Doctrines both Christ and his Apostles continually appealed Here is the firm reasonable Foundation of the Christian certainty The truths we believed are confirmed by Miracles than which there can be no greater evidence But now the Roman Church destroys this ground of certainty by a multitude of lying wonders which they impudently obtrude upon the belief of the people for proof and confirmation of their false and corrupt Religion the immediate consequence of which is a suspicion thereby brought upon the true Miracles and here is way made for Scepticism and uncertainty in the greatest and most Sacred Christian Doctrines And besides the Church of Rome having introduced among these many doubtful uncertain and many certainly false opinions and imposed them upon the faith of its votaries under the same obligations as it doth the most fundamental Articles what can be the consequence but that those who discover the errour or uncertainty of some of those pretended propositions of Faith should doubt all the rest And indeed since the main assurance is placed in the Infallibility of that Church for which there is so no reason and so much plain evidence to the contrary Since themselves cannot tell where that boasted Infallibility is whether in Pope or Council if we should allow them any such it follows that their Faith is precarious and hath no foundation at all In like manner the Sects among us resolve all their assurance either into a bare belief or the testimony of a private Spirit for their ground of crediting the Scriptures is but this Testimony and consequently whatever they receive from hence bottoms here The Papists believe the Scripture on the Testimony of the Church and these believe them on the Testimony of the Spirit that is in earnest the suggestions and resolutions of their own viz. they believe because they will believe and they find themselves inclin'd unto it And upon the same reason when the imagination and humour alters they may cease to believe or believe the contrary And there is not any thing in the world more various and uncertain than the suggestions and impulses of a private Spirit Besides the Sects also have vastly multiplied Articles of Faith and made all their private opinions sacred calling them Gospel truths precious truths saving truths and the like when they are but uncertainties at the best and usually false and sensless imaginations by which way also they expose the whole body of Christian Principles to suspicion and so weaken the Faith of some and destroy the Faith of others But the Church of England secures the certainty of our Faith by resolving it into the Scriptures the true seats of Infallibility and the belief of that into the Testimony of the Spirit in the true sense viz. that Testimony that God gave by his Spirit to Christ and his Apostles in those miraculous works he enabled them to perform They did not only bear witness of themselves that as our Saviour argues with the Jews Luk. 11. 48. would not have signified much The Father bore witness with them John 15. 8. and the works they performed by his power were the sure testimony Believe me for the works sake saith our Saviour Here is the ground of certainty And the Church of England entertains no Articles of Faith but those principles that have been so confirm'd that is none but what are evidently contain'd in the Holy Scriptures Whereas the Roman Church to mention no other have made the absurd Doctrine of Transubstantiation sacred though it is not only not contained in Scripture but contrary to the reason and even to the sound senses of mankind And if neither reason nor so much as our senses may be believ'd what assurance can we have of any thing A ground is here laid for everlasting Scepticism and uncertainty And the Sects have laid the same in their numerous silly tenents that are contrary to some of the most fundamental principles of Reason Nothing of which can with any shew be objected against this Church 6. The Faith delivered to the Saints was Catholick 'T was deliver'd to all the Saints entertain'd by all and was not only the opinion and belief of a prevailing Faction or of particular men in Corners The Commission given the Disciples was to go and teach all Nations and to preach the Gospel to every creature and accordingly it was widely diffused and all that profest the name of Christ were instructed in his Faith and Religion in all the articles and duties of it that were essential and necessary In these they joyn'd in holy love and communion till Sects came among them that introduced damnable Heresies contrary to the doctrine they had received These divided from the Unity of the pure Catholick Church and separated themselves from it gathering into select companies of their own under pretence of more Truth and Holiness After this manner the Church of Rome which had for some ages been eminent in the Catholick Church did at last corrupt and introduce divers unsound doctrines and usages unknown to the Ancient Catholicks and being great and powerful it assumed the name of the Catholick Church to it self and condemn'd all other Christians as Hereticks when it was it self but a grand Sect against whose depraved doctrines and ways there was a Church in all ages that did protest For the Greek Churches which are of as large extent as theirs never assented to them and divers other Christians in all times bore Testimony against those errours and depravations This Sect was large and numerous indeed but 't is not the number but the principles make the Catholick Principles conformable to those that were deliver'd to the Saints From these they have departed And the lesser Sects among us have done the same by the many vain additions that they have made to the Faith and their unjust Separation from that Church which retains the whole body of Catholick Doctrines and main Practices without the mixture of any thing Heretical or unlawful A Church that doth not damn all the world besides her own members as the Roman Church and divers of the Sects do but extends her Charity to all Christians though many of them are under great mistakes and so is truly Catholick both in her Principles and Affections I mean the Church of England as now established by Law which God preserve in its purity Amen FINIS A SERMON Preached at the FUNERAL OF M r. Jos Glanvil Late Rector of BATH and Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty Who dyed at his Rectory of Bath the fourth of November 1680. and was Buried there the Ninth of the same Month. By Jos Pleydell Arch-Deacon of Chichester LONDON Printed for Henry Mortlock at the Sign of the Phoenix in St. Pauls Church-yard and the White Hart in Westminster-Hall 1681. REVEL XIV Ver. 13. And I heard a voice from Heaven saying unto me Write Blessed are the dead which dye in the Lord from henceforth yea saith the Spirit that they may rest from their
purest times those of the first three hundred nay six hundred years which assertions I have in this place particularly and largely made good and divers of our Learned Divines have in their writings fully proved it Nor is there any one thing which we condemn in the Roman belief or practice but what hath arose by the corruption of times long since the beginning and indeed in the the Church of Rome there is an eternal fountain of Innovations in the authority they assume of declaring that is in good earnest in making new Articles of Faith So that their people can never know when they have all new things may still be obtruded as necessary and essential without end On the other side the Character of Antiquity condemns the Sects also Among them there are some old Heresies received but their principles and practices as opposite to those of our Church of England were not in the first best times Presbytery Independency Anabaptism Quakerism may have been here and there of old in the brains of some particular conceited men but never were in any general practice any where the eldest not two hundred years ago and some have arose in our own time Their ways they pretend to be contain'd in the holy Scriptures and if so we would presently acknowledge them to be Primitive But they are in the Scriptures only as those are interpreted by their private Spirits that is not there but in the fancies of the Innovators and these being their guide in interpreting Lo here also is a fountain of perpetual novellizing And as long as the imaginations of men can frame novelties we shall never be at the end of new Sects We have seen the rise of some in our late times of confusions and if ever we should be so unhappy as to see such again which God forbid in all likelihood from the same Source other new yet unheard of Sects and Heresies would arise to the further dividing of the Chncurh ad scandal of Religion There is nothing so pregnant with Novelties as imagination and the Sectarian private Spirit is no better nor worse than Fancy I deny not but these all sorts of them do retain some of the Primitive Doctrines as the Roman Church also doth but their opinions and ways that are opposite to the Church of England are not such This our Church without fondness or overweening I may say doth profess and teach the Ancient Apostolical Primitive Christianity and hath admitted no new things that are contrary to it It was reformed according to the Scriptures the Scriptures as they are interpreted by the first General Councils and Fathers those next the Apostles who we ought to believe understood best what were their doctrines and ways This Church in its constitutions is therefore truly ancient so in every main every considerable thing and truly Protestant protesting both against Roman and Sectarian Innovations 2. Another Character of the Faith delivered to the ancient Saints is that it was pure 'T was delivered to the Saints and it made them such The wisdom that is from above is first pure It teacheth and produceth Purity Holiness and real Goodness in Heart and Life The business of it is to conform us unto God and to make us like him And the Lord our God is holy And by this Character also is Popery condemn'd For this teacheth some direct impieties and immoralities and by the consequence of some other of its Doctrines the necessity of Reformation of life is quite taken away the Reins are laid on mens necks and Gods Laws are made void by their traditions Of the first sort are their Idolatries and Invocation of Saints and Angels which God both in the Old Testament and the New hath so earnestly declared against as the highest dishonour to his Majesty and affront to his Glory and which he stigmatizeth as the greatest impurities and frequently calls Fornication and Whoredome they are spiritually so Likewise their doctrines and practices of deposing and murdering of Princes and absolving the people from their Allegiance their dispensing with Perjuries Rebellions and other