and where thieves do not break through and steal He knew that where we place our happiness styled our treasure in these words there should we also place our hearts For saith he where your treasure is there will your heart be also Upon which words I shall discourse in this method 1. I shall shew in what manner and in what degree men set their hearts upon that which they judge their chief good whether it be the wealth and honours the ease and pleasures of this World or the Bliss and Glory of the future 2. And then secondly I shall consider the several consequences of the words and draw such conclusions from them as deserve especial consideration 1. And to begin with the former general 1. The first application of mens souls to that which they judge their supreme good is a fixt and earnest desire of it 2. The next to this is a firm design and resolution to apply themselves to the gaining of it 3. And both these in the third place in such degrees that if ever any competition arise between this end and any other this is preferred and still pursued the other neglected and laid aside 1. The first application of mens Souls to that they judge their chief good is a fixt and earnest desire of it which is so rooted in humane nature that no man can ever shake it off wholly extinguish or remove it And the truth is were it not so that God had planted this desire in the very frame of mans nature the World would presently fall asleep the minds of men would drowze and slumber having nothing to quicken and to awake them the Soul itself as busie and active as it is as full of various thoughts and passions would be as unactive in the body as the very body without the Soul Desire is the principle of all action and this desire of being happy the spring of all our other desires this moves and quickens all within us this puts life into all our powers excites our thoughts forms our Counsels lays our designs stirs up and animates all endeavours This holds the eye of the mind open this keeps the Soul it self awake and puts it into continual motion for whatsoever it be we do 't is done in the view and consideration of what we believe to be good for us and some way tending to our happiness remove this out of the eye of a man and the clearest reasons that you can urge will never excite his will to choice much less engage him unto action He cannot act where he cannot hope nor can he hope where he sees nothing to be desired Say you whatsoever you can to move him he will always have this to say for himself the thing you propound no way tends to any advantage it doth not serve any end of mine and therefore why should I undertake it give me that which will do me good let me see how it tends unto my welfare let me know what account I shall find in it prove that I shall be better for it either in this or another World and then you may perswade me to it Nor doth this desire of a mans own happiness contradict or prejudice publick welfare for every wise man understands that his own particular and private good is always involved in publick welfare and every good man makes it a part of his own happiness to serve the advantage of other persons and besides he knows that he shall be rewarded hereafter for it And although we cannot all be wise yet every man may at least be good But after all both the good and evil wise and unwise always desire and chuse that which makes at least the fairest appearance of contributing to their own felicity This is the reason why God himself applies himself to this desire in the whole oeconomy of his providence in all his dealings with mankind When he prescribes his Laws to us he urges obedience to these Laws by promising happiness thereunto which promise yet could have no effect upon us had we no desire of being happy on the same account he threatens misery to the violation of his precepts which yet would be to little purpose could we be contented to be miserable or cease to desire our own felicity 'T is the same method which he uses in all his other addresses to us when he rebukes when he perswades when he expostulates and reasons with us he still accommodates all these things to that desire of being happy which he hath ingrafted in our natures as the first mover in all our actions Sometimes indeed he applies himself unto the natural desire men have of peace and safety in the world And so he did to the Jewish Nation Deut. 30.15 See saith he I have set before thee this day life and good death and evil and after that at the 9. v. I call heaven and earth to record this day against you that I have set before you life and death blessing and cursing therefore chuse life that is to say chuse obedience that both thou and thy seed may live But the great applications made unto us in the Gospel are addressed to that desire in man which moves him both to desire to be and to be happy to all eternity This is the promise saith St John that he hath promised us even eternal life 1 John 2.25 And so St Paul Rom. 2.6 7 8 9. where he tell us that God will render to every man according to his deeds to them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honour and immortality eternal life but unto them that are contentious and obey not the truth but obey unrighteousness indignation tribulation and wrath and anguish upon every soul of man that doth evil of the Jew first and also of the Gentile Thus he that made us and knows our nature and all the springs of motion in us in all his applications to us accommodates himself to that desire of being happy which he himself hath planted in us as knowing this to be the way to gain a ready complyance from us On the same account the great deceiver of mankind paints his baits covers his snares gilds his temptations with an appearance of what is good He knows it would be a vain thing to attempt to press us unto the choice of what is evil what is destructive to our selves should it appear in its own likeness and therefore he puts a disguise upon it He boldly told the woman in paradise that if they would eat what God had forbidden their eyes should be opened they should be as Gods knowing good and evil for if as Gods then surely wise and blessed and happy And thus the temptation found success which first brought sin into the World and death as the wages due unto it Nor was it a much different method whereby he applyed himself to Christ for he took him as the Gospel tells us into an exceeding high mountain and shewed him all the Kingdoms
