ridiculous distinctions by which they would make the case of the Primitive Christians in not resisting Authority so much different from theirs who have not only done it but in spight of Christianity have pleaded for it Either they said they wanted strength or courage or the countenance of the Senate or did not understand their own Liberty when all their obedience was only due to those precepts of the Gospel which make it so great a part of Christianity to be subject to Principalities and Powers and which the Teachers of the Gospel had particularly given them in charge to put the people in mind of And happy had it been for us if this Doctrine had been more sincerely preached and duly practised in this Nation for we should then never have seen those sad times which we can now no otherwiâ—e think of than of the devouring Fire and raging Pestilence i. e. of such dreadful judgments which we have smarted so much by that we heartily pray we may never feel them again For then fears and jealousies began our miseries and the curse so often denounced against Meroz fell upon the whole Nation When the Sons of Corah managed their own ambitious designs against Moses and Aaron the King and the Church under the same pretences of Religion and Liberty And when the pretence of Religion was broken into Schisms and Liberty into oppression of the people it pleased God out of his secret and unsearchable judgments to suffer the Sons of Violence to prevail against the Lord 's Anointed and then they would know no difference between his being conquered and guilty They could find no way to justifie their former wickedness but by adding more The consciousness of their own guilt and the fears of the punishment due to it made them unquiet and thoughtful as long as his life and presence did upbraid them with the one and made them fearful of the other And when they found the greatness and constancy of his mind the firmness of his piety the zeal he had for the true interest of the people would not suffer him to betray his Trust for the saving of his life they charge him with their own guilt and make him suffer because they had deserved to do it And as if it had not been enough to have abused the names of Religion and Liberty before they resolve to make the very name of Iustice to suffer together with their King by calling that infamous company who condemned their Soveraign A High Court of Iustice which trampled under foot the Laws both of God and men But lest the world should imagine they had any shame left in their sins they make the people witnesses of his Murther and pretend the Power of the People for doing that which they did detest and abhor Thus fell our Royal Martyr a sacrifice to the fury of unreasonable men who either were so blind as not to see his worth or rather so bad as to hate him for it And as God gave once to the people of the Iews a King in his Anger being provoked to it by their sins we have cause to say that upon the same account he took away one of the best of Kings from us in his wrath But blessed be that God who in the midst of judgment was pleased to remember mercy in the miraculous preservation and glorious restauration of our Gracious Sovereign let us have a care then of abusing the mercies of so great a deliverance to quite other ends than God intended it for lest he be provoked to say to us as he did of old to the Iews But if ye shall still do wickedly ye shall be consumed both ye and your King And if we look on this as a dreadful judgment let us endeavour to prevent it by a timely and sincere reformation of our lives and by our hearty supplications to God that he would preserve the person of our Soveraign from all the attempts of violence that he would so direct his counsels and prosper his affairs that His Government may be a long and publick Blessing to these Nations SERMON VIII Preached at Guild Hall Chappel JUNE 9 th 1671. Matthew XXI 43. Therefore say I unto you the Kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to a Nation bringing forth the fruits thereof THE time was now very near approaching wherein the Son of God was to suffer an accursed death by the hands of ungrateful men and to let them see that he laid no impossible command upon men when he bid them love their enemies he expresses the truest kindness himselâ— towards those who designed his destruction For what can be imagined greater towards such whose malice was like to end in nothing short of their own ruine than by representing to them the evils they must suffer to disswade them from that which they intended to do But if neither the sense of their future miseries nor their present sins will at all abate their fury or asswage their malice nothing is then lest for kindness to shew it self by but by lamenting their folly bemoaning their obstinacy and praying God to have pity upon them who have so little upon themselves And all these were very remarkable in the carriage of our Blessed Saviour towards his most implacable enemies he had taken care to instruct them by his doctrine to convince them by his miracles to oblige them by the first offers of the greatest mercy but all these things had no other effect upon them than to heighten their malice increase their rage and make them more impatient till they had destroyed him But their stupidity made him more sensible of their folly and their obstinacy stirred up his compassion towards them insomuch that the nearer he approached to his own sufferings the greater sense he expressed of theirs For he was no sooner come within view of that bloody City wherein he was within few days to suffer by as well as for the sins of men but his compassion breaks forth not only by his weeping