commandment begets sin but how it makes sin condemning begets death and therefore I believe they are mistaken who expound sin taking occasion by the commandment wrought in me all manner of concupiscence as if it meant the Law onely prohibiting but not quelling sin in me the more it was restrain'd the more it wrought all manner of concupiscence in me especially since there was no punishment assign'd to that sin in the Law it took advantage thence more powerfully to engage me in the pursuit of all my lusts since thence I might have hop't without any fear of punishment to pursue them For this seems perfectly to thwart his aim which was to shew us how the Law wrought condemnation and inflicted death by threatning it It seems to mean I had not onely not known sin to be so dangerous but I had not known some things to be sins and by consequence condemning things but by the Law particularly I had not known concupiscence to be so had not the Law said thou shalt not covet The next words do not seem intended to declare how the Commandment work sin that being brought in by the by as it were thus but sin the corruption of my nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had wrought in me all manner of concupiscence all actual lusts and wickednesses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 got advantage over me or strength against me by the Law which he there proves for without the law sin is dead not as to stirring in us by its sinful motions sure corruption would not fail to do that and more if there were no check but dead had no strength nor power to condemn me For it follows when the commandment came sin reviv'd got strength to do that and I died was sentenc'd to death by it and the commandment which was ordain'd to life could I have obey'd it I found to be unto death by condemning me to death for my transgression of it For sin by the Commandment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 getting advantage over me slew me not onely made me liable to death but by its guilt envenoming that death for the sting of death is sin which that it is and how it is so is the second thing I am to speak to Sin is the sting of death which I could make appear two manner of ways in relation to two senses that may be given to the words both pertinent and the one but the Anticipation of the other The first is this Sin is the sting of death 't is Sin makes the thoughts of death pungent and stinging the wicked man cannot think of his last dying day without horrors the onely imagination of a sickness stings him because he is conscious to himself of sin and he knows that that after Death cometh the Judgment and he dares not think of beholding the face of his Judg with his guilt upon him To prove this to you I shall not need to fetch any heathen Testimonies that call the Conscience of Sin a whip a sting a goad a lancing knife things that gash and prick and gall and fret all words of all kinds of terrifying punishment but if there be any gross customary Sinner that now hears me I shall need no other way of proof but by appealing to his own conscience whether when he comes hot from his iniquity he dares entertain the thought of dying And why not Alas he is too deep in arrears to venture upon account with so impartial a Judg books must be laid open if he come there the closet curtain sins nay the bosom villanies must be displaied and every one receive his doom he hath heard that all the refuge of a deplored Sinner at that great and terrible Day of the Lord is but to fly unto the Mountains to cover him and to the Rocks to hide him A wretched hope for how shall the Hills hide him whose iniquities are like Mountains or how shall the rocks cover him whose rebellions are like the great deep as the Scripture words it To such a person Death and Judgment are words of too dangerous a sense and it 's easier for him as many do to resolve there is no such thing as one of them than to think of them and go merrily on in sinning For tell me what is the design of that variety of iniquities in which thou dost ingulf thy self that circle of sins wherein one relieves and succeeds another Sure by such a perpetuity of diversified delights to stave off those severer thoughts which if there were an intermission of sinning or a nauseating of one sin for want of variety would creep in the noise of our riots is not to please the ear but to drown the barking of our consciences When the Sinner's candle is put out if weariness in wickedness do not at once close up his eyes and thoughts if the dark solitary night do but suggest some melancholly thoughts into him how do's he tumble up and down as if he thought to role away from his imagination and he do's ransack his fancy and call up the memory of his past sins about him to entertain himself with all and keep out the torturing remembrance of that sad Day which the Scripture calls putting far from them the evil day for the truth is he dares not give it place least it should happen to him as to a man upon a pointed precipice as himself is indeed situated to whom the apprehension would be as mortal as the danger and he would tumble down for fear of falling So here his sin adds such sharps to the imagination of death that he dares not entertain the thought And if Sin be such a sting in the onely thought of death that the mere remembrance of it is insupportable the use is very natural by the frequent calling of death to mind to stop the current of sin For if the wicked cannot endure to think of death he that does think on it cannot well go on to be wicked Remember thy latter end and thou shalt not do amiss I would give this counsel Think thou art to die while doing it The original of the Turks Turbant which was but by continual wearing of his winding sheet by wrapping his head in his grave-cloaths to have always a shrowd and death upon his thoughts and the Philosophers defining their wisdom to be but contemplatio mortis are not such pregnant inforcers of this use as this practical apprehension of it The man that liv'd among the Tombs tho he had a legion of Devils in him yet when he saw Jesus afar off he ran and worshipped him Mark 5. 6. The sight of graves and conversation with monuments will make even Demoniacks Religious and is so far from thrusting Praiers out of the Liturgy of Burial that it brings the very Devils on their knees But there is yet another and a fuller sense of these words which St Paul repeats out of the LXX translation of Hosea 13. 14. tho not verbatim for there insteed of 〈◊〉
