in Trespasses and Sins we are now raised to the Hopes and Assurance of Everlasting Glory But here therefore I will be a little more particular And First By these Sufferings our Saviour Christ delivered us from the Curse which descended to us by our first Parents Transgression and from that Eternal Punishment which must otherwise have been the consequence of it For not to enter now into any scrupulous Enquiry concerning the Nature of Original Sin or the Grounds upon which God is supposed to impute it to us Or how far we should have been either condemn'd or not for the Actual Sin of Adam in Eating of the forbidden Fruit This at least cannot be doubted of by any That our Nature is now much degenerated from that primitive Purity in which Man was at first created that we have all the very best of us a strange Propensity to Evil and are born with an Impotency if not Adverseness to that Virtue and Piety which the Principles of natural Religion as well as of revealed require of us So that if we should allow the contentious Disputers of our Days that God will not impute Adam's Transgression to us for Sin nor condemn us for a Defect which we are not our selves consenting to but bring into the World with us yet would this have stood us but in very little stead Whilst we should every one of us have been Guilty of so many Actual Sins as had not Christ purchased a Redemption for us must for ever have sunk us down into Ruine and Destruction And certainly we ought then to esteem it no small Benefit of our Saviour's Passion that he has now delivered us from this Danger and removed the fatal Necessity we must otherwise have lain under of being for ever miserable without all possibility of preventing of it But this is only one Part and that the first and least of those Blessings which his Death and Passion has obtained for us For Secondly Our Saviour Christ has not only delivered us from those Dangers to which we were before exposed but he has put us in a new and better way of attaining to that nay perhaps to a greater Happiness than what we should have had if Adam had never sinned nor by consequence our Saviour Christ ever given himself an Offering for our Sins This is indeed the great Commendation of our Saviour's Love to us that not content to deliver us from those Dangers that before threatned us He saves to the uttermost those that come to him And here to unfold the Greatness of this Benefit as I ought to do I must run through all the excellent Advantages of that New-Covenant God entred into with us by the Blood of his Son But this would carry me into an Argument great indeed and worthy your Attention but beyond the Bounds of my present Discourse In general * If to have a Systeme of the noblest and most admirable Rules of Living that were ever communicated to the World such as by their own Excellence no less than by God's Command recommend themselves not only to our Practice but to our Love too * If to be endued with a supernatural Divine Assistance to enable us to fulfil them and overcome all those Temptations that may at any time seek to draw us from them * If to be assured That upon our hearty Endeavours and earnest Prayers to God this Grace of his shall still increase in us according as we sincerely apply our selves to make use of it or as other Circumstances shall happen to put us in need of it * If besides this Help to keep us from sinning to live under a Gracious Promise of Pardon for those Sins which many times we shall commit notwithstanding all our Labour to the contrary upon our humble Confession and hearty Repentance of them * If to know that for all these Ends we have a Redeemer in Heaven who stands continually in the Presence of God to make Intercession for us and represent to his Father that Death and Passion which he underwent on purpose that he might obtain this Forgiveness for us In a Word * If to be undoubtedly secured That whatever becomes of us now yet let us but sincerely labour what in us lies to fulfil our Duty and we shall be in a little Time eternally happy in the Consummation of all these Blessings in the Kingdom of our Saviour That yet a few Years and our High-Priest shall again return in Glory and pronounce the great and final Blessing upon us which shall instate us in Joys never to be forfeited If I say to live under the Conduct of such a Saviour and such a Religion to have the Comfort of so great Promises now and the blessed Assurance of such Glory hereafter may be esteemed a Blessing as indeed what can we think of it but to be the greatest Blessing that a merciful God could bestow upon his Creatures or a Divine Saviour purchase for his Servants All this and many other Benefits which I cannot now so much as mention to you Christ purchased for us by his Sufferings and calls upon us in this Holy Sacrament to remember with the highest Joy and the most grateful Acknowledgments Which brings me to the other thing proposed for the full Explication of the Duty here required of us viz. Secondly * After what Manner and * With what Affections it is that we are to Do this in Remembrance of Him For the former of these I. The manner How we are here to remember Him I have already observed That the original Word which we here render Remembrance is very emphatical and implies not any calling to Mind all these things but a frequent renewed Commemoration of them And that especially such by which we may not only remember our selves but also set forth to others the Memorial of them So S. Paul interprets it v. 26 As often as ye eat this bread and drink this Cup 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 annunciate shew forth make a solemn Declaration of the Lord's Death until his coming And so indeed the very Design of this Institution will oblige us to understand it When our Saviour first celebrated this Holy Sacrament and commanded his Disciples by the like Sacred Ceremony to continue the Memory of his Death until the End of the World We are told by the Evangelists That he had just finished the Feast of the Passover into the Place whereof he substituted this Christian Feast and as all the Circumstances of it plainly shew designed this to have the same Place in the Christian that the other had till then had in the Jewish Church Now concerning that solemn Feast we read in the Book of Exodus cap. xii 17 That God appointed it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for a Memorial that is for a solemn Recognition which the People was thereby to make every Year of that great Deliverance by which they were brought up out of the Land of Egypt And in the thirteenth Chapter they are