over it but by that passionate expression which is abrupt only by the force of his grief If thou hadst known even thou at least in this thy day the things which belong unto thy peace but now they are hid from thine eyes And when he was within the City he could not mention the desolation which was to come upon it for all the righteous blood which had been spilt there but he presently subjoyns O Hierusalem Hierusalem thou that killest the Prophets and stonest them which are sent unto thee how often would I have gathered thy Childreâ— together as a Hen gathereth her Chickens under her wings and ye would not what words could more emphatically expresâ— the love and tenderness of Christ towards his greatest enemies than these do especially considering that he knew how busie they were in contriving his sufferings while he was so passionately lameâ—ting theirs And when their malice haâ— done its utmost upon
heartily wish it may never be said of us what the Orator once said of the Greeks Quibus jusjurandum jocus testimonium ludus they made it a matter of jest and drollery to forswear themselves and give false testimonies But supposing men keep within the bounds of justice and common honesty yet how unsatiable are the desires of men they are for adding house to house and land to land never contented with what either their Ancestors have left them or the bountiful hand of Heaven hath bestowed upon them Till at last it may be in the Prophets expression for their covetousness the stone cry out of the wall and the beam out of the timber answer it i. e. provoke God to give a severe check to the exorbitant and boundless desire of men as he hath done by this days calamity Thus while the City thought with Babylon to sit as a Lady for ever while she dwelt carelesly and said I am and there is none else beside me evil is come upon her and she knows not from whence it comes and mischief is â—allen upon her and she hath not been able to put it off and desolation is come upon her suddenly which she did not foresee 3. Contempt of God and his Laws That we read of v. 4. where the Prophet speaks by an Irony to them Come to Bethel and transgress c. he knew well enough they were resolved to do it let God or the Prophet say what they pleased For these Kine of Bashan were all â—or the Calves of Dan and Bethel and some think that is the reason of the title that is given them These great men of Samaria thought it beneath them to oâ—n Religion any further than it was subservient to their civil interests They were all of Ieroboams Religion who looked on it as a mear politick thing and sit to advance his own designs by I am afraid there are too many at this day who are secretly of his mind and think it a piece of wisdom to be so Blessed God that men should be so wise to deceive themselves and go down with so much discretion to Hell These are the grave and retired Atheists who though they secretly love not Religion yet their caution hinders them from talking much against it But there is a sort of men much more common than the other the faculties of whose minds are so thin and aiery that they will not bear the consideration of any thing much less of Religion these throw out their bitter scoâ—fs and prophane jests against it A thing never permitted that I know of in any civilized Nation in the world whatsoever their Religion was the reputation of Religion was always preserved sacred God himself saith Iosephus would not suffer the Iews to speak evil of other Gods though they were to destroy all those who tempted them to the worship of them And shall we suffer the most excellent and reasonable Religion in the world viz. the Christian to be prophaned by the unhallowed mouths of any who will venture to be damned to be accounted witty if their enquiries were deeper their reason stronger or their arguments more perswasive than of those who have made it their utmost care and business to search into these things they ought to be allowed a fair hearing buâ— for men who pretend to none of these things yet still to make Religion the object of their scoâ—fs and raillery doth not become the gravity of a Nation professing wisdom to permit it much less the sobriety of a people professing Christianity In the mean time such persons may know that wise men may be argued out of a Religion they own but none but Fools and madmen will be droll'd out of it Let them first try whether they can laugh men out of their Estates before they attempt to do it out of their hopes of an Eternal happiness And I am sure it will be no comfort to them in another world that they were accounted Wits for deriding those miseries which they then feel and smart under the severity of it will be no mitigation of their flames that they go laughing into them nor will they endure them the better because they would not believe them But while this is so prevailing a humour among the vain men of this Age and Nation what can we expect but that God should be remarkable and severe judgements seek to make men more serious in Religion or else make their hearts to ake and theâ—r joints to tremble as he did Belshazzars when he could find nothing else to carouse in but the Vessels of the Temple And when men said in the Prophet Zephany chap. 1.12 that God neither did good nor evil presently it follows therefore their goods shall become a booty and their houses a desolation the day of the Lord is near a day of wrath a day of trouble and distress a day of wastness and desolation as it is with us at this time Thus we see how sad the parallel hath been not only in the judgments of Isreal but in the sins likewise which have made those judgments so severe 4. The severity of the Judgment appears not