine of Damnation and another Life frequently preached have yet after many heinous and unrepented Sins rush'd as boldly upon Death as the Heathen I reply Though they often heard the Doctrine of Damnation preach'd they never believ'd it but Infidelity wrought the same Effect in them which Ignorance did in the other No we must disarm Death as I said of the Evil that accompanies him by a Righteous Life before we can disarm him of his Terrour if we will not be dismay'd when this Grim Landlord comes to turn us out of our Mortal Tenements we must provide our Selves before-hand Everlasting Habitations Which brings me to my Second General Part the Policy which is taught us to procure Everlasting Habitations when we fail in these and that is by making to our selves Friends Of the Mammon of Vnrighteousness We may observe in the Policy here prescribed us three things 1. The Instrument of it The Vnrighteous Mammon 2. The Use of this Instrument We are to make Friends with it 3. The End of this Use That we may be received into Everlasting Habitations I begin with the Instrument the Vnrighteous Mammon in which there are two things to be explained The Name and Substance of it Mammon And the
his House were prophan'd his Worship would be extinguish'd in the World made them disbelieve their Prophets And the like latent Incredulity possest the Disciples here They knew their Lord had the Words of Truth but the Strangeness and Dreadfulness of the things spoken of by him made their Faith fluctuate and they could not believe even what they could not disbelieve And when we see the holiest Men thus to have Doubts and Scruples to with-hold them from receiving a harsh and displeasing though never so plainly a reveal'd Truth to have a Where or a When Lord a How or by What Means Some Question or other of the Time the Place the Possibility and the like What marvel is it if Wicked and profligate Persons who are wholly Strangers to the Power and Wonderful Ways of God shew a greater Infidelity when they hear a Doctrine wholly contrary to their Temper repugnant to their Pleasures destructive of their Interests and withal difficult to be conceiv'd I say if when such as these to restrain them from their Lusts or gainful Oppressions are told that they will certainly be call'd to a strict Account in another Life for what they do amiss in this smile or laugh out and conceive they shall do well enough after their Sins notwithstanding all that 's threatned against them We see Malefactors against the Laws of Men even after the Sentence of Death is past upon them and their Execution as certain to ensue as the revolution of the short time appointed for it yet flatter themselves they shall find means to escape by a Bribe by a Rope at a Window by a Reprieve by a Rescue by an Accident by any thing they know not what And after the like manner Offenders against God though their Condemnation be recorded in his Word and their Condition more desperate promise themselves they shall never feel the Evils denounc'd against them that the Report of Dooms-Day is false the Doctrine of a Resurrection and another Life foolish and impossible When therefore they hear such passages in Scripture as these Some mens Sins are open before-hand going before to Judgment and some mens follow after and again The Good Works of some are manifest before-hand and they that are otherwise cannot escape they reason in their hearts and say Ay but why the Parties are dead Ay but When and Where the Parties are escap'd into a far Country Ay but How or which way the Parties are drown'd and devour'd by Fishes and their Bodies turn'd into Nourishment or else burnt to Ashes and that scatter'd True but where-ever the Carcase is or the least Remains of it thither will the Eagles be gathered together i. e. though the Body of a Sinner seem to all humane Appearance annihilated yet God by his Power will restore it and by the Office of his Angels bring it before the Tribunal of Christ. And this is the importance of our Lord 's Emblematical Words in my Text for 't is observed that Eagles and other Birds of Prey Ravens Vulturs c. have a great Perspicacity in discovering their Food a kind of divining or Prophetick Conjecture where to seek it insomuch that they will follow Armies and know the unsuccessful Troops and expect their Banquets from their Overthrow Says Job The Eagle abideth on the rock from thence she seeth her Prey her Eyes behold afar off and where the slain are there is she And then the Celerity strength and rapacity of these Creatures to seize is as great as their Sagacity to find out And God has more abundantly endowed the Angels with requisite Qualities to execute his Will and Commands however therefore Vertue and Piety went out of this World without any seeming Regard yet they are the Objects of God's Love and the particular Care and Charge of the Angels and they shall not pass in the next without a Glorious Reward Again though Wickedness dy'd in Prosperity yet it is the Object of God's Wrath and Justice and the Quarry of the Angels and it will be found out by them in all the Ruines of Mortality and brought to receive its just Punishment And that these things are so incredible to Sinners is without all reason For they are the only men that believe this World to be immoveable and eternal and yet 't is supported only by the Word or Will of God as Job says He hangs the Earth upon nothing and we may say the Heavens upon as little But God's rewarding the Righteous and punishing the Wicked are founded on his Justice i. e. on his very Essence or Being and can fail no more than the Deity it self However therefore this Doctrine is disbelieved and slighted by sensual and carnal Men it ought continually to ring and sound in the Ears of the Faithful as S t Jerome fansy'd the last Trump did in his the Parable of the Eagles and the Carcase should frequently occur to our thoughts to make us break off our Sins and to keep us close to our Duty For if any One to encourage himself in his Sins shall say When I leave this World I shall creep again into the Cells of Darkness and Obscurity where I lay before I was born I shall be reduc'd again to the State of Nothing as when I was in my first Causes Let him consider that God can call him out of that Nothing which he speaks of as he did when he first made him a living Man and that Restoration is not so hard a Work as Creation that what the Psalmist says of the Nocturnal Darkness caus'd by the absence of the Sun The Darkness is no Darkness to thee may be affirmed of the Philosophical Darkness of his Dissolution That Darkness is also no Darkness to him the Night and the Day of his Being or Not-being are alike in his all-seeing Eyes The fat and grown Deer seems Subtil to himself in retiring into the Coverts and Thickets and leaving the Younger and smaller to feed abroad in danger of the Huntsmen but alas 't is for him alone that all the Quest and Search is made and while the lean and Rascal-Herd are past by the Keeper only marks and lodges him for the Chace The Policies of Wicked Men are as Simple as the Craft of these Silly Creatures who when they are grown fat with the Oppressions and Spoils of their Brethren swollen and ready to burst with Excess and Luxury flatter themselves if they can but escape the Penalty of the Laws and get into their Graves in Peace no Vengeance can afterwards overtake them But alas it is to rouse them chiefly that Dooms-Day is appointed Aquila non capit Muscas the heavenly Eagles the Angels stoop not at Flies they are not Small Sinners but these Monsters and Prodigies of Impiety which are their principal Game or Quarry As therefore the bloudy Tyrant Sylla found it a foolish Meditation after his butchering so many of the Roman Nobility to lay down his Power and to hope for Safety in a Retirement from
among the Jews to repulse those that moved any thing to them unseasonably or unworthy of them to do in their Opinion and also to express their Resentment if they thought themselves hardly dealt with The Widow of Zerephath used it this last way to the Prophet Elijah when she conceiv'd the Cohabitation of so holy a Person with her and his near Inspection into her Life was the Cause of her Childs death What have I to do with thee says she O thou Man of God! art thou come unto me to call my Sins to remembrance and to slay my Son And David used it the first way 2 Sam. 19. to Abishai urging him to put Shimei to death upon the Day of his Restoration to the Kingdom because he had Curs'd him in his Flight from Jerusalem Says he What have I to do with you ye Sons of Zerviah And notwithstanding the great Dislike and Offence this Phrase exprest our Lord forbore not to use it to his Mother intermedling in his Divine Employment Woman says he What have I to do with thee I confess it was durum Dictum a harsh Speech considering the Person to whom 't was spoken but 't was also if rightly weighed frugiferum Dictum a Speech full of good Instruction and Profit For it shews Christ's equal and impartial Deportment as he is a Lord and Saviour to all Persons whatsoever without Consideration of Country Acquaintance or Kindred The very Womb that bare him in an Unadvis'd Action shall not go away without a Rebuke if his Mother does that which is Dishonourable to his Office she shall hear that which is less honourable to her Relation if she forgets her Duty he will forget her Name and Title A good Lesson for those Favourites of Christ in these our Days who call themselves his Elect and his Darling Children however they live in Disobedience to his Laws and fansie he can see nothing in them that displeases him whatever wickedness they commit Though Propinquity in Grace be more in Christ's account than Propinquity in Bloud yet if even those that are ally'd to him by Grace sin presumptuously against him they will find him but a rough Kinsman Though Coniah were as the Signet upon my Right hand says God yet would I pluck him thence And if Peter the most Zealous of the Apostles shall take upon him to tempt Christ he