give me leave to run into the snare who bids me cut my foot off rather then be taken sure he suppos'd we would be willing of our selves to divorce and tear our selves from the allurements and occasions who thought it unnecessary to prescribe such easy remedies as to avoid them and requires of us that when the allurements shall surprize or force themselves upon our senses we tear out the organ rather then yeild and be overcome Or he thought at least that altho the companions of my vices are grown dearer to me then mine own eies their converse more useful and more necessary to my satisfaction then my hand or foot is to me yet to pluck out cut off and cast all from me But were I proof against temtation and perfectly secure from the contagion of such conversation yet 't is Fourthly less excusable in respect to Gods concern then any other To sit and see vertue not onely violated and deflour'd with loose unclean discourses but like Thamar then thrust out of doors despis'd Religion scoft and turn'd in ridicule all that is Holy laugh'd at and profan'd and Gods Lawes vilifi'd his Word burlesqu'd and droll'd upon his Name blasphem'd and himself raill'd curst renounc't yea and deni'd a being and hearing this I do not say to find delight and entertainment in this sort of company for none but those that are of reprobate minds can do that possibly take pleasure in that which hath nothing in the world to recommend it but the boldness of the villany but to sit patient without any least sense of resentment as one that had not any least concern for God Almighty's honor or his being is ingratitude to such a bulk and brutishness of guilt as is beyond the power and art of aggravation or indeed expression It was not onely death by Gods Law to dishonor or blaspheme his Name but at the hearing it tho but in repetition by a Witness all the Jews that were in hearing were oblig'd to rent their garments as their Laws assure us in their Talmud Yea we find the Courtiers in Isaiah 36. 22. coming with their cloths rent to King Hezekiah to report the words of Rabshakeh an Alien who but in a message from his own King had spoken sleightly of their God and the High Preist whom it was forbid to in most cases in such did it And one would think that it should rent our hearts of which the other was but a Symbolic Ceremony and implied that duty To hear one slight tho but by inadvertency a person whom some one or other of the company hath the least relation or but any little obligation to requires that person by the laws of honor indispensably to call for reparation To touch the reputation of a Mistress or what 's worse and own'd to be so ought they say to be no otherwise then fatally resented and these are accounted such just causes of mens indignation that a man that 's unconcern'd will take it for a glory to be second in them and he that never had the honor to be drunk in the man's company will venture to be kill'd and to be damn'd for him in such a quarrel Therefore every man unless he do design to quarrel purposely does think himself bound to forbear offences of such kind in company where any one 's oblig'd in honor or by rules that men have set it to take notice of it Now tho it were prodigious insolence to urge in parallel to this that it should seem that God Almighty is not thought so much a friend to any none have such relation to him nor on any account have reason to be so concern'd for him or for his honor that men should forbear him in their company yet it seems dreadful after such plenties of his blessings Miracles of kindness in stupendous rescues and deliverances where to pass by all those Mercies that concern Eternity his temporal preservations have contested with our provocations and overcom them and so often that they have out numbred all our hours and all other numbers but our sins that these endearments should not yet be able to oblige us so far as to move us when we hear his Laws or his Religion or his Word and Name or himself dishonor'd to desire them to forbear that God that hath bin so kind to us or if that be judg'd unmannerly by the Sword-men yet at leastwise by uneasiness and by withdrawing to assure them that we cannot bear the hearing it God did once say in a severe threatning determination Those that honor me I will honor and they that despise me shall be lightly esteem'd Go ye and learn what that means consider I say and the Lord give you understanding in all things SERMON IV. Of Gods method in giving Deliverance Psalm 102. 13 14. Thou shalt arise and have mercy upon Sion for the time to favor her yea the set time is come For thy servants take pleasure in her stones and favor the dust thereof According to the version us'd in the Liturgy Thou shalt arise and have mercy upon Sion for it is time that thou have mercy upon her yea the time is come And why thy servants think upon her stones and it pitieth them to see her in the dust THE address of this text is not ordinary they use to be directed to men for their instruction and practice but this do's treat with God seems to prescribe to and appoint him and now not to excuse this by a plea that since men have bin deaf to all addresses from this place that have bin made unto them 't is time to change the method and seeing we cannot persuade men try if we can in that sense of St Paul's words persuade God but to say for our selves when human wisdom cannot find expedients for us and our distresses are beyond the succors of their power or their counsel 't is fit then to betake our selves to God to plead with the Lord and never let him rest and when the help of man is vain to to cry out O be thou our help and with holy confidence thou shalt arise and have mercy upon Sion Indeed addresses to God use to be made otherwise in a petitionary form at least and it would seem much more to become us if we humbly beg'd Arise O God have mercy upon Sion yet this here in the Text is such a form as does need nothing else but faith in the Petitioner to make it acceptable There is some difference in the reading of the latter verse the one version rendring for why thy servants think upon her stones and it pitieth them to see her in the dust the other thus for thy servants take pleasure in her stones and favor the dust thereof yet this is easily reconcil'd they think upon her stones indeed with sorrow for acknowledgments of their demerits which did call down this calamitous condition and being passionately thus affected with the sense of it they willingly receive contentedly
Cities might be spar'd in fine when once they have wrought out the measure of God's mercies and their iniquity is full it is no wonder if the measure of their Judgment be full too and it self irreversible and utter But yet tho in all these Judgments whether partial or final Innocent and Righteous persons suffer with the wicked All things come alike to all there is one event to the clean and to the unclean to him that sacrificeth and to him that sacrificeth not as is the good so is the sinner and he that sweareth as he that feareth an oath Ecclesiastes 9. 2. So as that it should seem the sincere Christian can no more depend than others or if he do his trust will fail him yet to omit the reasons of this dispensation of God's Providenc which are many very just ones that alone sufficeth good men in the midst of all such Judgments to depend upon which St Paul writes on the very account of such distresses and necessities Rom. 8. 28. We know that all things work together for good to them that love God even those afflictions working for them a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory 2 Cor. 4. 17. They are God's words and so trusting and depending on them we know whom we have believed namely God the person and my last part wherein I am to enquire on what accounts especially he that does depend upon him in these cases hath assurance such as that he can profess I know whom I have believed Now there is scarce that Attribute in God which is not a firm ground for resignation of our selves to and of reliance on him But to pass all those which are every where in God's Book to be met with and are urg'd with all advantage and to name two other onely First 't is certain that we may with the most comfortable hope and greatest confidence rely on him who when we have most need is readiest to relieve As we read in the Scripture of an accepted time of the day of Salvation to let us know that it is not to be catcht in every season as if whensoever we shall have a mind to be delivered and ask for it God must hearken and command deliverances no sure there are proper set times and we must be unwearied in waiting for it so also ordinarily that the time of greatest need is God's opportunity and the day of extremity the day of Salvation is obvious All other times he tries us and does exercise our virtues but when we are past all other help then he relieves us Therefore David is most peremtory with the Lord on that account Psalm 102. 13 14. Thou shalt arise and have mercy upon Sion for it is time that thou have mercy upon her yea the time is come And why thy servants think upon her stones and it pitieth them to see her in the dust and Psalm 9. 9. The Lord also will be a refuge 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 LXXII in opportunitatibus in tribulatione in the true opportunity that is when trouble comes And we shall find a reason for this way of working in his Praier Psalm 109. 26 27. O save me according to thy mercy that they may know that this is thy hand and that thou Lord hast don it When we are in such distress as is past man's aid then if deliverance come we cannot chuse but know the hand when we are in darkness and dimness of anguish and if we look unto the earth behold nothing but darkness as of the shadow of death then if any light arise we know it is the day-spring from on high that visits us And if besides this reason and those Texts we but consult the Annals of God's actings we shall find it always thus and not to mention those that refer to particular persons of which Joseph's single story is a manifold instance which also gave birth to those great events which shall make up a demonstration that this is the way of God's procedure In Egypt when the design was laid so that the People of Israel could not have lasted longer than one Age for posterity was forbidden and the Nation was to be murder'd by a prohibition of being born and when they could not to avoid this persecution get out thence except the sea would at once make a passage for them and a wall and rampart to secure that passage and if it also should do so it would but land them in a wilderness and they but fled from water to perish for want of it and escapt being drown'd to die with thirst a place too where unless the desert can bring forth the bread of Heaven unless Flesh and Manna can grow there where nothing grew they have but chang'd their fate and brought themselves into a more unavoidable and speedy ruin when this state of exigence was come then God comes in by weak means a stammering tongue and little rod works all deliverance And again afterwards in the captivity of that Nation a state which Jeremy the Prophet when he had bewailed in sorrowful eloquence in lamentations that live still yet wish'd his head had bin a fountain of tears to weep for it when in seventy years the people was so mixt incorporated with their Conquerors as must needs be very hard to separate and tear them asunder and as for their Temple it was ruin'd and despoil'd of all its holy furniture which was not onely rob'd but desecrated and profan'd so as not to be likely nor scarce fit to be returned the vessels of the Sanctuary being made the utensils of their Idol-feasts and their own riots and those holy bowls made up their drunkeness as well as sacriledge yet when these conquering Robbers were enjoying their spoils and crimes as if wine in those holy bowls did stupity men past all sense they and the great Babylon are taken ere they knew it and the Jews return strait follow'd Again when Cestius Gallus had sate down before Jerusalem at the Feast of Tabernacles when the Nation being oblig'd by their Religion was all in that City and the Christians of the Land were there too after several assaults and when he might have taken it he on a sudden rais'd the siege 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Josephus without any reason no body knows why but onely as God put it in his heart to do so to give way for the Christians to obey that voice which the same Josephus saith was heard in the Temple at the Feast of Pentecost 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let us go hence and upon it all the Christians went to Pella not one staid but every one escapt that ruin which Titus sitting down before that City brought upon that People the great Enimies of his Church to a final utter desolation Once more when after the nine Persecutions which like so many torrents of fire had swept away the Christians in flame Dioclesians like a tenth wave came as if it meant to swallow not