only from the Causes but â—rom the Author of it I have overthrown some of you as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah God challenges the execution of his Justice to himself not only in the great day but in his judgment here in the world Shall there be evil in a City and the Lord hath not done it When God is pleased to punish men for their sins the excution of his justice is agreeable to his nature now as it will be at the end of the world We all know that he may do it if he please and he hath told us that he doth and will do it and we know withal that without such remarkable severities the world will hardly be kept in any awe of him We do not â—ind that love doth so much in the World as Fear doth there being so very few persons of tractable and ingenuous spirits It is true of too many what Lactantius obâ—erves of the Romans Nunquam Dei meminerunt nisi dum in malis sunt they seldom think of God but when they are afraid of him And there is not only this reason as to particular persons why God should punish them but there is a greater as to Communities and Bodies of men for although God suffers wicked men to escape punishment here as he often doth yet he is sure not to do it in the life to come but Communities of men can never be punished but in this World and therefore the Justice oâ— God doth often discover it self in these common calamities to keep the World in subjection to him and to let men see that neither the multitude of their Associates nor the depth of their Designs nor the subtilty of their Councils can secure them from the omnipotent arm of Divine Justice when he hath determined to visit their
but an Ordinance of God and they who do so shall in the mildest sense receive a severe punishment from him Let the pretences be never so popular the persons never so great and famous nay though they were of the great Council of the Nation yet we see God doth not abate of his severity upon any of these considerations This was the first formed sedition that we read of against Moses the people had been murmuring before but they wanted heads to manage them Now all things concur to a most dangerous Rebellion upon the most popular pretences of Religion and Liberty and now God takes the first opportunity of declaring his hatred of such actions that others might hear and fear and do no more so presumptuously This hath been the usual method of divine Judgments the first of the kind hath been most remarkably punished in this life that by it they may see how hateful such things are to God but if Men will venture upon them notwithstanding God doth not always punish them so much in this world though he sometimes doth but reserves them without repentance to his Justice in the world to come The first man that sinned was made an example of God's Justice The first world the first publick attempt against Heaven at Babel after the plantation of the world again the first Cities which were so generally corrupted after the flood the first breaker of the Sabbath after the Law the first oâ—â—erers with strange fire the first lookers into the Ark and here the first popular Rebellion and Usurpers of the office of Priesthood God doth hereby intend to preserve the honour of his Laws he gives men warning enough by ore exemplary punishment and if notwithstanding that they will commit the same sin they may thank themselves if they suffer for it if not in this life yet in that to come And that good effect this Judgment had upon that people that although the next day 14000 suffered for murmuring at the destruction of these men yet we do not find that any Rebellion was raised among them afterwards upon these popular pretences of Religion and the Power of the People While their Judges continued who were Kings without the state and title of Kings they were observed with reverence and obeyed with diligence When afterwards they desired a King with all the Pomp and Grandeur which other Nations had which Samuel acquaints them with viz. the Officers and Souldiers the large Revenues he must have though their King was disowned by God yet the people held firm in their obedience to him and David himself though anointed to be King persecuted by Saul and though he might have pleaded Necessity and Providence as much as any ever could when Saul was strangely delivered into his hands yet we see what an opinion he had of the person of a bad King The Lord forbid that I should do this thing against my Master the Lord 's Anointed to stretch forth my hand against him seeing he is the Anointed of the Lord. And lest we should think it was only his Modesty or his Policy which kept him from doing it he afterwards upon a like occasion declares it was only the sin of doing it which kept him from it For who can stretch forth his hand against the Lords Anointed and be guiltless Not as though David could not do it without the power of the Sanhedrin as it hath been pretended by the Sons of Corah in our age for he excepts none he never seizes upon him to carry him prisoner to be tryed by the Sanhedrin nor is there any foundation for any such power in the Sanhedrin over the persons of their Soveraigns It neither being contained in the grounds of its institution nor any precedent occurring in the whole story of the Bible which gives the least countenance to it Nay several passages of Scripture utterly overthrow it for how could Solomon have said Where the word of a King is there is power and who may say unto him what dost thou If by the constitution of their Government the Sanhedrin might have controlled him in what he said or did But have not several of the modern Iews said so Granting that some have yet so they have spoken many unreasonable