love to have others to handle it severely All this bad men may do upon the score of natural fear and self-love and the apprehension of a future judgement And now such convictions will naturally beget some endeavours A convinced understanding will have some influence upon the will and affections The mind in the unregenerate may lust against the Flesh as that doth against it So that 2. such a meer animal man may promise and purpose and endeavour in some considerable measure but then he goes not on with full Resolution but wavers and stops and turns about again and lets the law of the members that of death and sin to prevail over him His endeavour is remiss and consequently ineffectual it makes no conquests and will not signifie He sins on though with some regret and his very unwillingness to sin while he commits it is so far from lessening that it aggravates his fault It argues that he sins against conscience and conviction and that sin is strong and reigns 'T is true indeed St. Paul Rom. 7. makes such a description seemingly of himself as one might think concluded him under this state he saith vers 8. That sin wrought in him all manner of concupiscence vers 9. That sin revived and he died vers 14. That he was carnal and again sold under sin vers 20. That sin dwelt in him and wrought that which he would not vers 23. That the Law of his members led him into captivity to the law of Sin and vers 25. That he obeyed the law of sin If this be so and St. Paul a regenerate man was in this state it will follow that seeking and feeble endeavour that overcometh no difficulty may yet procure an entrance and he that is come hitherto viz. to endeavour is safe enough though he do not conquer This objection presseth not only against this head but against my whole Discourse and the Text it self Therefore to answer it I say That the St. Paul here is not to be understood of himself He describes the state of a convinced but unregenerate man though he speaks in the first person a Figure that was ordinary with this Apostle and frequent enough in common speech Thus we say I am thus and thus and did so and so when we are describing a state or actions in which perhaps we in person are not concerned In this sense the best Expositors understand these expressions and those excellent Divines of our own Bishop Taylor and Dr. Hammond and others have noted to us That this description is directly contrary to all the Characters of a regenerate man given elsewhere by this and the other Apostles As he is said to be dead to sin Rom. 6. 11. Free from sin and the servant of Righteousness Rom. 6. 18. That he walks not after the Flesh but after the Spirit Rom. 8. 1. That the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made him free from the Law of sin and death Rom. 8. 2. That he overcometh the world Joh. 5. 4. He sinneth not 1 Joh. 3. 6. He hath crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts Gal. 5. 24. Which Characters of a truly regenerate person if they be compared with those above-cited out of Rom. 7. it will appear that they are as contrary as 't is possible to speak and by this 't is evident that they describe the two contrary states For can the regenerate be full of all manner of concupiscence and at the same time be crucified to the Flesh and its affections and lusts one in whom sin revives while he dies and yet one that is dead to sin carnal and yet not walking after the flesh but after the Spirit sold under sin and yet free from sin Having sin dwelling in him and a captive to sin and obeying the Law of sin and yet free from the law of sin and death how can these things consist To tell us 'T is so and 't is not so and to twist such contradictions into Orthodox Paradoxes are pretty things to please Fools and Children but wise men care not for riddles that are not sense For my part I think it clear that the Apostle in that mistaken Chapter relates the feeble impotent condition of one that was convinced and strove a little but not to purpose And if we find our selves comprised under that description though we may be never so sensible of the evil and danger of a sinful course and may endeavour some small matter but without success we are yet under that evil and obnoxious to that danger For he that strives in earnest conquers at last and advanceth still though all the work be not done at once So that if we endeavour and gain nothing our endeavour is peccant and wants Faith or Prayer for Divine aids or constancy or vigour and so Though we may seek we shall not be able to enter But 3. an imperfect Striver may overcome sin in some Instances and yet in that do no great matter neither if he lies down and goes no further There are some sins we outgrow by age or are indisposed to them by bodily infirmity or diverted by occasions and it may be by other sins and some are contrary to worldly Interests to our credit or health or profit and when we have in any great degree been hurt by them in these we fall out with those sins and cease from them and so by resolution and disuse we master them at last fully which if we went on and attempted upon all the rest were something But when we stop short in these petty victories our general state is not altered He that conquers some evil appetites is yet a slave to others and though he hath prevailed over some difficulties yet the main ones are yet behind Thus the imperfect Striver masters it may be his beastly appetite to intemperate drinking but is yet under the power of Love and Riches and vain Pleasure He ceaseth from open debauchery but entertains spiritual wickedness in his heart He will not Swear but will backbite and rail He will not be Drunk but will damn a man for not being of his opinion He will not prophane the Sabbath but will defraud his Neighbour Now these half conquests when we rest in them are as good as none at all Then shall I not be ashamed when I have regard to all thy Commandments saith the Kingly Prophet Psal 119. 6. 'T is shameful to give off when our work is but half done what we do cast the greater reproach upon us for what we omit To cease to be prophane is something as a passage but nothing for an end We are not Saints as soon as we are civil 'T is not only gross sins that are to be overcome The wages of sin is death not only of the great and capital but of the smallest if they are indulged The Pharisee applauded himself that he was not like the Extortioners Adulterers and Unjust nor like the Publican that came to
our Natures almost universally rise against as many Bestialities and some horrid Cruelties and all men except Monsters in Humane form are disposed to some Vertues such as Love to Children and Kindness to Friends and Benefactors All this I must confess and say because Experience constrains me and I do not know why Systematick Notions should sway more than that But notwithstanding these last concessions 't is evident enough that our Natures are much vitiated and depraved and this makes our business in the way of Religion difficult For our work is to cleanse our Natures and to destroy those Evil Inclinations to crucifie the Old Man Rom. 6. 6. and to purge out the old Leven 1 Cor. 5. 7. This is Religion and the Way of Happiness which must needs be very difficult and uneasie For the vices of Inclination are very dear and grateful to us They are our Right Hands and our Right Eyes and esteemed as our Selves So that to cut off and pluck out these and to bid defiance to and wage War against our selves to destroy the first-born of our Natures and to lop off our own Limbs This cannot but be very Irksome and Displeasant Imployment and this is one chief business and a considerable thing that makes Religion difficult II. Another Difficulty ariseth from the Influence of the Senses We are Creatures of sense and sensible things do most powerfully move us we are born Children and live at first the life of Beasts That Age receives deep Impressions and those are made by the senses whose Interest grows strong and establisht in us before we come to the use of Reason and after we have arrived to the exercise of that sensible objects still possess our Affections and sway our Wills and fill our Imaginations and influence our Understandings so that we love and hate we desire and choose we fancy and we discourse according to those Impressions and hence it is that we are enamour'd of Trifles and fly from our Happiness and pursue Vexation and embrace Misery and imagine Perversely and reason Childishly for the influence of the Body and its Senses are the chief Fountains of Sin and Folly and Temptation Upon which accounts it was that the Platonical Philosophers declaim'd so earnestly against the Body and ascrib'd all Evils and Mischief to it calling vice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 corporeae Pestes material Evils and bodily Plagues And the Apostle that understood it better calls Sin by the name of Flesh Gal. 5. 17. Works of the Flesh Gal. 5. 19. Law of the Members Rom. 7. 23. and cries out upon the Body of this Death Rom. 7. 