unto his voyce Nor indeed can we seek God in any other path The broad way that goes down the hill can never land us in God's Habitation Heaven and while we do go on in them it is not possible we should draw near to God the second which is but to go on in the same paths And this expression is our own experience it being the custom of those that are averse to one another to avoid the sight one of the other but those that are friendly to seek each other and delight in drawing near and in society Thirdly then to come to him must needs be to proceed in those very ways wherein we sought him till we are in his favor and to walk with him is accordingly to please him for so the LXX renders Enoch's walking with God and the Author of the Hebrews c. 11. v. 5. expresses that testimony which the Scripture gives of Enoch that he walked with God and which the Chaldee words he walkt in the fear of God thus he received the testimony that he pleased God and that very walking is the same word with this coming 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and here also made the same for v. 6. of that chapter Without faith it is impossible to please him for he that cometh must believe that is certainly for he that pleaseth him must believe or else it doth not prove To walk with God therefore in his Laws in his fear and in his favor it is but the progress and the life of this very thing we are here exhorted to come unto him Now if this be to come to God and coming to him be the end of duty thither we drive in our whole Pilgrimage of life and piety to arrive at our Countrey to come to our Fathers house to walk with God to enjoy his society is the very business and delight of Heaven Why then this duty of conversion and obedience this piety of life seems like its own reward crowns it self This coming is like that they say of the moving of the Heavens which being in its own place tho it be still in motion is still in termino every parcel of agitation is its own rest and they have a most perfect acquiescency in that their turbination And if to lead a good life be to walk with God it is to be in heaven here and piety is a translation upon earth But secondly there is yet another sense of the invitation Come unto me and in that sense it is very often used by our Savior even of believing in him John 6. 35. I am the bread of life he that cometh to me shall never hunger and he that believeth on me shall never thirst Where he that cometh shall never hunger is he that eateth this bread that giveth life and he that believeth shall never thirst is he that drinâ—eth to let us see that eating him and drinking him coming to him and believing on him are all the same So in v. 40. and 44. This is the will of him that sent me that every one that seeth the Son and believeth on him should have everlasting life and I will raise him up at the last day No man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him So c. 7. 37 38. If any man thirst let him come unto me and drink He that believes on me out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water So that to come to Christ is to believe in him yet so as to obey him and to frame our lives according to his prescript and example For to come to him doth comprehend the duty we come to him to do as also to believe in him must be to do that which we cannot but believe he requires This is clear out of the forecited place I am the bread of life he that cometh to me shall never hunger It is not coming to the bread that satisfies for then would Tantalus no longer hunger or be thirsty his hell would be his meal but doing that which people that hunger and come to bread cannot but be suppos'd to do even to eat Why the same is to believe for if coming to him and believing on him be the same and coming to him signify not onely that but doing that which they that come cannot but be supposed to come to do then to believe must be besides believing the doing that also which they cannot but believe they ought to do So that come to me here is believe me devote your selves to my obedience and trust and devolve your selves on me And if this be to come to him belief then is no longer expectation but enjoiment 't is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the highest sense the giving us the very substance of those things which we believe we shall receive it seems more than the evidence of things not seen even the arrival at them and vision of them 'T is saith the Wise Man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the beginning of our cleaving to him of our being glued and fixed upon him Ecclesiasticus 25. 12. And by faith we may both tast and see how gracious the Lord is how 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word following here how sweet how pleasant he is even to the eye and palate If to believe be to arrive to eat and drink Faith is now all sense as verily as Christ is all enjoiment all satisfaction and happiness And to this happines they that labor and are heavy laden are the onely persons that are called which is the third thing to shew how this laboring and heavy lading come to be the qualification for this Invitation how it come to pass that they that are such are the onely fit ones to come to Christ. And first in the first sense as all those words do but signify the grievous Sinner These sins may in one sense given by Christ be a qualification to this coming because the whole need not the Physitian but those that are sick Do not wounds require and qualify for a Chirurgeon The corrupt habitual Sinner is full of wounds and swellings and putrified sores Does not weariness and burdens dispose a man for ease and rest The Sinner he is the tired laden man he therefore hath the most need of this Invitation which makes our Savior say I came to call Sinners which is no more than saying I came to say Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden And hence we learn the all-abundant kindness of our mercifull Savior he needs no other motive for his helping of us but our want of help thou dost fulfill his own direction when thou makest a feast invite not the rich but the poor and needy So here he makes the onely cause of his invitation of us Sinners our necessity Except he do invite us we are miserable must sink under a perpetual burden and therefore he will call us to give us rest David was well acquainted with
the disturbance of his Faith as I declar'd convincing it that conscience is not to accuse or else excuse but by the measures of sincerity or insincerity in known real duty not from the events or dispensations of God's providence on one side nor on the other in little things wherein there is no Law to guide us and which onely prejudice or seduction can make doubtful assuring us the Kingdom of God is not meat and drink indifferent rites but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost Rom. 14. 17. Thus as St Paul says Heb. 6. 4. they that have tasted of the heavenly gift the comfort of the pardon of their sins and consequent to that the peace of Conscience and v. 5. tasted of the good word of God and of the powers of the world to come have intimate experimental relish of the Gospel-promises those powers of heaven those omnipotent forces God hath prepar'd to cast down every reasoning or imagination that should rise against the Christian Doctrine and bring every thought to the obedience of it 2 Cor. 10. 5. All which are said to be effected there in them who had bin made partakers of the Holy Ghost By these means therefore he enflames the Will sets it all on fire with ardent love to God and his rewards and consequently to his service in all the works of Piety and Virtue and endued with firm and setled resolutions of adhering to him in faithful constant practice of all this And thus Christ by his Spirit as he was the Author the Beginner of the faith by which he is stil'd Heb. 12. 2. so by the same he is the Finisher and the completer of it He was the Author as that Testimony which the Spirit gave by miracles did evince the infallible certainty and the Divinity of the doctrine to the world for the Spirit is said to bear witness to it by those signs and wonders Heb. 2. 3. and those signs are called the demonstration of the Spirit 1 Cor. 2. 4. that which did irrefragably prove and demonstrate all the Doctrine of the Gospel and make certain Faith of it and in this sense it is that Faith is truly said to be resolv'd into the testimony of the Spirit So also by the same he is the Finisher by the graces the preventings and excitings overshadowings and assistings of that Spirit working in us as we shew'd a firm sincere adherence to that Faith and the obedience of it which when it is wrought Faith hath attain'd that height and in that degree that is to make us capable of those benefits which Christ hath promis'd to bestow on true believers The last thing I was to shew and withal whether such Believers in that true degree can say with our man here Lord I believe yet say too help my unbelief Faith as the Son of Syrach does define it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the principle of cleaving to God that which knits joints us to him and St Paul saith as much when he makes the formality of an evil heart of unbelief to consist in departing from the living God and to Faith by which the just must live opposes drawing back slinking away for fear of danger or affliction Heb. 10. 38. So that according as that cleaving and adherency must be firm and indissoluble so we are to judge of Faith But secondly 't is certain this adherency must be without waverings James 1. 6 7. But let him ask in faith nothing wavering for let not that man him that wavers think that he shall receive any thing at the hands of God A firm and infallible assurance of God's promises a confident expectation of a grant to his petitions tho the power of Praier be almost omnipotent on that account What things soever ye desire when ye pray believe that ye receive them and ye shall have them Mark 11. 24. yet those are not meant by Faith here for the person that is bid not to expect a grant is here suppos'd to think and to be confident he shall receive it but the Praier here spoken to is for wisdom how to behave ones self in times of chance and danger or affliction for the truth's sake in these trials of his Faith v. 3. Now that he may obtain that wisdom he is bid to ask for it of God but he is also bid to ask it in faith nothing wavering i. e. he must come to God for it with firm adherence to him with dependance on him onely and a mind resolv'd whatever happens to stick fast to him and his commands and methods not to labor or accept deliverance on terms not allow'd by God and a good Conscience must not waver betwixt duty and security nor be double minded so as to apply now to Christ and Religion now to worldly carnal politics Such double minded men that have a mind to God and their duty but a mind also to safety interest or some other satisfaction are unstable are divided betwixt two not knowing which to turn to now taking one now the other do not stick to God they are not faithful It is not sound Faith where there is not a resolv'd and setled cleaving such false-hearted wavering ulcerates and gangrenes all But then thirdly where there is that firm sincere adherency to God and duty with such a dependance on him there is Faith that is effectual to the ends of Faith for this is true Faith that works and is consummated by love and that begets an efficacious Hope by that hope works out the purifying of our selves as God is pure and consequently does entitle us to see God i. e. to the beatifick Vision I know there are some who besides this certainty of adherence do require an absolute certainty of evidence affirming there is no true Faith but such as stands on a clear resolution into Principles more evident and certain than those Propositions are which are made out to us by Demonstration than any Principles of Sciences which Principles since they are more necessary than that first one that which is is and the contrary to them more impossible than for the same thing that is to be and not to be at the same time while it is by consequence they cannot but infuse greater necessity and certainty into our Faith than there is in the knowledg of those Propositions so that 't is impossible for him that is a true Believer to say Lord I believe help thou my unbelief I shall not put it to the question whether the Rule of Faith be firm and immovable or the Principle which true Belief must be resolved into is most infallible and necessary for all those which resolve their Faith into God's Revelation and that make his Word the Rule must needs assert all that and where it is affirm'd that the motives laid in second Causes by God's Providence to perswade men to embrace the faith must be such as of their own nature cannot fail to conclude points true if they mean
engage to be true and faithful to my own ruin pay allegiance to my perdition Thou hast my worship and my service by bargain and by oath I have sworn Thou art my Lord. Now all this is of much more force in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper where I do formally and knowingly seal to this Covenant and when we do this on our knees in the most solomn manner that is possible this must needs be a more express entring into Christ's oath than that there of the Jewss was the entring God's oath which was in probability onely coming and standing before the Lord to hear the Covenant which God had struck with that nation before in Horeb. Or if it were performed with Sacrifice which may seem probable in that it is exprest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that thou shouldest pass into the covenant So your Margent reads there verse the 12. alluding to their manner of confirming Covenants by dividing the beasts and setting one half against the other and passing betwixt the divisions so we see Jer. 34. 18. This is passing into the Covenant and therefore the LXX read here Deut. 29. 12. That thou shouldest enter into the Covenant of the Lord thy God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that rite of dividing and passing thro being onely the Symbol of curses against them that shall break their Covenant and imprecations in Hieroglyphicks so that in Jer. 34. 18. 't is most literally if we translate the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to their importance I will make those men that have transgressed my Covenant the calf or as the calf as the Syriac reads I will divide and separate them among the Nations and give them to the sword and cut them in pieces the ceremony signifying to be don to him that does not stand to his Covenant Now surely this is don to more advantage in the Sacrament where Christ's body is torn and his bloud poured out no doubt with the like commination implied that being the very meaning of pouring out bloud in Covenants so that we entred there the Lord's Covenant and imprecation swearing that he shall be our Lord with a most threatning sense And surely if we be not careful to observe our oath we have vow'd agonies to our selves and sworn our own condemnation when there I curse myself with all the curses of the Covenant if Christ be not my Lord. And now it will be needless for me to go on and prove that if we be not careful to fulfil the importance of this relation my Lord in order to what it requires 't will be in vain to expect the benefit of that relation in what it does import He that hath not don service as to his Lord must not look to enter into the joys of his Lord he that hath not don his will 't will be in vain for him to cry at the last day Lord Lord altho he come with never so applying Titles and cry my Lord and tho he call upon any other Title of his Jesus He died indeed for our sins but he rose again for our justification His Resurrection did entitle him to be our Lord. If he be risen to thee he is thy Lord. But these two make up the confession of a Christian Rom. 10. 