And when he had said these things he cried He that hath Ears to hear let him hear In which Parable our Blessed Saviour sets forth to us the different success which his Gospel then did and would ever after be likely to meet with according to the different dispositions of those to whom it was Preach'd It is indeed an uncomfortable Reflection and I think I may say one of the greatest discouragements we labour under in the discharge of our Ministry to consider how very little benefit for the most part all our Endeavours have upon the minds of those to whom we declare the Gospel of Christ. That after all we can do either by the Goodness or Terrors of the Lord to perswade men yet scarce a fourth part brings any fruit at all to perfection and even those too in a very small measure Some few perhaps there are who produce a little increase they hear the word and consider their duty and return it thirty-fold in Piety and Good works But for the sixty and the hundred-fold scarce any there are that ever arrive at this pitch or but give us any great cause to hope that ever they will come up to it Instead of fruitless Complaints in a matter of so great consequence both to our Ministry and to your Salvation I shall make it my endeavour on this occasion both for the happier prosecution of my own Duty and if it may please God for the greater benefit of your Souls plainly to lay before you the cause of this By resolving it as both the Authority of our Saviour and the natural reason of the thing its self require I should into the general indisposition of Men to receive the Gospel We now as the Sower in the Parable scatter the same Seed on all the parts of the Field indifferently We desire that every one should yield a suitable increase What can possibly be the cause of that strange variety we find in the product that one part should bring forth a plentiful crop of Faith and Good works another either none at all or but a very small one in comparison but only this That the Ground is in some better prepared to receive the Seed than it is in others and therefore brings forth the Fruit accordingly This is the plain design both of the Parable before mentioned and of that Exhortation with which our Saviour here concludes it in the words of the Text He that hath Ears to hear let him hear In my Discourse upon which words that I may pursue the same Method which our Blessed Lord did in his Parable I will I. Show you what sort of Hearers they are to whom the Word is in vain spoken who are not likely to benefit themselves by our Preaching And II. Will offer some Rules for the disposing of your Souls in such a manner that by the Grace of God you may be fit to receive benefit by it I. I am to show what kind of Hearers they are to whom the Word is in vain spoken who are not likely to benefit themselves by our Preaching In pursuance of which Point I should be infinite should I insist particularly on all those indispositions that are apt to render a man an unprofitable Hearer of Divine Truth I will reduce this first sort of Auditors to as few Generals as I can and that with all the freedom and plainness that both the Nature and End of such an Undertaking require 1. And the first that I shall mention is The Careless Hearer It is the misfortune of too many in the Church of Christ that in St. Paul's Character they have a form of Godliness but are little acquainted with the Power of it They come to our Assemblies and hear our Discourses and for the time are very much affected with them But they go away and presently they forget what they heard their Holy Affections are scattered as a morning Cloud they grow cold and indifferent as they were before nor much concern themselves with any farther thoughts of Religion till the next Sunday comes and another Sermon again puts them in mind of it As if the end of all our Preaching were only to make the Service a little the more solemn to entertain them an hour extraordinary in the Church and if they did but sit out that with any tolerable Attention they had then discharged their duty they had done all that was required of them To such Auditors as these I would only beg leave to remonstrate how unreasonable such a negligence as this is and of what a dangerous consequence it will most certainly prove to them in the end Our Discourses in these Places all of them I am sure should be and I believe for the most part are either Explications of that Duty which God requires of us or Exhortations to fulfil it or else to shew the danger and baseness of those Temptatiâ—ns that most usually draw men aside from it Now all these naturally imply an obligation on the part of those that hear us to do somewhat in pursuance of these instructions Either to fulfil this Duty or to fly those sins that are contrary to it or to watch and arm themselves against those Temptations which they are forewarn'd will otherwise be apt to seduce them from it And if they neglect to do this they will be much more inexcusable than if they had never been instructed by us What our Saviour once said of the Jews with reference to his Preaching will be found as true now with respect to ours If I had not come and spoken unto them they had not had sin but now they have no cloak for their sin It is not in discourses of this kind as in other ordinary addresses that are sometimes made to us which if they do but afford us some agreeable entertainment for the present we have our desire and though we afterwards never trouble our selves with any farther thoughts of them yet we run no great hazard nor it may be sustain any Loss by our neglect of them But when we tell you your Duty and lay before you the Doctrine by which you are to be Saved the Case is much otherwise We speak as the Commissioners of God and as the Ambassadors of Christ we beseech you to be reconciled unto Him The words which we deliver unto you they are not our own but His that sent us they are the rules and measures by which you ought to live and by your neglect or observance whereof you must preserve or lose your Souls to all Eternity The light esteem of what we say do not mistake it reflects not upon us but on him whose Ministers we are whose Gospel we preach and whose Goodness we set forth and who therefore will one day call you to a severe account for that little regard you now shew of what we deliver unto you But 2 dly A second sort of Hearers who reap but little benefit by all our discourses are The Curious
to God must obtain this Who will not fail to give his Holy Spirit to them that ask him And now How shall we wonder if the seed though never so carefully sown produce yet but a very mean increase when God knows for the most part the Ground is so utterly unprepared to receive it This certainly is a consideration that ought to engage every good Christian seriously to search and examine himself how he is disposed to become a fitting Hearer of the Gospel of Christ. If you have therefore hitherto come to our Assemblies without such a due Preparation as you see is thus necessary to qualifie your minds to receive that benefit you ought from these Instructions let me now earnestly beseech you no longer to deceive your own Souls but to prepare them in such a manner that our Preaching may not be in vain to you Let not any little unworthy designs accompany you to these Holy exercises But come as befits Christians with Charity with Humility with an Honest and Vpright Heart sincerely desirous of understanding your Duty how mean soever the person be that is to deliver it unto you But above all come with a firm resolution of Practising what you Hear Remember that 't is this Christianity designs in all its instructions And however our Zeal in these latter days seems unhappily engaged more in the Pursuit of Divine Truth than in what I could rather wish we did chiefly aim at the Practice of a Divine Life yet let us be careful so to maintain the One as not to prejudice or overthrow the other And if we thus sincerely direct all our Hearing to the Glory of God and our own Everlasting Salvation we shall not fail to Hear as we ought to do God will open our Ears and illuminate our Vnderstandings and dispose our Wills The seed that is Sown upon such Ground shall not fail to Spring up into a Blessed increase And produce those Fruits of Holiness in this life which shall finally bring us to the Everlasting Joys and Glories of the next Which God of his Infinite Mercy vouchsafe unto us through the merits of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord. To whom c. OF THE BENEFIT and PRACTISE OF CONSIDERATION A SERMON Preach'd at WHITE-HALL Before the Princess of DENMARK Febr. 26. 