24. And now this is our natural Condition a state subject to the prevalent influences of Sense and by this means to Sin and Temptation and 't is our Work in Religion to mortifie the Body Rom. 8. 13. and to cease from making provision for the flesh Rom. 13. 14. and from fulfilling the Lusts thereof Gal. 5. 14. To render our selves dead to the prevalent life of Sense and Sin Rom. 6. 8. and 11. 5. and to arise to a new Life Rom. 6. 4. The Life of Righteousness and Faith Hab. 2. 4. A Life that hath other Principles and other Pleasures other Objects and other Ends and such as neither Eye hath seen nor Ear heard nor any of the Senses perceived Yea this is a Life that is exercised in contradiction to the Judgements of sense It s Joy is Tribulation Jam. 1. 2. It s Glory Reproaches 2 Pet. 4. 14. It s Height is Lowness Luke 14. 11. It s Greatness in being Meanest Matth. 20. 27. And its Riches in having Nothing 2 Cor. 6. 10. To such a Life as this Religion is to raise us and it must needs be difficult to make us who are so much Brutes to be so much Angels us who seem to live by nothing else but sense to live by nothing less This with a witness is an hard and uneasie Work and another difficulty in Religion III. A Third proceeds from the natural Disorder and Rage of our Passions Our Corrupt Natures are like the troubled Sea Isa 57. 20. And our Passions are the Waves of that Ocean that tumble and swell and keep a mighty noise they dash against the Rocks and break one against another and our Peace and Happiness is shipwrackt by them Our Passions make us miserable We are sometime stifled by their Numbers and confounded by their Disorders and torn to pieces by their Violence mounted to the Clouds by Ambition and thrown down to the deep by Despair scorcht by the flames of Lust and overwhelmed by the Waters of unstable Desire Passions fight one against another and all against reason they prevail over the Mind and have usurpt the Government of our Actions and involve us in continual Guilt and Misery This is the natural State of Man and our work in the way of Religion is to restrain this Violence and to rectifie these Disorders and to reduce those Rebellious Powers under the Empire and Government of the Mind their Sovereign And so to regain the Divine Image which consists much in the order of our Faculties and the Subjection of the Brutish to the reasonable Powers This I say Religion aims at to raise us to the perfection of our Natures by mortifying those Members Col. 3. 5. our unruly Passions and Desires and crucifying the Flesh with its Affections and Lusts Gal. 5. 24. And thereby to make us humble in Prosperity quiet in Adversity meek under Provocations steady amidst Temptations modest in our Desires temperate in our Injoyments constant to our Resolutions and contented in all Conditions Here is our great Business and our Work is this And certainly 't is no easie thing to bring order out of a Chaos and to speak a Tempest into a Calm to resist a Torrent and to stop and turn the Tyde to subdue a Rebellious Rabble and to change them from Tyrannical Masters to Modest and Obedient Servants These no doubt are works of difficulty enough and these must be our Imployment in the way of Religion and on this score also the Gate is strait IV. Our Work in Religion is yet more difficult upon the account of Custom to which we are subject and by which we are swayed much This is vulgarly said to be another Nature and the Apostle calls it by that name 1 Cor. 11. 14. Doth not Nature it self teach you that if a Man have long Hair it is a shame unto him By the word Nature the best Interpreters say only Custom is meant since long Hair is not declared shameful by the Law and Light of Nature taken in its chief and properest sense For then it had never been permitted to the Nazarites But the contrary custom in the Nations that used it not made it seem shameful and indecent There are other places in Scripture and ancient Authors wherein Nature is put for Custom But I must not insist on this the thing I am about is that Custom is very
thinks 't is witty to Scoff at it But in process of time and practice his understanding through the withcraft of this vice and the secret judgement of God grows into the very nature and temper of the sin And he comes insensibly at last to believe that in earnest which he entred on at first in jest and so Satan and his Lusts have decoy'd him into a down right serious Infidelity If the horrid Articles of impiety and unbelief had been offer'd him at the beginning in a way of serious argument he would have entertain'd them with some intellectual detestation and abhorrence But having a long time droll'd upon Religion and represented it as ridiculous rather than so much wit and sport should be lost he is willing to believe it is so and such a will quickly draws such an understanding to it But especially the consideration of full liberty in his Lusts indears and recommends the opinion to him and the intellect so prepar'd is quickly convinc'd having so great an interest to incline it so that now the foolish mind is darkened Rom. 1. 21. and the Conscience made a party with the lusts It is become reprobate Rom. 1. 28. and given up to strong delusions 2 Thes 2. 11. The Scoffer now believes his Jests as if they were arguments of Reason and pleads for his lusts as if they were actions of vertue And thus his Conscience is debauch'd Or if he have not proceeded so far as this Yet 2. He stupifieth it at least There are two main acts of Conscience to inform us what is our Duty and to judge how far we do it or do it not And this sort of wicked men deal so with Conscience as to stupifie both For Duty they think of none who is Lord over them and for reflection on their actions they are strangers to it They follow on with their eyes and thoughts upon their Lusts but never consider whither the way leads They pursue sense and appetite but reflect and think no more than Beasts Whither am I going and what have I done are no questions with them All the soul and mind they have is employ'd in seeking means to gratifie and please their Lusts and while those are satisfied the men are content and quiet be their actions what they will They feel no inward trouble or disturbance from the greatest villanies They can blaspheme the name of God by horrid Oaths every moment and debauch themselves by drunkenness and vile sensuality every day without the least remorse or sense that any thing is a-miss yea they make sport of their Sin Prov. 14. 9. and glory in their shame Phil. 3. 19. They live undisturbedly in a course of hellish wickedness and die in the same without any thought or apprehension of Sin Death or Judgement They laugh and debauch themselves into a state past feeling Ephes 4. 19. and sear their Consciences as with an hot iron 1 Tim. 4. 2. They are twice dead plucked up by the roots Jude 12. dead by nature to the spiritual Life and now by these vile usages dead to the moral also And when they are come thus far they are freed too 3. From the Restraints of the Ministers of Gods Providence the Holy Angels They are Instruments in the distribution of mercies and judgements by which God restrains sinners from their Lusts Ministring spirits for our good Heb. 1. 14. and are perhaps concern'd about us in more things than we imagine throwing bars a-thwart the way where danger or temptation lies inwardly and secretly exciting good thoughts and desires as Satan doth evil ones and defending us in many instances from the power and subtilty of that enemy But the derider of Religion who is forsaken of God and Conscience is also left by These And that there is such a dereliction of incurable sinners we may see Jer. 51. 9. We would have healed Babylon but she is not healed forsake her and let her go Spoken as some of the learned Ancients suppose by the Presidential Angels like the voice in the Temple a little before the last destruction of it Let us go hence Thus Psal 71. 9. the Septuagint reads They that keep my soul take counsel together saying God hath forsaken him let us persecute and take him for there is none to deliver him The good Spirits depart from the incorrigible sinner and leave him to the evil ones Thus of the first dreadful consequence of Scoffing at Religion the Scoffers are given up to follow their Lusts without restraint Another is 2. That they follow without power to leave or disobey them They follow as Vassals and Slaves yea they follow as a Beast that is led Their wills are but the motions of their Lust their Reasons but the impure Phantasms and Imaginations that are raised by their Lusts and their affections but the various inclinations of their Lusts So that what ever may be said of the liberty of less degenerate men these have none Our power consists in the aids of the Spirit of God in the informations convictions and reproofs of Conscience and in the offices of kindness we receive from the Ministring Spirits When these are gone all our power is gone So that those reprobate men are dead in sin Eph. 2. 1. and Sold unto it Rom. 7. 14. They are led into Captivity by the Law of sin and death Rom. 7. 