Men do but the Spirit of God as they fansie doing all things in them to say they could sin were to say that God himself could Sin however therefore all Breaches and Transgressions of the Law are Criminal in other Men in them they are only Nominal and Seeming Sins Sins improperly and falsly so called from the similitude they bear to them And on this account they reprove none among themselves for committing the most heinous and flagitious Crimes but for shewing Sorrow for them after it being not Sin in their Opinion but a Remorse for Sin that is the Sign of an Unregenerate State the discerning a Difference between Good and Evil which they call the Relish of Eves Apple still remaining and endeavour by all means to eradicate perswading themselves that when they have destroyed all Sense of Sin they are arrived to the highest Point of Saintship and Perfection to the very State of Innocence in which Adam was created the State in which he knew no Evil. Miserably dreaming because Adam knew no Difference between Good and Evil Experimentally before his Fall that he knew not any Intellectually And thus we see not to believe Rightly of the Person of Christ is in truth not to believe in Christ to deny either his Humanity or Divinity is in Effect not to be a Christian. It is not only necessary therefore to receive all that is delivered By him but also all that is delivered Of him to acknowledge him to be our God as well as our Saviour and to adore him as well as to be Instructed by him To say in these days with the People in my Text He or This Man hath done all things well were no less than Sacriledge when our Style ought to be The Eternal Son of God blessed for evermore hath done all things well And so I pass to the Second Particular The Kind or Nature of the Peoples Verdict it was an Approbation He hath done Well The Peoples Approbation here was rightly grounded they concluded with good Reason That he that had made the Deaf and Dumb to hear and speak was a Prophet and no Deceiver that he whose Works were so Mighty must himself be Holy and his Words True Miracles are infallible Signs of a Divine Person Irrefragable Testimonies of a Man of God as the Widow of Zarephath rightly concluded when Elijah restored her dead Son to Life Now says she I know thou art a Man of God and that the Word of the Lord in thy Mouth is Truth and likewise Nicodemus when he said to our Lord Rabbi we know thou art a Teacher come from God for no Man can do the Miracles thou dost except God be with him Our Lord himself made use of this Argument drawn from his Mighty Works as his last Appeal for the Truth of his Divine Mission says he If I do not the Works of my Father believe me not but if I do though ye believe not me believe the Works Thus even licensing the Infidelity of men in case he had not performed Works above the Power and Ability of men At the first production of the Creatures there were certain Properties or Qualities implanted in them as Descending to heavy Bodies Ascending to light moving Circularly to heavenly c. Now when it comes to pass that Heavy things move Upwards and Light Downwards when Water a fluid Body is made a Pavement or a Wall the Fiery Furnace a Refrigeratory as Nebuchadnezzar's was to the three Children circa frigidos capillorum globulos innoxium luxit incendium says S t Jerome the harmless Flame did only shine upon not singe their curled Locks When I say the Courses of Nature are thus changed and its Laws inverted when the Creature is fashioned again anew as the Author of the Book of Wisdom speaks and is made to observe Particular Commands it is a Kind of Second Creation For none can change the Laws of Nature but the God of Nature Well therefore did S t Augustine say Habent Miracula linguam suam opera sunt argumenta Miracles have a Tongue and speak and they are not only Works but Arguments To give a man Speech that was born without it is even of it self a Kind of Speech the Speech no less than of the Almighty for God appears not Personally to converse with Men but such as these are his Utterances of himself to the World neither did the Voices that broke from the Clouds at the Baptism and Transfiguration of our Lord saying This is my Beloved Son more clearly and intelligibly declare to the Hearers who Christ was than the Voice of God in every Miracle he wrought pronounc'd the same thing but on all his Mighty Works was engraved in bright and shining Characters This is my Beloved Son and again This is my Beloved Son hear him The first Way I say was not more convincing to mens Senses than the second was argumentative to their Reason and there is but One and the same Proof of the Deity and of the Truth of Christ's Pretences and they are either both True or both False he that gives Hearing to the Deaf-born is a Righteous Person or he that made the Ear is nothing he that gives Speech to the Dumb-born has done well or he that made the Tongue is a mere Chimaera But yet this is to be received with some Caution for there are two Uses which God makes of Miracles The one to plant Faith And the other to try the Constancy of Believers And as God sent Christ and the Prophets before him with the Power of working Miracles for the first End so he permits Anti-Christ and other Impostors to work False Signs and Wonders for the second End and those so seemingly true as to deceive if it were possible the very Elect. You will say then Which of these two shall have the Preheminence in our Belief how shall we know to which to adhere both performing the same Works but drawing several Ways Must these Miracle-Workers as one asks the Question take place as Women in a Bake-house the first Comer the first served There is a Rule set down Deut. 13.1 how we are to carry our selves in this Case and to judge of Miracles If there arise among you a Prophet says Moses or a Dreamer of Dreams and gives you a Sign or a Wonder and the Sign or the Wonder comes to pass whereof he spake unto you saying Let us go after other Gods which you have not known and let us serve them you shall not hearken unto the Word of that Prophet for the Lord your God proveth you Now the Wonders and Signs performed by Anti-Christ and other Impostors are all to this Purpose To draw men from the Worship of the True God or at least from some Fundamental Points in Religion For as S t Paul says of Anti-Christ He opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God so that he as God sitteth in the Temple of God shewing himself to be God When
of thy Strange and astonishing Miseries thy low Condition and sad Wants thy perpetual Dangers and Persecutions What is the meaning of thine Agony and bloudy Sweat thy Crown of Thorns platted and crusht into thy Head thy being Mockt and Spit on What is the meaning of thy Submitting not only to the Dishonours of a Humane Birth but to those also of a Violent and Ignominious Death Being the Son of God why didst thou suffer any Evil Why didst thou not convert the Stable in which thou wert Born into a Palace and the Cross to which thou were Nail'd into a Throne Why didst thou undergo such Miseries and Indignities as made the World doubt of thy Divine Nature and not exert thy Deity and destroy thy Murderers and burn up their City as thou spak'st in one of thy Parables Thy People expected thee a mighty Prince but thou shew'd'st thy self a Destitute Forlorn Person they lookt for a Deliverer but behold one Obnoxious to Bonds and Death for a Redeemer but Alas none needed Redemption more himself Great undoubtedly and wonderful was the Mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God and that he should not only be born in a Mortal but in a Miserable Condition The Apostle might well give it the precedence to all other Mysteries of Godliness Great is the Mystery of Godliness says he God was manifested in the Flesh justify'd in the Spirit seen of Angels c. But that Christ should suffer the things he did in our Nature was no less Necessary than Wonderful And to omit all other Reasons for it I shall insist only on that One Great One Because Sin could not otherwise have been abolisht the End for which Christ came into the World attain'd which was To destroy the Works of the Devil Christ could have destroy'd the Devil with more Facility if he had come in Majesty and Glory as the Apostle says 2 Thess. 2. He shall consume Anti-Christ with the Spirit or breath only of his Mouth and the Brightness of his Coming But our Lord's Business at this time was not to destroy the Person but the Power of the Devil Sin was both the Stratagem by which he conquer'd and the Chain by which he held Mankind in Captivity and Christ undertaking to rescue them from this Thraldom to bind the Strong Man and to take from him the Armour in which he trusted he was not to do this by an Omnipotent Power as he brought the World out of Nothing Light out of Darkness c. but by an Heroick Vertue such as he shew'd when he trampled upon the Temptations of the Devil in the Wilderness He therefore enter'd the Lists against Satan as a Champion or Combatant according to the fair Law of Armes as they say i. e. with a sutable Strength and Appointment to his Adversaries Man was lost by Sin and could only be restored by Righteousness he had forfeited God's Favour and his Felicity by his Transgressions and could recover them again no other way but by Obedience On this Account Christ laid by his Majesty and Glory and took our Nature that in the Infirmity of our Flesh he might foil our Strong Enemy the Second Adam redeem the Glories lost by the First Adam the Seed of the Woman bruise the Serpents head made himself subject to the Law that he might fulfil the Law obnoxious to Death that he might subdue Death and the Author of it by suffering Death as S t Paul says Heb. 2.14 That through Death he might destroy him that had the Power of Death that is the Devil So that we see here was no place for Thunder and Lightning for an O'er-bearing Irresistible Power but only for Divine Graces or Vertues and the Weapons Christ used in this Conflict were only Courage Holiness Obedience Patience Self-denial Meekness and the like such as were in the Power of Men also to make use of he so conquer'd as they might conquer after him For the Great Business was not Christ's Personal Victory that was secure but the Victory of his Followers he indeed was to break the Power of the Kingdom of Darkness but they were to compleat the Conquest every one in his own Particular to subdue Sin and Satan And thus while Christ destroy'd the Power of the Devil disarm'd him and made those that had been his Slaves Lords over him by consequence and in a Political Sense he destroy'd the Devil himself as a Prince is said to be destroy'd that is stript of his Forts and Castles his Territories and Armies his Ammunition and Harness of War though his Person still survives However then that Zipporah upbraided Moses upon the Circumcising of her Child saying factus es mihi Sponsus sanguinum thou art to me a Bloudy Husband we have no reason to quarrel that Christ was to us Salvator Sanguinum a Bloudy Saviour i. e. a Saviour drencht in his own Bloud for without the Bloud of Christ there had been no Redemption But to be more particular and distinct There are two Ways by which Christ destroy'd the Power of the Devil and delivered Mankind from his Bondage and those are Pretio Exemplo by the Price or Satisfaction he paid for Sin And by the Example of his Holy Life By the first he destroy'd the Guilt of Sin And by the second the Dominion or reigning Power of Sin 1. Therefore we may say There was a Necessity of Christ's Death and Sufferings and that he should be a Wounded Saviour that he might pay a Price make Satisfaction to God the Father for the Sins of the World For whether it be that the Vindicative Justice of God for Sin be so natural and intimate to his Essence that he cannot without renouncing his very Nature and Being pardon Sin without a Competent Satisfaction as some would have it Or whether it be only his Declared Will not to pardon Sin without a Competent Satisfaction as others more sutably to the Divine Goodness and Glory affirm I shall not need here to dispute seeing both Sides agree in one and the same Conclusion That it was necessary for Christ to Dye for the Sins of the World The Wages of Sin is Death says the Apostle and in another place Almost all things by the Law were purged by Bloud and without shedding of Bloud there was no Remission Now though the Bloud there mentioned was but the Bloud of Beasts that were sacrificed yet those Beasts were the Proxies and Representatives of Men and also Types of the Great Sacrifice which Christ was once to offer on the Cross and derived from it all their Vertue and Merit and God revealed this Way of atoning by Sacrifice early to the World and afterwards prescribed it to his People the Jews by written Laws from whom it was deriv'd to all Nations though the Mystery that Sacrifices were founded in the Death of Christ was not clearly understood till the Days of the Gospel As a Remedy for Sin was promised from the Beginning so 't was
And this last Way did God Know Israel above all the Families of the Earth for he knew them not only with a Perceptive Knowledge so as he Knows equally all the Nations of the World but Owned favoured and was beneficial to them As the Sun beholds some Countries with a more bounteous Aspect than others not only shedding on them Light and common Influences but enriching them with the Noblest Plants Minerals and Precious Stones Or as he is feign'd by the Poets to have beheld Thessaly when he was in love with Daphne terrâ figit in unâ Quos mundo debet oculos he fixt his Eyes on one particular Soil which ought to have cheered the Universe So God as if he had been Enamoured on Israel of all the Nations of the Earth set his Heart on them alone to the seeming Contempt of all beside he revealed himself to them in a more Especial Manner made a Covenant with them gave them Laws and heaped Blessings upon them vouchsafed to be their King and Governour in his own Person conducted fed protected them by by Wonderful and Supernatural Means and whereas he governed the other Nations by his Ordinary Invisible Power as if he had erected a New Providence in the World for them he brought all things to pass in their behalf by Miracles And thus though by Nature Israel was no better than other Nations by his Grace and Favour God made them Excel them But then though it be the highest Advantage To be Known by God after a particular and Extraordinary Manner yet if a People shew themselves not worthy of it it ceases to be an Advantage nay it turns to their greater Evil. 'T is not enough therefore that men are known by God to make them happy but God must also be known by them they must understand his Will what is pleasing and displeasing to him and hold a reciprocal Correspondence with him by Faith Love and Obedience For as S t Peter says of Apostates It had been better for them not to have known the Way of Righteousness than after they have known it to turn from the holy Commandment So it had been better for Israel if they had not been the Favourites of God than after their being so by their Sins to lose that Grace for Sins against Favour are greater than Sins against a Commandment Men in this Case being not only Disobedient but Ungrateful and whereas God would possibly have past by the Offences of less Obliged Persons he will call such as these to a strict account what he would have pardoned in the Heathen that were Strangers to him he will punish in his own People whom he has known by so many Great and Distinguishing Benefits You only have I known of all the Families of the Earth therefore will I punish you for all your Iniquities The Words afford us this Proposition or Observation That whatever People God blesses above others if they shew themselves Ungrateful by sinning against him he will punish them above others Which Proposition I shall handle after this manner I. Prove and confirm the Truth of it that it is indeed so And II. Shew the Reason and Equity of it why it should be so I. To clear and confirm the Proposition Sin as soon as it is committed is followed by Punishment except prevented by Repentance Punishment follows it I say sometimes with Slow but always with Sure Paces till it over-takes it Vengeance attends it as the Gaoler in some Countries does Malefactors who is bound in the same Chain with them Or is coupled to it as the After-Birth is to the Birth For as in Natural Productions after the Birth of the Creature there is a second Birth or Protrusion so there is in the bringing-forth of Sin it is no sooner produced in the World but there succeeds a Title to Punishment so close upon it as if it came from the same Womb. If thou dost Evil says God to Cain Sin lyeth at the Door i. e. the Punishment of Sin is at hand to seize thee and says our Lord in regard of mens proneness to Wickedness It is necessary that Offences should come but then also that 't was as necessary That upon them Woes should come and the Scripture makes it a piece of Injustice to detain them no less than a Sin to spare Sin The Wages of Sin is Death says S t Paul and as when the Wages of a Labourer or the Pay of a Souldier is detained a Mutiny or Clamour is raised so when Punishment the Wages of Sin is with-held a Cry is sent up to Heaven and God's Justice is continually sollicited till Guilt receive its due Reward This indeed to the Men of this World is the primum incredibile one of the most Incredible Doctrines that is taught they see not the Link which by God's appointment couples Sin and Punishment and because the Act of Sin is transient and Vengeance deferred they conceive the Guilt and the Bitterness of Death contracted by it are also transient and that they can confute the whole Hypothesis from their own Experience they having not only run on in Disobedience for many Years together but encreased their Wickedness as well as continued in it proceeded from sinning with fear to sin with presumption from offending God to the affronting him from breaking his Laws to the deriding of his Worship and the denying of his Deity and yet say they we have found none of that Vengeance that is spoken of no not the least Disturbance in our Evil Ways But is it then no Vengeance to let a Sinner run on in the Ways of Perdition without any Check Is the Blindness and Darkness of the Soul and Hardness of the Heart no Judgment Is the falling from the Condition of a Man to that of a Beast the despising all things Spiritual and Noble and finding no relish but in things sensual and Brutish no Judgment Is God's giving them up thus to a Reprobate Mind and Vile Affections condemning them to love Necessarily and Finally what they have so long loved Perversely and Wilfully no Judgment Is the visible trailing after them in this manner the Chain of Damnation and going on singing and dancing to Hell without apprehending the least Evil no Judgment What Sadder Arrest can there be of God's Wrath than such an Exemption from it What Plague or Punishment sent upon Less Offending Sinners half so dreadful as the Calm and Peace which these boast of But let it be as these Men imagine that all these things we speak of are Dreams that Obdurateness and Insensibility in Sinning is no Punishment and that nothing deserves the Name of Vengeance but what is Corporal Loss of Life or Liberty deprivation of Health Estate and the like How do these know they shall escape these Evils Those of this Way are for the most part Young or in the Strength of their Days and perhaps God has determined before they depart hence to make them as Eminent Examples