9. If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved and look not for it from any other relation to him Thy Priest may sacrifice for thee but Christ thy Lord must pardon thee thy Jesus on the Cross must pay thy ransom but if the Lord make you free then are ye free indeed John 8. 36. Do not deceive thy self with looking no farther than to thy Jesus in his sufferings thou must relate to him also in his Power and Autority thou must depend upon thy Jesus dying and risen too not onely on thy Jesus on the Cross but on thy Jesus on the Throne thou must cry out My Savior and thou must cry My Lord and if thou canst in truth and in reality he is the Author of eternal salvation to all them that obey him that is he is an everlasting Savior to them to whom he is a Lord. His all Autority will be emploied in thy deliverance he will shew himself a Lord to thee onely in pardoning saying and rewarding thee and his all-power both in Heaven and Earth will be to thee Omnipotence of mercy for he that is thy Lord he is thy God also The third thing My God I must take the same method here that I us'd before First see what the Resurrection did contribute towards this Title God and what that Title does imply both as to what it doth require and as to what it imports by way of promise and encouragement Secondly see what the Sacrament contributed towards making the application My God and what that imports in order to both the other things 1. Altho this Son of God according to his Divine Nature was Everlasting God and as the Nicene Creed expresses begotten of his Father before all worlds God of God Light of Light very God of very God and was called so in Scripture John 1. 1. and the Word was God yet it is sure this person Jesus Christ was declared to be the Son of God by the resurrection from the dead Rom. 1. 4. And this text is the first place in the New Testament where this person is expresly called God Thomas upon the evidence of this Resurrection crying out I do acknowledge that thou art my very Lord and that is a most certain argument to me that thou art the Omnipotent God of Heaven and this his Resurrection did contribute to his Title God Now I enquire what this implies and that will be made clear from Deut. 26. 16 17 18 19. This day the Lord thy God hath commanded thee to do these statutes and judgments thou shalt therefore keep and do them with all thine heart and with all thy soul. Thou hast avouched the Lord this day to be thy God and to walk in his ways and to keep his statutes and his commandments and his judgments and to hearken unto his voyce And the Lord hath avouched thee this day to be his peculiar people as he hath promised thee and that thou shouldest keep all his commandments And to make thee high above all nations which he hath made in praise and in name and in honor and that thou maiest be an holy people unto the Lord thy God as he hath spoken So that you have there the certain meaning of that mutual relation My God and My People as to what it requires and so we see 't is but the same engagement that the other Title did import onely with an higher inforcement and ground of obligation and therefore God himself that by his Prophet Malachy c. 1. had used the other-argument of Master or Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 v. 6. and Governor v. 8. Offer
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
came along to them by the way of oral practical Tradition If it did 't is not a sure infallible Rule of conveying Faith if it did not then that Church did not still receive their Faith upon that Rule and Principle or by that method tho that they did so is their first great Principle and the great Master of that Scheme assur'd his Holiness it was not possible to maintain their doctrine otherwise against the subtlety of the English Hereticks And truly they that make the greatest noise amongst us now are fled to the last hold of it but that indeed it does alone protest Infallibility whether of the Church or the Succession of their doctrine by that way of practical Tradition and that is the infallible most necessary certainty of Faith But I shall say no more to this than what the grand Abettor of the Principle hath said in answer to himself objecting what was to be said to them that could not penetrate into his demonstrations see the force and evidence of that Rule and Principle and yet have that Faith that 's necessary to Salvation I shall give it you in his own words as near as I can put them into English He says there is a certainty deriv'd into the understanding of these men out of their will for since they think themselves assur'd these truths were brought down by the Church from Christ to them stand convinc't of that act this is sufficient to cause their wills firmly to adhere to them and by that adherence to repell all difficulties and objections to which curious wits are subjects And whether the man see that the Autority of the Church which he follows is of more force at least to him than particular objections in those truths or whether he thinks nothing at all of it but rests stedfast in that assent which his very ignorance caus'd 't is plain he hath a certainty of will which in its way extends it self to the Government of his whole life answerably to that his perswasion and by consequence he hath a certainty exclusive of all doubt and such as moves him to direct his actions all to God that is there is in him that Faith which worketh by love So he Now hence 't is evident by his Concessions first that there may be a saving Faith which hath not that infallible certainty arising from the motives Guide or Principle or way of Resolution And that secondly a Certainty deriv'd into the Understanding from a Will that is piously dispos'd sufficeth Thirdly that there is this certainty where the Will firmly cleaves and adheres to God relying on him with a vigorous hope and trust directing all the actions up to God and to his service and persevering in it to the life's end Now this is all that I am all this while contending for It is not by self-evident or demonstrative methods or by an infallible Guide that he provides against mens unbelief but when with preparation like our man here in the Text in weeping earnestly we betake our selves to him crying out for help and direction and applying our understanding meekly to attend his methods he disposes piously the Will to entertain the gracious blessed Proposals of the Gospel with complacency and heartiness and from conversing with the experience of them to prefer them before all worldly carnal things that used to bait our lusts ravish our hearts and carry us away from God and from our duty and it is against this unbelief in thus departing from the living God that his assistances are mainly level'd and our Praiers chiefly are to be directed For 't is most infinite madness to perswade and satisfy our selves we are of the true Church have the onely true certain Faith if yet our practices be such as set us at as great a distance from Almighty God as Hell is from Heaven and while we do commit such things 't is as impossible we can adhere to God as 't is impossible for Christ to have communion with Belial It is a Contradiction by ungodly actions to defy God and turn our backs upon and depart from him yet to cling and adhere to him 't is as I say a Contradiction to believe that we have Faith while we do not cling to and adhere but depart from him Lord help thou this our unbelief And if his grace but once dispose us to prefer the blessed expectations of a Christian he does easily prevail with us to cling to them with such certain assurances as will carry us thro all the stages of our life and duty with all chearfulness and constancy This is that certainty of Faith by which the Martyrs cleav'd to and embrac'd at once the Cross and their Religion firm in dying as believing and when with arts of torment they broke all their joynts and their limbs piece-meal scatter'd all their parts asunder tore their souls out of their bodies still they kept their Faith whole and their Tormentors could not tear one Article of their belief or Christian practice from them and when their Wills were once inflam'd with the desires and expectations of God's preparations then no other martyring flames could make them shrink Those seem'd to them but brighter Emblems of and speedier Conveyances to that Eternal Light and Glory which their Faith had given them the evidence and the first vision of they knew by them they onely did expire into Everlasting Life and Glory SERMON XIV THE CHRISTIANS LIGHT is to shine before men Matt. 5. 16. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in Heaven THE words have two parts a command and a reason of it the command Let your light shine before men the reason That they may see your good works c. The command affords to us this instruction the life of a Christian is to be fruitful and exemplary Both these are commanded not onely in the command it self but proved in the reason That they may see your good works there must therefore be works which are the fruits of virtue Yea and fruitfulness is every where requir'd by Christ and if we look upon the current of Scripture and our duty we shall find that it will not serve a Christian's turn not to bring forth ill fruit to be onely barren ground not to have vices bud and sprout within us and grow with an increase of sin but we must do good In the Parable of the Sower Matt. 13. 23. But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word and understandeth it which also beareth fruit and bringeth forth some an hundred fold We are gods Husbandry 1 Cor. 3. 9. Now is any of you satisfied with his field because it plows well and receives the seed most kindly if it bring you no increase or crop yield you no harvest No saith the Author to the Hebrews c. 6. 8. such ground is nigh to cursing Why your works they are your
him into his bowels and his bones his most substantial parts and his most necessary inwards if it leave nothing there but Curse poyson instead of marrow in the bones and in the bowels fiery indignation for water if this be the effect then if you do resolve not to obey the Text and will not love your enemy yet for your own sakes out of self-love do not execute your Enemies ill wishes on your selves and in meer spite to him make all his maledictions come to pass upon you but that blessing may not be far from you Bless them that Curse you do good to them that hate you the next part Do good If to do good mean onely those Acts of Charity that are under general precept relieve necessities help in needs and the like then it is plain anothers hate to me takes not away my obligation unless it take away his wants and the wrongs he hath done me do not render me not bound to succour him unless it put him in a state that needs no succour For if thine Enemy hunger thou must feed him if he thirst give him drink Rom. 12. 20. Yea though his hatred be to thy Religion Do good to all the Scripture says and the Father porrigat manum Jupiter accipiet If the heathen Idols that have mouths indeed but as they cannot speak so neither can they eat if they I say could hunger and did ask I would feed them and I would give their God that is the Devil if he wanted But if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifie do kindness and favours be good as that means bountiful and full of courtesies and grace be more than merciful by rule and general command which the Gospel calls righteous and truly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in 1 Tim. 3. 1. does mean a work of excellency in a state of virtue without precept and if it be here so too enmity seems to have advantage above friendship in the Gospel and brings kindness under an obligation graces and favours that in their notation and essence imploy the being free yet are not so to hatred which hath by Christs Law just pretences to them I will not be too positive in my affirmings yet from the words will offer this that if a kindness lye before me and I have no reason to deny it a man but this because he hates me I must not deny it him and if Christs reasonings do inforce the other it will cunclude this too For if we must relieve the wants of them that hate us that we may be Children of our Father who does so upon the same account we must be good and kind too to them for he is and he will scarce prove a true lawful issue of this Father who is in this unlike to him that tries and owns his progeny by these resemblances So that whatever strength of argument there is in one the other hath it And truly we have reason to believe that there is more then motive in it when first Christ hath set this principle both to himself and us with what measure you meet it shall be measured to you again Matt. 7. 2. As if the Lord had brought himself into that law of Justice with us men whatsoever ye would that others should do to you do you also to them And it be also whatsoever ye would that God should do unto you do ye also to others and Secondly when he practiseth just as the rates we do for with the froward God learns frowardness and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and is kind to the kind so Ps. 18. 25. recals a grace from him that would not do one Matt. 18. from 23. nay thirdly when he gives us leave to beg his kindnesses but just in the proportion we do ours forgive as we forgives we ask no more and praying so we undertake to have endeavoured thus assure God that we practise so and upon that score beg Now he that will forgive to the bounds of necessity but never into favour there he will stay his hand will so much serve his turn from God And can he be content with such a portion Take heed O severe man what thou dost ask when thou dost put up this petition As thou shouldest say I knew that notwithstanding we offend God constantly yet besides all the mercies of his Covenant and that 's a Covenant of Grace his kindness too is over all his works he does not only furnish our necessities but serves our pleasures and our fancies prevents us with the blessings of his goodness and watches over us and waits to be kind to us in the rescues of his providence and beyond these gives us means of Salvation more than barely sufficient the plenties of his grace the five and ten Talents the expresses of his temporal spiritual and eternal favours towards them that provoke him are as immense and as innumerable as their guilts but all these I shall rather part with then be good and do favours to him that is mine Enenmy I will nevr have any kindness for that man that hates me nor do beg any of Thee O Lord. And wouldest thou say all this to God if it were put in words at length in thy petition Or dost thou think thou dost not say as much in praying so And thou that makest so ill requests for thy own self how wilt thou pray for them that despitefully use thee and persecute thee Which is the last particular command Pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you As in this Character of Enemies Christ hath not left out any thing that does express hostility hating in heart cursing in word and persecution in deed and which to some is more provoking than a persecution despiteful usage For persecution may make them serious and look at their demerits the other only stirs their spleen and gall all which all that an enemy can speak or wish or do must be no bar to our affection So to express the unfeignedness of that he hath not left out any exercise of Love we must speak well of them but that a crafty passion may do and blessing may be but more plausible and cunning hatred We must therefore also do good to them but this a generous pride may do as knowing it more glorious to raise up a distressed adversary then to trample on him whem he is down and to make him my creature rather then my footstool All this I may do therefore yet love nothing but my vanity or my designs But when I take my Enemy into my Closet and into my heart give him a share in the petitions of my soul divide the aims and interests of my devotion to him and make my prayers concern'd in the forgiveness of his sins as of my own there 's nothing but obedience to my Saviour and the Love of my Enemy can make a man do this And truly 't is a piece of kindness that is as necessary for our selves as those that injure us