23. They are slaves and slaves to the worst of Tyrants and the worst of slaves even to him that is held in the chains of darkness to the judgement of the great day Being left of God and good Angels the evil ones take possession of them on which account they are truly Demoniacks and those of the worst sort they are mov'd and acted by the Devil as if they had no other Soul And so 3. They follow their Lusts with none or very little hope of Remedy The condition of the Scoffers of some of them at least is quite or very near desperate This follows from what hath been said already and we may consider further 1. That there is a day of Grace a time in which there is ground for hope when that is done hope is at an end Now this day is the time and possibility of repentance When ever a sinner repents and turns he shall be accepted and live But men may out-live and sin away the power and capacity of repentance And then their Sun is set their day is done Now Repentance begins in Sense and conviction of sin but when a man is arriv'd at a state past feeling he is incapable of that the most powerful word most terrible judgements and most alluring mercies have no effect on such the best Physick in the world will not work on a dead carkass the loudest voice will not rouze a Marble Statue nor the most soveraign Salve close up a cut in the stump of a Tree The summ is When one is past the inward sense of Duty and danger Sin and Misery he is past Repentance
and perhaps despiseth these under the notion of Morality and so presuming that he is a Saint too soon he never comes to be one at all such are the Seekers that shall not be able to enter Their seeking imports some striving but 't is such as though it be specious yet it is imperfect and will not succeed And hence the Third Proposition ariseth that I proposed to discourse III. THat there is a sort of Striving that will not procure an entrance implyed in these words For many will seek to enter in and shall not be able 'T is a dangerous thing to be flattered into a false peace and to take up with imperfect Godliness to reconcile the hopes of Heaven to our beloved sins and to judge our condition safe upon insufficient grounds This multitudes do and 't is the great danger of our days Men cannot be contented without doing something in Religion but they are contented with a little And then they reckon themselves godly before they are vertuous and take themselves to be Saints upon such things as will not distinguish a good man from a bad We seek after Marks of Godliness and would be glad to know how we might try our state The thing is of great importance and if the Signs we judge by are either false or imperfect we are deceived to our undoing Meer Speculative mistakes about Opinions do no great hurt but errour in the Marks and Measures of Religion is deadly Now there are sundry things commonly taken for signs of Godliness which though they are something yet they are not enough They are hopeful for beginnings but nothing worth when they are our end and rest They are a kind of seeking and imperfect striving but not such as overcometh the difficulties of the way or will procure us an entrance at the Gate Therefore to disable the flattering insufficient Marks of Godliness I shall discover in pursuance of the Third Proposition How far a man may strive in the exercises of Religion and yet be found at last among those seekers that shall not be able to enter And though I have intimated something of this in the general before yet I shall now more particularly shew it in the instances that follow And in these I shall discover a Religion that may be called Animal to which the natural man may attain 1. A Man may believe the Truths of the Gospel and assent heartily to all the Articles of the Creed and if he proceeds not he is no further by this than the faith of Devils Jam. 2. 19. 2. He may go on and have a great thirst to be more acquainted with Truth he may seek it diligently in Scripture and Sermons and good Books and knowing Company And yet do this by the motion of no higher Principle than an inbred Curiosity and desire of Knowledge and many times this earnestness after Truth proceeds from a proud affectation to be wiser than our Neighbours that we may pity their darkness or the itch of a disputing humour that we may out-talk them or a design to carry on or make a party that we may be called Rabbi or serve an Interest and the zeal for Truth that is set on work by such motives is a spark of that fire that is from beneath 'T is dangerous to a mans self and to the publick Weal of the Church and mankind but the man proceeds and is 3. Very much concern'd to defend and propagate his Faith and the Pharisees were so in relation to theirs Mat. 23. 15. and so have been many Professors of all the Religions that are or ever were Men naturally love their own Tenents and are ambitious to mould others judgements according to theirs There is glory in being an Instructor of other men and turning them to our ways and opinions So that here is nothing yet above Nature nothing but what may be found in many that seek and are shut out 4. Faith works greater effects than these and Men offer themselves to Martyrdom for it This one would think should be the greatest height and an argument that all the difficulties of the way are overcome by one that is so resolved and that the Gate cannot but be opened to him And so no doubt it is when all things else are sutable But otherwise these consequences by no means follow S. Paul supposeth that a man may give his Body to be burned and not have Charity without which his Martyrdom will not profit 1 Cor. 13. For one to deny his Religion or what he believes to be certain and of greatest consequence is dishonourable and base and some out of principles of meer natural bravery will die rather than they will do it and yet upon other accounts be far enough from being heroically vertuous Besides the desire of the glory of Martyrdom and Saintship after it may in some be stronger than the terrours of Death and we see frequently that men will sacrifice their lives to their Honour and Reputation yea to the most contemptible shadows of it And there is no passion in us so weak no lust so impotent but hath in many instances prevail'd over the fear of dying Every Appetite hath had its Martyrs and all Religions theirs and though a man give his Body to be burnt for the best and have not Charity viz. Prevalent love to God and Men it will not signifie So that Martyrdom is no infallible mark nor will it avail any thing except sincere endeavour to overcome the greater difficulties have gone before it Thus far Faith may go without effect and yet one step further 5. Men may confidently rely upon Christ for Salvation and be firmly perswaded that he hath justified and will make them happy They may appropriate him to themselves and be pleased mightily in the opinion of his being theirs And yet notwithstanding this confidence may be in the number of those seekers that shall not enter For Christ is the Author of Eternal life only to those that obey him Heb. 5. 9. and to obey him is to strive vigorously and constantly to overcome all our sinful Inclinations and Habits And those that trust he will save them though they have never seriously set about this work deceive themselves by vain presumption and in effect say that he will dissolve or dispense with his Laws in their favour For he requires us to deny our selves Mar. 8. 34. To mortifie the body Rom. 8. 13. To love enemies Mat. 5. 44. To be meek Mat. 11. 29. and patient Jam. 5. 8. and humble 1 Pet. 5. 7. and just Mat. 7. 12. and charitable Heb. 13. 16. and holy as he that called us is holy 1 Pet. 1. 15. And he hath promised to save upon no other terms For all these are included in Faith when 't is taken in the justifying sense and this is the Way of Happiness and Salvation If we walk not in this but in the paths of our own choosing our relying upon Christ is a mockery and will deceive
