unto the Lord ver 6. Next he Plagued them with a Drowth that second part of Famine Their Sins had made the Heavens Brass and the Earth Iron So that two or three Cities were fain to wander into one and all to drink a little water But yet for all this they would not Return unto the Lord ver 8. After this he proceeded to pour out a Curse upon all their fruits The fruits of their Gardens and of their Vineyards which were suddainly blasted and devour'd partly by the Mildew and partly by the Palmer-worm And this we know was a third part of Famin But notwithstanding all this They would not return unto the Lord ver 9. Hereupon his Indignation waxt hot against them For seeing the Gastly Pale Horse had been so utterly unsuccesful He sent the Red Horse amongst them and that in both parts of the dreadful Hieroglyphick I mean the War and the Pestilence And yet for all this They would not return unto the Lord ver 10. In the Fifth place therefore when neither any of these Judgments nor altogether could do the work what remained but that the Earth should open her Mouth and swallow them up or that a Fire sent from Heaven should send them hastily into Hell And even of This they had a Tast as appears by the verse before my Text God overthrowing some of them as he had Sodom and Gomorrah and the Rest were but respited after the manner of a Fire-brand pluckt out of the Burning And yet in despight of all This They would not return unto the Lord ver 11. Sixtly and lastly when so many Prelusorie Iudgments were in effect cast away on a stubborn People when all those Emisaries and Heraulds were sent in vain when Death it self could not fright them however usher'd and waited on with so grim and formidable a Train what could in reason be expected but such an Absolute 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such a complete Devastation of Them and Theirs as should not leave so much as a Praeco no not so much as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to carry the Tidings of their Ruin to late Posterity And even This is also Threatned in the words of my Text Ideo Tibi sic faciam Therefore thus will I do unto thee ô Israel § 2. And as Thus unto Israel so why not Thus unto England too if we continue as they did to corrupt our selves with his Goodness to us If we make no better Use of our Peace and Plenty and the other effects of a Restauration than to turn our Peace into Wantonness and our Plenty into Luxury our Liberty into Licentiousness and our Strength into Presumption our Power into Oppression and our Dignities into Pride Nay in as much as the Dimensions of our Ingratitude like the Highth and Depth of our Obligations are far beyond those of the People Israel God will not only do Thus unto us but more to Us than unto Israel unless we timely prepare to meet him and present him with the Fruits of sincere Repentance which we have nothing to excuse us when God hath don so much to us to make us fruitful if we do not bring forth in the greatest plenty 'T is true we have often gon out to meet him But not with Prayers and Tears the only Armour of a Christian whereby to hold out against Omnipotence and the only Weapons to overcome it We have rather gon out to meet him as we commonly meet a Just Enemy Not to ask him forgiveness but give him Battle We have gon out to meet Christ not like Them on Palm Sunday who ran before him into Ierusalem with Doxologies and Hosannahs to the Son of David But rather like his first Crucifyers with Swords and Staves to apprehend him And how improsperous soever we have hitherto been in our Encounters Though God hath many years knockt us against each other and so oppos'd us unto our selves as that we really became no less his Host than his Enemies yet like Marcellus in the Historian Certamen ferociter instauramus we are as sturdy a sort of Sinners many of us as if we never yet had smarted for having sin'd It was Phormio's saying in Thucydides That conquer'd men are commonly Crest-fallen and do remit of their courage against a second Encounter as soon as they have fatally incur'd the first And shall we on the contrary be such a besotted kind of Warriars as like the Indians in Valerius even in spight of Pythagoras his Golden Symbol to dare Encounter with Fire it self For to those that fight with him we know our God is a Consuming fire Heb. 12. 29. And since there is hardly any Affliction no not our late immoderate Rain but is a spark of Gods wrath Let us not by our Impenitence presume to heighten it into a Flame But § 3. Let it rather be our wisdom from this day forewards Venienti occurrere non jam morbo quidem sed Medico Since our Indeavours will come too late for the prevention of the Disease Let us go meet our Physician and stay the sharpness of the means he is preparing for our Recovery We know not what Judgments may yet be hovering over our Heads and perhaps our very Harvest may be as Terrible as our Spring God will not give over the Cure till the Disease is Desperate For though his lesser sort of Punishments did scarce incline the Heart of Pharaoh his last orecame it so far at least as to compel him to let the People go free And if his Launce is unsuccesful we shall be so much the surer to feel his Caustick But yet behold the Sun of Righteousness breaking forth in this place like the Sun of Nature There is not wanting matter of comfort in the midst of those Terrors which have besieg'd us Because the sharpest Judgments here are but the Regia Medicamenta or Magisterials of our Physician which though by accident they may kill are yet intended only to cure us And this does lead me to consider the Third Particular in the Division That God is far from delighting in his Inflictions He does not afflict willingly nor grieve the Children of men For the first and chiefest end both of his Menaces and his stripes is not to destroy the sinner but the sin not to slay but to reduce the Fugitive § 1. Amongst the Reasons which may be render'd to prove the Truth of this Doctrine This may certainly pass for one That God is never so much in Wrath as when he will not vouchsafe to strike I remember Spartianus observes of Geta much what Tacitus of Tiberius Quod iis praecipue blandiretur quos ad Necem destinabat He made so much of those persons whom he design'd for slaughter That his Embraces and his best looks became more dreadful than all his Frowns And though 't were Impiety but to imagine what some notwithstanding have dar'd to Preach that God can absolutely will the eternal Ruin of his Creatures much