shall bear the Name of Adversary Get thee behind me Satan If the Provocations of the Servants of God be Great however near and close their former Relation to him was they will find him as far Estranged from them and in Case their Provocations be of a less and meaner Allay they will receive a Check as the Blessed Virgin here did And so I proceed to the Reason why Christ reprov'd her Because she unseasonably interpos'd in what she ought not to have meddled prompted him to work a Miracle before his Time was come My Time says he is not yet come These and the foregoing Words Woman what have I to do with thee utterly o'erthrow all the vain and false Glories which the Church of Rome Superstitiously Idolatrously and injuriously rather than Devoutly heap upon our Lady ascribing to her impeccability and being born without Sin the Title of Queen of Heaven and a perpetual Regency over her Son c. But as Stout and resolute Souldiers where the Works are weakest shew the greatest Valour So those of that Church shrink not for all the Assault they receive from my Text but the ruder the Shock is the more obstinately they maintain their Post. They affirm that the Action of the Blessed Virgin here was not only without Blame but full of Faith Charity Humility Prudence c. and that Christ was so far from being angry with her or having any Cause given him to be so that he took up a feigned and dissembled Dislike to have an Occasion only to teach the World and not her neither That the Power by which a Prophet works Miracles is not derived from his Parents nor to be governed by them but wholly by the Spirit of God says Cornelius à Lapide In ipsa nulla fuit culpa ergo non vera fuit Christi reprehensio reprehendere tamen illam videtur ut non ipsam sed nos doceret in operibus theandricis parentes nihil habent juris and so forth Thus the Jesuite is not asham'd to make our Lord Jesuitize i. e. falsifie and dissemble but the time would be ill spent to confute such gross Follies and Blasphemies which chuse rather to find a Miscarriage in Christ than in his Mother to make him angry without a Cause or to feign an Unjust Anger than to allow it possible for her to give him a Just Cause to be angry But the Explanation of these Words my hour is not yet come will more plainly shew wherein our Lady deserv'd a Reprehension The Hour of Christ is sometimes understood of the Hour of his Death as 't is said They could not lay hold of him because his Hour was not yet come But here it is to be understood of his Season or Opportunity to do a thing as when he answered his Brethren that ask'd him to go up to Jerusalem to the Feast Your Time says he is always but my Time is not yet come But here by the way we must not conceive any thing of the Hours assign'd to Christ of that nature which the Arrians and Priscillians did who said He was subject to Fate and Necessity and bound up to the Observation of Times and could not therefore be the Eternal Son of God Christ's Death was not impos'd on him by any Fatal Necessity as himself declares Chap. 10. and 18. of our Evangelist No man taketh my Life from me says he but I lay it down of my self I have Power to lay it down and I have Power to take it up But when 't is said The Hour of his Death was not yet come it means no more than this That he had not yet finish'd the Work for which he came into the World he had not fully preach'd the Gospel accomplish'd the Prophecies that were of him confirm'd his Disciples c. i. e. the Hour by his own Eternal Wisdom chosen was not yet come the Hour as S t Augustine speaks non Necessitatis sed Voluntatis the Hour not of his Necessity but his Will not of his Constraint but of his Counsel And the like may be said of the Hour of his working Miracles he attended no Critical Minute or favourable Conjuncture of the Stars to assist him as to his Power he could have wrought them when he would every Hour was the Hour of his Power but every Hour was not the Hour of his Opportunity he could have turned the Water into Wine at the time his Mother spoke to him as well as at any other but the End for which he did it would not have fallen out so Easily and Naturally at one time as at another and though
Indignities of a Humane Life His Sufferings indeed were antecedent to his Exaltation but his Exaltation was not the End or Reason of his Sufferings God highly exalted him and gave him a Name above every Name that at the Name of Jesus every Knee should bow of things in Heaven and things in Earth and things under the Earth but this was the Result or Event of the Merit of his Humiliation not the Design of it And the Joy which as the Apostle says was set before him and made him endure the Cross and despise the Shame was a Contemplation of the Redemption and Recovery of Lost Man and of the Glory redounding to God by his Atchievement more than of his own Glory There are but two Sorts of Creatures in the Whole Lump of the Creation for whom the Excision of the Messiah could possibly be namely Angels and Men but the Scripture excludes the first He took not upon him the Nature of Angels but took upon him the Seed of Abraham and the Ancients interpret That the Nature that was not assum'd was not ransom'd The State of the Angels Good and Bad immediately after the Fall of those that kept not their Station was made Immutable and they are Happy or Accursed without Change For Men therefore alone the Benefit was and it being said for Men indefinitely it must be understood of all the Race of Mankind the Men of all Nations and of all Times quocunque sub axe how remote or in what Clime soever quocunque sub scelere how remote from Righteousness or under what Sins soever all that Believe all that Repent are of the Number of those for whom Christ was cut off as S t John says He is the Propitiation for our Sins and not for ours only but for the Sins of the Whole World None are so much cut off from Goodness but Christ was cut off to bring them to Righteousness and Salvation And now to draw to a Conclusion What does this Universal this Wonderful Love of Christ preach to us Who when he was not capable as God to dye for us as our Condition required espoused our Nature first that he might espouse our Miseries after and that he might bring us to perfect Felicity was content to be made perfect by Sufferings as the Apostle speaks As I said before an affected weeping and sorrowing in remembrance of Christ's Passion was but an Insignificant Return for his Sufferings So I may say here an Empty Admiration of his Love will be as Vain as Ungrateful and as unacceptable an Acknowledgment of his Goodness The Return he expects for his Unspeakable Love is that we according to our Measures and proportions should shew the like Love to our Brethren And this is the Consequence S t John draws from the Love of Christ If Christ so loved us we ought to love one another But what Kind of Love is it which is requir'd of us For the Love commonly practis'd in the World is but a Confederation for Lust and Pleasure or an Association like that of Merchants for Interest and Profit Moralists observe three Kinds of Love in regard of the Ends of them Love for Pleasure sake Love for Profit and Love for Vertues sake Now the last only of these bears any Resemblance to the Love of Christ which we are to imitate and which is more perfectly described by the Pen of S t Paul To be first a Benevolence or Well-willing to others as to our Selves not excluding our very Enemies a Candid and favourable Interpretation of all Mens Actions a Meek Conceit of our selves and a Lowliness towards others ready to forgive Injuries and to overcome Evil with Good c. which Love the Apostle prefers even before Martyrdom Secondly a Mutual Compassion and being affected as our Brethren are a sorrowing with them that sorrow and a rejoycing with them that rejoyce as the Apostle says like Members of the same Body suffering all if one suffers and if one be honoured all rejoycing Thirdly a Beneficence or Liberal Contribution to those that need exprest in these Words But to do Good and to Contribute forget not And this Love it seems the Church was so happy in in S t Paul's days that he thought it superfluous to recommend it among other Duties to the Thessalonians But as touching Brotherly Love says he ye need not that I should write unto you But had the Apostle liv'd in these days he would have thought it necessary not only to say Love one another love Strangers love your Enemies but love your Friends love your Selves For we see Men destroy their Souls for the love of their Bodies and their Bodies again for the love of their Lusts. And if any in these days should pretend to love merely for Vertue and Goodness sake to have a Kindness to those that gave them an Opportunity to exercise their Charity even as unto those that did them a Good Turn they would be hiss'd at as Hypocrites and if they should love their Enemies and return Good for Evil they would be lookt on as base and degenerate despicable and ridiculous persons But had not Christ been so ridiculous as to do Good to them that hated him so degenerate as to lay down both his Life and Glory for his Enemies none that now shall be admitted into the Kingdom of Heaven should ever have come there And he that gave his Soul unto Death for our sakes looks that we should not only be Believers but Martyrs for his Sake if Occasion requires that we should be ready to be cut off for Him that was cut off for us that is be content to lay down our Lives for the Truth or the Salvation of our Brethren To God the Father Son and Holy Ghost be ascribed all Honour Glory c. Amen The Fifth Sermon ZECHARY xiii 6 And one shall say unto him What are these Wounds in thy hands Then shall he answer Those with which I was wounded in the house of my Friends THere is nothing esteemed more barbarous than to violate the Laws of Hospitality to outrage a Stranger-Guest The sense of Mankind in this Particular may be seen by the fatal Revenge taken for the abuse of the Levite's Concubine which occasioned the destruction well near of a whole Tribe in Israel But then the Violation of an Ambassadour and of such an one as comes to offer Peace and Alliance not only to break the Laws of Hospitality but of Nations to Evil-Entreat a Sacrosanct Person and to return Hostility for Friendship and Amity what can be found sufficient to make an Atonement for such Inhumanity How beautiful are the feet of them that bring glad Tydings of Good things And how deformed and detestable on the other side must the Ingratitude of those be that are injurious to such Messengers 'T is no wonder if such Barbarity creates irreconcileable Feuds inter mortales inimicitias immortales between mortal men immortal Enmities Yet the Prophet Zechary foretells that such
