a new convert but his having forsaken his old vices 3. It is an Argument both of the Truth and excellency of the Christian Religion that the Doctrines of it are according to Godliness Godliness as we have shewn is the sum of the duties of natural Religion and what duty is there in natural Religion but in the code of the Royal Christian Law it is more clearly propounded more fully explained more strongly confirm'd Now what greater Argument is there for the truth of the Doctrines of any Religion than their agreeableness to the common sentiments of mankind or what more manifest proof of the excellency of the precepts of it than their harmony with the Laws of Nature for the most material objections against any Instituted Religion are either that its Principles are contradictory to clear Reason or its Duties repugnant to Natural Laws Since those Principles can not be true which contradict right Reason nor those Precepts good which are repugnant to the Laws of Nature For if we cannot be certain of the truth of those things for which there is plain and manifest Reason we cannot be certain of the truth of any thing and it must be granted that natural Religion is the Foundation upon which all revealed Religion does stand because from natural Light is fetcht the proof of the Existence of God which revealed Religion does always suppose Now there is nothing commanded in our Religion but what becomes the perfections of the Divine Nature and agrees with those Eternal Laws which flow from it there is nothing required of us but what sutes with the Native Principles of our own Souls and our truest Interest there is nothing propounded in our Religion as a point of Faith but we have sufficient Reason to believe it there is nothing exacted as a Duty but we have exceeding good motives to doe it We may find the great duties of our Religion all writ upon our own Nature And it was well said by Trithemius in his Answer to Maximilian the Emperor That of all the Sects and Religions in the World none approach'd so near to the Laws of Nature nor were so conformable to them as the Christian Religion Neither is there any thing that will contribute so much towards the accomplishment of our natural capacities as a life conformable to the Laws of our Religion since as God designed Religion to advance our nature and make us more nearly resemble him so prophaness and irreligion set God and us at the greatest concievable distance and turn man upon whom the divine Image was stampt into the shape of the Devil or of the beast that Perish Thus should you suppose the contray of every Christian Law enacted that insted of forgiving Enemys reconciling our selves to our adversarys and shewing mercy to the distressed we should be commanded to revenge every little injury unto Death to be implacably malitious where we have had a quarrel and cruel even to extremity with the poor and unfortunate would not mankind be chang'd into a race of Wolves and Tigers shall I say or become a new order of Devils incarnate And suppose also that we were injoyned to be false to our words unjust in our dealing treacherous to our trust would not all civil societies be disolv'd all commerce destroy'd and the World become a great den of Thievs and Robbers if it was required of us to eat always to gluttony and to drink to excess would the effect of our obedience be any other than the spoiling our health the besotting our rational faculties and the transforming the Children of Men into a Herd of Swine So little reason have we to complain of the Commandments of God as either difficult or grievious when it is evident that were we to receive laws in the matter and all the circumstances of them contrary to those with which God now Governs the World we should cry out of our duty as intolerable and sink under our burdens as not being able to bear them And so much cause is there to bless God for ruling the World by Righteous Laws and having given us a Religion which our own faculties being judges and we trust and rely upon in all other Cases is most reasonable and excellent As being perfective of our nature and Worthy of the wisdom of God who contrived it as being framed with great Condescention to the infirmities of man and carrying a plaine conformity in it to the attributes of God 4. That they who Teach and Perswade Men they may be Saved by their true Opinions or sound Beleif tho not Accompanied with a Godly life do defeat the very design of the Gospel and Obstruct that Influence it should have on the minds of men Christianity is a Covenant wherein as God has obliged himself to bestow rewards so he has bound man too to yield Obedience How absurd then is their opinion who think a Covenant does not bind on both sides how hurtful is their mistake who teach Christians there is no service required on their part in this new Covenant what ground or colour could there be to think the Religion instituted by Jesus should consist in the beleif only of a set of Propositions without intermedling in the affairs of Life and the Government of our will and affections when all his Sermons were so many Lectures upon virtue and at the last day he will judg us by our Works when he has Establisht so many rules for the ordering of our thoughts words and actions in every Condition and required a sincere though not a Perfect observance of them all We are Commanded to Watch and Pray to fight the good sight of Faith to strive that we may enter in at the strait Gate to work out our own