our selves de malo conjuncto for as appetite is implanted for the use of him in whom it is implanted so it is not proper to it to have any aversation to evil except it be some way evil to him whose appetite hath that aversation and to greive at misery I must some way conceive it to concern my self Now then as he that does not conceive himself a member of a Church nor a fellow member nor any way relating to it he cannot truly greive so he that does not greive declares no communion with it he is another thing a member quite cut off or dead and so stupid and insensible Such a judgment doest thou pass upon thy self whoever doest not mourn outlawest and excommunicatest thy self neither belongst to Church nor State nor yet to Christ. 2. As thou hast no charity to thy Brother nor to thy afflicted Mother so neither hast thou any love to God whose glory tho it be asserted by the punishment of a sinful Land or Church he is also still dishonor'd by the sins which do then reign and to which he does permit for the most part the punishment of sin and that power and authority or discipline which divisions in the Church cut short hath for its consequent all unbridled looseness and profaness Blasphemy and Atheisme the calamities of a State are embitter'd by all sorts of licences that grow when Government is weakn'd to see a whole Land mourn with the dark purple of its bloud all which bloud as it is the punishment of that Nation so it is the guilt also to see the wickedness of a Kingdom plagu'd with the ruin of many thousands of men's lives and thousands of souls too that fell in actual iniquity and yet to think that this plague is the greatest wickedness of all arm'd with the most crying sins that are that the very punishment must call for punishment and revenge of it self and help to make up the measure of judgment that the sentence of desolation may be irreversible and utter to see two inundations overflow the Land two abysses of bloud and guilt and one deep calling upon another to meet and swallow us and bury us in their graves of sin and deep ruin yea to see iniquity become impudent and sin triumphant which is the great sign of utter ruin as it was to the Jews an omen worse than Comets or Blazing-stars the dismal voice of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yea and in this ruin too I do not see how any will well free themselves from guilt for if they be the ruiners they are the great spoilers the sinners if the ruined they have contributed to make those others the sinful inflicters and if in all this there be not matter for a little mourning if God dishonor'd souls destroi'd lives perishing Church ruining and nothing but sin flourishing and ourselves not unguilty and if this be not an object for our tears we are the most uncharitable most obdurate creatures in the world Niobe's stone is not fit to be our embleme for that stone could sweat tears we are more rock than that which Moses struck whom the rod of God cannot make weep we are next degree to Lucifer himself for onely Hell is sure at ease to see its company increase 3. Lastly this not mourning in the judgment of a Nation is a sin which God does most heavily characterize and threaten Amos 6. 1 6 7 8. Isaiah 22. when the Prophet had describ'd how it should be in the day of desolation v. 4 5. then because they did not do it see the judgment v. 12 13 14. yea this very thing that men are insensible is as it were the very last judgment on a Nation and the sign of utter rejection Jer. 16. 5 6 7. But how can this duty of mourning consist with those so frequent Gospel-Commands to rejoyce in utmost afflictions James 1. 2 3. Count it all joy when ye fall into diverse temtations knowing this that the trying of your faith worketh patience and St Paul most often 'T is true indeed we are to rejoyce in them because they are Gods methods of bettering us by them he does purge ad cleanse us Isaiah 4. 4 5. and c. 1. 25 27. Redeem'd with judgment even with the judgment that I shall execute upon them But then 1. What reason have we to mourn also that we are such foul sinners as to need such ways of purging that Christs death should not have motive enough in it to turn us from iniquity that his bloud should not be sufficient laver enough to wash us but our own must be pour'd out also that our air should be so infected that nothing but an universal conflagration can purify that we should be such refractory stubborn persons whom nothing but wounding will do good upon nothing but ruin will reduce But then 2. How are we more to mourn that this very method should not be able to reduce us that we will run upon lashes swords and deaths to sin that in the midst of judgments and against them too we commit iniquity that every stripe does encrease our reckoning add to our iniquities no possible method left to reduce them whom correction will not make sensible but our villanies grow up with our sufferings and our sins are fatned by our bloud as the land is Yea lastly how are we to mourn that to the rest of our sins this also is added by us of not mourning at our judgments but using all possible means to prevent it to lay a sleep the sense of any judgment that is upon the Nation to be so far from bestowing one hour of sadness upon those so grand motives to it that they do all they can to keep it from them and if those judgments happen to some they look upon it carelesly as a thing that does not concern rather as a matter onely of rejoycing if to others whom they wish well to they search out wine and vice to quench and to divert the memory and thought of it to drown sad news in sadder sin this is to labor hard lest sadness and a virtue should creep upon me to search out means to assist me to keep Gods last method from doing any good upon me this is one cause of greatest judgment Isaiah 5. 11 12 13 14. The second and indeed the great exercise of this duty in the text is to mourn for our sins and First for the infirmities of our nature that stain that we were born with that engagement to death that we brought into the world with us and which is a clog and weight upon us throughout the whole course of our lives to disable us from doing our duty as we ought Secondly for the sins of our habits whereby we have advanc't those infirmities into customs made a covenant with that death to which we were born engag'd and our whole practice is the exercise of those things whose wages is death eternal or if we are not gon so far
with these break with Virtue when their interest cannot consist with it that these false hypocritical pretenders should be offended with the mean condition of this Child and of his followers in this World and with the poor spirited Principles of his Religion In sum they that upon these or any other grounds finally disbelieve or disobey him God design'd this Child to be a means of bringing sorer Punishments even to everlasting ruin upon such A black Decree this one would think He that had so much kindness for Mankind to give away the onely Son both of his Nature his Affections and his Bosom to them could he then design that Gift to be the Ruin of the greatest part of men This Child Simeon said but just before my Text is Gods Salvation which he had prepared before all people and does he now say God hath set him for their fall The Angels preached this was a Birth that brought glad tidings of great joy that should be to all people and is there so much comfort in destruction that most men should rejoyce at that which is ordained to be the great occasion of it to them But we have no reason to complain 'T is not unkind to deny Mercy to them that refuse the offers of it that will not accept Salvation when their God himself does come to bring it to them tenders it upon condition of accepting and amending Which if they despise and prefer Hell before Repentance chuse sin rather than Gods blessed retributions 't is but reason to deny them what they will not have and let them take their chosen Ruine to will their Judgment which they will themselves set and ordain Him to be that to them which themselves do ordain and make him to be to themselves So S. Peter says