the Divinity of the Apostle to which his Art is but the Handmaid and made to serve Here is a seasonable Advertisment and a most useful Inference And each of these is twofold exactly looking one on another even as face answers face in a perfect Mirroir Observe how the later is strongly inforc'd out of the former Since the night of our sufferings is now far spent what have we to do with the night of sin And since the day of our deliverance is hard at hand what should we do but walk honestly as in the day The night of Errour and Disorder is now well over Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness The day of Mercy and Restauration begins to dawn Let us therefore put on the armour of light Let us walk in the light as becomes children of the light Let our light so shine before God and men that Men may see our good works and God reward them That men may see our good works and glorify God in this present world that God may see our good works and glorify Us in the world to come Thus we see S. Pauls Divinity and way of Teaching It is indeed a whole Body of his practical Divinity however summ'd up in so small a System For the whole Duty of a Christian do's consist in two things first by way of privation in casting off the works of Darkness in denying ungodliness and worldly lusts next by way of Acquisition in putting on the armour of light living soberly righteously and godly in this present world Tit. 2. 12. For so the Apostle explains himself in the two verses after my Text Let us walk honestly as in the Day And how must that be first he tells us in the Negative Not in rioting and drunkenness not in chambering and wantonness not in strife and envying not in any of those things which were yesterday forbid by his Majesties excellent Proclamation for these are some of the works of darkness the very worst use that men can make of a Deliverance next he tells us in the Affirmative It must be by putting on the Lord Iesus Christ By sticking close to his Precepts and taking a copy from his example by having a fellowship with his death and a conformity to his sufferings For this is here meant by the Armour of Light And each of these is improved by three main circumstances First by the union of the one with the other they are not set with a disjunctive that we may take which we please Let us cast off Or let us put on as if the one would serve turn without the other But tied together with a copulative Let us cast off And let us put on neither of them must go alone We stand obliged to do them both by indispensable necessity nor must we vainly flatter our selves that Salvation is to be had upon easier terms Secondly by the inforcement of both together from the seasonable conjuncture of our affairs For Because the Night is far spent we must divest our selves of darkness And Because the Day is at hand we must apparel our selves with light Thirdly by the order in which these duties are to be done We must not put on the Armour Before we cast off the Works But cease from dishonesty in the first place and talk of godliness in the second For a godly Knave is a contradiction in Adjecto The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath the Precedency we must begin with casting off whatever is contrary to virtue And then comes in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we must proceed to the putting on whatever is opposite to vice We must not hope to serve two Masters which our Saviour tells us is impossible and which yet hath been the project of some years past erecting a Church for the one and also a Chappel for the other But first of all we must abhor and forsake our Mammon that so we may rationally endeavour to cleave with stedfastness unto God Thus ye see how the Text is ravell'd out into Particulars And were I not really somewhat afraid to spend too much of my time in a meer Division I would presently wind up all into three great Bottoms Whereof the first would provide against Hypocrisie the second against Indifferency the third against fainting as also against Procrastination And when Provision shall have been made for these four things not only Zeal and Sincerity but also dispatch in our amendment and perseverance unto the end I know not what can be wanting either to satisfie the Text or to Edifie the Souls of a Congregation But before I come to handle the useful Inference of the Apostle which to do will be the business of more than one or two Sermons the time does prompt me to make Advantage of his most seasonable Advertisment out of which he does fitly deduce his Inference So opportune is the Advertisment as well to these as those Times that I may say in the very language though not in the very sense of our Blesâ—ed Saviour This day is this Scripture fulfilled in our Ears For We have had both our Iews and our Gnosticks too and are in the highest degree of hope