Salvation with fear and trembling to run that we may obtain and to take the Kingdom of Heaven by Violence These Phrases contain a Discription of the Dutys of a Christian and the degrees wherein they are required of him They shew he is to work as well as believe and that what he does must be withal his might and with as much perfection as he can his Life must be Productive of much and the best fruits the nature of his Christian Inployment does make it Necessary that he pursue it with great Intention of Mind and Earnestness of will and that he put to all his Strength The Christians duty is represented under the Metaphor of a Race to convince him that he must strip and free himself of whatever does Clogg or Burthen him and use his utmost Speed and not Slacken his pace till he has obteined that is till he comes to the end of the Race and his Life his Duty also is exprest by a narrow Way and strait Gate to shew that his calling is attended with great difficulties and that they are only to be broke through by Zealous Contention he that will enter must strive The reward indeed which is proposed to Christians is very tempting and of most
inestimable Value it is a Kingdom but he that sets himself to rest and folds his hands shall never be the better for it for that Kingdom shall only be taken and possest by them who violently invade it Nothing can be perform'd without Gods assistance who works in men to will and to do but then it is only in those who Concur with him and do work out their own Salvation with Care and Concernment with fear and trembling Christ has purchased for us a liberty as to Places and Times as to the choice and difference of meats but not a liberty to omit our Duty or do the least sin he has freed our shoulders from the burden of Moses Law but not discharged our obligation to any one Moral Virtue or Law of nature The Faith that will carry a man to Heaven must be a Faith that Worketh by love and love is the keeping the Commandments So the holy Scripture declares so the Primitive Fathers taught St. Ignatius makes Faith and Love the whole Duty of a Christian Faith the beginning Love the end Faith the guide Love the way and he hardly ever recommends the one but in the Company of the other Faith preceeds Fear builds Love makes perfect 5 That whatsoever Doctrines are not according to Godliness are so far from being necessary that they cannot be true For if it be the Scope and End of the Gospel to advance Godliness and that it is an argument both of the Credebility and excellency of it that it does so as I have before prov'd then it plainly follows if we suppose the Doctrine of the Gospel to be a true Doctrine that all such Opinions as are either contrary to the Godliness or do disserve the interests of it can neither be necessary Doctrines nor true ones Seeing then the truth of this Proposition is evident from the foregoing discourse I shall only now make it my business briefly to reflect on some of the many ill opinions which tho they have been taught for sound and Orthodox yet upon examination will appear not to be according to Godliness 1. The first I take notice of is that of Gods being the Author of Sin which has been expresly maintained by some men Now it is not possible that Opinion should be true which is inconsistent with the Reason of mankind or manifestly repugnant to the Attributes of God for all Controversies in Religion must be decided by Reason either from the Principles of Natural Religion or Divine Revelation and from the Principles of Natural Religion it is evident that there can be nothing in a Religion which comes from God that is repugnant to his Essential Attributes that is to himself Now that God should be the Author of Sin that is the Author of what does offend and dishonour him is very absurd and unreasonable that he should be Author of that which he has so often and solemnly declared he does abhor and detest thwarts with the attribute of his truth and that he should be the efficient cause of all the wickedness which is done and he will so severely Punish is a gross repugnancy not only to his infinite goodness but his justice it self Such Opinions as these deprive God of the holiness essential to his Nature and which even by the Gentiles unassisted with the light of the Gospel in their Praiers and Devotions was constantly ascribed to him 2. The Doctrine of irrespective decrees cannot be according to Godliness because it takes away the ground of all the motives to a Godly Life For if a man be included within the decree of Election the greatest sins will not Damn him and if he be left out of it the most holy Life cannot put him in a capacity of Salvation Again if God has decreed to save or reprobate men without regard had to either their good or evil Lives then they will be saved or lost without any respect had of either for what God has decreed that certainly will come to pass but to say that Men shall have sentence pass upon them to go either to Heaven or Hell without any consideration of their Faith and Obedience on one hand or their infidelity and impenitence on the other is to make a day of Judgment unnecessary and repugnant to that justice according to which God has declared he will then proceed We must all appear before the judgment of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his Body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad 2 Cor. 5.10 3. Among these ill Opinions we may rank that of the Popish Casuists who teach that the