even now Heirs of a kingdom Jam. 2. 5. The wise that shall inherit Glory Prov. 3. 35. Heads destinated to a Diadem in Tertullian's expression which their Heavenly Father hath prepared for and will at last put upon them who alone too makes them fit to wear it meet to be Partakers of the Inheritance of the Saints in light III. How differently soever the Children of God may share in the same Inheritance This is certain that every one's share therein shall be the Gift of his Heavenly Father The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here imports it The Apostle alluding to the Division of the Land of Canaan a Type of Heaven which God had appointed to be done by lot wherein Himself we know had the main hand according to that of Solomon Prov. 16. 33. The lot is cast into the lap but the whole disposition thereof is of the Lord. Thus it was in the Choice of Matthias to the Apostleship Act. 1. And thus it is as to our share in the Inheritance of Glory It falls to us by lot by the disposition of God the Father we have no part here but what he gives us And if so then no merit of Condignity nor so much as of Congruity can be pleaded by us And truly one would think it were sufficient to partake of the Inheritance without making out our own Title to it That we might be content to be Heirs without coming in as Purchasers or if we will needs be so to be Purchasers on Christ's score and not our own But this is too low and mean for some men who come with Counters in their hand ready to reckon with God to shew Him how much he is in their debt and who stick not to tell Him to his face that He is an unjust Master if he pay them not their due wages But 1. Our Lord Himself hath told us That God is beforehand with us That whatsoever we can doe is due from us to Him That when we shall have done all those things which are commanded us we must say that we are unprofitable servants and have done but that which was our duty to doe Luk. 17. 10. And then what merit can there be in paying just debts And 2. St. Paul hath told us That we can doe no good thing without Him too who worketh in us both to will and to doe of his good pleasure Phil. 2. 13. So that He crowns His own gifts in us and rewards not our deservings Besides 3. Our goodness extendeth not to God says David Psal. 16. 2. And being unusefull how can it be meritorious Nay our best works are so imperfect and so sinfull too that the utmost they can expect is but a Pardon and not a Reward And were they never so good and perfect yet what proportion can they bear to such a Reward as an Inheritance in light Our light affliction which is but for a moment to a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory 2 Cor. 4. 17. where we must not let pass an elegant Antithesis For Affliction there is Glory For Light affliction a Weight of glory And for Momentary affliction an Eternal weight of glory to shew the vast disproportion between these things so vast that even Martyrdom it self the highest utmost proof of our love to God is in St. Paul's account nothing in comparison of that Glory we expect For I reckon says he that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us Rom. 8. 18. IV. And lastly The very word Inheritance excludes all Purchase on our part For this were to renounce Succession to cast off all Filial Duty and Affection not to own our selves Sons but mercenary Purchasers yea and Purchasers of an Inheritance already purchased for us by Christ and for his sake freely bestowed upon us by our Heavenly Father out of His own pure Goodness and Bounty to which alone we must ascribe it For we all the best of us have sinned and come short of the glory of God Rom. 3. 23. And we are told ch 6. 23. that The wages of sin our proper wages is death but the gift of God is eternal life The Apostle might have said and indeed the Antithesis or Opposition there seem'd to require it But the wages of Righteousness is eternal life But he altered the Phrase on set-purpose and chose rather to say The gift of God is eternal life That we might from this change of the Phrase learn That although we procure Death unto our selves yet 't is God that bestows eternal life on us That as He hath called us to his kingdom and glory 1 Thess. 2. 12. so he gives that glory and that kingdom for no other reason but because He is pleased so to doe It is your Father's good pleasure for into God the Father's good pleasure Christ resolves it to give you a kingdome Luk. 12. 32. No merit nor so much as any good disposition in us for it He propares it for us Matt. 20. 23. And he prepares us for it too here in the Text by making us meet to be partakers thereof For what meetness could he find in us for such an Inheritance Title to it we have none being by nature the Children of wrath and disobedience Eph. 2. 2 3. Mere Intruders here and Usurpers The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence and we the violent take it by force Mat. 11. 12. Qualifications proper for it we have none too That An Inheritance in light we darkness That An Inheritance incorruptible undefiled and that fadeth not away 1 Pet. 1. 4. we corruptible polluted and still decaying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cries out our Apostle We are not sufficient not fit for the word signifies either as of our selves but our sufficiency or fitness call it which you will is of God 2 Cor. 3. 5. 2 Pet. 1. 4. who as He makes us Partakers of his divine Nature so meet Partakers of the divine Inheritance not by pouring out the divine Essence but by communicating to us those divine Qualities which will fit and prepare us for the Sight thereof by putting light into our Understandings and holiness into our Wills without which no man shall see the Lord Heb. 12. 14. By cleansing our hearts and washing our hands that so we may ascend into the hill of the Lord dwell and rest in his Tabernacle Psal. 15. 24. He gives us Faith and with that a Prospect of our Inheritance and He gives us Hope and with that an Interest therein And to summ up all in one He gives us his Holy Spirit the earnest of that Inheritance Eph. 1. 14. who worketh all our works in us writes his laws in our hearts and by softning makes them capable of his divine Impressions In short That divine Spirit which by Regenerating makes us new Creatures and so fit Inhabitants for the new Jerusalem calling us first to Vertue and then to Glory to that as
their sight is that of all the parcels of time regard but the present and of all things but the face and appearance men that only mind earthly things of so low and base a spirit that their Souls are but as salt to them and of so brutish a temper that such a Transmigration as Pythagoras fansied a punishment to bad men would with them pass for a happiness and with the Devils they would make it their desire that they might be suffered hereafter to enter into Hogs Such men dare not openly deny an Immortality and yet they will not believe it or if they do 't is so faintly that their lives wholly confute their judgments 'T is strange to see how many there are that having nothing but frost in their veins and earth in their face do yet so much doat on that life which they have now scarce any part in whose faith reaches no farther than their senses and yet scarce retain they those senses whose frame should lift them up above the Earth and their affections carry them wholly to it They are unwilling to leave the World though they see they cannot keep it in their weak and enfeebled bodies they carry strong desires to it being dead to every thing but to the pleasures thereof which yet they cannot now enjoy because they cannot taste and do then covet most when they are just leaving them Than which as there cannot be a greater folly so let us take heed how we imitate it learn to look off from these temporal things which are seen to those eternal which are not seen get such a perspective of faith as may draw Heaven nearer to us shew us those glories which Christ has prepared for us and already taken possession of in his own flesh that so ours may rest in hope and one day inherit His kingdom And now since Christ has given us an assurance of Immortality let us endeavour to lay the foundation of a happy one in this life to work it out even in this world this common shop of change work it out of that in which it is not out of riches by not trusting in and well using them out of the pleasures of this world by loathing and forsaking them out of the flesh by crucifying it with the lusts and affections thereof and out of the world it self by overcoming it Lastly and above all let us labour to secure this blessed Immortality which lies before us by such good works as may follow us through the huge and unconceivable tract of Eternity Else we may be so eternal as to wish we were mortal wish against our interest that in this life only we had hope make our selves who now fear death to dread immortality too hope that there were no eternal joys and tremble at the thoughts even of that everlasting bliss which our ill lives should give us no just ground to hope for But if while we enjoy this life we make lasting provisions for the next by good works then do we truly hope in Christ and then the seeds of Vertue and Piety well cultivated here shall hereafter yield us the happy fruits of a glorious Immortality which he grant us who hath brought life and immortality to light through his Gospel Jesus Christ in us the hope of Glory To whom with the Father c. Amen Soli Deo gloria in aeternum A SERMON ON ROM XII 1 I beseech you therefore Brethren by the mercies of God that ye present your bodies a living Sacrifice holy acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service