to be rid of Both. Not I hope by their destruction like that alluded to in my Text but by their happy conversion and union with us For mutual love as well as loyalty is the thing that this Chapter does chiefly aim at It presseth earnestly for loyalty from the first verse unto the eighth And as earnestly for love from the eighth verse unto the end By unavoidable implication it presseth for love throughout the whole but most expresly and on purpose in no less than four verses to wit the eight the ninth the tenth and the thirteenth We must not Insult over our Enemies though we ought to give thanks for their disappointment The noblest benefit of a Conquest is the opportunity to oblige Rejoyce not saith Solomon when thine enemy falleth nor let thine heart be glad when he stumbleth lest the Lord see it and it displease him and he turn away his wrath from him Prov. 24. 17. From whence it is obvious to collect That to Insult over our Enemies may do Them good but all that We can get by it is God's displeasure The greatest care is to be taken in the present dawning of our day that it be not overcast with an utter darkness We have already had a long and a tedious night though not so long as the Apostles by twenty years a Night of sorrow and oppression a Night of disorder and confusion a Night of ignorance and errour a Night of errour in judgment and practice too To summe up all we have been seiz'd with a night of suffering which we had drawn over our selves by a night of sin It is so far from my purpose to make or widen the wounds of any that you will see before we part I do intend nothing but Healing But I must make an application as
let none of us go without his share of Voluptuousness for this is our portion our lot is this I say he does not thus reason like the swaggerers and Hectors in the second Chapter of Wisdom and in the sixt of the Prophet Amos but on the contrary That the serious consideration of an approaching deliverance should be a double enforcement to change of life for such is evidently the force of the particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as that looks back on the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Because the Night is far spent and because the Day is at hand 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let us therefore cast off those works of darkness and let us therefore put on the Armour of light Which is as if he should have said At this very Time and for this very Reason let us live better lives than we did before let us buckle up close to our Christian duties The Reformation of our manners will be the properest Answer to such a Blessing Such also was the Reasoning which Moses us'd to the People Israel Did ever people hear the voice of God as thou hast heard and live Deut. 4. 33. Thou shalt keep therefore his statutes that it may go well with thee v. 40. so again Deut. 8. 6 7. The Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good Land Therefore thou shalt keep the Commandments of the Lord. Such was the Reasoning also of Zacharie in his Divine Benedictus That the use we are to make of being saved from our enemies and from the hand of all that hate us is to serve the Authour of our deliverance in holiness and righteousness all the dayes of our life What now remains but that we go and do likewise Not arguing thus from our late great changes Because the Night of our Sufferings is well nigh spent and the Day of Restitution is hard at hand let us therefore put from us the evil day and cause the seat of violence to come neer for now it comes to our Turn to oppress the poor and to crush the helpless and to call our strength the Law of Iustice let us never so much as think of the afflictions of Ioseph Let our Joy run out into Debaucherie and surfet into the braveries of vanity and the Injoyments of our lust or at the best let us express it by the making of Bonfires and Ringing of Bells by solemn drinking of Healths and casting Hats into the Air whereby to make the World see that we are glad rather than thankful But let us manifest on the contrary and let us do it by demonstration that we are piously thankful as well as glad Because the Day of good things breaks in upon us Let us Therefore offer to God thanksgiving and pay our vowes unto the Lord. Our Vowes of Allegiance and Supremacy Our Vows to assert and maintain our Charters Our Vows to live according to Law and obey the Canons of the Church But above all let us pay him our Vow in Baptism by forsaking the VVorld before we leave it by subduing the Flesh unto the Spirit by resisting the Devil untill he flyes That whilst God is making all new without us we may not suffer our Hearts within us to be the only things remaining old But rather on the contrary that we may prove we are in Christ by that demonstrative argument of our becoming new creatures which until we do become we cannot possibly be in Christ 2 Cor. 5. 