SERMONS PREACHED Partly Before His MAJESTY AT WHITE-HALL And Partly Before ANNE Dutchess of York AT THE CHAPPEL at S t JAMES By HENRY KILLIGREW D. D. Master of the Savoy and Almoner to his Royal Highness LONDON Printed by J. M. for R. Royston Bookseller to His most Sacred Majesty MDCLXXXV THE PUBLISHER TO THE READER THERE are so many Sermons upon all sorts of Subjects already extant that the Author of these had he been perfectly left to his own liberty would not have increased the Number But there were some Reasons which made it in a manner necessary for him to add unto the Heap though as the common complaint goes it be grown too big And none were more forcible to extort them from him than the kindness he hath for some persons Which every one that feels any touch of that passion knows to have a power to constrain us unto those things which merely for our own satisfaction alone we should not chuse to do Some near Relations that is were desirous to converse with him by the help of these Discourses when he is dead and were perswaded withal that others might now reap some profit by them in the reading whom the lowness of his Voice could not reach when they came to hear them No man I can bear him witness is more sensible than he that there are more elaborate and more universally useful Sermons and Tracts already in the peoples hands but Mankind having several tastes as well as faces and very different relishes it is possible these Discourses may be better fitted to some palates and touch some hearts more smartly than those which in themselves may be more excellent This I can say of them That there are many seasonable Truths delivered in them and expressed in words so apt so pure and clean that while they display the Object which they represent they strengthen and cherish the sight In short they both instruct and delight satisfie the appetite and excite it present solid nourishment and give it a grateful taste Nothing here I am sure is insipid much less nauseous nothing feeble and flagging much less dead but there is quickness and life every where both in the sense and in the Style Which may please even this delicate not to say fastidious Age wherein things very commendable are wont to be disrelished But whether the nice and curious be pleased or no the Author is not concerned if the pious and vertuous reap any profit by these Sermons and be the better for them And then we grow better when as the Apostle speaks we approve the things that are excellent or things that differ not entertaining falshood under the appearance of truth nor evil under the shew of Good but having a right judgment in all things and making the same difference between good and bad in our lives that we do in our minds preserve our selves sincere and without offence unto the Great Day of Judgment Ian. 26. 1684 5 S. Patrick The CONTENTS SERMON I. On Christmas-Day 1 John iii. 5 And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins and in him is no sin SERMON II. On January the 30 th 1 Sam. xii 25 But if ye shall still do wickedly ye shall be consumed both ye and your King SERMON III. John ii 4 Woman what have I to do with thee mine hour is not yet come SERMON IV. On Wednesday before Easter Dan. ix 26 And after threescore and two Weeks shall Messiah be cut off but not for himself SERMON V. On Good Friday Zech. xiii 6 And one shall say unto him What are these wounds in thine hands Then shall he answer Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends SERMON VI. On Easter-Day Rom. viii 11 But if the Spirit of him that raised up Iesus from the dead dwell in you he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal Bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you SERMON VII On the 29 th of May. Psal. ii 6 Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Sion SERMON VIII On Whitsunday John xvi 8 And when he is come he will reprove the world of sin of righteousness and of judgment SERMON IX and X. Mark vii 37 He hath done all things well he maketh both the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak SERMON XI Amos iii. 2 You only have I known of all the Families of the Earth therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities SERMON XII Psal. cv 44 45. And he gave them the lands of the heathen and they inherited the labour of the people That they might observe his statutes and keep his laws SERMON XIII Mark viii 2 3. I have compassion on the multitude because they have now been with me three days and have nothing to eat And if I send them away fasting to their own houses they will faint by the way for divers of them came from far SERMON XIV Luke xvi 9 Make to your selves friends of the Mammon of unrighteousness that when ye fail they may receive ye into everlasting habitations SERMON XV. On the Fifth of November Psal. xi 3 If the foundations be destroyed what can the righteous do SERMON XVI John xvi 23 Whatsoever ye shall ask the father in my nome he will give it you SERMON XVII Luke xvii 37 And they said unto him Where Lord And he said unto them Wheresoever the Body is thither will the Eagles be gathered together SERMON XVIII and XIX 1 Pet. iv 8 And above all things have fervent Charity among your selves for Charity covereth the multitude of Sins SERMON XX. and XXI Matth. xxii 46 On these two Commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets SERMON XXII Lam. iii. 39 40. Wherefore doth a living man complain a man for the punishment of his sins Let us search and try our ways and turn again to the Lord. The First Sermon 1 JOHN iii. 5 And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sin and in him is no sin THE main Drift and Scope of Saint John throughout this whole Epistle is to perswade the Christians to whom he writes Not to sin These things says he in the former Chapter I write unto ye that ye sin not For such Christians it seems there were then as well as now who believed that the Faith and a wicked Life were not inconsistent together that men might profess the Gospel and not forsake their Vices They acknowledged Christ to be the promised Messiah and Saviour that was to come into the World but they understood not rightly wherein Salvation consisted viz. that 't was not only in the remission of sins but in the reclaiming men from the commission of them not only in taking away their guilt but in reforming their evil lives The Apostle therefore to set them right in a matter of so high concernment alledges in the foregoing Chapter many Reasons against their indulging themselves in any vicious course As the
contrariety of sin to God who is all Light and to walk in sin is to walk in darkness the unsuteableness of such ways to the glorious Promises they expected the vileness of earthly things in comparison of things heavenly and the like And in the Words of my Text he adds two Reasons more taken from two things which he says they did know but did not duly consider The first from the purpose of the manifestation of Christ in the Flesh which was to take away sin And the second from the Sanctity of his Life which was an even course of righteousness Christ purposing to take away Sin by his Example as well as by his Death and Sufferings And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins and in him is no sin We may observe in the Words these three things I. The Purpose of the manifestation of Christ in the Flesh It was to take away sin II. The Purpose of his holy Life That was also to take away sin For S t John alledges this for a Motive as well as his manifestation in the Flesh That in him was no sin III. The Inference from these two Purposes imply'd in the Argumentation of the Apostle though not express'd in his Words That it is the Duty of all Christ's Followers as far as 't is possible for frail men to be without sin I begin with the Purpose of Christ's Manifestation in the Flesh To take away sin And first a few things Of his Manifestation Christ's coming into the World is express'd in Scripture by this Term of Manifestation to shew that 't was of a different kind from other mens who had no Being before their productions into the World unless in a very imperfect way of conceiving it viz. in their Causes and Principles But Christ before he was born into the World had a full and perfect Existence even from all Eternity and did only assume our Nature to his Pre-existent Being thereby to enable him to perform the Work of our Salvation and more familiarly to converse with Mankind as our Apostle says that we might see and hear and handle the Word of Life And 't was in reference to his Being before he was born of the Virgin that Old Zachary compares his Manifestation in the Flesh to the rising of the Sun above the Horizon Whereby the Day-spring says he from on high hath visited us The Sun 's Rising we know is not his first Being as some ignorant People of old conceived who thought he was extinguish'd every Night in the Sea and a new one lighted every Morning But the Sun before he comes forth to us as a Bridegroom out of his Chamber has run his Course to many People and Nations So likewise Christ the Sun of righteousness before he shone to us here on Earth had run the Course of Eternity as I may say with his Father being the power of God from all Ages the Image of his Goodness and the brightness of his Person And this by the way may arme us against the errour and seduction of the Ebionites Samosatenians reviv'd again by the Socinians in later days who teach That Christ had no Being before he was conceived by the Virgin of the Holy Ghost Christus non fuit ante Mariam Virginem Mary the Virgin say they and Christ the Saviour were Cotemporaries Thus these Hereticks while they feared to worship a Man denyed the Son of God and ran into the highest Infidelity and Sacriledge to avoid only a supposed Idolatry But to proceed The Manifestation of Christ unto the World in our Nature the Appearance of the Son of God in the Flesh to speak strictly was rather an Obscuration than a Manifestation of him As the interposition of a Cloud between the sight of our Eyes and the Sun is a veiling and not a shewing of him so the exhibiting of Christ in the beggarly Raggs of our Flesh and Bloud was a disguising not a revealing of him That God who is incomprehensible and unconceiveable hid from our senses and hid from our understandings not by Darkness but by excess of Light and Glory and our incapacity to behold him would stoop to manifest himself to mortal eyes though in the most excellent created Form whatsoever was an infinite diminution of his Majesty But to manifest himself not only to but in our Nature must be confest to be the greatest Clouding and Absconding and not Revelation of the Deity imaginable and such as could never have entred into the thoughts of Man to believe if it had not been done and seen But however that this is most true yet if we consider this Mystery rightly for though the Evangelists set down the Manifestation of Christ in the Flesh Historically S t Paul speaks of it as of a high Mystery we shall find that God could no way have more eminently declared his Wisdom and consulted the infirmity of Men in the manifesting of his Son to the World than after that mean manner which he did that such his eclipsing and obscuring him was the most advantageous and effectual way of revealing him For in the first Place how was it possible for mortal eyes to have seen the Immortal God otherwise Alas we cannot behold the Sun but in his setting as one says Spectantes oculos infirmo lumine passus our weak Eyes are not able to gaze on that glorious Luminary in its Meridian strength but if we will see its Beauty we must watch the opportunity of its infirmity For otherwise the greater its lustre is the greater is our darkness to perceive it How then could we have beheld the Glory of Christ the ineffable Glory I say which he had with his Father from all Eternity His three Disciples were as dead men beholding only his Transfiguration and those that apprehended him in the Garden upon the streaming-forth only of some Rays of his Divinity through the Cloud of his Flesh fell twice to the Ground who could then have stood or supported the Fulguration as I may say of his Deity in its full Glory It was not possible for Christ to have appeared but in some exinanition or being stript of his Majesty the Son of God to have convers'd with Mankind but in the Clothing of Humanity 2. If we consider the Purpose of his Manifestation which was to take away sin it was not possible again to have effected this by any other Manifestation but such as was also an Obscuration of him For how could he have been subject to the Law in his Divine Nature delivered up into the hands of wicked men suffered Death and the like How could he have fulfilled the Types that shadow'd him in the Law the Paschal Lamb the Goat for the Sin-Offering the Ram caught by the Horns in the Bush c. unless he had been hamper'd as I may say and caught in our Flesh intangled in our infirmities found as St. Paul says in the similitude of a man There had been no Sacrifice no Propitiation