Christ from the dead shall quicken your mortal Bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you IF the Resurrection of Christ had been of his Person only it would have been a rare and glorious Event but an Event of no Concern to us and if we did meet only this Day to celebrate his Resurrection from the Dead and not our Own that shall be though we celebrated a Great Miracle we should not celebrate a Great Benefit But S t Paul teaches us in my Text how we may be assured to commemorate our own Resurrection as well as Christ's namely If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in us Those whom the Spirit does not inhabit in this Life when they dye they dye for ever but they on the other side in whom it dwells and inhabits now the Resurrection of Christ is not to them a History but a Precedent and such Persons shall not be only Admirers but themselves Partakers of the Miracle If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the Dead dwell in you he that raised up Christ from the Dead shall also quicken c. To look further into this Mystery and the Expedient propos'd to bring this Wonderful thing to pass I shall observe in the Words these three Particulars I. What it is for the Spirit of God or which is all one of him that raised up Jesus from the dead to dwell in us II. The Effect or Consequence of such In-dwelling of the Spirit of God viz. if it be in a Man He that raised up Christ from the Dead shall raise up his Mortal Body III. By what Means God will produce this Effect in such a Man even by that which dwelleth in him by his Spirit that dwelleth in him I. What it is for the Spirit of God to dwell in a man The Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the Dead is no other than the Eternal Spirit of God the third Person in the Trinity the Spirit which is mentioned in Genesis that in the beginning of the World gave Life to all things is the same Spirit that still gives the Palingenesia the second Genesis or Regeneration whether we understand the Word of the Change and Renovation of our Soul and Affections to the Will of God in this Life or the Resuscitation of the Body from the Grave in the next and the Reuniting it with the Soul in order to Eternal Bliss The Spirit is said here to be the Spirit Of God but not the Spirit In God as if it dwelt in God as it dwells in us it is in God Personally and Essentially as his Being but 't is in us only by way of Tenancy as an Inhabitant or Inmate to excite in us its Gifts and Graces And this may serve to refute and silence those deceived Souls who of late times through their misunderstanding of the Union of the Saints with God exprest in Scripture have run into such high-flown and horrible Blasphemies as to say They are In-Godded in God and In-Christed in Christ thus claiming Prerogative instead of Priviledge and affirming Divinity instead of a Divine Spirit to be in them supposing themselves to be inspired even Essentially with the Divine Nature But such Blasphemous Conceits as these so audacious and injurious to the Deity are so far from being Effects of God's Spirit which is the Principle of Eternal Life in those it dwells that they are Demonstrations of the Spirit of Satan an Affectation to be like the Most High and to equal their Maker and unrepented of will certainly consign them to have a Portion with him in Eternal Death for what the Jews blindly objected against our Lord as a Crime That being but a Man he made himself God may be justly charged on these that being indeed but Men and commonly but the Dreggs of Men they fansie themselves to be Gods Only the Sin of these is more unpardonable in regard that after so long a time and so much warning of the like Miscarriage in this kind they have not exploded this old worn out Stratagem of Satan's But though this Diabolical Frenzy must be abhorr'd yet when 't is said that the Spirit of God dwells in a Man we must look upon it as denoting something more Extraordinary and Excellent than the common Lodging or Abiding of an Inhabitant in a House as representing rather God's Residence in his Temple at Jerusalem which Temple as it was Splendid and Glorious with all that Art and Cost could make it a Representation of Heaven so God by wonderful Tokens and Testimonies declared his Divine Presence in it And after this manner the Heart of every Christian ought to be embellish'd with Vertue and sanctified like a Temple appear like a little Heaven upon Earth in which the Holy Spirit may be seen to dwell by shewing his Divine Operations Know ye not says S t Paul that your Bodies are the Temples of the Holy Ghost Solomon built God but one Material House but Christ by his Spirit has raised to God as many Living Temples on Earth as there are Believers But to be more particular Dwelling in a House implies three things 1. Legitimate Possession by Legal Title and Introduction 2. Command and Dominion 3. Residence or Mansion And all these Properties the In-dwelling of the Spirit of God ought to have in those whom it hereafter quickens to Everlasting Life 1. The Spirit must have Legitimate Introduction and Possession God dwelt not in his Temple at Jerusalem till it was Dedicated and consecrated to him till he was introduced into it by Supplications and Sacrifices And his Holy Spirit will not dwell in Mens Hearts till they be dedicated and consecrated to him by Baptism and he be introduced by Prayer and Vows of Faith and Repentance Ephes. 3.17 S t Paul beseeches God that he would grant to the Ephesians according to the riches of his Glory to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the Inner-Man that Christ may dwell in their Hearts by Faith They that by Faith in Christ do not unite themselves unto him and so receive of his Spirit have not yet introduced the Spirit into its Temple and they that recede again from the Faith after they have received it dislodge and thrust the Holy Spirit out of his Tenure and Occupation The Jews reckoned that God was still among them as before when they had rejected and crucified the Holy One but after such their Infidelity and Wickedness he remained no more in their Hearts than he did in their Material Temple after that Voice was heard to come out of it migremus hinc let us depart hence Wheresoever it is so That either Men believe not on the Son of God or else having believed on him through the Allurements of the World and the Flesh fall back again into Unbelief and chuse rather to dispossess his Spirit than their Sins and Lusts there no Quickening Power will be found to revive their Mortal Bodies at the
last Day for where the Spirit it self is not its Operations cannot be expected 'T is true indeed that Sinners and Infidels shall rise again as S t Paul says Acts 24.15 There shall be a Resurrection of the Dead both of the Just and Vnjust Those that crucified Christ in the days of his Flesh and those that crucifie him by their Wicked Lives now in his Glory shall rise no less than True Believers than his holy Apostles and Martyrs But how and to what Resurrection shall they rise Even to such a Resurrection as is no other than a Second and Worse Death a Death not of Extinction or annihilation but a Death of Eternal Duration in Torment Non-Existence being not the State of the Second Death but Endless and Insupportable Misery insomuch that they shall wish that the Grave had for ever swallowed them up that as they liv'd like the Beasts that perish so they had also dyed like them without the Expectation of any After-Being So that the Resurrection of the Wicked is but an Aequivocal Resurrection as the lifting up of the Head of Pharaoh's Baker on the Gallows and the hanging Haman fifty Cubits high were but Aequivocal Advancements The Bodies of the Saints that rose after the Passion dy'd again the same Death but those that shall rise at the Last Day not having the Spirit shall dye again not the same Death that would be a Happiness but a Death that shall have no End and the Miseries of which we can no more describe than we can the Joys of Eternal Life but we must suffer a Change and be endued with new Powers and Faculties before we can support the Bliss of the one or the Torments of the other The second Property of an Inhabitant or Dweller in a House is to Command and Rule 'T is the Saying of every man to those that withstand the Exercise of their just Authority or but their Civility Give me leave to Command in my own House The Spirit of God must Rule and Command where it dwells we must not only give it House-room but Dominion look upon him as a Tenant but revere as our Land-Lord resign our Actions Wills Affections the Whole Man to his Dispose and Guidance Faith invites the Holy Ghost but Obedience and Submission to his Gracious Motions perfumes his Habitation and makes him delight to stay in it The Spirit of Love Meekness Purity and Holiness will not reside but where these and the like Vertues bear the Sway. Let the Word of Christ says S t Paul dwell in you Richly in all Wisdom So let the Spirit of God dwell in you Richly in all Wisdom it will not Cohabit with the Sons of Men unless it be Richly i. e. in the Abundance of its own Divine Graces and Operations If we will have the Spirit of God quicken our Mortal Bodies hereafter we must suffer him to quicken our Souls in this Life if we hope to reign by his Power