sorts of wickedness are highest immoralities and most Antichristian that is most contrary to the Spirit Genius and designs of the holy Jesus which were to redeem unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works Besides which direct and point blank oppositions to the Christian principles and Rules they strike at the root and main design of Christianity by those their doctrines that render repentance and change of life unnecessary For according to them the favour of God and eternal Salvation may be had upon easier terms Crossings Pilgrimages Ave Maries Whippings Fastings with Confession and Absolution will do the business There is no need of cutting off right hands of plucking out of right eyes and mortifying the body in our Saviours spiritual sence that is of subduing and rescinding all inordinate appetites and affections which are the great difficulties of Religion the bodily exercises will suffice we may be safe and Sainted without obedience to those hard sayings Or if the other things should be omitted 't is but going to Purgatory at last and if you have money to leave for Masses and Dirge's you are secure of being pray'd out thence So that here the greatest design of the Gospel which is real inward holiness and purity is destroyed And without holiness 't is here made possible to see God And this is the worst thing that any thing that pretends to Religion can be guilty of On the other hand the Sects whatever purity and spirituality they pretend do many most of them teach doctrines and walk in ways that are contrary to the purity of heart and life that becomes a Christian The Gnosticks who were some of the first Fanaticks in the Christian Church pretended that they were the spiritual the pure people and that all things to them were pure on which account they gave themselves up to all Immorality and filthiness Sensual saith the Apostle having not the Spirit They denyed there was any moral good and evils in the nature of things and estimate of God And this Heresie is received among some of our Sects God they think and say sees no sin in them his elect people He loves not for the sake of holiness and vertue but freely that is for no reason but meer unaccountable will and if so 't is in vain to amend our lives to live soberly righteously and godly in order to our acceptance with him Though we are the quite contrary in all manner of evil conversation we may yet be his beloved his chosen This hath the malignity of the worst of Popery or Heathenism And such a Principle is among some of the Sects I accuse not all others that do not affirm so much as this do in a manner make good works unnecessary Faith their airy Faith that prescinds from moral goodness is all All is believing receiving trusting relying which are great duties parts of Faith but this as
say when I consider these and then look upon Man as a reasonable Creature apprehensive of Duty and interest and apt to be moved by hopes and fears I cannot but wonder and be astonisht to think that notwithstanding all this the far greater part of men should finally miscarry and be undone 'T is possible some such Considerations might be the occasion of the question propounded to our Saviour in the verse immediately foregoing the Text. Lord are there Few that be saved God is Love and all the Creatures are His and Man a nobler sort He is the Lover of Men and Thou art the Redeemer of Men and though Man hath offended yet God is propense to pardon and in Thee he is reconciled He is desirous of our Happiness and Thou art come into the world to offer and promote it and the Holy Ghost is powerful and ready to assist our endeavours We were made for happiness and we seek it And Lord are there Few that be saved The Text is Christ's return to the Question Strive to enter in at the strait Gate for many I say unto you will seek to enter and shall not be able In which words we have three things I An Answer imply'd strait is the Gate II A duty exprest strive to enter III A Consideration to engage our greater care and diligence in the Duty For many will seek to enter and shall not be able By the Gate we may understand the entrance and all the way of Happiness and that is Religion By the straitness of it the Difficulties we are to encounter By striving earnest and sincere endeavour By seeking an imperfect striving And from the words thus briefly explain'd These Propositions offer themselves to our Consideration I. There are many and great difficulties in Religion The Gate is strait II. The difficulties may be overcome by striving Strive to enter III. There is a sort of striving that will not procure an entrance For many will seek to enter in and shall not be able I begin with the First in order viz. That there are many and great difficulties in Religion And to what I have to say about it I premise this negative Consideration That The Difficulties of Religion do not lye in the Understanding Religion is a plain thing and easie to be understood 'T is no deep subtilty or high-strain'd notion 't is no gilded fancy or elaborate exercise of the brain 'T is not plac'd in the clouds of Imagination nor wrapt up in mystical cloathing But 't is obvious and familiar easie and intelligible First preach't by Fishermen and Mechanicks without pomp of speech or height of speculation addrest to Babes and Plebeian heads and intended to govern the wills of the honest and sincere and not to exercise the wits of the notional and curious So that we need not mount the wings of the wind to fetch Religion from the stars nor go down to the deep to fetch it up from thence For 't is with us and before us as open as the day and as familiar as the light The great Precepts of the Gospel are cloathed in Sun-beams and are as visible to the common eye as to the Eagle upon the highest perch 'T is no piece of wit or subtilty to be a Christian nor will it require much study or learned retirement to understand the Religion we must practise That which was to be known of God was manifest to the very Heathen Rom. 1. 19. The Law is light saith Solomon Prov. 6. 13. And 't is not only a single passing glance on the eye but 't is put into the heart and the promise is that we shall all know him from the greatest to the least Our duty is set up in open places and shone upon by a clear Beam 'T was written of old upon the plain Tables of Habakkuk Hab. 2. 2. So that the running Eye might see and read And the Religion of the H. Jesus like himself came into the world with Rays about its Head Religion I say is clear and plain and what is not so may concern the Theatre or the Schools may entertain mens Wits and serve the Interests of Disputes but 't is nothing to Religion 't is nothing to the Interest of mens Souls Religion was once a Mystery but the Mystery is revealed And those things that we yet count Mysteries are plainly enough discover'd as to their being such as we believe them though we cannot understand the manner how and 't is no part of Religion to enquire into that but rather It injoyns us meekly to acquiesce in the plain declarations of Faith without bold scrutiny into hidden things In short I say the difficulties of Religion are not in the Understanding In prompto facili est aeternitas said the Father The affairs of eternity depend on things Easie and Familiar And I premise this to prevent dangerous mistakes But though Religion be so facile and plain a thing to be understood yet the way to Heaven is no broad or easie Path The Gate is strait enough for all that and I now come to shew what are the real difficulties of Religion and whence they arise I. One great Difficulty ariseth from the depravity of our Natures The Scripture intimates That we are conceived in sin Psalm 55. 5. Transgressours from the Womb Isaiah 48. 8. Children of Wrath Ephes 2. 3. And we find by Experience that we bring vile Inclinations into the World with us Some are naturally Cruel and Injurious Proud and Imperious Lustful and Revengeful Others Covetous and Unjust Humourfome and Discontented Treacherous and False And there is scarce an instance of habitual vice or villany but some or other are addicted to it by their particular Make and Natures I say their Natures for certainly it is not true what some affirm to serve their Opinions in contradiction to Experience That Vices are not in Mens natural Propensions but instill'd by corrupt Education evil Customes and Examples For we see that those whose Education hath been the same do yet differ extreamly from each other in their inclinations And some whose Breeding hath been careless and loose who have seen almost nothing else but Examples of Vice and been instructed in little besides the arts of Vanity and Pleasure I say there are such who notwithstanding these their unhappy circumstances discover none of those vile Inclinations and Propensions that are in others whose Education hath been very strict and advantageous This I think is enough to shew that many of our evil habits are from Nature and not from Custom only And yet I cannot say that Humane nature is so debaucht that every Man is inclin'd to every Evil by it For there are those who by their Tempers are averse to some kind of Vices and naturally disposed to the contrary Vertues some by their Constitutions are inclined to hate Cruelty Covetousness Lying Impudence and Injustice and are by Temper Merciful Liberal Modest True and Just There are kinds of Vices which