and righteousness before him all the days of their life That men therefore may not mistake the principal Design for which Christ came into the World our Apostle plainly declares it at the 8 th Verse For this purpose says he the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the Devil Christ came not only to pardon Sin but to destroy it not only to absolve a wicked World but to make a righteous to take away the condemnation but the commission of Sin And therefore the second way I named of Christ's taking away our Sins From within us ought to be taken into our highest consideration For can it be imagined that he should descend from the Bosome of his Father and visit the Earth for no other end but to make a Gaol-Delivery as I may say to reprieve so many Rake-Hells only and condemn'd Persons and to turn them loose again into the World to commit more villanies The whole Tenor of the Gospel speaks otherwise that Christ was born in the Flesh that we might be regenerate and new-born of the Spirit that he was crucified that we might crucifie our vile Lusts and Affections dyed for the Guilt of Sin that we might dye to the Practice of it suffer'd to excuse us from suffering but not to excuse us in any wickedness he cast out the Hand-writing or Accusation of Satan against us to no other end but that we should cast out Satan himself and his Kingdom out of our hearts and erect in the place God's Kingdom or the Kingdom of righteousness So that the manifestation of Christ in the Flesh to take away our sins imports no less than his rectifying that ugly confusion and disorder which Sin had wrought in the Universe and the deposing Satan from his Usurpation over the World than the restoring God to his Dominion and his Creatures to his Obedience the repairing his Honour and giving satisfaction not to one Attribute only his Justice but to all his other Attributes his Wisdom Truth Goodness Holiness c. And this was a Design worthy of the Incarnation of the Deity of the travel sufferings and all the other Glorious Works of the Messiah of his unhinging and unframing the Course of Nature by his Miracles for it was to no less end than to re-establish it again in the beautiful Frame and Order which God at first created it in before the Devil had disfigured and deformed it And for this Cause the Evangelists in relating the Passages of Christ's life often take us off from looking too intently on the Events which they record and call upon us to consider the Purposes of them rather than the Events themselves bidding us regard the Prophecies that went before of them frequently repeating that it might be fulfilled that it might be fulfilled that was spoken by such or such a Prophet And if we will make the best advantage of Christ's Incarnation we must not look so much on the Fact as on the design of the Fact what it intimates and preaches to us viz. the extinction and extirpation of Sin not only of the Guilt but of the reigning Power of it According to what S t Peter says As he has suffered for us in the Flesh arm your selves likewise with the same mind for he that has suffered in the Flesh hath ceased from Sin This arming-our selves with the same mind and ceasing from Sin in the Flesh was that which God chiefly aimed at in his Manifestation of his Son in the Flesh To the end as the Apostle goes on that we should no longer live the rest of our time in the Flesh to the lusts of men but to the will of God And to shew us yet further that the bringing of men to live righteously was the great aim of God in all Ages of the World says St. Peter For this cause was the Gospel preached also to those that are dead i. e. to those of the old World that they might live according to God in the Spirit Let every Christian therefore that professes the Faith of Christ's coming in the Flesh to take away Sin and yet lives in it hearken and attend to this Admonition Remember thy End In the Place where the Son of Syrach utters these Words he means the End or Consummation of our Days as we are natural men which is good Wisdom But remember thy end i. e. the Design and Purpose of thy Christian Profession and the Mysteries of it for this is yet a higher degree of Wisdom And before I yet leave this Point I shall give caution against two sorts of Men who greatly pervert this Advice And first Against the Papists who play and trifle with the weightiest Passages of our Salvation as Poets and Romance-Writers do with serious Histories turn them into Gauds and Entertainments of the Fancy make Models and Representations in their Churches of Christ's lying in the Manger at this holy Season and of his rising from the Grave at the Feast of Easter with all the circumstances belonging to them as if such Puppet-Shews were adequate and sutable Returns of Devotion for these Divine Dispensations Again they gather and hoard up the Nails and Fragments of our Lord's Cross as if they treasured to their Souls the Benefits of his Passion hug his Crucifix and weep over the Pictures of his Wounds as if this express'd a Seraphical Affection though they hug also at the same time the grossest Sins The second Caution is against those among our selves who yet worse abuse the Purpose of the Manifestation of Christ in the Flesh making it to be more for the encouragement than the taking away of Sin fansying that he died to excuse them from holy living was made subject to the Law that they might be freed from the Obedience of it perform'd all righteousness that they should need to perform none and these men pray as they believe O Lord say they do thou all in us and for us and take thou the glory Thus exempting themselves from all Obligations to the Commandments and making the Faith a jest and scorn to Libertines and Unbelievers while they talk only more of a holy Life than they but practise it as little make the Cross of Christ not a Sanctuary to Penitent Sinners but a refuge for Hypocrites and Cheats in Religion and yet none are so righteous so much in God's favour in their own opinion as these But they will find at last to their great confusion That Christ was manifested in the Flesh not only to take away our Sins From us but also to take them away Out of us or from within us And he does this by three Means or Expedients By his Spirit by his Word and by his Example First By his Spirit After the Manifestation of Christ in the Flesh his Suffering and being laid in the Grave he was quickned or raised to life again by the Spirit of God and exalted to have the Power and Prerogative of sending down the Spirit
Sin it self which was no other than Apostasie at least in purpose and determination a resolution not only to shake off the Yoke of God's Political Government but also to break his Yoke of righteousness from off their Necks And that their Sin was of no common nature the miraculous Rain and Thunder v. 17. sent to reprove them are a sufficient Argument But we have no need to conjecture what their Offence was for God himself declares it to Samuel C. 8. v. 7. They have not rejected thee says God but they have rejected Me that I should not reign over them Their desire to be governed as the Nations of the Earth was indeed To live after the licentious manner of the Nations of the Earth not so much to have a King like them as to be without God in the World like them as the Apostle speaks They were weary of the Divine Conduct uneasie under God's Discipline his Statutes and Ordinances were a burden to them thâ—â— hated on all occurrences to address themselves to the Ephod to have their last Appeal to the Deity to see the Cloud descend upon the Tabernacle on every miscarriage as in the days of their Fathers The Presence of the Living God is dreadful to Flesh and Bloud in its purest and holiest state well then might these Rebels wish him further removed from them that were conscious to themselves not only of infirmities but of purposed defection from him not only of defects and failures but of direct Apostasie And as the Greatness of their Sin thus consisted not in desiring a King but in revolting in their hearts from God so their still doing wickedly which is so severely threatned in my Text could not possibly be as some interpret their persisting in the desire to have a King God had already given them a King before the Prophet denounced the Commination in my Text and not only so but he had promised a Blessing upon his Reign and also on them in case of future obedience as may be seen at the 14 th Verse Their Still doing wickedly therefore must be their persisting and going on to accomplish their wicked design to forsake God their making good their Apostasie in Act as well as in Determination and Purpose their giving themselves up like the Heathen to whatsoever their Lusts prompted them to and this out of a Perswasion that they might sin more securely under the Dominion of Flesh and Bloud than under the Dominion of God And this was the Case in which the Universal Destruction the Destruction of King and People is threatned in my Text. All Sin and Doing wickedly offends God but Presumption in sinning persisting and resolving to do wickedly turns him into a consuming Fire when men add wickedness to wickedness and draw iniquity as the Prophet says with a Cart-rope i. e. with a long Series or Train of evil Deeds not interrupting or breaking them off by Repentance but lying down to sleep in sin and rising up to return again to it making sin the business of their lives and not only transgressing against God and his Laws but renouncing them And we find in After-ages when the Children fell into the Apostasie which their Fathers only consulted of at this time when I say their King instead of humbling himself upon hearing God's wrath denounced against him Cut the Roll and cast it into the Fire and the People presumptuously told his Prophet As for the Words that thou hast spoken unto us in the Name of the Lord we will not hearken unto them But we will certainly do whatsoever goeth forth of our own mouth to burn Incense to the Queen of Heaven c. as it is Jerem. 44.17 For three iniquities and for four says God I will visit my People By three is understood many or very much as we say thrice happy and thrice honourable for exceeding happy and honourable When a Nation comes up to be thrice i. e. exceeding sinful their condition is dangerous but when it goes beyond that and is four times sinful then 't is no marvel if God also sets no Bounds to his Anger but says Nunc exurgam I will now arise and visit and as they have vext me with their transgressions I will vex them with my Judgments as they have cast me out of their Hearts I will cast them out of my Sight as they will allow me no longer to be their God I will pluck them up by the Roots and allow them no longer to be a People and Nation or which is all one a happy People a flourishing Nation governed as in times past But I will eclipse their Glory and change their Laws together with many thousands of them cut off their King and they that remain shall be in a worse condition as Sheep without a Shepherd They shall be a living and lasting Destruction I am now come to the full Close and Period of my Text and what Use or Application shall I make of that which we have heard Shall I endeavour to set forth the Heroick Vertues of our murthered King and shew that he fell not for his own Sins but the Sins of his People that the impious Act of executing a Sovereign Prince by a pretended Process of Law was a higher Strain of Treason than to have dispatcht him with a Dagger or an empoysoned Cup the one being Treason only against a single Monarch but the other against Monarchy in general These things I confess may be worthy of a pious Pains and a pious Attention but alas what would they profit here where they are already acknowledged Or what would it profit to dilate either on the Vertues or Vices of other men when we are so apt to think on the one side that while we only extol the Vertues of Heroick Persons we go Half-sharers with them in their Vertues like the Cryers in the Olympick Games who fansied while they pronounced only audibly and volubly the Victors Names and Victories part of their Glory redounded to them And again on the other side while we declame against Vice that we are free from all imputation of Vice our selves my Text calls us to other Considerations not only to look back on Evils past but forward on worse Evils to come I say on worse while but on the same repeated for if it be a sad reflection that we have been totally destroyed 't is certainly a much sadder that we may be so destroyed again that if we shall still do wickedly we shall be consumed both we and our King This consideration if rightly made use of will excite us rather to call our own Sins to remembrance than to commemorate the Sins of other men to arraign and condemn the evil deeds are found in our selves than to employ our time in raking into the crimes of the Age that 's past And in order to our doing this I shall instance in three Particulars in which this Nation seems most to tread the steps of Israel and to be in danger
to bring home to it self the dreadful Commination made in my Text against them And first As Israel desired a Change of Government only to remove God further from them so if we may judge of mens minds by their outward actions of the Secrets of their hearts by their following behaviour the passionate desire of many among us to have a King again after the fatal stroke struck this Day was on no better an account than Israel's desire to have a King We had lain a long time under a sad Oppression at home or a sadder Exile abroad ate no Bread for many Years but what came in a manner to us like Manna from the immediate hand of God and the frequent Fasts strict Devotions and holy Lives which could only promise a continuance of such favour from Heaven were as insupportable as the Holiness and Obedience God required of Israel that he might dwell among them And many desired a King not so much to deliver the Nation from Oppression and Confusion as themselves from the Paedagogy of Divine Discipline not so much I say to rescue them from the Tyranny of the Usurper as from the Tyrannies of Religion And such a Surfeit many took no less of holy Duties than of evil days that they have endeavoured since to obliterate all memory of them both as 't was the practice or at least the boast of a prophane Person That whereas others observed the Days of their Deliverance from any great danger with Fasting and Humiliation he always kept such Days with Feasting and Jollity and for this Reason To make his Soul amends for what it had suffered And such has been the deportment of some men since God restored them to their prosperity that they seem to vie by their voluptuous lives with the former miseries they suffered to make their Souls amends for the twenty Years affliction they lay under by a twenty Years or a whole future Lifes Debauchery When God restored us to our forfeited Peace and Prosperity he promised himself he had restored a People sensible of so wonderful a mercy who as he had made them to abound in all secure enjoyments would have abounded in Good Works and Gratitude to him but he has found such an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as I may say such an unexpected Issue among us as the Prophet Isaiah complains he did in Israel in his Days He lookt for righteousness but behold a cry When God lookt for righteousness that his Glory should have been exalted in this Land more than in any other because he had done more for it than for any other behold I know not what Cry of more than usual infidelity and wickedness What shall I say that we are fallen back again into those Sins which brought on us the calamity of this Day Nay but we have outdone all our old Sins and all that ever went before us we have not only broken God's righteous Laws and Commandments but denyed he ever gave a Law to the World we have not only denyed him by our wicked lives but even in our words to have any Being and as all Ages have been guilty of Adultery Drunkenness and the like 't is the Character of this That it affirms such things are no sins Secondly As Israel put their confidence in Flesh and Bloud believed if they could obtain a King of their own Nation he would be invincible possessed of all the Heroick Qualities they had read of their Judges and as his Character was greater so his Performances would be also greater and this of course as if God had been obliged for his own Glory to see it should be so though they never so little regarded his Glory themselves And have not we put as high a confidence in Flesh and Bloud who have lookt upon our King not only as a defence against our Enemies but even against God himself not only as a Foundation of our Peace and Felicity but of our Rebellion against Heaven Who have said in our hearts We have no need of the burthensom Duties of Religion and the severities of a holy Life now we have a King to provide against our dangers from abroad and to take care for our quiet at home Few considering in order to the Prosperity they desire what are the provocations of the Land how we stand in favour or disfavour with God But enquiring What Alliances we have made abroad What Ships we are able to set out What Money there is in the Exchequer What Supplies the Parliament will give and the like Is not this to provoke God to infatuate our Counsels and to bring our Enterprizes to nought to involve our King in a common destruction with our selves as he did this Day though he were even a Hezekiah or a David Thirdly As Israel was mutinous and rebellious upon the least occasions against their best Governours we come not behind them in this Sin witness the black disloyalty of this Day Historiographers the publick Censurers of Mankind brand every Nation of the Earth with some Vice more peculiar to them than others as to name none one with Drunkenness another with Robbery and Piracy a third with ambition and desire of Sovereignty a fourth with Whoredom and abusing themselves with Mankind c. And we of this Nation among the rest are taxt for stubbornness and proneness to Rebellion noted for a People that delight in Sedition and seditious Persons that are apt to think the most turbulent and factious the best Patriots the greatest Troublers the greatest Lovers of their Country So that as other Princes in regard of the sweet compliance of their Subjects are styled Reges Hominum Kings of Men ours are styled Reges Diabolorum Kings of Devils And 't is observable that what was the Vice of every Nation many hundred Years ago continues to be the same still Time has not altered them nor the Preaching of the Gospel reformed them But though we of this Nation should not care to wipe off the imputation that lies upon us among men nor yet fear the displeasure of God who counts Rebellion as the Sin of Witchcraft i. e. Disobedience to Governours a Degree of Apostasie from himself yet the experience alone of the former Evils which our unquiet Spirits have brought upon us and their direct tendency to bring the like again viz. to bereave us a second time of our Royal Government and to cast us under the subjection of the basest of the People may well make us abhor all seditious thoughts I say for fear lest a second time we become not only the most miserable but the most ridiculous and despicable of all People while we give the World leave to say that we that could not digest a miscarriage in the State are forc'd to digest Oppression and Tyranny that could not pass by an oversight in our Rulers are compell'd to undergo Sequestration and Banishment the Axe and the Halter perhaps a Foreign Yoke To draw to a Conclusion It is a common