precept of loving God is in it self only Obligatory at the very point of Death altho we be always under the protection of Gods unwearied Providence and do every moment that we breath receive good at his hand tho there is no day of our Lives but we offend and stand in fresh need of his mercy yet these Licentious Casuists to say no worse of 'em are of opinion that it is a sufficient return of Gratitude to God for the infinite and unspeakable Acts of his love to us if in the end of our Lives we express one act of Love towards him But there needs no other Confutation in this Auditory of an Opinion so impious and directly contrary to the first and greatest Commandment of the Evangelical Law than the bare rehersal of it 4. Another Doctrine to be reflected upon is that which Teaches and Directs us to the use of such Means for the promotion of Christian Religion as are destructive of the ends of it The end of Christian Religion is to make men sincere in what they profess true to their word and upright in their dealings and therefore they who by lying and perjury equivocation and reserves endeavor to propagate the Religion of our Blessed Savior do by the means they use subvert the end they pretend to serve The design of Christian Religion is to teach men Peace and Subjection to all lawful Authority therefore they who would instil Principles of Sedition and Rebellion in order to the work of Reformation do defile and corrupt that pure Religion which they make such a shew of reforming The end of Christian Religion is to render men harmless kind and Charitable one to another therefore they who Condemn mens bodies to the stake and fire in order to refine their Minds and cut their Throats to save their Souls instead of doing service to the institution of Christ they bring the utmost slander and disgrace upon it that possibly they can No we must not doe evil that good may come of it we may not make use of unlawful means to bring about an honest end God in no Case will allow it neither can true Religion ever be reduced to such extremity as to stand in need of it But the time not allowing that I should further pursue this point or take any more of the
to their Masters but because their Masters whose tempers were softned by the love which the Religion of Jesus does inspire would treat them tenderly and kindly and be glad of an opportunity of being beneficial to them and this is the Doctrine which is according to Godliness For if any man Teacheth otherwise and consent not to wholsom words even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ and to the Doctrine which is according to godlines he is proud knowing nothing but doting about questions and strifes of words whereof cometh envy strife railings evil surmisings perverse desputings of Men of Corrupt minds destitute of the Truth supposing that gain is godliness from such withdraw thy self So dangerous a thing it is for a Christian more to busy himself about Contentious disputes than the Rules of an holy Life for a doting upon Questions may betray him into that wrath and envy which shuts men out of the Kingdom of Heaven but it must be a continual exercise of himself according to Godliness that will carry him thither So true also is it that neither the Spiritual relation of Brotherhood between Christians has destroy'd the several Orders Ranks and Qualitys of men in civil Societys nor that Christian liberty has taken away the obligation which is upon Servants to be obedient to their Masters and the Duty that is upon the People to be Subject to their Governors this being part of the Doctrine which is according to Godliness But to come to a further improvement of our Text there are these five Propositions which seem very proper and natural to be insisted on from it and which accordingly I shall make it my business to treat of in this Discourse 1. That Godliness is a fixt and certain thing not variable according to places and times or the humors of men but the reasons of it are Eternal and Unchangeable 2 That the Scope and end of the Doctrines of the Gospel is to advance Godliness and recommend the practice of it to mankind 3. That it is an Argument both of the Truth and Excellency of the Christian Religion that all the Doctrines thereof are Conformable to Godliness 4. That they who teach or perswade men they may be saved by their true Opinions or sound Belief tho not accompanied with a Godly life do defeat the very design of the Gospel and obstruct that influence it should have on the minds of men 5. That whatsoever Doctrins are not according to Godliness are so far from being necessary that they cannot be true 1. That Godliness is a fixt and certain thing not variable according to places and times or the humors of men This is apparent both from the Text and the Reason of the thing first of all the Text plainly implys it St. Paul requires every man should give consent to the Doctrine which is according to Godliness What can we gather from hence but that according to him Godliness must be the standard and measure by which men are to Judge of Doctrines if a Doctrine be according to Godliness he is to assent to it if not according to Godliness he is to dissent from it All men therefore must have one certain unvariable notion of Godliness in their minds or else they can never know what Doctrines they are to embrace and what to reject But secondly this do's more evidently follow from the notion of Godliness it self for Godliness is nothing else but a being