death which till the man be dead and the brute onely live within him cannot be his pleasures And it is plain they are not pleasures to a Sober man that lives the life of Reason not to say of Grace Nor are they such to any man till he have train'd and exercis'd himself into an habit of enduring them and by a discipline of Torment made himself experienc'd for Vice and for Damnation Nor is there ever any pleasure in some Vices What is there in the dismal Wishes of mans imprecating passion there cannot be musick in those harsh horrours and yet the Sinners will destruction so as that they call to God to pour it on them and tear it down from Heaven so that Pain and Disease seem to sauce those delights and Death to be the tempter to the pleasure 't is evident mens reasons and their Practices must be first debauch'd that they may count them Pleasures and therefore pleasure cannot be the first mover in the Sinners race to Death But I will grant that the Spirit and Flesh of Man by their so strait alliance and perpetual converse may grow to have the same likes and dislikes have but one appetite and this alas be that of flesh to whose onely satisfactions the man useth himself by long Custom of which the Soul doth so imbibe the Inclinations of the Body that nothing of another kind can possibly be relish'd In this case sensuality hath pleasures yet such as cannot answer Gods enquiry for do but consult mans other Choices and you find a present satisfaction cannot work his Resolutions to forego great after-hopes or run upon a foreseen ruine Who will exchange his right to the Reversion of a Crown which from his Father he shall certainly inherit and succeed to if he do out-live him for a present Scene of Royalty and choose a painted Coronet the pomps and adorations of a Stage and the applauses of a Croud before the real Glories of his Kingdom the love and the obedience of his Subjects And yet my Soul the disproportion of the Sinners terms is infinitely greater and there is no hazzard which to make his choice of present things more flattering the others hopes are liable to For that Heir of the Crown may die before the Crown fall to him but it is impossible that we should miss of ours except we put our selves by by such choices except we change it thus And on the other side we know men will adventure the Sentence of the Law by Robberies and murders to provide for Lusts while they hope to be undiscovered But sure a Prison made delightful by all arts of pleasure and all plenties of it will not hire a man to own those actions which shall forfeit him to certain shameful Execution the next Sessions and yet this is the Sinners state exactly he is ti'd and bound in the chain of his sins they are it may be chains of Gold and softned with delices but they reserve him to the Judgment of the great Assise And yet he chooses these and puts them on as Ensigns of delight and honour Once more Do not men choose a present Agony to keep off an afterevil they tear their bowels with a Vomit to prevent a Surfeit they cup and scarifie and with all artifice or pain upon themselves kill a Disease yea they are well content to prolong torment so they may but prolong life and though the preservation of it prove onely continued pangs and all they can effect is onely this that they are longer dying yet they are glad to be so in all cases except where the prescription is Virtue and the death prescribed against Eternal Now why do you choose thus onely in Sin and Hell 'T is clear the very pleasure you change Heaven for cannot invite you from this Life and then you that will suffer any thing rather than you will dye Why against all resistance will you dye for ever It is Secondly because you know not what it is to dye the second Death at least your notions of it are so slight and easie that they cannot fright you from a pleasure or cope with a temptation to it and so though present satisfactions are not able to engage you upon present ruin they can upon the after-death Indeed the Sinner would have reason if it meant no more than hath been taught of late by one that hath gained many Proselytes among the Virtuosi of Religion After the Resurrection the Reprobates shall be saith he in the state that Adam and his Posterity were in after his Sin i. e. the state we are now in Live as we do Marry and give in Marriage and cease to be when they have got some heirs to succeed them in Tophet Poor unhappy Souls these that never had any sin to merit being there nor any Sentence to condemn them thither but this mans Who must put them there successively one after other to find employment for Everlasting fire A Doctrine such as had an Angel Preach'd from Heaven by S. Paul's award he must have been Anathema when the Devil made Religions and Theology came from the bottomless Pit he never found out such an Engine to conveigh men into it as this pleasant notion of the punishment of sin therein as if Leviathan were made to take his pastime in that Lake also by such interpretations which surely were contrived to make out the Assertion of that Romish Priest who says that those in Hell love to be there nay more that 't was impossible for God to do a kinder thing for them than to put them there Doctrines to be abhorr'd as Hell it self and yet upon these grounds he builds their Church by demonstration so strong as that the Gates of Hell cannot prevail against it and in truth they have no reason to assault it on these terms But to pass by such dotages and frenzies you will be able sure to check all those presumptions which grow from sleight impressions of the second Death if you but take that prospect of it which the close of this time gives look forward through this season which is designed for you to prepare the way of the Lord to his Passion in and you shall see the Death that does await iniquity If you behold him coming to Jerusalem with Hosannas and Palms about him as if Death were his Triumph his Passion so desirable that he rode to meet it which he never did at any other time and then complaining he was straitned until it were accomplish'd as he had throws of Longing after it and singing when he went out to it you would believe the Sinner never chose his death sweetned by his most pleasant sin with a more chearful eagerness But then open the Garden and you see his apprehensions of it throw him on his Face to pray against it See how he sweats and begs his very Prayer is a Passion the zeal of it is Agony and canst thou choose that he so dreads
reestablish and plead for this But I shall not give you or my self the trouble to advert to them but shall onely briefly lay the grounds of the contrary truth which is so plainly set down here in the text for if God himself tho he had constituted both the acts of Mercy and the acts of Worship so that whatsoever goodness law or constitution tho divine could give both had if yet he shall prefer and will have one much rather then the other 't is because there is some difference in the things themselves For he that sees and judges as things are if he shall judge one better then it is so and that by some rule antecedent to that judgment that is from the nature of the thing it self which is the reason why he judges of them diversly and constitutes and wills them differently So that God supposeth that there are some actions of themselves and in their own nature morally good neither is it hard to prove it And tho if we but view'd mans nature in it self whether made by God or chance and atomes it matters not we should see sufficient grounds to count his actions laudable or blame-worthy as being morally good or bad according as they are directed by or deviate from that rule yet in my first proposal of the thing I shall make bold to take in God as the contriver of mans nature and all other Now when the great Creator of the Universe had made it up of infinite variety of beings in an excellent order 't is most certain that He being a most wise agent made each being for some end which it was to attain unless it were made in vain but ends are not attainable but by operations suited and proportion'd to those ends The operations of a simple element will not reach the ends of life or sense or reason as in artificial things we cannot use a ball to cut or Coulander to carry water in and therefore as it is the business of each art to take care that their tools and all their productions be wrought so that their very make may fit them to work out these uses they are made for so in Nature Gods art it was therefore necessary he should frame each several being so as that the nature of it should be as it were a rule to it to regulate the manner and the measures of its workings that so they might tend orderly and constantly towards those ends which he design'd their operations to work out and in their courses might comport with one anothers motions and by doing so contribute to the ends and uses of the whole For if the nature of each being were not such a principle causing some to move in one way some another fitting this for one use that for others or if in their motions or their other actings they should deviate from the rule of nature they could neither be sayd to be those beings neither would they make a world but Chaos routing always and confounding one another But while they do observe that rule act and are mov'd according to their nature and by doing so fulfil their uses and work out the ends of their creation So we see they are the preservation of the world and consequently they must needs be truly what God saw they were when He had made them all very good Those of them indeed that are determin'd by their nature to one course which they can neither err from nor discern that they observe not morally good because there is no place for vertue since there is none for choice in such determinations But then there is a creature that hath faculties to understand and chuse and which hath principles imprest upon him that inable him for apprehension judgment and discourse of reason and by consequence who is onely able as to understand himself so also to find out the nature and the uses of the rest and therefore who alone is capable and fit to be the Lord of them and was made so and hath therefore ends above the ends of all the rest whose nature also as the others were there being the same reason of them all was a law to it self to regulate his actings even all his apprehensions judgings reasonings and his choices Now if he also do not turn aside from the line of direction which his being do's incline him unto in pursuance of the aims of a nature that is rational and was made for society his actings must be good that is fit for the uses which he was design'd for and it is not possible that they can fail his Makers ends and consequently must be well pleasing to his great and wise and good Artificer since so they justify the goodness of the workmanship But yet if he neglect and violate the laws of his own being and as he corrupts himself so also being Lord of other creatures if he employ them not to their own uses but abuse them make them serve irregular and vitiated purposes this male-administration cannot but renverse the state of things Thus acting he not only puts himself by those ends he was made for but defeats God of his aims in the creation of the rest by putting them to uses that despite him meerly stand in perfect opposition to his wisdom holiness and goodness all his attributes and work out nothing but disorder and destruction and by consequence are bad and most displeasing to their Maker and since these as the other good ones were are don discernedly and with deliberation and choice they are therefore morally so So that actions of men in themselves and by the rules of nature may be morally good and well pleasing in Gods sight or the contrary Yea which will follow from the premises and which I only toucht before altho there were no law of a superior being which requir'd that man should live conformable to his own nature and to those impressions and notices which in his making have bin stampt upon him to direct and regulate his actings yet his very nature howsoever made or hapning being such a rule to all his works would have the reason of a law to him for as with them that grant such a Superior and Creator that very supreme being tho he be Almighty can do all things yet there are such things that 't is impossible for him to do they are so bad and all his actions are most infinitely good not by reason of a conformity to the precepts or prohibitions of a law for none such can be set to God but merely as they are conformable to the most infinite perfection of his nature So abstracting from all law of a superior being and considering man in his own nature as a rational sociable creature and relating to the place and station he fills in the Universe his actions would be good or bad by disagreeing or conformity to that and he that acts in opposition to it is as mischeivous yea as unnatural a thing as if one of the Elements of