of his Wrath as they have been of Disobedience I should think my Hour well bestowed to remove this one Practical Dangerous Errour to open mens eyes that they may be convinced That Sin is a Serpent that does insidiare calcaneo lye in the Path and mortally bite the Heel of the Sinner and that he runs not on faster in the Ways of Disobedience than he does in those of Destruction but it is not my Business at this time the Proposition which I am to prove concerns not the Punishment of Sin Absolutely considered but Comparatively viz. That Sin in some Persons or People is more heinous and more severely punished than in others that where God has conferr'd more Signal and Illustrious Favours there he punishes Sin with more Signal and Exemplary Vengeance and his foregoing Bounty despised adds Weight to his future Severity And this Truth is written in so Great Characters and so legible through the Whole Series of the Chronicle of Scripture even from the Creation that I shall not need so much to prove the Proposition as to refresh your Memories by setting before you things already known The first Man of our Race was the first miserable Example of this Truth and he that first brought Sin into the World first also left the Confirmation to us of the Fatal Consequence of it when committed against an Extraordinary Grace Adam was created after God's own Likeness in perfect Righteousness and Holiness and not only with the Knowledge of his Laws but with a Power and Ability to keep them he was made to Excel all Sublunary Creatures and had Dominion given him over them he was plac'd in a furnish'd World fruitful without Labour delightful without Satiety and the Continuance of this his Felicity was put into his own hands he was not Subject to Death Infirmities or Misfortunes like his Posterity nay 't was in his power not only to have Prolong'd his Felicity to all Eternity but to have Improv'd it Greater Favours God could not conferr on Flesh and Bloud on a Creature lower than the Angels But whither tended the Collation of all these Benefits when Adam rebelled against God Only to his greater Misery the Punishment of his Transgression was as Eminent as his Priviledges and Graces had been his ensuing Calamity as his foregoing Prosperity The day thou eatest of the forbidden Tree says God thou shalt dye the Death What Death All manner of Deaths Death Temporal Death Spiritual Death Eternal Death to Nature Death to Grace Death to Glory The Sin was but Single but the Punishment inflicted was Three-fold like a Stroke with a Trident which makes a Triple Wound and the Blow fell not only on himself but on all his Posterity Never any Sin since his had the like Recompence of Reward because none since Adam could sin against so much Bounty I shall give you but one Instance more We know by how Strange and Unexpected a Favour Saul was promoted to the Throne of Israel who being sent in quest of his Father's Asses found a Kingdom God advancing him above all his People in Honour more than he Excelled them in Stature But he proving after this Ungrateful and disobedient to the Commandment of God falling no less than thrice into that Common Fatal Errour of Faithless Princes to relye on Humane Policy more than on the Divine Support on the Favour of the People than on the Favour of God and seeking to establish his Kingdom by Bloud and Sacriledge rather than by Innocence and Justice as if the Power that gave him a Throne could not uphold him in it God's Indignation against him was as Great as his Prevarications had been And then what did all his antecedent Favours profit him but to enhance his following Punishment Which was such as when we read it we cannot chuse but pity though it were the Lord 's doing For he rejected Saul as he was rejected by him he withdrew his Holy Spirit from him and sent an Evil Spirit to vex him in the room of it a Spirit of Jealousie and Frenzy which periodically possest him and clouded all his Felicity and Glory disinherited his Posterity dethroned in a manner himself while he was yet alive by causing another to be anointed King in his days And after he had suffered him thus to survive a few Years a dreadful Spectacle of the Divine Wrath he stirr'd-up the Philistines against him and when their Host appeared and he most needed it bereaved him of his Kingly Courage and Magnanimity refused to direct or answer him by his Oracles In which distressed and disconsolate State all Heavenly Comfort being silent and Saul's guilty Conscience only loud and clamorous over-whelmed with Sorrow and Despair under a Disguise and the Covert of the Night with two Attendants only he repaired to a poor Witches Cell to enquire the Fortune of his Life and Kingdom and where God met him as I may say also in Disguise made use of the Witches delusive Arts to give him a Real Prediction of his near-approaching Overthrow and inglorious Death So that partly broken with Sorrow and partly weakned through Hunger he fell into a Swoun and was sustained by the Bread and Counsel of the Silly Woman the next day putting a Period to his Life and Miseries What Invention of Romance or Fiction of Poetry can parallel the Calamity of this once so Glorious and Heroick King And if any ask Why was all this how came the patient Spirit of the God of Mercy to turn into Fury like that of the Person he punish'd Because the Sin of Saul was not only a Sin against God but against a Benefactor and the wonderful Bounty God had shewed in bringing him to the Throne pull'd upon his Ingratitude and Infidelity this wonderful Severity and Displeasure And as this is God's Dealing with Particular Persons so 't is the same with Whole Nations Of which we shall not need a further Example than that before us of Israel In the foregoing Chapter the Prophet denounces God's Judgments against the Neighbouring Kingdoms for their Sins For three Transgressions and for four says he God will punish Damascus and chiefly for their Cruelty For three Transgressions and for four God will punish Gaza and again for their Cruelty For three Transgressions and for four God will punish Tyre because they kept not their Brotherly Love And so on against the rest But when he comes in the last place to Israel and to Judah their Transgressions being not inferior to those of the Gentiles he intimates that heavier Judgments were laid up in Store for them and that they should not escape so easily as the others he casts their Ingratitude for their former Benefits into the burden of their Guilt their forgetfulness of God's bringing them out of Egypt wich a high hand and destroying the Nations before them his raising up their Sons and Daughters to be Prophets and their Young men to be Nazarites Shall the People that have not known God be
judged for their Sins and shall not those to whom he has revealed his Laws and his Righteousness on whom he has heaped his Blessings be judged more severely He that knoweth his Masters Will says our Lord and doth it not shall be beaten with many Stripes As the Heathen therefore were chastised for their Offences Israel was utterly ruined and Un-nationed And this was not only God's proceeding under the Law but 't is the same still under the Gospel For he has Known or favoured Believers in Christ not only above the Gentiles but even above the Jews themselves and if Judah be trod down and the Temple destroyed for the Sins and Ingratitude of that People the seven Churches in Asia lye under a Sadder Desolation at this Day for their Disobedience to Christ Travellers being scarce able to discern so much as the Places where they stood These Examples of God's Wrath both on Single Persons and whole Nations teach us this Lesson That 't is never so dangerous to offend against God as when he has been Gracious to us his former Benefits being so far from priviledging any to transgress that he is sure to punish those most he has done most for But 't is not enough to shew the quod sit the Truth of the Proposition that it is so I proceed in the next place to shew the cur sit the Reason Equity and Merit of it why it should be so The Reason why it should be so This Position That God punishes with heavier Judgments those whom he has chosen to fix his Favours on if they offend against him than others seems to have something in it contrary to the Nature and Disposition of Men who are apt to delight in the Persons on whom they have placed their Benefits to love the Creatures of their Advancing no less than those of their Begetting So S t Augustine affirms the like Disposition is found in God who speaking of his Rewards to Men says Coronat opera sua non merita nostra God crowns his own Gifts and Graces not any Merit he finds in us and Moses makes it a Plea for his Mercy to Israel that he would not destroy them after he had done them so much Good alledging his former Bounty as a Motive for his Pardon and Forgiveness In satisfaction to this I answer We must consider in God's Benefits to men not only his Love but the Purpose of his Love he confers his Gifts upon us with a Design to make us more holy Persons and for the Favours he bestows he looks for a Return of Obedience and Righteousness on our part and where he fails of this Return he does not only cease to give but hates in a manner his Gifts and destroys them for the Parties sake on whom they were bestowed Says S t Paul Ephes. 1.3 God has blessed us with all Spiritual Blessings in Christ and why that we should be holy and without blame before him in love But then if this Design be defeated and made void and we are not holy and without blame before him in love we may assure our selves that all his purposed Bounty is also made void and that is hated which is loved thought fit to be destroyed that was intended to be built and the rather because it was not found fit to be built There are three things which are observed to provoke Anger and Indignation in the most Patient First An affront to a Mans Person all vilifying and despising as Aristotle the best Describer of Passions says being a just Cause of Choler Secondly The Loss of a Mans Labour as when a Professor of some Curious Art arrives to great Perfection in it and reaps no Advantage by it is Excellent but yet notwithstanding Poor and Neglected ravishes all for Example with his Musick or Poetry and wants Bread this will make him hate his Muse and break his Strings reek his Revenge upon the Instrument of his Profession because he cannot reach his unfortunate Profession it self Thirdly The Loss of a Mans Love and Good-Will exasperates him more than all the rest and turns his Kindness into Fury Neglect of Worth and Personal Contempt though they be deeply resented yet they touch not so to the Quick as the Contempt of Affection for indeed the Contempt of Affection includes in it both the Contempt of the Worth and of the Person and he that despises a mans Love despises all that he has and all that he is But what then must the Provocation be when all these Causes concur as they do when either a Nation or a Single Person returns God Disobedience after he has shewed them his Extraordinary Mercies and Favours For First His Person is affronted Regard is not had to the Great God of Heaven and Earth condescending to do Good to his own Sinful Creatures and the Greater the Person is the Greater is the Contempt and consequently the Greater Anger and Evil Effects of it Revenge and Punishment may be expected Says S t Paul Of how much Sorer Punishment suppose you shall he be thought worthy who has trod under foot the Son of God viz. than he that has only trod Moses under his feet Secondly God loses his Labour on such Persons and that enrages him yet more he likens Israel to a Vineyard on which he had bestow'd great Cost and Husbandry fenced and gathered out the Stones and planted it with a Choice Vine but after all when he lookt for Grapes behold it brought forth Wild Grapes Grapes which instead of delighting the Taste set the Teeth on Edge What does he do therefore upon so unexpected a Frustration and disappointment of his Hopes Why as a Person much Incensed shews many times a Wild and Frantick Behaviour so God puts on a seeming Transport and Fury breaks out into a Tragical Song to vent his Indignation I will sing says he a Song of my Beloved touching my Vineyard in which he utters both his Displeasure and his purposed Revenge The Issue of God's Labour lost upon a People can be no less than the Perdition or Loss of those People First He complains but after that lest he should seem to be Master'd or Mock'd by his own Creatures he sends Destruction and Desolation on them Thirdly His Love and Kindness is despised which provokes his Anger above all the rest When God has shew'd Singular Goodness and Mercy to a Nation eminently delivered them or otherwise Blessed and prospered them and they return him nothing but contempt and Neglect disregard his Laws and violate his Commandments esteem his Worship a Burden and his Service a Slavery reflect upon their late Infelicities and Deliverances as the Common Vicissitudes of the World or only as False or more Wary and Masterly Steps made by themselves in Points of Policy Thus like Israel sacrificing to their own Net and burning Incense to their Drag Or as another Prophet representeth them ascribing all the Good things they received from God to the Idols of Canaan to Baal and
but as Idolaters are always seeking a Reason in Man for the Motive of God's favour to him whereas when God gives any thing 't is not for the Merit of the Person he gives it to Yes say they he gave Abraham the promise of Canaan for his Faith so highly approved of in Scripture But who gave Abraham that Faith They say He was so ingenuous as to believe upon God's Call Ay but who gave him that Ingenuity If it were a Good Gift it came from above We must look upon all God's After-Gifts as we do upon those which we first and originally received from him at our Creation as proceeding from no antecedent merit on our Part that invited them God gave no man Beauty Sharpness of Wit or any other Grace of Body or Mind for any antecedent Graces that were in him it were as absurd and ridiculous to say That any one merited the Preheminences and Advantages he has above others as to say he could merit his Being it self before he had one but as God's Goodness was the Fountain so 't was the sole Motive of his Endowments Let no Man go say this Day among us That 't was for his Loyalty and adhering to the true Religion when so many were Schismaticks and Traytors that God let him behold the Restoration of the King and Church after their fatal Ruine but for his own Bounty sake and the Reasons of his unsearchable Wisdom For what could it profit any man to hold the Truth in Unrighteousness to be Orthodox in Profession as many boast themselves to be and Ethnicks in Manners Loyal to their Prince and Vicious in their Lives I shall name but one Circumstance more of God's Bounty to Israel and little more than name it and that is the Smallness of the Return he required for all his immense Favours it was only That they should live according to his Holy Laws A performance rather delightsom than burthensom so natural and reasonable that a Wise man would close with the Condition upon the bare hearing it without Stipulation Israels manner of Tenure of God's Favour was like our Tenure in the Church by Frank Alms who for many comfortable and too often envy'd Endowments are obliged only to send up Prayers and Thansgivings to God and to perform such other Duties as conduce to our Eternal Felicity God's very appointment of so merciful a Return to Israel was of it self a Singular Mercy But because this falls into my second General Part Why or for what End God gave the Lands and Labours of the Heathen into the Possession of the Israelites I shall not prevent my self by enlarging on it before the time And he gave them the lands and labour of the Heathen Why That they might observe his Statutes and keep his Laws Statutes and Laws are much the same in Sense and seem here to be but two Names for one thing Laws being so called from their binding Authority and Statutes from their being establisht or decreed Likewise the observing the one and keeping the other are but two Expressions again of the same Duty for by keeping the Laws is meant that men should not wittingly violate them and by observing the Statutes that they should not transgress them through Ignorance or Incogitancy as S t Paul says in a like Case Therefore we ought to give more earnest heed to the things we have heard lest at any time we should