from whom we are so called And that consists not in demure Looks and affected Phrases in melting Tones and mimick Gestures in Heats and Vehemence in Rapture and Ecstasie in systems of Opinion and scrupulosity about Nothing But in Faith and Patience Innocence and Integrity in Love to God and Charity to all the World in a modest sweetness and humble Deportment in a peaceable Spirit and readiness to obey God and Those He hath set over Us Where-ever These are there is the Image of our Lord and There ought to be our Love though the persons thus affected are Ignorant of many things and err in many though they differ from us in some Opinions we count Orthodox and walk not in the particular ways or Circumstances which We esteem Best And thus briefly of the Extent of the Duty we ought to Love ALL MEN but especially ALL Christians I descend to the Third general viz. III. The Excellency of Christian Love which I represent in the following particulars I. IT is the Image of God and of all the graces renders us most like our Maker For God is love and the Lover of men and his tender Mercies are over all his Works And the most sutable apprehension we can form of his Being is to look on him as an Omnipotent Omniscient Immutable Goodness And is it not a glorious Excellency that makes Men like the fountain of all perfection Our unhappy first Parents lost Paradise by aspiring to be like God in Knowledge and if we endeavour to be like him in Love we shall be in the way of gaining a better Paradise than they lost II. LOVE is the Spirit of Angels Glorified Souls and the best of Men. There is nothing by which the Angelical nature is so much distinguish'd from the Diabolical as Love and Goodness for the Devils have Spiritual and Immortal natures and great degrees of Power and Knowledge and those perhaps not much inferiour to what is to be found in some of the better Spirits so that the great difference is not in the excess of natural perfections which the Angels of Light have above those of Darkness but in this that the former abound in Love Sweetness and Benignity and the latter in Malice Cruelty and Revenge these are the very Image of Satan and Spirit of Hell Whereas all the Celestial Inhabitants live in the joyful exercise of uninterrupted Love and endearments Nor is that Love confined to the blessed and glorified Company but it sheds it self abroad upon the nether world and they are Ministring Spirits for our good Heb. 1. 14. They so far Love us that they can stoop from Heaven to serve us There is Joy there at the Conversion of a Sinner and no doubt there is Love to converted Saints and care and pity for all the rest of Men. For the spirits of the just made perfect are freed from their froward humours and pettish natures their mistaken Zeal and fondness of Opinions which straitned their Affections while they were on Earth and now they are inlarged by the vast improvements of their Knowledge and accomplishment of their Vertue by a fuller sense of Divine Love and of their Duty by the genius of their company and the imployment of the happy Place So that in Heaven all are truly Catholick in their Affections And the better any man is the more he is so upon Earth The good man makes not himself his center nor are his thoughts wholly engrost about his own concernments but he is carefully solicitous for the general benefit and never so much pleased as when he is made an instrument of Divine Goodness to promote the interests of his Christian brethren 'T was an high strain of Love in Moses exprest towards the Transgressing Israelites when he was content to be blotted out of Gods Book rather than that their Sin should not be blotted out Exod. 32. 32. And St. Paul was no less Zealously affectionate towards the Jews when he said he could wish himself accursed from Christ viz. separated from Christian communion as a most vile and abject person for their sakes Rom. 9. 3. These were spirits whom Religion and Divine Love had enlarged and the more any man advanceth in Christianity the nearer he approacheth to this generous heroick temper III. LOVE is an eminent branch of the Divine Life and Nature Love is of God and every one that Loveth is born of God saith the Apostle 1 John 4. 7 8. The Divine Nature in us is the Image of God Pourtray'd and lively drawn upon the regenerated Soul and I noted before that Love is the vital Image of our Maker 't is His spirit infused into us and growing in us and upon that account to be preferred before all Gifts and natural Perfections as St. Paul hath done it in the mentioned 1 Cor. 13. And the common Gifts of the Spirit differ from this special Grace as the Painters Picture doth from his Son His Counterfeit may indeed in a superficial appearance to the Eye resemble him more than his Child but yet it is but an empty shadow destitute and incapable of his Life and Nature So there are a sort of Gifts that have a spiritual appearance and may to those that see things at distance or have not their senses exercised seem more like the divine nature than this modest vertue But those that come near them and are better able to discern perceive that in themselves they are without the Divine Life and Motion and are meer Lifeless Pictures And here I dare say that the happiest faculty to Preach Plausibly and Pray with Fluency and Eloquence to Discourse Devoutly and readily to Interpret Scripture if it be not joyned with a benign and charitable spirit is no participation of the God-like life and nature nor indeed any more Divine than those common gifts and natural parts which those that think highly of themselves upon these accounts despise For very Evil men have been eminent in these accomplishments and Wicked Spirits are without question endowed with them and they are of themselves arguments of nothing but a faculty of Imitation a devotional Complexion and warm Imagination Whereas on the other hand Charity and Christian Love are good Evidence of a Renewed state and nature Our Saviour made it a Character Joh. 13. and the Apostle concludes from it 1 John 3. 14. By this we know that we are passed from death to life because we love the Brethren And if this be a Mark and St. John be not mistaken I doubt that some who are very gracious by many Signs of their own will want one of Christs to prove their comfortable presumption IV. LOVE is the bond and tye of Christian Communion How can two walk together except they are agreed The Church is a Body consisting of many Members which unless they Unite and send their mutual supplies one to another the whole is distempered and in the ready way to Death and Dissolution Now Charity is that vital Cement whereby they
two 1. The general belief and acknowledgement of another Life 2. The common desire of Memory after death 1. For the first the Doctrine of a Life to Come hath not been the opinion only of concern'd Priests or designing Politicians of melancholy Superstitionists or distracted Enthusiasts It hath not been the conceit of a single Age nor confin'd within the limits of one Country or Region but is as general as the Light and spread as far as the utmost bounds of the reasonable nature For those that are strangers to one another Laws and Customs and as different in their natures as they are distant in their Climes yet all alike concur in the expectation and belief of a future Being The cold Russian and scorch'd Moor the barbarous American and spruce Graecian the soft Chinese and the rough Tartar though vastly different in all other things yet they agree in this That there is another world and that we are immortal And 't is the observation of Pliny that those barbarous people that have neither Cloathes to cover their nakedness nor Laws for a common security that live by the Rules of ferity and lust and differ from the Beasts seemingly in little else but external shape that have neither Towns nor Houses and but just reason enough to provide for the necessities of nature yet these live in expectation and belief of a Life after this And the latter improvements of Navigation and remote discoveries confirm the same in the farthest darkest parts of the habitable Earth Now this general effect must have some general cause which cannot be any general deception For it is not morally possible that those who are at so vast a distance in place and nature and all other circumstances should agree in a common deceit and jump in the same imposture It must arise then either from some universal explicite Revelation or an universal Instinct or voice of nature If the former be granted 't is full proof of the assertion or if that be not 't is the other which seems most probable viz. that God hath inserted it into our reasonable natures or by his providence hath conveyed it into the minds of all men which is Tantamont unto it And so we are carried to this belief as the Lamb is to the Dugg or other creatures to the food or work of their particular natures On this account Aristotle sets it down for a Rule 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Cicero saith the same Quod omnibus videtur est That which seems to all is For what ever is so universal is from God who cannot deceive or be mistaken 2. The desire of Memory after death is an Instinct in mankind and whether the former be so properly or not this is certainly such All way have been taken to perpetuate mens Names and Memories Children and great Houses and noble Deeds and Books and Monuments yea and as if Earth wanted things sufficiently lasting to satisfie this appetite of Immortality men have placed themselves in the regions of incorruption and have called the Stars by their own names Now this universal thirst after such an imaginary Immortality is an inducement to believe there is a real one Since did we cease to be assoon as we die and disappear to this world such an appetite would be unreasonable and ridiculous For why should we desire a precarious being in a name and memory if our true selves were so shortly to be nothing Of what concernment is it to us to be remembred if in a few days all things should be forgotten for ever and we were to go into an eternal silence and oblivion What would a Stone be the better for being accounted one of the Ancient Pillars of Seth or a piece of wood in