in the World to come we must submit to his Dominion in this present World The third Property is Residence and Mansion our Houses are called our Manours and Places i. e. the Places where we ordinarily abide and where the Law presumes we are to be found so that if a Writ be delivered to any of the Houshold or but fastned to the Ring of the Door 't is counted the same thing as if given into our hands Thus our Hearts must be the Holy Spirit 's Manour or Place for what David says of God's constant Abode in his Temple on Mount Sion This is the Hill which God delights to dwell in yea the Lord will dwell in it for ever the like must be said of the constant Abode of the Holy Spirit in our Hearts This is the Habitation of the Holy Spirit and if we grieve him not nor drive him away by our Sins he will delight to dwell in us for ever When we were devoted to God in Baptism we devolved and made-over to his Holy Spirit an Estate in our Hearts even the Whole Term we had to live in this World and if we make good this Grant or Demise he will never abandon his Tenements till he has raised them up to Eternal Glory The Reason that a Great Schole-Man gives Why God punishes the Sins of Men which were but Temporal with an Eternity of Torments is Quia peccaverunt in suo aeterno because they sinn'd out all the Eternity they had i. e. all the Time God allowed them in this World and had he continued their Lives to the End of all Ages they would have continued still the same Wicked Persons The like Reason may be given for God's rewarding the Temporal Obedience of the Righteous with Eternal Glory Quia obedientes fuerunt in suo aeterno because they were Obedient all that little Eternity he allowed them in this World and would have persever'd in their Obedience if he had drawn out their Lives to the last Period of Time Abiding and Persevering in Righteousness is that which will give us Immortality if we give up the Possession of our Souls to the Dispose and Conduct of the Blessed Spirit the Whole Little Aeternum we have in this World we shall certainly obtain an Eternity that shall have no end in the next And thus I have shew'd the Manner of the Spirit 's Dwelling in every Christian and they that pretend to his In-dwelling without these Properties boast of an In-mate which they have not and as they want this Divine Guest so they will want the Blessed Effects and Consequence of his inhabiting in them the quickning of their Mortal Bodies at the last Day to Glory Which is the second thing I propos'd to explain The Effect or Consequence of the Spirit 's dwelling in us If the Spirit dwell in you He that raised up Jesus from the Dead shall quicken your Mortal Bodies The Words suggest two things to our Consideration 1. What shall be done to such Persons in whom the Spirit dwells He shall quicken their Mortal Bodies 2. Who shall be the Author to effect or bring this to pass He that raised up Jesus from the Dead 1. What shall be done to such Persons in whom the Spirit dwells 'T is said He shall quicken their Mortal Bodies Our Bodies are Mortal three Ways by Natural Death the Dissolution of the Substance of them by Eternal Death which succeeds the Natural that Riddle of a Death which by its Existence is in truth a Life but by the Torments belonging to it may deservedly be called a Death and by Spiritual Death which is the Cause of the other two Now our Mortal Bodies may be quicken'd or reviv'd again to three Lives To a Life of Eternal Duration to a Life of Eternal Joy and to a Spiritual Life or a Life of Grace which is the Cause in us of the other two Lives Some understand these Words shall quicken our mortal bodies only of Spiritual Proselytism of the raising us from the Death of Sin and
the enlivening us to a Life of Grace But though this meaning sutes well with S t Paul's Design in this Epistle to confute the Imagination of the Jews that they could obtain Eternal Life by Virtue of the Law of Moses without Faith in Christ Yet the Words of my Text point at the Blessed Immortality the Righteous shall hereafter be Partakers of and are only to be understood after this manner If Christians give themselves up to be led and governed by the Spirit of God in this World which is the Spirit that raised up Jesus they in like manner shall be raised up by it at the Last Day and the more they are quickned to a Life of Grace here the more they may be assured they shall be quickned to the Life of Glory hereafter Many Practical Uses and Advantages might be inferred from hence but I shall collect only this one which may be of great Encouragement to our Christian Industry and Endeavours to lead a Godly Life and that is the Expedition we shall make towards the attaining the Unspeakable Rewards of the Kingdom of Heaven There are three Lives to be attained and all to be attained by the Well-Ordering of One of our Spiritual Life alone in this World if we rise from the Death of Sin to Newness of Life we shall attain by the same Performance three Resurrections to that of perfect Grace to that of perfect Time or Duration and to that of perfect Joy and Glory This I say is so rich a Harvest and to be purchas'd with such Expedition that the Nicest and most impatient of Toil and Difficulties may be encouraged to strive for it Happy is he says S t John that has a share in the first Resurrection i. e. in the Life of Grace for the other are but Corollaries or Additional Complements of this Sanctification is as certain and assured a Way to Glorification as Childhood is the Way to Manhood 't is the Inchoation or Beginning of it and in a sense may be said to be it Those whom he Justify'd says S t Paul those he also Glorify'd as if these were done together and not in process of Time But to proceed The Author secondly of this Grace and Bounty is God And why did not the Apostle express himself so in a Word but used this Circumlocution He that raised up Jesus from the dead Because since Christ's coming in the Flesh and having performed the Work of our Salvation God has left off to govern in the Church immediately by himself and does all things by and through our Lord Jesus Christ. God Created and Drowned the World and wrought all the other wonderful things we read of in the Old Testament in his Own Name as God But now under the Gospel he dispenses all his Mercies as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and we must expect the Gift of Grace the Pardon of Sin Resurrection to Eternal Life and all his other Blessings and Favours from his Relation to his Son It is indeed by the Power of God that all men shall be raised from the Dead but then it is again for the Merits sake of Christ and their Believing in him that they shall be raised to Glory And that we should take notice of the Change of his Name in the New Testament from that he delighted to be called by in the Old is his own Will and Pleasure Says he there By my name Jehovah I will be known but now to us by the Name of his Relation to his Son as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Manichees from the Mistake of some Passages and Observations like this raised their detestable Heresie That the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New were two Different Persons the Father of Christ another God from the Creator of the World who sent his Son in the Flesh with a Design to win men from the Creator of the World But these are Wicked and Impious Dotages 't is only an Other Name that God has taken 't is not an Other God that acts among us there is but One God from and to all Eternity whose Name be Blessed for ever The meaning of the Scripture is only to teach us That 't is not God quatenus God that we expect should quicken us at the Last Day but God as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And this manifests the Perverseness of the Jews who still adhere to Moses and the Synagogue for their hopes of Salvation and the Blindness also of those who perswade themselves they can please God and attain Heaven by Natural and Moral Performances without Faith in Christ But the time permits me not to insist on these things I haste therefore to my last Particular The Means by which God will quicken our Mortal Bodies at the last Day viz. By his Spirit that dwelleth in us This Particle By in the Original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does not infer any Means that God shall use as Instrumental for the quickening our Mortal Bodies but implies here and in many other places the Motive only or Reason that invites the Agent to perform an Action God will raise us from the Dead as he does all his other Works by his Word or Omnipotent Power but though his Power does the thing yet 't is for something in Men that invites him to do it namely his Holy Spirit which he gave them to that very End and Purpose to dispose and fit them for the receiving Eternal Life David says of himself immediately and Christ typically and of all Faithful People mystically Thou wilt not suffer thy Holy One to see Corruption i. e. God will not leave or forsake the Righteous either in their Life or Death as if he had forgotten them and the Motive of this his Favour to them is Because they are Righteous or Holy Ones And the Psalmist expresses the thing with some Indignation and as if it were an injury to God to imagine that he could suffer in his very Nature that that which was Holy should be swallowed up in the Grave that which was Righteous should perish that which was Incorruptible should see Corruption And indeed there is not only an Incongruity but an Impossibility that this should be For what the Apostle says of Christ's Resurrection God raised him up having loosed the Pains or Bands of Death because it was possible he should be held of them may be said of the Resurrection of all the Faithful with this Difference only That the Impossibility of Christ's being detain'd in the Grave proceeded from his Divine Nature ours from a Divine Promise Nay we may add and with good Warrant That the Impossibility of our remaining in the Grave depends not only on an External Promise but on Something With-in our selves though not Of our selves even on the Spirit of God which dwelleth in us by which we are united to Christ and made Members of his Body he being the Head and our Resurrection must