let them slip But what were the Laws and the Statutes for the keeping of which God accumulated so many Extraordinary Benefits on Israel The Jews had three Sorts of Laws Judicial which related to their Civil Affairs the Tryals of Justice and punishing Criminals Ceremonial which belonged to Religion as the Laws of Sacrifices Observations of Days Purifications c. Thirdly the Moral Law contained in the Ten Commandments The two former Sort though they proceeded from the same Divine Wisdom and were established by the same Divine Authority as the last yet their Deductions being so remote from their Principles like the Branches or Twigs of a Tree from the Root and their Reason and Equity not so discernible they were enjoyed only as the Rudiments or Elements of a Science not so much for themselves as for a further End And as such Rudiments or Elements are laid aside when once the Science it self is attained so the Judicial and Ceremonial Laws were laid aside as soon as the End for which they were given was attained But the Moral Law quite of another Nature is the very Transcript or Copy of the Eternal Law of Reason residing in God's own Breast and can no more be abrogated than Vertue and Righteousness can be abrogated it being the same thing with them And therefore though God did require at the present that All his Laws and Commandments of what Kind soever should be kept and observ'd yet it was the Moral Law for which he was chiefly concerned the Law of Eternal and Immutable Goodness not temporarily impos'd upon Men but interwoven into their very Nature at their Creation and which though a long Night of Sin may obscure and dim the Characters of nothing can utterly obliterate 'T is true this Law was afterwards written on Tables of Stone but that was but for the same Reason that we write them now adays on our Church-Walls to put men in remembrance of them and to send them to consult the Tables of their Hearts where they were before engraved But to proceed God's Laws as my Text declares go hand in hand with his Benefits his Favours and Commandments are never divided but where he confers his Bounty he always exacts Obedience Men are willing to think as Israel did that all the Good they receive from God is merely for their Accommodation and that he has no regard to his own Glory and Service in bestowing them that the Sun was made only to give them Light to distinguish their Seasons and to ripen their Fruit Corn and Wine and other Products of the Earth to furnish their Tables and relieve their Necessities c. Whereas these were given not only as Blessings but as Documents and Instructions not so much to indulge the Outward as to edifie the Inward Man to bring the Partakers of them to the Knowledge Fear and Love of the Deity and if we would reflect on the End of God's Benefits as well as barely on his Benefits that which the Vine boasts of it self in the Parable would be found true of all other good Creatures viz. that they would cheer both God and Man at the same time i. e. refresh and comfort indigent Man and occasion Sacrifices of Thanksgiving and Obedience to the Almighty 'T is a Maxime even in the Gifts of Men conferr'd on one another and grounded on good reason Omne beneficium est propter officium every Good-turn is for the sake of some Good-turn and Gifts otherwise bestowed are justly lookt upon as proceeding only from Weakness as the Effects of Prodigality or some
it being rarely seen that a Good Understanding goes along with a Great Estate that the same Person should be born both to much Wealth and to much Wit my Text informs men how to reconcile these together how the Rich having the advantage of Wealth may have also the advantage of Wisdom how with their Transitory things they may purchase things Eternal nay and which is yet a higher Strain of Wisdom how being but Stewards of the Riches they possess they may make after the example of one of the craftiest Dealers in this World and best practis'd in the Double ways of Cozenage the gainful Purchace of Heaven at anothers Cost and do this Innocently as he did it Fraudulently Lastly Men are taught how to remove the Difficulty and almost Impossibility of a Rich man's entering into the Kingdom of Heaven how to make its Narrow Passage which is as the Eye of a Needle to a Camel as wide as the Gate of a City or the Royal Way leading to it A Lecture which undoubtedly must be very acceptable to Great and Rich men instructing them how to possess the Good Things of this World without forfeiting those of the next how to join Celestial Joys to Earthly Felicity immortal Glory to Secular Prosperity Again which can be no less grateful to the Penurious and Covetous who love to enjoy their Wealth after they have parted with it to have it their Friend when they can hold it no longer their Servant who desire to dwell for ever if it were possible with their beloved Gold to cohabit with it in the next Life as they brooded over it in this my Text comports and complies with all these Desires Make to your selves Friends of the Mammon of Vnrighteousness that when ye fail they may receive you into Everlasting Habitations The Words offer these two things in general to our Consideration I. The Necessity of our Faâ—ling in these Habitations When ye fail II. The Policy taught us how to procure Admission into Everlasting Habitations when we fail in these and that is By making Friends of the Mammon of Vnrighteousness And without troubling you with any further Division at present I begin with the first of these The Necessity of our failing in these Habitation These Words when ye fail are by some understood two ways by our failing in Duty and our failing in our Being or Dying As the Steward in the Parable fail'd two Ways 1. In his Honesty as at ver 1. he had wasted his Master's Goods And 2 dly In his Office as at ver 2. where his Master says to him Thou may'st be no longer Steward And after the like manner all Men fail more or less in their Fidelity and Justice But all equally and necessarily in their Mortal Being But whether we fail in the one of these Ways or the other whether we come short in our Duty or are cut short in our Lives in both these Failings the Unrighteous Mammon will stand us in stead 1. If we fail in our Justice Eleemosynae sunt instar Justitiae Alms are a kind of Justice and not only to Forgive but also to Give will cover a multitude of Sins So that if we fail viz. in our Integrity we may again be restored by our Charity and when we have wasted and consumed our Graces we may recruite them by exhausting our Purses and in this Shipwrack also casting our Goods overboard may be a Means of our Preservation But though this Sense of the Words has nothing in it contrary to sound Doctrine yet it cannot be that which our Lord points at in them For the Failing here spoken of is supposed to be Inevitable Necessary and Universal when ye fail indefinitely when ye All fail neither can the Words be supposed to allude to the Common Pardonable Failing or Miscarriage of an honest Servant but to the Purloining and Cheating of a Thief which the Steward was and for that cause was turned out of his Office If therefore we say the Failing here is meant of our Duty it must be of our General Total Duty which is Apostasie or else it holds no proportion to the Steward's failing in the Parable and if we do it holds no proportion with the Truth for we must affirm our Lord supposes it Necessary and Inevitable for all Men Universally to be Apostates We must take the Words therefore in the other Sense For Failing in our Being or Mortal Bodies which are often resembled in Scripture to Houses and Tabernacles but I shall instance only in 2. Cor. 5.1 For we know if the Earthly Houses of this Tabernacle were dissolved we have a Building of God a House not made with Hands Eternal in the Heavens There is in the Words the Figure Euphemismus which terms things by more gentle and Favourable Names than properly belong to them Death sounds harsh to those 't is denounced to alleviate therefore the ungratefulness of it 't is render'd Failing But the plain Importance of these Words when ye fail is no other than this When ye Die But now though this be the true Meaning of the Words it may seem to be a Theme less necessary to be insisted on than any other To tell men they must Die Not that the Admonition is not weighty and of the highest Concern but because it is so well known by all and none needs this Information Linquenda domus tellus pavens uxor that our Houses Lands and tender Relations must be left by us that nothing which is either dear to us or we dear unto can exempt us from the Law of Death is News to no man all men of what Sort and Condition soever can assume Saint Paul's scio We Know that this Earthly Tabernacle shall be dissolved The Ignorant see it daily demonstrated in the Mortality of other men and the Infirmities they find in themselves the Learned yet further by Philosophy and Reason which tell them That their Bodies being made up of a Mass of contrary Humours continually jarring and fighting with one another the Victory on either side must certainly be the Destruction of the Subject in which they are contained Divinity adds to these a third Demonstration teaching men that there is a Law of Death in their Members not that which I but now spoke of a Natural Law of Mortality but a Spiritual Law of Sin and consequently of Death which Law had its Sanction from God 's own Mouth Gen. 2. In the hour thou eatest thou shalt dye This present World is but a Nursery or Seminary to another in which nothing is to be seen more common than the transplanting of Men from this to that Or it may be likened to a Tree that has at the same time upon it some Fruit decaying some ripe and some blooming the one continually succeeding and thrusting off the other till the Tree it self at last fails as not being design'd to stand for ever All Men I say are of sufficient Learning to preach such Lectures as
his House were prophan'd his Worship would be extinguish'd in the World made them disbelieve their Prophets And the like latent Incredulity possest the Disciples here They knew their Lord had the Words of Truth but the Strangeness and Dreadfulness of the things spoken of by him made their Faith fluctuate and they could not believe even what they could not disbelieve And when we see the holiest Men thus to have Doubts and Scruples to with-hold them from receiving a harsh and displeasing though never so plainly a reveal'd Truth to have a Where or a When Lord a How or by What Means Some Question or other of the Time the Place the Possibility and the like What marvel is it if Wicked and profligate Persons who are wholly Strangers to the Power and Wonderful Ways of God shew a greater Infidelity when they hear a Doctrine wholly contrary to their Temper repugnant to their Pleasures destructive of their Interests and withal difficult to be conceiv'd I say if when such as these to restrain them from their Lusts or gainful Oppressions are told that they will certainly be call'd to a strict Account in another Life for what they do amiss in this smile or laugh out and conceive they shall do well enough after their Sins notwithstanding all that 's threatned against them We see Malefactors against the Laws of Men even after the Sentence of Death is past upon them and their Execution as certain to ensue as the revolution of the short time appointed for it yet flatter themselves they shall find means to escape by a Bribe by a Rope at a Window by a Reprieve by a Rescue by an Accident by any thing they know not what And after the like manner Offenders against God though their Condemnation be recorded in his Word and their Condition more desperate promise themselves they shall never feel the Evils denounc'd against them that the Report of Dooms-Day is false the Doctrine of a Resurrection and another Life foolish and impossible When therefore they hear such passages in Scripture as these Some mens Sins are open before-hand going before to Judgment and some mens follow after and again The Good Works of some are manifest before-hand and they that are otherwise cannot escape they reason in their hearts and say Ay but why the Parties are dead Ay but When and Where the Parties are escap'd into a far Country Ay but How or which way the Parties are drown'd and devour'd by Fishes and their Bodies turn'd into Nourishment or else burnt to Ashes and that scatter'd True but where-ever the Carcase is or the least Remains of it thither will the Eagles be gathered together i. e. though the Body of a Sinner seem to all humane Appearance annihilated yet God by his Power will restore it and by the Office of his Angels bring it before the Tribunal of Christ. And this is the importance of our Lord 's Emblematical Words in my Text for 't is observed that Eagles and other Birds of Prey Ravens Vulturs c. have a great Perspicacity in discovering their Food a kind of divining or Prophetick Conjecture where to seek it insomuch that they will follow Armies and know the unsuccessful Troops and expect their Banquets from their Overthrow Says Job The Eagle abideth on the rock from thence she seeth her Prey her Eyes behold afar off and where the slain are there is she And then the Celerity strength and rapacity of these Creatures to seize is as great as their Sagacity to find out And God has more abundantly endowed the Angels with requisite Qualities to execute his Will and Commands however therefore Vertue and Piety went out of this World without any seeming Regard yet they are the Objects of God's Love and the particular Care and Charge of the Angels and they shall not pass in the next without a Glorious Reward Again though Wickedness dy'd in Prosperity yet it is the Object of God's Wrath and Justice and the Quarry of the Angels and it will be found out by them in all the Ruines of Mortality and brought to receive its just Punishment And that these things are so incredible to Sinners is without all reason For they are the only men that believe this World to be immoveable and eternal and yet 't is supported only by the Word or Will of God as Job says He hangs the Earth upon nothing and we may say the Heavens upon as little But God's rewarding the Righteous and punishing the Wicked are founded on his Justice i. e. on his very Essence or Being and can fail no more than the Deity it self However therefore this Doctrine is disbelieved and slighted by sensual and carnal Men it ought continually to ring and sound in the Ears of the Faithful as S t Jerome fansy'd the last Trump did in his the Parable of the Eagles and the Carcase should frequently occur to our thoughts to make us break off our Sins and to keep us close to our Duty For if any One to encourage himself in his Sins shall say When I leave this World I shall creep again into the Cells of Darkness and Obscurity where I lay before I was born I shall be reduc'd again to the State of Nothing as when I was in my first Causes Let him consider that God can call him out of that Nothing which he speaks of as he did when he first made him a living Man and that Restoration is not so hard a Work as Creation that what the Psalmist says of the Nocturnal Darkness caus'd by the absence of the Sun The Darkness is no Darkness to thee may be affirmed of the Philosophical Darkness of his Dissolution That Darkness is also no Darkness to him the Night and the Day of his Being or Not-being are alike in his all-seeing Eyes The fat and grown Deer seems Subtil to himself in retiring into the Coverts and Thickets and leaving the Younger and smaller to feed abroad in danger of the Huntsmen but alas 't is for him alone that all the Quest and Search is made and while the lean and Rascal-Herd are past by the Keeper only marks and lodges him for the Chace The Policies of Wicked Men are as Simple as the Craft of these Silly Creatures who when they are grown fat with the Oppressions and Spoils of their Brethren swollen and ready to burst with Excess and Luxury flatter themselves if they can but escape the Penalty of the Laws and get into their Graves in Peace no Vengeance can afterwards overtake them But alas it is to rouse them chiefly that Dooms-Day is appointed Aquila non capit Muscas the heavenly Eagles the Angels stoop not at Flies they are not Small Sinners but these Monsters and Prodigies of Impiety which are their principal Game or Quarry As therefore the bloudy Tyrant Sylla found it a foolish Meditation after his butchering so many of the Roman Nobility to lay down his Power and to hope for Safety in a Retirement from