17. Do the two Twin Blessings of Peace and Plenty which have been for many years at so low an ebb begin to flow in upon us from every quarter Then let not our Souls be carried away with the pleasant violence of the Tide Let not any Man seekgreat things for himself but rather study to deserve then to injoy them Make no provision for the Flesh whereby to fulfil the lusts thereof but put ye on the Lord Iesus Christ and Adorn his Doctrine by a conformity to his Life Put on his Modesty and his Temperance in a perfect opposition to Rioting and Drunkenness put on his Chastity and his Pureness in opposition to Chambering and Wantonness put on his Bowels and his Mercy in opposition to Strife and Envy Ye know 〈◊〉 I told you in the beginning that Loyalty and Love are the two grand duties at which this Chapter does chiefly drive And having been instant for the first in the former part of my discourse I think it a duty incumbent on me to be as urgent for the second For Love is part of that Armour my Text commandeth us to put on Nay considering that Love is the fulfilling of the Law in the next verse but one before my Text the armour of Light may be said to be the armour of Love too Love must needs be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the whole armour of God in as much as it comprehendeth the fulfilling of the Law As one Scripture tells us that God is Light so another also tells us that God is Love and therefore the children of light must be children of love too Then let the same mind be in us which was in Christ Iesus who when he suffered threatned not but committed his cause to God who judgeth righteously And let us prove this mind is in us by our forbearing one another forgiving one another Even as God for Christs sake hath forgiven us As we are stones of that Temple in which the Head of the Corner is Christ himself He meant his Blood should be the Cement to fastenâ— every one of us to one another and altogether unto himself And since we see that Disloyalty is taking its leave throughout the Land le ts rather shut the Door after it by Love and Unity then by Breaches and Divisions open â—way for its Return Let us effectually make it appear by the modest use of our Injoyments Pacem Bello quaesitam esse That we fought onely for Peace and contended only for Union that the end of our strife was our Agreement that we aim'd at Truth rather than Victory or rather at the Victory of Truth and Righteousness Let our generous deportment become an evidence that as the greatest of our Calamities could not bow down our heads so the greatest of our Injoyments cannot trip up our heels That as our Crosses could not deprive us of Hope and Comfort so the Tide of our Prosperity shall but Illustrate our Moderation But above all let us distinguish betwixt our weak aud our wilful Brethren Of some Saint Iude saith we must have compassion making a difference But others he saith we must save with fear pulling them out of the fire That is we must save them even by making them afraid Must shew them the Terrors of the Lord and fright them out of the way to Hell We must in any wise rebuke them and must not suffer sinne upon them It is a Rule amongst Musicians that if a string be but True 't
and thank him for it by thy obedience Let thy gratitude be seen in thy conversation Be sure to love him and to serve him ' with all thy heart and with all thy soul. Forget him if thou canst unless thou canst forget thou wert Pharaob's Bondman Nay forget him if thou dar'st unless thou art so stout that thou dar'st be damn'd And yet beware lest thou forget him whilst thou art swimming in prosperity the stream of which may either drown thee or make thee drunk if thou are not fore-Armed with circumspection And therefore Beware that thou forget not the Lord that brought thee out of Egypt And that thou mayest not forget him write the Favours which he hath don thee upon the posts of thine house and place them as Frontlets between thine eyes tell them out unto thy children as thou walkest by the way both at thy lying down and thy rising up Let them be as a Signet upon thine Arme and as a Seal upon thine heart That the pleasures of thy Deliverance may not make thee forgetful of thy Deliverer forgetful of the Rock out of which thou wert hewn and kicking like Iesurun at him that made thee keep an Anniversary Feast a standing Passeover in May whereby to fix him in thy Remembrance Lastly a Duty so indispensable should be inforc'd upon the Soul by the present season A season of Peace and Prosperity succeeding a season of Persecution The greatest Incitement to the Duty should be the manifold Injoyment of this Deliverance For so 't is obvious to infer from the particle THEN so strongly implyed in the Hebrew that in the English 't is well express'd upon which there seems to lie the chiefest emphasis of the Text if we observe how it stands in a double Relation to the Context When the Lord thy God shall have brought thee into the Land to give thee great and goodly Cities and houses full of all good things when thou shalt have eaten and be full THEN beware that thou forget not the Lord that brought thee out of Egypt The Text is so fruitful of particulars and each particular is so apt to administer matter of Discourse that it hath been my hardest Question whereabouts I should begin and how I should end my meditations And after too much time lost in stating the Question within my self I have thought it at once the fittest and the most useful to be resolv'd as most immediately complying with the solemnity of the Time not to yield to the temptation of comparing our Land with the Land of Egypt for fear of seeming to have a pique at the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion otherwise 't were easie to make a Parallel because however our Native Country yet for twelve years together it was a very strange Land But not advancing one step beyond the Threshold to bestow my whole time upon the little word THEN as being a particle of connexion betwixt our Duty and our Deliveraâ—ce betwixt the Business of the Time and the Time it self betwixt the Occasion and the End of our present meeting looking like Homer's wise man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with a visible prospect on all that follows and with as visible a retrospect upon the words going before When Prosperity breaks in like a mighty stream in so much that I may say with our blessed Saviour This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears Then beware that ye forget not the Lord that brought you out of Egypt Beware ye forget him not at any time but especially at This. For the particle Then is an Important monosyllable and that especially in three respects First because of the Difficulty of having God in our Remembrance much more Then than at other times Next for the Dignity of the Duty rather Then than before or after Lastly by reason of the Danger of not performing the Duty Then when it becomes incumbent on us by many unspeakable obligations These especially are the Reasons of the particle Then in this place on which alone I shall insist in this Mornings Service For should I adventure upon the rest not only the hour but for ought I can conjecture the day would fail me AND first of all let us beware amidst the Effects of our Deliverance that we forget not the Author of it because it is difficulter THEN than at other times For the Flattery and Dalliance of the world hath perpetually been the Mother of so much Wantonness or Pride that Adam found it dangerous to be in Paradise yea and Lucifer to be in Heaven Do but look upon Solomon in the Book of Kings and again look upon him in his Ecclesiastes How was he there liâ—ted up by his Prosperity and how does he here Preach it down I know not whether as a Prince he more inioy'd his Pleasures or as a Prophet more condemn'd them Whether the luxury of his Table made him a Wanton or whether the vastness of his Wisdom made him a Fool 'T was That betray'd him to his Concubines and This permitted him to his Idols Since then a prosperous condition hath such a secret poyson in it as against which no Medicine hath been sufficiently Alexipharmacal and from the force of whose contagion there is no sort of men that hath been priviledg'd no not Adam the Innocent nor Solomon the Wise nor even Lucifer the beatified who were so hugely swell'd up with this Venom and so quickly burst not the first in a state of sinlesness nor the next in a state of grace nor yet the third in a state of glory since there is no other man than the man Christ Iesus that hath been ever temptation proof Lord how wretched a thing is happiness on this side Heaven and how dangerously treacherous are our Injoyments I suppose we are taught by our late experience how easie it is to be over-joy'd and how equally hard to be truly thankful for all those wonders of salvation which God hath wrought and is working for us the grateful commemorating of which is religiously the end of our present meeting Sweet-meats indeed are pleasant but then they commonly turn to choler 'T is sure the state of Humiliation which though we can worst feed upon we are notwithstanding best nourisht with we are such barren pieces of clay that our fruits will be wither'd with too much laughter if Grace does not water them sometimes with tears It should be matter of real gladness to a considering Christian that in the midst of his prosperity he can see himself sorrowful that as he was destitute with comfort so he abounds with moderation and that he does not live rejoycingly is many times a chief reason for which he ought It was David's resolution at such a time as this is to serve the Lord with fear and by a pious Oxymoron to rejoyce unto him with trembling And if we reflect on the abuses which many have made of a Restauration we may charitably pray that God will
that he may not consume How he mercifully indeavours to whip the Sinner into a Saint destroying the Beast in us to save the Man How his Wisdom does sometimes suffer us to be intangl'd with Temptations that so his Goodness may deliver us and help us out And that we may be able to say with David Thou ô Lord of very faithfulness hast caused us to be troubled That many times his severities are Mercies to us will be intelligible to any who shall but consult their own experience I mean the experience of their lesser in prevention of greater Punishments As the loss of some Chattels to save a Limb or the loss of a Limb to preserve the whole Body or the loss of that Body to save the Soul Now if God shall deprive us of one or two Parts of all we Have or of all we Are when All of Both are confiscate for our Treasons committed against his Majesty shall we not think our selves bound to be glad and thankful that even so he hath been pleas'd to reprieve the rest Admit a Friend should be falling from off a Tower and we in the snatching of him back should put his Arme out of joynt would he impute his Deliverance to our unkindness because it cost him some pain in the purchase of it And if in our violent Career of Sin when we are rushing as it were headlong into the bottomless Pit of Hell God is pleas'd to pull us back with a stronger violence be it by Poverty or Disgrace by the Plague of Pestilence or of Famine be it by any other purgent or dreadful means yet let us thankfully consider 't is but to snatch us from a Precipice And again let us consider with as much thankfulness unto God as our hearts can hold That if Amendment is the End of his Threats and Terrors Then that which frustrates his Threats must needs fulfil them Which I proceed to shew at large in my last Doctrinal Proposition That God desiring antecedently the timely Repentance of a Sinner and only by way of consecution the final destruction of the Impenitent 't is plain his Menaces are fulfilled by their never coming to pass most fully satisfied and accomplish'd not when they confound but convert a sinner § 1. For the better Elucidation of what may seem a dark Point and for the prevention of such objections as may be made by those men who are either so unconsidering as not to think of Gods Methods or so unlearned as not to know