the first voice of nature teacheth us the direct contrary And whosoever he be that is I will not say unjust to others but not kind friendly and apt to do good to them he that hath regard for onely self and mesures all by his own inclinations and interests is such a thing if nature onely judg of him as ought to have bin expos'd when he was born and to have no pity shew'd him when in teares and in his blood he cri'd for it he should be still abstain'd and seperated from as one whom Nature her self excommunicates as one who is no part of human society but the proper native and inhabitant of the desert But he that is unrighteous who by worng whether of violence or fraud or but of debt makes his own satisfactions that to serve his uses and occasions dares take or but detain from others what is due to them and supports his pomp and plenty with that which of right ought to cloth and feed others and so eats the bread and drinks the tears and may be blood of Creditors he that is so unmerciful as to be thus cruel tho Almighty God were silent even Nature would her self prosecute such a person with her out-cries as we do fire when 't is broke out and rages for he is all one fire also spreads and seises all it can come near whether mans or Gods house to make fuel for it self and to encrease its blaze so that the other should be lookt upon with the same dreads and abhorrency for he is the same disorder in the frame of Nature and in this the voice of Nature is the voice of God which is our other medium to discover what is natural Now since we have declar'd that natural vertue is in man the imitation of God is as it were the workings off of those forms of goodness that are in him and the lines and rules of it are but the lineaments of his perfection 〈◊〉 will be easy to evince that the rule for mercy is a most important law of Nature since the practice of it is so natural to God himself Now to prove this passing by all other methods of probation I shall content my self with that one declaration of himself he made when he proclaim'd himself the Lord the Lord God merciful and gracious long suffering and abundant in goodness and truth keeping mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity transgression and sin and that will by no means utterly cut off the guilty so I understand it out of Jer. 46. 28. will not make a full end a clear riddance of them when I visit God seems here to have taken flesh in his expressions e're he was incarnate that he might have words to phrase his goodness in and he had bowels of mercy before he was made man and yet all this he says are but the back parts of his goodnes Exod. 33. v. ult but that of it which we meet with in his dealings with the Sons of men as we see it à posteriori and in its effects here but the face and glory of it was so bright and dazeling that he tells his friend there Moses that 't was not possible for him to see it and live Yet now St Paul saith God hath given us the light of the knowledg of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ 2 Cor. 4. 6. Indeed there was Divinity of mercy and more too humanity was taken in that God Almighty might be able to bestow more then himself and all that he might shew compassion on us men It seems O Lord thou wilt have Mercy yea and Sacrifice too If thou require such an offering as the Sacrifice of thine own blood and of thine own Son that thou mightest have mercy on us and then let men dispute that vindicative justice is essential to God that sin and its punishment are annext by as unchangable necessity as Gods Attributes are to his being and that by the express exigence of his nature he no less necessarily executes it then the fire burns we may well be content it should be so when this strict necessity if such there were did but make way for was subservient to the ends of infinite Mercy and by that demonstrates that benignity compassion and forgiveness are much more the inclinations of his nature and if he intended man in any thing his image sure he did in mercy therefore do's our Savior charge us be yee merciful as your heavenly Father is merciful who as he had no other reason to create the world so 't is most certain that he had no other reason to redeem it That Oeconomy was intended as the means of mercy to poor Sinners in reducing them which is the Mercy my third observation speaks of which was this that of all acts of Mercy those are best and most well-pleasing in Gods sight which are emploi'd in the conversion of Sinners that was such for which our Savior is here pleading when he saith I will have Mercy But here I mean not such conversions as they are emploi'd about who compass sea and land not so much to convert men from the evil of their waies to the true real practice of Christianity as to convert them to their Church to which men would not go so fast but that by the debauch of all good Christian discipline there are such easy absolutions to be had tho men be not converted from their evil waies for it is impossible to find a Church or a Religion in the world which men may sin so hopefully and comfortably in as that of Rome as it now stands But these busy Agitators of conversion besides that they convert not men to Catholic Christianity but to a name and indeed faction have made Catholic a word of party if they should multiply we should soon find they would have Sacrifice not Mercy I do not mean their Host that Sacrificium incruentum bloody Sacrifices we know are a main part of their doctrine and their practice who have us'd to turn whole Nations into shambles for their Church's sake and make bonfires with burnt-offerings of their fellow Christians But waving these Conversions those the proposition speaks of are such as reduce Sinners from their evil doings to the universal faithful practice of all virtue and all piety Now of all acts of Mercy that those which endeavor this are best Nature herself would judg since they do aim at reinstating man the crown of all her workmanship in the integrity and rectitude of Nature which is his own true perfect state and is therefore the most proper and best for him as relating to that state But God who beyond that design'd to make man who had faln from his own nature to partake of the Divine Nature as St Peter saith 2. Pet. 1. 4. and in order to it call'd us to glory and vertue v. 3. cannot but account that kindness which endeavors the recovery of Sinners from corruption and misery to the state of vertue
and cheerfully accept this punishment of their iniquity this return of their demerits 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and since it is on their account namely thro their demerit that she is so low since they are sensible themselves did make her fall into the dust they cannot chuse but be more tender love and pity her the more and be more willing to do what they can to raise her up pulverem ejus evehere cupiunt In the words there is an holy confidence that God will grant the thing they long for mercy to Sion thou shalt arise and have mercy upon Sion 2dly A Reason of that Confidence for the time of shewing favor the appointed time for it is come 3 dy A ground for that because thy servants think upon her stones and it pitieth them to see her in the dust In handling which I shall consider 1. The Stones of Sion and those in the dust or at least in great danger of impendent ruin 2. That tho God is not alwais minded to succor his own Sion yet he hath set appointed times for that 3. That when the Sons of Sion are affected towards her as the Text expresses then is usually Gods season for deliverance his time of mercy and of shewing favor then the appointed time for it is come and then we may take holy confidence and in full assurance of faith say Thou shalt arise First of the Stones of Sion and those in the dust Sion was we know either the City of the King where there was the seat of Judgment the thrones of the house of David Psalm 122. 5. or else it was the mountain of the Lords house and so the stones of Sion are either the stones of the seat of Judgment of the Throne in the dust or the stones of the Lords house the Sanctuary there Both these therefore might be treated of and I shall speak to both but more particularly to the later And those stones may be either taken naturally as they are the stones of a material Sanctuary or else mystically in that sense they often have in Scripture which sais we as lively stones are all built up a Spiritual house 1 Pet. 2. 5. 1. The stones of Sion the material Sanctuary in the dust the Psalmist thought an object for so much pity that some Psalms are but the Liturgies of his pious resentments upon that occasion Psalm 74. is full herein Think upon Mount Sion where thou hast dwelt lift up thy feet that thou maist utterly destroy every Enimy which hath don evil in thy Sanctuary Thine Adversaries roar in the midst of thy Congregations and set up their banners for tokens they break down all the carved work thereof with axes and hammers they have set fire upon thy holy Places and have defil'd the dwelling place of thy name even unto the ground yea they said in their hearts let us make havock of them all together It is not many years since this was our complaint concerning both the house of God and of the King the Church and Monarchy as if the life of one were bound up in the others life We saw Gods honor at least the place where his honor dwelt laid in the dust nor was it suffer'd to stay there the stones of Sion not allow'd to find a place for burial in that dust which is the common grave the Church it self had not a Monument nor the tombs a sepulcher but the very ruins were disquieted the rubbish troubled and the stones and dust suffer'd a deportation us'd as if men thought with them to build a Sanctuary for those Sins that demolisht them and make a Refuge for their Sacrilege 'T is true to many this seem'd no sad spectacle nor would it now to such as think any occasional room of the lowest name and usage might do as well for the uses of Gods service Strange when there was never a Religion in the world that did acknowledg any sort of God but would allot some place peculiar to his worship with them whose deities were Sicknesses the Feaver had its Temple Yea and stranger in a world that does devote set rooms to every use of nature of convenience and of pleasure the recreations have a place made for them and the meanest instruments of sport have so meals have one and feasts have another luxury hath its offices State hath many chambers antichambers and withdrawing places merely because there may be so many rooms of which there is no use for that is Pomp if God should not have one too for all uses that relate to him to meet us in with all his train of Angels and to bless us and to entertain us with the food of heaven with himself But whether men desire it so again yet so it lately was and when his table was remov'd his entertainment too was laid aside and the Sacrament become as desolate as the Altar Gods houses his mysteries too in the dust God did arise I cannot chuse but see that we have no such object of resentment now but how much farther off it is from being thus at this time and how much less apposite to our condition at this present the discourse is so much greater demonstration of what my Text affirms that when Gods honor is affronted thus and his house vilified and ruin'd then the time for favor the appointed time is come and when the stones of Sion are thrown down into the dust his Servants humbled too into the dust with sorrow and resentments then God shall arise for so he did It was so also if we look upon the Stones of Sion in their mystical and figurative sense Now altho every sincere Christian every one in whom on the foundation of a true sound faith an holy life is superstructed be not onely in St Peters words a lively stone but in St Pauls a Temple yet more properly the whole community of Christians is in Scripture represented to us as the body of a building St Peter tells them ye are built up a Spiritual house 1 Pet. 2. 