1687 8. DEUT. XXXII 29 O that they were wise that they understood this that they would consider their latter end THE Words are part of that great Song which Moses spake unto all the Congregation of Israel immediately before his Death and by God's express Command left with them as his last and best Legacy to them and their Posterity for ever A Song both in its self so considerable and so highly esteem'd by them that they thought no words could be sufficient to set forth its Excellency Insomuch that we find it at this day characterised by the Jews of our own times as the foundation and summary of the whole Law In the Verses before the Text we have a sad and terrible declaration of those Judgments that should hereafter befal them for their Impenitence And it is not to be question'd but that this great Prophet from whom God never concealed any thing that concern'd that people had here by so much a more particular prospect of those Evils that were afterwards to come upon them as he was now the nearer to be taken from them And that 't is from these therefore that we must derive at once both the Occasion and Importance of that passionate Wish into which the Holy Man here breaks out in consideration both of their danger and of their insensibility of it O that they were wise that they understood this that they would consider their latter end Whether by their latter end we are to understand that great and terrible destruction which finally befel both themselves and their Country in the loss of Jerusalem Or Whether with some we shall interpret it of God's rejecting of them from his Covenant from being what they were once his own peculiar Inheritance Or Whether lastly the more to heighten the Idea we shall join them both together in the Prophecy as they were by God united in the Execution certain it is That a greater and more amazing instance of the Divine Vengeance upon a particular Nation has hardly been known from the beginning of the World than that of their Destruction nor shall there I suppose be any Parallel to the very end of it But it is not my design to enter on any reflection of their Punishment but to enquire rather what it was that Moses here so much wishes they would have done in order to the preventing of it what that great defect was which was the Cause of all their Evils Now that in one word was Inconsideration A fault certainly very great in that people than which none had ever received more clear and sensible Proofs of the Divine Power and Goodness They had seen the Miracles by which God had brought them up out of the Land of Egypt and continued to conduct them now almost forty years through the Wilderness They had beheld his Majesty when himself in that terrible manner that we read in the xix th and xx th Chapters of Exodus vouchsafed to give them his own Law from Mount Sinai Nay that nothing might be wanting to awaken a stupid and insensible people they had known his Judgments too in the punishment of their Sins They had seen the Destruction which their Fathers had suffer'd and they were here expresly foretold what Evils themselves and their posterity should hereafter undergo for their impiety Yet was not all this sufficient to awaken their Consideration to a sense of their danger and a care to prevent it And now I would to God these Jews were the only men we could justly charge with this neglect and that our own indifferency in the concern of our duty did not equally tax us with the same Inconsideration But alas I fear were we here to enter on a review we should find but too just a parallel both in our danger and in our incogitancy And that a very little reasoning upon the Methods of God's Providence without the help of a Prophetick Spirit might be more than enough to make any sober considering man tremble to think what shall be the consequence of such a general Insensibility as we have these many years shown notwithstanding all his Mercies and his Judgments in vain made use of to reclaim us At least I hope it will be abundantly sufficient to Apologize for me if I beg leave especially at such a Season as this freely to expostulate with you in the words of Moses in the Text O that ye were wise that ye understood this that you would consider your latter end In speaking upon a Subject both in its self so important and to us so necessary that I may if possible not omit any thing that may serve either to excite or to direct the
practice of it I shall endeavour with all the plainness I can to discourse to you of these Four Things I st Of the Danger and Mischief of Inconsideration II dly I will enquire into the Causes of it III dly I will offer some General Rules for the Practice of Consideration And IV thly and Lastly Will close all with some Motives that may serve to stir you up to the discharge of your duty in so great and important an instance of it I begin with the First of these I. Of the Danger and Mischief of Inconsideration It has been the usual Method of most Casuists in enquiring into the Causes of Sin to expose the Mischief and aggravate the Danger of those particular Temptations that are the immediate occasions of it Hence there is hardly a man so little inâ—â—ructed in Morality that has not learnt to run into an invective against the Interests and Pleasures the Honours and Riches of this world that the good Christian must resolve either to abandon them as much as is possible or at least to quit all undue Esteem and inordinate Desire of them But the great and Catholic Cause of all our evils Inconsideration this is either not at all or but very lightly touch'd upon by them So far are men from exposing the Danger of it that I believe there are few who have yet learnt to place it in the number of their Temptations or that think themselves at all concern'd to provide against it Very necessary therefore it is before I proceed to those particular Proposals I am hereafter to make for the removal of this evil that I should first convince you of the necessity there is of setting about it to show you that of all the Artifices of the Devil this has been the most successful that whatsoever strength any other Temptations may seem to have 't is all derived from the influence of this In a word That Riches and Honour and Pleasure and Interest seduce some particulars only triumph over the weakness of some certain dispositions that are more peculiarly apt to be moved by them But that Inconsideration is a general snare stops not at particulars but carries all before it The One Last Vniversal Cause of all our Sins being no other than this That we do not consider as we ought what our Duty is and what our Obligations are to the Practice of it And 1 st It cannot be denied but that this Inconsideration exposes us to