and foolish things besides but yet none of these have said that it was in the power of the Sanhedrin to depose their Kings or put them to death all that they say is that in the cases expressed by the Law if the Kings do transgress the Sanhedrin had the power of inflicting the penalty of scourging which yet they deny to have had any infamy in it among them But did not David transgress the Law in his murder and adultery did not Solomon in the multitude of his wives and Idolatry yet where do we read that the Sanhedrin ever took cognizance of these things And the more ancient Iews do say That the King was not to be judged as is plain in the Text of the Misna however the Expositors have taken a liberty to contradict it but as far as we can find without any foundation of reason and R. Ieremiah in Nachmanides saith expresly That no creature may judge the King but the holy and blessed God alone But we have an Authority far greater than his viz. of David's in this case who after he hath denied that any man can stretch forth his hand against the Lord 's Anointed and be guiltless in the very next words he submits the judgment of him only to God himself saying As the Lord liveth the Lord shall smite him or his day shall come to die or he shall descend into battle and perish He thought it sufficient to leave the judgment of those things to God whose power over Princes he knew was enough if well considered by them to keep them in awe We have now dispatched the first consideration of the words of the Text as they relate to the fact of Corah and his company 2. We ought now to enquire whether the Christian Doctrine hath made any alteration in these things or whether that gives any greater encouragement to faction and sedition than the Law did when it is masked under a pretence of zeal for Religion and Liberty But it is so far from it that what God then declared to be displeasing to him by such remarkable judgments hath been now more fully manifested by frequent precepts and vehement exhortations by the most weighty arguments and the constant practice of the first and the best of Christians and by the black character which is set upon those who under a pretence of Christian Liberty did despise dominion and speak evil of dignities and follow Corah in his Rebellion however they may please themselves with greater light than former ages had in this matter they are said to be such for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever It would take up too much time to examine the frivolous evasions and
imploy their power in promoting a doctrine so contrary to their interest For Heaven and Hell cannot be more distant than the whole design of Christianity is from all the contrivances of wicked Spirits How soon was the Devil's Kingdom broken his Temples demolished his Oracles silenced himself baffled in his great design of deceiving mankind when Christianity prevailed in the world Having thus far asserted the truth of the thing viz. that there was such an effusion of the Holy Spirit we now come to consider 2. The nature of it as it is represented to us by Rivers of living waters flowing out of them that believe by which we may understand 1. The plenty of it called Rivers of waters 2. The benefit and usefulness of it to the Church 1. The plentifulness of this effusion of the Spirit there had been some drops as it were of this Spirit which had fallen upon some of the Jewish nation before but those were no more to be compared with these Rivers of waters than the waters of Siloam which run softly with the mighty River Euphrates What was the Spirit which Bezaleel had to build the Tabernacle with if compared with that Spirit which the Apostles were inspired with for building up the Church of God What was that Spirit of Wisdom which some were filled with to make garments for Aaron if compared with that Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation which led the Apostles into the knowledge of all Truth What was that Spirit of Courage which was given to the Iudges of old if compared with that Spirit which did convince the world of sin of righteousness and of judgment What was that Spirit of Moses which was communicated to the 70 Elders if compared with that Spirit of his Son which God hath shed abroad in the hearts of his people What was that Spirit of Prophesie which inspired some Prophets in several Ages with that pouring out of the Spirit upon all flesh which the Apostle tells us was accomplished on the day of Pentecost But these Rivers of Waters though they began their course at Ierusalem upon that day yet they soon overflowed the Christian Church in other parts of the world The sound of that rushing mighty Wind was soon heard in the most distant places and the fiery tongues inflamed the hearts of many who never saw them These gifts being propagated into other Churches and many other tongues were kindled from them as we see how much this gift of tongues obtained in the Church of Corinth And so in the History of the Acts of the Apostles we find after this day how the Holy Ghost fell upon them which believed and what mighty signs and wonders were done by them 2. The benefit and usefulness of this effusion of the Spirit like the Rivers of Waters that both refresh and enrich and thereby make glad the City of God The coming down of the Spirit was like the pouring water upon him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground Now God opened the Rivers in high places and fountains in the midst of the valleys that the poor and needy who seek water might be refreshed and they whose tongues failed for thirst might satisfie themselves with living waâ—er These are some of the loâ—ty expressions