5. and St Paul saith built upon the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone in whom all the building fitly fram'd together groweth up a holy Temple in the Lord in whom ye also are built up together for an habitation of God thro the Spirit Eph. 2. 20 21 22. The ends for which 't is call'd so seem indeed more lively represented in the parallel resemblance of a natural body Rom. 12. 1 Cor. 12. 12. and that body the body of Christ Eph. 1. 23. or that of which he is the head Col. 1. 18. from which all Christians do receive their life and motion their increase and strength no otherwise then as they are united and tied by joints and nerves to one another and that head Eph. 4. 16. and have all one Spirit also 1 Cor. 12. 13. Of all which expressions as one end is to enforce such unity in the profession
that account thy rod comforts us our correction is joyous we take pleasure in the stones of Sion and we favor love her dust the other Symtom They prize her reliques wht is standing of her and since 't is on their account namely thro their demerit that she is so low and weak they are more tender love and pity her more in that condition which they brought her into will do what they can to raise her pulverem ejus evehere cupiunt in the Tigurine Translation 'T is true indeed the stones of Sion in the dust are apt to become stones of stumbling and rocks of offence as St Peter saith of the chief corner stone of Sion Christ hmself 1 Pet. 2. 8. whereat many stumble and fall We had fatal experience how when once the building was disorder'd the subordination broken the Church offices and powers thrown down on the one side Sion strait became like Babel every one almost spoke a strange language and so built by himself built up divided Faiths and Churches and Religions on the other side that broken tottering State made many run away as from a falling Church take shelter in another and what the Cross of Christ was to the Jews that the Cross of his Spouse too was to many pretended Christians a ground to renounce her They no sooner saw their Mother wounded naked in the dust but they concluded her fit to be buried and ran from her as from the house of death as if in the noblest way of sufferings to follow Christ could look like the mark of being Anti-Christian and the yet unsettled state of it is made great use of for the same intents her stones are laid on purpose to be stones of stumbling and to give occasion of falling And truly 't is to be confest that since the bonds of Government which kept men under discipline were unloos'd and since the Churches Ministeries and her Powers are cut so short that they are not so effectual to the ends of their institution to work out a strict Christian life as were to be wisht and since men are divided so by claims of several Churches and by fearful expectations also both the Coversations and the Faiths of men too are grown loose and dissolute and 't was not the least Stratagem of our Adversaries to contrive men should be such as could while they continue such find Sanctuary no where but in their Church at their Altars whether they have but to come to be absolv'd of all But truly 't is extreme barbarity in us when 't is on our account by our demerits for our punishment that she is distressed that fears and dangers press upon her then to sleight her if when we see our Mother gasping then to throw dirt at her make her mouth her mouth be stopt with the reports of her ungodly offspring the reproches of a pointing Scorner that shall cry see how her Sons behave themselves how little love or pity they have for her He favors her stones that beautifies and guilds them with inscriptions of Religious actions this if any thing will raise them and repair her And truly'tis to be expected from the men that do pretend to have the pity and the sorrow that is due to their Mother whom the powers of Hell seem arm'd against to ruin her so far as she 's disabled should themselves supply to themselves what is wanting if her discipline be loosen'd and she have no strong ties on mens actions we should do her work upon us put obligations fetters on our selves 'T is probable this very state of Sion in the text was that which Nehemiah labour'd to repair and see how he effected it c. 9. after a most solemn fasting and confession and bemoaning rather of their guilts then sufferings in the 10th himself the Princes and the Priests and Levites and he rest of all the People with their Wives their Sons and Daughters that were come to understanding entred into a curse and into an oath to walk in Gods Law and to observe and do all the Commandments of the Lord our God his Judgments and his Statutes v. 29. Here was a cement would compact the Stones of Sion the whole building against all assaults whatever seat her in her perfect height and beauty It is not he loves her who curses them that laid her in the dust but he who enters such a curse of serving God 't is not he favors her dust who wishes talks or swears on the Churches side but he that humbles himself daily in the dust in her confessions and Prayers he who binds himself with such an obligation to worship and serve God faithfully as she prescribes this will help to raise her make her visible in the lives of her Children and when the dust of Sion shall have a more perfect Resurrection in this world and this of Christ shall as his other body rise out of the earth it will be comfortable to each one that put his hands to the repairs that did but fit one stone to it that would not let God rest till he had establisht our Jerusalem again a praise in the Earth Then God almighty would be importun'd prevail'd upon to put it in the hearts of those men whose part 't is to secure our Sion and repair her breaches to build by a true line and level make such an establishment as may be fitted not to the satisfying parties factions interests or any human appetites but the just obligations or Religion not build weakly fearing as it were the Churches strength should aw men in their practices that the weapons of her warfare should gall their vices besides that their own strong holds may be still able to hold out and not be beat down by her forces for this were to model the structure of Sion to mens own and to their sins convenience But to build her up so as that the profession and the practice of true Religion may be preserv'd safe and Gods Worship kept intire that upon our one onely foundation the rock Christ Jesus we may be built up with a lively faith into an holy life all cemented by Charity and all divisions be made up and we may with one heart and one voice meet and join in giving Glory Honor c SERMON V. OF THE EXERCISE OF CONSCIENCE In the avoiding of Offence towards God and Men. Acts 24. 16. And herein do I exercise my self to have alwaies a conscience void of offence towards God and towards man MY text is the sum of a Christians practical duty for as St Paul had in the verse before set down his faith and hope here he sets down his workings In the words we have 1. The state of that duty exprest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a onscience void of offence 2. That is brancht out into its several respects 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 towards God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and towards man and those either 1. As the objects of that which a good conscience endeavors
9. 4. They shall not be pleasing unto him but their Sacrifices shall be as the bread of Mourners and as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those Sacrifices for their carcases shall not come into the house of the Lord. Yea he would not let those Melancholly people keep others company in his service but there was porta lugentium a gate for Mourners to enter by themselves into the Temple-service as if the mirth were among their precepts and to be sad were to be defil'd and unclean But it is not so with us in the Gospel where the onely Sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit a broken and contrite heart he will not despise but the bread of Mourners shall be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from which he will never turn away his face and a few penitent tears are the scope and the fulfilling of all the Jewish purifyings and the Spirit of the Lord moveth upon the face of these waters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he flutters and hovers over them and as he did out of the first waters so out of those tears he hatches a new creation they being the very first effects and signs of life in the new creature and the new birth also natural to both Infants and the Child of God also are born weeping and crying this being the very first throw in regeneration Yea so far is this sorrow from displeasing God that it is the great engagement to him to give us comfort both here and hereafter and it is put amongst Christs first beatitudes here Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted The words present either a bare description of persons or withall involve a duty the being Mourners Secondly import a designation of their condition that they are Blessed Thirdly they give the reason and the manner of that condition For they shall be comforted so that mourning may be doubly understood either as a duty or as an aphorisme in the later case mourning is taken not to be prescrib'd at all but onely Christ looking upon his Disciples who were in the worlds esteem in a sad low condition he does encourage them that notwithstanding their unequal estimate yet they are in a blessed condition for they shall be sure to be comforted And thus first it may be as an appendage to the former aphorisme in that he had by the assurance of a reward encourag'd them in the entertainment of poverty and calamities had advanc't the lowly into heaven and enrich't the patient poor with the inheritance of a Kingdom those that were poor in Spirit content with their condition and then this follows blessed are those that mourn for they shall be comforted as if it were after this manner but what if our calamities do grow upon us and we are not able to bear them with an even mind and a serene countenance but they cast us down we greive and mourn under them and cannot be comforted yet even for this condition there is promise Christ is so far from breaking this bruised reed that he confirms and strengthens it the greivousness of our calamities shall not exclude all hope of ease neither shall our weakness and infirmity exclude us from the number of the blessed he will neither impute our want of courage that groans and faints under the burthen provided that we be not heated by it into impatience at his dispensations nor chaft into wrath against them that lay it on us tho we do mourn if we do not vexe we are blessed neither will he suffer our calamities when he hath tried and purg'd us by them quite to oppress us but how greivous soever they be they shall find multitudes of comfort even the comfort of mitigation for to that Gods faithfulness is engag'd 1 Cor. 10. 