like God it is a Copying out in our minds and manners all the perfections of the Divine Nature so far as we are capable Now if those qualitys and perfections in God be Eternal and unalterable then certainly the notion of Godliness in us must be so also It is true if we go to the criticism of the word this term of Godliness is sometimes used in a stricter sense and imports no more then the worship of God properly so called which consists in our having just and worthy apprehensions of God and in rendring to him that Love Thanks-giving Honor and Adoration which is due to the Great Governor of the World and our best Benefactor But in the larger sense of the word and as it is here taken by the Apostle Godliness is a Comprehension of all the Moral Virtues and takes in not only acts of Religion towards God but those of Righteousness towards our Neighbour and of Sobriety with respect to our Selves In a word It is a walking sutably to that Nature and that Reason which God has given us and for Gods sake Which notion of Godliness being admitted it cannot possibly be thought an Arbitrary thing but must be eternal and immutable as the nature of mankind is or rather as God is who contrived that nature We may talk what we please of the indifference of Good and Evil but the more we think the more we shall be convinced that there is an Eternal goodness and evil in things as they fall under a Moral Consideration Now some actions have an agreeableness with Gods holy Nature and some an utter incongruity with it and if his holy Nature is always the same eternal and unchangeable then also will those things be eternally good which have an agreement with this blessed Nature and those eternally evil which do vary from it thus as to love and honour God are acts most agreeable to his perfect Nature so will it be eternally the duty of the Creature to pay them unto him and it is a repugnancy in terms to suppose God can command his Creatures to hate him or to do the least thing which is contrary to the rectitude of his Nature Besides there are such eternal respects and relations between things that some actions will be ever good and some evil We cannot suppose a Benefactor but we must acknowledg that gratitude and thanks are his due We cannot allow a person to be Innocent but we must grant too that no injury or hurt ought to be done unto him How unreasonable then is that Opinion which makes the Civil Law of the Magistrate the only measure of Good and Evil for should the Magistrate forbid me to put up Prayers to God would therefore the service of God be Evil or should he Command me to kill my Father would therefore Parricide be lawful If so then there are actions antecedently good to the Laws of the Magistrate and dutys not alterable by them in performance of which doth the Godly man exercise himself Day and Night They are saies Justin Martyr a very acceptable to God who do those things which are in their own Nature Vniversally and Eternally good 2. The Scope and end of the Doctrines of the Gospel is to advance Godliness and to recommend the practice of it to Mankind it being much truer of Christs Doctrines what was said of the Lacedaemonian Laws That it is the property of them all to inflame mens minds with the love of virtue and to create a contempt of empty and sensual pleasure To this
end all the Precepts of our Lord all his great actions and grievous sufferings were directed But for the further illustration and proof of this point give me leave to offer these three things to your Consideration 1. That not any of the Discourses or Sermons of our Saviour were made upon Subjects purely speculative The Sermons he Preacht were to teach men to be humble meek pure and peaceable to bear reviling language patiently and willingly to submit to Persecution for Righteousness sake to put hypocrisy out of Countenance and to reform such notions in Religion as were impediments to real Piety and upheld men in wicked life And in this Course he was carefully follow'd by his Apostles and those who were joyned with them in planting his Religion Concerning the Original of the Soul whether it be immediately Created or infused or deriv'd from the Parents and the manner of its Union with the body concerning the orders ranks and numbers of the Angels and how they converse and convey their thoughts to each other concerning the bounds figure and capacity of Heaven the Scholemen have written great Volums but the Inspired Writers have treated very sparingly because an accurate skill in these nice speculations and much acquaintance with them will not make us one jot the better men since we may have our heads ful of these curious notions without advancing one step nearer Heaven and being in the least degree more acceptable to God 2. The revelation God has made of himself in Scripture is such as most Conduceth to the promotion of Godliness and of his great design of putting us upon the attainment of these qualifications which can only fit us for the Kingdom of Heaven and are the necessary terms of our Salvation for there we constantly find God to be set forth as Just and Righteous in all his works as pure and holy in all his ways and as the rewarder only of them who love and fear him and keep his Commandments Nay God is there pleased to ascribe unto to himself the passions of men love hatred anger revenge hope grief and repentance not that these passions are properly in God who is wholy free from the imperfections which cause them in us but