require strong Faith and many Prayers and much Time and great Watchfulness and invincible Resolution Imploy these heartily and though thou now and then mayst receive a foyl yet give not off so but rise again in the strength of God implore new aid and fortifie thy self with more considerations and deeper resolves and then renew the Combat upon the encouragement of Divine Assistance and Christ's Merits and Intercession and the promise that sin shall not have dominion over us Rom. 6. 14. Remember that this is the great work and the biggest difficulty if this be not overcome all our other labour hath been in vain and will be lost If this root remain it will still bear poysonous fruit which will be matter for Temptation and occasion of continual falling and we shall be in danger of being reconciled again to our old sins and to undo all and so our latter end will be worse than our beginning 2 Pet. 2. 20. Or at least though we stand at a stay and satisfie our selves with that yet though we are contented our condition is not safe If we will endeavour to any purpose of duty or security we must proceed still after our lesser conquests till the sins of Complexion are laid dead at our feet He that is born of God sinneth not and he cannot sin 1 Joh. 3. 9. Till we come to this we are but strugling in the Birth Such a perfection as is mortifying of vitious temper is I hope attainable and 't is no doubt that which Religion aims at and though it be a difficult height yet we must not sit down this side At least we must be always pressing on to this Mark if Providence cut off our days before we have arrived to it we may expect acceptance of the sincerity of our endeavours upon the account of the merits of our Saviour For he hath procured favour for those sincere Believers and Endeavourers whose Day is done before their work is compleated this I mean of subduing the darling sins of their particular Natures But then if we rest and please our selves with the little Victories and Attainments and let these our great Enemies quietly alone 't is an argument our endeavours are not sincere but much short of that striving which will procure an entrance into the strait Gate The next thing and 't is the last I shall mention which is implyed in striving is 4. To furnish our selves through Divine Grace with the Habits and Inclinations of Holiness and Vertue For Goodness to become a kind of Nature to the Soul is an height indeed but such a one as may be reacht the new Nature and New Creature Gal. 6. 15. are not meer names We have observ'd that some men are of a Natural Generosity Veracity and Sweetness and they cannot act contrary to these Native Vertues without a mighty Violence why now should not the New Nature be as powerful as the Old And why may not the Spirit of God working by an active Faith and Endeavour fix Habits and Inclinations on the Soul as prevalent as those No doubt it may and doth upon the Diviner Souls For whom to do a wicked or unworthy Action 't would be as violent and unnatural as for the meek and compassionate temper to butcher the innocent or for him that is naturally just to oppress and make a prey of the Fatherless and the Widow I say such a degree of perfection as this should be aim'd at Heb. 6. 1. and we should not slacken or intermit our endeavours till it be attain'd In order to it we are to use frequent meditation on the excellency and pleasure of Vertue and Religion and earnest Prayer for the Grace of God and diligent attendance upon the publick worship and pious Company and Converses For this great design these helps are requisite and if we exercise our selves in them as we ought they will fire our Souls with the love of God and Goodness and so at last all Christian Vertues will become as natural to us as sin was before And to one that is so prepared the Gate of Happiness will be open and of easie entrance the difficulties are overcome and from henceforth the way is pleasant and plain before him Prov. 3. 17. Thus I have shewn that the formidable difficulties may be overcome and How 't is a plain course I have directed that will not puzzle mens understandings with needless niceties nor distract their memories with multitudes Let us walk in this way and do it constantly with vigour and alacrity and there is no fear but in the Strength of God through the merits and mediation of his Son we shall overcome and at last enter I had now done with this general Head but that 't is necessary to note three things more 1. Those Instruments of our Happiness which we must use in striving viz. Faith Prayer and active Endeavour must all of them be imployed Not any one singly will do the great work nor can the others if any one be wanting If we believe and do not pray or pray and do not endeavour or endeavour without those the Difficulties will remain and 't will be impossible for us to enter 2. We must be diligent in our course If we do not exercise Faith vigorously and pray heartily and endeavour with our whole might the means will not succeed and 't is as good not at all as not to purpose The Difficulties will not be overcome by cold Faith or sleepy Prayers or remiss Endeavours A very intense degree of these is necessary 3. Our striving must be constant we must not begin and look back Heb. 10. 38. or run a while and stop in midd course 1 Cor. 9. 24. and content our selves with some attainments and think we have arrived Phil. 3. 14. If we do so we shall find our selves dangerously mistaken The Crown is at the end of the Warfare and the Prize at the end of the Race If we will succeed we must hold on The life of one that strives as he ought must be a continual motion forwards always proceeding always growing If we strive thus we cannot fail if any of these qualifications be wanting we cannot but miscarry And hence no doubt it is that many that seek to enter shall not be able and the presumed sons of the Kingdom are shut out Mat. 8. 12. They seek and are very desirous to be admitted They do some thing and strive but their striving is partial or careless or short by reason of which defects they do not overcome and shall not enter This is a dangerous Rock and perhaps there are as many undone by cold and half striving as by not striving at all He that hath done some thing presumes he is secure He goes the round of ordinary Duties but advanceth nothing in his way He overcometh none of the great Difficulties none of the Habits or depraved Inclinations He is contented with other things that make a more glorious shew though they signifie less
and perhaps despiseth these under the notion of Morality and so presuming that he is a Saint too soon he never comes to be one at all such are the Seekers that shall not be able to enter Their seeking imports some striving but 't is such as though it be specious yet it is imperfect and will not succeed And hence the Third Proposition ariseth that I proposed to discourse III. THat there is a sort of Striving that will not procure an entrance implyed in these words For many will seek to enter in and shall not be able 'T is a dangerous thing to be flattered into a false peace and to take up with imperfect Godliness to reconcile the hopes of Heaven to our beloved sins and to judge our condition safe upon insufficient grounds This multitudes do and 't is the great danger of our days Men cannot be contented without doing something in Religion but they are contented with a little And then they reckon themselves godly before they are vertuous and take themselves to be Saints upon such things as will not distinguish a good man from a bad We seek after Marks of Godliness and would be glad to know how we might try our state The thing is of great importance and if the Signs we judge by are either false or imperfect we are deceived to our undoing Meer Speculative mistakes about Opinions do no great hurt but errour in the Marks and Measures of Religion is deadly Now there are sundry things commonly taken for signs of Godliness which though they are something yet they are not enough They are hopeful for beginnings but nothing worth when they are our end and rest They are a kind of seeking and imperfect striving but not such as overcometh the difficulties of the way or will procure us an entrance at the Gate Therefore to disable the flattering insufficient Marks of Godliness I shall discover in pursuance of the Third Proposition How far a man may strive in the exercises of Religion and yet be found at last among those seekers that shall not be able to enter And though I have intimated something of this in the general before yet I shall now more particularly shew it in the instances that follow And in these I shall discover a Religion that may be called Animal to which the natural man may attain 1. A Man may believe the Truths of the Gospel and assent heartily to all the Articles of the Creed and if he proceeds not he is no further by this than the faith of Devils Jam. 2. 19. 2. He may go on and have a great thirst to be more acquainted with Truth he may seek it diligently in Scripture and Sermons and good Books and knowing Company And yet do this by the motion of no higher Principle than an inbred Curiosity and desire of Knowledge and many times this earnestness after Truth proceeds from a proud affectation to be wiser than our Neighbours that we may pity their darkness or the itch of a disputing humour that we may out-talk them or a design to carry on or make a party that we may be called Rabbi or serve an Interest and the zeal for Truth that is set on work by such motives is a spark of that fire that is from beneath 'T is dangerous to a mans self and to the publick Weal of the Church and mankind but the man proceeds and is 3. Very much concern'd to defend and propagate his Faith and the Pharisees were so in relation to theirs Mat. 23. 15. and so have been many Professors of all the Religions that are or ever were Men naturally love their own Tenents and are ambitious to mould others judgements according to theirs There is glory in being an Instructor of other men and turning them to our ways and opinions So that here is nothing yet above Nature nothing but what may be found in many that seek and are shut out 4. Faith works greater effects than these and Men offer themselves to Martyrdom for it This one would think should be the greatest height and an argument that all the difficulties of the way are overcome by one that is so resolved and that the Gate cannot but be opened to him And so no doubt it is when all things else are sutable But otherwise these consequences by no means follow S. Paul supposeth that a man may give his Body to be burned and not have Charity without which his Martyrdom will not profit 1 Cor. 13. For one to deny his Religion or what he believes to be certain and of greatest consequence is dishonourable and base and some out of principles of meer natural bravery will die rather than they will do it and yet upon other accounts be far enough from being heroically vertuous Besides the desire of the glory of Martyrdom and Saintship after it may in some be stronger than the terrours of Death and we see frequently that men will sacrifice their lives to their Honour and Reputation yea to the most contemptible shadows of it And there is no passion in us so weak no lust so impotent but hath in many instances prevail'd over the fear of dying Every Appetite hath had its Martyrs and all Religions theirs and though a man give his Body to be burnt for the best and have not Charity viz. Prevalent love to God and Men it will not signifie So that Martyrdom is no infallible mark nor will it avail any thing except sincere endeavour to overcome the greater difficulties have gone before it Thus far Faith may go without effect and yet one step further 5. Men may confidently rely upon Christ for Salvation and be firmly perswaded that he hath justified and will make them happy They may appropriate him to themselves and be pleased mightily in the opinion of his being theirs And yet notwithstanding this confidence may be in the number of those seekers that shall not enter For Christ is the Author of Eternal life only to those that obey him Heb. 5. 9. and to obey him is to strive vigorously and constantly to overcome all our sinful Inclinations and Habits And those that trust he will save them though they have never seriously set about this work deceive themselves by vain presumption and in effect say that he will dissolve or dispense with his Laws in their favour For he requires us to deny our selves Mar. 8. 34. To mortifie the body Rom. 8. 13. To love enemies Mat. 5. 44. To be meek Mat. 11. 29. and patient Jam. 5. 8. and humble 1 Pet. 5. 7. and just Mat. 7. 12. and charitable Heb. 13. 16. and holy as he that called us is holy 1 Pet. 1. 15. And he hath promised to save upon no other terms For all these are included in Faith when 't is taken in the justifying sense and this is the Way of Happiness and Salvation If we walk not in this but in the paths of our own choosing our relying upon Christ is a mockery and will deceive