whereby the Courtly Prophet Isaiah sets sorth the great promise of the spirit none better befitting the mighty advantages the Church of God hath ever since enjoyed by the pouring out of the spirit than these For the fountain was opened in the Apostles but the streams of those Rivers of living water have run down to our Age not confined within the banks of Tiber nor mixing with the impure waters of it but preserved pure and unmixed in that sacred doctrine contained in the Holy Scripture Within those bounds we confine our faith and are not moved by the vain discourses of any who pretend to discover a new Fountain-head to these waters at Rome and would make it impossible for them to come down to us through any other Channel but theirs But supposing they had come to us through them have they thereby gotten the sole disposal of them that none shall tast but what and how much they please and must we needs drink down the filth and mud of their Channel too As long as they suffer us to do what Christ hath commanded us to do viz. to take of these waters of life freely we do our own duty and quarrel not with them But if they go about to stop the passage of them or adulterate them with some forrain mixture or strive with us as the Herdsmen of Gerar did with Isaac's Herdsmen saying the Water is ours then if the name of the Well be Esek if contentions do arise the blame is not ours we assert but our own just right against all their encroachments For as Isaac pleaded that he only digged again the wells of water which they had digged in the days of Abraham his Father and although the Philistins had stopped them after the death of Abraham yet that could be no hindrance to his right but he might open them again and call their names after the names by which his Father had called them So that is the substance of our Plea we pretend to nothing but to clear the passage which they have stopped up and was left free and open for us in the time of the Apostles and Fathers we desire not to be imposed upon by their later usurpations we plead for no more but that the Church of God may have the same purity and integrity which it had in the primitive times and that things may not only be called by the names by which the Fathers have called them but that they may be such as the Fathers have left them But otherwise let them boast never so much of the largeness of their Stream of the Antiquity of their Channel of the holiness of their Waters of the number of their Ports and the riches of their Trading nay and let them call their stream by the name of the Ocean too if they please yet we envy them not their Admah and Pharpar and all the Rivers of Damascus so we may sit down quietly by these living waters of Iordan We are contented with the miracles which the Apostles wrought without forging or believing new ones we are satisfied with the gift of strange tongues which they had we know no necessity now of speaking much less of praying in an unknown tongue we believe that Spirit infallible which inspired the Apostles in their holy Writings and those we acknowledge embrace and I hope are willing to die for But if any upstart Spirit pretend to sit in an infallible Chair we desire not to be brought under bondage to it till we see the same miracles wrought by vertue of it which were wrought by the Apostles to attest their infallibility 3. The last thing to be spoken to is the season that this effusion
hear them No arguments can be more proper to mankind than those which work upon their reason and consideration no motives can stir up more to the exercise of this than their own happiness and misery no happiness and misery can deserve to be so much considered as that which is eternal And this eternal state is that which above all other things the Christian Religion delivers with the greatest plainness confirms with the strongest evidence and enforces upon the consciences of men with the most powerful and perswasive Rhetorick I need not go beyond my text for the proof of this wherein we see that the Apostles design was to perswade men i.e. to convince their judgments to gain their affections to reform their lives that the argument they used for this end was no less than the terrour of the Lord not the frowns of the World nor the fear of Men nor the malice of Devils but the terrour of the Almighty whose Majesty makes even the Devils tremble whose Power is irresistible and whose Wrath is insupportable But it is not the terrour of the Lord in this world which he here speaks of although that be great enough to make us as miserable as we can be in this State but the terrour of the Lord which shall appear at the dreadful day of judgment of which he speaks in the verse before the text For we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad This is the terrour here meant which relates to our final and eternal State in another world when we must appear before the judgment-seat of Christ c. And of this he speaks not out of Poetical Fables ancient Traditions uncertain Conjectures or probable Arguments but from full assurance of the truth of what he delivers Knowing therefore the terrour of the Lord we perswade men In which words we shall consider these particulars 1. The argument which the Apostle makes choice of to perswade men which is the terrour of the Lord. 2. The great assurance he expresseth of the truth of it Knowing therefore the terrour of the Lord. 3. The efficacy of it in order to the convincing and reforming mankind Knowing therefore c. we perswade men 1. The argument the Apostle makes choice of to perswade men by viz. the terrour of the Lord. In the Gospel we find a mixture of the highest clemency and the greatest severity the