beeing esteemed a Sacred Relique of the Cross The summ is Mankind hath an appetite of posthumous Memory which would be senseless and to no purpose if there be no Life but this Now God implants no Instincts in his creatures that are futilous and in vain and therefore hence also we may conclude that there is a Future Being I have now done with the Arguments on which I intended to insist After all I cannot say that each of them is an absolute demonstration or that the evidence of every one is such as is impossible to be avoided there are few proofs of that nature But this I do that all of them together will I think make a cord hardly to be broken And these considerations in conjunction may amount to a moral demonstration and have force enough to obtain assent from those that are not stupid or unreasonable But yet the strongest proofs are those from the Scripture and all the Arguments that demonstrate the Truth of Christianity prove also the certainly of a Life after this For one of the great designs of the Holy Jesus was to bring Immortality to light and as I noted before he gave visible evidence of a future existence by his own Resurrection So that those that could not reason and dispute and see truth at distance in principles might however be convinced by a Demonstration to the Sense and those that could not be fully assured by the reasonings of Philosophers which many of them were very deep and many uncertain and many unsound and false might yet be perswaded by the miracles which were wrought by Christ and his Apostles to confirm those Doctrines which they taught of rewards and punishments in another Life And that there are such every thing in the whole Gospel either supposeth or proves These I say are the clearest and best evidence but they are such as are obvious to every understanding and cannot receive more light than what they have at first fight in themselves I therefore omit that sort of proof as not needed by those that embrace the Scripture and for others that believe it not the Reasons taken thence will be of no force with such men I have also designedly omitted the Arguments that arise from the nature of the Soul Philosophically consider'd for the reason mention'd in the beginning viz. because they are speculative and nice and so not proper for such discourses as this nor are they usually of much force upon the mind I Come II. to shew the Causes and Occasions of mens not believing a future state The chief are such as these 1. The Wickedness and Debauchery of the Unbelievers the horrid sins of their present lives make them afraid of another They are resolv'd on the course of vanity and folly while they live and would have all to end here They will crown themselves with Rosebuds and leave tokens of their mirth in every place they 'l let no Flower of the Spring pass by them nor lose any part of voluptuousness and this they would have to be their whole portion and their only lot to be this Away then ye melancholick dreams and troublesome fancies of another world ye are an offence unto us and savour not the things that are of
of Imagination and proudly look'd down upon the modest and humble Believer who were full of mysterie and rapture scorn and talk but void of justice modesty and love These we have reason to think shall then be cast out and receive their portion with the Pharisee to the shame and disappointment of their confidence and their hopes In this Day shall the Errours and the follies that were recommended to the deceiv'd embraces of the Sons of men by frauds and Art paint and meretricious bravery be expos'd in their naked Deformities to the sight and contempt of all the world And that Truth and those Vertues that were persecuted into Corners and cover'd with dust and shame torn piece-meal by wrath and ignorance and scatter'd up and down in the Tents of Errour shall then be brought into the Light and cleansed from all debasing mixtures and represented in their native loveliness and beauty that they may receive the praises and acclamations of their ancient friends and acquaintance Yea and the acknowledgements of their now blushing and confounded enemies Upon the whole we see That the Faith of a Future Judgement is not misbecoming the severest Sons of Reason and Philosophy but is infinitely agreeable to the faculties of men and the Analogy of things I Come now to the SECOND main thing in the Text II. The Universality of the Subject to be judged the World so it is here And the Scripture elsewhere expresseth it in very general terms The secrets of men Rom. 2. 16. Every man Rev. 20. 13. The Dead small and great Rev. 20. 12. The quick and the dead 1 Pet. 4. 5. Now I shall consider the Universality of the Subject of Judgement in two great solemnities of it viz. The General Summons and the General Resurrection that follows both mentioned together 1 Cor. 15. 52. The trumpet shall sound and the Dead shall be raised 1. The Trumpet either some divine universal vertue or the voice of some mighty Angel crying Arise ye Dead and come to Judgement Methinks I hear that voice 't is full of Majesty and terrour 't is more loud than Fame and more general than the Light of Heaven 'T is heard at both the Poles in the Earth and Sea and Air and all Deep places Attend Attend Ye Sons of Adam Ye that are afar off and ye that are near Ye that begun with the Infant World and ye that liv'd in its latest Periods Ye that freeze under the uncomfortable North and ye that are hid under the remotest South Ye that dwell in the temperate Regions and ye that are scorch'd with the heats of the Line Ye that only cry'd and ceas'd to breathe and ye that went slowly and late to the Grave Ye that are yet alive and ye that have been Ages under ground Hearken Hearken to the Proclamation of the great King the Prince of Glory the Judge of Angels and Men The Day the Day of vengeance and recompence is come the Day of Terrours and of Triumphs The night is past Arise ye dead cease sleeping in the Grave Put on our bodies gather up your scatter'd parts summon your thoughts together and make up your Accounts The Tribunal is set the Judge is coming And ye living Inhabitants lay by your designs let fall your Traffique quit your pleasures and pursuits the time for these is done for ever done Eternity is in view Trim your Lamps the Bridegroom is at the door 2. And now the General Resurrection follows Behold the closest Vaults throw away their coverings and disclose the proud Families that lay hid in that stately darkness See how the loose Earth moves about the Cloysters of the Dead and the Grave opens all its doors to enlarge its Prisoners And lo a numerous people riseth from under ground to attend the great Assize of Angels and men They arise but are not yet alive Death sits upon their faces clad in dread and paleness They lose that motion with astonishment which they gained with their restored parts and are ready to be shaken into their former dust by the fear that hath seized their unsettled joynts They wonder at the Light and at themselves and are ready to drop back into the Graves from which they just peep'd out See here the mighty sits trembling by his Monument unconcern'd at the vain Epithets it gave to his flatter'd Memory and the delicate sighs with his first breath willing to return to darkness rottenness and worms rather than to the light that will discover the guilt and the follies of a Life of vanity and sin The Hypocrite droops to consider that his painting and his shame are to be brought out of the night and silence of the Grave into a naked and open day and the vitious dies again to think That he hath taken up his body from one Death to carry it to another and a worse Thus the world of the wicked shall all appear and all be concern'd in the Judgement that follows The Righteous shall rise also They awake with vigour in their souls and life in their eyes with gayety in their looks and transports in all their powers Their new warm'd blood moves pleasantly in its ancient chanels and the restored spirits dance in the renewed veins They are glad to meet the old companion of their pleasures and their miseries rejoycing at its rescue from the infamous dishonours of corruption and that 't is ready to pass with them into the promised and long expected Glories These are the First-fruits and the full Crop is near and their joy is beyond the joy of Harvest and we must leave the degree to be imagin'd that cannot be exprest And thus the universal World both of the wicked and the righteous shall appear on the Solemn Summons The Earth and Air and Sea and Death and Hell shall give up their Dead Rev. 20. 13. And so Adam and the Patriarchs and all the Ancient Sages with their Sons and Nephews to the latest Posterity shall stand up together before the Judgement Seat for all are subjects of the same general Empire and all are accountable for their Actions to the same Soveraign Judge And He is the Man whom God hath ordain'd to judge the world in Righteousness And this is the next thing in the Text to be consider'd viz. III. The person appointed The Man whom he hath ordain'd And this is the Man Christ Jesus even the Man who being in the form of God thought it no robberry to be equal with God Phil. 2. 6. The same is He who is ordain'd of God to be the Judge of the quick and the dead Act. 10. 42. And now under this Head I shall shew how fit he is as man for this great and solemn office in these two particulars 1. He is fit to be the General Judge as Man because he descended to the meanness of our condition 'T is but just that He who laid by his ancient Glory and cloath'd himself in the Livery of guilt and shame should re-assume