expresly He is a Stone of stumbling and a Rock of offence to them who being disobedient stumble at the Word whereunto they were appointed Disobedience where it is obdurate alters so the temper of our God that it makes Him who swears he would not have the Sinner die yet set out his Son to make such sinners fall into eternal Death Makes Judgment triumph over Mercy even in the Great contrivances and executions of that Mercy and while God was plotting an Incarnation for the everlasting Safety of Mankind prevails with him to decree Ruins by the means of that Salvation to Decree even in the midst of all those strivings of his Mercies that that Issue of his kindness should be for the fall of such as they Oh! let us consider whether they are likely to escape that which is set and ordain'd for them by God Whether they can hope for a Redemption when the only great Redeemer is appointed for the Instrument of their Destruction and God is so bent on their ruine that to purchase it he gives this Child his Son Yea when he did look down upon this Son in Agonies and on the Cross in the midst of that sad prospect yet the Ruine of such sinners which he there beheld in his Sons Bloud was a delight to him that also was a Sacrifice and a sacrifice of a sweet smell to him For S. Paul says We are unto God a sweet savour of Christ in them that perish because we are the savour of Death unto death to them As if their Brimstone did ascend like Incense shed a perfume up to God and their evrlasting burnings were his Altar-fires kindled his holocausts and he may well be pleased with it for he ordain'd it 'T is true indeed This Child riding as in Triumph in the midst of his Hosannas when he saw one City whose fall he was set for on this very account He was so far from being pleas'd with it that he wept over it in pity But alas that onely more declares the most deplored and desperate condition of such sinners Blessed Saviour hadst thou no Blood to shed for them nothing but Tears or didst thou weep to think they very Bloodshed does but make their guilt more crimson who refuse the mercy of that Bloodshed all the time that is offered Sad is their state that can find no pity in the Tears of God and remediless their Condition for whom all that the Son of God could do was to weep over them all that he did do for them was to be for their fall too sad a part indeed for festival Solemnity very improper for a Benedictus and Magnificat To celebrate the greatest act of kindness the Almighty could design onely by the miseries it did occasion to magnifie the vast descent of God from Heaven down to Earth onely by reason of the fall of Man into the lowest Hell of which that was the cause My Text hath better things in view The greatness of that fall does but add height to that Resurrection which He also is the cause of Behold this Child is set for the rising again of many My remaining Part. Rising again does not particularly and onely refer to the foregoing fall here in the Text which this Child did occasion as I shewed you but to the state wherein all Mankind both in its nature and its Customs lay ingulâ—'d the state of Ignorance and sin A state from which recovery is properly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a resurrection and a reviving in this Life and so call'd in Scripture often as Ephes. v. 15. Wherefore he saith Awake thou that sleepest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and arise from the dead And Rom. vi 13. Yield not your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin but yield your selves unto God as those that are alive form the dead Now to raise us from the death of sin into the life of Righteousness by the amendment of our own lives to recover us into a state of Vertue is the thing this Child is said here to be set for This was that which God thought worth an Incarnation Neither was there any greater thing in the prospect of his everlasting Counsel when he did decree his Son into the World than that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He is set for this The Word was made Flesh to teach practise and persuade to Vertue To make men Reform their lives was valued at the price of a Person of the Trinity Piety and his Exinanition yea his Blood and Life were set at the same rates All of him given for our recovery The time would fail me if I should attempt onely to name the various methods he makes use of to effect this How this Child that was the brightness of his Fathers Glory came to lighten us shining in his Doctrine and Example How he sent more light The fiery Tongues Illuminations of the Holy Ghost to guide us in the ways of Piety How he suffered Agonies and Death for sin to appale and fright us from it How he Rose again to confirm Judgment to us to demonstrate the rewards of Immortality to them that will repent and leave their sins and everlasting Torments to those
mercy are upon their death-bed gasping the accepted time and the day of Salvation just ending there is no doubt his will his appetite and resolutions to it are immortal and 't is therefore also fit his worm should be so and there is no security against this but by laying hold upon the present for behold now is the day of Salvation the last thing I am to speak to I shall not press this from the common place of the uncertainty of this life of which whatever we have past as death possesses so the succeeding moments Judgment may lay hold of we are sure of nothing but the present But if we had not onely the assurances which constancy of health and strength of constitution give but a lease of years as Hezekiah had from God himself we have no assurance of the time of acceptance Many men tho they live fast furiously spend the stock of Nature sin yet with a much fiercer carrier as the horse in Jeremies expression rusheth into the battel and they spend the day of Salvation faster Men may deceive themselves by reckoning to repent hereafter We cannot conclude with reason we have space left for it while our life lasts since those opportunities are not always and perchance not frequently commensurate with the life or being of a profligate man or Nation and when they end together 't is not that their whole life or being was allotted to those opportunities but when these are forfeit or extinguisht God cuts off the other Thus indeed he did destroy the old World when the one hundred and twenty years for their repentance were expir'd and several men are cut down out of time as Job saith c. 22. 