them or so prophane as to murmur and quarrel at them we shall do well to take notice of those two sorts of Menaces which do occur to us in Scripture under two several Notions Some we find under God's Oath and others only under his Word The first of which are positive the second suppositive The former are purposed as Revenges but the later only as Remedies The Menaces under his Oath he does evermore execute whereas Those under his Word only He does many times Retract § 2. But now it being not consistent with the simplicity of the Almighty that either his Oath or his Retractation should differ really from his Will the Eighth Council of Toledo will give us the Ground of this Distinction Iurare Dei est à seipso ordinata nullatenus convellere Poenitere vero eadem ordinata cum voluerit immutare When God will Execute his Sentence he is then said to Swear And when he will alter or remit it he is said to Repent God's Repentance saith Tertullian is nothing else but a simple Resuming his former Purpose And his Oath saith learned Philo is nothing else but his Word exerting it self into Effect So that the Promises and the Threats which are deliver'd under his Oath are That indeed which was but said of the now Antiquated Laws of the Medes and Persians Irreversible and peremptorie and incapable of a Repeal I shall make them both plain by a few Scriptural Examples And § 3. First of the Promises under his Oath the Prophet David gives us an Instance in the 89 Psalm at the 34 verse where first he positively pronounceth My Covenant will I not break nor alter the thing that is gon out of my lips And then the reason of it follows I have sworn by my Holiness that I will not fail David Another Instance of it we have in the 7. of Deuteronomy at the 8. verse where God is said to love Israel more than any other Nation even for this very reason and this alone because he would make good the Oath which he had sworn unto their Fathers Secondly of the Threats which God delivers under his Oath we have a very pregnant Instance in the 95 Psalm at the 11 verse where speaking of the Israelites to whom the Holy Land was promis'd saith He I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my Rest. Nor did one of them enter excepting Caleb and Ioshua who were exempted from the Sentence Num. 14. 30. Nay they did not enter in though God had sworn they should enter From whence ariseth an objection How it can stand with God's Veracity to Swear they shall and they shall not For Num. 14 23 Surely saith God they shall not see the Land which I sware unto their Fathers And vers 30. Doubtless ye shall not come into the Land concerning which I sware to make you dwell therein First he swore they should inhabit in the Land and yet afterwards He swore they should not see it much less should they enter or dwell within it This objection seems hard but yet the Answer is very easie and may be rationally drawn from the same verse with the objection For the Promise was not made to the Individuals but to the Nation not to the Persons but People Israel So as both these Oaths were most inviolately accomplished the Negative in the Parents and the Affirmative in their Posterity The Negative in the Provokers and the Affirmative in the Obedient So that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does still stand good The Oath of God does still imply the Immutability of his Decree Heb. 6. 17. § 4. But for the Menaces under his Word only the Case is different He had much rather they should be frustrated than severely fulfil'd upon us And perhaps I may say with more propriety of speaking that to frustrate such Menaces is most perfectly to fulfil them So very signal is the Indulgence and Love of God that he will imitate and follow his very Creatures For no sooner can it Repent us of the evil of Sin which we have don but He as suddenly repents him of the evil of punishment which he intended It is his own Affirmation Ier. 18. 8. If that Nation against whom I have pronounced turn from their evil I will repent of the evil which I thought to do unto them And again in the same Chapter Behold saith God I frame evil against you when
Father to hate the Romans That they suffer them not to lisp in the Language of Egypt but as Children put to Nurse in the Land of Goshen make them Suck in good manners as soon as Milk That they permit them not to enter within the Breath of the Prophane from whose unâ—avory communication like the New-landed Spaniard they can many times Swear when they cannot speak That they put so fit a difference betwixt themselves and Brute-Beasts as to become unto their children not only carnal but spiritual Parents and so beget them to God by a second Birth as not to afford them any reason to Curse their first This is the Use we are to make of our first Consideration the Mother's seasoning of her Babe not at Nazareth but Ierusalem § 5. Secondly let us consider That as of all the Iewish off-spring not the Females but the Males were to be offer'd unto the Lord as it were intimating unto us that They alone may expect to be admitted into God's Presence who Captivate the Lusts of the effeminate Flesh by the masculine power of a controuling spirit so of all the Males too none but the best or the first-born were set a part for God's Portion For when I say the first-born I mean the Might of the Parents and the beginning of their strength the excellency of Dignity and the excellency of Power as Iacob said of his Eldest Son Reuben They were not then like the Parents of our last and worst Times who when their children are Blind or Crooked or in a word nothing worth do fly for refuge to the Temple and make them Deodates God is little beholding to such