13. God is faithful who will not suffer you to be temted above that ye are able but will with the temtation make a way also to escape that ye may be able to bear it Secondly the internal comforts of Gods grace 2 Cor. 1. 3 4. God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort who comforteth us in all our tribulations Thirdly the comfort of a joyful recompence even here for the most part John 16. 20 21. I say unto you ye shall weep and lament but the world shall rejoyce and ye shall be sorrowful but your sorrow shall be turned into joy A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow because her hour is come but as soon as she is deliver'd of the child she remembreth no more the anguish for joy that a man is born into the world Our afflictions may be throws but they shall end in birth and have the ease and joy of a delivery and therefore our Savior said of himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luke 12. 50. how am I straitned as a woman in child to accomplish his Baptism that Baptism of agony sweat and bloud or certainly however an eternal recompence of joy hereafter everlasting consolations as St Paul saith 2 Thess. 2. 16. When instead of this hunger and thirst and tears the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes and there shall be no more death neither sorrow nor crying neither shall there be any more pain Rev. 7. 17. and 21. 4. And first we learn hence the compassion of our Savior who hath indulg'd us the infirmities of our nature he hath not made our weak affections to be sins but hath shew'd us a way to make them advantages towards blessedness God that was made flesh remembers that we are but flesh and does not require of us to be insensible it is not a vice not to be a stock such as the Stoicks requir'd their wise man should be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no greif nor no sense of any external calamity tho you thrust his hand into the fire it must be no more to him than if you burn his staff for his body is but his organ his instrument no part at all of him but Christ requires no such hard tasks of us Had he deni'd us our tears and forbid us the ease of mourning in afflictions and made weeping to be cowardise and sin it had bin a hard saying we had had reason to have thought ourselves severely dealt withal but he gives us leave as it were to love the dear things of this world a little to weep when they leave us if we do not love them so as not to love our brother and our God leaving them if the world leave us and when by calamities our comforts are taken from us by frettings and vexations throwing off our God from us repining at him and casting his commands away of not envying not returning provided in our tears we have humble perfect submissions and resignations of our selves throwing our selves down at his feet and from our very souls
his Body and his Bloud is he himself Therefore thou didst receive him as verily as thou didst those and if the Sacramental food be thine then Christ is thine and thou maist say my God My Brethren it was the Bloud of Christ that purchased all the glorious mercies of the Gospel all the blessed expectations of a Christian that was the price of all the joys of Heaven that reconciled God to us bought us an interest in him and the happy enjoyments of himself for us and then if in the Sacrament Christ do give me his bloud when I can shew God that bring him the price of the remission of my sins the value of those glories even the bloud of Jesus come with the purchase-money in my hands that bought my interest in God cannot I say those are mine my Heaven and my God Yea when I can say O Lord Christ whom I have undertaken to obey my God whom I have vowed to serve and worship thou art even my flesh for there I ate thy flesh and thou becamest flesh of my flesh Thou art the portion of my cup when thy very bloud doth fill full my cup and so thou art my flesh and my bloud then surely I may say with Thomas here my Lord and my God O Holy and Eternal Savior who art made both Lord and Christ and by thy Resurrection didst manifest the Omnipotency of thy person the truth of thy Promises and open a way to the everlasting glory and salvation which thou hast prepared for them that give themselves up to serve and worship thee their Lord and God pour down that blessed influence of this thy Resurrection on our hearts in raising us from the death of sin to the life of Righteousness Be thou our Lord and Christ ruling us by thy laws saving us by thy grace and by thy Spirit applying the mercies of thy death and so making us partakers of thy Resurrection therein turning us from our iniquities hereafter in raising us to Glory O Lord we have this day made a Covenant of this with thee and signed the Articles of it in the bloud of our God swore to them at the Altar give us grace we beseech thee to use the strictest care and watchfulness in our endeavors to perform with thee Regard not how we have in times past onely mock'd thee sacredly in these performances O let it from this day be otherwise We have bin onely on a stage of Religion when we are at our devoutest performances and having turn'd our backs unto the Church turn'd them also to our duty put off the vizards of Religion and we untired our selves of all our Piety almost as soon as the exercises of it were don and howsoever we tied our selves our froward wills have bin too strong for all our obligations and burst out of them broke all thy bonds asunder and cast away thy cords from us altho we tied them with all things that were most solemn and most sacred vows and oaths and tied them before the body of our crucified Lord and Savior with the body and bloud of Christ in our hands as if we had no other desires no other cares that should do us good than as we were careful to keep those resolutions and vows and yet O Lord we did let them instantly loosen and slack pass by and fail Yea we did break them wilfully and would not be held in by thine or our own bonds O Lord if thou look upon us in this guilt sure thou wilt have no more to do with us such false and perjured vow-breakers But O look upon us in thine own bloud which thou hast bid us pour out still to establish and renew our Covenant with thee and let this Covenant wherein we have now taken thee to be our Lord and God and taken thee who art so in us remain inviolable be there then with thy Power and Autority subdue our hearts and our desires and bring them under the obedience of thy laws Thou that art God Almighty that didst conquer Death and Satan bring it to pass that none of them prevail against thee now in our Souls where thou art but use thy strength O Lord to drive their power thence that thy servants and thy people may not be enslaved to corruption and ruin nor thy Enimy gain souls from thee which thou hast purchased with thy bloud that we having attain'd thee for our Lord and God may claim the privileges of thy People here have the watches and cares and securities that thou laiest out upon thy Treasures and the Jewels of thy Crown and by thy body and thy bloud being made one with thee and thou being ours all things may be ours thy grace here and thy joys hereafter thy Spirit may be ours and thy Heaven ours and we in thee and thou in us may all enjoy thy Kingdom Power and Glory for ever SERMON XIII THE BELIEVERS CONCERN to pray for Faith Mark 9. 24. Lord I believe help thou my Vnbelief WHICH are the words of a poor parent passionately earnest and afflicted sadly for his child that from his infancy had bin tormented miserably by a Devil for which having sought help every way but finding none no not from Christ's Disciples at last he repairs to him himself beseeching him to have compassion on him and if he were able to relieve him To whom Christ replies that if he could believe then he could work the miracle and help his child all things being possible to be don for him that could believe but nothing otherwise whereupon strait way the father of the child cried out and said with tears Lord I believe help thou my unbelief In which words we have first the necessary Qualification that is to make all that had ever heard of Christ capable of having any benefit from Christ that is belief in him I believe And since Christ hath made this qualification absolutely necessary and by consequence must be suppos'd to have provided means sufficient to work in us that belief that he requires so peremtorily we shall then In the second place enquire how it comes to pass that they so often fail that men do either not believe or their Faith is so weak that much unbelief do's mix with it as in our Confessor here in the Text who tho he did profess he did believe yet withal acknowledges his unbelief And thirdly to prevent and remedy all that here is discovered whither we are to betake our selves for help and where alone 't is possible to find it and that is Christ himself who alone is able to repair in us whatever degree of true belief is wanting in us Lord help thou my unbelief and how he do's repair it And fourthly when it is repair'd to that due height what that degree is can make us capable of those benefits which he hath promis'd to bestow on true Believers and whether such believers can say with our man here I believe yet say too Help my unbelief First of
the first the qualification believe which is absolutely necessary to make men capable of any benefits from Christ. For in all benefits of this kind the Text mentions such as were to come by miracle 't is well known what St Matthew says of Nazareth his own country that he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief c. 13. 58. St Mark expresses it that he could there do no mighty work c. 6. 5. that is he could not be inclined to work them so as that he could or would be willing to do any saving that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk and healed them For tho signs are not as St Paul says for believers but for them that believe not 1. Cor. 14. 22. so that infidelity seems rather prerequir'd to them than belief since they are don on purpose to convince work men to the Faith on which account some were always wrought first where he was not known to raise mens opinions and expectations concerning him which if they were heeded so that they did work some but beginnings of Belief he us'd to add more to encrease that Faith and confirm it But where the first Essays were ineffectual and got no credit there he did forbear for such render'd themselves unworthy of them altogether Miracles were lost upon them not attaining that end which they were intended for which was not for compassion to their sick to to heal or their dead to raise them for then as St Chrysostome observes he would have cur'd or rais'd them all but was for their Conviction to make faith of the Divinity of his Person and Doctrine and prevail with them to give themselves up to him as to the Messiah and therefore all those who by the knowledg or the fame of his great works were drawn to come to him for help he still requires profession of the faith they had concerning him and just according to the measures of that faith so he dispenses aid Thus Matt. 9. 28. the blind men that cried after him and followed him for sight he asks believe ye that I am able to do this and when they affirm'd yea Lord he yeilds no more but this according to your faith be it unto you v. 29. But when the Canaanitish woman did believe even to importunacy and trouble and her faith was such as would neither be shaken nor receive repulse but was full proof against Christ's arguments and his seeming reproches yea made use of his upbraidings urg'd them to her own advantage and in spight of all resistance persever'd Christ could not then contain but cried O woman great is thy faith be it unto thee even as thou wilt Matt. 15. 