not cut off by Gods hand but pardoned upon his deep repentance But this pardon was not the Act of the Law it self but the dispensation of the Law-giver And so indeed were these promises wherein the Prophets proclaimed pardon where the Law expresly death as when they promised remission and pardon to Idolaters themselves if they would repent For such was the rigour of the Law that whensoever it threatned death it did not dispense with the guilty person no not upon repentance it self not upon amendment and reformation This is the meaning of the Apostle when he saith that the Law worketh wrath Rom. 4.15 when he stiled it the ministration of condemnation 2. Cor. 3.9 This is the reason why having opposed it to the Gospel as the letter unto the Spirit he further adds that the letter killeth but that the spirit giveth life vers 6. of the same Chapter this is the reason why Christ is said to have come in the flesh to deliver them who through fear of death were all their life time subject to bondage Heb. 2.15 For as the Law threatned death to very numerous kinds of sin so it admitted no expiation no sacrifice no repentance unto life where it expresly threatned death and here was the rigour of the Law Now the Gospel on the other hand although it threaten Eternal Death to obstinate and impenitent sinners yet it allows and accepts repentance as a condition of remission in all degrees and kinds of sin wherein the Law did not allow it as to the punishment it threatned And this is the thing which S. Paul suggests Act. 13.38 Be it known unto you therefore men and brethren that through this man that is through Christ is preached unto you forgiveness of sins and by him all that believe are justified from all those things from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses There were numerous sins from which the Law did not absolve the offending person The Law did never absolve or justifie where a man had wittingly committed a sin to which that Law threatned excision but left him without any promise of pardon to the Soveraignty of the Law-maker Whereas the Gospel in express words admits repentance and reformation as a condition of forgiveness in all those kinds and degrees of sin no sin so hainous in its nature none so aggravated by repetition none so heightned by long continuance whereunto the Gospel doth not expresly promise pardon upon the sinners return to God Here is that grace that pardons the sensual and impure upon their amendment and reformation here is that grace that pardons the violent and injurious upon repentance and restitution Here is that mercy that forgives the impious and profane if peradventure they shall reform and return to God by true repentance A grace so great and undeserved that it is seldom mentioned in Scripture without expressions of admiration A grace so signal and so eminent that when the Apostle had described it in the fifth Chapter to the Romans he found it needful to spend the sixth in caution against the abuse of it Not that the liberty of the Gospel either in this or the former instance is really such in its own nature as that it gives any reasonable grounds for men to indulge themselves in sin but that they being bribed by their own lusts take encouragement to do this where none is given that is to use the Apostles words use the liberty given in the Gospel for an occasion to the flesh 2. And so I pass to the second part the caution which the Apostle gives against the abuse of that liberty which is allowed us in the Gospel Now as this consists in two instances liberty from the numerous Rites and from the rigour of the penal Sanction of Moses his Law so was there something of abuse of both these parts of Christian liberty in the primitive Ages of Christianity 1. For first as to the former instances some there were who being acquainted with their liberty from the Rites and Injunctions of the Law earlier than many others were used the liberty of their consciences to ensnare the consciences of other men scorned and censured them as weak and ignorant and by their censures and examples engaged them in the neglect of some Laws relating to certain days and meats before they understood their liberty or had due time to understand it And this abuse of Christain liberty is censured in S. Pauls writings both to the Romans and Corinthians 2. Others observing that S. Paul denied the necessity nay in some cases forbad the use of the works of the Law that is of the Rites before mentioned in order unto Justification took liberty as S. James suggests Jam. 3 to absolve themselves from the works and graces of the Gospel from justice mercy and humility from love and patience and veracity from the engagements and obligations not only of the Laws of Christ but even of natural Religion it self An errour which to this very day so infects the Divinity of many persons that it is no wonder to see their Followers ever learning but never coming to the knowledge of the truth 2. But to pass on to the second instance The relaxation of that rigour which was in the penal Sanction of the Law seems to have been no less abused than liberty from its numerous Rites For it should seem that some persons observing that the Gospel promised pardon where the Law of Moses had denied it and judging that the grace of God was highly magnified by that pardon took leave to indulge themselves in sin under pretence of magnifying Gods grace Which is the errour St. Paul censures Rom. 6.12 What shall me say then shall we continue in sin that grace may abound God forbid God offers no pardon but to the penitent the design of his grace in offering pardon to the penitent is to invite men to repentance and therefore to use that grace as an encouragement to impenitence is to use it just against it self contrary to its own design as well as against a mans own advantage How much of this unthankful folly may yet remain in the Christian world I am not able to determine but sure I am that there is something like unto it in very general use amongst us which is the delay of reformation grounded upon the promise of pardon to every man that forsakes his sins although he have long continued in them a great abuse of the grace of God God promises pardon to prevent despair these abuse that promise to presumption God admits repentance after sin to encourage us to forsake our sins these abuse his grace in that instance to encourge them to continue in them which is to contemn the goodness of God and despise the mercy they should adore And so S. Paul himself suggests Rom. 4.4 Despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long-suffering not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance Add