every Temptation which the Devil shall think fit to lay in our way is very often the Cause that we are tempted at all but always the reason that we are overcome by the Temptation I shall not need to say how many Sins men fall into for want of considering and knowing that they were so I would to God the frequent Excuses that are drawn from this Topick did not too fully shew how great a cause this is of our offending There is hardly a more general Plea in the mouth of every Sinner than that he meant no harm in what he did but either he did not know or he did not think that it was unlawful But then I am sure we must resolve to lay aside this excuse altogether and confess it to be as false as indeed it is for the most part frivolous or we must be allowed to conclude from it that this want of Consideration exposes men to infinite Temptations by keeping them in an unwarrantable Ignorance of what they might have known and ought to have Consider'd But they are not only the Ignorant that are concern'd in this danger He who knows his Duty the best is yet oftentimes no less surprized by his Incogitancy than he who is the most Ignorant of it The Devil who knows our weakest times and constantly watches his advantage never fails then especially to assault us when he sees we are least upon our Guard and by consequence least in a condition to resist him And if by a diligent care of our selves and attention to our Duty we are not as ready and prepared to resist those Temptations which may be apt to sollicite us from it as we are otherwise well instructed in the duty its self 't is evident that our Enemy will have a very great advantage against us and 't is odds if for want of being prepared to fight we are not for the most part overcome by him For 2 dly And which may be alone sufficient to confirm my assertion that 't is our Inconsideration that is the real ultimate Cause of all our sin be it observed secondly That there are in our Religion such Motives such Engagements to Obedience that were they but duly weighed it would be impossible for a man ever to live wickedly And indeed he must be a very great instance of this defect I am now speaking of and never have considered any thing at all of his Religion as he ought to do that can reasonably doubt of what I now say Is there any among us that has but once seriously reflected on the Nature of God Almighty How excellent his Goodness is how Terrible his Justice With what an irreconcilable hatred he prosecutes Sin and Sinners for its sake That he is Omnipotent and cannot be Resisted Omniscient and cannot be deceived Nay that he is Present with us sees our most retired actions and will one day bring them all to light in presence of the whole World in the day when He shall judge the world in righteousness Is there any one here that has but seriously consider'd all this Let him then say whether it were Possible for the Devil to have been able to draw him into Sin whilst he had such thoughts as these present to his mind to oppose to his Temptations But Christianity carries us yet farther It shews us a God Incarnate a God made man on purpose for our Salvation He gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all Iniquity and purchase to himself a peculiar people zealous of Good works It represents to us a Covenant of Grace Sealed with his own most precious Blood and into which we have every one of us been solemnly initiated that is solemnly Sworn at our Baptism and the condition wherof on our part we know was this that we should forsake the Devil and all his works the Pomps and Vanities of this wicked World and all the sinful lusts of the flesh and instead of serving these should obediently keep God's Holy will and Commandments and walk in the same all the days of our Lives I shall not now enquire how often we have I believe the most of us renew'd this Covenant whether in the Church at the Holy Table or on other Occasions that have called us to put up our Vows to Heaven Nor need I add that 't is to such a Practice alone as that requires that God has promised the Blessings of Eternal Glory But sure I am whosoever will but duly consider the weight and moment of this
are apt to corrupt the practice of it And here had I the time to insist upon them I would not doubt to rank in the very first front those Atheistical conclusions which the brisk Disputers of our Age so much abound with Who not content with the Psalmist's Fool to say in their heart there is no God dare openly dispute against his Being and with their mouths deny that God whom yet in their hearts they acknowledg nay whom their fears and terrors into which every the least accident throws them even testifie to the world that for all their Gallantry they cannot disbelieve Or because this is the presumption only of a few desperate men I would beg leave rather to argue a little with some of our more refined Sceptics the great Assertors of Human Reason in opposition to the Sacred Authority of Divine Revelation Who allowing of a God nevertheless strengthen themselves in wickedness by their ungrounded Notions of his Goodness and Justice Whilst they conclude it to be inconsistent with either of those Attributes for him to punish a temporal and transient sin with everlasting Torments tho committed against an Infinite God and against the plain terms of a Covenant of Eternal Happiness if we do well and of Everlasting Punishment if we do ill entred into by us at our Baptism and at Confirmation made our own act by our own express consent to it Or lastly because such too there are amongst us I would reason with those who argue against the malignity even of Sin itâ— self and would by their disputes turn the greatest Vices into innocent and indifferent Actions Whilst from the strong inclinations which they find in themselves to evil they conclude that certainly it ought not to be esteemed so very great a fault to pursue the dictates of that Nature which God himself has implanted in us And that doubtless our Passions were never designed to be merely a snare and a torment to us as yet they conclude they must be unless we will allow it to be lawful for them as freely to indulge them as they unreasonably contend they ought to do But all these and a few others of the like kind how destructive soever they may be of true Piety are the Principles of Men not yet beginning to be religious and by consequence such as I ought to suppose are needless to be obviated in this Assembly Those I would now remark are of another nature Principles upon which even good Christians do sometimes flatter themselves in Wickedness or at least neglect to live up to that exactness of Christian Practice as they ought to do Now such I esteem first of all that popular mistake by which many persons too easily delude themselves of a good mind a desire and an intention to live well and which they hope shall attone for all their miscarriages which notwithstanding their good intention they still continue to commit This is a Principle which I fear deceives very many in the world They cannot deny but that they are indeed very great sinners but yet they are sorry for it and they desire to live better But alas What shall they do They are weak and impotent as others are exposed to a thousand Temptations every day and who is there that either does or can withstand them