28. And on the other side as while Peter's courage seeing Christ his master walking towards them upon the water made him desire to meet him on the water too accordingly it suited while he did resolvedly obey his Master and rely on his assistance that commanded him he was sustain'd that confidence did buoy him up but when a turbulent strong wind once shook his faith when he began to fear and then to doubt immediatly he sunk Matt. 14. 30. And all the reason in the world that when he doubted whether Christ would or were able to uphold him in obeying him tho he had present experiment of both he should be then left to himself when in the height of the success and the securities of miracles he was afraid and stagger'd since 't was the whole design of miracles and by consequence of that to work faith and it is the very essence also of faith to assure us of God's power and his readiness to perform whatever he hath promis'd howsoever difficult It was this very faith that gave denomination and acceptance to the Father of the Faithful for when Abraham was bid to offer up that Son in whom he had receiv'd the promises that he should be the Father of many Nations that faith by which against hope he believ'd in hope that it would come to pass and staggering not consider'd neither difficulty rather natural impossibility of what was promis'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor was curious to satisfy himself or indeed examin how it should or could be as if he would model God's performances or his own expectation by the measuress of his comprehension of the means and method but accounting God was able if all other methods fail'd to raise him up from death altho he had no instance of that power Heb. 11. 19. and being fully perswaded that what he had promised he was able also to perform therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness Rom. 4. 21 22. Now as this faith that God was able was that faith which made Abraham approved and the like faith in Christ we see was that which made them capable of his miraculous assistances so those cures and miracles being emblems and indeed pledges of that greater cure that far more comprehensive miracle he undertook and came to work on mankind the healing of their bodies not onely shadowing out the healing of their souls but also restitution of sight to the blind movement to the lame and the like being partial essaies of that Resurrection which he promis'd that was to restore all those to all at once giving life to the dead the like assurance of his power and readiness to do all this together with a full trust in him that whatever difficulties we encounter or imagin yet in the performance of his promises he will never fail those who seek after and pursue them in the ways that he hath chalk'd out to arrive at them This faith I say is the first qualification that can make us capable of benefit by him indeed as 't is the first so 't is the most intimate and onely active Principle of all Obedience Religion and Virtue For when all impressions both of God himself of good and evil and their after-recompence were defac'd and tho the lineaments of these things were wrought into men in their making and the study of Philosophy had refresh'd the dying images yet an inundation of corruption and debauchery had overspread all so far as that Almighty God did think it needful that his Son should be incarnated to revele again our duty and teach virtue and to give us an example of it in his practice even in the most severe and fatal instances and after having suffer'd for it and by that means ransom'd us from suffering for transgressing of our duty then to rise again and ascend into Glory to assure the blessed recompences of Religion and Obedience and the infinitely miserable returns of impiety and vice if after all we either shall so far abhor the duty as that we renounce these glorious obligations to it turn away from the very proposal of all those advantages that are to crown it and defy that ransom paid for them disbelieve all count them dreams cheats or illusions or however if we cannot satisfy our selves that those rewards
some men made this reliance or dependance trust or faith our whole condition of the Covenant But tho 't is true the Covenant does require some disposition in us that we also may be trusted for those that are not faithful to him cannot have faith in him for us he knows our needs he knows our hearts too and if they be false he sees it and the trust is broken on both sides such hearts cannot trust him for it is impossible that one can trust upon another if he know that other does discern that he is false to him for he knows that he is not in condition to be dealt with by the rules of trust Yet the sincere and honest-hearted person may cast all his care there Faith does his work and he knows well whom he hath believed The sum is this however grievous Sinner one hath bin if he return and with intire submission to God's will become faithful to him and assure his own heart towards him he may commit himself and all his Spiritual and Eternal interests with all assurance absolutely into his hands and his temporal so far as they shall be succesful in all cases except those wherein God sees it necessary for his more advantage to determin otherwise All his concerns too for Religion he may put into the same safe hands with all assurance for God will never destroy his own Religion if it do not change first vitiate and put out it self And in whatever Judgments God at any time shall bring upon the publick he may perfectly assâ—re himself that whatsoever happens shall be for good to him for how sad soever the necessity be he knows both it and how to remedy it and is able and hath said he will he is true and just and faithful in his promises it is his very Nature that he cannot change or fail him and how desperate soever his condition seem here that state is God's opportunity and that time his set time and depending on him is yet a further engagement to him Yet in all this I have said very little all these grounds for trust reliance the old Covenant afforded Thus far the Jew knew whom he had believ'd but sure the Christian knows more comfortably hath more cause to trust on God as on the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And certainly we may rely upon that Father that he will deny us nothing who denied ns not his son 'T is St Pauls argument Rom. 8. 32. He that spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all how shall he not with him also freely give us all things We may resign our selves into his hands that lov'd us at these rates and cannot but be confident as the Apostle was v. 38 39. that neither death nor life nor Angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which he hath to us in and thro Christ our Lord and Savior or shall hinder him from preserving and delivering us in and from the hopes and fears the terrors and allurements of them all the temtations that either fear of death or hope of life or malice of the Devil and his Angels or of Principalities or powers whether earthly Potentates or infernal or distresses present or to come or heights of honor or depths of disgrace may assault us with How can these hinder when sin could not hinder Or what possibly can separate when God chose to be divided as it were from his own Son rather than any thing should separate him from the love of man And then what may we not expect from this the Eternal Son of God who became one of us that so he himself suffering by being temted might be able to succour them that are temted Heb. 2. 18. Able to succour Sure he could have don it ere he took upon him weak flesh being God Almighty he was not less able when he was Omnipotent yet being when he was made man himself afflicted having the experience of our infirmities in all points temted like as we are he is enabled to be much more sensibly compassionate and toucht with the feeling of our weak condition which himself felt so the ability which he hath gain'd is the Omnipotency of kindness One would have thought indeed it had bin large enough before when to shew mercy to us seem'd more dear to him and more considerable than to enjoy Divinity when he emtied himself of this that he might be qualified for the other How infinitely willing then was he to be compassionate to us when he takes flesh to learn to be compassionate How desirous was he to succour us who lays down Heaven and glory above and life here below that he might be able to succour us To whom can we betake our selves for mercy with such confidence as him who made himself like one of us that he might be a merciful High-Priest to expiate and make reconciliation We that are the sheep of his pasture what hands can we possibly resign our Souls into with such assurance as to those of this Bishop and Shepherd of our Souls this good Shepherd who not onely seeks the lost sheep that is run away but who also lays down his life for his sheep 10. 15. And what may not his poor Church depend upon him for who purchased to himself his Church with his own bloud What design can he have to fail us possibly who would be crucified for us In a word if one that for us men and for our Salvation would come down from Heaven be incarnate and made man a man of sorrows and afflictions and would suffer want shame and reproches agonies a Cross a bitter passion and a cruel death for us and who is sat down on the right hand of Majesty and Power hath all power in Heaven and Earth the keys of Death and Hell in whom all the promises of God are yea and Amen faithful and true faithful to immutability Jesus Christ yesterday to day and the same for ever if I say he that is all this can be trusted we know whom we have believed And now I have no more to do but onely ask whether we are assur'd of any other whom on more or safer grounds we have or may believe I will upbraid none with that Irony which Eliphas insults on Job with c. 5. 1. Call now see if there be any that will answer thee and to which of the Saints wilt thou turn thee There are that do with all the evidence imaginable of a strong confidence and chearful hopes to speed in doing so pour out their needs their whole Souls to a fancied or it may be true Saint whom they have adopted as the object of their invocation which it seems they cannot do so feelingly with such a close and intimate dependance with such comfortable expectations upon Christ himself Now I would onely put the question of f