necessarily be a Consequence of his by the very Law as I may say of the Body or the Inseparable Conjunction of the Limbs to one another for it is not possible that the Head should be quickened and the Body mortified that the Head should be raised to Life and crowned with Glory and the Members remain in Death and Dishonour And 't is on this account that Christ is said To be the First-fruit of those that Sleep and not only in regard that none went before him but the First-fruit in relation to them that were to follow after him The First-fruits in the Law were Part of the Fruits of the Season one Sheaf of the Harvest which being lift-up and consecrated to God in the Name of the rest sanctified the Whole Crop So Christ being lift up as the First-fruit of the Dead consecrated and sanctified the Whole Harvest of the Dead And as Saint John says of every true Believer in point of Impeccability He cannot Sin because the Seed of God abideth in him i. e. none can be a Child of God's and a customary Sinner for these are irreconcileable So we may affirm with unspeakable Comfort in the point of our Immortality A true Believer cannot be held in Death because God's Seed abideth in him i. e. Death and a Seed or Principle of Immortality are inconsistent with one another And thus we see we have not only Matter of Congratulation for Christ's Victory over Death and the Grave but the highest Cause of Jubilee and Rejoycing for our own Deliverance from this heavy Curse and Punishment of Sin As Sin subjected us to the Dominion of Death the Spirit of Sanctification breaks the Bonds of the Tyrant asunder and enables us to conquer this Conquerour of Mankind as Disobedience shut the Gates of Heaven against us Obedience sets them open again Holiness of Life in the Faith of Christ in this World is the Ticket whereby we receive Happiness and Immortality in that to come The Young Phoenix is said to spring out of the perfum'd Ashes and Reliques of the Old but though this be never so fabulous I am sure we shall be renewed and quickned to Eternal Life from the perfum'd Reliques of a Holy Life the remaining Good Works and Graces the Spirit of God wrought in us which as S t John says can never dye but will follow us into the other World If therefore we give our selves up to be led and governed by the Spirit of Christ in this Life conform our selves in all things to his Divine Will if the Spirit of Christ conducts us safely to use the Psalmist's Expression through Fire and Water i. e. through the Sharper Tryals of Afflictions and the Softer Allurements and Temptations of the Flesh and the World he will carry us also safe through the Regions of Death and the Grave pass us indemnified by the Gates of Hell and neither the Malice of Devils the Weight of our Tomb-Stone the Load of our Flesh or the yet greater Load of our Infirmities shall hinder but our Bodies shall be raised and so winged that they shall overtake their Souls and be joined to them that took their Flight so long a time before them and both of them together shall be transported in Triumph to Heaven and crown'd with Immortality and Glory the Assurance and Pledge of which Christ has given us this Day in his own Resurrection To God the Father Son and Holy Ghost be ascribed all Honour Glory Worship and Thanksgiving this Day forth and for evermore Amen The Seventh Sermon PSALM ii 6 Yet have I set my King upon my holy Hill of Sion WIsdome does not only do her Works well but perceives that she does so delights in their Beauty exults in remembrance of the master'd difficulty and triumphs over the conquer'd Opposition Thus God stood-off as 't were from his great work of the Creation when he had finish'd it applauded and bless'd it prided himself as I may say in his noble performance in that he had brought Light out of Darkness Order out of Chaos a World out of nothing In the like manner when he had here compos'd the Distractions and Confusions both in the Church and State of Israel by establishing David literally and Christ mystically on the Throne of the Kingdom he glories in having brought about his great Design laughs at the fruitless Opposition of his Adversaries at home and abroad of the Philistines the Moabites the Ammonites the Damascens the Amalekites of the King of Zoba and of all the turbulent and ambitious Spirits of the House of Saul delights to recount their Might and their Machinations the more to signalize their Overthrow and to make his Victory illustrious For after all their rage their malice their Counsels their Combinations their seeming successes against him the Issue was this Yet have I set my King upon my holy Hill of Sion We may observe in the Words these three things I. The Person establisht My King i. e. David Literally so called and Christ Mystically II. His Establishment I have set my King upon my holy Hill of Sion III. God's Glorying in the Fact that he had done it with such a Non obstante notwithstanding such Opposition and Contradiction Yet have I set my King I. The Person establisht My King God's King Not only holy Scripture but the Writings of Heathens declare Kings to be Sacred Persons descended more immediately from the Gods and more particularly depending on them Kings are from Jupiter says Callimachus and nothing ever descended more sacred from him And Theocritus Kings are the special Care of the Gods And this Epithet's affected by Homer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God lov'd Kings Indeed all Kings in general are God's derive their Authority from him govern by his Permission and Providence as himself testifies By me Kings Reign But then he delights in a more especial manner to style Good Kings his to appropriate their Persons and owne their Causes to interpret all things done to them as done to himself as at Verse 2. Why do the Rulers take Counsel together against the Lord and against his Anointed Conspiracies against the King are reckoned Conspiracies against God the resisting his Anointed the resisting himself And thus if it be a Glorious thing to be a King 't is a Blessed to be a Good King for as splendour attends Majesty and Greatness protection and safety and felicity and the love of Heaven attend Righteousness But let us see why David is here more particularly call'd God's King than others The First Reason we may say was Because he was a King of God's Making because he brought him to the Throne having no Title by Birth to it à Caulis Ovium tuli te I called him from the Sheep-hook to the Sceptre And as those Persons which are of our Election preferring or favouring we call Ours this is my Scholar my Souldier my Officer because he was of my nomination my chusing my advancing so David was called God's King
what do they signifie to us upon whom the Ends of the World are come and saw them not To answer this Objection at large would be in Effect to ingage in a Discourse of the whole Subject of the Truth of Christian Religion or the Demonstration Evangelical of which Eusebius the first Christian Historian after the Apostles now extant wrote seven Books I shall therefore content my self in the short time that remains to me to present you by way of Answer only with one Consideration but 't is a Consideration that had great force with S t Augustine and 't is this The very Conversion of the World is the highest Argument imaginable that it was converted by the Miraculous Power of the Holy Ghost For that Man says the Father that can conceive the World should relinquish their long doted on Religion received from their Ancestors with so much Veneration and a Superstitious Conceit that they had been Prosperous under it a Religion so well suited to their Carnal Affections and receive in Exchange of it a New Religion derived from so despicable and infamous an Author as a Mean Man crucified by his own Nation and the very Principles of which were so harsh to Flesh and Blood and contrary to all worldly Glory and Interest That Man says S t Augustine that can conceive this could be done without Miracle is himself a greater Miracle than those he thinks so hard to be believed There were among the Roman Fencers of old one sort that with a Net and Trident maintained Combate against their Opposers armed with a Sword and Helmet and were so dextrous as to intangle and vanquish their Adversaries with these Uncouth Weapons The Apostles of Christ those Fishers of Men may be likened to these Retiarii these Fencers with Nets who with the Metaphorical Nooses and Meaches of preaching seconded by the Power of Miracles ensnared and captivated to the Gospel the armed potent proud Idolatrous learned and vicious World And this was the Way the Spirit took at his Coming if we interpret 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to Convince the Understanding of the World of its Errors But if we take it in the other Sense redarguet Mundum he shall Reprove the World for its Sins it imports these two things That the Spirit shall shame the World And condemn it First That it shall reproach and shame the World for loving Darkness more than Light Death than Life for lying under Wickedness and Guilt when the Means of becoming Innocent was offered them for chusing things Base and Degenerate before things Noble and Praise-worthy things Vicious and accompanied with Danger rather than things Vertuous though accompanied with Glory and Felicity in a word for chusing rather to perish in their Sins and Ignorance than to be Instructed reformed and saved And as the Spirit shall shame the World for so brutish and sottish a Choice so Secondly it shall Condemn it Shame and Confusion of Face is but the beginning of the Misery of Sinners the consequent of the Discovery of their Wickedness not the Punishment of it What the Wiseman says shall be the Portion of those that love Danger they shall perish in it