the black indictment that lies against me why did I abuse his love and reject his addresses disregard his promises and slight his threatnings throw off his easie yoke as an intolerable burthen and choose darkness death and misery before light and life and glory what can I say to my Judge what to my self Cover me shame and blushing yea let death hide me and everlasting darkness cast its covering upon me But death will not befriend one that hath so sad a reason to seek it and darkness flies away from yond glorious presence O the day that I put far from me and the danger that I would not consider The wrath I have been treasuring up and the evils that I fear'd but would not endeavour to avoid These are come upon me Mercy is at an end and pardon is no more excuses are in vain and Prayers insignificant The Judge is just and inexorable not mov'd by fond pity nor weak affections He will shew no more favour to those who so long have slighted it Nor will He have mercy upon them that would have none upon themselves Such reflections of anguish and despair as these we may suppose the sight of the Great Day will occasion in the wicked and be the beginnings to them of a sad and intolerable Eternity On the other side 2. The Transports of the faithful will be unspeakable on that day when they shall exchange the doleful tone of How long how long O Lord for the pleasant voice He is come He is come See now how the nimble spirits play in the smiling eyes that languish'd and droop'd before And all the lovers of the Holy Jesus awaken into chearfulness and vigour Joy warms the cold and liveless blood and sends it about with a pleasant thrill through all the channels of its motion and the enkindled spirit is ready to melt the gross mass that detains it from the adorable object of its love O my soul saith the transported admirer How reasonable was thy Faith and how unjust were thy Fears How small were the troubles of thy night to the pleasures of this day and how injurious were thy complaints to so glorious an expectation O blessed tears that end in such triumphs O pleasant sorrow that ends in rapture Was it such comfort that our Lord promised to those that mourn was this the time I did so coldly expect and so indifferently regard Is this the Saviour I loved so little and was this that Lord I was so careless to obey Is this He whom the flesh and world tempted me so often to deny and whose interest could do so little with me Stupid soul How unworthy art thou of this sight of Glory and how more unworthy of the favour of this glorious and triumphant Jesus O the grace that pardons such great defects and thus rewards such mean services O the pleasure of Faith when it comes to be in sight and the transports of hope that is within the reach of enjoyment Such and incomprehensibly greater will be the Ecstasies of the faithful in the day when the Judge shall appear Let us all then II. make it our main care and business to prepare for this time We are probationers here for another state and the Day of Judgement is the great Time of Trial for it As we are found then our condition will be for ever And according as our actions have been the Sentence will pass either to everlasting Joyes or endless Woe What remains then but that we look on this as our great and most necessary work That we have the future Judgement alwayes in our eye and thoughts That we study the Laws whereby we are to be judged That we frequently judge our selves before and that we square our actions by the directions and example of the Judge And if we thus prepare That Day which will be so dreadful to the wicked will be the most joyful one to us that we ever saw and the beginning of an everlasting Day of Joy that hath no night of sorrow to succeed it For at the conclusion of the Judgement we shall pass with the Judge to those Regions of Bliss and Triumph where we are to dwell with him to eternal Ages singing Hallelujahs to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost To whom are due from us and all creatures all Glory Honour Praise and Adoration henceforth and for ever Amen SERMON IX OF THE NECESSITY OF AN Unfeigned Repentance SERMON IX JONAH III. 5. So the people of Nineveh believed God and proclaimed a Fast and put on Sackcloth from the greatest of them even to the least of them NIneveh the ancient and famous City of Assyria was founded by Nimrod the mighty Hunter and supposed first Monarch of the Earth it had its name from Ninus who compleated it and was the third of that Empire Where its particular place was is not at this day certainly known but this is certain it was a great City of three days journey saith the Sacred History Jonah 1. And as was the extent such were the sins of it all great Cities abound in vice but it seems the wickedness of this was notorious it made a cry and that cry came up before God to call for deserved vengeance on their heads but he that is slow to wrath and doth not willingly afflict the children of men resolves to warn before he strikes and therefore sends Jonah a Prophet of Israel to foretel their approaching Ruine He considering the ungratefulness of the Message and doubting what Entertainment he was like to have from a proud and as he might think an obdurate City diverts another way and flees toward Tarshish but the judgement of God overtook him and plunged him into the Deep where a Fish prepared swallowed the Prophet who having been three days in that Belly of Hell was by Miracle discharg'd upon the Shoar and then the former Commission being renewed he was not disobedient to the Heavenly voice but went to Nineveh cryed against it and the Event was beyond all expectation and extremely contrary to his own for The people of Nineveh believed God and proclaimed a Fast and put on Sack-cloth from the greatest of them to the least of them Very different was this Success from what other Messengers of God Patriarchs and Prophets and holy men of ancient and later times have had Noah was a Preacher of Righteousness and preached many years while the Ark was in preparing but they were disobedient in the days of Noah and went on in their sins till the Flood came and swept away that world of the ungodly The Prophets were earnest and importunate they cryed aloud spared not and God by them stretched out his hand all day long and yet they were a disobedient and a gain-saying people and gave them reason to complain Who hath believed our report or to whom hath the Arm of the Lord been revealed The Holy Jesus himself who was greater than Jonah than any of the Prophets than all the Brightness
labours and their works do follow them THe more attentively we consider the Christian Religion in any of its parts we find greater grounds for the confirmation both of its Author and excellency so infinitely does it surpass all those writings of that nature which the great Sages of the World have with so much superciliousness on their part and admiration from their respective followers I may add too all things considered not without meriting due praise from us delivered to their Scholars And this will appear evident and undeniable if we but parallel them in any of the chief heads for instance in the principles upon which our Religion does proceed the precepts it contains and the rewards it appoints which division will comprize the summ of what we profess In all which the great Masters of Heathen wisdom do plainly discover either a great deal of Ignorance or malice in prevaricating that light they had reflected upon them from Jewish tradition so that it may be well doubted whether their Symbolick Divinity were not design'd rather to concel their own Ignorance in what they pretended to than to secure the rites and mysteries thereof from the vulgar's profanation For example 1. Take first the Principles those truths that are the Basis and foundation of our Religion such as are the Being and Nature of God the Creation of the World the Fall of man and his Redemption by a Messias the Immortality of the Soul and the Resurrection 't is plain the whole Philosophick world had none or but a very imperfect knowledge of almost all of them However some of their lavish Charity have endeavour'd to squeeze as much from their writings Nay that they were not without some knowledge of our greatest Mysteries viz. of a Messias under their Daimono-Latria and even of the Trinity in Plato's Triad and the Resurrection of the body under the Indians Palin-genesis But no body that has any veneration either for the Scriptures or but for Truth in general but must see and