the Swords of those whose Relations he had murthered So let no Man after a Wicked Life hope to find a Place so remote obscure or fortify'd as to protect him from God's Vengeance 'T is said That Kings have long arms and can reach Delinquents at a great Distance but the King of Kings has much longer and if the Offenders against him could take Refuge even in the Centre of the Earth obtain of the Rocks to shelter them or the Mountains to fall upon them the Angels would fetch them from thence to Judgment There are none that shall escape none that shall be dispens'd with from appearing before the Tribunal of God and receiving their Doom at the Last Day Only it is now in our power while we are yet in this Life to make it a happy or unhappy Doom a Doom that adjudges us to Crowns and Scepters or to Chains and Everlasting Torments Repentance and a Holy Life will turn that Day of Terrour into a Day of Rejoicing make the Ominous Portents the dreadful Thunders and other amazing Concomitants of it but as the loud Musick cheerful Acclamations and Solemnities which attend a Triumph or Coronation I say which attend our own Triumph and Coronation as S t Paul assures us 2 Tim. 4 8. I have finisht my Course says he I have kept the Faith henceforth there is laid up for me a Crown of Righteousness which the Lord the righteous Judge shall give me at that day and not to me only but unto all them that love his appearance However the Predictions of the Last Day cause Consternation and Distraction of Mind in Wicked Doers to the Righteous they are altogether Gospel or Good Tidings they that keep God's Laws cannot chuse but love and delight in his Appearance Let the Heavens rejoice and the Earth be glad says the Psalmist Let the Field be joyful and all that is therein before the Lord And why all this Joy For he cometh for he cometh to judge the World and the People with Equity And Luke 21.28 says our Lord When these things come to pass then look up and lift up your heads for your Redemption draweth nigh To God the Father Son and Holy Ghost be ascribed all Honour Glory c. The Eighteenth Sermon 1 PETER iv 8 And above all things have fervent Charity among your selves for Charity covereth the multitude of Sins THE Commandment of Charity if we look to the Birth and Cradle of it is as ancient as Adam for this Natural Law Deal so with others as you would have them deal with you which is the radical and original Precept out of which this Gospel one did immediately issue Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self sprung-up with Nature and is as old as it mutual Love beginning with mutual Society and affection to one another being exercised as soon as there was a Pair in the World to keep it up But the Practice of the Jews in our Saviour's time much thwarted this Precept Sect was against Sect the Pharisee against the Sadducee and the Sadducee against the Pharisee and both against Christ Professions and Offices were made Crimes Publicans the Receivers of Tribute were counted Sinners again Revenge was held as lawful as Punishment Extrajudicial Righting of a man's self as Judicial Censures Do Good to those that do Good to you and Evil to those that do Evil was good Ethicks among them and the Moral Man esteem'd to appear as eminent in practising the last part of this Maxime as the first So that the Precept of Charity was in a manner wholly extinguish'd among them so overwhelmed with the Rubbish of ill Customs and worse Traditions that to clear it and make it shine out again was a Work as hard as to introduce something that never before was Which caus'd our Lord to call this Commandment a New one I give you a New Commandment says he That ye love one another New not as if it then first entred the World but because it was then renew'd to them as things redeem'd from the injury of Age and Oblivion appear fresh and new when they are brought into Use and Fashion again But we may admire that the World has so much agreed in all Times to abrogate this Law brought in at first by General Interest and of so Universal Benefit that we may say with Tully Non aquâ non igne non aëre pluribus locis utimur quà m amicitiâ we stand not more in need of water fire or air in every turn of our Lives than of Friendship or the mutual Offices of Love And if this Law were entertained it would render all other Laws useless it would disannul the Commandments by fulfilling them it would remove heaps of Legal Cautions and Provisions the two Tables would be no more necessary to Men than to Angels private Grudges open Wars Rebellions Factions Schisms would all vanish every Person would be not only more holy in himself but would cause others to be more holy many Sins would be amended by a fair Example many would be extenuated by a candid Interpretation many overcome by a kind and amicable Usage Therefore as the Apostle advises in the foregoing Verses mortifie your Lusts be sober and watch unto Prayer neglect not necessary Duty But above all things have fervent Charity among your selves for Charity shall cover the multitude of Sins In the Words we may observe these four things I. The Habit or Grace that is enjoin'd Love Not that Passion which is born with all Sensitive Creatures and is common to Men and Beasts but that Theological Vertue which is infus'd into Man only 't is not simply Love but Christian and Brotherly Love Have Charity II. The Degree of this Habit the Intenseness of this Divine Quality and that is Fervency it is not enough to have a remiss lukewarm Charity it must burn and glow in us Have fervent Charity III. The Object of this Vertue that which bounds and terminates it and is adequately commensurate to it and that is All Men in general the Object is as large as Humane Nature our Charity is not to be ty'd to Families or Tribes to Sects or Nations or whatever Partitions else Policy or Passion have made use of to distinguish and estrange men from one another but it is to be extended to all not to this or that Man but to Mankind as 't is indefinitely express'd in my Text Among your selves IV. The Inforcement of the Practice of this Quality and that is by the Recommendation of it from its Operation or Effect it covers Sins together with the Extent of that Effect not one or two but many and many Sins For Charity shall cover the Multitude of Sins I begin first with the Habit or Vertue it self contain'd in these Words Have Charity The Charity or Love here enjoined us is not I say that melting Passion that is common to Men and Beasts an affection awaken'd in us by the beholding of outward Beauty the comely
great distance and the Sinner has leave to execute his Wickedness so that the Terrours of Religion work only upon the Good and Faithful while the Worst and most of men despise them But even the boldest and most daring in their Impiety who count Heaven and Hell only the Parables of Scripture and the Fictions of Preachers will boggle in the Cariere of their Sins at the remembrance of a severe Judge and an unrelenting Humane Law and consider whether they can escape if they commit them and will not run on madly to transgress when they see nothing is to be had but Vengeance the Attempt and their Miscarriage their Sin and their certain Death Thus we see Severity is not contrary to the Rules of Charity the Sword in the hand of Justice less instrumental to mens Good than the Scales that the fear of Punishment is a kind of Grace and Principle of Obedience in the Hearts of Wicked men which restrains them from Vice even when it wins them not to the Part of Vertue But then though Severity and Punishment are Noble and necessary Branches of Charity they are not the Natural and Genuine they relate to it but as the Prophet Isaiah says they do to God They are his Works his strange Works his Acts his strange Acts. The Works which Charity delights most in are those that are mild and gentle which not only produce Good but which in themselves are Good which shew Mercy by the Ways of Mercy and are no less beneficial in their Progress than their End And these are the Operations of Charity which our Apostle chiefly recommends here to us and that we may not erre in so Divine a Grace or come short in so important a Duty our best way will be to set before us the Perfectest Exemplar of it that ever was our Lord and Saviour and himself commands us John 15.12 to do this As I have lov'd you says he so love one another thus making his Love to us the Rule or Pattern of our Affection to those of our own Kind And the first Instance of Christ's Love which I shall propose for Imitation is this That as he lov'd us Before we lov'd him lov'd us without any Merit or Invitation on our part lov'd us when we could not love him when we were wholly benumm'd and dead to all heavenly Affections So likewise that we love one another expect not Obligations and Invitations from our Brethren to quicken our Charity towards them but rather delight to begin and be before-hand in our Expressions of Kindness and to have it seen that they come from our selves A natural Spring flows of its own Impulse unbid unprovoked and makes its Way through all Oppositions if it meets a hollow in its Course it fills it up if a light Obstacle it bears it away with its Stream if a great one it swells and passes over it at least pours out still its free Source till it finds or makes a Passage And thus our Charity must take its Rise and flow from its self shew it depends on nought beside that it cannot be obstructed by the want of any Qualifications or yet by any Disobligations of our Brethren Atticus the charitable Bishop of Constantinople when he sent Money to relieve the Poor in the City of Nice commanded that no enquiry should be made in the Distribution of it of what Sect in Religion the Poor were but what their Wants were He that confers his Benefits upon Consideration only of mens agreeing with him in Opinion of their Merit Neighbourhood former Obligations or the like may be just prudent or Grateful but he cannot be said to be Charitable for this is a free unbiass'd disinterested Vertue and if it regards ought in the Good it does beside the Opportunity and Power it has to do it it changes its Nature becomes another thing and assumes a New Name Let no man therefore think he has absolved the Duty of Charity if he be Kind only where his Honour is courted and comply'd with ready to entertain Friendship when he is sought to to be reconcil'd when full Amends is made him But if he will shew this Grace he must first break the Ice and lead the way to Concord Kindness and Beneficence And none think this so hard a Saying as those who would hugely stomach and disdain in case their Neighbour should precede or take place of them upon any Meeting or Encounter as if it were Disparagement to them to sit lower than another at the Table and not to be below him in Vertue to go after him at a Door and not to come behind him in all Goodness If we cannot part with our Passions and Evil Affections for the sake of our Brethren as well as our Money for go our Pride and Animosities as well as our Goods we are Charitable but in part Merciful but in a Case and possibly the Vertue may not be only Imperfect and lame in us but we may be wholly destitute of it for S t Paul says We may bestow all our Goods to feed the Poor give our Bodies to be burnt and yet not have the Grace of Charity Because these things may be done out of Ostentation and not only so but without any Profit or Benefit For put the Case our Brother be not low in Fortune but weak of Undestanding not indigent of outward things but of Instruction and Advice stands in need to be born with not to be reliev'd what Good will our Money do him in these his Infirmities It were as seasonable to apply it to a broken Arm or fester'd Wound to give it to one starving in a Desart where no Food is to be bought If we will be Charitable we must compassionate our Brothers Necessities of what Nature soever they be supply his Wants not gratifie our own Temper The second Instance of Christ's Love which I recommend to our Imitation is this That as he lov'd us not only first and before we lov'd him but lov'd us when we were Enemies to him when we were not only Strangers but Rebels to Heaven when we exercised all the acts of hatred and hostility against it So that we love one another and not think the Obliging and Good Natur'd only worthy of our Kindness but the Discourteous and Injurious Some men are contentious with their Neighbours outrageous to their Children tyrannical to their Inferiors insupportable to their Equals irreconcileable to their Enemies implacable upon every Colour of a Wrong But the Charitable on the other side can Excuse and pardon the most design'd and study'd Injuries see something to commiserate and pity even in mens Injustice can look upon their Malice as their Mistake or Misfortune pray for their Enemies as our Lord did in the very Article of the Death which they have brought upon them Father forgive them for they know not what they do And if we consider rightly Sinners are Ignorant and Mistaken in what they do Fools as the Scripture
will dispose God to shew us Favour that it is an acceptable Vertue in his Sight and if we come qualify'd with this Grace for his Mercy which is a special Condition also of his Covenant we shall not fail to obtain it but may more powerfully urge this Petition Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us not as the Papists teach upon the Presumption of Merit but upon the Confidence of God's Promise and Covenant Fac hoc vives Do this and thou shalt live Secondly If we take the Words in the other Sense Charity covers the Sins of other men against us Charity does this many ways but I shall mention only three 1. Remittendo by pardoning and forgiving them and this is the perfectest and most absolute way of covering Sins of all other for thus Sins are covered as I said God covers them he that remits Offences when he has right to do it restores the Person guilty to the State of Innocence again and does not so much cover his Transgressions as utterly take them away as he on the other side that revenges or punishes Offences registers and preserves the Memory of them as the Widow of Zerepaths Expostulation with the Prophet Elijah imports Art thou come says she to call my Sins to remembrance and to slay my Son to punish her old Guilt and to revive it was all one in her account to slay her Son to call her past transgressions to remembrance 2. Charity covers the Sins of other men corrigendo medendo by Correcting and amending them by turning their Vicious Habits into Vertuous and thus it covers Sins as a Plaster does a Wound its covering is its healing them and bringing it to sound flesh again But then much Prudence and Skill is requir'd in this Point of Charity we must be sure that our Corrections of our Brethren be medicinal and salutary that our Cures of Mens Minds and Manners be conducted with as much Caution and Tenderness as Surgeons and Physicians use in the Cure of their Bodies The first Caution therefore that I shall give is That we do not mistake the Disease and cast the Patient into a Worse Condition bring him out of a light Distemper into a more dangerous and deadly There are many Spiritual Physicians in these days who like the Pharisees of old compass Sea and Land to make Proselytes and then render them sevenfold more the Children of Hell than they were before The second Caution which I shall give is That if soft and gentle Remedies will work the Cure we do not apply rough and sharp ones affect to operate with Saws and Knives and Fire use cutting and corroding Reproofs where Oils and Balsams milder Counsels will suffice a Physician ought to compassionate the Sufferings of his Patient and the Reformer of his Brother that shews more Rigour and Austerity than is necessary acts the part of a Tyrant not of a Councellor and leaves it to be suspected that his Design is not so much to reclaim as to insult over him to make him a Convert as to dress up a Trophee to his own Pride Churlishness and Harshness hardens the Bread that 's given in Alms into a Stone whereas on the other side Mildness and Gentleness renders the sharpest Reprehensions sweet and the severest Discipline grateful The last Caution I recommend is If the Disease or Sin be disgraceful that we not only shew our selves good Physicians but good Men perform the Duty of Confessors as well as of Reformers hide the Shame as well as amend the Crime Open Reprehension turns into Scandal and that which would have been Advice if secret publisht becomes a Libel 3. Charity covers the Sins of other men benignè interpretando by favourably Interpreting of them and taking them in the best Part by setting all Actions even Injuries themselves in the most advantageous Light as Joseph call'd not his Brethrens ill-Dealing with him in selling him into Egypt their Envy or their Malice but God's Providence and looking upon the Success and not upon their Intention he upbraided them not for their Cruelty but congratulated the Preservation of his Father's House And those that will have God look with favourable Eyes upon their Miscarriages must in like manner behold and excuse the Miscarriages and Delinquences of others where the Intention appears to have been Evil towards them content themselves if the Success be Good and when the Success is Ill yet perswade themselves the Meaning was not so bad and when they can make no fair Construction of either of them then consider if themselves would not have done the same upon the like Temptation or have not done Worse in some other Instance And thus where they cannot preserve their Charity by a candid Interpretation of their Neighbours Defaults support it yet on the Consideration of their own Infirmities where they find them not Kind Just or Reasonable in their proceedings remember that themselves are as Unkind Unjust and Unreasonable as they And now I shall not have much to do in the last place to shew the Extent of the Operation of Charity viz. That it covers a Multitude of Sins For if it covers all our Own Sins and all the Sins of other Men not only a Great Number where a Greater Number yet remains but the whole Infinity of them though they out-vie the Leaves of Autumn and the Sand on the Sea-shore we may well allow the Apostles Expression That Charity covers the Multitude of Sins And I doubt not to understand the Words in their utmost Latitude Our Lord commands us to forgive our Brother seventy times seven times which is a definite Number set for an indefinite and imports as much as to forgive him without Measure or Number if he request it Again Luke 6.37 he says Forgive and ye shall be forgiven and without all doubt as Unlimitedly as he commands us to forgive he will forgive for 't is not imaginable that God's Benignity should be less than his Creatures that when he requires of us to remit the Sins of others totally and plenarily that he will remit ours partially and restrainedly And if it be said There are some Sins mentioned in Scripture as the Sin against the Holy Ghost which shall neither be forgiven in this World nor in the World to come I answer This is no Objection For where such Sins are found 't is not possible that Charity or any other Grace can be found to mediate for the Transgressor such Sins do not only offend against God's Laws but deny his Deity and the Committers of them are not only Transgressors but Apostates and unpardonable not on the account that their Crimes are above his Mercy but renounce it or that they transcend the Promise made to Charity but are destitute of the Vertue And if it seems too high a Prerogative to ascribe to Charity or to any other Single Vertue whatsoever and such as derogates from the rest and makes them useless to say