SAint Paul being from a Jew converted to a Christian hath taken great pains not only to prove the reasonableness of his doing so but that Judaism it self was to be Christned the legal Washings to be at last baptized That whole Oeconomy to be done away that it might be made complete and to be destroyed that it might be perfected And it was well that it was to be so For the Law could not justifie because its performances were but low its Promises but near and its strength weak The Law then could not justifie had it been observed but being broken it could condemn so that our Saviour to upbraid the Jews refers them not only to himself but to Moses in whom they did trust And indeed 't is as visible that the Jews did break their Law as that they did boast of it They were equally zealous in observing and industrious in transgressing it Instead of Religion they had brought themselves to be a Sect humorsome and peevish arrogant and censorious All the world was to be of their way and yet themselves not of it so that they were as I may so say Idolaters of the true God whose Circumcision was uncircumcised As if that fact of Moses when he brought the Law had been the Type of the future observance of it when at the time of bringing the Tables he brake them But not to upbraid the Jews with their failings let us see what use there is to be made of them while they perform the letter let us obey the meaning while their Sabbaths are lazy let ours be holy They wrote the Law on their Garments let us write them on our Hearts They boasted of it let us doe it While they sacrifice their Beasts let us offer up to God the more precious bloud of his own Lamb and with that bloud our selves For we Christians as well as the Jews have an Altar says St. Paul and are Priests too a royal Priesthood says St. Peter Aaron and his Successors offered up Bulls and Rams unreasonable Creatures that were first slain and then offered But we our Bodies and those such living Sacrifices as make up a reasonable Service No Calves here to be presented but those of our lips For a Lamb and a Dove meekness and innocence and for a Goat our Iusts must be sacrificed No death here but of inbred corruptions no slaughter but of the old man whose death enlivens our Sacrifice and so fits it for an Everliving God and makes it Holy and so becoming a Holy God And if we crown our Sacrifices with such flowers they must needs send forth a sweet and acceptable odour to God and pass with Him not only for a Sacrifice but which is more be heightned to a reasonable Service And this our Gratitude calls for and our Interest We owe it to God as to our Creator who made our Bodies and as to our Redeemer who hath purchased them We owe it to our selves too if we will be happy in the enjoyment of God who as He is not a God of the dead but of the living will have a living Body for a Sacrifice and not a Carkass And this in all respects is so reasonable that it may well be matter of wonder why our Apostle should spend so much passionate Rhetorick to persuade us to give up that unto God which 't is our highest advantage He should vouchsafe to accept But then
Gentleman now of late well known to the World who had married his Neice interpos'd so violently in his behalf that even his Merits and known Loyalty cou'd not procure his Expulsion This kindness of his Relations who were engaged on the other side was so well resented by him that afterwards in the Reign of K. James II. he was extremely pleas'd when upon the Alteration of Affairs in England he had an opportunity offer'd to him of requiting the Obligation to one of the Parties and indeed almost of paying the Debt in kind And here you must excuse a very short Digression if I acquaint you that this was not the single Instance of his Life wherein herdiscover'd his fix'd Principle That no difference of judgment or opinion ought to hinder the mutual Offices of Friendship Charity and Benevolence much less the Exercise of the most indispensable Duty in the World that of Gratitude For 't is well known to many now living that in the time of the most exalted Loyalty when men's outward Profession of Fidelity was not so much the Test of their Zeal as the Earnest of their Preferment he ingag'd so far for his Friend not in espousing his Tenet which perhaps was erroneous but in procuring his safety that he upon that Account lost a Bishoprick which had been often promis'd to him and which seem'd in reality to have been otherwise design'd for him But to return to our Authour's Life After the Restoration of K. Charles II. he had so great a Reliance on his Friend Dr. Sheldon Archbishop of Canterbury that though he was unanimously nam'd if not actually chosen Principal of Jesus College in Oxford he declin'd the offer of that creditable Post out of a Prospect I believe of greater Advantage by his Stay at London His Preferments at last were the Deanry of Chichester and the Precentorship of that Church a Prebend of Westminster a Rectory a Sine-Cure with another additional Dignity It is easie to be perceiv'd therefore that he never made himself liable to the Censures of those that blame Pluralities but it ought further to be known for the prevention of other objections that he was not willing to have accepted two Dignities seemingly incompatible in one Church if he had not obtain'd a Promise from K. Ch. II. of annexing the Precentorship perpetually to the Deanry of Chichester The small Revenues that belong to the Deanry of that ancient Cathedral recommended this Design to his Care and the meeting of the two separate Interests in one Person was the most probable Method of accomplishing it The Advances made in this Affair the Licence under the Privy Seal the Consent of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Opinion of very Eminent Council therein are now in my hands And tho' indeed the Design was always pursued with Earnestness and Vigour by our Authour yet so it hapned that through others negligence it not only as Church-work usually proceded slowly but by reason of some Difficulties arising between a warm Bishop of that See and Dr. Stradling then Dean thereof was then wholly discontinued and is now rather to be desir'd than expected I am well assur'd That during his Life the Rights of that Church were well defended the Revenues of it improv'd And the Fabrick beautified and repair'd and this is the rather probable because when his great Adversary had brought up to Court a Charge against him it fix'd no other Crime upon him in that Station than his too great Negligence and Remissness in promoting the Interest of the Crown in the Choice of Parliament men for Chichester The good Prelate Dr. Carleton a man possibly of no ill Principles but much heat was angry that men that agreed with him in opinion were not likewise of the same Frame and Temper and equally violent in executing their Designs The Pulse of our Authour it seems did not beat so high nor did his Blood circulate so quick nor was he by the bent of his Nature so much fitted for a popular and tumultuary Canvass and therefore the want of Passions was by the zealous Bishop easily misinterpreted Lukewarmness and the Observance of Decency in his Applications to the Electors seem'd to inferr an indifference in the Choice I shall not be much concern'd to refute this Accusation because after our Authour 's ingenuous and manly answer to it a great Minister of State was pleas'd to assure him in a Letter that His Majesty was satisfied that he was both able and willing to promote the King's Service with as much Zeal as his Accuser and with much more Sincerity Discretion and Success In the Year MDCLXVI he was married to Margaret Daughter of Sir William Salter in the Chappel of Richking House in Buckingham-shire the Seat of her Father He behav'd himself always to his Wife who brought him a very large Fortune not onely with Kindness but with all imaginable Indulgence and was happy as in the Enjoyment of her for XV. Years so in his numerous Issue by her some of which are yet living but I shall not enlarge on this Head as thinking the World not much concern'd in the particular and exact Knowledge of the small Occurrences of a private Family What I have farther to add is That our Authour after a long Disease at last died at Westminster on the XVIII Day of April in the Year MDCLXXXVIII and in the Year of his Age LXVII and was buried in the Abby there much desired and lamented by many but especially by those few that had the happiness of his near and intimate Conversation Having thus given you the Memoirs of Dr. Stradling's Life his Birth Fortune Manners and Death I shall proceed to draw from thence and from the other Accidents of his Life which would hardly bear a distinct Relation apart the true and full Idea and Character of our Authour He was a Man then of a free sweet and condescending Temper and withall of a deep and piercing Wit so that his Conversation not only procur'd him the Love but rais'd the Admiration of his Acquaintance He was not open to many Visitants but had the unusual happiness of being respected by Men of a different Humour Party and Temper from each other and who hardly agreed in any one thing but the Esteem of him And indeed as he was a Man of strict Morals and yet of an easie and agreeable Disposition he gain'd a respect of the more rigid and moroso part of Mankind and gave in the mean-while a liberty of access to those that allow'd themselves a greater latitude in Conversation His Learning was by no means superficial and yet his general Correspondence with Gentlemen of all sorts had made it easie to him and to his Company and though it was not always in sight yet was it ever ready not so much to amuse Ignorance as to refute Impertinence It will appear by the use he made of Foreign Authours in his Works that he travell'd not with the same Design as young