acknowledge that all this is but tortur'd from them Nor may we deny this further that whatever Notions of this kind they had were but traditional in respect of their Origine and conjectural in reference to their ambiguity and uncertainty 2. The like is to be said of their Rules and Precepts of virtuous living For we may not detract thus much from them that they have recommended many excellent Institutes to their Sects You shall collect among them many very admirable sayings such as these To know our selves to abstain from vice to bear afflictions to do justly and speak truly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do as we would be done by and many more Indeed for that kind of Divinity which was deducible from the Rules of common prudence and observation and depended not chiefly or solely upon Divine Revelation they have done extraordinary well And if they had not furnish'd us with so many famous examples of Vertue too it would not reflect so much upon the Professors of Christianity which in the spirituality of its precepts has as far exceeded all that they have writ as some of their Lives have most of ours though that be not to be imputed to our Religion unless it were justly chargeable upon the vitiosity or defect of its Principles or Rules Thus miserably however do we compensate the Divine culture and as if Nature abhorring so great a disparity betwixt mankind would thus ballance the Heathen with the Christian World by opposing their Imperfect Knowledge but severer Vertue to our diviner Laws but greater licentiousness in Practice Many of them having by as great proportions exceeded us in their endeavours after goodness as we do them in the knowledge and other means of it 3. Last of all which brings it to our present subject Christianity propounds nothing but upon the fairest and surest encouragement imaginable For the happiness of our Religion is both transcendently superiour to their discoveries and accompts of it and then also we are sufficiently and unquestionably assur'd hereof i.e. 't is not recommended to us upon plausible perswasions and inconclusive arguments but in the genuine sence of St. Paul's expressions 1 Corinth 2. 4. in demonstration of the Spirit and Power So that we see there is a kind of peculiar excellency in the Holy Scriptures above all the Systems of the greatest Moralists the foundation of our Obedience being laid upon clearer and better principles the practice of our obedience being carried higher by the spirituality of its commands and the rewards of our obedience being incomparably greater than what we can conceive much less could they promise or bestow 'T is the last of these that is contain'd in the Text and for which I am to be further accomptable to ye in the prosecution of the words I have read And I heard a voice from Heaven saying unto me Write Blessed c. Wherein we have these following particulars principally to be observed 1. The happiness of good men describ'd by its general nature they are blessed and by its integral parts they rest from their labours and their works do follow them 2. The Security and Evidence upon which this happiness is promis'd and asserted yea saith the Spirit 3. The time of its perfection and accomplishment partly in this life but not fully nor completely till death saying Blessed are the dead that dye in the Lord. 4. And lastly the Influence which the consideration of these premisses ought to have upon us both in Life and Death in reference to Obedience and Patience And I. To begin with the description of that happiness those rewards which are propounded to us for the encouragement of our Obedience and Patience Which are so great that I am utterly ignorant by what measures to describe them to ye The nature of that Celestial bliss as far transcending all our present felicities by which we should judge of it as it does the very capacity of our meriting it Sir Francis Bacon has observ'd We can have but a very imperfect accompt of those things which receed any whit near those extreams of Nothing and Infinity because either by their parvity or immensity they elude or confound our knowledge And especially the latter which choak the understanding and is like the beholding of the Sun whose light and lustre by which we discern other objects marrs and dimms our sight Such is the transcendent excellency of our future bliss at once the delight and amazement of our Intellectuals In the description whereof our highest expressions are so far from being hyperbolical that they amount but to a Litotes so that after our utmost endeavours we must content our selves with St. Pauls account of it in his First and Second Epistles to the Corinthians his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unutterable for that I take to be the meaning and not as we render it unlawful of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and also unconceiveable So inevitably should we diminish
to consider whether its pretended friends have not been and are not still great occasions of it The greatest part of Christians are incapable of judging concerning the truth or goodness of any Church or Constitution of Religion but are inclin'd in their opinion and affection by the general temper and practice of its professors and adherents Now 't is an almost universal principle among men that Religion and the Worship of God require the greatest seriousness and zeal where these are observ'd in peoples carriage to their particular Church the most are usually inclin'd to have respect for that on the other side when the members of any Church are cold and unconcern'd or wanton and irreverent in their Religion such a temper when it comes to be general draws popular contempt upon that Church and way This at present is the sad case of ours and I doubt it may be too truly said that there are no retainers to any Church in the world who are so little concern'd for it and the worship of God in it as the pretenders to the Church of England If we survey our several Congregations and consider our people we shall find but very few that carry themselves as if they had any conscientious affection to the Religion they profess If the Estimate be taken from those that are constant or frequent at the publick Prayers in Cathedrals or other Churches certainly the number must be acknowledg'd to be very small and if we reckon only such that carry but the appearance of serious Devotion it will be yet less so that the Church may almost be tempted to say with him There is not one godly man left the righteous are minished from among the children of men There are indeed multitudes who will tell us they are of this Church when they give us no ground but their bare word to believe they are of any While they talk of owning and adhering to the Church they will not afford the solemn worship of it as much as their bodily presence as long as the Devil and their Lusts have employment for them elsewhere They carry themselves to it as to a matter of the greatest indifference will go to Church now and then when time lies upon their hands and they are in the humour for it and then again never think of Religion or Worship till another accident excites them And when they come to such Sacred places as this with what rude boldness do they enter Gods house and how much carelesness and irreverence do they express in their very looks and garb Confident negligence seems at present to be a fashion and the whole carriage after is sutable to this ill beginning What toying talking gazing laughing and other rude follies may we observe in the midst of the most solemn parts of worship and how much slightness and playsomness in speaking of serving God being devout saying prayers and such like serious things after it Now when these carriages are observ'd not to mention worse in those that say they are of the Church of England how readily doth it dispose the generality of men who judge by bare appearance to think amiss of the Church that is ordinarily thus treated by its members and to suppose most others that profess it to be of the same sort or not very different and so to despise the Church and all that adhere unto it This certainly is a very great occasion of her present contempt and if you would not be accessary to its increase and growth if it be capable of any more beware of this carelesness and irreverence to the Religion you profess If Religion be a real thing and not a meer imagination as nothing is more certain it then requires our greatest zeal and venerations and the most serious exercise of our faculties and endeavours no prostrations can be too low in the adoration of the God of Heaven no ingagement of soul too intense in praying for his blessing and praising him for his bounty no attention too serious in hearing of His Word no deportment too awful in His eye and special presence Let us all consider this and demean our selves in our worship as those that are in earnest Let the light of our zeal and devotion so shine before men that they seeing our works may glorifie God reverence the Church and vindicate it and us from the scorning of those that are at ease and the contempt of the proud Let us endeavour so to worship that the fervour of our piety may equal the truth of our profession and our actions in Religion may have some sutableness to our expectations from it And then though the Church and we are filled with contempt yet we shall be clear from any imputation of the guilt and our souls may be at ease though we are scorn'd by the Proud Preach'd at a Visitation SERMON VI. MORAL EVIDENCE OF A Life to Come The Second Edition SERMON VI. MATTH XXII 32. God is not the God of the dead but of the living NOtwithstanding the manifold and immediate Transactions of God with the people of the Jews yet were they a dull and stupid generation addicted very much to the matters of sense and indisposed to things of spiritual and invisible nature Yea there was a great and famous Sect among them that denied a Life to come and the Existence of immaterial beings For the Sadducees say there is no Resurrection neither Angels nor Spirit Acts 23. 