richest mercy and the strictest justice the most glorious rewards and intollerable punishments accordingly we find God therein described as a tender Father and as a terrible Judge as a God of peace and as a God of vengeance as an everlasting happiness and a consuming fire and the Son of God as coming once with great humility and again with Majesty and great glory once with all the infirmities of humane nature and again with all the demonstrations of a Divine power and presence once as the Son of God to take away the sins of the world by his death and passion and again as Judge of the world with flaming fire to execute vengeance on all impenitent sinners The intermixing of these in the doctrine of the Gospel was necessary in order to the benefit of mankind by it that such whom the condescension of his first appearance could not oblige to leave off their sins the terrour of his second may astonish when they foresee the account that will be taken of their ingratitude and disobedience that such who are apt to despise the meanness of his birth the poverty of his life and the shame of his death may be filled with horrour and amazement when they consider the Majesty of his second coming in the clouds to execute judgment upon all and to convince all that are ungodly not only of their ungodly deeds but of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him And we shall easily see what great reason there is that this second coming of Christ to judgment should be called the terrour of the Lord if we consider 1. The terrour of the preparation for it 2. The terrour of the appearance in it 3. The terrour of the proceedings upon it 4. The terrour of the sentence which shall then be passed 1. The terrour of the preparation for it which is particularly described by St. Peter in these words But the day of the Lord will come as a Thief in the night in which the Heavens shall pass away with a great noise and the Elements shall melt with fervent heat the Earth also and the works that are therein shall be burnt up This day will come as a Thief in the night by way of surprise when it is not looked for and that makes it so much the more dreadful A lesser calamity coming suddenly doth astonish more than a far greater which hath been long expected for surprisals conâ—ound men's thoughts daunt their spirits and betray all the succours which reason offers But when the surprise shall be one of the least astonishing circumstances of the misery men fall into what unconceivable horrour will possess their minds at the apprehension of it what confusion and amazement may we imagine the soul of that man in whom our Saviour speaks of in his parable who being pleased with the fulness of his condition said to his soul Soul thou hast much goods laid up for many years take thine ease eat drink and be merry but God said to him Thou fool this night thy soul shall be repaired of thee then whose shall those things be that thou hast provided Had God only said This night shall thy barns be burnt and thy substance consumed to ashes which thou hast laid up for so many years that would have caused a strange consternation in him for the present but he might have comforted himself with the hopes of living and getting more But this night shall thy soul be required of thee O dreadful words O the tremblings of body the anguish of mind the pangs and convulsions of conscience which such a one is tormented with at the hearing of them What sad reflections doth he presently make upon his own folly And must all the mirth and case I promised my self for so many years be at an end now in a very few hours Nay must my mirth be so suddenly turned into bitter howlings and my ease into a bed of flames Must my soul be thus torn away from the things it loved and go where it will hate to live and can never die O miserable creature to be thus deceived by my own folly to be surprised after so many warnings to betray my self into everlasting misery Fear horrour and despair have already taken hold on me and are carrying me where they will never leave me These are the Agonies but of one single person whom death snatches away in the midst of his years his pleasures and his
hopes but such as these the greatest part of the world will fall into when that terrible day of the Lord shall come For as it was in the days of Noe so shall it be also in the day of the Son of Man they did eat they drank they married wives they were given in marriage until the day that Noe entred into the Ark and the flood came and destroyed them all Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot they did eat they drank they bought they sold they planted they builded but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from Heaven and destroyed them all Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole Earth If some of these expressions seem to relate to the unexpected coming of Christ to judgment upon Hierusalem we are to consider that was not only a fore-runner but a figure of Christ's coming to judge the World And that may be the great reason why our Saviour mixeth his discourses of both these so much together as he doth for not only the judgment upon that nation was a draught as it were in little of the great day but the symptoms and fore-runners of the one were to bear a proportion with the other among which the strange security of that people before their destruction was none of the least And the surprise shall be so much the more astonishing when the day of the Lord shall come upon the whole World as the terrour and consequents of that universal judgment shall exceed the overthrow of the Jewish Polity But supposing men were aware of its approach and prepared for it