16. men that shall not live out half their days as David saith of the deceitful and the bloudy men that drink their own Bloud when they thirst for others men whose time for their acceptance went not out while their life lasted because when it went out God cut off their life But 't is not always so Not first in Nations four Generations filled the measure of the Amorites iniquity but five were past before destruction made approaches to them Judah had its sentence of excision in Manasses reign but its execution was suspended till the time of Zedekiah near a hundred years And again the things that belonged to the peace of Jerusalem were taken from them when they kill'd the Peace-maker their day of Salvation too was darkned at Christ's Crucifixion but the City liv'd yet fourty years Nor secondly in persons Pharaohs time was out at the sixth plague but God at once upheld and hardned him until the tenth was past And those six hundred thousand that were doom'd for murmuring were afterwards near fourty years in dying liv'd so long to rebel against more miracles Now all that time the state of all these whether men or Nations was irreversible as to the doom past upon them Did we know indeed our measure of iniquity how many crimes we wanted to fill up our Ephah make an end at once of sin and the day of Salvation also 't were no wonder if we did not think it necessary now to seize the opportunity having yet so many sins good But there are commissions of great bulk few of which will do it the men that sin post soon arrive at the end of the race that is set before them There are whose life is nothing else but perpetual variety of wickedness and they will quickly make up their account the constancy inflames the reckoning and the sum does advance mightily how know they but the next of any of these greater magnitudes may fill up the score To such now onely may be the accepted time However 1. They that whenever such considerations are suggested will not at that present even now resolve to attemt to break their sins off by repentance it is plain they are intangled in them love them so that they resolve expresly not to part with them yet tho they are made to consider by the course of all God's several workings for them and their own provokings that they may have wasted almost all the stock both of God's methods and their own opportunities and will venture doing it completely rather than forego their darling customs Now such a love to sin as it works induration as I shew'd you hardens mens hearts so it does betray it and evince they are in some degree so Such a resolution is sufficient not onely to provoke God to contract the measure and cut short the account Rom. 9. 28. but it self bids fair to fill it up The present therefore must be their accepted time and they do all that in them is to put out the day of Salvation who do thus put off from them this Now. 2. Of this that hath bin said whether Almighty God be now about to make the application either as to what concerns the Nation or particular persons is not may part to determine or debate It is not for us to know the times and seasons which the Father hath put in his own power Many seem indeed to have uncomfortable expectations great fears both as to the Nation and I must say they have reason we may justly fear those judgments which we have deserv'd most justly and provok'd most heinously wilfully impudently and great fears too as to Religion nor without good cause yet not because those men that earnestly desire a change talk of it as at hand with comfort False ungracious treacherous Sons to their poor Mother who do what they can to blast and weaken her that they may have color to forsake her But this they have talkt oft with great confidence and he that sits in Heaven always laught their confidence to scorn we hope he will do so to the world's end Sure I am there could be no fear of what they expect and wish so from comparison of the Religions or if we would answer our Religion by our living But there is great cause of fear we may provoke God to desert that reformation we deform so with our manners and put out the Worship we unhallow And inded a flood of Atheism and contemt of all Religion and Virtue or the having a Religion that is next to that itself looks like just dereliction of them who would not let God be in their thoughts nor Piety or Morality in their actions Now if this be so and by consequent these fears be reasonable just there can be no prevention but by closing now with the proposal of my Text by laying hold upon the present Any least forbearance may make our state irreversible and does certainly provoke God towards it whereas if now when God shews us the rod we would break off our sins reform our selves live up to our Religion there would be no cause to fear destruction since God's work were don whatever shall happen all would work together for the everlasting good of those that did so This if earnest
another occasion for God's remitting him not from his conscience which might alleviate the faults but by his being by the horror of his sins a greater instance of God's wonderful grace in forgiving v. 16. Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all long-suffering for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe in him to life everlasting God dealt most mercifully with me call'd me from heaven whilst I was persecuting him to be a prime object of his patience and longanimity and in order of time the first that was so miraculously call'd that so the wickedest of the Gentiles may in me have an example of hope of mercy if they shall come in to Christ. And will it now be fit my Brethren with this of S. Paul who notwithstanding such true pleas of conscience is forc'd to seek out for such motives of forgiveness and plead hard ignorance and unbelief and yet confess himself the cheif of sinners with this I say to parallel some actions of our daies that under the pretence of conscience which too hath no Law as that of S. Paul had tho then outdated will justify forbidden actions even against repentance men will not ask forgiveness where they can pretend conscience I could instance in a strange particular of one of my remembrance and my knowledg of the person and the story sufficiently notorious who because the Papists believing that to be Christ which indeed is bread worship it therefore thought in his conscience all kneeling at the Sacrament Idolatry and to that error adding the command Deut. 13. 6 7 8 9. cut off his brother's and his mother's head yea and when condemn'd to death by sentence of Law for the action would not be beaten from his hold but on the strength of that mistaken place went as boldly with that bloud on his hand and his soul to face the judgment seat as he could have don had he bin wash'd in Christ's own bloud and of this resolute fury the Zealots of our neighbor country of Scotland have made many recent instances in their reviv'd Ravilliacs See the sad issue of an erring conscience an action whose horror feinds would startle at such a perswasion do's make meritorious and yet God knows that erring consciences have brought the Parent of a Nation a thing of much direr guilt to the same state and yet that conscience must be admitted an excuse when God knows jealousies and suspicions have bin all the ground and all the rule for their determinations of conscience and yet on that stock alone they could misjudge and censure speak evil of and revile the actions of just Governors and do that which I dare not say When against all Laws both of God and man all ties sacred and civil obligations of oaths and duties that it may be impossible to plead ignorance men yet will act under the banner of such a thin conscience that never could produce any Law of God for its direction or its quiet and yet think themselves secure When a confident perswasion of heart God knows how taken up shall quite annual that command of Christ of taking up the Cross and change that state which he calls blessed suffering for righteousness sake if there were such a thing change it into so great a curse as men will rather embowel themselves in their brother's hearts involve a Nation in bloud and misery in