is true also of those that love Darkness more than Light and the ways of Death than the ways of Life that they shall prove what the Riddle of Eternal Death is of a Death that never dyes and dwell in Eternal Night and Darkness And thus that Spirit which is the Spirit of Love and Gentleness which descended in the Similitude of a Creature that has no Gall nor Anger and whose Office 't is to save to comfort and support shall exercise a Part so contrary to its Name and Nature as to Condemn destroy and confound instead of shewing it self the Spirit of Lenity and Kindness shew it self the Spirit of Indignation and Fury a Froward Chiding and Reproaching Spirit O ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in Heart and Ears says the Holy Ghost by the mouth of S t Stephen which of the Prophets have not your Fathers persecuted and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One of whom ye have been now the Betrayers and Murderers Stephen who dyed the Example of Meekness the Miracle of Patience and Charity inspired by the same Divine Spirit lived a sharp Reprover and severe Condemner of their Hardness of Heart and Unbelief And now Beloved to make some Application of what has been said Are the things we have heard this day remote and unconcerning Stories Tales only of the Apostles Times and Events at the first preaching of the Gospel Or is it not still the Business of the Spirit to Convince the World of Sin of Righteousness and of Judgment To rebuke and reprove it for the little or ill Use it has made of the Unvaluable Benefits offered it by Christ To Judge and Condemn it for preferring the Ways of Death and Destruction before those of Life and Salvation even rejecting and crucifying the Lord of Glory a second time by their Sins 'T is true the Extraordinary Miraculous Operations of the Holy Ghost are ceased but his Ordinary his Inward Reproofs and Convictions by the Outward preaching of the Word his converting sanctifying and justifying of some and final Condemnation and sealing up of others in their Impenitence still remain Christ's Work of our Salvation lasted but a while and had its Period on the Cross but the Spirit of Christ which came after him had no Period no Hitherto of his working but his Operations continue to the End of the World And 't is wonderful to consider That after so many Unwearied and powerful Endeavours of the Spirit for sixteen hundred Years that so much gross Infidelity and so many scandalous Impieties are still in the World That the Unjust and Unmerciful are Unjust and Unmerciful still the Voluptuous and Incontinent are voluptuous and incontinent still the Prophane and Atheistical are prophane and atheistical still the Seditious and Disobedient to Government persist to be so still as if the World were grown too Old to blush or to learn and what was said in Praise of our Lords Constancy and Resolution in Suffering That he Despised the Shame were Commendable also in the Effrontery and Impudence of the World in its Sins That it despises all Shame S t Augustine says That in his Young Unconverted days he boasted of many Sins which he had never committed ne viderer abjectior quo innocentior lest I should have appeared Abject and poor Spirited if I had been known to be Innocent And too many there are in this Age that count the Vices of the Time the Gallantries of it and are as much abasht to come behind in any Lewdness in Vogue as to be late in the Fashion And when things stand thus that those that have given their Names to Christ in Baptism are more profligate Sinners than Turks and Infidels may not Preachers be allow'd to say The World is not yet Converted the Holy
of his Wrath as they have been of Disobedience I should think my Hour well bestowed to remove this one Practical Dangerous Errour to open mens eyes that they may be convinced That Sin is a Serpent that does insidiare calcaneo lye in the Path and mortally bite the Heel of the Sinner and that he runs not on faster in the Ways of Disobedience than he does in those of Destruction but it is not my Business at this time the Proposition which I am to prove concerns not the Punishment of Sin Absolutely considered but Comparatively viz. That Sin in some Persons or People is more heinous and more severely punished than in others that where God has conferr'd more Signal and Illustrious Favours there he punishes Sin with more Signal and Exemplary Vengeance and his foregoing Bounty despised adds Weight to his future Severity And this Truth is written in so Great Characters and so legible through the Whole Series of the Chronicle of Scripture even from the Creation that I shall not need so much to prove the Proposition as to refresh your Memories by setting before you things already known The first Man of our Race was the first miserable Example of this Truth and he that first brought Sin into the World first also left the Confirmation to us of the Fatal Consequence of it when committed against an Extraordinary Grace Adam was created after God's own Likeness in perfect Righteousness and Holiness and not only with the Knowledge of his Laws but with a Power and Ability to keep them he was made to Excel all Sublunary Creatures and had Dominion given him over them he was plac'd in a furnish'd World fruitful without Labour delightful without Satiety and the Continuance of this his Felicity was put into his own hands he was not Subject to Death Infirmities or Misfortunes like his Posterity nay 't was in his power not only to have Prolong'd his Felicity to all Eternity but to have Improv'd it Greater Favours God could not conferr on Flesh and Bloud on a Creature lower than the Angels But whither tended the Collation of all these Benefits when Adam rebelled against God Only to his greater Misery the Punishment of his Transgression was as Eminent as his Priviledges and Graces had been his ensuing Calamity as his foregoing Prosperity The day thou eatest of the forbidden Tree says God thou shalt dye the Death What Death All manner of Deaths Death Temporal Death Spiritual Death Eternal Death to Nature Death to Grace Death to Glory The Sin was but Single but the Punishment inflicted was Three-fold like a Stroke with a Trident which makes a Triple Wound and the Blow fell not only on himself but on all his Posterity Never any Sin since his had the like Recompence of Reward because none since Adam could sin against so much Bounty I shall give you but one Instance more We know by how Strange and Unexpected a Favour Saul was promoted to the Throne of Israel who being sent in quest of his Father's Asses found a Kingdom God advancing him above all his People in Honour more than he Excelled them in Stature But he proving after this Ungrateful and disobedient to the Commandment of God falling no less than thrice into that Common Fatal Errour of Faithless Princes to relye on Humane Policy more than on the Divine Support on the Favour of the People than on the Favour of God and seeking to establish his Kingdom by Bloud and Sacriledge rather than by Innocence and Justice as if the Power that gave him a Throne could not uphold him in it God's Indignation against him was as Great as his Prevarications had been And then what did all his antecedent Favours profit him but to enhance his following Punishment Which was such as when we read it we cannot chuse but pity though it were the Lord 's doing For he rejected Saul as he was rejected by him he withdrew his Holy Spirit from him and sent an Evil Spirit to vex him in the room of it a Spirit of Jealousie and Frenzy which periodically possest him and clouded all his Felicity and Glory disinherited his Posterity dethroned in a manner himself while he was yet alive by causing another to be anointed King in his days And after he had suffered him thus to survive a few Years a dreadful Spectacle of the Divine Wrath he stirr'd-up the Philistines against him and when their Host appeared and he most needed it bereaved him of his Kingly Courage and Magnanimity refused to direct or answer him by his Oracles In which distressed and disconsolate State all Heavenly Comfort being silent and Saul's guilty Conscience only loud and clamorous over-whelmed with Sorrow and Despair under a Disguise and the Covert of the Night with two Attendants only he repaired to a poor Witches Cell to enquire the Fortune of his Life and Kingdom and where God met him as I may say also in Disguise made use of the Witches delusive Arts to give him a Real Prediction of his near-approaching Overthrow and inglorious Death So that partly broken with Sorrow and partly weakned through Hunger he fell into a Swoun and was sustained by the Bread and Counsel of the Silly Woman the next day putting a Period to his Life and Miseries What Invention of Romance or Fiction of Poetry can parallel the Calamity of this once so Glorious and Heroick King And if any ask Why was all this how came the patient Spirit of the God of Mercy to turn into Fury like that of the Person he punish'd Because the Sin of Saul was not only a Sin against God but against a Benefactor and the wonderful Bounty God had shewed in bringing him to the Throne pull'd upon his Ingratitude and Infidelity this wonderful Severity and Displeasure And as this is God's Dealing with Particular Persons so 't is the same with Whole Nations Of which we shall not need a further Example than that before us of Israel In the foregoing Chapter the Prophet denounces God's Judgments against the Neighbouring Kingdoms for their Sins For three Transgressions and for four says he God will punish Damascus and chiefly for their Cruelty For three Transgressions and for four God will punish Gaza and again for their Cruelty For three Transgressions and for four God will punish Tyre because they kept not their Brotherly Love And so on against the rest But when he comes in the last place to Israel and to Judah their Transgressions being not inferior to those of the Gentiles he intimates that heavier Judgments were laid up in Store for them and that they should not escape so easily as the others he casts their Ingratitude for their former Benefits into the burden of their Guilt their forgetfulness of God's bringing them out of Egypt wich a high hand and destroying the Nations before them his raising up their Sons and Daughters to be Prophets and their Young men to be Nazarites Shall the People that have not known God be