meerly in Condescension to the weakness of our Nature and to help the slowness of our understanding to the end that what is there declared to be the object of Gods Love and Hatred his Grief or Anger might be the object of ours likewise and more strongly affect us And as an Evidence of this we may Observe that these passions hardly ever are attributed to God in Scripture but to encourage Virtue or discourage Vice So true is it that the several descriptions the Bible giveth us of God are accommodated to the Doctrine of Godliness and do tend to the advancement of it Now as this seems to be the only Reason why God has made some discovery of the Perfections of his blessed Nature unto us that we should profoundly reverence him and sincerely love him and Religiously conform our selves unto his Will so if we neglect to answer the ends of this glorious manifestation God will declare at the day of Judgment that he knows us not as he has already declared we know not him he that saith he hath known him and keepeth not his Commandements is a liar and the truth is not in him Upon this Argument St. Basil speaks excellently taking his occasion from those words of our Lord. I know my sheep and am known of mine What do you mean by knowing do you understand what Gods Essence is or can you measure his greatness no my sheep know me that is they hear my Voice See then by what means you may Arrive at the knowledg of God it is by hearing his Commands and doing them when you have heard them The knowledg then of God consists in the observation of his Commandments not in a curious prying into the nature of his Essence and the things above the World not in the contemplations of Invisible Beings my Sheep know me and I know Mine It is enough for you to know you have a good Shepherd who hath layd down his life for the Sheep Let this then be the bounds of your knowledg of God But the questions that concern the immensity of the Divine Nature are dangerous to him who puts them and can never be penetrated into by him who undertakes to answer them the best cure for such is silence So that knowledg and practice how much soever they may differ in our notions of them are in Christian Religion but two terms importing the same matter And as they who keep not the Commandments cannot in a Scripture sense without a lie pretend that they know God so neither at the day of Judgment will Christ know them who lived in disobedience to the great laws of his Religion and neglected the chief instances of their Duty Insomuch that to those who have eaten and drank in his presence and heard him Preach in their Streets and upon that score only do claime a knowledg of him and an interest in his Death and Sufferings he will reply I tell ye I know not whence you are depart from me all ye Workers of iniquity Wherefore that man does but deceive himself and will in the end certainly miscarry who diligently Searches after Knowledg only that he may gratify a vain curiosity and qualify himself to become an able Disputant in Religion for all our knowledg will avail us nothing unless it have an influence upon our practice and prove serviceable to us in the reformation of our manners In this State then of Imperfection and tryal of our Obedience we need to enquire no further after the Essence of God and study the mysteries of his incomprehensible Nature then it may either serve to instruct us in such Instances and Cases as 't is our Duty to imitate him and be as conformable to him as we can or furnish us with Arguments that will give us courage to break through the difficulties and opposition that we may meet with in our Christian Race and minister Patience and Comfort to us under the bitterest Persecutions we shall suffer for the sake of our Master and because we would not do violence to our Consciences Indeed in the life that will follow this we shall see God as he is and all the glories of the Divinity will lie open to our eys Then in the Company of the whole Church Triumphant of all the Saints and Angels we shall stand round about the Throne and for ever behold search into admire and adore the infinite wisdom and goodness and Power of God and with the highest transport of Love and joy we shall bless and praise and magnify the Lamb with whose blood all our defilements are washt away and our Robes made white and by whose all-powerful mediation we are admitted into the glorious presence of God and shall continue to all Eternity as much as
we are capable to partake more and more of the Divine Perfections 3. There is no fundamental Doctrine of Christianity but an obligation naturally flows from it to some instance or other of a good Life If the Doctrine be that God is the maker of Heaven and Earth does not an obligation from thence lve upon all his Creatures to Gratitude and Praise if the Doctrine be that God is the great Soveraign of the World does not a duty plainly follow that we his Subjects are to govern our selves by his Laws does not the Doctrine of his Infinite Goodness make it our duty to love him and imitate him and that of his irresistible Power to dread the giving him the least offence and to submit our selves to his pleasure does not the Doctrine that Truth is one of his Essential Attributes make it our duty to believe him and to depend upon his promises does not the Doctrine of his unsearchable Wisdome oblige us to give up our wills unto his and to leave the Events of things to his wise Disposal does not the Doctrine of his Omnipresence his