for their Children for being kind Husbands they have provided for their Wives for being bountiful Masters they have preferr'd their Servants But yet all this is but to do Good or Charity Oeconomically or within our own Doors not Oecumenically or Universally all this is still but the Love of a Man's Self for he is hardly yet gone out of Himself that is not gone beyond his Family and Relations This measure of Love as our Lord observes is found among Infidels They love those that love them but we are to be like our Father which is in Heaven who sends his Rain upon the Vnjust as well as the Just we are to love Aliens and Enemies as well as Friends The Love that is express'd to Relations may be the Pin or Hook on which some Single Precept hangs but not which supports the Stress of the Whole Law and the Prophets that Honour or Dignity belongs only to these two The Love of God Above our selves And the Love of all men As our selves Which brings me to my Second General Part The Dignity of these two Commandments by reason of the Dependence of the whole Law and Prophets on them The Twenty First Sermon MATTH xxii 46 On these two Commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets THESE two Commandments The Love of God And the Love of our Neighbour sustain the Entire Structure or Frame of the Book of God as the two Pillars Boaz and Jachin bore up the stupendous Fabrick of Solomon's Temple Or rather to keep to our Lord's Comparison they are as two mighty Hooks Hinges or Pins on which all the Law and the Prophets hang. For the better Explanation of which I shall do these three things I. Shew how it is to be understood That all the Law and the Prophets hang on these two Commandments The Love of God And the Love of our Neighbour II. I shall shew the Excellence of Love by way of Essay so far as to make it appear worthy of the Honour ascribed to it of sustaining all the Law and the Prophets III. I shall add as a Corollary how we may attain this Excellent and important Grace Love on which all the Law and the Prophets hang. I. How it is to be understood That all the Law and the Prophets hang on these two Commandments The Love of God And of our Neighbour The Law and the Prophets i. e. the Text and the Gloss or Comment whatsoever the Law has concisely commanded or implyed only and the Prophets more largely expounded and dilated on were but to plant this one Duty this One Master Principle in the hearts of men Love In every Law there are two Parts the Matter enjoin'd and the Rewards and Punishments annex'd by way of Sanction for the better Observation of it For a bare Injunction not animated and fortified with the Promise of Good things to the Keepers of it and Threats of Evil to the Infringers will find but cold Observation among men Who as the Psalmist speaks are little better than horse and mule that must be held with bitt and bridle of Penalties lest they fall upon you The Office of the Prophets was to be Custodes Legis the Guardians and Conservators of the Law they were not to add to the Law though they were inspired by God as Moses was but to interpret press and inculcate the Duties of it to revive in mens thoughts the Promises and Threats and thus they were a kind of Mound or Fence to the Law to keep off Transgressions The Jews had a Sort of Criticks who with great preciseness observed the Number of the Letters in each Book of Moses how they were written together with the Various Readings and these were call'd the Masorites because they were as the Word imports a Hedge to the Law But with much better right the Greater and Lesser Prophets may deserve this Name And upon this account it is that these two the Law and the Prophets or Moses and the Prophets are still quoted by our Lord together who says not The Law and the Interpretation of the Scribes or the Law and the Determination of the Priests though in lesser Matters the People were also to harken to them but the Law and the Prophets which were both of equal Divine Production and carried on the Same Design the one by commanding and the other by preaching and inculcating the Will of God and Duty of Men. Now whatsoever the one of these enjoins and the other enforces our Lord says Hang all upon these two Pins The Love of God and the Love of our Neighbour And though the Word Love is not often found in the Law and the Books of the Prophets though they are not as I may say so much Canticles as the Sermons of Christ and the Writings of his Apostles in some of which there is scarce a Verse but it is even verbally repeated and ingeminated yet the Duties which the Prophets urge and press are all Acts of Love to God and Charity to our Neighbour and whatsoever else they seem most to intend and employ their Pens about the propagation of Piety and Charity may be seen latent in the Scheme and Contexture of their Discourse and he that reads the one shall be unawares engaged and intangled in the other But then it may be ask'd here Seeing all the Law and the Prophets hang on this One Law of Love what need was there of so many Specifications of the Several Duties contain'd in both Tables as Thou shalt not kill Thou shalt not commit Adultery Thou shalt not Steal c. For this Single Word Love comprehending them all in effect so many Tautologies might have been spared To this we may say Men are so crafty and subtil to evade the Duties imposed on them or pretend Ignorance for their Disobedience that 't was not sufficient to set down in Generals the Obligations that lay on them but it was necessary by Express Prohibitions and Particular Instances to convince them when they offended against the Divine Precepts And for this reason the Law is fain often to descend to many trivial Specifications to work a lively and sensible Impression of the Justice or Injustice of every Fact in their minds As for Example Thou shalt not reap the Corners of thy Field nor glean thy Vineyard Thou shalt not suffer the Hire of the Labourer to remain with thee till the morning Thou shalt not take his Garment to Pledge his Bed nor his Working-tools nor his upper Milstone and the like Sure'y to an Ingenious Heart disposed to Humanity this particularizing would have been needless I say to a Good and Friendly Nature these things are of easie Deduction from the bare Word Love that all the rest might have been spar'd we say Verbum Sapienti a Word to the Wise is sufficient but 't is much truer Verbum Amanti a single Word to a true Lover is abundantly sufficient to make him recollect the rest of his Beloveds mind But I say Men
being generally of a Churlish Disposition it comes to pass that the Duties both to God and Men which are to be inferr'd from the General Precept of Love are obscure or at least pretended to be so and that they may have no Colour from the Abridging their Whole Duty into one Word Love to say There is no Obligation upon us to do the things required shew us where they are commanded produce the Letter of the Law and the like all the Silva Legum as Justinian calls them the Forest of God's and Mens Laws consisting of such Heaps of Precepts were added whereas otherwise all the Duties would have been seen to hang on this brief Syllable Love This Phrase do hang upon it is a Figurative Expression borrowed from the hanging things upon a Hook or Pin in a Wall which bears the Stress of their Weight We find the same Figure used Isaiah 22.23 God determining to make Eliakim Treasurer over his House to shew the Support he should be by the Influence of his Wisdom and Justice to the Inhabitants of Jerusalem he says I will fasten him as a Nail in a sure place and they shall hang upon him all the Glory of his Father's House all the Vessels from the Vessels of Cups to the Vessels of Flaggons and then it follows In that day says the Lord of hosts shall the Nail that is fastned in a sure place be removed and cut down and the Burden that was upon it shall be cut off But I shall shew more particularly three Ways how all the Commandments hang or depend on the Commandment of Love 1. As the Parts do upon the Whole the Whole contains the Parts and is but the Parts collected into One. And some will have this the only Dependance that is here meant of the other Commandments on that of Love according to S t Paul's interpretation Rom. 13.9 He that loveth another hath fulfilled the whole Law For this Thou shalt not Kill Thou shalt not commit Adultery Thou shalt not Steal c. are briefly comprehended in this saying namely Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy Self And the like may be said of the Duties of the First Table Thou shalt have no other God but the God of Israel Thou shalt worship him no other way than he has prescribed Thou shalt not take his Name in vain Thou shalt not break his Sabbath they are briefly contained in this Thou shalt love the Lord thy God And if Love were deeply rooted in the Hearts of men upon their going about any Act dishonourable to God or unjust to their Neighbour it would pull them back from it for this would be the immediate Question they would ask themselves By what Rule do I do this Will it hold according to the Precept of Love to God and to my Neighbour This particular Fact which I put forth by way of retail does it not vary from the General Rule in which it ought to be comprehended as in its Body 2. The Law and the Prophets may be said to hang or depend upon the Law of Love because it is the Scope or Drift to which all the Commandments in particular tend according to that Saying of S t Paul 1 Tim. 1.5 The End of the Commandment is Charity or Love out of a pure Heart and good Conscience and Faith unfeigned i. e. upon the Ground of the Belief of Remission of our Sins through Christ to love God and our Brethren for so great a Benefit and to express our Love in the Works of a good Conscience 'T is not preaching the Law though never so zealously as those did S t Paul here speaks of or the performing the Outward Acts of the Law as many of the Jews were very scrupulous in the Observation of that makes a Righteous Man according to the Law but he that does according to the Design and Intention of the Law which is Love Ratio Legis est interpres Legis the Purpose of the Law is the best Interpreter of the Law and they that mind not this as S t Paul says Take their Aim amiss and swerve from the End and Intention of the Law discern not the Grace of Love that runs through it as the Warp and the Woof do through a Web of Cloth and wholly sustains the Contexture of it Without Love all that is Excellent all that is Divine in the Law would fall to the Ground as all the Riches and Gallantry of the Veil of the Temple all the Purple and Scarlet would have lain grovelling on the Earth without the Tacks or Hooks on which they hung 3. The Law i. e. all the Vertue Goodness and Righteousness it commands all the Worth and Value of its Duties depend upon Love as the Value of Coin depends upon the Price the Stamp sets upon it or as a thing that is Accessory depends on its Principle take away the Principle and the Accessory is nothing so take away Love and all the Commandments are insignificant and nothing And this Saint Paul shews 1 Cor. 13. That even the most Specious and seemingly Heroick Performances of Christianity it self as a man's giving his Goods to feed the Poor and his Body to be burned c. if they be not accompanied with Charity or Love are all nothing the Dignity of these Works depending so absolutely upon this Grace that in God's Esteem to suffer Injury only out of Love to our Fellow-Christian is more than to suffer Martyrdom not to envy not to be puft up not to despise our Brother is more in his Eyes than to speak with Tongues than to prophesie than to understand all Mysteries And indeed there is more true Religion in this one Benign Good Natur'd Vertue than in the Ostentation and outward Grandeur of all the other But the Excellence of Love and that 't is worthy of the Honour ascribed to it to sustain all the Law and the Prophets is the next thing I am to shew The Excellence of Love c. This I shall make appear by four Reasons 1. For the Natural Universal pleasing Effect Love has upon All and even upon God himself as well as men and other Creatures insomuch as God for his part requires almost nothing else from us Now O Israel what doth the Lord thy God require of thee but to fear the Lord thy God and to love him with all thy heart and with all thy soul Deut. 10.12 To be belov'd is so grateful a thing that men receive delight even in the Affection of Brute Creatures and we see that such as are not qualify'd to deserve any true Love are taken with the Similitude only of it the gross Flatteries of them that counterfeit it Sinners as our Lord tells us love those that love them and S t Paul 1 Thess. 2.15 brands the Jews for their want of Love as with a Crime of so high Nature as deserved to be reckoned with their murdering the Prophets and of Christ himself says he Who have kill'd the Lord