He that is extreme in his Principles must needs be narrow in his Affections whereas he that stands on the middle path may extend the arms of his Charity to those on both sides It is indeed very natural to most to run into extremes and when men are faln Out with a Practice or Opinion they think they can never remove to too great a distance from it being frighted by the steep before them they run so far back till they fall into a precipice behind them Every Truth is near an Errour for it lies between two Falshoods and he that goes far from One is apt to slip into the other and while he flies from a Bear a Lyon meets him So that the best way to avoid the Danger is to steer the middle Course in which we may be sure there is Charity and Peace and very probably Truth in their Company Thus of my Directions FOr CONSIDERATIONS I 'le propose such as shew the Unreasonableness of our Enmities and Disagreements upon the account of different Opinions which will prove that our Affections ought to meet though our Judgements cannot My first is this I. Love is part of Religion but Opinions for the sake of which we lose Charity are not so The First I have proved already and for the other we may consider That Religion consists not in knowing many things but in practising the few plain things we know THE NECESSARY PRINCIPLES OF FAITH LYE IN A LITTLE ROOM This is Life Eternal to know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent Saith he that best knew what was Eternal Life and what necessary unto it Joh. 17. 3. And the Apostle St. Paul draws up all into the same two Principles He that cometh unto God must know that he is and that he is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek him Heb. 11. 6. St. Peter was pronounced blessed upon the single Profession that Jesus was Christ the Son of the Living God Mat. 16. 16. and the Eunuch was baptized upon the same Act. 8. 37. St. Paul reckons these as the only Necessaries to Salvation Rom. 10. 9. If thou confess with thy Mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in thy heart that God hath raised him from the Dead thou shalt be save And St. John to the same purpose Whosever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God This Faith indeed must suppose the general Principles of natural Religion and produce the Real Fruits of Righteousness to make it effectual to its end and these supposed the Apostles speak as if it contain'd all that is essentially necessary to be believed and known in order to our Happiness Thus the Fundamentals of belief are few and plain For certainly the Divine Goodness would not lay our Eternal Interests in Difficulties and multitudes things hard to be understood and retained The difficult work of Religion is not in the Understanding but in the Affections and Will So that the Principles in which Religion consists are the clearly revealed Articles in which we are agreed For the others about which we differ and dispute though some of them may be consequences of those and good helps to the practice of Religion yet I should be loth to make them a necessary and essential part of it For he that saith they are concludes all men under a state of Ruine and Damnation who either do not know or are not able to receive them An uncharitableness that is as bad as Heresie if it be not one it self The sum is Religion lies in few Principles I mean as to the Essence of it and that principally consists in Practice So the Prophet reckons Mic. 6. 8. He hath shewed thee O man what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do Justice and love Mercy and to walk humbly with thy God And St. James gives an Account of Religion like it Jam. 1. 17. True Religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this to Visit the Widow and Fatherless in their Afflictions and to keep himself unspotted from the World Religion is an Holy Life and Charity is a main branch of that But Opinions are no vital part nor do they appertain to the substance of it And shall we lose a Limb for an Excrescence or an Ornament An Essential of Religion for that which is but accessary and extrinsick Charity for an Opinion I think 't is not reasonable and I hope you think so likewise But I offer to your Consideration II. Charity is certainly our Duty but many of the Opinions about which we fall out are uncertainly true viz. as to us The main and Fundamental Points of Faith are indeed as firm as the Centre but the Opinions of men are as fluctuating as the Waves of the Ocean The Root and body of a Tree is fast and unshaken while the Leaves are made the sport of every Wind And Colours sometimes vary with every position of the Object and the Eye though the Light of the Sun be an uniform Splendour The Foundation of God standeth sure but men often build upon it what is very Tottering and uncertain The great Truths of Religion are easily discernable but the smaller and remoter ones require more sagacity and acuteness to descry them and the best sight may be deceived about such obscure and distant Objects And methinks 't is very strange that men should be so excessively confident of the Truth and Certainty of their Opinions since they cannot but know the Weakness of Humane understanding in general and cannot but often have found the Fallibility of their own The Apostle tells us that we know but in part 1 Cor. 13. 9. and makes Confidence an Argument of Ignorance 1 Cor. 8. 2. If any man think that he knoweth any thing he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know And Solomon reckons it as an argument of Folly The Fool rageth and is confident and there is nothing that discovers it more For let us consider The Scripture hath not been so clear and express in defining lesser Points and the words in which they are thought to be Lodged are many times figurative and obscure and of various meaning spoken only by the by or agreeably to forms of speech or customs that we do not know or by way of condescension to common Apprehension And therefore we see that Interpretations are infinite and there is no sort of men less agreed than Commentators All Opinions plead Scripture and many pretend to reason and most to Antiquity The Learned and the Prudent Churches and Councils Confessors and Fathers the former and the latter Ages the Vertuous and the Devout the Credulous and the Inquisitive they have all differ'd in the lesser matters of Belief And every man differs from almost every other in some thing and every man differs often from himself in many things Age hath altered our Judgements or we are children still Our Affections change our Thoughts and our Imaginations shift the Scene
Prerogatives and dignity of humane nature Man is but a Beast of prey and his use of and dominion over the other creatures is but a proud usurpation over his equals So that this opinion degrades our natures and affronts the whole race of mankind together And 2. In the direct tendency of it it destroyes humane Societies For those cannot subsist without Laws nor Laws without some conscience of good and evil nor would this signifie to any great purpose without the belief of another world Take away this and every thing will be good that is profitable and honest that conduceth to a mans designs That would be mine that I could get by force and I had no right to any thing longer than I had strength to defend it and thus the world would be ipso facto in a state of war and fall into endless confusions and disorders So that the whole Earth would quickly be an Hell intolerable every man would be a Devil to another yea and every man to himself 3. It suppresseth mens private happiness and felicity and even the Rioters of the world have stings and torments from it If a man live in Sensuality and fulness of pleasure what a cutting thought is it to consider that in a little time he must bid adieu to this and to all felicity for ever And if his life be in trouble and discomfort how terrible is it to reflect that he must go from being miserable to be nothing How can those think of parting with their possessions and enjoyments that have nothing else to expect or how can they bear up under the burdens and vexations of this state that cannot relieve themselves by the hopes of a better With what sad pangs of sorrow should we lay our Friends into the Grave if we had cause to be assured that they were lost eternally and how could we reflect upon our own mortality if we were to look for no farther Being The pleasures of the present Life are gone in a moment and leave nothing but dregs and bitterness behind them and if there be no further delights besides these mean and fading satisfactions 't is not worth the while to live but we had better to have been nothing for ever The summ is The Sadducee vilifies Mankind destroyes the peace of Societies and the happiness of every private person and so professeth himself the common enemy of men and a Renegado to humane nature IT will not be needful for me to say much in Applying this Discourse Almost every Sermon we hear is an Application of it for here is the matter and ground of our hopes and hence are taken the great enforcements of our duty I presume there are few or none in this place but who are ready to profess their belief of a Future Life and as I premised I have not insisted on the proof to perswade You of this Article but to shew that the confidence is groundless which affirms There is no reason for the great Doctrines of Religion and to contribute somewhat towards the settlement of the weak against such temptations Now if we believe this great Truth as we say Let us do it to purpose and not content our selves with a cold and customary assent but endeavour to raise our Faith to such an height that it may have an effectual influence upon our lives The general belief that education hath infused is but a dead image in the soul that produceth nothing Let us endeavour by fervent Prayer and frequent Meditation to invigorate and excite ours to that degree that it may be a living representation of eternal things that our Faith may be the certainty and presence of the invisible world The substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen Heb. 11. That we may have such an apprehension of it as if the prospect were open and our eyes beheld it that we may fix our thoughts there and fill up our souls with the consideration of that world Such a Faith as this ought to be our aim and if we did so believe the other world what excellent what heroical what happy persons should we be in this Such a Faith would secure us from the flatteries and temptations of this sensual life and excite us to more earnest longings and more vigorous endeavours after the happiness of a better It would inable us to despise this vain world in comparison and to bear all the crosses of it with magnanimity and steadiness of mind It would quiet our solicitudes and answer the objections against providence and the present unequal distribution of good and evil It would make the most difficult services of Religion easie and pleasant to us and fill our lives with sweet hope and delights infinitely more agreeable than the most relishing sensual joys It would afford us satisfaction amid our disappointments and rest amid our anxieties and cares It would raise our designs and thoughts to things generous and noble and make us live like the Inhabitants of an Heavenly Countrey Such blessed effects as these follow this Faith here and unmeasurably unspeakably greater in the other world the vision of God and full enjoyment of His love the perfection of our natures and the compleatment of our happiness in the arms of our Redeemer and amidst the triumphant Songs of Angels and Saints in the exercise of holy love admiration and praise Things too great to be exprest or to be imagin'd For eye hath not seen nor ear heard nor hath it entred into the heart of man to conceive what God hath reserved for those that love him To Him be all Glory and humble Adoration henceforth and for ever SERMON VII THE Serious Consideration OF THE Future Iudgement The Second Edition SERMON VII ACTS XVII 31. Because he hath appointed a day in which he will judge the World in Righteousness by the man whom he hath ordained ALthough it might be well expected that the Laws of God should abundantly prevail by vertue of His Authority and their own native reason and goodness Yet such is the stupidity and perverseness of men that these alone have not usually any considerable effect upon us And therefore God who earnestly desires our Reformation and our happiness hath superadded the greatest Sanctions to enforce His Laws glorious rewards on the one hand and most terrible Penalties on the other and these to be distributed in a most solemn manner represented in such circumstances as are most apt to work upon our Hopes and Fears For He hath appointed a day Which words are part of St. Paul's Speech to the Athenians upon the occasion of their superstitions and Idolatries These in the time of Gentile ignorance God winked at vers 30. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He took no notice of those sins in comparison He was not so much offended and displeased but consider'd the general ignorance and temptations and made abatements for them As our Saviour said with reference to the Jews Joh. 15. 22. If I had not come
that native Majesty and splendour in the face of universal mankind That He who made an humble stoop from the Throne to the Manger from the Government of the World to the life of a mean subject should at last be illustriously advanc'd as much above the heights of humane grandeurs as then he was below them 'T is fit that That Holy and Divine Person who was buffeted and affronted condemned and crucified by an abusive and injurious world should righteously judge his Judges That Herod may see that he persecuted not the Infant King of a little Province but the Soveraign of Angels and men And that Pontius Pilate and the Jews may be convinc'd that He whom they called King in scorn is really a greater Emperour than Caesar And that those who were scandal'd at the Cross and a verse to the belief of an humble Saviour may see the shame and confutation of their Infidelity and their Folly in the exaltation of the Holy Jesus above all the possibilities of worldly glory Upon this account 't is reasonable and becoming that the Man Christ Jesus should be the Judge And it is so upon another viz. 2. Because He contracted an alliance with our Natures and experimentally knows and felt the Infirmities of our state If the Supream naked Deity should judge us immediately we should be confunded and astonished at the Mjaesty of his presence his greatness would make us afraid For who can bear that dazzling Glory who can stand before a Throne surrounded with incomprehensible Light and Flame This Glory is therefore allay'd by the interposal of humane nature and this Light wears a veil upon it to encourage our approaches Yea 't is our Brother and our Friend that loved us and dyed for us who is the man ordain'd to be our Judge He hath the same compassion as when he wept over an obstinate City and the same love as when he bled and dyed for a rebellious World He knows the strength of our temptations and the weakness of our natures and will make abatements for them So that the faithful may hearfully appear before his Throne confessing their sins and relying upon his Love He that loved us and was like us is to take our Accounts 'T is our Redeemer is to be our Judge Thus may believing Penitents incourage themselves before him and hold up their heads in that Day of terrours as much reviv'd by the apprehension of his humanity and meekness as the wicked will be dejected by the knowledge of his greatness and power And for this cause also 't is congruous and fit that the Man Christ Jesus should be Judge when mankind is at the Bar. I Come now to the IV. General to be consider'd He will judge the World in Righteousness viz. 1. By a Rule Not by unaccountable humour or arbitrary Will Not by hidden Decrees or secret scrowls of Predestination But by those plain and open Records that are in our Houses and our Hands that are Preached in Publique places and declar'd in a language we understand The Books shall be opened Rev. 20. 12. and the Books the Rules of Righteousness are the Law and the Gospel The one strictly requires perfect obedience the other accepts of sincere Now while our actions are tried by the Law and measured by its Righteousness our straightest Lines are crooked and uneven and our greatest services are very scant and defective The best are like the dust in the Ballance and the rest are lighter than Vanity For as Magnifying Glasses betray roughness and a ragged surface in the best polish'd Marble So this Glass of the Law discovers wrinkles and deformity in the fairest and most even vertue And while mens lives and actions are compared with this Rule all mankind is distrest and a cloud hangs upon the brow of the most religious and most innocent The Law concludes all men under sin and sin under wrath So that by this all the world is cast and were happiness to be had upon no other terms strait would be the Gate indeed and so narrow the way that none would find it And while no other Book than this is opened all the Generations of men fall prostrate before the Throne condemn'd by the Law and by themselves Nothing is to be heard but an universal groan and the suppliant cry of Mercy Mercy Lord When loe the other Book is opened and out of it is read Grace and Peace and multiplyed Pardons to all the followers of the Lamb who have believ'd in the Crucified Jesus and testified that Faith by their Repentance and sincere obedience But shame and darkness and new confusions Death Horrour and everlasting Destruction from the presence of God and of his Christ to all the stubborn rejecters of His Grace who would not have him to Rule over them nor accept of His offer'd Salvation These are the Declarations of this Book and these the measures of that Righteousness whereby we are to be judg'd As the Judge himself hath told us John 12. 48. The words that he spake the same shall Judge us in the last day And God will judge the secrets of men saith St. Paul according to my Gospel Rom. 2. So that believing Penitents that are not perfect according to the Law of Works may plead their sincerity their Faith Repentance and new obedience which is their perfection according to the Law of Pardon And this will be accepted by the Judge with a gracious Air and the sweet reviving voice of Well done ye good and faithful Servants He invites them to Him with the voice of pity and endearment and ravisheth their souls with the pleasant sound of Come ye blessed of my Father Matth. 25. 34. O the Ecstasies that are in that Sentence O the killing harmony of that voice Can a Finite spirit bear such excess The pleasures of Eternity crouded into a moment Did unfaln Angels ever know such another or can there be more transport in ten thousand Hallelujahs Certainly the boundless imagination it self cannot form an Idea of that rapture nor the Tongue of a Cherub express it The summ is The World shall be judg'd in Righteousness viz. according to a Rule and not by meer power and will A Rule not the strict and severe one of the Law but the sweet and gracious one of the Gospel whose Righteousness is Faith and sincere obedience which in the Great Day shall be accepted and gloriously rewarded 2. God will judge the World in Righteousness viz. with impartial equity To evidence this let us consider the Judge in the three great qualifications of his WISDOM JUSTICE and POWER 1. He is Wise and cannot be abused by Witnesses nor mistaken in Law cannot be imposed on by false allegations nor cozened by fair pretensions He intimately understands the Fact and the Cause and cannot be deceived by malice of enemies nor subtilty of excuses 2. He is Just 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A pure Mind without interest or affection He cannot be aw'd by