all seeing Eye engage us to have a constant and awful regard of him and to walk circumspectly in all our paths The Doctrine of Gods providence being concerned not only in our most weighty affairs but also extending even to those small things of which we our selves take no thought what powerful motives does it afford us against dejection pensiveness of mind and immoderate cares the Doctrine of all things working together for the good of the faithful Servants of God what a mighty obligation does it lay upon us to be contented and easy in our present condition how much soever it may be beset with adversities and afflictions and to take no indirect course to use no unlawful method or meanes to get out of it the Doctrine of Gods only having such a power over our Souls that he can destroy them how plainly does it imply that we are to dread God more than man and to disobey man rather than God The Doctrine of the necessity of the Sufferings and Passion of Christ does it not make it our indispensable duty to mortify the Flesh and to crucify the Lusts thereof and to prepare our selves rather to suffer Affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of Sin for a Season and should not the Doctrine of his Resurrection and Ascention carry our thoughts and great designs into the other World and fix our Hearts and all our Affections upon the Treasure which is in Heaven In a word does not the Doctrine of a day of Judgment in which sentence shall pass upon all men for every Thought Word and Deed Oblige us if we have the least love of our selves and dessire of our own eternal welfare to put our Accounts in exact Order and to break off our Sins by a timely and sincere Repentance And this was the method generally of the Apostles when they have delivered a Doctrine they presently draw an Inference from it which is in the nature of a Precept and where they do not express the Precept it is ever imply'd and easy thence to be Concluded Seeing all these things shall be disolved what manner of Persons ought ye to be in all holy Conversation and Godliness i. e. if ye believe this Christian Doctrine of the dissolution of the World your lives must come up to your Principle and your faith be render'd effectual by the holiness of your Conversation every man that hath this hope in him he purifyeth himself even as he is pure do you hope to see God it unquestionably followes that you are to endeavour to be like him by imitating his purity if ye then be Risen with Christ seek those things which are above i. e. if ye believe Christs Resurrection and as believers of it have been Baptized into a profession of the Christian Faith then it becomes you to mind those things which will procure your own Resurrection likewise As ye therefore have receiv'd Jesus Christ the Lord so walk ye in him if ye have receiv'd the Doctrine of Jesus Christ let not your behaviour carry any thing in it unsutable to his holy Doctrine but be ye mindful to Govern your selves by the Practical Rules therein contein'd But against the point I am now upon some will be apt to object that one great Doctrine of our Religion the mystery of the holy Trinity does not seem at all to concern a good life now tho it may so seem to them who slightly examin things yet those who shall be at the pains more exactly to consider this Doctrine will be otherwise perswaded For when we consider God so loved the World as to send his only begotten son to save all them from perishing who shall believe on him does not this lay the highest obligation upon us which is possible to make all the returns of praise and love and gratitude and obedience When we consider there was that aversion in the divine nature to sin that God would not pardon it before ample satisfaction was made at the Cost of the blood and life of his own Son can there be any argument in the World more effectual to deter a man from sin and if he have any ingenuity to make him abhor the thoughts of it when we consider that this very same Son of God who was the brightness of his Fathers glory and express image of his person is now our high Preist and has entered the holy of holies and does daily offer up our prayers to God and constantly there intercede with him on our behalf will not this be apt to create in us a mighty confidence to address our selves to the throne of Heaven in all our wants and strong hopes that God will never forsake us in distress When we consider the holy Spirit has consecrated our bodies and made them the Temples wherein he will vouchsafe to dwell which is the peculiar privilege and mercy of the Gospel is there not a deep engagement thereby laid upon us to prepare these bodies for his reception by keeping them pure from intemperance and filthy Lusts for fear we greive this holy guest and cause him to desert such unclean habitations and vex him that he turn to be our enemy And so I hope the sense of the 2d Point is cleared and the truth of it establisht that it is the design of the Doctrines of the Gospel to advance Godliness and that there is an aptness and direct tendency in them all to enforce the practice of it upon Christians this notion the Ancients had of Christian Religion when they stiled it an institution according to Godliness and an institution that comprehends all virtue and accordingly the first Christians as Minut. Felix observes were distinguisht from other men not by any thing peculiar in their habit and dress but by their innocence and modesty There was no other mark of