Gentlemen of his Station and Quality were us'd to do but as Pythagoras Solon and Lycurgus he saw not only old Walls ruin'd Amphitheatres and antiquated Coins but brought home with him the Histories Polities and Learning of each Nation And indeed upon Comparison of his Discourses with some of the same Subject written beyond Sea you will find that whenever he borrows any Foreign Thought he so refines upon it that you can hardly descry the Plagiary but where you must apparently own the Conquerour and not so properly discover his Thefts as his Triumphs As to his Preferments in the Church it is easie to see in his Answer to Bishop Carleton's Charge that he was neither forward nor ambitious in attaining them nor proudly sullen in slighting or refusing them but carried himself so even between Contempt and Compliance that he was equally rais'd above the meanness of flattering his Superiours and above the Vanity of despising them By never writing or publishing any thing but what the Duty of his Place requir'd or publick Authority commanded he shew'd himself not desirous of applause and by his Care and Accuracy in the Excellency of those necessary performances he appear'd not insensible of Reputation He was moderate in his Diet and Pleasures and yet unhappily expos'd to the Gout and Stone which for many Years allay'd the Enjoyments of Life and at last occasion'd his Death However he had no reason to complain of Providence who liv'd long and well belov'd by his many Friends and rather envied than hated by his few Enemies Noble in his Descent and not uneasie in his Fortune Whose Reputation in his Life was unquestionable and whose Fame after Death will be lasting Who was happy in his Marriage Issue Preferment and Estate and not wholly unfortunate in any thing but what died with him his Diseases The further Character of our Authour the Reader may easily learn from his Works in which his Temper and Disposition is as well discover'd as his Sence display'd and which are not only the Test of his Wit but the best Image Representation and History of his Mind A SERMON Preached on the Annunciation St. LUKE XI v. 27 28. And it came to pass as he spake these things a certain woman of the company lift up her voice and said unto him Blessed is the womb that bare thee and the paps which thou hast sucked But he said Yea rather blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it AND it came to pass as he spake these things a certain woman lift up her voice And had she not done so had all the Auditory been silent the Stones would have immediately ery'd out and applauded the Speaker And yet though never Man spake as He did the harder Jews were of full proof here against his Eloquence A generation of Vipers not to be charm'd by the wisest Charmer who could as easily resist his Words as they had done his Miracles Each of these might convince but both together could not change them so that their Infidelity over-mastering his Omnipotency it prov'd a harder task for him to dispossess them than the dumb man v. 14. the occasion of our Saviour's discourse here and of the Jews envy Yet could not their untoward disposition make void the word of God especially when proceeding from the mouth of the Word Incarnate Here to be sure it should not altogether miss of its effect nor did the Seed sown by him wholly fall on such rocky ground some part thereof met with a fitter soil to receive and cherish it One there was among the rest of a more tender complexion whom God's hand had chaft into a suppleness capable of his impressions In the midst of all opposition from the Jewish Doctors he raises up a certain Woman to check and frustrate it His Truth opens her Mouth as his Grace her Heart to bless him whom they cursed and to proclaim him a Prophet whom they gave out for a Devil Thus can the Almighty out of the mouth of Infants or such-like weak Instruments those that bring them forth perfect his own Praises and give them that courage to maintain his Cause which Nature had deny'd them For let the learned Scribes and Pharisees revile him never so much this single weak Woman here shall dare to defend his Truth against their Slanders and magnifie his Person in spight of their malitious Contempt And now her Tongue mov'd by that Holy Spirit whom these Revilers blasphemed and resisted pronounces not only Christ himself Blessed but the very womb that bare him and the paps that gave him suck reflecting a Glory from the Son on the Mother which our Lord was not unwilling she should share in allowing her Blessed though not most Blessed in that respect granting it her as her privilege not as the sole much less the best reason of her Blessedness A Blessedness others might not despair of Men no more than Women who by a diligent attendance to God's Word conceiving and by a conscionable practice of its Precepts bringing Christ forth might each of them become his Mother too As if our Lord should have said Thou O woman pronouncest the womb blessed that bare me and the paps that I have suckt And herein thou say'st true for she is indeed even thus Blessed and all generations shall call her so but I will tell thee who are rather Blessed They that hear the Word of God and keep it I shall not pretend to tell you as some here doe who this Woman was nor what her name but 't is not strange those persons should be able to find out unknown names who can at their pleasure Saint folks as they have done this Woman in the Text it being as easie for them to Christen as to Canonize But of this the Text is silent and 't is not of such consequence to know who she was as what she says her Testimony being much more material than her Person Which Testimony here directly points to Christ and but glances at the Holy Virgin it being usual with the Jews to magnifie the Parents of those they chiefly intend to commend and not to be wonder'd at if a Woman were so willing to extoll her own Sex or a Jewish Woman the Paps and Womb of a Mother who could fancy nothing beyond the Milk and Honey of her Canaan I shall not consider the words as they point to our Lord himself who is above our praises over all God blessed for ever but as they occasionally reflect on his Mother A subject proper to this day's Festival and wherein there are two things considerable 1. The Testimony given in by this Woman and allow'd by Christ that she that bare and nurs'd him up was Blessed 2. A Way or Means propos'd by our Lord whereby others as well as she might be not only Blessed but more Blessed than the very Mother of God considered barely under that Relation and that is By hearing the Word of God and keeping it Which
Christ by the instigation of the Devil shed tears by the effusion of the Holy Ghost and as they had cruelly wounded him to the death they were penitently and mercifully by his Word and Spirit themselves wounded with Repentance unto life Which piercing as it was in part accomplished in those few Converts fore-mentioned so shall it have its fuller and more perfect fulfilling on the whole Nation of the Jews when they shall see their error and be all turned unto Christ as St. Paul tells us Rom. 11. 11 32. I heartily wish it may as no doubt it was intended be fulfilled in us too and that my Sermon may have the same effect on you that it had on Peter's Auditors That looking on Him whom we also have pierced we may with them be pierced at the heart too We find that at our Lord's crucifixion all Nature mourned all the Creation groaned Rom. 8. 22. The Sun put on blacks the Earth trembled the Rocks cleft asunder and it were strange if we of all God's creatures should remain insensible and express no sorrow when we behold the Lord of Nature suffering and for us too What a shame were it for us that the dumb inanimate Creatures should upbraid us as the Children their fellows in the Market-place Matth. 11. 17. We have mourned to you and ye have not wept Let us then bear our part in this Quire of Mourners but with this difference that our Mourning be not so much outward as inward not so much in the face as in the heart a heart pricked with sorrow for having pierced Christ and not so much for the smart as out of the sense of our Sin not so much for our selves as for him for his sake whom we have crucified for no Tears prevail with God but such as are wept over Jesus Christ If he be not the flame in our Breasts that melts our Hearts if he be not the Object that draws forth our Tears though we should weep Bloud our Bloud shall be but as Water spilt upon the ground If we grieve and not in and for Christ our grief will be but Hypocrisie at least but Formality This is the Sorrow this the Mourning which our piercing of Christ calls for as a proper effect of the Spirit of Grace and Supplication and it must come in at the Eye For the way to be pierced with Christ is to look upon him Iisdem quibus videmus oculis flemus The Eye is the instrument both of Sight and Sorrow That must affect the Heart What the Eye never sees the Heart as we say never rues If the Understanding be not convinced of Sin our Hearts will never be moved at it Sight of Sin must precede Sorrow for it The Prodigal first came to himself ere he returned to his Father Look we then to Christ but let us reflect upon our selves too that our Eyes may dissolve into Tears without which Christ's Bloud shall not wash away our guilt of having spilled it Let us sorrow but with a sorrow according to God such as may work in us repentance unto Salvation for having crucified the Author of it and then we may look upon Him to our comfort 3. With an Eye of Faith which is another prospect here mainly intended For the looking on in the Text is an Allusion to the beholding of the brazen Serpent a Type of Christ crucified on the Cross as himself tells us Joh. 3. 