of his Fathers Glory and the express Image of his person who did as never man did spake as never man spake even he came unto his own and they received him not they many of them believed not his words nor would they abide his Counsel but gave him occasion to lament their hardness with tears of compassion when he drew near the City he beheld and wept over it saying If thou hadst known even thou in this thy day the things that belong to thy peace and then grief and tenderness breaks off the sentence they would not know the things belonging to their peace though the Prince of Peace was the Preacher of them and therefore elsewhere he passionately expostulated with them upon the score of the same perverseness O Jerusalem Jerusalem thou that killest the Prophets and stonest them that were sent unto thee how often would I have gathered thee as an Hen gathereth her Chickens under her Wings and ye would not The Son of God himself could not prevail upon a City to which he made his frequent and earnest addresses all he could do by the Methods of his Graces was to bewail their obstinacy resolved impenitency and unbelief But Jonah succeeds on one as wicked and much greater in the very first attempt he makes on it v. 4. And Jonah began to enter into the City a days journey and he cryed and said yet forty days and Nineveh shall be destroyed and the very next words are those of my Text So the people of Nineveh believed God and proclaimed a Fast and put on Sack-cloth from the greatest of them to the least of them c. In discoursing of this wonderful change and conversion of the Ninevites I shall 1. Consider their sins and 2. Their Reformation in the two main parts of it Their Faith They believed God Their Repentance exprest by Fasting prayer and turning from evil ways And 3. The universality of both From the greatest of them to the least of them And As I go shall humbly compare their Circumstances with our own and consider what duties are suggested to us by that comparison I begin 1. With their Sins those were great and the cry of them was loud Their wickedness is come up before me Chap. 1. 2. What their sins were in particular we are not told but from the circumstances and the severity of the judgement threatned we may conclude they were very grievous St. Paul tell us that at the times of Ignorance God winked 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He over-lookt in comparison he made abatements and had respect to their frailties He considers our Frame our Impotency and Temptations and is not so severe in judging and punishing men under those circumstances of disadvantage According to the same Scheme of Speech our Saviour speaks If I had not done the works that no man ever did they had had no sin viz. theirs had not been so great not such in comparison But now notwithstanding the allowances the divine goodness makes for a state of Ignorance and consequent Infirmity the sins of these Ninevites were such as called for the severest judgements even desolation Destruction Nineveh shall be destroyed What this destruction was in particular whether Fire from Heaven such as destroyed Sodom and Gomorrha or an Inundation of waters such as had over-whelmed divers Cities and Countreys whether an Earth-quake such as swallowed Corah and his company a sudden surprize of Foreign Enemies such as that of the Barbarous Nations among the Romans or of the Europeans on the Americans or else any unexpected violent commotion among themselves by Massacre or Rebellion whether to be extraordinary and miraculous or in a plain and visible course which of these it was whether any of them in particular we are not told only destruction is threatned Things were come to a sad issue with them their sins were full and ripe for vengeance Let us now in the Name and Fear of God humbly compare this with our own case Our sins also are very great great as theirs in their Nature and Quality in their circumstances and aggravations much greater and more heinous Blasphemy Prophane Swearing Perjury Luxury Uncleanness Drunkenness Disobedience Murder Treason Violence Oppression all the deadly sins whatever is contrary to found Religion and true Doctrine Reign Triumph brave the Sun are fashionable almost creditable Fear and Shame all the Restraints are gone men make a mock of sin glory in it are ashamed of nothing But Virtue Sobriety Religion Religion matter of the best highest truest honour despis'd buffoon'd exposed as ridiculous Atheism the greater the less formerly hid its head the Fool of old said only in his heart there is no God but now it appears openly and boldly claims the reputation of wit the only wit and good sense men like not to retain God in their knowledge but dispute his Being Attributes Providence and you are beholding to them if they do not bluntly tell you There is no such thing or do not say at least with those in the Psalmist Tush God seeth not he careth not is there knowledge in the most high Such we are and thus do after Miracles of Mercies and of Judgements after mighty Calamities and equal Deliverances frequent warnings and Importunate Calls to Repentance And now we have not indeed any immediate extraordinary Prophet particularly sent to thunder against us but we have the warning of Moses and all the Prophets of Christ his Apostles and Ministers of all sorts besides all which the Providence of God and the Circumstances of our affairs and all things about us call loudly that we should prepare our selves to meet the Lord coming to reckon with us but alas how shall we do this Strength is weakness Policy is Folly and Infatuation when he is angry his power is not to be resisted Hast thou an Arm like God or canst thou Thunder like him Job His presence is not to be avoided Whither shall I flee from thy Spirit Ps What shall we do then must we sit down in despondency in despair of Mercy is there no Remedy no way Blessed be God there is one the same that was taken by the poor Ninevites who did not summon their armed Forces nor put their wits upon the Rack for Stratagem and Counsel for publick Safety means that may be used and ought in their place No they lookt on the Evil threatned as from the Lord with whom there was no contending against whom there was no contriving and applyed themselves to appease the offended Majesty and they took the right course to do it for They Believed God c. This was 2. Their Reformation the second thing I was to speak of in which I consider First their Faith They believed God his Being Attributes Providence Love of Virtue Hatred of Vice and that the way to appease him when he was angry was by the use of Prayer Fasting and turning from evil ways These they understood without a Prophet and believed before the preaching
of Jonah God hath conveyed some main knowledge of himself to all his world and hath not any where left himself without a Witness his Laws are written upon the hearts of men and all of those we call most Heathen Rom. 2. What is to be known of God is manifest Chapter the first of the same Epistle all the World is his the Souls of men especially so of his Family his Off-spring as it were Bone of his Bone Flesh of his Flesh and he provides for his own they are worse than Infidels that do not He takes care for Oxen for Sparrows for Lillies much more then for the Souls of his Reasonable Creatures the very hairs of our Heads are numbred certainly then the Souls of men are every one considered every one some way or other provided for The Summ is God hath dispersed some Light some glimmerings at least of Light and Truth among universal Mankind and these men of Nineveh had their portion and by that were prepared for more that alone was not sufficient and therefore God sends them a Prophet not an Angel to destroy like those sent to Sodom not a common ordinary Messenger from among themselves their case required more but an extraordinary person one from far when men are prepared for Repentance they shall have the proper means God will not be wanting to his Creatures when the ordinary means will not do they shall have such as are extraordinary and uncommon when the Native Light and convictions are not sufficient they shall have an external Preacher such was Philip to the Aethiopian Eunuch Acts 8. And an Angel sent to Cornelius to direct him to an Apostle Acts 10. Thus was Jonah sent to the Ninevites and doubtless many other good Heathens were so assisted He went though after a Repulse of the divine commission and they were more ready to hear than he to preach in that they both believed the Messenger and the Terrible Message that he brought We alas believe what we like what is grateful and agreeable to us and our Faith is much in our affections but they believe what was dreadful and amazing the truth was most opposite to their corrupt Inclinations and carnal Interest and this their Belief is interpreted as faith in God To believe his Messengers coming in his name and with his Truth is Believing him as our Saviour saith He that receiveth you receiveth me and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me and again He that despiseth you despiseth me he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me The Ninevites did not so by Jonah or his Message consciousness of their own guilt and their Natural Apprehensions of divine justice made them apt to receive Impressions of dread and doubtless they had ill Abodings in their minds before by which they were prepared for such a Message and a Prophet one coming from another Countrey to appear with so much Resolution and to speak with so much Authority and assurance affected them more than if they had been used to such preachers of Errours nor are we to suppose that he only repeated to them these dreadful words Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be destroyed No these more likely were but the Summ the Text the Burden of his Sermon which probably he amplified with all those Considerations that were apt to move and awaken and possibly the Mariners that were with him in the Ship and threw him over-board upon the Lot that saw the Fish swallow him and the Tempest quieted upon it might have come into Nineveh before him diverted from their intended voyage by the Storm meeting him again after they had seen him plunged into the Ocean might certifie the people of the Miracle and they thereby assured that he was an extraordinary person and was come to them in an Extraordinary and Divine Errand but whether this were so or not whether they credited the Prophet on these Motives or any other is not certain but this is They believed upon the preaching of Jonah And now As God daily preacheth unto us by his various Messengers so he doth by his Providence by which we are sometimes brought into great straits even to the Brink of Ruine and when it is thus with us when we are in a state of perplexities under present Evil and Fears of greater let us not abuse our selves with false confidences put far from us the evil day and cry Peace Peace when there is no Peace let us not impute our Troubles and disorders to accident and common causes but consider that the Hand of God is in them who is then about to reckon with us for our sins and a voice sounding from thence Repent Repent for your Iniquities will be your Ruine Let us not be deaf and stupid as the careless old world were till the Flood came and swept them away or as those Mockers the Apostle speaks of who scoffingly said where is the promise to them it was threatning of his coming when he was at the door but let us humbly be affected as these poor creatures were who believed upon the preaching of Jonah And what was this Belief of theirs was it cold indifferent unconcerned assent only no it was a Faith powerful and active that wrought a mighty change and produced the blessed Fruits of Repentance and Reformation their Faith had been dead and unsignifying if it had not wrought and wrought this way if they had past a Complement on the Prophet that they believed him and gone on in the same course as before if they had believed God and continued in their provocations of him their Faith had been an aggravation and might justly have heightned and hastened their ruine it had then been a great argument of their Impudence and Obduration but theirs was not a Fanatical Pharisaical Faith without works but a Faith Operative and Fruitful and the Effect of it was Repentance and the expressions of that Repentance Fasting and Prayer and turning from evil ways 1. Fasting This is a Rite of Humiliation and Repentance in which we acknowledge our unworthiness and our vileness that we merit not common mercies but deserve the greatest punishments and this anciently and in all times was also exprest by Sack-cloth and vile cloathing whereby these Ninevites likewise set out their wretchedness and ill deservings God Almighty hath so made us that we are apt and cannot help it to represent our inward Affections by outward Expressions and here is the ground in Nature and in Reason of Sacrifices and all the Rites of External Worship and particularly of this by which the men of Nineveh declared their abasement before God and we have need of some eminent signal way to humble our selves before him in acknowledgement of our greater and more aggravated crimes we have sometimes publick Fasts and days of publick Humiliation But are they such as God hath chosen do we in them afflict our souls with penitence and Godly sorrow do we as much as impose any penance upon our