a Parent who when his Son is too dull for either the Shop or the Exchange does straight present him unto the Lord by devoting him to serve in his dreadful House and as a Minister to wait at his holy Table Does give him over to the Pulpit because too old for the Grammar School And if he cannot Write or Read does therefore teach him to Pray extempore As if to the office of a Workman who needeth not to be asham'd there were nothing required but lungs and Impudence From the beginning I am sure it was not so For Kings and Princes in time of Yore were thought most proper to be the Priests And when the Priesthood was Entail'd on the Tribe of Levi it was by way of Prerogative and in reward of a special Service The Best by Pedegree by Sex by Primogeniture They that were every way the Best and the Choisest Persons were set apart in the Beginning for the peculiar Service of the most High § 6. From whence 't is obvious to infer That as of the fruit of a man's Body so by consequence of the Fruit of his Labour too of the fruit of his Substance and of the fruit of his Soul of every thing that he calls His He is not to offer up to God but the best and choisest We must not sacrifice to Pleasure with the strength and Beauty of our Age and think that God will be content with a noysome Carkass like the false Votary in the Apologue who vow'd to consecrate unto Iupiter Half of the All that he went to find and presently finding a Bagg of Nuts made no doubt but he should bravely perform his Vow by giving the shells unto his God and taking the Kernels unto Himself This were at best to forsake the world because the world forsakes Us And only to keep our Baptismal Vow because we know not any longer which way to break it Will God accept of our Presenting our selves unto him not as Christ on this Day when newly come into the world But as the Clinicks of old at our going out Will he accept of our coming when we come to him but in a Fright not of choise but necessity not at all as to our best but rather as to our last and our only Refuge Will he receive us when we shall choose him as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not as the greatest Good Thing but the lesser Evil not as better and more desirable than the Injoyments of the Earth but as preferrable at least to the Pains of Hell It cannot possibly be our vertue to be forsaken of our Sins or rather bereaved of our strength whereby to be vigorously Sinfull and without which we can no longer be sturdy Sinners So again in proportion to this Discourse 'T is not enought that we present him with the Labour of our Lipps and that a little towards Night to make our Time the more supportable which is to make our better Actions a meer Divertisement to our worse But we must Sacrifice to our God the very best of our Day which is our Morning the very best of our Years which is our Youth the very best of our Body which is our Heart the very best of our Being which is our Soul Our Body must be the Temple our Heart the Altar our Sincerity the Priest our Devotion the Fire our blessed Saviour must be the God and our Soul the Sacrifice § 7. But then withal like a sacrifice it must be pure and unpolluted pure as the Virgin who was this Day Purified And unpolluted as the Babe who was presented this day in the holy Place And yet because we cannot other wayes be purified as the Virgin much less perfect as the Babe who yet hath commanded us to be perfect even as our Father in Heaven is perfect Mat. 5. ult and to purifie our selves as Himself is pure 1 Joh. 3. 3. Because I say we cannot otherwise be pure and perfect Let us do like the Virgin as well this day as from this day forwards Take the Babe into our Hearts as she now did into her Armes And so together with our Saviour present our selves unto the Lord. For as the Man that was condemn'd by the Roman Senate procured Love as well as Pardon by representing the Scars in his naked Bosome which were the Monuments of his Sufferings for the honour and Service of his Country so to obtein at once our Pardon and Acceptance also at Gods Tribunal not only Pardon of our Sins but Acceptance of our Persons we must recount the many sufferings of our Elder Brother in our behalf pleading the Scars and the Bloodshed sustein'd by the Captain of our Salvation To such objections as may be made by an Injur'd Iustice we must present an injur'd Iesus as our only Answer and Apologie To every Arrow levell'd at us by God's Displeasure we have but Christ and Him Crucified for our Shield or Helmet to intercept it Though with our Prayers and our Tears our only warrantable Weapons we humbly venture to contend with the Lord of Hosts hoping the Pungency of our sorrow will make him yield yield I mean to his own Resentment yet may we not hope to prevaile upon him unless we stand behind Christ and as the Virgin this Day hold him up as our Buckler our only Armour