16. It was not the brazen Serpent it self but their looking upon it that cured the bitten Israelites It was their Faith that did it which came in at their Eye though it usually does at the Ear and gave it a healing quality As it was not the Woman's touch but her Faith that drew out Vertue from Christ to stanch her issue of bloud It is the generally received opinion that the Souldier who pierced Christ one Longinus was when he did that act blind but by vertue of that pretious Bloud which sprang on his Eyes from our Saviour's side he had his Sight restored and was hereupon converted and after became a Bishop of Cappadocia and in the end died a Martyr What truth there is in the History I know not but very much surely there is in the Application If by Faith we will look upon him whom we have pierced that Sight shall not only clear our Eyes to discern but touch our Hearts and dispose them to embrace a Saviour No spiritual Cure to be wrought on us without our Faith We find that Christ in all his miraculous Cures of diseased Persons still required their Faith as a necessary preparative to their healing as if Omnipotency it self could doe nothing without the Patient's belief nor will the diseases of our Souls be ever remedied without the concurrence of ours too The Prophet Elijah by applying the Members of his Body to those of the dead Child fetcht it again to life Let us stretch every part of Christ pierced to our Souls and they will soon be revived be they never so dead in trespasses and sins 4. We are to look upon Christ pierced with an Eye of Love This we know naturally comes in at the Eye too Oculi sunt in amore duces Now as there is no such Attractive of Love as Love so never was there any such Love as that of Christ in dying for us It was our Sin that gave Him his Wounds but it was his Love that made him receive them And we may reade that Love to use the Prophet Esay's expression in the Palms of his hands that were stretcht out for us upon his Cross In the Prints of the nails which could never have enter'd Him had not his Love made them a passage And in the point of the Spear which lets our Eyes into the very Bowels of his tender Love and Compassion towards us Well may each of us say with the Holy Martyr Ignatius My Love was crucified for me If the Jews that stood by Him when he was about to raise Lazarus said truly Behold how he loved him when he shed but a few Tears out of his Eyes much more truly may we say of Him Behold how he loved us for whom He shed his very Heart-bloud the utmost Expression of Love as Himself tells us Joh. 15. 13. Greater Love than this hath no Man to bestow his life for his friends and yet greater love than this did he shew forth by laying down his life for us who were his Enemies I say by laying it down for no man had power to take it from him Joh. 10. 18. It was his own pure Love not any force that compell'd him to dye for us And therefore our Obligation to love him ought to be so much the stronger by how much his suffering for us was more free and voluntary 5. Lastly Let us look on Him whom we have pierced with infinite Joy and Exultation not for that we have pierced Him which ought to produce a quite contrary Passion in us
but that he would suffer himself to be pierced for us who only deserved to be so What should have become of us had he not undergone the punishment due to us Where had we been but for his Passion It is by his stripes that we are healed It is his meritorious Death that hath procured us Life It is his pretious Bloud shed on the Altar of his Cross that hath reconciled us to God that hath vanquished Death and Hell and opened unto us the gates of Heaven having thereby obtained eternal Redemption for us which we shall certainly partake of if we will but look on him whom we have pierced in such a manner as we ought to doe with an Eye of Pity and Compassion of hearty sorrow and contrition of Faith and of Love If we will doe so we may then lift up our heads for our Redemption draweth nigh We may then rejoyce too with joy unspeakable and full of glory looking for that blessed hope the glorious appearing of our Lord and Saviour at his second coming to deliver us from this present evil World and to restore us to the glorious liberty of the Sons of God But on the contrary if either we will not look at all on Christ pierced for us or so slightly as not to be in the least affected with that sight nay even despise his Sufferings make a mock of Him and of those Sins which pierced Him persecute Him in his Members rend his mystical Body by Discord and his seamless Coat by Schism corrupt the Purity of his Doctrine by Heresie and shame Him and his Gospel by our vile and wicked Lives We shall then have another but a very dismal and uncomfortable sight of Him not only the merciless Jew who actually shed his Bloud but the loose prophane Christian who hath trampled it under foot shall see him then to his eternal horrour and confusion I say shall see him see him whether he will or no. It shall not be in his choice whether he will see him or no. Every Eye says St. John shall then see him even they also who pierced him and all kindreds of the Earth shall wail because of him The whole World then shall be the Theatre on which this sight shall be shown and every Man thereon a several Spectator And what a dreadfull sight shall that be to all unconverted Sinners whether Jews or Gentiles when Christ their Judge shall appear in a visible shape with those Wounds in his Body which they gave him How successlesly shall they then cry unto the Rocks and Mountains to fall upon them and cover them from the presence of this Lamb once dumb before the Shearers but then with his very voice glorious and mighty in operation breaking the loftiest Cedars in pieces In vain doe we now put off this evil day from us and with St. Peter's mockers question the promise of his Coming Behold he cometh saith St. John Revel 1. 7. He is even now on his way and will as certainly come as if he were already present Nay is already come if we may believe St. James Behold the Judge standeth before the door Jam. 5. 9. And who may abide his second Coming when he shall come in flaming fire to take vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the Gospel which his Son preached 2 Thess. 1. 8. His first Coming was in Humility and in Weakness but his second shall be in Majesty and Power How shall the Scene then be changed And with what face shall the enemies of this Cross be able to look on him then whom they had here so often pierced Consider we these things and let us prevent one sight by another and let every one of us prepare to meet our Lord in such a garb and posture as that we may be able to look upon him then with comfort And that we may so doe let us beg of Him to look upon us as once he did upon his Apostle that denied him that with him we may weep bitterly for having pierced him and so fulfill the Prophecy of the Text in the best sense of it in that of the Prophet Zachary and not of our Evangelist in the fore-cited Revel 1. 7. That we may here by Faith see him with St. Stephen sitting at the right hand and there making intercession for us by those Wounds which we have given Him that we may hereafter for ever behold him in Glory Amen A SERMON Preached on Easter-day ACTS II. 24. Whom God hath raised up having loosed the pains of death because it was not possible that he should be holden of it THE precedent Verse and this of the Text represent Christ unto us in a very different condition That in the low ebb of his Exinanition This in a high pitch of his Exaltation In the former we find him under the power of death In the latter raised up to life There a Worm and no Man Here more than Man Declared to be the Son of God with power by the Resurrection from the dead Christ had given sufficient evidence of his Manhood in his natural Infirmities and Necessities but above all in his Passion But the main proof of his Divinity was to be taken from his Resurrection A proof at this time most necessary in relation to his greatest Enemies the Jews who were so apt to triumph in his ruine to fancy they had now prevailed against him to say within themselves Now that he lieth let him rise up no more and once more to lay that in his Dish which they objected to him on his Cross He saved others himself he cannot save With these buisy mockers which gnashed upon him with their teeth these Atheists that could say Where is the promise of his return and that had called him in express terms a Deceiver St. Peter had to doe and had not the Holy Ghost appeared a little before in a cloven tongue of fire on his head his own could never have been able to make them credit such a thing as a Resurrection Christ's much less to whom they were so spightfull It was necessary then that so great a Miracle should make way for another as great which was to persuade them into a belief of Christ's Resurrection Men so incredulous that they would not believe though one rose from the dead as Lazarus had done who having brought them news from another World they for his pains would needs have sent him back to the place from whence he came so that nothing now but the sight of him they had so lately crucified if yet that would doe was sufficient to convince them whom though St. Peter could not present to their Eyes yet their Ears hear the certain news of his return from the Grave That he that was dead was now alive That that body which had been sown in weakness was now rais'd in power by a power no less than divine the power of an