all And indeed where the Intention is so good as to make men careful and diligent in their duty if they sin only by surprize or incogitancy and when they do so repent them truly and watch themselves more diligently for the time to come I will not deny but that here their good Intention may find acceptance with God Almighty But otherwise to think that a weak desire and a vain resolution and a transient sorrow the usual Piety of those who rely upon this excuse shall find favour at the Great Day of Accounts This is that Device which the Devil I fear deceives many withal but for which there is not the least ground or colour in the Holy Scripture 2. And from this proceeds another mistake and that not at all less dangerous than the foregoing which is To reckon all those sins which after such a good intention they commit to be sins of Infirmity and which they perswade themselves may be consistent with a state of Grace now and with the hopes of Glory hereafter Thus if when they commit a sin their Conscience checks them and they parly with the Temptation and strive a little and then yield and then they are sorry and make some transient ineffectual resolutions of doing better for the time to come but which all vanish at the very next trial this they call Infirmity and so God knows it is but such an Infirmity as will by no means excuse the sins which they commit upon the account of it Sins of Infirmity are of another kind they are weak and imperfect sins when we are either surprized into the Commission of them or otherwise hurried on by some sudden fear or other the like powerful Passion or overbearing Temptation before we have time to consider what we do or to arm our selves with firmness and resolution against it But otherwise where the sin is known and the Will free and there was time for deliberation and yet we agreed to it this can by no means be called a sin of Infirmity And here the frequency of the Commission or the easiness of falling may serve to aggravate indeed but sure will by no means extenuate and much less excuse the guilt of it I might to these add 3 dly those Principles of the Church of Rome which I am persuaded have not a little contributed to mens neglect of true Piety viz. of being saved by others Performances of Purgatory and Indulgences Masses and Prayers for the Dead of the power of the Priest to absolve sins and of an imperfect ineffectual sorrow for sin sufficient to dispose a man to receive the Grace of Absolution of the efficacy of the Sacraments to obtain their ends tho the person be not otherwise in a condition to obtain the Grace of God without them and in which some of them have gone so far as to declare Contrition to be rather a hindrance than a benefit to the Sacrament of Penance and one adds plainly That the excellence of the Sacraments of the Gospel in general above those of the Law consists in this That they have freed us from the intolerable yoke of loving God and being truly sorry for our sins I need not after this say any thing of the extravagance of their late private Casuists remark'd and censured by many of their own Communion and not long since by the Pope himself yet still continuing notwithstanding both to be but too much applauded by very great numbers amongst them But these being Principles against which I hope I need not prepare any one of our Communion I will instead of all these mention only one Principle more 4 thly By which men often hinder
This is a Cause which men do not indeed care so openly to profess but yet such a one as their Actions oftentimes do but too plainly point out to us And I wish that even this were all and that there were not some in the world whose very Principles seem to lead them into such an opinion so contrary to the very nature of Christianity and so fatally ruinous to their own Eternal Salvation For 1 st Not to say any thing now to those wise men of the world who laugh at all our discourse of another life after this and of an account to be given of all our Actions before a Divine Tribunal but to leave them to the convictions of their own Consciences which speak loudly to them this great truth and make them with Felix still fear what they pretend not to believe What shall we say to a more refined sort of Disputants who acknowledging a future Judgment and an Eternal Reward for those that do well yet extinguish in great measure all the flames of Hell-fire and allow of little or no danger for those that do ill They suppose that the worst that can happen to them if they should chance to be overtaken in their sins is but to lose their Portion in the Joys of Heaven and be for ever annihilated the only danger that if you will believe them attends the greatest Sinners in the other World But yet still methinks since they confess that there is such a place as Heaven and that there shall be an enjoyment of Honour and Glory there to all Eternity for those who at that day shall be found worthy of it even this should be enough to make them think it worth their while to endeavour to procure themselves a share in so much happiness And however they suppose that the Everlasting Punishment which the Holy Scriptures threaten sinners with shall be only an Eternal Annihilation yet since 't is plain that the same Scriptures speak very dreadful things of it and it cannot be denied but that the greatest part of Christians have and do believe that the wicked shall not cease to be but on the contrary for ever continue in a state of Misery which neither any tongue can express nor any thought conceive and 't is certain there are many passages in the Sacred Writ that seem very much to favour this apprehension indeed that cannot without violence be detorted to any other signification It must certainly be the wisest course not to be too secure in their own sense but whether they believe the Torments of the Damn'd to be Eternal or no yet certainly to live so as if they made not the least doubt of it 2. But secondly Another sort of men there are who by their mistaken Notions of Christianity have very much contributed to lessen their Opinion concerning the necessity of Repentance that I do not say have utterly corrupted the very nature and practice of it I mean the Casuists and Confessors of the Church of Rome It is a Point commonly disputed among these men what the precise time is in which men are bound by the Law of God to Repent There have been some of them indeed so severe as to think that a man ought to repent on all the greater Festivals of the Church Others think that 't is enough if a man do it against Easter But the common Opinion is that this is only to be understood of the external and ritual Repentance of the Church which consists in Confessing and Receiving the Holy Sacrament but that for the true inward Repentance the precise time in which the sinner is bound by the commandment of God to be contrite for his sins is the imminent Article of a Natural or Violent Death Insomuch that some of them doubt not to say That even for a man to resolve to defer his Repentance and refuse to Repent for a certain time is but a Venial Sin nay and others think no sin at all And these men to be sure in express terms take away the necessity of present Repentance But this is not yet all for when they do come to the time that they think it necessary to put it in practice