Dispute down the Errors and live down the Vices and undeifie the Gods of the Heathen world That they should conquer without a force and irresistibly winn the most peevish Natures not only to part with their oldest Customs and Religions But to exchange them for a Beleif that He was a Saviour who had been crucified and He Immortal who had dyed and He a God who had suffer'd and He an Innocent who had suffer'd between the Vilest Malefactors Nay farther yet that they should throughly convince the richest and the proudest and the most sensual sort of men that even the Yoak of Christ was pleasant his Burden strengthing and to be hang'd upon the Crosse a Degree of Honour That their Enemies were to be lov'd and Themselves hated That * Poverty Disgrace and Death itselfe were not only the Lot and Portion but the Desirables and Pleasures of the very bestmen I say that this should be brought about by Twelve of the plainest Country-People four whereof were clearly Fishermen and one a Publican and the rest in all appearance no whit better than their Mates every one a Galilean and so contemptible for his Country as well as for his Calling shew's convincingly to the world however ignorant or obdurate that by how much the baser the meanes were by so much the greater was the miracle The great Deformity of the Instruments was a Foyle unto the Agent This very stumbling Block had a Vertue whereby to keep men from falling If our modern Lay-Preachers who do pretend to Inspiration could shew but one of of those many Apostolical Gifts and make us see their new Light by letting us hear some new Tongues too I mean such Tongues as they never studied 'T were pity but Both our Universities should rise up to them in fear and Reverence And we should certainly be as ready to kisse their Feet as now we are to shake the Dust from off our own for a Testimony against them The Case with Them would be much the same that here it was with the new Apostles the very snare and the Scandal of whose Rusticity shew'd he Divinity of the Influx by which they acted Never did Omnipotence appear so glorious and Triumphant as then when it was perfected in so much weaknesse How did they thunder with their Doctrins and how did they lighten with their miracles How did they soften mens Hearts by promises as by gentle showers And how controul them by Threats as by mighty Winds You may see in this Chapter the Effects of all four of their miracles their Doctrins their Promises and their Threats The People marvell'd at the first v 7. They were Heart-struck at the Second v 37. They rejoyced at the third v 41. And fear came upon them at the fourth v 43. It could not be by a common power that Paul a Prisoner at the Barr was able to fright the grim Iudge who sat at Liberty on the Bentch when having reason'd to him a while concerning Temperance and Righteousness and Iudgement to come it presently follows that Faelix trembl'd Who though a very stout Heathen was yet but one and so not worthy to be nam'd whilst we are speaking of the Energie which God had put into the preaching of these Apostles For the Apostle St. Peter through the Conviction of the Spirit who open'd the Ears and the Hearts of men did convert at one Sermon three thousand Souls and five thousand at another § 6. Lord the different Effects of Preaching in those Times and These one Sermon was then sufficient for the Conversion of many Thousands But how well were it now if a Thousand Sermons might be effectual for the Conversion of any One when did you ever see an Auditorie so affected with a Sermon as not to be able to contein from crying out in a kind of extasie like the Disciples in this Chapter Men and Brethren what shall we do who goes now adayes to the Casuist for the searching and launcing and cleansing of a Conscience which even Gasp's for a little ease from the acute sense it hath of a Sinfull Plethorie Is it that in a Kingdom all the Consciences of men are so clear and calme Or that there are heardly any Consciences in a whole Kingdom to be troubled Is it because there are no scruples of tender Souls to be resolv'd Or rather because the Souls of men are seldome so tender as to be scrupl'd let them that commonly hear Sermons but are not pricked in their Hearts like the men in this Chapter who heard St. Peter be allow'd to be the Iudges as well as Partyes in the Case whether their Consciences are so clean as not to need being rub'd or else so callous as not to feel § 7. If we impartially consider that since the most of mens Devotion hath been thrust up into the Pulpit and that they have placed their publick worship not in their Hearts and Knees but in their Eares and Elbowes posting up and down from one Sermon to another and possibly too with as much Superstition as the Votaries of Rome to the several Reliques of their Saints thinking God is best serv'd when they goe farthest to a Sermon as the Pilgrims of Rome to an holy Sepulchre And giving accompt when they come home not of the Sermon but of the Man as if their haunting of the Church were not to learn but censure to take large Notes of his Look and Gesture not so much observing what as how he taught them perhaps offended with his memorie because too short perhaps with his Periods because too long perhaps they stumble at his Youth and then they say he does but prate perhaps at his Age and then they listen as to a Doatard If he is plain he preaches slovenly And if he is solid he preaches 〈◊〉 If he is not plain he is too Witty and if not solid he is too light If he is illiterate he is not fitt for so great a calling And if he is learned he is as little fitt for so plain a people Is the Sermon very excellent then he preaches Himselfe Or is it but ordinary they can read as good at home I say whoever shall but consider that since the Businesse of Religion has commonly been at this pass the Brains of men bave been busied but their Lives have not been better'd And the frequency of Preaching hath made more Preachers not more Christians than heretofore As he will find a prodigious Difference both in the Preaching and Hearing the word of God betwixt what it was when Christianity was in its Cradle And what it is at this Instant whilst it is going into its Grave So he will find the guilty Cause of so great a difference to be partly in Them that do Preach the Word and partly in Them that do hear it Preach't So far they are from being fill'd with the Holy Ghost that all the former do not speak with other Tongues nor do the later all hear