ways they must not be parted with or silenc't no all Laws and Constitutions of Government must be thwarted overthrown rather Love and Peace and all must be sacrificed to the Idols which being so what quietness can there be from hence what peace or temper among such principles These perpetually annoy and disturb the Church and to know what they do in the State let us consider Germany Scotland and 't is to be hoped though we have frail memories on this side we shall not forget how peaceable the Sectaries have been in England or not observe how quiet they are at this day Remember I hope we shall for Caution I urge no other remembrance I wish they themselves did not remember them so well as we find they do by many of the same actions and discourses That Kings hold from the people are only Trustees for them and may be resisted and deposed when they fail in that trust are Politicks that do not much tend to civil peace and we know whose Principles those were and we have no great reason to think they have quitted them I can give but brief hints of things that would afford matter enough to fill Volumes as both Popish and Sectarian disloyalty Rebellions and disturbances would do But into these mens secrets let not our Souls come The Church that we some of us at least profess our selves to be members of teacheth no unpeaceable doctrines is guilty of no such practices It imposeth no Articles on our belief as necessary to our Salvation but the Ancient Creeds no terms of Communion but such reasonable orders and decencies as are free from all appearance of Idolatry and Superstition or any thing else that is unlawful as will appear to any rational man that shall take the pains to consider and will judge impartially nothing that is more burthensome or grievous than the Rites and usages of the Primitive Christian Church were which assertions I have in this place lately proved and divers of our Divines in their books have fully done it to the shame of Fanatical Gainsayers As to the concerns of civil peace our Church with Christ and his Apostles teacheth active chearful conscientious obedience to the King and subordinate Rulers in all lawful things and quiet submission to the penalties of not obeying when the things required are unlawful plainly certainly so And that we are not in this nor in any case to resist Suitable to this have been the practices of the people of this peaceable Church Among whom there hath not yet been found a Rebel We never heard of a Church of England-man in the late wars against the King nor of a Sectary for him But 4. The Faith deliver'd to the Saints was a reasonable Faith the understanding of man is the Candle of the Lord Prov. 20. 27. The light of Reason is his light with this The true light hath enlightned every one that cometh into the world Joh. 1. 9. and one light is not contrary to another there is difference in degree but no opposition of Nature Faith and Reason accord Yea Faith is an act of Reason 't is the highest reason to believe in God and the belief of our reason is an act of Faith viz. Faith in the truth and goodness of God that would not give us faculties to delude and deceive us when we rightly exercise and employ them By Faith Reason is further enlightned and by the use of Reason Faith is applyed Religion and Reason sweetly agree and nothing can be Religious that is unreasonable Religion is a reasonable service And by this Character Popery is disproved also For that imposeth on the practice and minds of men things that are extreamly unreasonable and absurd as Articles of Religion Such are the worship of invisible beings by Images of Wood or Stone and especially the Doctrine of Transubstantiation which is full of Contradictions as that the same body can be in a thousand places at once that at the same time it may be bigger and less than it self that it may move towards and from it self That it may be divided not into parts but wholes These and numerous other absurdities and contradictions to the reason of mankind are contain'd in the sensless mystery of Popish Transubstantiation To defend which the Doctors of that Church are put upon this miserable shift of denying all reason in Religion even the greatest and most fundamental Article of it That the same thing can be and not be which some of them say is the only method to confute Hereticks And while Reason and our Faculties are acknowledg'd we cannot entertain their non-sence nor be answer'd in our just oppositions of their gross absurdities On the other side the Character of a reasonable Faith condemns the Sects the greatest part of whose Divinity is made up of sensless absurd notions set forth in unintelligible Fantastical Phrases and these they account the heights of spirituality and mystery upon which they value and boast themselves as the only knowing the only spiritual people When there is nothing in all their pretended heights and spiritualities but vain imagination and dreaming and in v. 8. of this Epistle they are described by this Character 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dreamers And as the light of Sense and Reason dispels the vain Images of Dreams so these admitted would cure Fanatical impostures and delusions For which cause there is nothing they so vehemently declaim against as Reason under the notion of carnal and as an enemy to the Spirit and the things of it There is indeed a carnal Reason that is enmity to truth and goodness but that is not the reason of our minds but the reason of our appetite passion and corrupt interest which is not reason truly so called no more than an Ape is a man But for want of thus distinguishing the things that so differ Enthusiasts rail violently against all Reason as the grand adversary of the truths and mysteries of the Gospel Their Tenents that she calls so will not bear that light But the Church of England teacheth no opinions no mysteries that need such a desperate course to defend them Its Articles of Faith are all contain'd in the Ancient Christian Creeds which are no way opposite to Reason in any Article yea Reason either proves or defends them all So that we never give out at this weapon but are ready to use it upon all occasions against Atheists and Infidels of all sorts The Church of England owns no Religion but what is reasonable 5. The Faith deliver'd to the Saints was certain it was deliver'd to them by those that had it from the holy Spirit of God in the way of immediate inspiration Those holy men spake as they were inspired And that they were really so was no fond imagination or bold presumption but a truth assured by those mighty miracles they were enabled to perform Those are Gods Seal and the grand confirmation of a commission from him and to this proof of their
the Purity and Spirituality of Worship it never left canting on the Subject till mens Tongues and Minds were fired against every matter of decency and order as formal and Antichristian And so far had it prevailed as to drive those of warm affections and weak heads from all external Reverence to God and Holy things And the well meaning people being frighted with the terrible noise of Popery Superstition and Antichristianism words they had learnt to hate though not to understand boggled and flew off from every thing their furious Guides had marked with these abhorred Characters though it were never so innocent and becoming And thus a rude and slovenly Religion had made its way into the World and such a sordid carelessness in matters of divine Worship that should a Stranger have come into the Assemblies that were acted by this Spirit he would not have imagined what they had been doing and that they were about Holy Offices would perhaps have been one of the last things in his Conjecture Thus bold and sawcy talk had crept into mens Prayers under pretence of Holy Familiarity with God nauseous impertinent Gibberish under the notion of Praying by the Spirit and all kind of irreverences in external demeanour under the shelter of a pretended spiritual Worship Men had subtilized Religion till they had destroyed it made it first invisible and then Nothing AND now it being thus multiplied corrupted and debaucht being made the Game of the Tongue and the Frolick of Imagination phantastick in its principles sordid in its practices separated from the foundation of a vertuous life and made to serve the ends of Pride and Avarice what was like to follow according to the nature and order of things but Atheism and contempt of all Religion And when one says here 's Religion and another says there 's Religion a third will scornfully ask where 's Religion and what 's Religion When the Heathen Deities were so multiplied that every thing was made a God Protagoras Diagoras and others first began to question and next to affirm that there was NONE Religions have been multiplied in our days as much as Gods in theirs and we have seen much of the same fatal event and issue They made their Gods contemptible and vile by deifying things that were so and we had no less detracted from the credit of Religion by bringing it down to things of the lowest and vilest rank and nature Our Idolized Opinions were no better than their Garlick and Onyons The diseases of the Mind Phrensie and Enthusiasm which our days have worshipped were