guilt and ruin than not throw off the Cross from off their shoulders And now 't is to no purpose to observe that when perjury and sacriledg and breach of almost every Commandment in the Decalogue shall not only become tolerable but be the only character of a godly side by vertue of a thing call'd conscience surely S. Paul was a weak man that when he had don some such things out of a good and pure conscience yet calls himself the chief of sinners In like manner in the Church new religious fancies are bold to take upon them the holy face of conscience and then to quicken men into schisms and all uncharitable separations and factions withdrawing them from the obedience of them that have the spiritual rule over them not at all submitting themselves to them who by Gods appointment watch over their souls but rather flying in their faces at once with open disobedience loud reproches bitter censures and severe condemnations Others by having had mens persons in admiration and consequently their opinions suffer'd their models to be stampt upon their conscience and then that must justify Ecclesiastical parricides destroying their own fathers that begot them to the Church and at once cutting off the whole line of those progenitors that can derive their race from Christ a fairer stem and pedigree than most can shew But alas my Brethren if we shall grant that these opinions really possess their souls and that in the uprightness of their heart they did pursue them that neither interest nor faction nor having bin disoblig'd or having suffer'd hath pufft up a passion into conscience but that 't is all sincerity yet we have seen that cannot bear us out in such commissions 't is but an erring conscience still that animates a man into any breach of duty and if there be no other Law to warrant actions the conscience is so far from being able to justify them that while it errs it but entangles a man in the necessity of sinning leads him into such Labyrinths of guilt that whatever he do's he offends on one side if he do what his erring conscience dictates to him he sins against God's Law on the other side if he forbear he sins against God's Vicegerent his own conscience there is the guilt of his deed here is the guilt of his heart which do's oblige a man to follow that which it is sin to follow and which makes him he must and ought to do that which he must not nor ought to do And sure my Brethren the only application to such a conscience is to advise the laying it aside to rectify the error Good counsel that indeed but the hardest to be taken in the world for that a man may rectify he must know himself in an error and if he know that then he hath not an erring conscience this when it is strongly so doth not so much as doubt of his opinion and while he do's not doubt what temtation hath he so much as to set upon the rectifying I shall but name some means The first will be Praier for Divine illumination S. James has directed this if any man lacks wisdom let him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not c. 1. 5. and our Savior has promis'd that he will give his Holy Spirit to them that ask him Luke 11. 13. whose office we know is to lead us into all truth John 16. 13. The second means will be not to be wanting to our selves not to shut our eies against or resist the truth Acts 28. 27.
it would A setled tendency a resolv'd inclination to sin that presseth with its utmost agitation is that weight which though it may perchance be stop'd in its career yet it tends to the Abysse its center and will not rest but in that Pit that hath nor rest nor bottom the Heart in this case is as liable as it can be because here it hath done its worst and such a Will shall be imputed to its self And now I need not tell those who are still designing sin or mischief in the heart although it never dares come out of those recesses how far they are removed from the goodness of God to Israel A Father finds a way to prove such souls have larger doses of Gods Vengeance who when he had asserted that the soul does not die with the body and then was ask'd what it did in that long interval for sure it is not reasonable that it should be affected with any anticipations of the future Judgment because the business of the day of Judgment should be reserved to its own day without all prelibation of the sentence and the restitution of the Flesh is to be waited for that so both soul and body may go hand in hand in their Recompences as they did in their demerits joynt Partners in the Wages as they were in the Works To this he answers The Soul does not divide all its operations with the Body some things it acts alone and if there were no other cause it were most just the Soul should there receive without the Body the dues of that which here it did commit without the Body That 's for the former sort of sins those meerly of the Heart And for the latter sort the Soul is first engaged in the commission that does conceive the sin lays the design of compassing and does contrive and carry on the machination and then why should not that be first in Punishment which is the first in the Offence Go now and reckon that thy outward gross Transgressions are the only dangerous and guilty ones and slight thy sins of Heart but know that while thy flesh is sleeping in the quiet Grave at rest and ease thy Spirit then 's in Torments sor thy Fleshes sins and feels a far severer Worm than that which gnaws thy Body Poor Soul Eternity of Hell from Resurrection to For-ever is not enough to punish it all that while it must suffer with the Body but it must have an age of Vengeance besides particularly for it self to plague it for those things it could not execute and punish it for what it did not really enjoy only because it did allow it self to desire and contrive them and it must be tormented for those unsatisfied desires And though indeed desires where they are violent if they be not allayed by satisfaction are but so much agony yet do they merit and pull on them more these Torments shall be plagued and the soul suffer for its very passion even from Death to the last Judgment and 't is but just that being it usurp'd upon the pleasures and the sins of Flesh it should also seize on and take possession of the Vengeance appointed for those sins it should invade and should usurp their condemnation But why do I stand pressing aggravations against uncleanness of Heart in an Age when God knows Vice hath not so much modesty or fear to keep within those close and dark restraints Instead of that same Cleanness which the Text requires we may find Purity indeed of several sorts but 't is either pure Fraud or pure Impiety the one of these does make a strange expression very proper pure Corruption for so it is sincere and without mixture nothing but it self no spots of Clean to chequer it but all stain The other is pure white indeed but it is that of whited Sepulcres a Life as clean as Light a bright pure Conversation but it shines with that light onely which Satan does put on when he transforms himself into an Angel of Light and it is but a glory about a fiend But yet this shines however whereas others do stand Candidates of Vice and would be glorious in wickedness and that is such a splendor as if Satan should dress himself with the shine of his own flaming Brimstone and make himself