even then they find out so many other Artifices to elude the sincere performance of it that they who do all which they require of them yet do not in effect truly Repent What else can we make of the allow'd practise of that Church upon Confession of Sins and an imperfect Contrition for them to admit them to Absolution and so in effect make the whole of this Duty to amount to no more than a little sorrow for sin and a resolution to forsake it though at the same time they are so far from doing it that it may be they do not themselves believe that ever they shall make good such their Resolution And that too though they have neither any love of God in their hearts nor otherwise hate their sins than they are afraid of being damn'd for them I need not say how many other Devices these Men have found out to free themselves from the trouble of a true Repentance By Pardons and Indulgences by Masses and Prayers for the dead by Consecrated Garments and Priviledg'd Fraternities and the End of all which is what I am now complaing of to make men careless and negligent in the discharge of that Piety that God requires of them and of that Repentance which alone can obtain an effectual forgiveness of their Sins But these are not yet all who by their mistaken Notions of some of the Doctrines of Christianity have been but too much encouraged to neglect the practise of a Christian life Others there are 3 dly And those of a more near concern to us than either of the foregoing whose Principles seem without great care but too naturally to tend to the same neglect Such are The Great Assertors of Salvation by Faith alone without Works of God's Eternal Predestination and in consequence thereof Mens Absolute Election or Reprobation Of the slavery of the Will and its incapacity to do any thing as to the business of our Future state without that special Grace of God which if men have then they must needs do Well and without it cannot but do Ill and which God does not afford indifferently to All those to whom the Gospel is preach'd but to such only as he intends thereby to bring to Faith and Repentance first and then to Salvation Now not to dispute with any one the Truth of all these Points when wisely and soberly stated according to the Authority of the Holy Scripture that which I say is this That all these and the like Principles are apt to mislead Ignorant and Wicked Men who are not very well instructed in the true notion and understanding of them to a neglect of their duty as if the whole work of their Justification were either so secure and setled on the one hand
And to conclude this Point The last cause that moves many to delay their Repentance is that thô they are convinced both of the Necessity of repenting some time or other and that it is highly reasonable for them to set presently about it yet when all is done their Lusts are too strong for them and they cannot so soon resolve to part with their Sins and enter on a Course of Piety and Religion There is something in the Nature of Sin so fatally bewitching to us that if once we suffer our selves to be overcome with the Habit of it 't is after that one of the hardest things in the World to recover our liberty and prevent our selves from being altogether hardned by the deceitfulness of it He that committeth sin says our Saviour Christ is the servant of sin Whether it be that the force and power of an Evil Course gains insensibly upon us till at last we have no more strength remaining to overcome it Or Whether it be that the longer we continue in Sin the more God's Grace is withdrawn and the less assistance we have of the Holy Spirit to extricate our selves out of it But this is plain that even the best Men find it a hard matter with all their Industry to keep themselves from its dominion and to fulfil their Resolutions though never so soon taken up of discharging their duty and living as becomes the Disciples of Christ. I do not in the least question but that we are all of us sufficiently convinced of the reasonableness of what I have now been inforcing of setting immediately about our duty and I believe there are but few if any among us who if they do not at this time yet have at least some time or other resolved to do so But I fear it would be a melancholly reflection to most of us to think how little we have fulfilled these Resolutions hitherto and may give us some cause to fear whether we may not be but too likely still to continue in the same careless and impenitent state for the time to come The truth is in such a degenerate Age as this wherein Vice is become almost reputable and to be religious esteem'd pedantry and preciseness When the Evil Customs of Men have prevailed so far above the Commandments of God that a Man must yield to be a little Wicked unless he will run counter to the general practice of the World and not a little negligent of his duty to maintain the Company and Conversation of the Times 't is not an easie thing for a Man to break through all these difficulties and resolve to save his Soul whatever censures or troubles he encounters for the so doing And therefore though we all of us know well enough what we ought to do and cannot but be sometimes apprehensive of the dangers we run by our not doing of it yet alas we still go on in the neglect of our duty Ever thinking and resolving to amend but never able effectually to set about it And thus have I given you such a general prospect as the time would permit of those Causes that so much indispose Men to a present Repentance I go on to the other thing I proposed in order to the Cure of it II dly To shew the Danger of deferring the performance of it For if such a delay as this be not only very unreasonable in it self but shall be also very fatal in its Consequence if there be really nothing in all those pretences that usually keep men from a present discharge of their duty and an infinite Hazard to be run by it Sure then we ought to begin immediately to do that which can neither be too soon begun nor at all delay'd without a very great danger Which we must some time or other do and which will still grow more difficult and uneasie to us the longer it is that we put off the doing of it And 1 st Let me ask him that thus neglects his Repentance and thinks it will be time enough to set about it hereafter when the heat of his Youth is past and he begins to come to a greater strength of Reason and Discretion to govern himself and to bring his Passions into subjection It may be gives it yet a longer delay and reserves the business of Religion for the Close of his Life and an immediate preparatory to the hour of his Death Is he sure that he shall ever arrive to that time which he thus warily sets out for this great Work I need not tell you how uncertain our lives are What Diseases what Accidents lay siege against us every Moment And if notwithstanding all this some do live to a good Old Age yet how many Thousands there are that fall in the strength and vigor of their years And we cannot say but that this may be our Condition as we are sure it has been the Condition of many Others who it may be as much flatter'd themselves with these Projects as We do now and are therefore in vain lamenting their mad Security in the Concern of their Salvation But this I must needs say a greater provocation there cannot be given to