and also promise that by the grace of God they will evermore endeavor themselves faithfully to observe and keep them which they do there upon their knees whereupon that grace is pray'd for for them and they blest by those whom God hath appointed to bless in his name that so they who just then are grown able to be taught all the debaucheries of youth warm'd into the desires and the strengths of vice might have not only this check of their own vows fresh upon them but the effusions of the H. Spirit those living Rivers in the inwards as St John expresses that may quench and wash away those unclean heats 3. To express more the inviolable Sacredness of those obligations which in Baptism were entred and to let us see they were baptiz'd into the Death of Christ from the first times they did immediatly make them that were baptiz'd partakers of the Symbols of that Death For from that Sacrament they proceeded directly to the other the Lord's Supper of those that were baptiz'd after they were of age we can derive that practice quite from Justin Martyr which being don so universally to them no question gave occasion to the doing it to Infants after Baptism and then they found a text for it and made that universal also But tho that be justly chang'd yet after Confirmation we proceed to that and often we repeat the use of it now that we renew in the Lord's Supper what we did engage in Baptism when we entred the new Covenant is evident Christ calls the cup there in St Luke the new Covenant in his blood and in St Mark this is my blood 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that blood of the new Covenant The words relate to those Exod. 24. 8. where it is also said this is the blood of the Covenant for God dd seal his Covenants still with blood Whereupon neither was the first Covenant dedicated without blood Heb. 9. 18. that was its Sanction Now the Sanction of a Covenant is some Rite which being celebrated in the name of those that covenant does oblige them to stand to not to rescind the agreement which that Rite was contriv'd to do supposing that the most effectual way by imprecating mischief on the person that did break it The usual way was either killing of a beast the blood of which they pour'd out or in some Nations drank or else they did dissect and tear the victime and either swear over or pass thro between the parts by one of these significative Ceremonies implying a severe commination So be it don to him that breaks this vow And all these the Heathen who are full of the Examples seem to have deriv'd from Gods own practice who appointed Abraham to do so when he went to make a Covenant with him Gen. 15. and his meaning in such Rites he hath reveled by Jer. 34. 18 19. the men that have transgressed my Covenant even the Princes Priests and all the People that have past between the parts of the Calf 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I will make those men that Calf or as that Calf which they did cut in twain and pass between the parts thereof i. e. I will divide and separate them among the Nations For the wishes of all this that Ceremony did import But more expresly there in Exod. 24. 6. And Moses took the half of the blood and put it in the Basins for the Peoples part and half of the blood he sprinkled on the Altar as on Gods part and then he took the book of the Covenant v. 7. and read it in the audience of the People Now that Book especially in the four foregoing chapters said on Gods part what he requir'd of them and what he would do for them and the People said on their part All that the Lord hath said we will do and be obedient v. 7. Upon which undertaking on both sides Moses took the blood and sprinkled both the book and all the people Heb. 9. 19. saying this is the blood of the Covenant which the Lord hath made with you concerning these words i. e. thus both parts of you oblige your selves in figure to make good your Articles In shedding this blood on the Book the Lords indenture he for whom it is impossible to fail his word yet condescends to use this rite by which those men that covenant devote their own blood to be shed if they should fail and in its sprinkling on you all you also wish if you perform not your part which you promis'd that your own be so poured out This is shed as your type and 't is your giving earnest that your own is forfeit when you fail in your Conditions For that these wishes were imply'd all in that Ceremony and not only at the first sealing of the Covenant but meer Repetition of it when 't was only read again before and to them and their children Moses tells them All you are here this day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to pass alluding to divided Sacrifices to pass I say into the Covenant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and into the execratory oath into the imprecations which are signified in those divided Sacrifices and that Blood-shedding the Sanctions of that Covenant Now what that Blood and those divided Sacrifices were to that Covenant that Christ sacrificed his body broken and his blood shed was to ours and is therefore call'd Heb. c. 10. the Blood of the Covenant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with which it was ratified and hallowed God no more engaged in faint types in the blood of goats and calves but in the blood of God with that he ratified hallowed the new Covenant And when our Savior calls the Sacramental cup the new Covenant in his blood and the blood of the new Covenant it must have the like importance the broken bread must be as the divided Sacrifice the wine poured out the Covenant Blood by taking which we much more properly may be said to pass into the Covenant and into the oath and curses of it then the Jews were said by Moses to do so at the meer Repetition of theirs or indeed at the first making For that blood was not sprinkled on us as theirs was but drunk in we thus by our own act and deed devoting our selves to those curses if we fail yea taking earnest of them into us The sum is this Our Saviors words of this cup being the very same with those in Exodus demonstrate that this Sacrament is a renewing of our Gospel Covenant with Sacrifice The doing that is the assuming to endeavor to observe all the conditions of that Covenant with a most solemn vow or oath and under curses the tenor of those curses is Let that light on me if I fail which was inflicted on the federal Sacrifice Now that Sacrifice was Christ himself the ceremony of it was his body torn and his blood poured out in a word all those bitter agonies which we there commemorate and which that Sacrament does
them with them to that Sacrament set them at Christs table as it were to feed on that body which they crucified make them imbrue their hands in that blood which they shed And this is the return they make to that blood shed for them They bring them and their vows against them both together to the Altar and they leave their vows there but they take their Sins back with them and serve them still Now does eternal ruin look so lovely to us as that we will break thro all oaths to get at it Is 't worth the while to be at once false to God and our own blessedness Do vows so straiten us that we cannot endure the obligations to be happy In Gods name be at last more true to your own Souls consider what I say and the Lord give you understanding A SERMON OF THE PREROGATIVE OF MERCY in being the best SACRIFICE Matth. 9. 13. Go yee and learn what that meaneth I will have mercy and not sacrifice THE words are part of a reply of our Saviors to a cavilling question of the Scribes and Pharisees who seeing him converse familiarly accept the friendship of an invitation sit and eat with open noted Sinners and which was as bad a name amongst them Publicans ask his Disciples why they and their Master do what they know was forbidden and unlawful To whom having answer'd that he did converse with them only in order to their cure now a Physitian that goes to visit his sick Patients is not therefore blam'd for going to them because they are sick he further justifies himself by an account of Gods own mind and dealing set down in the Scripture of whose meaning if they had not taken notice hitherto he bids them now go learn it For God tells them by his Prophet Hosea that he prefers acts of mercy doing good to others before any Ceremonies of his Worship tho himself ordain'd them whether Sacrifices or whatever others For I will says he have mercy and not sacrifice Therefore Christ did but comply with Gods own will when he accepted of an invitation from such sinners merely to have the better opportunity to invite them to repentance and to heaven and in doing so did but preferr the acts of highest mercy in the world the doing everlasting blessed good to souls before obedience to such ritual precepts as forbad converse with the unclean and sinful I need not here observe that the negation is but comparative and means I will not have Sacrifice but Mercy rather yea I will have Mercy and not Sacrifice where I cannot have both or that by Sacrifice also is meant all Ceremonies of Gods Worship altho instituted by himself and those not taken by themselves and merely external Acts and void of the inward zeal and devotion that should spirit them but taken in their best states yet God will have works of Mercy rather And that doctrine is it seems worth learning and attending to for so in the text there is besides the proposition it self I will have mercy and not sacrifice also the insinuation of its usefulness in those words go and learn what that means I shall not break these into other parts but raise some Propositions for the subjects of my discourse And First since God compares two sorts of things here in the text and says he will have or is pleas'd with one and not the other which other yet 't is plain that he was pleas'd with and would have for he commanded them 't is evident he does imply that as these call'd here Sacrifices were grateful to him as they were obedience to his precepts so the other therefore which he does prefer to those they must be good and acceptable to him in themselves not only as they are commanded Some actions therefore have an intrinsic honesty are of themselves in their own nature morally good and well-pleasing to God as some also are the contrary 2dly Of all that are so in that manner good those of Mercy are in an especial manner such I will have mercy 3dly Of all acts of mercy those are best and most well-pleasing in Gods sight which are employ'd in reducing Sinners from their evil ways those were such our Savior is here pleading for And 4thly 'T is onely the opportunity and the design and hope of doing good to Sinners by reforming them that can make familiar converse with them excusable and lawful I mean where no duty of a relation do's oblige to it Christ himself had no other plea to justify his eating with them but that he intended it as a mercy to them as his opportunity to call them to repentance All these we see flow naturally from the words First some actions have an intrinsic honesty are of themselves in their own nature morally good and well-pleasing to God as some are the contrary When I say they have an intrinsic honesty and are in nature good I mean the rule of them is intrinsic and essential to the agent is indeed his nature and by consequence their goodness is as universal and eternal as that nature Now it is a doctrine that hath had Advocates as ancient as the great Carneades and the Sect of the Pyrrhonians that in nature antecedent to all laws and constitutions there is no rule of unjust or just good or evil honest or dishonest and that nothing of it self is one or other but as our concerns or interests do make it to our selves to prosecute which is the only inclination and the only rule that nature gives us or else as the public interests incline superior powers to prescribe them whom it is our interest also to obey Accordingly we find â—this saying in Thucydides that to them that are in power 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nothing is unreasonable that is useful And the Athenians being stronger tell the Melii that by rules of human reason things are just in that degree that they are necessary And then as necessities and interests do chance to vary good and just must change into their contrary and as different countries and persons cannot but have opposite rules and mesures of necessity and usefulness so they must of just and honest thus the laws of Vertue serve like Almanacks but for such a latitude and a different elevation of the Pole quite alters them and makes them good for nothing A pleasant sort of good and honest this which any wall or dike that divides Provinces or Countries can give boundaries lines and rules to so as that it shall be vertue and right on one side vice and error on the other as if those principles of good and evil which seem planted in us and the world calls natural were nothing else but prejudices taken in from early conversation as dogs learn they say the skill of chase And it were great pity if this age which so much needs the patronage of such a principle to give countenance to their licentious practices had not also found out some that