no better than those of the Body which they adored And they never raised Altars to worse Vices than REBELLION FRAUD and VIOLENCE which our Age hath hallowed and made sacred So that notwithstanding all the glorious pretensions of those Times Religion was among many taken off all its Foundations and the World prepared for Atheism The Follies and Divisions of one Age make way for Atheism in the next Thus also briefly of the Condition of our RELIGION AND thus I have shewn how much RESISTANCE of the Authority that is over us is against our DUTY and our INTEREST The former God hath plainly told us and the latter we have sadly felt It remains that we humble our selves under the sense of the publick guilt as well as complain of the consequent miseries That we may not draw down new judgements by repeating old provocations and adding our particular sins to the common score And I think we shall do well to consider what we who abhor Rebellion have contributed to the fatal evils that followed it We can perhaps be well enough content that the visible actors of those mischiefs should be lasht and exposed and it may be are well pleased and tickled with our reprehensions in which we think our selves not concerned But if we will be just if we will have this Fast to signifie we must turn our reproofs upon our selves also and with grief and shame acknowledge that our sins and Debauches our contempt of God and scorn of Religion have helpt towards the plucking down that sad judgement upon the Nation which we lament this Day And it must be confest that there were those that fought against the KING who yet spent their blood in his service and many by their vices endeavoured to engage Heaven against that Cause which themselves strove in another way to less purpose to promote And therefore we ought not to think that this Fast is appointed to inveigh against the faults of others and to make them and their actions odious but to humble our selves under the apprehension of our own and to teach us to shew our love to the King and readiness to obey him by subjecting our selves first unto God whose Vice-gerent HE is And we may be assured that they that are not Loyal to the UNIVERSAL LORD of all the World can scarce possibly be so to their particular SOVEREIGN And 't will need a great deal of Charity to help us to believe that those who make no scruple to blaspheme the Name of God and to break the plainest most earnest and most express of his Laws will be withheld by considerations of Duty or Conscience from rebelling against their King or affronting His when there is any powerful interest to oblige them to it If therefore we would give any evidence of a serious humiliation at present or any security of a future loyalty let us do so by confessing our particular sins and forsaking them and then there will be hope that the Authority of God may oblige us quietly and peaceably to submit to his MINISTER and in doing so we shall be blest with his influence and deserve his protection And thus demeaning our selves like Professors of the Gospel of Peace and Subjects of the Prince of Peace the Peace He left with his Disciples will be with us here and everlasting Peace will encircle our heads with rays of glory in the Kingdom of Peace And so the Peace of God which passeth all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus To whom with God the Father and God the Holy Ghost be ascribed all Glory Honour and adoration henceforth and for ever Amen and Amen SERMON IV. THE SIN and DANGER OF SCOFFING AT RELIGION The Second Edition SERMON IV. AGAINST SCOFFING AT RELIGION 2 PET. III. 3. There shall come in the last days Scoffers walking after their own Lusts IT is a question that hath much exercised the wits of the Curious whether there be any decay in nature or whether all things are not still as they were from the beginning in all their kinds and in all the degrees of their vigour and perfection I shall not undertake to determine ought in this Theory Be the matter how it will as to the natural world we have cause to believe that there are degeneracies in the moral This our Saviour supposeth in the Question Luke 18. 8. When the Son of man cometh shall he find
faith on earth Implying that in the last Times there shall be remarkable fallings from the Faith and a general Reign of unbelief which cannot be without great defection in manners also And St. Paul 2 Tim. 3. 1. tells us That the last days should be perillous that men should be Lovers of their own selves Covetous Boasters Proud Blasphemers and our Apostle in the Text Scoffers walking after their own lusts Now we are not to think that the holy Writers suppos'd that these evils were not in other days as well as in the last No the same catalogue of Vices runs through all Ages which more or less are infected with them But the meaning I conceive is That in the latter they should be more notorious and more numerous acted in higher degrees of impudence and with more circumstances of guilt There is no doubt but there were always scoffers but never such nor so many as in the last days The last of the world simply and not only those of the Jewish State scoffers walking after their own lusts viz. as absolute slaves to their Appetites and Passions For the word Lusts takes in all unruly desires and inclinations In treating of the words I shall shew 1. What sort of Scoffers we may suppose here meant 2. What is the evil and malignity of the humour 3. What are the consequences and effects of it And thence 4. Pass to improvement for practice FOr the First Who are the scoffers meant I take direction in it from the character annext Scoffers walking after their own lusts Now the lusts of men would be boundless and are impatient of any check or stop They hate all restraints that are laid upon them and the greatest restraints of appetite are from Religion Religion hinders men most from walking after their own lusts and these are most resolv'd on that so that we may suppose the scoffers in the Text who walk after their own lusts to be scoffers at Religion which would hinder and disturb them most in that course And that they were such appears from the following verse in which they argue scoffingly against the Christian belief and expectations Saying Where is the promise of his coming for since the Fathers fell a-sleep all things continue as they were from the beginning vers 4. Now generally the less impudent sort of sinners endeavour to reconcile Religion to their Lusts by walking in some of the forms of godliness so did the Pharisees among the Jews and divers Hereticks among the ancient Christians and their modern successors do the same still But there are an other sort who are more bold and impatient they will not give themselves the trouble of reconciling Religion to their Lusts but take the shorter course of opposing it in favour of them This some do by ingaging their parts and knowledge gravely and seriously to reason it out of the world but these are the few Reason is a severe thing and doth as little comport with mens Lusts as Religion And the same Lusts that make them willing to reason against Religion make them incapable of it For debauchery is almost as great an enemy to mens intellectuals as to their morals And therefore others and the most go an easier way and fight against Religion by scoffing and buffoonry This is the game the Devil seems to be playing in the present Age. He hath tryed the power and rage of the mighty and the wit and knowledge of the learned but these have not succeeded for the destruction of Religion And therefore now he is making an experiment by an other sort of enemies and sets the Apes and Drollers upon it And certainly there was never any other Age in which sacred and serious things have been so rudely and impudently assaulted by the prophane abuses of Jesters and Buffoons who have been the contempt of all wise Times but are the darlings and wits of these O the Invention the rare invention of this happy Age How easie hath it made the way to this glorious reputation 'T is but laughing gracefully at the Fopps the grave the learned the religious Fopps and a man cannot fail of being a Wit in spight of ignorance and impertinence Away with the pedantry and dull formalities of former days we are Wits upon terms more generous and more easie Our Age hath more spirit and flame our conversation yes our vertuous conversation hath refined and improved us We see the folly and ignorance of our fore-fathers and laugh at the Tales with which crafty Priests abused their easiness and credulity Spiritual substance Immortal souls Authority of Scripture Fictions Ideas Phantomes Iargon Here is demonstration against the spiritual Trade and spiritual men The rest of the work is for Songs and Plays for the wit and humour of agreeable conversation Thus far we are come and the infection spreads so that there is scarce a little vain Thing that hath a mind to be modish but sets up for a derider of God and of Religion and makes a scoff of the most serious thoughts and profession of the wisest men of all Ages Heaven and Hell are become words of sport and Devils and Angels Fairyes and Chimaera's 'T is Foppish to speak of Religion but in Railery or to mention such a thing as Scripture except it be to burlesque and deride it 'T is dreadful to consider and a man may tremble to describe this monstrous humour of many in our Age which I believe hath out-done all former in the heights of this amazing sort of wickedness and sadly proves that in the last days shall come Scoffers and such as have not been from the beginning For though former Ages no doubt have had deriders of Religion yet in those times they hid their heads and did it covertly behind the curtain in their privacies and among their Confidents But in these they face the Sun and impudently vent their folly in all companies and places as if it were a matter of renown and glory and they expected to be counted Hero's for it Thus we see what sort of Scoffers they are that are to come in the last days impudent deriders of Religion because they are resolved on walking after their own Lusts I come II. To shew the malignity and aggravations of this humour 1. 'T is an open defiance of God and a direct opposition of his Glory His glory namely the derivative consists in those praises and acknowledgements that are due to his perfections and those are paid in the exercises of Religion so that to buffoon this is to shoot the arrows of our scorn directly at the Throne of God Indeed all sins are oppositions of him and of his Glory but in most they are so in the consequence of the sin not in the intention of the sinner The Drunkard the Oppressor and the unclean person design only their own satisfactions not any immediate affront to their Maker But the Scoffer with prodigious impudence doth that He derides the love and obedience fear and