the burning of the Temple and City of Hierusalem though so frightful a spectacle to the beholders of it was but a mean representation of the terrour that shall be at the conflagration of the whole World When the Heavens shall pass away with a great noise or with a mighty force as some interpret it and the Elements shall melt with fervent beat i. e. when all the fiery bodies in the upper regions of this World which have been kept so long in an even and regular course within their several limits shall then be let loose again and by a more rapid and violent motion shall put the World into confusion and a flame together For then the present frame of things shall be dissolved and the bounds set to the more subtile and active parts of matter shall be taken away which mixing with the more gross and earthy shall sever them from each other and by their whirling and agitation set them all on fire And if the Stars falling to the Earth were to be understood in a literal sense none seems so probable as this That those aethereal fires shall then be scattered and dispersed throughout the Universe so that the Earth and all the works that are therein shall be turned into one funeral Pile Then the foundations of the Earth shall be shaken and all the combustible matter which lies hid in the bowels of it shall break forth into prodigious flames which while it rouls up and down within making it self a passage out will cause an universal quaking in all parts of the Earth and make the Sea to roar with a mighty noise which will either by the violent heat spend it self in vapour and smoak or be swallowed up in the hollow places of the deep Neither are we to imagine that only the sulphureous matter within the Earth shall by its kindling produce so general a conflagration although some Philosophers of old thought that sufficient for so great an effect but as it was in the deluge of water the fountains of the great deep were broken up and the windows of Heaven were opened so shall it be in this deluge of fire as one of the ancients calls it not only mighty streams and rivers of Fire shall issue out of the bowels of the earth but the cataracts above shall discharge such abundance of thunder and lightning wherein God will rain down fire and brimstone from Heaven that nothing shall be able to withstand the force of it Then the Craters or breaches made in the earth by horrible earthquakes caused by the violent eruptions of Fire shall be wide enough to swallow up not only Cities but whole Countries too And what shall remain of the spoils of this devouring enemy within shall be consumed by the merciless fury of the thunder and lightning above What will then become of all the glories of the world which are now so much admired and courted by foolish men What will then become of the most magnificent piles the most curious structures the most stately palaces the most lasting monuments the most pleasant gardens and the most delightful countries they shall be all buried in one common heap of ruines when the whole face of the earth shall be like the top of mount Aetna nothing but rubbish and stones and ashes which unskilful travellers have at a distance mistaken for Snow What will then become of the pride and gallantry of the vain persons the large possessions of the great or the vast treasures of the rich the more they have had of these things only the more fuel they have made for this destroying fire which will have no respect to the honours the greatness or the riches of Men. Nay what will then become of the wicked and ungodly who have scoffed at all these things and walked after their own lusts saying Where is this promise of his coming because all things yet continue as they were from the beginning of the creation When this great day of his wrath is come how shall they be able to stand or escape his fury Will they fly to the tops of the mountains that were only to stand more ready to be destroyed from Heaven Will they hide themselves in the dens and the rocks of the mountains but there they fall into the burning furnaces of the earth and the mountains may fall upon them but can never hide them from the wrath of the Lamb. Will they go down into the deep and convey themselves to the uttermost parts of the Sea but even there the storms and tempests of these shours of fire shall overtake them and the vengeance of God shall pursue them to everlasting flames Consider now whether so dreadful a preparation for Christ's coming to judgment be not one great reason why it should be called the terrour of the Lord For can any thing be imagined more full of horror and amazement than to see the whole world in a flame about us We may remember and I hope we yet do so when the flames of one City filled the minds of all the beholders with astonishment and fear but what then would it do not only to see the earth vomit and cast forth fire every where about us