it would A setled tendency a resolv'd inclination to sin that presseth with its utmost agitation is that weight which though it may perchance be stop'd in its career yet it tends to the Abysse its center and will not rest but in that Pit that hath nor rest nor bottom the Heart in this case is as liable as it can be because here it hath done its worst and such a Will shall be imputed to its self And now I need not tell those who are still designing sin or mischief in the heart although it never dares come out of those recesses how far they are removed from the goodness of God to Israel A Father finds a way to prove such souls have larger doses of Gods Vengeance who when he had asserted that the soul does not die with the body and then was ask'd what it did in that long interval for sure it is not reasonable that it should be affected with any anticipations of the future Judgment because the business of the day of Judgment should be reserved to its own day without all prelibation of the sentence and the restitution of the Flesh is to be waited for that so both soul and body may go hand in hand in their Recompences as they did in their demerits joynt Partners in the Wages as they were in the Works To this he answers The Soul does not divide all its operations with the Body some things it acts alone and if there were no other cause it were most just the Soul should there receive without the Body the dues of that which here it did commit without the Body That 's for the former sort of sins those meerly of the Heart And for the latter sort the Soul is first engaged in the commission that does conceive the sin lays the design of compassing and does contrive and carry on the machination and then why should not that be first in Punishment which is the first in the Offence Go now and reckon that thy outward gross Transgressions are the only dangerous and guilty ones and slight thy sins of Heart but know that while thy flesh is sleeping in the quiet Grave at rest and ease thy Spirit then 's in Torments sor thy Fleshes sins and feels a far severer Worm than that which gnaws thy Body Poor Soul Eternity of Hell from Resurrection to For-ever is not enough to punish it all that while it must suffer with the Body but it must have an age of Vengeance besides particularly for it self to plague it for those things it could not execute and punish it for what it did not really enjoy only because it did allow it self to desire and contrive them and it must be tormented for those unsatisfied desires And though indeed desires where they are violent if they be not allayed by satisfaction are but so much agony yet do they merit and pull on them more these Torments shall be plagued and the soul suffer for its very passion even from Death to the last Judgment and 't is but just that being it usurp'd upon the pleasures and the sins of Flesh it should also seize on and take possession of the Vengeance appointed for those sins it should invade and should usurp their condemnation But why do I stand pressing aggravations against uncleanness of Heart in an Age when God knows Vice hath not so much modesty or fear to keep within those close and dark restraints Instead of that same Cleanness which the Text requires we may find Purity indeed of several sorts but 't is either pure Fraud or pure Impiety the one of these does make a strange expression very proper pure Corruption for so it is sincere and without mixture nothing but it self no spots of Clean to chequer it but all stain The other is pure white indeed but it is that of whited Sepulcres a Life as clean as Light a bright pure Conversation but it shines with that light onely which Satan does put on when he transforms himself into an Angel of Light and it is but a glory about a fiend But yet this shines however whereas others do stand Candidates of Vice and would be glorious in wickedness and that is such a splendor as if Satan should dress himself with the shine of his own flaming Brimstone and make himself a glory with the streamings of his Lake of Fire And yet thus is the World we do not onely see men serve some one peculiar vicious inclination and cherish their own wickedness but they make every Vice their own as if the Root of bitterness branch'd out in each sort of Impiety in them such fertile soyls of sin they are here insincerity were to be wish'd and where there is not cleanness that there were a Mask that there were the Religion of Hypocrisie We may remember God was good to Israel of old by Obligation and performance the one as great as he could enter the other great to Miracle and astonishment when after seventy years Captivity and Desolation he did rebuild a Temple where there was no Monument of its Ruines and raised a Nation and Government of which there was no Reliques And yet at last when the Religion of some turned into Faction of others into Prophaneness when the strictest Sect of them the Pharisees became most holy outwardly to have the better means 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to mischief those that were not of their Party and got a great opinion of Sanctity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so as to be believed in whatsoever they did speak against the King or chief Priests and that so far as to be able openly to practise against both and raise Commotions They are Josephus's words of them and when another Sect the Zelots the most pernicious of all saith Bertram did commit Murders Sacriledg Prophanations and all kind of Villanies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with good Intentions saith the same Josephus and when those who did not separate into Sects but were the Church of Israel became lukewarm supine and negligent in their Profession yea and licentious and Prophane fit only to be joyned with Publicans in Christs expressions when sin grew generally Impudent when they did live as if they would be Scandalous as well as vicious as if they lov'd the guilt as much as the delights of sin and cared not to be wicked to themselves but must debauch as if they did enjoy the ruine of other persons sinning just as the Devil does who does not taste the sin but feasts upon the Sinners Condemnation Then did God execute a Vengeance whose prediction was fit to be mistaken for that of the Day of Judgment and whose event almost fulfill'd the terrors of that day I need not draw resemblances shew how Gods goodness to our Israel does equal that to them applying to our selves their Raptures how when the Lord turned the Captivity of our Sion we also were like them that dream surprized with Mercy Indeed as in a Dream Ideas
it self in the sackcloth and neglected rudenesses of a pious penitent sorrow The prides of this side Hell are of a different garb I 'm sure if theirs be such if they design by those just means to settle the inheritance of Heaven in their Families sure the vices of Hell may be fit patterns for our Religious performances and 't were to be desired that all Christians had this mans ardencies and flames in their affections to their Houses Yet neither can I from this one particular instance draw any general proposition concerning the kindness of that place to Sinners upon Earth although all those that make this History not Parable would give me colour for it But waving that since Christ hath so framed the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is a relation of such words as they would have spoke had they spoke on this occasion I shall take that as ground enough to apply it to the conviction of those who are so far from these Charitable designs to the Souls of others that they contrive nothing more than how to have the company of their Friends in those ways that lead to this place of Torment prevail with them to join in sinning and shew a Vice how to insinuate into them The kindnesses of our man here in the flames were divine God like Charities compared to these Our Saviour says Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones for I say unto you that in Heaven their Angels do always behold the Face of my Father which is in Heaven Matth. xviii 10. Which one expounds if we neglect to do what is in our power to preserve the meanest Christians from Vice and sleight their sinning their Tutelary Angels that have continual recourse to God and are high in his favour will make complaints of us in their behalf at least they will if we offend them and any action of ours prove an occasion of their sins And if a favourite of Heaven shall accuse us to the Lord for that Then how will he complain of us when we tempt when he shall have to say against us that we have ensnared and drawn such a Soul into a Custom that will ruin it eternally and when he shall bring against us an instance out of Hell here and the kindnesses of one among the Devils shall come in Judgment against us where we see the Rich Man thought not of his own condemnation so much he thought of the averting that of his Brethren We might suppose a man in his condition could not consider any thing but his own Tortures O yes to preserve others from them yet when the man in Hell does so the men on Earth do think of nothing more than to entice others into them And is it not a strange Age then when to tempt is the onely mode of kindness and men do scarcely know how to express themselves civil to their Friends but by pressing them to sin and so be sick with them as if this were the gentile use of Societies to season Youth into good Company and bring the Fashionable Vices into their acquaintance And 't is well if they stay there it happens so that Parts and Wit Faculties and Acquisitions do ingratiate men into these treacherous kindnesses and qualifie them for the desires and friendships of such persons as entertain them by softning them into loosness and then into prophaneness debauch their manners and then their Principles teach them to sport themselves with Vice and then with Holy things and after with Religion it self which is a greater Luxury than that their Riots treat their Appetites withal the Luxury of Wit And thus they educate them into Atheism and these familiar Devils are call'd Acquaintances and Friends And indeed the Companions in sin a man would think should be dear Friends such as pour an heart into one another in their common Cups shed Souls in their Lusts are friends to one another even in ruin and love to their own Condemnation are kind beyond the Altar-flames even to those everlasting fires such communications certainly cement affections so that nothing can divide them And let them do so but Lord send me the kindness of Hell rather one that will be a friend like this man in his Torments that with unsatisfied cares minded the reformation of his Friends Nay Father Abraham but if one went unto them from the dead they will repent which brings me to the Choice the second thing If a Ghost should indeed appear to any of us in the midst of our Commissions it would certainly hurry us from our Enjoyments and there are no such ties unions by which the advantages of sin do hold us fix'd and jointed to them but the shake and tremble we should then be in would loosen and dissolve them all and make us uncling from them if we may believe discourses that tell us such a sight is able to startle a man however he be fix'd by his most close Devotions for what the Jews were wont to say we shall die because we have seen an Angel of the Lord from Heaven most men do fear if they should see the Spirit of a dead man from the Earth Indeed the affrights which men do usually conceive at the meer apprehension of such an Apparition do probably arise from a surprise in being minded hastily of such a state for which they are not then prepared so as they would wish or hope to be to which they think that is a Call for we shall die said the Jews But not to ask the reason of this now but find the reason why our Rich Man thinks when Moses and the Prophets cannot make a man repent such a Ghost should We have it in ver 28 they do but discourse to us but one from the dead could testifie he could bear witness that it is so as they say speak his own sight and knowledg and therefore though they hear not Moses and the Prophets yet if one went unto them from the dead they will repent For First One from the Dead could testifie that when we die we do not cease to be and he would make appear that our departing hence is not annihilation and so would dash the hopes of Epicures such as I was and I may fear they are who as they live like Beasts do think to die so too and who are rational in this alone that they desire to be but Animal And all the rest of men whether worldly or sensual that enclose their desires and enjoyments within this life and above all the Atheist that dares not look beyond it all these would be convinc'd by such an evidence Indeed this would take away the main encouragement of all ungodliness which upon little reasonings how thin soever that there 's no life after this does quicken and secure it self Wisd. 2. and therefore every Sect of men that did prescribe Morality did teach an after life nothing was more believ'd among the Heathen Their Tribunal below where three most