thereof and yet all this still dull and flat till he quickens it with an active Verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which he wrought in Christ when he raised him up from the dead An act proper to God the Father who is entitled to it ver 33. and by St. Paul too Gal. 1. 1. Yet so as that he has communicated this Power to his own Son Joh. 10. 17 18. and 5. 21 26. As the Father raiseth up the dead and quickneth them even so the Son quickneth whom he will who had a Power to lay down his life and to take it again to dissolve the Temple of his Body and in three days to raise it up so that Christ here did as much rise as was raised up and this the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in St. Luke imports a Verb of an active signification implying a Power in himself to rise and in that respect a certain argument of his being the co-essential and con-substantial Son of God as the Apostle concludes him hence to be Rom. 1. 4. in spight of all those his adversaries who by denying him this Power prove themselves worse enemies to him than the Jews were who robb'd him of his Life whereas these of his Divinity also as far as in them lyes III. The principal and sole Agent then in this great Work was God the Father and the Son And such an Agent was necessary since the task was so difficult the knot which Death had tied being so hard required no less than a God to unloose it Now by Death here is meant not only a seperation of Soul and Body though that be the most natural import of the word but all those sad things that preceded as so many Prologues to his last Tragedy styled Propassiones All those ingredients in the bitter cup he drank of Such as were Christ's natural apprehensions of the terrors of Death the curse of the Law the load of our Sins upon him and a lively sense of God's wrath due to those Sins which put him into an Agony and made him sweat great drops of bloud and to close up all the bitter pangs of that cruel death he underwent to satisfie God's Justice All which are compar'd here to the Pangs of a Woman in travail from which God at last freed him by raising him up to a life uncapable of pain or sorrow making him forget his former Sufferings as a Woman does her Pains when delivered of her Child Joh. 16. 21. This is implied in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But because to loose the Pains seems a hard expression and unloosing properly denoting the untying of some knot and so supposing some chain or cord wherewith Christ was bound and which God dissolved which the following word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seems to make good some conceive it better to interpret the word Pains by Bonds as the Syriack does calling them Funes Sepulchri those adamantina mortis vincula in the Poet And the rather because the Psalmist promiscuously useth these words Psal. 116. 3. The snares of Death compassed me round about and the pains of Hell gat hold upon me Both of them signifie no more but the power of death those Shackles and Manacles which the Angel of the Covenant struck off from himself and then from us which could no more hold him than the withy bands could Sampson herein a Type of Christ being but as Flax and Tow to him who was the Power of God and though he might suffer himself to be entangled yet could not possibly be holden of them And that 1. In respect of the Truth of God's Word viz. those many Predictions and Types of Christ's Resurrection which else must have been voided The Predictions are many and clear relating to this point That of Esay 53. 8. That Christ should be taken from his prison That of Hosea 6. 2. After two days will he revive us and in the third day he will raise us up and we shall live in his sight see Esay 26. 19. But most expresly that of the Prophet David Psal. 16. 10 11. That his flesh should rest in hope and that God would not suffer his Holy One to see Corruption which Prophecy could not be apply'd to David himself as St. Peter here in the Verses immediately following tells his Auditors because he did see Corruption but only to Christ who did not and who did rise the third day according to the Scriptures Luk. 18. 33. As for those Types too which shadow forth Christ's Resurrection they are many and exactly representative of it As Adam's awaking from sleep a Type of the second Adam's from death Sarah's conceiving when old Isaac's being sacrificed and yet living Gen. 22. 12. An express figure of Christ's Resurrection Heb. 11. 14 17 Joseph's being taken out of the Pit and lifted up out of the Dungeon as Jeremy was too and Daniel out of the Den of the Lions Dan. 6. 23. And more clearly by Christ's own application Jonah's being taken out of the belly of the Whale Mat. 12. 40. All which Types would be meer shadows without their substance and insignificant Types if they had wanted their Anti-types and should not exactly have answer'd them which they could not doe if Christ could have been holden by the pains or cords of death 2. Not possible by reason of that indissoluble tye of Christ's Personal Union so strait that Christ's Body even in the Grave was inseparably united to the Deity which drew it to it For although Death could dissolve his Natural yet not his Personal Union and therefore necessary it was that his Body and Soul should be re-united that so he might become a perfect Man which could not be without his rising 3. Not possible in respect of God's immutable Decree so determining it which being still of force nothing could render ineffectual God had anointed his Son from all Eternity as to be a Prophet and a Priest so a King to accomplish the work of Man's Redemption none of which Offices could be fully executed but upon supposition of his rising from the dead 1. The preaching of the Gospel was to follow that Luk. 24. 47. 2. As was also the preaching of Repentance and Remission of sins through his bloud the Expiation whereof as well as our Justification the not imputing our Sins to us was an effect of his Resurrection Rom. 4. 25. Who was delivered for our Offences and raised again for our Justification God having declared by raising his Son from the dead that he had accepted of his Death as of a sufficient ransome for our Sins For if Christ had remained still under the power of Death his satisfaction could not have been perfect neither could he have applied the Vertue thereof to us And in like manner was Christ's Resurrection our Justification For Christ being our true pledge after he had satisfied for us by his Death returning unto Life gives us a clear Evidence and affords us a
sure Argument that God was fully reconciled and Life purchased for us Which assurance we could not have had if Christ our pledge had still remained under the power of death for as much as his continuance in his payment would ever have argued the imperfection of it The summ of all is this That our Justification was begun in Christ's Death but was perfected by his Resurrection That we have Redemption by his abasement and Application of it by his advancement 3. Again The pacification of our Consciences the confirmation of our Faith and the support of our Hope depended all upon the Exercise of his Regal Office which was mainly to triumph over his and our Enemies the last of them especially Death which he could never be said to have done while he still remained under its Dominion For then he had never ransomed Men from the power of the Grave nor redeemed them from Death but as it followeth in Hosea 13. 14. Death had been his Plague and the Grave his Destruction and so ours too So far should he then have been from swallowing it up in victory or leading captivity captive that himself should have been a slave and a captive to them so far from spoiling Principalities and Powers or making a shew of them openly triumphing over them that the gates of Hell should have prevailed against Himself and consequently against his Church contrary to his express Word and Promise Mat. 16. 18. 4. Not possible as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 implies an unsuitableness or incongruity as well as an absolute impossibility for id possumus quod jure possumus And according to this notion of the word 't was impossible that is 't was altogether unsuitable and unbecoming as I may so say God to suffer Christ to be under the power and dominion of Death It did not become his Love thus to forsake his only beloved Son nor his Justice to suffer his Holy One to see Corruption to leave his Soul in Hell i. e. the Grave who had done no violence neither was guile found in his mouth or to let him go without his reward who by his active and passive Obedience the Sufferings in his Life and Obedience at his Death had merited Heaven for himself and us It being most unfit that he should remain any longer in Death's prison who had paid his own and our debt even to the discharging of the very uttermost farthing And to conclude this point How unbeseeming the Power of God was it also even in the judgment of Reason That he that looseth the bands of Orion should not be able to break Death's cords That that Death which God never made a meer privation should fetter him who made all things and that nothing command Omnipotency its self That the Devil should be said to have the power of death and the Prince of life be under that power Such Chains of darkness suit well with that roaring Lion who goes about seeking whom he may devour but not at all with the Lion of the Tribe of Judah who was to rescue the prey out of his jaws Certainly He that had the keys of Hell and Death could open the gates of Death to himself as well as to all believers The Grave to him was no other than a Womb which soon grew weary of its load and 't was as natural for Christ to force his passage out thence as for the Child now ripe for the Birth to drop from his Mother 's Womb. If the Creature groans to be delivered from the bondage of her Corruption it is but reasonable to imagine that the Earth could not chuse but be in pain so long as she became an Instrument of her Creator's captivity and 't was as absolutely necessary for those Iron gates of death to let out the Lord of life as it was for those Everlasting ones to be lifted up to receive the King of Glory into Heaven And into that place whereinto his Resurrection has made a way for Himself we hope one day to enter that where the Head is there the Members may be also We have ground for this Hope from St. Paul 1 Cor. 6. 