8. These put the Question here to our Saviour in a case of a woman who successively had seven Husbands whose Wife she should be at the Resurrection from ver 22. to the 28. which captious Query they intended for an Argument against the Doctrine of another Life Christ answers directly to the objection by telling them their mistake of the state and condition of that Life since they neither marry nor are given in marriage that have attain'd unto it but are like the Angels of God ver 30. and then takes occasion to prove the Resurrection or Living again of the dead out of the writings of Moses the only Scripture the Sadducees allow'd ver 31 32. But as touching the Resurrection of the dead have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God saying I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob God is not the God of the dead but of the living The former clause of the verse cites the Scripture which is the ground of the Argument the latter is a principle of Reason and both together infer That there is a Resurrection Now the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Resurrection of the dead undertaken to be shewn was not the Resurrection of the body though that be a great truth also since the argument doth not reach this For one who believes that the soul lives after death may say That God is the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob though the body doth not rise for they are living in their souls which
are their true selves And therefore the Conclusion our Saviour went about to prove was that There is another Life which the Sadducees deny'd and endeavour'd by this Question though very weakly to overthrow And the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies standing up and implies Living again simply not the Resurrection of the Body except where the Body is exprest or the necessary sense doth otherwise inforce it So that though it be a truth that the body shall rise and demonstrable from many other places yet it is not meant here but the thing intended to be prov'd is a Life to come without determining whether in our bodies or without them This was undertaken and this was perform'd for the Sadducees were put to silence ver 34. That they were convinc'd we do not hear Arguments from Faith or Reason prevail little against corrupt interests and affections But yet 't is something to stop the mouths of Gainsayers for others may be fortified in their Faith by the confutation of the enemies of it Would to God we could say There was no need of endeavours of this sort in our days and that this subject were quite out of date But alas we see Sadducism reviv'd after Light and Immortality hath been brought to light through the Gospel and the Holy Jesus hath given sensible assurance of it by his own Resurrection from the dead Yea the Heresie is improv'd in our time to a great and more dangerous height and almost to Atheism it self We are faln into an Age wherein among some and those not a few 't is a piece of Gallantry to be an Infidel and Heroically great to have out-grown the panick terrours of another world We have liv'd to see the Doctrine of Spirits professedly and openly derided and that of Living again esteem'd equally vain and ridiculous The wantonness of some hath disputed all the Articles of the Christian Creed and the lusts of others have taken advantage thence boldly to deny them So that 't is not unseasonable in such a world as this to labour in the proof of a future Being For besides those that openly oppose this Principle of our Faith the vileness and debauchery of our days are too sad an argument that many others do not believe it Men could not be so impious did they believe themselves immortal nor live so much like Beasts did they not think also that they should die as such Now as our Saviour dealing with the Jewish Sadducees did not make use of the proofs that were most obvious and direct but of that which was most sutable not of the plain and clear places in the other Scriptures of which the Sadducees made no account but of this from the Books of Moses whose Authority they granted In like manner while we treat with the modern Sadducees we must not offer Arguments from the Testimony of these or other Scriptures which they value not but reckon with them from the principles of Reason which they cannot but acknowledge And the Arguments I shall now use to prove a Future Life shall be of this latter sort and those not taken from Philosophick heights and remote Speculations but from moral Considerations improving things obvious and taking ground from matters of common observation And though I hope there are none of those Infidels in this place yet I suppose it may not be wholly unprofitable to you to be minded of the reasons of your Faith in days wherein so many make Shipwrack of it This then I shall endeavour viz. 1. To shew some moral Arguments to enforce the belief of a Future Life 2. The causes and occasions of unbelief in this Article 3. What this Infidelity infers in the just reasoning and consequence of it For the First I prove a Life to Come 1. From some OBSERVABLES in the great world And 2. From the FRAME and CONSTITUTION of our own Natures The Phaenomena or observables I argue from are 1. The Miseries of this state And 2. The unequal distribution of good and evil here I begin with the Miseries of this Life In the description of which I shall take liberty to enlarge a little that we may have such a sense of it as may dispose us to feel the force of the Argument Let us consider then That In whatever condition we look on this poor thing we call man there is nothing but misery before us Prosperity is temptation to wantonness and excess Adversity to murmuring and impatience Riches are anxiety and care and poverty a complicated misery Labour is pain and idleness as uneasie as employment Wisdom affords cutting senses of the evils we encounter and folly exposeth us to the edge of cross events He that increaseth knowledge increaseth trouble Eccl. 1. 18. and the soul without it is not good Prov. 19. 2. Our enjoyments satiate and weary us and disappointments are smart afflictions so that we want both when we have and when we have not and are miserable both in successful issues and in defeatures we complain of our misfortunes and seek rest and ease in the shifting of our condition but in a short time we find as many other evils as those we shun'd and are convinc'd that the change of our state yields no happiness but a different kind of misery Like men in a Fever we toss from side to side and find rest no where but in the Grave If we have a pleasant moment we pay severely for it in the next and a short happiness is a torment We are devour'd by our eager appetites and torn piece-meal by the contrariety of desires and inclinations We carry all the beasts of prey within us There 's a fire in our breasts that consumes us and we die by the same flame by which we live Nor is the condition of our bodies less sad and tragical We are scorch'd by Fevers melted in Catarrhs burn and freeze in Agues are rack'd by Gouts maim'd by Gangrenes and rent asunder by violent pains within our bowels At last we are made the food of worms except a Consumption deceive them and send away our flesh before us The best of our condition is that we can die and mingle with insensible rottenness and corruption The Grave is the best bed we find till we turn to ashes and the silent darkness of the house of worms and bones is better than the light of the Sun and comfort of the Elements Such is the condition of this mortal Life This is our portion and our lot is this And these miseries of the present state afford us the comfort of the Conclusion That there is another and that this is not all the Life of man For God hath made us and not we our selves And he is infinitely good and infinitely powerful Absolutely perfect and perfection it self and of his fulness he communicates to his creatures and takes infinite pleasure in so doing This our Reasons and the common notions of mankind teach us concerning God And hence it follows that he hath