God Almighty to cut us off in the midst of our years and deprive us of that opportunity we so presumptuously set out for to repent in after a long life spent in Sin and Impenitence than thus to go on in our wickedness and designedly to live in a disobedience to his Commands till we are no longer like to continue in this World 2. But however 2 dly Let us allow of this that we had by some means or other an Assurance of our lives and could be certain we should arrive to that Time we thus lay out for the business of Religion Yet how are we sure that we shall not then be altogether as unwilling and much more unable to repent than we are now 1 st If we consider our selves only upon the Common principles of Nature without reflecting upon the Grace of God without which yet we can do nothing as to the Business of our Duty Even these will tell us That the more inveterate any Habit is the more difficult it is to leave it and the greater pains it will cost a Man to overcome it And he who finds it so hard a Matter to conquer his Lusts now what will he do hereafter when the Indulgence of many years more shall have rooted them in his very Soul and made his sins become even natural to him 2 dly But then secondly If we examine this matter according to the Principles of Christianity these will shew a yet greater improbability of our repenting hereafter than at the present It being not to be doubted but that as upon the Use of God's Grace He bestows a more liberal portion of it so by refusing and resisting the Motions of the Holy Spirit God withdraws his hand and lessens his Grace and it may be at last totally deprives Men of it The truth
way and be filled with their own devices It were an easie matter to multiply Passages to the same purpose out of every part of the Holy Scripture But I have said enough already to shew the danger of delaying our Repentance from the apprehension of over-passing the time of it and to warrant that great Conclusion which I think is generally received by most Christians viz. That there is to every wicked man a certain Time when the measure of his Iniquities being accomplish'd there shall be no more any space for repentance nor any farther assistance given them by God to bring them to it Now if this be so then would I only desire that these three things might seriously be consider'd by every one of us 1 st Whether he who being invited by the Grace of God and the Motions of his Holy Spirit by the cheeks of Conscience within and the importunate calls of the Ministers of the Gospel without to Repentance nevertheless neglects all these Admonitions and with Felix still puts off the practice of this duty to some more convenient season does not thereby grieve the Holy Spirit of God and despise his Grace and affront his Goodness who thus graciously offers and continues to him the means and opportunities of Salvation 2 dly Whether by so doing he does not provoke God in as high a manner as can well be imagined no longer to continue his Grace to him nor to expose his Mercy to contempt by suffering his Holy Spirit still to strive with such obstinate Offenders And then by consequence 3 dly and lastly Whether every such Person may not have just cause to apprehend that by delaying his Repentance and putting off the business of Religion to a still future opportunity he shall at last provoke God to withdraw his Grace from him And seeing when he had the opportunity given him and was invited to repent he despised the offer and neglected so to do God may not hereafter deliver him up to a hardned and impenitent heart and take away that Grace from him which he has so unworthily abused and thereby deserved to have no longer continu'd to him To conclude If in that famous Parable of the Talents there be any application yet remaining to be made of that part of it in which we find the Talent taken from the unprofitable Servant and a terrible Sentence of Everlasting Misery pronounced against him for his neglect Or in that other of the Fig-tree which was to be pruned and digg'd and then try'd another year and if still it continued to bring forth no Fruit then to be cut down and cast out of the Vineyard The meaning of both can be no other than this That he who despising the Grace of God and the opportunity of Salvation continues still in his Sins and improves not those Abilities God has given him to the great ends for which they were bestowed upon him shall at last by a severe but most just judgment of God be deprived of them and have his neglect punish'd with the loss of God's Grace here and in the consequence of it with an Eternal Damnation hereafter And this then may suffice to shew how dangerous it is for a man to put off the business of Repentance at the present out of an unwarrantable presumption that it will be time enough to perform it hereafter But now if the Question be What a man who has unhappily done this should do I reply 1 st Let him by all means hasten his Repentance all he can and the longer he has deferr'd it already the more careful and resolute let him be not to put it off one moment longer 2 dly Let him be so much the more zealous and diligent in his Religious Performances let his sorrow be the more pungent his Confessions the more humble his Prayers the more fervent but especially his Resolutions and his Endeavours the more hearty and sincere to break off the course of his Sins the longer he has continued in them that so by the extraordinary vigor of his present Endeavours he may make some kind of reparation for the slowness he has been hitherto guilty of in setting about his duty But this is not all It will perhaps be farther enquired Whether upon the Principle I have now laid down of the withdrawing God's Grace from such as refuse and reject the offers of it it will not follow that such persons as these are to be look'd upon as in a desperate Estate and therefore that it is in vain for them now to think of repenting at all But this is a Question which every man will best be able to satisfy himself about That he who puts off his Repentance now upon a presumption that it will be time enough to fulfil it hereafter may justly fear the withdrawing of God's Grace from him I have fully shewn But that God does absolutely withdraw his Grace from every such Person I do not say and whether or no he has withdrawn it from any particular Person he will presently be able to discern by the state in which he finds his Soul as to the business of Religion If his Lusts and his Passions lead him captive at their pleasure If he has no Affections or Desires remaining after Piety in his soul if he cares not for God nor his duty nor can yet persuade himself either to think of another world or to provide for it These indeed are though I will not say certain signs of a desperate condition yet such as may give us just cause to fear whether he be not come into that state from which there is no Redemption and in which God will no longer give him any Assistance to return into the way of Righteousness But if on the contrary he even now begins to come again to himself and wishes and desires if it be possible to be reconciled unto God If being touch'd with a lively sence of his sins and his obstinacy he is at last willing to amend and return unto God with all his heart Then 't is plain that though his Condition may be bad yet it is not desperate God has not yet given him up a Slave to the Devil but still continues to him the benefit of Repentance so that if he be not again wanting to himself he may yet hope for a sufficient measure of Divine Grace to bring him by Repentance to Salvation But here still there will one difficulty more arise and it is this How such a Person shall satisfie himself that he is truly penitent and by consequence that he may depend upon the mercy of God for Pardon notwithstanding his former Impenitence To this I answer 1 st If the person who thus repents at the last be in a condition of continuing yet longer in this world he may then be sure of the sincerity of his Repentance and of the consequent security of his Condition by the same experience that all others are viz. by the fruits of it in a