in vicious customes yet for the gross foul acts which men sometimes commit those unkind stabs and wounds to our own souls those cruel self-murders these all are to be daily mourn'd for Now I shall onely name a few reasons why we should mourn and so stir us up to it 1. Because onely in this and in relation to this is greif of any use at all God and Nature they say made nothing in vain now if it were not for our sins greif would be almost in vain a certain sign that this passion must be emploi'd upon our sins ut propter hujus tantum sublationem sit concessa saith St Chrysostom For does any man loose a child why if he greive to death will his mourning raise him Is thy Estate taken from thee why thou art sad upon it but will thy tears recover it But hast thou sin'd and dost thou truly mourn and greive for it why thy tears do wash away thy sin and blot out thine offence So that mourning being every where else preposterous and unprofitable was clearly intended to be spent upon our sins 2. What ingratitude is it to thy Savior not to find in thine heart to mourn for those sins for which he did die the Son of God did sweat and pray and cry and shed a torrent of bloud and water and suffer death for those very sins of thine and mine which we think so slightly of that we will not shed a tear for them O my Brethren if there is in us any love of that our Jesus or indeed of our selves we would now transplant the Agonies and make them ours and sweat out a few drops of sorrow to cure us of those feavors of our sins 3. Yea it is a very trouble to our God that we do not greive he mourns to see that we will not mourn Hosea 13. 14. when God had complain'd before of Ephraim what a foolish child it was that it did not repent he tells them there that if they had don so I would have ransom'd them from the power of the grave not I will for the very next verse contradicts that I would have redeem'd them from death O death I had bin thy grave O grave I had bin thy destruction but comfort is hid from mine eies repentance we read but the word bears and the sense requires comfort as if the eies of the Lord were therefore full of tears because Ephraim's were not and he could not receive comfort if Ephraim did not mourn and if we do not mourn God will comfort himself some other way concerning us to our greif Isaiah 1. 24. Therefore thus saith the Lord the Lord of Hosts the Mighty one of Israel ah I will ease me of mine adversaries 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the very word before I will be comforted by reason of mine adversaries how why I will avenge me of mine enimies Ah my Brethren when God is to be comforted by his vengeance upon us when he can find no ease but in our ruin and destruction and that he calls his comfort in relation to the non-mourning impenitent where shall we find ease and comfort then And then methinks this should scare us into the use of this fright us out of that stupid lethargy in sinning which does so dull us in it makes us so senseless of it and the danger we are in by reason of it that we cannot bestow one day in weeping mourning and fasting no nor indeed an hour of serious sadness upon an age of sin a whole life of iniquity the very next step of this into which we shall be sure to fall is the greatest sin and judgment in the world it is that spoken of as a character of the foulest Heathens Ephes. 4. 18. 19. Having their understandings darkned being alienated from the life of God thro the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness that is in their heart who being past feeling have given themselves over to lasciviousness to work all uncleaness with greediness rather because of the brawny hardness of their hearts which are become callous insensible of any admonitions stings and greif but dead to all sense of sin and having put off all fear of it and who these are he tells you in the next words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such as when they do the foulest acts are not toucht with any greif for having don them but like dead members of the body that are forsaken by the vital spirits if you lash or prick or lance them they feel no pain even so these whose consciences are retir'd a sleep they do not mourn for any of their foulest actions which is the very height of impiety for such do strait give themselves over to all filthiness to work all uncleaness with greediness This is the effect of not mourning and then how do they deserve and provoke this judgment who if at any time their conscience begin to twinge them for any of their sins they presently divert their thoughts lest the mourning in the text should creep upon them and they should grow sad These men dread their virtue they are afraid of becoming pious and to avoid the way to heaven is their design and contrivance they come not so near duty as the wicked in hell have not so much repentance as the damned have for there is sorrow for their sins weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth I should 2dly encourage those that do thus mourn but the text does that sufficiently they are blessed and they shall be comforted First they are blest for this mourning it is the great effect and sign of this Spiritual life that man's sickness hath not yet kill'd him who is sensible of it who greives by reason of the anguish of it and he is not dead who feels the weight of it and mourns for it Secondly if it be true it draws such a train of virtues after it as it made St Paul rejoyce that he had made the Corinthians sad 2 Cor. 9 10 11. and then this very same verse will assure them of the comfort hereafter for all the Gospel-promises are assur'd upon the terms of repentance which this Godly sorrow is the first link of and does draw after it then if there be any comfort in the company of myriads of Saints and Angels if we dare take Christ's judgment if he had any tast who suffer'd so many mourning fits that liv'd a life of tears here that often wept but never laught yea a life of horrid suffering and yet thought those comforts a full glorious recompence to him for all those sufferings and therefore may well be to us for a few tears if there be any joy in the beatifical vision and in heaven they shall be comforted that mourn when as I told you out of Revelations all tears shall be wip'd from their eyes there shall be no more trouble nor sorrow nor crying nor pain And yet this is but the Negative part of their eternity of
the comfort died as soon as the smile the very memorial of them is perisht and there is nothing of them left alive but that now all is don I am never the better for them But the comforts of my devouter hours shall never die but when I go to die my self will be like life and immortality to me O the strange acquiescencies of soul in the Consideration the few hours that a man hath spent piously how they will calm death assist in agonies and releive from pains how such a Soul anticipates his Heaven The truth is to such an one death is welcom and life tho it have on it the shadow of death is full of comfort For when all the world about is Egypt a devout man tho he have but his chamber to retire to and his doors be shut upon him he lives in Goshen when the consuming fire did run upon the ground throughout the land there was no storm in Goshen Exod. 9. 26. and when flashes of judgment do burst in upon other persons 't is calm in the Praier-room When the destroying Angel had overrun every house in Egypt with death when there was nothing but carcasses and crying in each dwelling there was not one sick in Goshen Exod. 12. 30. When a thick darkness dwelt upon the Nation the Israelites had lights in all their dwellings Exod. 10. 23. and when a sad dark cloud does sit upon Gods Countenance and pour down inundations of tempest on a people yet then his face does shine in the Closets of devotion there he breaks in and does reveal his comforts God is so there as his Angel was at that time a Pillar of light to them and of cloud to those others Exod. 14. 20. and when in this their pilgrimage he takes off their chariot-wheels v. 25. that they drive heavily prest with the weight of afflictions and the heavier incumbrances of the World striving against the tide and torrent of troubles encountring nothing but rubs and crosses and having on no wheels none of Gods comforts to bear them up they march heavily till at last the waters overwhelm them when as to those others the waters were a wall on the right hand and on the left and to the devout persons the troubles of their times by making them retire into their chambers prove an occasion of security which brings on the next observation from the words hide thy self Whence we draw that Praiers and the exercises of Piety are in sad days the onely great security and the Devotion-chamber a sure hiding place from trouble And indeed where else should we take shelter but in our Sanctuary Where should we seek for refuge but at the horns of the Altar where we offer up the incense of our Praiers and the lifting up of our hands is as the evening Sacrifice I have told you to retire thus into your chambers is to enter Gods bed-chamber and where is safety to be had if it be not there Is there not full quietness and calm in the Lords withdrawing rooms Not to tell you that David plac't his Rock his Fortress his Castle his every word of safety upon this foundation not to reckon up an infinity of places besides Psalm 27. 5. and 61. 2 3 4 5. I shall onely say that 't is impossible for any Sermon to say better what I have to say for him that betakes himself to these secret rooms and nestles there nor more pertinent to a time of sickness and distress than the 91. Psalm hath spoke v. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 c. and to which 't were vanity if not Tautology to add Should I labour to evince this further I could prove strangely to you that good hearty devout Praiers are in time of danger a Security even to a Miracle Security from the fury of men when single Prayers did resist an Army when Moses's hand lifted up in his devotions slew more Amalekites than the armed hands of Joshua and all his Regiments stretcht out for when Moses lifted up his hand then Israel prevailed Exod. 17. 11. Security against the storm of Gods assault for a Praier of Moses is call'd a standing in the breach against the Lord when he came to destroy the People by a plague Psalm 106. 23. so God said he would destroy them had not Moses his chosen stood before him in the breach to turn away his wrathful indignation least he should destroy them They are terms of war and do express the desperatest act of Valour which war hath occasion for when wall and rampart could not resist the storm of shot but the Assault made its way thro stones and bulwarks then must courage become the Rampart maintain the breach and repulse the Assailants This is the danger and the glory of Valour and this very expression do's Scripture make use of to declare the force and courage of a zealous Praier When Gods indignation had storm'd the People when it had made a gap a breach to enter and overrun them in a moment and the Angel with his sword drawn was assaulting had began his deaths in steps Moses arm'd but with single Praier maintains the breach and turns away the Indignation Neither was this all for it did not onely beat off his fury but assail'd him also as it were took God captive and held him that he could not fall upon them For in the 32. Exod. 9 10. he cries to Moses it is a stiff-necked people now therefore let me alone that my wrath may wax hot against them and that I may consume them in a moment let me alone Hebr. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dimitte me 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 permitte me ut invalescat Syr. nunc si permiseris mihi invalescet Arab. dimitte deprecationem tuam à facie mea Chald. Loose me and let me go suffer me let me alone that I may destroy them do not pray to me thy strong desires are as bonds and cords upon me loose me and do not hold me I can do nothing if thou pray my arm of power my stretcht our arm is held in it is restrain'd by thy strong cries thy violent sighs they cool my wrath that it cannot wax hot against them thy zeal it is irresistible do not therefore make use of it do not hinder me do not pray now let me alone and I will make of thee a greater Nation I will bribe thee to silence because my fury will not withstand thy Praiers if thou maintain the breach I shall not take this People now by storm be hir'd then to withdraw let me alone But Moses he would take no bribes from God but he besought the Lord his God as it follows there and the sudden effect of his Praier was the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people Here 's the power of a fervent Praier it hath a kind of force on the Almighty a force that he does seem as it were afraid of would have prevented and
their lusts advance but their lusts are their plague and torment them and they extremely hate and curse those things which they do passionately desire Now that habitual Sinner his sins they are his emploiment his delight too he longs as those other but he satisfies also and finds pleasure in them and then if those others be fit company for the Devils onely canst thou believe thy self fit company for Christ that he should bid thee come to him No begin to act thy Hell a little sooner account them here thy torments hate them in time perceive them to be burdens while they may be laid down and then come unto Christ and he will give thee rest And evermore O Lord give us of thy rest a rest from sin here and a rest from misery eternally Yea O Lord give us to labor and to find trouble under that intolerable burden of our guilt that we may with eager hast fly to the refreshment that we perverse obdurate Sinners whom thy mercies cannot invite our own miseries may force to be happy and tho our wickednesses are multiplied into an infinite mass and weight yet despise us not when we fall under them for thou didst invite us to come and bring all that load to thee despise us not tho heavy laden for thou thy self didst bear this weight and didst die under it And O thou who didst thy self thus suffer by reason of this load pity us that labor with it ease us of the burden of our former guilt free us from the slavery of our iniquity from bearing any longer Sathan's loads then shall we at last sit down with thee in the Land of everlasting rest deliver'd from all weights but that eternal weight of glory and resting from all labors save that of praising thee and ascribing all Honor Power Praise Might Majesty and Dominion to Father Son and holy Ghost for evermore SERMON X. OF THE CHRISTIANS VICTORY Over Death Sin and the Law 1 Cor. 15. 57. Thanks be to God which giveth us the victory thro our Lord Jesus Christ. THE words are the close of an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Song of joy and triumph for a victory Now a victory supposeth Enimies and the verse before names them and the Text shews us the means that they art conquer'd by and who they are that are partakers of the Victory I shall declare and treat of both 1. The Enimies here mention'd and we may account them three if that which gives both aid and strength to fortifies our Enimy be so as sure it is 1. Here is Death which sin arms with a sting and do's envenome it 2. Sin it self empower'd and strengthned by the Law 3. That Law also In the second place here are the means by which the Victory is gotten and for whom us the victory thro Jesus In handling all which I shall shew First that the Law gives Sin all its strength and how it do's so 2ly That Sin is the sting of Death and how it is so 3ly That by Christ both the Law which is the strength of Sin is taken away and Sin which is the sting of Death pull'd out and so both Sin and Death so weaken'd that they cannot hurt now and they shall be swallowed up in perfect victory and who they are all this is don for Of these all in this order which I crave leave to speak to directly without any least diverting from the Text or Subject First I am to speak of the first preparations that are made against us in behalf of our Enimies and that is to shew you that the Law gives all the strength to Sin which it hath and how it do's so Sin hath its very being from Law it being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the transgression of the Law 1 John 3. 4. and Sin is not imputed where there is no Law Rom. 5. 13. yea where there is no Law there is no transgression c. 4. 15. But this is not all for in the Law besides the Precepts there is also Sanction and it lays a twofold obligation first to duty secondly upon transgression to punishment 1. To duty and that perfect and unsinning strict obedience for the terms are these Cursed is he that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the Law to do them And to this the whole man is oblig'd the soul as well as body caro spiritus Dei res est saith Tertull. God made the soul as well as body one 's his creature as much as the other and the one hath as much reason then to pay him honor and obedience as the other if indeed the spirit hath not much more to obey him in its own motions and actings than in those of the body which are onely under it and guided by it So that thoughts are criminal against this Law as well as doings by them the Soul fulfils its part of the transgression more it may be than its own share while it robs the Flesh seizes its satisfactions and makes them her own against her nature And indeed whatever part the Law is broken and transgrest by 't is transgression and sin still whether by the mind for lust when it hath conceived onely sin is then begotten James 1. 15. or by the tongue for of every idle word we must give an account at the day of Judgment Matth. 12. 36. and by thy words thou shalt be condemn'd Or lastly by the works So that according to the Tenor of this strict and severe Law whatever we can do or indeed whatever we do not is Sin besides commissions that are sinful there is still defect and so transgression in our thoughts our words and deeds even in the best and in not doing also there 's omission and so failing But besides this severe obligation of the Law to duty upon this our faileur there is a severer obligation 2. To punishment for every sin is cursed as we saw Upon this account the Law saith St Paul worketh wrath Rom. 4. 15. we are children of wrath Eph. 2. 3. whose inheritance is destruction and who are of right to possess onely the sad issues of God's indignation for to this the Law condemns us all by reason of our Sins and upon that account the Law is said to be the strength of Sin Because by force and vertue of this threatning of the Law we that have sinned are therefore liable and obnoxious to the condemnation of it And this I take to be the meaning of that place Rom. 7. 7 8 9 10. I had not known sin but by the law for I had not known concupiscence except the law had said thou shalt not covet But sin taking occasion by the commandment wrought in me all manner of concupiscence for without the law sin was dead but when the commandment came sin revived and I died and the commandment which was ordain'd to life I found to be unto death The Apostle's drift here is not to evince how the