14. God hath both raised up the Lord and will also raise up us by his own power He can for he did raise up others before he raised himself Jairus Daughter the Widow's Son Lazarus after four days rotting in the Grave are all pregnant instances of his Power Et ab esse ad posse valet consequentia What he has done he can still doe unless we shall fancy his Arme shortned or that the Ancient of days has lost his strength And that he will we have his own Word for it Joh. 6. 40. Whosoever believeth in me may have everlasting life and I will raise him up at the last day If he can and will why should we doubt of it Who hath resisted his Will Or what can tie up his Hands Death we see could not her Cords were too weak to Manacle him and why should we think they can now hold us He that could break them off from himself can he not dissolve ours too Let me then put St. Paul's question to the most doubting Sceptick Act. 26. 8. Why should it be thought an impossible thing that God should raise the dead Since we see he has effectually done it in the Person of Christ and every day does it in Nature For what is Nature its self but a continual Resurrection We may see it every Day in a perpetual orderly Succession of Nights and Days in the Setting and Rising of the Sun in Winter and Spring The Serpent's casting off his old Skin the Eagle's renewing his strength with his Beak not to mention the Phoenix rising from her Ashes which yet some of the Fathers as Clement and Tertullian use as an argument to prove the Resurrection the Seed corrupted in the Earth and thence springing up into a full Ear our Lord's and St. Paul's instances all Emblems or rather Demonstrations of it Our very Bodies to go no farther than our selves even in our life-time are continually altered and those we now carry about us are not the same they were a few years past so that we may change the Tense and reade not that we all shall be but that we are continually changed Our sleep what is it but a shorter death and our awaking thence but a return to life What are Church-yards but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sleeping-houses from whose Graves as from so many Beds we are one day to be raised up by the sound of the last trump And as Nature so Art shadows forth a Resurrection That Art whereby a little rude piece of Earth is refin'd into pure Metal whereby a Chymist can raise a flower out of ashes at least to shape and colour And shall not God be able to change our vile Bodies and make them like unto his glorious Body And when he has
turn'd Men into destruction to say Come again ye Children of Men. If the Disputer of this World the conceited Rationalist should deny a possibility of a return from a privation to a habit a re-production of the same thing once corrupted Let me ask him why that God who created our Bodies out of nothing cannot be able to recall them out of something For since even Philosophy its self will grant that in every dissolution the parts dissolved doe not perish the Materials still continuing All the Skill here will be but to join and reunite the scattered parcels Quasi non majoris miraculi sit animare quà m jungere Tertullian's reasoning here is very concluding and we cannot resist the argument Utique idoneus est reficere qui fecit quanto plus est fecisse quam refecisse initium dedisse quà m reddidisse Ita restitutionem carnis faciliorem credas institutione An Artificer can take a Watch or Clock asunder and put it together again and shall not the great Creator be able to doe as much here to re-unite what he has severed having still reserved the loose scattered pieces and fragments The separation of our Bodies and Souls by death as 't was violent so their desire of re-union being natural shall not be frustrated They are incompleat Substances in that state and long for their perfection which is their re-union for by that are the spirits of just Men departed made perfect and God will not leave them in an imperfect condition lest a power and inclination should for ever be in the root and never rise up to fruit This may suffice to silence though not to satisfie Natural reason especially if we consider that many Philosophers have had strong apprehensions of a Resurrection upon the dissolution of the World by fire a reduction of all things to a better state as Seneca terms it Nor was there any Article of the Faith more generally believed among the Jews than this as appears by Joh. 12. 24. and Act. 23. 8. The Patriarchs were certain of it witness their great care before their death to have their Bones carried away by the Children of Israel out of Egypt that they might be buried in Abraham's Field out of a hope no doubt of being the first that by vertue of Christ's Resurrection might rise from the dead as 't is very probable they were of the Number of those many Saints which arose and came out of their Graves after his Resurrection and went into the holy City and appeared unto many Matth. 27. 53. But then to the Faith of a Christian nothing is so easie as a Resurrection since God's Word clearly tells us That Christ is our Resurrection and our Life Joh. 11. 25. and that our life which is now hid with him in God shall one day be revealed Colos. 3. 3. That God is not the God of the dead but of the living Matth. 22. 32. Nay the Lord of dead and living Rom. 14. 9. For that he will one day raise them up to life again For the dead Bodies of Saints while they lye rotting in the Grave being still united to Christ as his Body there was to the Deity cannot be for ever separate from him the Members must at last be joined to their Head If the first-fruits be risen the whole lump shall follow Not one hair of our head shall perish He that numbers the sand of the Sea numbers our dust nor can the least Attom escape him All our members are written in God's book He that puts our tears into his bottle locks up the pretious dust of his Saints in his Cabinet can recall our dispers'd Ashes and require our Bloud of every Beast that has drunk it fetch those several parcels of us which have been buried in a thousand living Graves and been made a part of those Graves which have devoured them God can make the Earth cast out her dead cause the Sea to disgorge them and our dry bones to gather together as in Ezekiel's Vision ch 37. He that calleth all the Stars by their names knows his by name for their names are written in Heaven and will call them by their names as he did Lazarus bid them come forth and by bidding enable them to doe so in spight of all their bands Now that we may be of the number and partake of the lot of these happy ones we must hear Christ's voice here calling us to repentance and newness of life that we may hear that with comfort which shall hereafter call us to Judgment and be able to answer it with joy and confidence Here we are Let us be sure of our part in the first Resurrection that the second death may have no power over us All shall one day be raised All must one day appear before the Judgment-seat of Christ good and bad But there is a Resurrection of damnation for these and for those of life Both shall come out of their Dungeons but the one like Pharaoh's Baker to an Execution the other like his Butler to an Exaltation The former shall have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the latter only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sinners shall arise but the godly be quickned How happy would it be for wicked Men if they should never have been born or should never rise again since they shall rise no otherwise than as drowsie Malefactors who lying down with their Sentence are afterwards awakened to be set on the Rack But 't is not so with the Godly who sleeping in Christ doe rest in hope I would not have you ignorant Brethren concerning them which are asleep says St. Paul that ye sorrow not even as other which have no hope For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him What doest thou fear then O good Christian Sin Behold the Resurrection of thy Redeemer publishes thy discharge Thy Surety has been arrested and cast into the prison of his Grave for thee Had not the utmost farthing of thine Arrearages been paid he could not have come forth But now that thou seest he is come forth now that the summ is fully satisfied what danger can there be of a discharged debt Or is it the Wrath of God thou dreadest Wherefore is that but for Sin And if thy Sin be defrayed that quarrel is at an end And if thy Saviour suffered it for thee how canst thou fear to suffer it in thy self Surely that infinite Justice hates to be twice paid He is risen and therefore he hath satisfied Who is he that condemneth It is Christ that died yea rather that is risen again Rom. 8. 34. Lastly Is it Death that affrights thee Behold thy Saviour overcoming Death by dying and triumphing over it in his Resurrection And canst thou fear a conquered Enemy What harm is there in this Serpent but for his sting The sting of death is sin And when thou seest