commanded to Remember the Day in which they came out of Egypt and to keep the feast of unleavened bread seven daies And then and there solemnly to declare to their Children the Cause of it namely That they did this because of that which the Lord their God had done for them when they came forth out of Egypt To which end it was the Custome of the Jews at this Solemnity to have their Children propose to them the Question What the meaning of this Solemnity was And thereupon the Master of the House gave a full Account to them of the History of their Deliverance and which from thence they called the Haggadah the Annunciation or Remembrance Because of their using it at this Time to commemorate or shew forth that wonderful Deliverance which God had wrought for them Such was the Nature of that Remembrance which God commanded the Jews to continue in their Paschal Supper of His bringing them out of Egypt And the same is the Remembrance which our Saviour here commands us by this new Feast to continue in his Church of his dying for us We are to celebrate it as a solemn and Publick Memorial of that great Deliverance which our Blessed Lord has wrought for us and to declare to all the World thereby what a Sense we have of his infinite Love and Mercy to us Nay but this is not yet all we are to do if we will answer the full extent of the Duty here required of us We must not only make in this Holy Sacrament our Publick and solemn Recognition of Christ's Death and Passion but we must do it with that Affection that Joy those Resentments that become so great and excellent a Memorial So these kind of Expressions in Holy Scripture are for the most part to be understood and so it is plain we must take the Word in this Place And this is the other thing remaining to be considered for the full understanding of the Text. viz. II. With what Affections we ought to come to this Holy Table and Do this in Remembrance of Him It were too much for me here in the close of my Discourse to resume the whole Consideration of this great Sacrament and enter again upon a particular View of it and shew what kind of Affections we ought to raise in our Souls proportionable to the several Parts and Respects of it If we are indeed so sensible as we ought to be of our Saviour's Love to us in thus giving himself to the Death for us If we have so seriously weighed as becomes those who are called to this Feast the mighty Benefits and Advantages which are derived to us thereby what Miseries we have escaped to what Blessings we are entituled by his Sufferings the Sense of all this will soon teach us what Motions and Affections ought to fill our Souls that may be suitable to so great and blessed a Memorial For indeed who can be so ignorant as not to know without my Remark when he comes to the Holy Table and there beholds the Minister of God setting forth as S. Paul speaks evidently before his eyes Christ crucified for Him when both his Words and his Actions call upon Him to consider How the Son of God humbled himself even to the death for our Redemption and submitted his Body to be broken his Blood to be spilt as He there sees the Bread broken the Wine poured out in this Celebration that here certainly he ought with the greatest Ecstasie of Love to contemplate this Love of his Saviour to Him and break forth into the highest Expressions of a grateful Thanksgiving for this mighty Demonstration of his Favour and Affection to Him When from this He begins to reflect on that wretched Condition in which we all of us must have been had not the blessed Jesus thus graciously undertook the great Work of our Redemption and by dying for us delivered us from that Death to which we were condemned and raised us up to the Hopes of Eternal Glory Where is the Soul so dull so un-affected with the Contemplation of such a glorious Change as to be able to keep in his joyful Resentments of so wonderful a Deliverance and not rather burst forth into new Songs of Praise and Gladness for all the Benefits which God and his Redeemer have been so wonderfully pleased to do unto Him But above all who can think on that Value which the Blessed Jesus has put upon our Souls that he thought the Salvation of them to be a Price worthy his own Death and Sufferings to redeem them and then consider That even these very Souls for which Christ died will yet be exposed to the hazard of a greater and worser Damnation than that from which they have been delivered if we shall still go on impenitent in our Sins And not presently resolve here to sacrifice all his Passions at this Altar to lay down all his Lusts at the Pedestal of the Cross and vow Himself entirely to the Obedience of that Saviour who as S. Paul tells us for this very End gave himself for us that He might redeem us from all Iniquity and purchase to himself a peculiar people zealous of good Works Such Resentments as these will naturally arise in every pious Soul when he comes to this Sacred Feast and therefore I shall not need to give any particular Directions concerning them Only I would take occasion from this last Import of the Remembrance to which our Text calls us To exhort you when you come to this Holy Institution that you would take Care to raise up all these Affections and Resentments to as great a Heighth as you are able and having done this that you would then cherish and improve them that being not only warm and vigorous upon your Souls at the present but also rooted and engrafted into them they may not easily cool again but become operative upon your Lives may encrease your Love and confirm your Faith and enflame your Devotion and keep you firm and steady to your Duty till some new Occasion shall again call you to a new exciting of them This will be indeed to render your Remembrance such as your Saviour here requires of you And the frequent Returns which by the Blessing of God you here enjoy of this Memorial beyond most Christians in the World shall not only put you in a Capacity of coming still with better and more affectionate Resentments to this Holy Sacrament but shall by the Blessing of God prove a most useful and excellent Assistance to the promoting of all the other Parts of your Duty you shall live as becomes those who know what mighty Engagements their Saviour has laid upon them to what Hopes they are called and by what means their Redemption was purchased for them And as this Exercise will be the best means to prepare you to come worthily to this Remembrance so will it be also the most powerful Motive to engage you to