commandment begets sin but how it makes sin condemning begets death and therefore I believe they are mistaken who expound sin taking occasion by the commandment wrought in me all manner of concupiscence as if it meant the Law onely prohibiting but not quelling sin in me the more it was restrain'd the more it wrought all manner of concupiscence in me especially since there was no punishment assign'd to that sin in the Law it took advantage thence more powerfully to engage me in the pursuit of all my lusts since thence I might have hop't without any fear of punishment to pursue them For this seems perfectly to thwart his aim which was to shew us how the Law wrought condemnation and inflicted death by threatning it It seems to mean I had not onely not known sin to be so dangerous but I had not known some things to be sins and by consequence condemning things but by the Law particularly I had not known concupiscence to be so had not the Law said thou shalt not covet The next words do not seem intended to declare how the Commandment work sin that being brought in by the by as it were thus but sin the corruption of my nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had wrought in me all manner of concupiscence all actual lusts and wickednesses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 got advantage over me or strength against me by the Law which he there proves for without the law sin is dead not as to stirring in us by its sinful motions sure corruption would not fail to do that and more if there were no check but dead had no strength nor power to condemn me For it follows when the commandment came sin reviv'd got strength to do that and I died was sentenc'd to death by it and the commandment which was ordain'd to life could I have obey'd it I found to be unto death by condemning me to death for my transgression of it For sin by the Commandment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 getting advantage over me slew me not onely made me liable to death but by its guilt envenoming that death for the sting of death is sin which that it is and how it is so is the second thing I am to speak to Sin is the sting of death which I could make appear two manner of ways in relation to two senses that may be given to the words both pertinent and the one but the Anticipation of the other The first is this Sin is the sting of death 't is Sin makes the thoughts of death pungent and stinging the wicked man cannot think of his last dying day without horrors the onely imagination of a sickness stings him because he is conscious to himself of sin and he knows that that after Death cometh the Judgment and he dares not think of beholding the face of his Judg with his guilt upon him To prove this to you I shall not need to fetch any heathen Testimonies that call the Conscience of Sin a whip a sting a goad a lancing knife things that gash and prick and gall and fret all words of all kinds of terrifying punishment but if there be any gross customary Sinner that now hears me I shall need no other way of proof but by appealing to his own conscience whether when he comes hot from his iniquity he dares entertain the thought of dying And why not Alas he is too deep in arrears to venture upon account with so impartial a Judg books must be laid open if he come there the closet curtain sins nay the bosom villanies must be displaied and every one receive his doom he hath heard that all the refuge of a deplored Sinner at that great and terrible Day of the Lord is but to fly unto the Mountains to cover him and to the Rocks to hide him A wretched hope for how shall the Hills hide him whose iniquities are like Mountains or how shall the rocks cover him whose rebellions are like the great deep as the Scripture words it To such a person Death and Judgment are words of too dangerous a sense and it 's easier for him as many do to resolve there is no such thing as one of them than to think of them and go merrily on in sinning For tell me what is the design of that variety of iniquities in which thou dost ingulf thy self that circle of sins wherein one relieves and succeeds another Sure by such a perpetuity of diversified delights to stave off those severer thoughts which if there were an intermission of sinning or a nauseating of one sin for want of variety would creep in the noise of our riots is not to please the ear but to drown the barking of our consciences When the Sinner's candle is put out if weariness in wickedness do not at once close up his eyes and thoughts if the dark solitary night do but suggest some melancholly thoughts into him how do's he tumble up and down as if he thought to role away from his imagination and he do's ransack his fancy and call up the memory of his past sins about him to entertain himself with all and keep out the torturing remembrance of that sad Day which the Scripture calls putting far from them the evil day for the truth is he dares not give it place least it should happen to him as to a man upon a pointed precipice as himself is indeed situated to whom the apprehension would be as mortal as the danger and he would tumble down for fear of falling So here his sin adds such sharps to the imagination of death that he dares not entertain the thought And if Sin be such a sting in the onely thought of death that the mere remembrance of it is insupportable the use is very natural by the frequent calling of death to mind to stop the current of sin For if the wicked cannot endure to think of death he that does think on it cannot well go on to be wicked Remember thy latter end and thou shalt not do amiss I would give this counsel Think thou art to die while doing it The original of the Turks Turbant which was but by continual wearing of his winding sheet by wrapping his head in his grave-cloaths to have always a shrowd and death upon his thoughts and the Philosophers defining their wisdom to be but contemplatio mortis are not such pregnant inforcers of this use as this practical apprehension of it The man that liv'd among the Tombs tho he had a legion of Devils in him yet when he saw Jesus afar off he ran and worshipped him Mark 5. 6. The sight of graves and conversation with monuments will make even Demoniacks Religious and is so far from thrusting Praiers out of the Liturgy of Burial that it brings the very Devils on their knees But there is yet another and a fuller sense of these words which St Paul repeats out of the LXX translation of Hosea 13. 14. tho not verbatim for there insteed of 〈◊〉
as some do by their poor mean Relations but this shame will be return'd severely when the Son shall come in the glory of his Father with the holy Angels And then compare the disreputes to be asham'd of virtue because debauchees that are as far from knowing what is true repute as they are from being virtuous will think meanly of me for it or to have the Son of God in glory with all his Host of Heaven think contemtibly of me when I shall be asham'd so as to call out to the mountains and the hills to cover my confusion at the valley of Jehoshaphat before all the world Let them delight and satisfy themselves with their choice of their commendable vices sins that are in reputation rejoyce with glory in their shame But as for me I will behold thy face in Righteousness And what remains but that we take up this resolution and put on the courage of it firmly purposing to do it tho by doing so we should go against the general customs of the world To make a resolv'd open avowed profession of a good life provided that we do it without ostentation or hypocrisy is a great advantage towards living so makes it much easier For however some it may be the prime ministers of hell Satan's cheifest agents in temtations such as cannot bear that any other should be virtuous 't is such a reproch to them will the more endeavor to betray such 't is their luxury yet generally speaking most men will not offer it but rather fear them having an aw of them and will themselves avoid the doing ill before them in some measure Indeed since none can promise themselves that such will comply with them if they temt them nor think it probable that they will most men however forward in assaulting innocence will let them alone Besides that such have put themselves by having publickly profest whatever the world does they will live righteously under a necessity of avoiding all their evil practices and 't is a happy and great advantage towards a good life to be under a known obligation of well living such as they themselves have taken on them out of perfect aversation to ill actions Do not you think that most men miscarry out of want of that which resolution would be able to effect with its own strength We see in other things it does attemt it go's thro with much greater difficulties than lie in the way to virtue which is so known so every day an object of mens eyes that I should be asham'd to go about to prove it But when this resolution secondly shall be taken up and be avow'd against the open practice of the world out of a dislike and abhorrency to it when it is made eager too by aversation sharpned by much opposition and by being publickly profest and own'd as a peculiar concern since the very shame of being foil'd in the contest and proving false to ones own solemn resolution would have stings in point of honor to push it forwards for to that shrine even Atheists are contented to pay homage this must prosper unless men have a mind to be conquer'd think it easier to retreat and sordidly desert their resolutions they cannot fail Especially thirdly if men consider all this is manag'd in Gods presence to his face if they set the Lord always before them as the object and the end of all their resolutions and their actions and do this with all sincerity as seeing his eyes over them as witness and judg of their behavior and behold his face too with all hope and confidence imaginable knowing he looks over them to encourage their endeavors to behold their needs of help and to give them grace sufficient and to crown their fidelity then such resolutions cannot possibly miscarry What success soever they may have in that war which the world here that is at enmity with all that love and serve God wages with them and tho it do not onely frown on them but humble them into the dust of death yet keeping firm to their resolutions of beholding Gods face in Righteousness when they awake out of that dust after his likeness they shall be satisfied with it SERMON XII OF CHRISTS BEING LORD and GOD. John 20. 28. My Lord and my God THAT which we have seen with our eies which we have lookt upon and our hands have handled of the word of life declare we unto you saith St John Epist. 1. c. 1. v. 1. And truly these same senses did declare to Thomas the richest Article of the Christian Faith the Resurrection and helpt him to conclude that Christ was therefore Lord and God For when he had beheld Christ's hands and thrust his own hands into his side he answered and said My Lord and my God We have another sense comes in to evidence and makes the application we have this day not onely seen and handled but also tasted the Bread that is this Lord and if we have received it worthily and being become one with him we may upon our own most sure and close experience cry out My Lord and my God The Text you see answers both the Solemnities of the day The Resurrection evidenced him to be Lord and God to Thomas and so also to us and our faithful receiving him will evidence him to be our Lord and our God and in order to both these I shall handle them for there be in the words these parts 1. A Compellation given to Christ upon his appearance at his being risen Lord and God 2. The Relation of these applied My Lord and my God I shall shew 1. That the Resurrection did instal him to that title Lord. 2. Shew what that title does import 1. By way of requiring what kind of relation it hath to respect and homage 2. By way of promise what it holds out for hope Then as to a word of application I will shew how the Sacrament applies both those importances 1. How it is an assurance to perform what that title requires 2. How it does confer what the title does promise To the first that the Resurrection did install Christ to the Title Lord. As Christ was God he had indeed all Power and Autority from everlasting that comes not under our consideration But as he was the person sent and commissioned by God to bring mankind to Salvation he was first to die for them then to rule over them and first to be their Priest and then their Lord. After his crucifying when he was risen again then he says All power is given to me both in heaven and earth Matt. 28. 18. or in more express words Acts 2. 36. Let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that fame Jesus whom they have crucified both Lord and Christ. His Cross was a step to his Throne it merited that Autority for him and was in part undertaken for it Phil. 2. 8 9. And then for the importance of this Title as to that