a glory with the streamings of his Lake of Fire And yet thus is the World we do not onely see men serve some one peculiar vicious inclination and cherish their own wickedness but they make every Vice their own as if the Root of bitterness branch'd out in each sort of Impiety in them such fertile soyls of sin they are here insincerity were to be wish'd and where there is not cleanness that there were a Mask that there were the Religion of Hypocrisie We may remember God was good to Israel of old by Obligation and performance the one as great as he could enter the other great to Miracle and astonishment when after seventy years Captivity and Desolation he did rebuild a Temple where there was no Monument of its Ruines and raised a Nation and Government of which there was no Reliques And yet at last when the Religion of some turned into Faction of others into Prophaneness when the strictest Sect of them the Pharisees became most holy outwardly to have the better means 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to mischief those that were not of their Party and got a great opinion of Sanctity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so as to be believed in whatsoever they did speak against the King or chief Priests and that so far as to be able openly to practise against both and raise Commotions They are Josephus's words of them and when another Sect the Zelots the most pernicious of all saith Bertram did commit Murders Sacriledg Prophanations and all kind of Villanies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with good Intentions saith the same Josephus and when those who did not separate into Sects but were the Church of Israel became lukewarm supine and negligent in their Profession yea and licentious and Prophane fit only to be joyned with Publicans in Christs expressions when sin grew generally Impudent when they did live as if they would be Scandalous as well as vicious as if they lov'd the guilt as much as the delights of sin and cared not to be wicked to themselves but must debauch as if they did enjoy the ruine of other persons sinning just as the Devil does who does not taste the sin but feasts upon the Sinners Condemnation Then did God execute a Vengeance whose prediction was fit to be mistaken for that of the Day of Judgment and whose event almost fulfill'd the terrors of that day I need not draw resemblances shew how Gods goodness to our Israel does equal that to them applying to our selves their Raptures how when the Lord turned the Captivity of our Sion we also were like them that dream surprized with Mercy Indeed as in a Dream Ideas
Miracles but to assist our Worldliness Ambitions and Lusts to be our opportunities of Vice and provocation of him And being thus affronted and refused his Enemy preferr'd not this God but Barrabas any the vilest thing for Friend rather than Christ must he not needs be more our Enemy than heretofore And if he be that question will concern us Are we stronger than God It should behove us not to fall out with him till we are See how he does prepare himself for the Encounter Wisd. v. Taking his Jealousie for Armour putting on Justice severe and vindicative Justice as a Breastplate and his Wrath sharpening as a Sword and arming all the Creatures for Auxiliaries Alas when Omnipotence does express it self as scarcely strong enough for Execution but Almightiness will be armed also for Vengeance will assume Weapons call in Aids for fury who shall stand it Will our Friends think you keep it off us and secure us did we consider how uneasie God accounts himself till he begin the Storm while he keeps off his Plagues from overrunning such a Land we would expect them every moment and they must come Ah says he I will ease me of mine Adversaries and avenge me of mine Enemies and then in what condition are we if God can have no ease but in our ruine if he does hunger and thirst after it go to his Vengeance as to a Feast And if you read the 25th Chapter of Isaiah you will find there a rich Bill of Fare which his Revenge upon his Enemies does make view the sixth Verse He that enjoys his morsels that lays out his Contrivances and studies on his Dishes so as if he meant to cram his Soul let him know what delight soever he finds when he hath spoiled the Elements of their Inhabitants to furnish his own Belly and not content with Natures Delicacies neither hath given them forc'd Fatnesses changing the very flesh into a marrow suppling the Bones almost into that Oyl that they were made to keep all â—his delight the Lord by his expressions does seem to take in his dread Executions on his Enemies a sinful People And if the vicious Friendships of the World have so much more attractive than Christ's love and favour and the happy consequences of it as to counterpoise all the danger of such enmity you may joyn hands with them But if His be the safer and more advantageous then hearken to his Propositions and beseechings for He does beg it of you As he treated this reconciliation in his Blood so he does in Petitions too For saith S. Paul We are Ambassadours for Christ as if God did beseech you by us we pray you in Christ's stead Be you reconciled and then be Generous towards your GOD and Saviour and having brought him as it were upon his knees reduc'd him to entreaties be friends and condescend to him and your own Happiness If He be for you take no care then who can be against you His Friendship will secure you not onely from your Enemies but from Hostility it self for when a man's ways please the Lord he will make even his Enemies to be at peace with him Prov. xvi 7. He will reconcile all but Vices And afterwards see what a blessed throng of Friends we shall be all initiated into Heb. xii 23. To an innumerable company of Angels to the general Assembly and Church of the First-born that are written in Heaven to God the Judg of all and to the Spirits of Just men made perfect and to Jesus the Mediatour of the new Covenant c. And of this blest Corona we our selves shall be a noble and a glorious part inflamed all with that mutual love that kindles Seraphims and that streams out into an heavenly glory filling that Region of immortal love and blessedness and being Friends that is made one with Father Son and Holy Ghost that Trinity of Love we shall enjoy what we do now desire to ascribe to them All Honour Glory Power Majesty and Dominion for evermore Amen The Fifth SERMON Preached at WHITE-HALL Third Wednesday in LENT EZECH XXXIII 11. Why will ye Dye THE Words are part of a Debate which God had with the sinful House of Israel in which there are three things offer themselves to be considered First The Sinners Fate and Choice He will Die That 's his End yea 't is his Resolution he will die Secondly Gods inquiry for the Ground of this he seems astonished at the Resolution and therefore reasons with them about this their so mad choice and questions Why will ye dye Which words are also Thirdly The debate of his Affections the reasoning of his Bowels and a most passionate Expostulation with them on account of that their Resolution Why will ye dye which as it is addrest by God directly to the House of Israel so it would fit a Nation perverse as that which mutinies against Miracles and Mercies is false to God Religion and their own Interests led by a Spirit of giddiness and