all that does pretend to God or Vertue in him Where 't is thus let no man flatter or persuade himself he does what he would not when it is plain he does impetuously will the doing it Let him not think that he allows not but hates that which he does when it is certain in that moment that he does commit not to allow that which he does resolve and pitch upon and chuse to hate what with complacency he acts or to do that unwillingly which he is wrought on by his own Concupiscence to do and by his inward incitations by the mutiny of his own affections which the Devil raises and when it is the meer height and prevailency of his appetite that does make him do it as it must be where there is reluctancy before he do it his desires and affections there are evidently too strong for him or at last to hate the doing that which 't is his too much love to that makes him do are all impossibilities the same things as to will against the will desire against appetite But do but keep thy self sincerely and in truth from being willing and thou must be safe For God expects no more but that we should not voluntarily yield to our undoing He hath furnish'd us with his own compleat Armour for no farther uses of a War but to encourage us to stand Take unto you the whole Armour of God that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the Devil And again Put ye on the whole Armour of God that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand There is no need to do more than this not to be willing and consent to fall for no man can be beaten down but he that will fall It were very easie for me to prescribe you how to fortifie against those Engines of the Devils battery which I produced to you But that I may not stay upon particulars directing those whom he prevails upon through want of Imployment to find out honest occasions not to be idle and sure it is the most unhappy thing in the World for any man to be necessitated to be vicious by his having nothing else to do and because while the World accounts it a Pedantick thing to be brought up by Rules and under Discipline he cannot learn how to imploy himself to his advantage to pass by these I say the universal strength against this Enemy is Faith Your adversary the Devil like a roaring Lion goeth up and down seeking whom he may devour whom resist stedfast in the Faith And that not onely as it frustrates all that he attempts by means of Infidelity but it also quenches all his fiery darts whatsoever bright Temptation he presents to draw us from our Duty or whatever fiery trial he makes use of to affright and martyr with For the man whose Faith does give him evidence and eye-sight of those blessed Promises eye hath not seen and gives substance present solid being to his after-hopes and whose heart hath swallowed down those happy expectations which have never entred in the heart of man to comprehend what is there that can tempt or fright him from his station To make all that which Satan gave the prospect of prevail on such a Soul the Kingdoms of the Earth must out-vie Gods Kingdom and their Gauds out-shine his Glory and the twinkling of an eye seem longer than Eternity For nothing less than these will serve his turn all these are in his expectations Or what can fright the man whose heart is set above the sphere of terrours who knows calamity how great soever can inflict but a more sudden and more glorious blessedness upon him and the most despiteful cruel usage can but persecute him into Heaven 'T is easie to demonstrate that a Faith and Expectation of the things on Earth built upon weaker grounds than any man may have for his belief of things above hath charg'd much greater hazards overcome more difficulties than the Devil does assault us with For sure none is so Sceptical but he will grant that we have firmer grounds to think there is another World in Heaven than Columbus if he were the first Discoverer had to think there was another Earth and that there are far richer hopes laid up there in that other World for those that do deny themselves the sinful profits and the jollities of this and force them from their inclinations than those Sea-men could expect who first adventur'd with him thither For they could not think to gain much for themselves but onely to take soism of the Land if any such there were for others covetous Cruelty could get little else but only richer Graves and to lie buried in their yellow Earth Nor are we assaulted in our Voyage with such hazards as they knew they must encounter with the path of Vertue and the way to Heaven is not so beset with difficulties as theirs was when they must cut it out themselves through an unknown new World of Ocean where they could see nothing else but swelling gaping Death from an Abyss of which they were but weakly guarded and removed few inches onely And as if the dangerousest shipwrecks were on shore they found a Land more savage and more monstrous than that Sea Yet all this they vanquish'd for such slender hopes and upon so uncertain a belief A weak Faith therefore can do mighty works greater than any that we stand in need of to encounter with our Enemy It can remove these Mountains too the golden ones that Covetousness and Ambition do cast up Yea more it can remove the Devil also for if you resist him stedfast in the Faith he flies which is the happy issue and my last Part. Resist the Devil and he will Fly from you And yet it cannot be denied but that sometimes when the messenger of Satan comes to buffet though S. Paul resist him with the strength of Prayer which when Moses managed he was able to prevail on God himself and the Lord articled with him that he might be let alone yet he could not beat off this assailant 2 Cor. xii 7 8 9. When God either for prevention as 't was there v. 7. or for exercising or illustrating of Graces or some other of his blessed ends gives a man up to the assaults of Satan he is often pleased to continue the temptation long but in that case he does never fail to send assistances and aids enough against it My grace is sufficient for thee â—aith he to S. Paul there And when he will have us tempted for his uses if we be not failing to our selves he does prevent our being overcome so that there is no danger in those Trials from their stay But yet it must not be denied but that the Devil does prevail sometimes by importunacy and by continuance of Temptation so that Resistance is not always a Repulse at least not such an one as to make
in He becomes something without a body and above the Earth who for a preparative must be taken up to Paradise and call'd from all commerce and all intelligence with his own body Saint Paul was call'd from Heaven to preach the Gospel but he was call'd to Heaven to qualifie him for this higher separation to an Apostle and Church-Governour And now you see your calling Holy Fathers And to pass by such obvious unconcerning observations as at first sight follow that those who are not qualified are not call'd I shall only take notice hence of the counter-part of this call the charge God takes upon him when he calls to this charge and that is he owns and will protect whom himself calls 'T was that he promised to the Founder and God of your Order I the Lord have call'd thee and I will hold thine hand and I will keep thee Isai. 42. 6. And when he said of Cyrus I have call'd him he said also be shall make his way prosperous Isai. 48. 15. And so he shall be the way what it will for thus he said to Jacob I have called thee when thou goest through the Water I am with thee and through the rivers they shall not overflow thee Isai. 43. 1 2. There was Experience of all this in one of the chief Princes of your Order when the Apostles were scarce safe within their Ship they were so toss'd with waves and fears yet if our Lord will call him Peter is confident he shall be safe even in the Sea Lord if it be thou bid me come unto thee on the Water saith he and the Lord did but call him and he went down and walked on the water safely As if the swelling billows did only lift themselves to meet his steps and raise him up from sinking And when his own doubts which alone could were neer drowning him and he but call'd the Lord immediately he stretched out his hand and caught him He answers his call if we answer ours if we obey when he says come then will he come and save when we call to him And so Peter receiv'd no hurt but a rebuke O thou of little faith why didst thou doubt couldst thou imagin I would not sustein thee in the doing what I bid thee do In answering my call But why seek we experience of so old a date There is a more encouraging miracle in these late calls themselves Had God sustein'd the Order in its Offices and dignities amidst those waves that rack'd the Church of late it had been prodigy of undeserved Compassion to our Nation But whenas all was sunk to bid the Sea give up what it had swallowed and consumed this is more than to catch a sinking Peter or to save a falling Church The work of Resurrection is emphatically call'd the working of God's mighty power and does out-sound that of his ordinary conservation And truly 't was almost as easie to imagination how the scattered Atomes of mens dust should order themselves and reunite and close into one flesh as that the parcels of our Discipline and Service that were lost in such a wild confusion and the Offices buried in the rubbish of the demolisht Churches should rise again in so much order and beauty Stantia non poterant tect a probare Deum This calling of the Spirit is like that when the Spirit moved upon the face of the abyss and call'd all things out of their no-seeds there or like the call of the last Trump Thus by the miraculous mercies of these calls God hath provided for our hopes and warranted our faith of his protections yet he hath also sent us more security hath given us a Constantine if his own be not a greater Name and more deserving of the Church for which it is well known to some he did contrive and order when he could neither plot nor hope for his own Kingdom and did with passion labour a succession in your Order when he did not know how to lay designs for the Succession of himself or any of his Fathers house to his own Crown and Dignity Nor is the secular arm all your security God himself hath set yet more guards about his consecrated ones he hath severe things for the violaters of them Moses the meekest man upon the Earth that in his life was never angry but once at the rebellious seems very passionate in calling Vengeance on those that stir against these holy Offices Smite through the loins of all that rise against them and of them that hate them that they rise not again The loins we know are the nest of posterity so that strike through the loins is stab the succession destroy at once all the posterity of them that would cut off this Tribe and hinder its Succession Nor was this Legal Spirit Gospel is as severe Those in Saint Jude that despise these Governours that do as Corah and his Complices did who gathered themselves against Moses and Aaron and said You take too much upon you ye Sons of Levi since all the Congregation is holy every one of them and the Lord is among them wherefore then lift you up your selves above the Congregation of the Lord words these that we are well acquainted with and which it seems St. Jude looks on as sins under the Gospel these perish in the gainsaying of Core whom God would not prepare for punishment by death but he and his accomplices went quick into it He would not let them stay to dye but the Lord made a new thing to shew his detestation of this sin and the Earth swallow'd it in the Commission and all that were alli'd and appertain'd to them that had an hand in it And truly they may well expect strange recompences who do attempt so strange a Sacrilege as to pull stars out of Christ's own right hand From whence we have his word that no man shall be able to pluck any but if they shine thence on their Orbs below and convert many to righteousness their light shall blaze out into glory and they shall ever dwell at his right hand To which right hand He that brought again from the dead the Lord Jesus that great Shepherd and Bishop of the Sheep and set him there He also bring you our Pastors and us your flock with you and set us with his sheep on his right hand To whom with the same Jesus and the Holy Ghost be ascribed all blessing honour glory and power from henceforth for ever Amen A SERMON PREACHED AT HAMPTON-COURT ON The Twenty Ninth of May 1662. Being the Anniversary of His Sacred Majesties Most happy Return BY RICHARD ALLESTRY D. D. and Chaplain to His MAJESTY LONDON Printed by John Playford in the Year 1683. TO THE Right Honourable EDWARD Earl of CLARENDEN Lord high Chancellour of England and Chancellour of the University of Oxford My LORD TO vouch your Lordships commands for the publishing this Discourse I might