it does require is very obvious Lord is a word of power and autority it requires service and obedience Nothing more frequent in the Prophets than when they have from God severely worded their commands to add this sanction I am the Lord and as applied to Christ St Paul does say I serve the Lord Christ. A servant is the necessary relative to a Lord and truly doing what he doth command was the use he assigned of all that power he had given him teaching them to observe whatever I have commanded And truly if those Scriptures be remembred which secure his Autority thus let us know that Power was the reward of his sufferings and he endured them partly for the Title 's sake therefore says as much and Heb. 12. 2. For the joy that was set before him he endured the cross despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of God did all this that he might gain that place or if that be not plain enough then this is most express Rom. 14. 9. For to this end Christ both died and rose and revived that he might be Lord both of the dead and the living Verse 8. That whether we live we live unto the Lord and whether we die we die unto the Lord that is that both our life might be consecrated to him our lives spent on his service and our deaths be at his command and this was part of the end of his death And then I appeal to your own hearts for what end think you he did so desire and obtain this power Do you think when he was set at the right hand of God he was exalted onely to a name that by all those sufferings he did acquire but a bare title to be call'd Lord of Lords as he is call'd Rev. 19. 16. but neither to look after our obedience nor indeed to set us any law to obey as some would have it Was this power so dear to him as that he would suffer all those torments to compass it and yet when he hath it that it should be so little regarded by him as to suffer us to neglect contemn it to go on in a continued course of disobedience to all his precepts to rebel against his Power never submit our appetites to it but let every lording passion fly in his face every lust defy his Autority let us be proud against that Lord be higher than our duties and all the temper of virtues and let every ebullition of our proud wrath trample on a statute back'd with hell-fire yea and so believe that his death should procure us an impunity in doing this What a wretched mistake is this to think his bloud which purchased him a power to command us should purchase us a leave to disobey him This is to make Christ's bloud divided against it self and to make it spill and dash it self That we should go on in a course of iniquity or allow our selves some peevish vices and stop our own consciences and a Preacher's mouth with saying Christ died for us when as 't is clear he died that he might be Lord that is that we might live and dy to him do both at his command and canst thou think that that death will excuse thee for not obeying which was undertaken for that very end that thou mightest obey him Christ died to be thy Lord and thou wilt have that death a plea for thee when thou obeyest sin and the Devil his greatest Enimies His Cross was his very Ensign and Standard against these Enimies his Passion was his grappling with them and his death his Victory And yet thou dost again submit to their authority becomest a subject to their power and settest them Lord over thee and fetchest the justification of this thy defection from that death and victory and that is the same thing as to make them of no autority nor power yea the captivity and ruin of those Enimies to be the reason of thy obeying them to excuse thy disservice to Christ by saying he is thy Lord and for thy rebellion and waging war with him pretend thou dost it under his own standard No certainly his Title claims Obedience and does assure thee thou must serve This is the first thing what thou must do The second what thou maist expect from it is easily discover'd that is wages For he will recompence every man according to his deeds Rom. 2. 6. To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honor and immortality eternal life v. 7. And glory honor and peace to every man that doth good v. 10. For he is the Lord of glory the Prince of peace and Lord of life the Scripture saith in a word to sum up both what his Title doth require and what we may expect from it it saith Service and it saith Wages and both are set down in that to the Heb. 5. 9. He is the Author of eternal salvation to all them that obey him and both here are applied to him who does in earnest owne the relation to this Title and can say in truth My Lord the next part and first of the applying what it does require Service as it is the assuring of performance My Lord. And truly had we not entred any voluntary obligation and had we not contracted formally to take him for our Lord and not onely owned all that the relation does import to be due from us but engaged also to render it yet he is to us both 1. By an Original right he made us and there is not a workman in the world hath so much right to require the uses of his own handy-work to dispose of that same utensil which himself shap'd or fram'd as the Lord hath to require our service Did I perchance furnish the Lord with some materials for my self or did I find any piece towards my making contribute any least thing to my being then let me claim somthing for my share in my self and by the rule of fellowship with God have some use of my self to my self and as to that let him not be my Lord. But there is no such thing he called me into being out of the infinite resistance of vacuity and nothing He gave me body soul and every power and faculty and he upholds every motion and inclination of those faculties and gives me opportunities and objects for them There is no considerability of any thing within me is from my self but entirely owes its being from his store and comes from the Almighty and then what least imaginable pretence or plea can I have why every motion and inclination both of soul and body should not be bound to look towards his service and every action and thought acknowledge him My Lord. And 2. By purchased Title He did redeem us from the service of those cruel Lords Sin and the Devil whose service is unreasonable and unmanly slavery and whose wages is eternal ruin and he bought the right and title to our service
or punishments are possible or likely certainly 't is most impossible there can be a temtation of force to invite men to Religion or to any virtue this method of proposal of such infinite after-recompences to our faith demonstrated by such Miracles to evince the power and their certainty being the most vigorous struggle of Divine Compassion towards man the utmost attemt of mercy which alone was hopeful since all others fail'd the tryal 't was his greatest strength apportion'd to the full-grown wickedness of the World At first in one thousand six hundred years from innocence the whole World was grown so bad that God could find out but one whole family to save alive he destroy'd the rest for warning to all future generations yet in less than a quarter of that time immediatly ensuing there was again onely one family that of Abraham which out of all the World he could think fit to take into his favor his care In whose Posterity altho he exercis'd them with strange prodigies of sufferings and reliefs and in the midst of Miracles renew'd his Law to them train'd them up in that by all arts of punishments and rewards kept them as it were in constant discipline with present visible returns of plagues and death for every act of disobedience so that the whole sacred History is nothing but a recurrent Tide of God's mercy and Israels provocations their sin and his punishing it When famin pestilence and war all the separations which might be expected from the furnace of affliction were utterly ineffectual and the People were so settled on their lees that all attempts to purify onely fretted and disturb'd and it was necessary to rack them from those lees and emty them from vessel to vessel so that the Nation was carried captive into Babylon Even this digestion of seventy years together had no more prosperous effect than the preceeding frustrate methods the return of the captivity brought also back the former disobedience and infidelity And when the fulness of time was come that the Messiah should appear and restore all things Matt. 17. 11. he came as the Baptist call'd it to a generation of vipers Matt. 3. 7. When the light shone in darkness the darkness comprehended it not When he came unto his own his own received him not John 1. 5 11. So that as St Luke expresses it When the Son of man came he did not find faith in the earth Where the fairest steps were made to belief 't was exceedingly faint and imperfect his very disciples were of little faith as our Savior Complains Matt. 6. 30. 8. 26. 14. 31. 16. 8. Nor was this frailty superseded in the more establish'd growth of Christianity Tho we hear in the book of Acts of multitudes of them that believed c. 4. 32. yet we hear also of some that oppos'd themselves contradicted and blasphemed c. 13. 45. others there were who made shipwrack of the faith 1 Tim. 1. 19. and of others that doubted and were wavering and weak in faith Rom. 14. And so it is to this day what St Paul said to the Corinthians 1 Epist. 3. 1 2. every Preacher of the Gospel has to say unto the greatest part of his flock I Brethren could not speak to you as unto spiritual but as unto carnal even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk and not with meat for hitherto ye were not able to bear it neither yet now are ye able The Christian flock more partakes of the folly and weakness of sheep than the innocence The faces of both tend to the earth intent on their pasture where they may range and feed with plenty and delight In the greatest part of Professors with their faith there is mix'd unbelief so as sometimes to preponderate for the most part to alloy and weaken it And here I promise not to prosecute those grounds of unbelief so far as to shew how they make men able to resist and conquer all Christ's methods how they work them up into the confidence of profest infidelity and Atheism that 's not my design but plainly and in brief to name some causes of it not in this or the other party or perswasion but in general even in minds not ill dispos'd but such as our Confessor here in the Text who tho he do's profess he did believe yet withal acknowledges his unbelief Lord help my unbelief Now tho it should be granted that the motives and the means of Christian Faith are of themselves sufficient to convince the minds of men that the Revelations of the Gospel are from God so far as that there can remain no place for any reasonable doubt or scruple nor by consequence plea for excusing them who give not up their faith to it yet notwithstanding all this evidence arising from those means and motives still many of the things to be believ'd are so inevident for they are Mysteries and are wrapt up in such obscurity that they astonish and affright apprehension and while the mind is swallowed up in the abyss of such dark contemplations whatever light strikes in from motives yet the mind is maz'd so that if it assent it cannot be without suspition and some fear and tremulously and difficulties often so distract the understanding that it cannot settle but is loose and wavering Now as in the contests that often happen in us betwixt the temporal interests and pleasures of this world and the eternal blessednesses of the next in those that are sincerely satisfied of the real infinite disproportion betwixt them yet if any present object that does flatter appetite with strong delight or other satisfaction chance but to surprise a man so far as that his present whole attention be engag'd upon it and it be not call'd off nor the will apply the understanding to consider and compare the other interests the everlasting ones and weigh them both together 't is certain he will yield against his conscience to satisfy his sinful inclination for to that his surpris'd appetite apply'd him that application did determine him there being no way to resist the forcible assaults of present things that strike the mind with vigor if the will some way excited do not frequently engage the understanding to contemplate on advert to with intenseness even with all its might those blessednesses which God's promises propose to our belief that so the mind by reason of its constant conversation with them may not fail to call them up on all occasions and bring them into the comparison and vie with any present thing that do's allure and then those will preponderate without fail So in the other Objects of our Faith the Mysteries and generally in all Objects whatsoever where the understanding do's not reach the nature so as to discern and look into the truth of them if there be arguments that make a fair shew and flatter natural reason by complying with its principles which opposes that truth and with their difficulties
motives to believe them and the faith of them do's come to lose all vigor not to be recover'd if there be not some assistance to the will that may be able to take off that ravenous inclination which it hath to present satisfactions and that gross torpid stupidity it labors under towards future things and withal excite and inflame it with desires after that far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory and besides remove all those other impediments of our belief which I have mention'd Which assistance from what hand it is to be expected and how it effects all that I must declare in the third place from those words Lord help thou my unbelief Now that the birth and growth and strength of Faith that Faith I say that is effectual to salvation is all from God from the preventing and assisting graces of his Spirit is a Doctrine which the Scripture is abundant in It is the gift of God St Paul saith Eph. 2. 8. and Christ says No man can come to me that is believe in me except the Father which has sent me draw him John 6. 44. i. e. those preparations of the heart by which men are dispos'd to come at God's call and receive his Gospel when as others whom 't is equally propos'd to and who alike understand it will not come are the effects of his good grace and in that respect such are said to be drawn by the Father and to be taught of God verse 45. and v. 64. speaking to his Followers and telling them that there are some of you that believe not tho they had all the methods of conviction having heard his preaching seen his miracles as well as others yet some of them notwithstanding not believing he adds v. 65. therefore I said unto you that no man can come unto me except it be given him of my Father All the other means and motives if alone prevail not I have planted Apollos watered but 't is God that giveth the increase 1 Cor. 3. 6. I need not say this is the Doctrine of the Church of England 't is so of the Latin and the Greek Church and on this account of the necessity of Grace and the assistance of God's Spirit in believing the whole Church of Christ hath universally maintain'd a war against Pelagius and his Followers 'T is more expedient to shew what he doth and how he does proceed in doing it how he removes those hindrances of Faith I mention'd in each faculty both of the will and understanding First as to the understanding that he doth enlighten and clear it into the discerning of those Heavenly truths appears since David therefore prays Open thou mine eyes that I may behold the wondrous things of thy Law Psalm 119. 18. and the like v. 27. Make me to understand the way of thy precepts It should seem he apprehended wonderful miraculous dispensations in God's discoveries of himself and of his will to man besides those of his nature his transcendent goodness also in the pardoning our sins in giving us such excellent Precepts in assisting us to the performance in accepting our imperfect Obedience and in preparing everlasting blessed Glory to reward and crown it Now that he might discern all these so sensibly as to be ravish'd and transported with them so as that he might be wrought on to adore the blessed Donor of all these and cling to him and them with the close and inseparable unions of Faith and love he therefore prays that God would open his eyes enlighten and remove all those degrees of darkness that remain'd within him quicken and enliven all his faculties give him a vital sense and relish of all those things make him understand them that believing them he might adhere to them And since the Scripture says I told you that with the heart man believeth unto righteousness so it also therefore says that God does give an heart to understand Deut. 29. 4. and the Lord opened Lydia's heart that she attended to the things that were spoken Acts 16. 14. thus preventing unbelief which comes for want of such advertency as I shew'd you And as to the Will which hath its influence I prov'd to you that God works in us to will is express Scripture Phil. 2. 13. And if we should but onely put the understanding in that case wherein as we before demonstrated 't is needful that the Will engage it to make applications to these Spiritual objects when the man is not as yet byassed or corrupted but is onely languid and indifferent and unconcern'd yet then there is an absolute necessity the Spirit cause it for if the Will be it self a faculty indifferent and free there must be some prevenient proposal thought or motion that may determin or fix it and to will what it ought it therefore must have some good motion or proposal such as will prevail with it Now such proposals and motions come not from it self the Will does not propose to it self it cannot think or make the motion and the Understanding which as the case is put does need a resolution of the will thus to engage it is not therefore qualified to make the motion sufficient and of force for then it could and would apply it self without the Will 's engaging of it much less is it qualified when the Will drawn in by the affections of the lower Appetite hath applied the Understanding as I shew'd you to converse with sensual objects and by doing so 't is altogether stein'd with their impressions and images and hath few others to excite or entertain it self withal In neither case since neither Understanding nor the Will is able there is nothing therefore but God's grace that do's it by presenting objects and occasions and disposing circumstances so in soft and congruous seasons as with the assistance of his overshadowing and incubating on them may be sure to hatch some inclinations and desires that way in the Understanding and Will both He does all by these means upon all occasions of Divine truth heard or read or meditated on by his applying intimately to the mind the motives of believing and to help the evidence by breaking in upon it with his own illuminations which discover to the Soul the beauty of God's promises make it see how infinitely advantageous they are to it Thus he fills it with those beauteous images then backs the thoughts with their allurements so as that they love to hover and to dwell upon them this animates them into chearful practice of all performances that tend to them then he scatters as it were some gleams of future glory shedding flashes of it in the joys of Conscience arising from the sense both of God's encouragements and assistances to duty and of the delights resulting from the faithful sincere practice of it and by this joy quieting the Conscience if it either raise fears from the apprehension of God's dealings in these outward things or else if it be scrupulous in little things to