frenzy unsteddy in all things but resolutions of Ruine that would tear open their old Wounds to let out Life and they will dye And though the Lord be pleased to work new prodigies of mercy for us and to say unto us in despite of all our Enemies both Forein and Domestick Live The use we make of all is onely to debauch the Miracles and make Gods Mercies help to fill the measure of our Judgments live as if we would try all the ways to Ruine and since God will thus deliver us from dangers we would call for them some other way But to prescribe to these is above the attempt of my endeavours May the blessed Spirit of Wisdom and Understanding the Spirit of Holiness and Peace and Order breath on their Counsels whom this is committed to I shall bend my Discourse to the Conviction of Sinners in particular and treat upon the words as if they had been spoke to us under the Gospel The first thing which my Text and God supposeth is the Sinners Fate and Choice He will dye Even the second Death for it is appointed for all men once to dye and then cometh the Judgment which shall sentence him to another death that is immortal in which he and his misery must live for ever that is he must die everlastingly Such is first his Fate That Sin and Death are of so near so complicated a relation as that though they were Twins the birth and Issue of one Womb and moment yet they are also one anothers Off-spring and beget each other while Sin bringeth forth Death as S. James saith and is the Parent of Perdition and yet the Man of Sin is the Son of Perdition as S. Paul saith and Iniquity is but destruction's birth onely itself derived And that this Death and Perdition is Eternal in the most sad sense of the word there are a thousand Texts that say This is the Message of God in the mouth and Blood
shoot at such a mark behind which a man stands but he must kill the man if he intend to shoot he do's intend to kill No he may pray for such an end that God would find expedients to bring it about but must not set wickedness on work to do it God do's not need the aids of sin to promote his glory or service And therefore 3. A truly Religious intention of a good end purely as it is good cannot suffer a man to chuse an evil means of working towards it It is not possible that he should do it for he that do's chuse a means unto an evil end intends it only as 't is useful to that end and otherwise he could not like nor pitch upon it but sin cannot be useful to a vertuous action as it is vertuous but perfectly repugnant to it I may exact and gripe oppress deceive and many more such things that so I may be rich and have to give to them that want but I cannot do those things truly intending the Religion of charity because that would not suffer me to do them Those actions are perfectly contradictions to its nature they ruinate the very being of a vertue as it is in obedience to God for a man cannot disobey God in obedience to him and therefore are not useful to it as it is a virtue nor chosen so but on some other motive The man that heaps by fraud and by oppression intending to build hospitals intends thereby to build himself a monument and leave as great a name behind him as he do's treasure may be but if he truly had intended charity he had not been uncharitable for charity The man that do's intend to be a daily constant person in the public exercises of Religion and travail up and down to get the opportunities if when he do's begin to think how he is to prosecute those intentions and so considers that then he must neglect his calling greatly and impoverish may be break himself and family if he then set down with himself I may allow my self some arts of thriving take ways of getting greater gains in my commodities then are fit for others that do not give God so much of their time or I will restrain my hand as to the poor for if Religion to God take away so considerable a part of what I should gain charity to the poor hath no reason to have a great share too in what I have and so leave off to be a doer that he may be a hearer or do that which is not justifiable use some deceitful methods or be not merciful and these are no strange things they say 'T is clear this man do's not intend towards the real power of religion for that would not allow him such waies to it which are so far from useful to it that they are perfect oppositions to its nature but either the repute of a professor or the being own'd as of a party or some such motive lurks under the visor of Religion it may be undiscern'd by him who minds that fair appearance of a good end so intently as not to search and try the whole intention the means as well as aim For such means however they may contribute to the action of Religion and vertue in the general yet they cannot be useful to the Religion or the vertue of the action nay do they not contribute sin more then their own to the intention 'T is a hard question and tho indeed it be apparent that he that chuseth an ill way only to bring about a good intent do's not like or chuse that ill for it self and would not embrace it if it were not drest and varnisht with the adornments and the paint of a well meaning and consequently is not so malicious as they that chuse sin barefac't in its own shape and colours yet when to do so is so directly against the very nature of piety against reason and command and hath so harsh a sentence as S. Paul do's thunder out against them that shall entertain such a doctrine that truly I do not know what to say to them that notwithstanding that dare practise it I 'am sure the wise man saith Eccles. 34. 20. He that bringeth an offering of the goods of the poor doth as one that killeth the Son before the Fathers eyes an offence that to the Father that hath more then his sons death in it it strikes him also thro the eyes and would make his own sight his murderers do's make it to be his torment and defies his displeasure chusing to spite him to his face and some such aggravation it should seem vice carries in it when it comes into Religion as it do's when it thrusts into our holy intentions as means to pious ends However it be I 'me sure I 've said enough to prove that truly good intentions cannot take in evil means and that such means when they are taken in make the intention mixt and unholy and therefore far from pure and so have don the second thing and let you know what is required to make a Religious intention singly purely so The third follows 3. That from such a single eye the body shall be light that such good hearty meanings do make the actions good and holy or are accepted as such actions The former part that actions regulated by intentions compleatly Religious are Religious needs no proof because our actions derive theis guilt or their Religiousness from thence there can be nothing there to blame for when the end is good and the means good then all is so But I would tell you such intentions have a privilege beyond this of making outward actions acceptable to the Lord for where we do endeavor in pursuance of such intentions and cannot bring them into act there those intentions are in Gods sight as the actions themselvs he do's so value them and so he will reward them For God accepts the will for deed and if there be first a willing mind it is accepted according to that a man hath and not according to that he hath not 2 Cor. 8. 4. Here thy good meaning if it put forth it self according to thy power is compleat performance here is a way the meanest soul may be an Heroe in Religion there is no bounds that can be set to holy meanings My actions may be fetter'd in ty'd by impossibilities that I cannot perform such holy deeds as others but my intentions are free as Angels I can mean heartily and intend to the utmost and by such an art the poor widow that gave nothing but the expression of the meanest poverty did yet give more then they that bestow'd treasures because in two mites she meant to give her utmost and at such rates God will reward them too Those good intentions that sincerely mind Gods glory shall themselvs reap glory even before the action shall From resurrection to eternity is time enough to reward holy actions but before that betwixt death and