the motions of grace thou hast resisted the checks of conscience thou hast stifled and the sins of all kinds thou hast committed shall rise up in judgment to condemn thee O that we had all the wisdom to consider of these things in time that the terror of the Lord may perswade us to break off all our sins by a sincere repentance and to lâ—ve so that we may dye with comfort and be for ever with the Lord in his eternal Joy SERMON XII Preached at WHITE-HALL FEBRUARY 18 th 1672. Matthew XVI 26. For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his â—wn soul or what shall he give in exchange for his soul IF we look into the twenty fourth verse of this Chapter we shall find our Saviour there laying down such hard conditions of mens being his Disciples as were to all appearance more likely to have driven away those which he had already than to have drawn any others after him For he requires no less than the greatest readiness to suffer for his sake and that to no meaner a degree than the loss of what is most precious to men in this world in their lives which is implyed in those words If any man will come after me let him deny himself and take up his Cross and follow me If our Saviour had only designed to have made himself great by the number of his followers if he had intended a Kingdom in this world as the Jews imagined he would have made more easie conditions of being his Disciples He would have chosen another way to have attained his end and made use of more pleasing and popular arguments to have perswaded the people to follow him When the Eastern Impostor afterwards began to set up for a new Religion he took a method as contrary to our Saviours as his Religion and design was he knew the Greatness and Honour the pleasure and the pomp of this world were the thâ—ngs most passionately loved and admired by the generality of mankind and therefore he fitted his Religion to the natural inclinations of men and proposed such means of advancing it as were most like to make men great by undertaking them And men are never so willing to be cheated by any Religion as that which complies with their present interests and gratifies their sensual inclinations In this case there need not many arguments to court persons to embrace that which they were so strongly inclined to before and the very name of Religion does them great service when it allows what they most desire and makes them sin with a quiet Conscience But that is the peculiar honour of Christianity that as it can never be suspected to be a design for this world so it hath risen and spread it self by ways directly contrary to the Splendor and Greatness of it For it overcame by sufferings increased by persecutions and prevailed in the world by the patience and self-denial of its followers He that was the first Preacher of it was the greatest example of suffering himself and he bids his Disciples not to think much of following their Lord and Saviour though it were to take up the Cross and lay down their lives for his sake We may easily imagine how much startled and surprized his Disciples were at such discourses as these who being possessed with the common opinion of the temporal Kingdom of the Messias came to him with great expectations of honour and advancement by him and no less would content some of them than being his highest Favourites and Ministers of State sitting at his right hand and at his left hand in his Kingdom they had already in their imaginaons shared the preferments and dignities of his Kingdom among themselves and were often contending about preheminence who should be the greatest among them Insomuch that when Christ now the time of his suffering approaching began more plainly to discourse to them of his own sufferings at Hierusalem v. 21. St. Peter either out of his natural forwardness and heat or being elevated by the good opinion which our Lord had expressed of him before v. 17. takes upon him very solemnly to rebuke him for ever thinking to submit himself to so mean a condition Be it far from thee Lord this shall not be unto thee v. 22. upon which Jesus not only reproves Peter with great smartness and severity as savouring more of the pomp and ease of the world than of the nature and design of his Kingdom v. 23. but takes this occasion to tell his Disciples that they must no longer dream of the Glories and Splendor of this world nor entertain themselves with vain Fancies of the Pleasures and contentments of this life but if they would shew themselves to be truly his Disciples they must prepare for Persecutions and Martyrdoms they must value their Religion above their lives for the time was now coming on they must part with one or the other and if they were not prepared before-hand by self-denial and taking up the Cross they would run great hazard of losing their souls for the love of this world and therefore our Saviour shews 1. The great advantage that would accrue to them if they were willing to suffer for his sake Whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it v. 25. i. e. instead of this short and uncertain life which would spend it self in a little time he should have one infinitely more valuable and therefore no exchange could be better made than that of laying down such a life as this for one of eternal Happiness and Glory for so our Saviour elsewhere explains it He that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal St. Joh. 12.25 2. The great folly of losing this eternal state of happiness for the preservation of this present life or the enjoyment of the things of this world which he first lays down a certain truth v. 25. For whosoever shall save his life shall lose it and then discovers the folly of it in the words of the text by comparing such a mans gain and his loss together supposing he should obtain the utmost that can be hoped for in this world For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul Wherein we may consider these three particulars 1. The possibility supposed of losing the soul though a man should gain the whole world 2. The hazard implied of the loss of the soul for the sake of the gain of the world 3. The folly expressed of losing the soul though it be for the gain of the whole world 1. The possibility supposed of the loss of the soul in another world For the force of our Saviours argument depends wholly on the supposition of the certainty of the souls Being in another state and its capacity of happiness or misery therein For setting that aside there can be no