accordingly you may see many that otherwise are not very apt to sin yet then they will offer at little Atheistical beginnings of it they will endeavor because they will be in the fashion of the company And this is one of Satans advantageous seasons when as we see if there be but one by of a sober and discreet virtue that dares speak meek reason or dares when they do swill their Souls in filthy folly of one or other sort or are loud in the rants of vice by disliking gestures let them know that such unclean entertainments are detestable to a sober person or withdraws abruptly by such a departure shews that he scorns to stay to behold or hear such impurities this often does not onely hinder those beginners take them off that would have bin dabbling but does somtimes a little damp the progress of the most professed Sinner It is a bridle to his neck he will not march so furiously in his carrier of oaths or of obsceness or whatever other sin he does not indulge himself so full a licence and so by this means God gets some respect and Religion a little repute when they see it hath some followers and God hath some that will not see him dishonored And truly my Brethren do but consider what a storm it does use to raise in any man to hear an absent Friend or Relation abused or evil spoken of If we be in any degree of them the world calls Gentlemen then nothing but the sword must make return to such a word nothing but life and soul can answer nothing but bloud and death repair and 't is this resentment we in whose company the disgrace was offer'd think ourselves more concern'd than that Friend that was the subject of And then methinks you should not think it strange if there be some that do believe they have so much relation to God and that he hath approv'd himself to be so much their Friend they cannot but take it unkindly and speak when they hear him affronted and see him dishonor'd And methinks too it should not be unreasonable to expect this from all of us to whom God hath bin Friend enough that we should do this handsom this noble glorious thing as to right the Lord in companies where we are and to credit our Maker and not let vice exalt over him where we shall chance to be Truly my Brethren this is the least that God hath reason to expect from us even the reproof of our words that of our open holy lives by which as the wicked say in Wisdom 2. 12. The Righteous do reprove their thoughts and upbraid them with their offending the Law and object to their infamy their transgressions This is strictly and to an high degree required by God of every one of us that we may have influence upon others to be open and exemplary to shine before men that they may see our good works and glorify our Father which is in Heaven which was the reason of the command and the end of our very being Now to God the Father c. SERMON XV. OF THE ACCEPTED TIME the Day of Salvation 2 Cor. 6. 2. Behold now is the accepted time behold now is the day of Salvation THE words foregoing of which these I now read are the application run thus for he saith I have heard thee in a time accepted and in the day of salvation I have succour'd thee which God saying in the 49th of Isaiah 8. signified as in the type in relation to the Church and Nation of the Jews he had days of Salvation fit and proper seasons to deliver them from their affictions and calamities for Salvation often signifies that had his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tempus placentiae time of grace wherein he was well pleas'd to hearken to their cries and wants and in those he heard and succour'd them so in the Antitype and in relation of the Christian Church and all the Members of it for of these St Paul here useth it expresly he hath his accepted time days not onely for such temporal deliverance of which some will have the Salvation meant here but much more for Salvation Eternal But then as Kings when they publish acts of grace and oblivion do not onely set appoint but limit out the time for Subjects to come in submit and return to their fidelity and allegiance which if once elapst they are incapable of benefit by any such grant cannot at least plead it so it seems God does too and it is not sure that whosoever at what time soever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved Rom. 10. 13. but as King David told him they shall make their praier to thee in a time of finding Psalm 32. 6. in a time when his good pleasure it the very word here Psalm 69. 13. and this time St Paul restrains here to the present now meaning not onely in the general now in times while they are under grace are in the Covenant of it and when the day-spring from on high hath visited them and while they had the Gospel that word of this Salvation for whilest men live under this gracious dispensation they may let the opportunities of laying hold of it go by them while the light of the Gospel shines upon them yet the day of Salvation may be quite gon out of which St Paul here seems sollicitous for his Corinthians who had receiv'd the Gospel least yet they may have receiv'd that grace in vain and the Salvation should escape them To prevent which saith he there is no other sure way but by seizing on the present Behold now is the accepted time now is the day of salvation so that the words afford these subjects of discourse 1. There is a time wherein we may be certainly accepted if we come to God and there is a day of Salvation offer'd us 2. This time is limited 't is a day of salvation consequently we may possibly outstand it and may suffer it to pass irrecoverably 3. The onely sure way to prevent that is to lay hold on the present to begin now 1. There is a time wherein we may be certainly accepted if we come to God and there is a day of Salvation offer'd us The Text does make sufficient proof of this for if the accepted time be now and if now be the day of salvation then there is such a day and time which our Lord commanded to be preached to every humane creature in the world Indeed the preaching of the Gospel is nothing else but publishing this truth the Gospel being but a tender of Salvation upon pardon of whatever we have don amiss and the accepting us whenever we repent and truly turn to God believing on him and resolving to continue faithful to him and all this assur'd to us by Covenant such as God himself both made and ratified in the bloud of Christ and to prevent exception since he gave command to have this Gospel preach'd
the relicks onely of Christ's Church but also all the memory of the other cruelties when in one small Province in a month he put to death one hundred and fourty four thousand Christians banish'd seven hundred thousand more and proportionably so in other places thro the Roman world with such success that he took confidence to write on his triumphal Arches Deleto nomine Christiano as he had blotted out the very name of Christians then at the last gasp of his Church it pleas'd the Lord to raise up Constantine and strait the whole face of the world was Christian and Dioclesian himself liv'd to see it I might have instanced in our own so fresh deliverance but that it would not look like an incouragement it may be to rely and cast our selves again upon him if so soon we call upon our selves the same needs by the same wretchless methods and there are some they say that apprehend so And God knows the ruin of the Reformation and our Church hath from its first beginning bin still working by her restless indefatigable Enimies and hath often bin preserv'd onely on the account I am now speaking that when things are past all humane help then is God's set time for relief I know the Churches Adversaries brag of multitudes and they come up on every side close to her yea and which is worse we seem to labor to make God himself our Enimy or at least provoke him to desert that Chutch and Reformation we pollute so put out the Worship we unhallow and profane so by ill lives make those that will have nothing of Religion but some forms it may be loose them too and let them die for want of substance and the shew go out not leave so much as the hypocrisy of piety Indeed a flood of Atheism and contemt of all Religion and virtue looks like a just dereliction of them who would not let God be in their thoughts nor Religion or Morality in their actions Nay may it not look like a kindness to remove the Gospel which proves onely the savor of death unto death put out that light which men are but resolv'd to sin against Or can there be a greater mercy than to refuse all the means of mercy to such men as onely make them work out condemnation to them O Lord to us indeed belongs confusion of face but notwithstanding to the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses tho we have rebelled against him and as he knows how to reserve the ungodly to the day of Judgment to be punish'd he knows too how many thousand knees do bow to him in secret reckons all those tears that are pour'd out in Religion's and the Churches cause and how wicked soever the Professors of Religion the Church Members may be if the constitution of Religion and the Church themselves yet be not vitiated or defective there is hope still And truly whereas many blame the Reformation that it did not keep more hold upon the Consciences of the Community did not retain some power which altho not of Divine Institution but things warily and by degrees brought in as seeming to work towards piety and most certainly in humane ways of judging serving to procure more veneration and outward security of the Church and Religion to work out which the other consequential worldly interests we see the very scheme of some Professions not their discipline onely but their faith too is contriv'd I think on the other side if our Reformation instead of doing thus as it consulted not at first with carnal Politicks but Christ's institutions as the Scripture and other primitive Records conveied them and design'd no more to themselves than those bare naked Spiritual doctrines rights and powers which Christ gave them left to Cesar whatsoever was Cesar's knowing God had promis'd Kings should be their Nursing-fathers and to be so is part of their Office trusting therefore God and Governments with their protection and defence of Church and Religion So also if thro all succeeding times whether of flourish or depression and calamity Religion it self whatever its Professors are have retain'd always the same simplicity of principles be it self untainted not new model'd to serve ends or interests then whenever men shall begin to clip it I do not say in maintenance seizing what their Father's sacriledge had left them but I mean because ours did not so as other Churches grasp some usurpt power to secure their own shall therefore cut her Spiritual powers short so that they cannot serve the ends of piety because they know her Children will not cannot by their principles resist i. e. if they endeavor to destroy them for this reason that they make men the best Subjects and of the most Christian Principles that is persecute their Christianity it self and martyr that I must profess that it will look like God's set appointed time to arise and to have mercy upon Sion when it is expos'd a naked Orphan left to his protection onely then he cannot pass it by but when he sees it in its bloud thus he will say unto it live and tho he plague her wicked and ungracious Sons and possibly take away many of the good ones from the evil to come yet the Religion will not die Let them believe it hopeless who desire a pretence to leave it who do what they can to stab their Mother and make it a reason to forsake her then because she is so desperately wounded and let them declare it who design to betray men out of it But whether is wiser to believe these or the God from whom we have these promises and these experiences and the other grounds of trust Sure we know better whom we have believed especially since the very trust to him is an engagement to him not to fail us that 's my last ground 'T is it self a means prescrib'd us by himself Isaiah 50. 10. Who is he among you that feareth the Lord that walketh in darkness hath no light Let him trust in the name of the Lord stay upon his God There is nothing in the world that more engages any man that is not profligately false than trusting to him and for God there is no other piece of piety or virtue gives such honor to him his Attributes as sincere dependance on him do's It does acknowledge his Omniscience that he knows our needs be they never so perplext intricate knows how to help them his Omnipresence that he is at hand on all occasions his Omnipotence how he is able above all our possibility of want his Mercy Goodness Benignity in that he condescended to be willing to relieve us his Faithfulness Truth and Justice in observing his good promises and never failing them and his Immutability in all these and his other Attributes of loving kindness Now truly as our miseries requir'd all these so our trust to him gives him the glory of all these and therefore 't is no wonder if
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