judgment the soul shall be rewarded with the blessing of its intentions As it did often do its part in piety without the body so it shall have a crown before the body shall forestal happiness and for a while it shall alone be blessed as oftentimes it hath been vertuous alone in good intentions when it could not act 4. But all this is not strange that the great mercy of our God should so interpret to our advantage our designs of piety as to impute good meanings to our glory as if they were good doings and consequently where the intentions are holy the actions must be holy and where this eye is clear the body must have light but 't will be very strange if a clear eye make the whole body full of light illustrate those performances which have no relation to the soul. Most of the actions of our life are common and indifferent serve only the necessities or recreations of nature and how can these be holy Why yes by pure Religious intentions a man may sanctify all the actions of his life and if thine eye be single thy whole body shall be full of light Whether you eat or drink or whatsoever you do do all to the glory of God saith S. Paul 1 Cor. 10. 31. Every therefore the most common action may be intended to Gods glory and then 't is sanctified That the Lord should look for honor from the devout performances of our strictest Religion 't is no wonder for therefore he requires them but that when in the meanest instance I do serve my self in doing so I should be able to give glory to my God is sure by vertue of some strange stratagem some Divine elixar that will so transmute things why a good meaning will do this To shew thee how when thou goest about the employments of thy lawful calling have but good thoughts about thee good intentions in them and the actions of thy calling are for the uses of grace and thy necessities do prove thy vertue As for instance when thou labourest do but consider to what pains sin hath put thee sells thee thy bread for sweat for if man had not sin'd Eden had furnish't him with all the delicacies of Paradise without his care or contribution and he had had the fruits of the tree of life without the pains of planting any thing 't is sin that gives thee all this toil and then do but resolve to use this as an argument to thy self to make thee hate the cause of so much trouble I will sure labour most against that which hath so chang'd and debas'd my condition and which do's aim to make me far more miserable to eternity If I am weary of my work e're night what shall I be of everlastingness of torment If little thirsty heats and drops of sweat offend me what will unquenchable feavors and what a lake of brimstone And think again upon the mercies of thy God who offers thee at the rate of easier endeavors the food that lasteth to eternal life the calling of a Christian being the least painful and yet it brings the greatest fruits the price of that high calling being blessedness if thou but labor in it If thou be sustaining the necessities of nature in meat and drink look up to him that do's provide for them and resolve only not to use his blessings to his dishonor by excesses not to spew his mercies out into his face again but use them as assistances of nature to enable thee for such emploiments as his providence hath assign'd to thee And in thy recreations also do but take notice thankfully how God hath provided for delights too how he hath not only brought forth bread to strengthen man but wine to make his heart glad and oyl to make him a cheerful countenance and instruments of sport to delight him and but acknowledg all these things to God and intend with thy self to use them only to his ends Thy calling either to provide for thy subsistence here that thou may'st serve him or to do good to others Thy meals for preservation of that life which he hath lent thee for his uses and recreations for refreshment and for health and make no doubt if nothing do interpose to spoil these instances that thou art serving God in all of these that thy most secular actions are thus make spiritual imploiments by being dedicated so to God undertaken in his fear and intended for the uses of his providence so that if whensoever thou art going about any thing thou do but ask thy self why thou do'st set upon it and can'st but make a good intention look towards it and resolve only to let it serve such ends resolve not to transgress in it the bounds that God hath set thee either of time or measure and to make all subordinate and to assist towards piety some way or other and then sometimes with eyes lift up call for and look for a blessing down upon thee in it and by this means the action is sanctified so thou dost consecrate thy deeds to God and he accepts thy meaning in it as an offering to him the action is adopted into the stock of Religion meant to God and so thy whole life may be made pious by such good intentions and thus thy single eye makes thy whole body full of light And this consideration alone might apply it self with pressingness upon us Shall I think God not easy to be serv'd when I may teach my recreations to serve him Shall I think Heaven placed out of my possibilities when I can learn my sports to wing me towards it Religion sure is not so very difficult when a good honest meaning can transmute every action of my life into Religion and then who would not at such easy rates change his imployments which he must do and his sports which he will do into pieties when it is don by putting good intentions into them by good thoughts and ejaculations engaging God along in them But the last words do urge an application which I promised in one word But if thine eye be evil thy whole body is full of darkness My brethren if ill intentions have so destructive an influence upon our actions that when the end is foolish tho the action I practise be a vertue yet that aim do's defeat it of its vertuosness it loseth all its tast of piety and an ill enddo's debauch it into vice as I have prov'd and so for want of a good meaning I either lose my Religion or my Religion becomes sin unto me Unhappy I that when with such intentions I practise duty I lose the pleasures or the profits of the sins I might have practis'd every jot as innocently and much more usefully as to those ends and I lose the duty and by the very duty I purchase condemnation enjoy neither the vice I do omit nor yet the piety I practise nor any thing but the sad sentence of they have their reward And on the