seen in the latter's time Even that bloudy Butcher Bonner who shew'd no mercy to any Protestant found his share in hers He was only put under a little restraint but such a mild one as differed very little from liberty and ended his days in peace I am sure that the design of this day was no good argument of the good nature of that Religion which the Designers profest no more than a standing Inquisition is Many who are persecuted abroad for their Religion run to us for shelter and protection But we send out none hence to complain of our like usage toward them Some indeed are so confident as to deny there is any such thing though many of us see it done abroad and whole shoals of suffering people daily flocking hither do themselves tell us so and should they not their very wants and miseries would lowdly proclaim it But that which seems strangest to us is to hear some of our brethren or at least such as pretend to be of the same Religion with us talk so much of that Egyptian slavery they have been rescued from I think there are no footsteps of any Bricks or Lime kills yet remaining amongst us Nor do I believe that we were ever such severe Task-masters to any of them as they were to us All when it was our chance to be under them Their little finger then was heavier upon us than all our loins ever were to them Those very people who now cry out so much on former Persecution may remember if they please That there was a time when themselves were the Persecutors and we the Sufferers The only difference between them and us is this That what they did was against Law and what we did was by it In a word Our answer to both these sorts of men is this That as we never had any hand in the business of this Day so neither in that of the 30th of January Now if the innocent Doctrine of our Church and our constant practice suitable thereunto will not sufficiently plead for us we have then no other Apology left us but that of St. Paul in the like case With us it is a very small thing that we should be judged of you or of man's judgment He that judgeth us and you too is the Lord who will one day make manifest the counsels of the heart and then shall every man have praise of God In the mean time let us keep to our Rule Doe all indeed to the glory of God but doe it in such a way as Himself will have it done by We are to look to our way God will take care of his own concerns 'T is high presumption in us to goe about to teach Him how He should be obey'd If we will serve Him acceptably Let us doe it according to His own will and prescription Then shall we doe Him service indeed and when our great Master shall come and find us so doing He will then to our unspeakable comfort say unto us Well done ye good and faithfull servants enter ye into the joy of your Lord Which he bring us unto c. Amen Soli Deo gloria in aeternum A SERMON ON 1 COR. XV. 19. If in this life only we have hope in Christ we are of all men most miserable THAT all men have an apprehension of another Life which Tully calls Saeculorum quoddam augurium futurorum A kind of presage of a future world is hereby evident That they so infinitely desire and labour to extend their memory beyond the limits of this to make their fame outlast their persons to survive themselves in their Issue or in an Inscription and that sometimes engraven on the very houses of corruption their Sepulchres fancying a remainder of Life even in the abodes of death or which is yet stranger to perpetuate their fame by their very infamy So dreadfull a thing to Man is the very thought of Annihilation And by how much stronger men's apprehensions have been of another Life by so much has their contempt of this been the greater This made some Heathens so prodigal of a Life which in their opinion should return And as it made them valiant so has it in all Ages made Christians more It brought them cheerfully out into the Field and these more cheerfully to the Stake And indeed as the meditation of death is a good remedy against the fear of it to those who look beyond it so if it bound up men's thoughts and shut up their prospect within the grave if it be considered as ultima rerum linea that beyond which there remains nothing not as a passage to another Life but an utter close of this it cannot but fill their Souls with the greatest horror and amazement Now nothing can well remove this but the Doctrine of Christianity and 't is the great scope and design of it to doe so It represents death to us not as an annihilation but a change not as a ruine but a dissolution not as a bare privation of this life but a door to another So that when we dye now we leave nothing behind us but our mortality part with nothing but our corruption nor are we so much buried in our graves as laid up they being but so many beds from whence we are to be rouzed when Christ who raised himself shall raise us up he who is the Head draw us after Him who are the members without which blessed hope we should still remain in the chambers of death the pit should not only swallow us up but shut her mouth upon us our graves should devour our hopes with our selves and we should not so much dye as in St. John's expression be slain with death But now since Christ hath abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel now that he has not only discovered but imparted it to us the face of things is quite changed That which we dreaded before we now expect what was once a threat is now become a promise our greatest hope is in that which was our greatest fear If death affright us as natural men it comforts us as Christians If we be its Prisoners we are the Prophet Zachary's prisoners of hope It does but the office of a gentle Gaoler only unlock our Prison door to let us out thence into everlasting Mansions Of all Articles then of the Creed there is none more comfortable than that of the Resurrection to good Christians nor any so important even to their tranquility in this life whose miseries are so great and whose satisfactions so thin and empty that without hope of some release from them they should be more condemn'd to live than to dye Their life it self would even kill them They should sink under the perpetual apprehension of a future nothing hate life and still fear death that is not enjoy themselves here and be afraid of losing themselves for ever hereafter Upon which score 't is that
fading too What was said of Drunkenness That 't is but a short and merry Madness is as true of all those brittle Comforts which carnal Men have in outward things they are no better than one day's vanities born this light and not seen the next things of so swift and dispatching a nature that they just last long enough to have it pronounc'd of them that they have been having two characters stampt upon them by St. Augustine that they make wretched and forsake these two glassy properties that they are glittering and breaking like some pieces of dry wood that imitate light to whom belong these poor accomplishments to shine and to be rotten And as these things are short so are men too They forsake men and men must leave them As the fashion of this world still passeth away so those that are in it These earthly Tabernacles vanish like enchanted Castles and they that dwell in them The Inhabitants decay as well as their Houses and both if no other life must for ever lye buried in their own rubbish 3. Which sad apprehension of a future Annihilation is the third thing which of all other makes a Man miserable and represents Death most terrible Annihilation is a thing of so dismal an aspect that some prefer a bad being to none and think it better to be for ever miserable than for ever not at all to be Now he that looks upon death not as a change but as an irreparable ruine can never tast the joys of life the constant apprehension of this future nothing makes every thing to him as nothing That bitter pill shall still soure his delights more than the want of one surly Jews knee did Haman's felicity What pleasure can that Malefactor take in any thing of this world who every minute expects his Execution Or what relish can that man find in the choicest delicacies of Nature who with Damocles sits at the Table with a Sword hanging by a little thread ready to fall with its point upon his head Every morsel to such a person is gall 'T is so with him that sees his pompous Scene of Greatness waited on by a fatal Catastrophe And therefore Tully speaking as a right natural Man is plain when he tells us Mortis timor tollit omnem vitoe jucunditatem This was a sad Tolling-bell to the triumphing Emperor Hominem te esse memento as it is to him that lives like a God in a kind of All-sufficiency of outward enjoyments that he must dye like a Man nay like the Beast that perisheth Such a persuasion would make a Socrates look pale at the sight of the Hemlock in spight of all those Cordials his Philosophy could furnish him with and indeed it were easie to prove that all those remedies it affords to abate the terror of death are very ineffectual and the Philosophers themselves but miserable Comforters and that upon supposition of no other life to come that so famous saying of Solon That no man was happy till dead would rather give him a place among the greatest fools than wise men of his time and that part of Roman Valour so much magnified for men to offer violence to themselves would no doubt appear as full of Madness to a natural Man if well considered as it does of Impiety to a Christian if by depriving himself of his being he must for ever put himself out of a capacity of any future enjoyment By these considerations you may now perceive how