of the world and the glory of them and said unto him all these things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me Matt. 4.8 9. Observe what a scene he spreads before him and how he varnishes and paints it over he shews him Kingdoms glorious things yea all the Kingdoms of the World he shews him the glory of these Kingdoms not the cares not the solicitudes not the labours or dangers that attend them but only the glory and splendor of them and then offers them all unto him if he would but do him homage for them And though the temptation made no impression upon him whose Kingdom was not of this World yet was it craftily laid and aimed seeing mankind are greatly prone to believe the glory of this World the greatest happiness and felicity and seeing also that the first application of mens Souls to what they believe so to be is a fixed and earnest desire of it 2. The next to this is a firm design and resolution to apply themselves to the gaining of it from which they cannot be removed if they judge it possible to attain it and if in truth this be the thing in which alone they place their happiness These things allowed the greatest difficulties the hardest labours the sharpest resistance and oppositions will scarcely discourage resolution nor hinder endeavours to obtain it If it be difficult for mankind to reduce their natural inclinations to a complyance with Christs precepts to deny inordinate sensualities to sensual appetites and desires to deny unlawful gains and interests to the desire of wealth and riches to mortifie pride to subdue ambition and all the spawn of these vices envy malice and animosity to retain piety towards God in a profane and wicked age truth and justice towards men in a deceitful injurious World If it be difficult thus to do yet he that hath firmly fixed these principles in his mind that this is the only way to heaven and heaven alone the place of happiness will attempt to make his way thither through these or any other difficulties in the view of the glory set before him I dare not attempt to describe the reproaches and contradictions to display the injuries and affronts that our Lord endured throughout his life much less the agonies of his death or his incomparable patience in them Only thus much I shall observe that what he had of man in him was still supported and born up by the stedfast view and consideration of that he had chosen for his happiness of that joy that was set before him for this joy he endured the cross despising the shame and so doing is now set down at the right hand of the throne of God Heb. 12.2 And what an account of the labours and sufferings of St Paul is that we read 2 Cor. 11.23 and the following verses In labours more abundant in stripes above measure in prisons more frequent in deaths oft of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one thrice was I beaten with rods once was I stoned thrice I suffered shipwrack a night and a day have I been in the deep In journeyings often in perils of waters in perils of robbers in perils by my own Countrymen in perils by the heathen in perils in the city in perils in the wilderness in perils in the sea in perils among false brethren in weariness in painfulness in watchings often in hunger and thirst in fastings often in cold and nakedness besides these things that are without that which cometh upon me daily the care of all the Churches What an accumulation of things is here of things most grievous to flesh and blood heaps upon heaps of all the several troubles and dangers which the life of man is exposed unto in the present World But what impression did these calamities make on him who had designed eternal happiness Did he leave the way that leads unto it in consideration of these evils did he turn his back upon future glory and quit the further pursuit of it and retreat to the ease and peace and safety which he had enjoyed while he was a Pharisee No so far was he from so doing that he reckoned the sufferings of this present World not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us Rom. 8.18 and doubtless saith he I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them but dung that I may win Christ that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death if by any means I may attain to the resurrection of the dead that is to a blessed immortality Phil. 3.8 10 11 12. To this he pressed through all the dangers all the sufferings that did encumber the way unto it This he believed to be his happiness and therefore resolved to be true to himself in the unwearied pursuit of it And although it may seem to be something strange that they who imploy all their thoughts in the perishing things of the present World that they who have no design for Heaven should yet design their own happiness yet this is the thing which even they design also 'T is true indeed they have mistaken in their choice they have suffered themselves to be abus'd either by the outward gloss and splendour that shines on the face of wealth and honour or by the ease they find or fansie in the delights of the present World and so they mistake a meer appearance a shew a shadow of felicity instead of the very thing it self It is a vanity which they follow but a vanity under a shew of happiness What so vain as popular fame the breath of rude and ignorant people yet fame is happiness such as it is unto the proud and sensual pleasures unto the sensual and wealth and riches unto the Covetous and therefore they who have placed their desires upon these enjoyments in hope that they shall be happy in them spare no labour refuse no troubles to attain them It is not the distance of the thing wherein they hope for satisfaction nor the sliperiness of the way unto it though as hard to climb as a rock of Ice it is not the fear of sliding back nor the difficulty of proceeding forward that can obstruct the pursuit of it they will press on through the greatest straits and labour to climb the highest difficulties if there be hope to attain unto it and as for those that cannot hope for any advantage by a sin but what they find in the sin it self they are so degenerate in their natures that they please themselves in doing evil and this very pleasure they make their happiness and so they abandon themselves unto it although it lead to eternal misery And so I proceed to the third particular which is 3. That men do so desire