last Day for where the Spirit it self is not its Operations cannot be expected 'T is true indeed that Sinners and Infidels shall rise again as S t Paul says Acts 24.15 There shall be a Resurrection of the Dead both of the Just and Vnjust Those that crucified Christ in the days of his Flesh and those that crucifie him by their Wicked Lives now in his Glory shall rise no less than True Believers than his holy Apostles and Martyrs But how and to what Resurrection shall they rise Even to such a Resurrection as is no other than a Second and Worse Death a Death not of Extinction or annihilation but a Death of Eternal Duration in Torment Non-Existence being not the State of the Second Death but Endless and Insupportable Misery insomuch that they shall wish that the Grave had for ever swallowed them up that as they liv'd like the Beasts that perish so they had also dyed like them without the Expectation of any After-Being So that the Resurrection of the Wicked is but an Aequivocal Resurrection as the lifting up of the Head of Pharaoh's Baker on the Gallows and the hanging Haman fifty Cubits high were but Aequivocal Advancements The Bodies of the Saints that rose after the Passion dy'd again the same Death but those that shall rise at the Last Day not having the Spirit shall dye again not the same Death that would be a Happiness but a Death that shall have no End and the Miseries of which we can no more describe than we can the Joys of Eternal Life but we must suffer a Change and be endued with new Powers and Faculties before we can support the Bliss of the one or the Torments of the other The second Property of an Inhabitant or Dweller in a House is to Command and Rule 'T is the Saying of every man to those that withstand the Exercise of their just Authority or but their Civility Give me leave to Command in my own House The Spirit of God must Rule and Command where it dwells we must not only give it House-room but Dominion look upon him as a Tenant but revere as our Land-Lord resign our Actions Wills Affections the Whole Man to his Dispose and Guidance Faith invites the Holy Ghost but Obedience and Submission to his Gracious Motions perfumes his Habitation and makes him delight to stay in it The Spirit of Love Meekness Purity and Holiness will not reside but where these and the like Vertues bear the Sway. Let the Word of Christ says S t Paul dwell in you Richly in all Wisdom So let the Spirit of God dwell in you Richly in all Wisdom it will not Cohabit with the Sons of Men unless it be Richly i. e. in the Abundance of its own Divine Graces and Operations If we will have the Spirit of God quicken our Mortal Bodies hereafter we must suffer him to quicken our Souls in this Life if we hope to reign by his Power in the World to come we must submit to his Dominion in this present World The third Property is Residence and Mansion our Houses are called our Manours and Places i. e. the Places where we ordinarily abide and where the Law presumes we are to be found so that if a Writ be delivered to any of the Houshold or but fastned to the Ring of the Door 't is counted the same thing as if given into our hands Thus our Hearts must be the Holy Spirit 's Manour or Place for what David says of God's constant Abode in his Temple on Mount Sion This is the Hill which God delights to dwell in yea the Lord will dwell in it for ever the like must be said of the constant Abode of the Holy Spirit in our Hearts This is the Habitation of the Holy Spirit and if we grieve him not nor drive him away by our Sins he will delight to dwell in us for ever When we were devoted to God in Baptism we devolved and made-over to his Holy Spirit an Estate in our Hearts even the Whole Term we had to live in this World and if we make good this Grant or Demise he will never abandon his Tenements till he has raised them up to Eternal Glory The Reason that a Great Schole-Man gives Why God punishes the Sins of Men which were but Temporal with an Eternity of Torments is Quia peccaverunt in suo aeterno because they sinn'd out all the Eternity they had i. e. all the Time God allowed them in this World and had he continued their Lives to the End of all Ages they would have continued still the same Wicked Persons The like Reason may be given for God's rewarding the Temporal Obedience of the Righteous with Eternal Glory Quia obedientes fuerunt in suo aeterno because they were Obedient all that little Eternity he allowed them in this World and would have persever'd in their Obedience if he had drawn out their Lives to the last Period of Time Abiding and Persevering in Righteousness is that which will give us Immortality if we give up the Possession of our Souls to the Dispose and Conduct of the Blessed Spirit the Whole Little Aeternum we have in this World we shall certainly obtain an Eternity that shall have no end in the next And thus I have shew'd the Manner of the Spirit 's Dwelling in every Christian and they that pretend to his In-dwelling without these Properties boast of an In-mate which they have not and as they want this Divine Guest so they will want the Blessed Effects and Consequence of his inhabiting in them the quickning of their Mortal Bodies at the last Day to Glory Which is the second thing I propos'd to explain The Effect or Consequence of the Spirit 's dwelling in us If the Spirit dwell in you He that raised up Jesus from the Dead shall quicken your Mortal Bodies The Words suggest two things to our Consideration 1. What shall be done to such Persons in whom the Spirit dwells He shall quicken their Mortal Bodies 2. Who shall be the Author to effect or bring this to pass He that raised up Jesus from the Dead 1. What shall be done to such Persons in whom the Spirit dwells 'T is said He shall quicken their Mortal Bodies Our Bodies are Mortal three Ways by Natural Death the Dissolution of the Substance of them by Eternal Death which succeeds the Natural that Riddle of a Death which by its Existence is in truth a Life but by the Torments belonging to it may deservedly be called a Death and by Spiritual Death which is the Cause of the other two Now our Mortal Bodies may be quicken'd or reviv'd again to three Lives To a Life of Eternal Duration to a Life of Eternal Joy and to a Spiritual Life or a Life of Grace which is the Cause in us of the other two Lives Some understand these Words shall quicken our mortal bodies only of Spiritual Proselytism of the raising us from the Death of Sin and
the enlivening us to a Life of Grace But though this meaning sutes well with S t Paul's Design in this Epistle to confute the Imagination of the Jews that they could obtain Eternal Life by Virtue of the Law of Moses without Faith in Christ Yet the Words of my Text point at the Blessed Immortality the Righteous shall hereafter be Partakers of and are only to be understood after this manner If Christians give themselves up to be led and governed by the Spirit of God in this World which is the Spirit that raised up Jesus they in like manner shall be raised up by it at the Last Day and the more they are quickned to a Life of Grace here the more they may be assured they shall be quickned to the Life of Glory hereafter Many Practical Uses and Advantages might be inferred from hence but I shall collect only this one which may be of great Encouragement to our Christian Industry and Endeavours to lead a Godly Life and that is the Expedition we shall make towards the attaining the Unspeakable Rewards of the Kingdom of Heaven There are three Lives to be attained and all to be attained by the Well-Ordering of One of our Spiritual Life alone in this World if we rise from the Death of Sin to Newness of Life we shall attain by the same Performance three Resurrections to that of perfect Grace to that of perfect Time or Duration and to that of perfect Joy and Glory This I say is so rich a Harvest and to be purchas'd with such Expedition that the Nicest and most impatient of Toil and Difficulties may be encouraged to strive for it Happy is he says S t John that has a share in the first Resurrection i. e. in the Life of Grace for the other are but Corollaries or Additional Complements of this Sanctification is as certain and assured a Way to Glorification as Childhood is the Way to Manhood 't is the Inchoation or Beginning of it and in a sense may be said to be it Those whom he Justify'd says S t Paul those he also Glorify'd as if these were done together and not in process of Time But to proceed The Author secondly of this Grace and Bounty is God And why did not the Apostle express himself so in a Word but used this Circumlocution He that raised up Jesus from the dead Because since Christ's coming in the Flesh and having performed the Work of our Salvation God has left off to govern in the Church immediately by himself and does all things by and through our Lord Jesus Christ. God Created and Drowned the World and wrought all the other wonderful things we read of in the Old Testament in his Own Name as God But now under the Gospel he dispenses all his Mercies as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and we must expect the Gift of Grace the Pardon of Sin Resurrection to Eternal Life and all his other Blessings and Favours from his Relation to his Son It is indeed by the Power of God that all men shall be raised from the Dead but then it is again for the Merits sake of Christ and their Believing in him that they shall be raised to Glory And that we should take notice of the Change of his Name in the New Testament from that he delighted to be called by in the Old is his own Will and Pleasure Says he there By my name Jehovah I will be known but now to us by the Name of his Relation to his Son as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Manichees from the Mistake of some Passages and Observations like this raised their detestable Heresie That the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New were two Different Persons the Father of Christ another God from the Creator of the World who sent his Son in the Flesh with a Design to win men from the Creator of the World But these are Wicked and Impious Dotages 't is only an Other Name that God has taken 't is not an Other God that acts among us there is but One God from and to all Eternity whose Name be Blessed for ever The meaning of the Scripture is only to teach us That 't is not God quatenus God that we expect should quicken us at the Last Day but God as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And this manifests the Perverseness of the Jews who still adhere to Moses and the Synagogue for their hopes of Salvation and the Blindness also of those who perswade themselves they can please God and attain Heaven by Natural and Moral Performances without Faith in Christ But the time permits me not to insist on these things I haste therefore to my last Particular The Means by which God will quicken our Mortal Bodies at the last Day viz. By his Spirit that dwelleth in us This Particle By in the Original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does not infer any Means that God shall use as Instrumental for the quickening our Mortal Bodies but implies here and in many other places the Motive only or Reason that invites the Agent to perform an Action God will raise us from the Dead as he does all his other Works by his Word or Omnipotent Power but though his Power does the thing yet 't is for something in Men that invites him to do it namely his Holy Spirit which he gave them to that very End and Purpose to dispose and fit them for the receiving Eternal Life David says of himself immediately and Christ typically and of all Faithful People mystically Thou wilt not suffer thy Holy One to see Corruption i. e. God will not leave or forsake the Righteous either in their Life or Death as if he had forgotten them and the Motive of this his Favour to them is Because they are Righteous or Holy Ones And the Psalmist expresses the thing with some Indignation and as if it were an injury to God to imagine that he could suffer in his very Nature that that which was Holy should be swallowed up in the Grave that which was Righteous should perish that which was Incorruptible should see Corruption And indeed there is not only an Incongruity but an Impossibility that this should be For what the Apostle says of Christ's Resurrection God raised him up having loosed the Pains or Bands of Death because it was possible he should be held of them may be said of the Resurrection of all the Faithful with this Difference only That the Impossibility of Christ's being detain'd in the Grave proceeded from his Divine Nature ours from a Divine Promise Nay we may add and with good Warrant That the Impossibility of our remaining in the Grave depends not only on an External Promise but on Something With-in our selves though not Of our selves even on the Spirit of God which dwelleth in us by which we are united to Christ and made Members of his Body he being the Head and our Resurrection must
Wings to their Devotion and raise it to a higher Pitch than the quiet Actings of the Heart alone can do And as a man by vehement Speeches and Emotions of his Body may chafe himself into a greater Degree of Anger so by devout Gestures in Prayer he may heighten and enflame his Zeal 3. Ceremonies are useful in regard of the Beholders The reverent solemn and holy Rites of the Church being suited to the Majesty of the Deity that is worshipp'd excite Faith and a more awful Regard in the Hearts of men and 't was for this very Reason as I said that our Lord used so many Circumstances and Ceremonies in the working of his Miracles For such Visible Performances are many times more Efficacious Lessons than long Harangues and though men affect to appropriate the term of Edification to Sermons only the External Parts of Religion are not without their Edification too and a holy Practice or Custom may make a smarter Impression on the Soul than the Inculcations of a flat and heavy Sermon 4. Ceremonies are useful in regard of the Light they give to many Doctrines which being assisted and seconded by such Sensible Circumstances as Exhibit them to the Eye as well as to the Ear they are the better explain'd and establish'd in the Understanding by the help of two Senses as Differences in Law are by the Mouths of two Witnesses and we may term the Ceremonies which accompany the Precepts of Religion the Jael or Nail that fastens the Substance of them in our Minds as the holy Matron of that Name rivetted the temples of Sisera to the ground Or we may call them the Masorah of the Church for as the Jewish Masorah by an exact and critical Calculation of the Number of Words Syllables and Letters in the Scripture hedg'd in the Text both from Mutilations and Additions So Ceremonies often empale the Substance of Religion and guard it from Innovation and Corruption And may we not then justly condemn the Perverseness of those that make such Out-cries against such Useful such Innocent nay such Necessary things as Ceremonies who decry the same things for Superstition when used in the Church which they allow to be Wisdom when practis'd by our Saviour But Wisdom is justified of her Children impartially and those that have the Ingenuity and Goodness of the People in my Text and no Taint of Pharisaical Pride and Hypocrisie will approve the Rites of our Church as well as her Doctrines and say She has done all things Well She has made the Unanimous in Faith Uniform in Worship added to the Beauty of Truth the Beauty of Holiness neither dressing up the Service of God in that Strumpet-like Attire which the Church of Rome does nor stripping it into that deformed and sordid Nakedness which is seen in the Fanatick and Congregational Assemblies The Tenth Sermon MARK vii 37 He hath done all things well he maketh both the Deaf to hear and the Dumb to speak I Observed in the Testimony or Verdict of the People three things 1. The Appellation or Denomination they give our Lord He or This Man 2. The Kind or Nature of their Verdict it was an Approbation That he had done Well 3. The Extent of their Approbation That he had done All Things well I begin first with the Appellation or Denomination they give our Lord He or This Man The Peoples Appellation here is but a lame and imperfect Acknowledgment of Christ it exprest only one half and the meanest half of his Condition It was not the Style in which Believers in after-times spoke of him who never mentioned him as mere Man but as God or the Eternal Son of God When the Primitive Christians met in their early Devotions before day laudes Christo tanquam Deo canebant they sung Hymns to Christ as to a God as a Heathen could bear witness But however the Appellation of the People was less Honourable at the present it was accepted from them and registred as a Proof of their Ingenuity that they gave Christ the Due of his Actions though under an imperfect Style of his Person God opens the Eyes of mens Understanding and cures the Infirmities of their Souls by Degrees as Christ in the following Chapter cured the Blind mans Eyes who first saw Men like Trees and afterwards Men like Men. 'T was enough upon our Lord's first entering on his Prophetick Office and preaching to the World that the People received his Doctrine and conceived rightly of his Miracles though not of his Divine Nature that they acknowledged him to be a Good Man though not the Son of God Incarnate which at that time was not understood even by the Apostles themselves But then that which was an Ingenuous Expression in those days would be an Injurious or Blasphemous one in these if men should now so far debase Christ as to restrain him to his Humane Nature only and deny his Divine as the Socinians do who allow no higher Title to be due to him than this Man this Man has done all things well this Man was born of a pure Virgin this Man died rose from the Grave ascended into Heaven and sitteth at the right-hand of God and the like And 't is not without good reason that some have doubted whether those that are of this Perswasion are to be numbered among Christians who after so full and perfect a Revelation of Christ apprehend him yet so imperfectly who with a greater blindness if not malice persecute his Divinity than the Scribes and Pharisees did his Humanity use greater Endeavours to destroy the Son of God than they did to destroy the Supposed Son of Joseph and Mary I say though He or This Man was a pardonable appellation from the People who were yet but Raw Auditors of the Gospel yet 't is intolerable coming from Grown Christians and such Elementarii Senes Grey-headed Ignorants as stick still at the first Rudiments of the Faith deserve to be expell'd the School of Christ for their Non-proficiency Saint Paul 1 Cor. 1.12 sharply reproves Believers for saying I am of Paul I of Apollos I of Cephas I of Christ and not only for their Schisms but chiefly for levelling our Lord with his Servants and making him only the Head of a Sect a Partial Minister of mens Salvation when he was the Sole Author and Finisher of their Faith But what shall we say then of those Fanaticks of later times who deny not only the Divinity but Humanity of Christ affirm that what the Gospel says of God Incarnate is not to be understood Historically but Morally not of a Particular Single Person but of all that are True Believers and that themselves are the Godded with God those in whom God is Man'd or Humaniz'd as they delight to Cant. Acknowledge no Saviour or Redeemer of the World but make themselves all to be Christs assume his Attributes and Prerogatives pretend to be without Sin Not that they do not do those things which the Worst of