Neighbour as thy Self And this Commandment makes our Love to our own Selves the Pattern or Standard of that which we ought to bear to other Men Not that we are obliged to love other men every way Equal to our selves that is not the meaning of the Rule it implies not an Equality but a Similitude not a Parity but a Resemblance of it in Truth and Reality Our Love must be as Sincere and Cordial to our Brethren as to our Selves we must heat our Affections in the same Forge have the like Zeal the like Promptness to snatch all Occasions to advance their temporal and spiritual Good as we would to advance our own but yet still other mens Concerns ought to be but our second Care before we preach to others before we labour for their Salvation we must take heed with S t Paul that we our selves be not Cast-aways I shall not need in these days in which Self-Love so much abounds and Christian Love so little to give Cautions against Supererogating and overflowing Charity but though little will need to be said against any Excess in this Grace yet much may be behoof-ful to prevent the Mistakes of it For many think that for Friendship-sake they are obliged to engage in all manner of Wickedness to drink Drunk and fight Duels to spend the main of their Life in Gaming and other dissolute Courses nay to enter into treasonable Practices against their Prince and Country And there are those again that will debauch as highly in matters of Religion out of their Kindness to a Sect dip their hands in Bloud and put a Nation into a Flame and Combustion for their Love to an ill-taken up Opinion and a Party they have long adhered to renounce the Church and Truth which in effect is God himself chuse rather to live and dye in Disobedience and a damnable Schism than seem to be inconstant and to carry their Flocks along with them in the way of Perdition than undeceive and grieve them with an Unwelcome though Necessary Truth Such as these are not tender of their Brethrens Peace but guilty of their Destruction and set not so high a Price on their Contentment as a cheap on their own Consciences 't is not possible to be Wicked and Charitable to love men and sooth them in their Sins What S t Paul says of the false Teachers among the Galatians is true of these They zealously affect you but not well yea they would exclude you that you might affect them i. e. they had rather their Congregations should miss of Salvation than they lose the Interest they have in them There may be some Extraordinary Cases in which we ought to prefer our Neighbours Good before our own as their greater Good before our lesser their Spiritual before our Temporal c. But the Rule holds in General I am not to destroy my self out of Courtesie I am not to contract Guilt to preserve another Innocent I must love my Neighbour As my self not Above not Before my self But this Doctrine seems to be oppos'd by the Practice of the two greatest Guides of the Jewish and Christian Church Moses and S t Paul The one Exod 32.31 when the Israelites had so heinously transgress'd in the Golden Calf interceded for them in this manner This people have sinn'd a great Sin they have made them Gods of Gold yet now if thou wilt forgive their Sin if not blot me I pray thee out of the Book which thou hast written And the other Rom. 9.7 out of his heat of Zeal for the Salvation of the same Seed of Abraham utters these words I could wish my self Accursed from Christ for my Brethren And both these seem to prefer not only the Temporal but Spiritual Good of others before their own insomuch as to salve their Excess of Charity some have thought nothing less sufficient than to say There are many things done in Scripture by Persons acted by an Extraordinary and Heroick Spirit which are not to be brought into Practice by us who are mov'd by lower Degrees of the Spirit and though we may admire them we must not imitate them Others again on the other side have as much depress'd the transcendent Charity of these Great Persons by parallelling what they did with like Usages and Customs common among the Jews For first they resemble Moses's Intercession for the people to a friendly Complement or Expression of Good-Will familiarly used by those of the Circumcision and possibly first taken up in imitation of Moses's intercession May I be thy Propitiation or Expiation my Brother i. e. may I undergo the Penalty of the Law in thy Stead to rescue thee from the Divine Displeasure bear thy temporal Punishment And after the like manner they parallel S t Paul's words I could wish my self Accursed from Christ to a like Passage found in Ignatius who was an Auditor of the Apostles Let the Punishment of the Devil come upon me only let me obtain Christ. Where the Punishment of the Devil cannot possibly import the Eternal Torments of Hell for from thence there is no Redemption or returning to enjoy Christ and therefore it must point at Excommunication to the giving up to Satan and the Punishments he had power to inflict on the Excommunicated so frequently mentioned in Scripture but I shall need to give only one instance of Deliver such an one unto Satan for the Destruction of the Flesh that the Spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus 1 Cor. 5.5 But there seems here to be no need of these Extraordinary Salvo's these however ingenious and learned Accommodations For put the Case we should take the Words of Moses in the strictest literal Sense they can bear and we must take them so if we will take them as God's Answer shews he took them Whosoever has sinn'd against me says he him will I blot out of my Book what would be the Danger or Inconvenience What did his Intercession import more than may be thus fairly paraphrased Lord let me prevail with thee to revoke thy Sentence of totally destroying this People thou hast done such wonderful things for or involve me in their Destruction which is easier for me to bear than to survive so great a Calamity and to hear the Heathen insult and blaspheme thy Name on this Occasion But Moses's words relate to an Eternal blotting out Not necessarily no nor probably for whatever knowledge he might have of another Life the less 't is to be supposed that he should be willing to undergo an Eternal Death to save the People only from a Temporal And as fair an account may be given of S t Paul's words who does not say I do but I could wish my self accursed from Christ for my Brethren So that his words are not an anathematizing or devoting himself but only a Meditation as if he had said I could in my Imagination be contented upon the Condition or Contemplation of an Event so much to God's Glory
and righteousness before him all the days of their life That men therefore may not mistake the principal Design for which Christ came into the World our Apostle plainly declares it at the 8 th Verse For this purpose says he the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the Devil Christ came not only to pardon Sin but to destroy it not only to absolve a wicked World but to make a righteous to take away the condemnation but the commission of Sin And therefore the second way I named of Christ's taking away our Sins From within us ought to be taken into our highest consideration For can it be imagined that he should descend from the Bosome of his Father and visit the Earth for no other end but to make a Gaol-Delivery as I may say to reprieve so many Rake-Hells only and condemn'd Persons and to turn them loose again into the World to commit more villanies The whole Tenor of the Gospel speaks otherwise that Christ was born in the Flesh that we might be regenerate and new-born of the Spirit that he was crucified that we might crucifie our vile Lusts and Affections dyed for the Guilt of Sin that we might dye to the Practice of it suffer'd to excuse us from suffering but not to excuse us in any wickedness he cast out the Hand-writing or Accusation of Satan against us to no other end but that we should cast out Satan himself and his Kingdom out of our hearts and erect in the place God's Kingdom or the Kingdom of righteousness So that the manifestation of Christ in the Flesh to take away our sins imports no less than his rectifying that ugly confusion and disorder which Sin had wrought in the Universe and the deposing Satan from his Usurpation over the World than the restoring God to his Dominion and his Creatures to his Obedience the repairing his Honour and giving satisfaction not to one Attribute only his Justice but to all his other Attributes his Wisdom Truth Goodness Holiness c. And this was a Design worthy of the Incarnation of the Deity of the travel sufferings and all the other Glorious Works of the Messiah of his unhinging and unframing the Course of Nature by his Miracles for it was to no less end than to re-establish it again in the beautiful Frame and Order which God at first created it in before the Devil had disfigured and deformed it And for this Cause the Evangelists in relating the Passages of Christ's life often take us off from looking too intently on the Events which they record and call upon us to consider the Purposes of them rather than the Events themselves bidding us regard the Prophecies that went before of them frequently repeating that it might be fulfilled that it might be fulfilled that was spoken by such or such a Prophet And if we will make the best advantage of Christ's Incarnation we must not look so much on the Fact as on the design of the Fact what it intimates and preaches to us viz. the extinction and extirpation of Sin not only of the Guilt but of the reigning Power of it According to what S t Peter says As he has suffered for us in the Flesh arm your selves likewise