miserable that person needs must be who confines his hope to the things of this life so unsatisfactory so brittle so perishing in their use as he that uses them too especially when a man is persuaded he must shortly so perish as for ever not to be Such a man is most unhappy in his misery because no prospect of a better condition can lessen or alleviate it and as miserable too in his fancied happiness because at best 't is very low and but half possessed miserable in what he suffers now but much more in what he expects hereafter In a word such a one is most miserable in his misery and cannot at all be happy in his happiness because he imagines a time coming when he shall be neither miserable nor happy but eternally nothing II. If this then be the condition of a meer natural Man then certainly that of a Christian is yet more miserable if his hope also be in this life only Which is the second Observation If we consider what God's Saints have in all ages endured and must continually expect we shall find that out of Hell none have suffered more For proof hereof I need send you but to 1 Cor. 4. or rather to the 11th to the Hebrews where the bare recital St. Paul makes of their sufferings would fright us nor can our ears well bear what they endured If any misfortune befell the Roman State then presently Christiani ad Leones If Israel be afflicted then Elias must be the troubler of it Man is born to troubles as the sparks fly upward says Job but the good Christian is engag'd to more than the Man is born to 'T is that he must expect if he be to receive a hundredfold in this time 't is with perfecutions He that will live godly must suffer them says St. Paul 2 Tim. 3. 12. And In this world ye shall have trouble says Christ Joh. 16. 33. Such a man's profession is scandalous and his example odious For not being of the World to be sure the World will hate him Which as it is true of all good Christians so of Christ's Ministers especially As they have a double portion of God's Spirit so of afflictions If others be chastned with Whips then these with Scorpions For besides their common profession the nature of their office will expose them to troubles They that convince the world of sin shall stir up its malice and while they defie the powers of darkness inevitably procure their hatred And here for the better making good my assertion that Christians of all other men are most miserable I shall premise these two things 1. That the stronger men's apprehensions are of evil the quicker the sense of them 2. That the higher their hopes the greater their misery in the disappointment of those hopes For First The apprehension if strong and active ever gives an edge and sting to misery The soundest body is most sensible of pain and the quickest reason of misfortune Expectation and apprehension heighten Evils the first anticipates and the second exasperates them Now these two are highest in Christians For whereas wicked Men who are so immers'd in the things of this life that they scarce give themselves leisure to think of those of another doe far less apprehend them Christians who suffer their thoughts to dwell upon such unpleasing objects are most sensible of them and that wrath of God which may justly seize upon all offenders and consequently they suffer these terrors with
Light of Nature is but dim and its Assistance weak and they who followed that did but grope in the Dark and were apt ever and anon to stumble And no Marvel For some Evil does so well imitate Good that 't is hard for a natural Eye to make out the just Bounds and Limits of each of them The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Rule that marks out Vertue from its neighbouring Vice being not so plain in every place as to chalk out exactly to this point thou may'st come and no farther and therefore we find the best Philosophers Ethicks so imperfect that some Heathen Vertues are little better than Christian men's Vices Besides the Universal ill practice of mankind by putting a false gloss on Evil did so disguise it that the mistake of that for Good was very easie But Christ having in his Gospel given us such exact Rules whereby to judge of them One would think it were impossible now for men to be deceived And yet we find nothing so common and the moralists Observation most true Pauci dignoscere possunt vera bona atque illis multum diversa For while some look upon these things through such false Glasses as do alter their shape and proportion or their Organ is vitiated by some such bad humour as discolours every Object presented to it while the strength of passion blinds some men's reason or the pleasures of sin corrupts it and wicked men do so cunningly suit their Principles to others bad Tempers that they are presently swallowed without chewing 'T is hard to know things that are excellent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostle's word is Phil. 1. 10. things that differ especially men being willing to believe all lawfull that gratifies their vitious humour and inclination And this was it which rendred the Heathen Divinity so plausible to the World and the vile Doctrines of Gnosticks to loose Christians that it brought in such Shoals of Proselytes to them Upon all which Accounts David's Prayer will be very seasonable for every one of us Psal. 119. 66. Teach me O Lord good Judgment and Knowledge In the Original 't is good tast to try and relish what is good or in the Language of the Apostle give me Senses Exercis'd to discern Good and Evil. And while we thus beg God's Light and Direction let us as Christ bids us make our Eye good and single by clearing it from all carnal prejudice and that Dust and Filth which Satan and the World cast into it still rubbing and polishing natural Truths that they may shine out brighter and continually blowing up these Sparks into a flame Thus if we be not wanting to our selves God will improve our natural into a divine Light He will show us what is good by lifting up the Light of his Countenance upon us and enable us not only to call every thing by it proper Name Good good and Evil evil but withal to chuse the one and refuse the other That so the Curse of the Text may be turned into a Blessing and the Seeds of moral Vertue well cultivated here may yield us the Fruit of a blessed Immortality hereafter Which God of his infinite Mercy grant c. Amen Soli Dei Gloria in aeternum FINIS THE CONTENTS SERMON I. SAint Luk. XI 27 28. And it came to pass as he spake these things a certain woman of the company lift up her voice and said unto him Blessed is the womb that bare thee and the paps which thou hast sucked But he said Tea rather blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it Pag. 1 SERMON II. Tit. II. 14. Who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works p. 34 SERMON III. Tit. II. 14. Who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works p. 61. SERMON IV. St. Luk. II. 22. And when the days of her purification according to the Law of Moses were accomplished they brought him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord. p. 87 SERMON V. Joh. XIX 37. And again another Scripture saith They shall look on him whom they have pierced p. 124 SERMON VI. Acts II. 24. Whom God hath raised up having loosed the pains of death because it was not possible that he should be holden of it p. 159 SERMON VII Joh. XVI 7. Nevertheless I tell you the truth it is expedient for you that I go away for if I go not away the Comforter will not come unto you but if I depart I will send him unto you p. 197 SERMON VIII Heb. I. 14. Are they not all ministring spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation p. 242 SERMON IX Colos. I. 12. Giving thanks unto the Father which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light p. 287 SERMON X. St. Matth. VII 16. Ye shall know them by their fruits p. 321 SERMON XI Joh. XVI 2 3. They shall put you out of the Synagogues yea the time cometh that whosoever killeth you will think that he doth God service And these things will they doe unto you because they have not known the Father nor Me. p. 399 SERMON XII 1 Cor. XV. 19. If in this life only we have hope in Christ we are of all men most miserable p. 458 SERMON XII Rom. XII 1. I beseech you therefore Brethren by the mercies of God that ye present your bodies a living Sacrifice SERMON XIII holy acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service p. 490 SERMON XIV Esay V. 20. Wo unto them that call evil good and good evil p. 529 BOOKS Printed for and Sold by Tho. Bennet at the Half-Moon in St. Paul's Church-yard AThenae Oxonienses or an Exact History of all the Writers and Bishops who have had their Education in the Ancient and Famous University of Oxford from 1500 to the End of the Year 1690 Representing the Birth Fortune Preferments and Death of all those Authors and Prelates the great Accidents of their Lives the Fate and Character of their Writings The Work being so compleat that no Writer of Note of this Nation for near Two hundred years past is omitted fol. 2 Vol. Sir William Davenant's Works fol. Comedies and Tragedies by Tho. Killigrew fol. Beaumont and Fletcher's Plays fol. Shakespear's Works fol. Voyages and Adventures of Ferdinand Pinto a Portugal who was five times Shipwrackt sixteen times Sold and thirteen times made a Slave in Aethiopia China c. Written by Himself fol. Dr. Pocock on Joel A Critical History of the Text and Versions of the New Testament wherein is firmly Establish'd the Truth of those Acts on which the Foundation of Christian Religion is laid By Father Simon of the Oratory Together with a Refutation of such Passages as seem contrary to the Doctrine and Practice of the Church of England