with the same mind for he that has suffered in the Flesh hath ceased from Sin This arming-our selves with the same mind and ceasing from Sin in the Flesh was that which God chiefly aimed at in his Manifestation of his Son in the Flesh To the end as the Apostle goes on that we should no longer live the rest of our time in the Flesh to the lusts of men but to the will of God And to shew us yet further that the bringing of men to live righteously was the great aim of God in all Ages of the World says St. Peter For this cause was the Gospel preached also to those that are dead i. e. to those of the old World that they might live according to God in the Spirit Let every Christian therefore that professes the Faith of Christ's coming in the Flesh to take away Sin and yet lives in it hearken and attend to this Admonition Remember thy End In the Place where the Son of Syrach utters these Words he means the End or Consummation of our Days as we are natural men which is good Wisdom But remember thy end i. e. the Design and Purpose of thy Christian Profession and the Mysteries of it for this is yet a higher degree of Wisdom And before I yet leave this Point I shall give caution against two sorts of Men who greatly pervert this Advice And first Against the Papists who play and trifle with the weightiest Passages of our Salvation as Poets and Romance-Writers do with serious Histories turn them into Gauds and Entertainments of the Fancy make Models and Representations in their Churches of Christ's lying in the Manger at this holy Season and of his rising from the Grave at the Feast of Easter with all the circumstances belonging to them as if such Puppet-Shews were adequate and sutable Returns of Devotion for these Divine Dispensations Again they gather and hoard up the Nails and Fragments of our Lord's Cross as if they treasured to their Souls the Benefits of his Passion hug his Crucifix and weep over the Pictures of his Wounds as if this express'd a Seraphical Affection though they hug also at the same time the grossest Sins The second Caution is against those among our selves who yet worse abuse the Purpose of the Manifestation of Christ in the Flesh making it to be more for the encouragement than the taking away of Sin fansying that he died to excuse them from holy living was made subject to the Law that they might be freed from the Obedience of it perform'd all righteousness that they should need to perform none and these men pray as they believe O Lord say they do thou all in us and for us and take thou the glory Thus exempting themselves from all Obligations to the Commandments and making the Faith a jest and scorn to Libertines and Unbelievers while they talk only more of a holy Life than they but practise it as little make the Cross of Christ not a Sanctuary to Penitent Sinners but a refuge for Hypocrites and Cheats in Religion and yet none are so righteous so much in God's favour in their own opinion as these But they will find at last to their great confusion That Christ was manifested in the Flesh not only to take away our Sins From us but also to take them away Out of us or from within us And he does this by three Means or Expedients By his Spirit by his Word and by his Example First By his Spirit After the Manifestation of Christ in the Flesh his Suffering and being laid in the Grave he was quickned or raised to life again by the Spirit of God and exalted to have the Power and Prerogative of sending down the Spirit
into the hearts of Believers to quicken them and to raise them from the Death of Sin to a Life of Righteousness i. e. to sanctifie and enable them to master Sin in themselves They that saw Christ in the Flesh knew not at first That the principal Intention of his Flesh was his Spirit viz. that his Incarnation was to produce their Sanctification to conform them to his likeness in the Inner-man as he was conformed to their likeness in the Outward-Man and those that are not thus conformed that have not their Sins taken away In them by Vertue of his Nativity shall never have them taken away From them by Vertue and Merit of his Passion Secondly By his Word he takes away our sin from within us Now ye are clean says our Lord John 15.3 through the Word which I have spoken unto you i. e. you have put away your former wickedness upon believing what I have preached To believe and to be clean in a Scripture sense is the same thing For 't is not possible rightly to believe and to continue in the Pollution of Sin The Word of God is quick and powerful sharper than any two edged Sword piercing even to the dividing asunder of Soul and Spirit The efficacy of it was seen in the reprobate hearts of Herod and Felix How did it ruffle and discompose the incestuous security of the first and put an Earthquake into the stupid Conscience of the last But yet 't is then only to use Solomon's expression that wise Words are as Apples of Gold in Pictures of Silver when they meet with docile ears and honest hearts when the disposition of the Hearers concurs with the faithful intention of the Preacher and they comply to destroy Sin in themselves as he endeavours to destroy it in his Sermon Otherwise this most powerful and effectual Engine to batter and beat down Sin the Word preached profits not as 't is in the Chapter now mentioned in the Hebrews But the Word preached did not profit them not being mixt with Faith in them that heard it Thirdly Christ takes away Sin from within us by his Example i. e. by his holy Life as well as by his Word and by his Spirit his Meekness Holiness Self-denial Obedience c. were designed by him to excite his Followers to practise the same Vertues equally or above his Precepts And though we condemn the Errour of those who affirm That the Pattern of Christ's life the perfect Exemplar of Piety and Holiness which he exhibited to the World was the only means besides his Word which he used to take away our Sins We may yet more condemn the sloth and hypocrisie of those who set his Life above our Imitation who put his Vertues into the same Classis with his Miracles and think it as impossible for us to practise his Humility Patience and the like as to open the Eyes of the Blind or to raise the dead affirm that his Obedience and Righteousness were not set for our Example to direct and encourage us to do the like but to upbraid and reproach our weakness and infirmities In the mean time our Lord himself Joh. 17.19 declares That the holiness he practised was not only for the love of holiness but that his Disciples should follow him even in the roughest Paths he trod those of his Suffering to which his Words more particularly relate For their sakes says he I sanctifie my self or offer up my self a Sacrifice that they also might be sanctified through the Truth And S t Peter says expresly Christ suffered for us leaving us an Example that we should follow his steps And this brings me to the second Motive the Apostle alledges to disswade men from Sin the sanctity and sinlesness of Christ's Person and ye know that in him is no sin But because this in a great part has fallen-in with the former Motive and to accumulate Reasons of the same Nature rather nauseates than perswades I shall wave this Point and proceed to my last The Inference which the Argumentation of the Apostle implies from the foregoing Motives viz. That 't is the Duty of all Christ's Followers to endeavour as far as 't is possible to be also without sin and which shall serve me also for an Application The Son of God we have heard was manifested in the Flesh to take away our sins and in him is no sin Now certainly we cannot think that we comply either with the Example of Righteousness which he has set us or yet with the gracious Purpose that brought him into the World if we reflect on his Nativity only after an Historical manner as that he was born in such an Olympiad or when such an one was Emperour that such rare Events attended his coming into the World as are recorded by the Evangelists namely that he was conceived by a Virgin of the Holy Ghost welcom'd by Angels signaliz'd and reveal'd to the Gentiles by a Star c. as if we were Chronologers rather than Christian Believers But that principally we are to consider these things Doctrinally and Morally to regard the Obligations they lay upon us and the final intendment of God in them For Example to say to our selves If God came so far as from the highest Heavens to take our Flesh that he might destroy sin how much more are we concerned to destroy sin in whom it dwells whose Flesh is its Domestick Organ and which will certainly destroy us both Body and Soul unless we destroy it Again if God vouchsafe so highly to dignifie our Flesh as to assume it to his Divine Nature and to carry it up to Heaven with him and that by way of Pledge and assurance to carry up all that live holy lives thither also how ought we to respect and even to revere these our mortal Bodies and not to pollute them with sin which are designed to such sublime Honour as to reign with God in Glory Once more If the Son of God came into the World not only to teach us his Father's Will but to demonstrate to us by his own performance the feasibleness of accomplishing it and did not only discourse of the probability of mortal mens ascending to Heaven but gave an instance of it in our Flesh how are we without excuse if either upon pretence of the difficulty of the Duties enjoined or the arduous ascent to the heavenly Kingdom promised us we supersede our endeavours to attain it When the Israelites were travelling to the Land of Canaan they said to Aaron Make us Gods that may go before us i. e. visible Gods that we may behold they were not satisfied with the conduct of an invisible Deity of a God that afforded not his personal presence Christ manifested in the Flesh is such a visible palpable God as they required who marches as a Captain at the Head of us and guides us not only by his Counsel but leads us by his Bodily Presence But yet notwithstanding this compliance with our infirmities