invitations of his Promises the engagement of his Justice Truth and Faithfulness worth all the issues of his Goodness Mercy and Benignity worth the Incarnation Death and Passion of his Son worth Christ's Bloud to purchase worth the giving him all Power in Heaven and Earth exalting him to his own right hand a Prince and Savior to give us repentance and remission that we might be capable of that life and then to bestow it on us if this be not worth the while to strive for not in opposition to Hell eternal then indeed we know not whom we have believ'd Consider how it is this issue that such put it to a most fatal issue but the sure one of all those that will give credit to the suggestions of their flesh and this world Lord Christ we believe thee help our unbelief SERMON XVII THE CHILDREN OF THIS WORLD are wiser than the Children of Light Luke 16. 8. The Children of this world are in their Generation wiser than the Children of Light BY the Children of this World are meant those that look after and take care for onely the advantages and satisfactions of this World have no thought of or at most design for any other by the Children of Light all those that see farther into one to come and who look after that accordingly all Christians are called so 1 Thess. 5. 5. of whom howsoever some are more and some less Christian all yet are suppos'd to have bin visited by that day-spring from on high enlightned in some measure by the Gospel which brought Life and Immortality to light 2. Those former are said here in their generation in their own affairs of this World which alone they busy and concern themselves in or in their contrivance for their Age or time in this life to be wiser than those others Now Wisdom tho it import many offices and of highest concernment which have place in every serious action of our lives it weighs interests and obligations and considers circumstances which do somtimes make necessities and somtimes void them and which cannot all fall under Rules and Precepts and are therefore left to the decisions of Prudence which does judge of them and then accordingly direct and steer the actions yet these offices of Wisdom do not come directly into this comparison of our Savior It s main office in the general is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to consult and counsel well and rightly which acts since they cannot be emploi'd but about things that must be don in order to an end therefore 1. The Wise man always looks at and intends some end and 2. He pitches on such means as seem most useful and directly tending to that end yea 3. Since this Wisdom is not speculative but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is Ratio agibilium deals in things that must be don it therefore sets the man upon the use of those means in pursuit of that end it applies him to it and guides him in the execution and does all by Rules proper to each one of these Offices Now as to these three Offices of Wisdom we will try to find out how far and in what respect the Children of this World are wiser than the Children of Light the Worldling than the Christian than the most of them yea than the best and how this comes to pass that so if men will not be wrought upon by any Rules not by God's Precepts nor by means examples yet comparing themselves with themselves how much they fail of the observance of the Rules of Prudence that concern the next World in comparison of their observance of those very same Rules as to this World they may shame themselves into discretion and may learn to be a Rule and an Example to themselves which I must first enforce by that property of Wisdom which I mention'd in the first place that the wise man always looks at and intends some end I suppose this and I may well do so for the World allows the action that hath no end to be to no purpose vain and foolish Now the worldly man as such proposes as I told you to himself the satisfactions of this world either more particularly of some one kind or else all in general and the Child of Light so far as he is so designs especially the happiness of the world to come But then if in relation to their aims those men be wisest that propose the best end to themselves the Child of Light is as much wiser than the worldling as eternal Blessedness above is better than the little broken dying starts of satisfaction here below And truly 't is not in relation to their several ends in general that our Savior here compares them but the one saith he are wiser in their generation in their own concerns and that first in relation to their ends For the worldly man is intent upon his end his will is fixt to it and his affections all concenter in it We are most assur'd of this by the pains he takes to compass it all which are carried on and sweetned and made easy merely by his aims and expectation which his heart is therefore passionately set on for mens actions will be chearful vigorous and lively onely by those measures that the Soul breaths spirit into them If the will and outward faculties lookt several ways all his external motions would be force and violence not nature but since his pursuits are eager his affections are in them I should enter into an Abyss of matter and should find no end of the discourse should I attemt to shew this in the several states of men of this World in relation to their several inclinations to this World's advantages Some pour out and sell the bloud and souls both of their own and other Nations but to purchase some accession to their Territories to enlarge their bounds and glory And it is matter of astonishment how 't is possible that humane nature should attain to such a monstrous excess of barbarous bloudy villany to acquire their ends as Sylla and Marius practis'd Yet neither should men wonder and complain of these so much for every little great man that hath power would be enterprizing upon others outing and supplanting catching at more power cutting short diminishing the rights of others to extend their own and altho these Aggressors be not bloudy as the former which 't is possible they would be if they durst yet they are as unjust and false and they that are not able to do so much are not in a state to put a force on others force themselves break their own natures into soft compliances and servile attendances to reach their ends 'T is thus in all conditions the Soldier charges and storms fire and the Merchant storms the raging Sea and Tempests and if the man's heart be once bent on getting wealth he â—ells his meals his sleeps his sweat the whole emploiment of his life and his anxieties for that which onely
Eye then a clear single eye is a clear conscience and then of that it must be true that it do's make the man full of light and so it do's indeed as light do's signify joy and gladness and so it often do's in Scripture Psalm 4. 6 7. And truly the applauds of an honest undeceiving heart that is conscious to it self of cordial endeavors after good and knows it neither had ill ends nor ill means they shed comforts beyond all that the earth can give they shed the peace of God that passeth understanding If my conscience be clear let my condition be never so overcast never so dark and cloudy yet do I live in shine This is the only thing that makes every estate gladsome If my condition be low pressing adversity yet if my conscience assure me 't is not my fault that threw me down into it my sin did not put out the light of Gods candle of prosperity that before shone about me but rather because I would hold fast my duty and would not let go a good conscience therefore I was thrown down with them into deep affliction here my conscience assures me I am in a case which S. James bids me count all joy Jam. 1. 2. and which our Savior do's call blessed Matth. 5. 11. S. Peter tells me If ye be reproched for the name of Christ and 't is so for all duty happy are ye for the spirit of Glory and of God resteth on you 1 Pet. 14. 14. What if I be in the place of Dragons my conscience do's assure me 't was my duty not guilt did put me there that is God brought me thither and he is with me there the Spirit of God resteth on you What if I be in darknesss and dimness of anguish encompast with the shadow of death the Spirit of Glory resteth on me And then sure a clear conscience makes the man full of light when it makes him full of glory when in his darkest solitudes there do's break in the light of Gods countenance Let them be sadded with afflictions who understand no delight but in carnalities whose souls are married to some little comforts of this world Adversity indeed sweeps all their joys away at once a cross throws blacks upon them strait their heart 's in mourning instantly But he that understands the comforts of a good conscience and knows where to find them and hath a treasure of them in his breast will soon be able to allay the other sadnesses What can I want while I have a continual feast for so'is a good conscience It is not in the power of words to express the happiness of this blisful state It is the peace of God which passeth all understanding Phil. 4. 7. and tho felicity seems to be measur'd by our perception of it here we are happy beyond the scanty limits of our narrow apprehensions do not take in the beatific object but are our selves enclos'd and enter into the joy of our Lord Matt. 25. 23. 2. In order to the second act accusing if conscience be an eye then the well qualified eye is the tender conscience I mean not in the modern sense not only as it is accompanied with but as 't is but another word for a weak Judgment and a proud heart sturdy opposing private opinion or phancy against public authority And whereas conscience is said to be the eye of the soul a tender conscience has the sme importance in this case as when we call a blear or bloudshot a tender eye A gentle word for a troublesome malady The innocent importance of the word is that which denotes besides weakness in judging quickness in perception for conscience is the judgment of the mind concerning actions and whatsoever is tender is weak but a conscience which is such as tender things are alwaies is sensible of every the least touch of guilt checks at whatsoever we do amiss the least thing we do is a wound to it This is the tender conscience Such a one as is deeply sensible of the majesty and power and justice of Almighty God and the fatally provoking guilt of sin fears alwaies doubts and trembles foregoes lawful enjoyment least they should prove to be unlawful and flies from every not only approch but even appearance of evil This is an uneasy state but the inconvenience is abundantly repaid by the safety it procures whilst this flaming sword that turns every way guards both our Paradise and us and suspicions render us secure But if my heart grow hard not tender and my conscience insensible there is no hopes of cure I shall content my self with this one instance in answer to the evil eye as it relates to both these actions of accusing and excusing tho I might also name the conscience that accuseth to despair This is an evil eye indeed that entertains it self with the terrors of utter darkness in their own shapes that sees nothing but feinds those spirits of the dark nor will see any other An eye that will not endure but hates the least light of instruction or comfort A darkness this out of which the grave hath been counted an escape the darks of death a refuge yea to avoid the horror they have run into the shades of Hell And oh how great how insupportable is this darkness But God knows in this age we see little cause to fear nor reason to endeavor to prevent this Some little beginnings of it would be mercies to most men the danger now a daies is in the insensibleness of conscience the heart that never do's accuse of its commissions in earnest nay rather do's find out excuses it do's not check or sting them to the quick but rather tickles them Good God the heathens had a much more tender constitution of soul. The Poet says of guilty souls ad omnia fulgâ—ra pallent Cum â—onat exanimes primo quoque murmune coeli They that knew not there was an Hell to recompence iniquity nor knew that God threaten'd it with plagues yet when they heard it thunder their guilt did strike them like the thunder-bolts their souls did faint as it were the voice of God pronouncing wrath to their iniquities as if its lightnings were the flashes of that brimstone in whose eternal burnings sin must dwell This conscience did in them when knowing Christians can stand unappal'd We read of men of sear'd consciences 1 Tim. 4. 2. and such indeed cannot be tender Searing do's make insensible of pricks or little touches that you may lance and gash and it will not perceive And so it seems are some mens consciences and you will find there some other qualifications of such men they depart from the faith they give heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of Devils and it will be no wonder if they desert the holy Christian faith who have put themselves under the tutorage of Satan and have imbib'd the doctrine of Devils who with his institution have receiv'd his flames whose consciences are fear'd
instruments of thy delight thy Dogs it may be or thy Hawks but feed poor Christians but feed the members of thy Savior to see when with a great deal thou canst hardly furnish one room well much less of it do's furnish such poor laboring families furniture of a very comfortable prospect it will be at that day I am sure when all the other satisfactions of thy eies are dead or else dissolving in a floud of fire then to behold those works which thy estate did help thee to perform for they shall follow thee to Heaven Rev. 14. 13. and to see that Christ upon the Throne whom in his members thou hast oft reliev'd an object that will comfort such a single eie with everlasting light And so I pass to the second terms to be expounded Light and Darkness 1. Light in Scripture do's often signify Prosperity as Darkness do's the contrary I need not cite much Scripture for it Psalm 18. 28. For thou wilt light my canlde the Lord my God will enlighten my darkness Job 21. 17. How often is the candle of the wicked put out and how oft cometh their destruction upon them God distributeth sorrows in his anger to them Isaiah c. 5. 30. do's express times of affliction thus and if one look unto the earth behold darkness and distress and the light is darkned in the heavens thereof So chap. 8. 22. Behold trouble and darkness and dimness of anguish Now if it mean thus here then the sense is a single eie fills the body full of light Charity makes a man prosperous in all his actions but if the eie be evil the body shall be full of darkness he that either to furnish coffers pride or pleasures or excesses do's retrench from bounty however he advance these for a while yet before long God will cut off the opportunities of these he that will not put a good portion of what he hath to good uses the time will come when either he or his however well provided for shall not have for their own uses if their eie be so evil as not to let their candle shed a light to any other but themselves God will put out their canlde and uncharitableness shall bring adversity upon them or upon their families and if the verse mean thus then it agrees with Solomon's Aphorism Prov. 11. 24. There is that scattereth and yet increaseth there is that withholdeth more than is meet and it tendeth to penury But to this I have spoke already now I shall only say this is a doctrine that we need not only trust on Christ for the truth of a very Turk believes it and not the Gospel only but the Alcoran affirms it saying that which they lay out of their wealth in the way of God in pious charitable uses is like a grain that brings forth seven stalks Blessed harvest of Charity increase more than an hundred fold and I will add but one place of Scripture to it which saies over the Text in larger and more glorious words Isaiah 58. 7 8 10 11. To deal thy bread to the hungry and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house when thou seest the naked that thou cover him and that thou hide not thy self from thine own flesh then shall thy light break forth as the morning and thine health shall spring forth speedily and thy righteousness shall go before thee and the glory of the Lord shall be thy reward and if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul then shall thy light rise in obscurity and thy darkness be as the noon-day and the Lord shall guide thee continually and satisfy thy soul in droughts and make fat thy bones and thou shalt be like a water'd garden and like a spring of water whose waters fail not The expressions seem to grow upon the Prophet first he saies Thy light shall break forth as the morning by little slow degrees of increasing light which peeps out first in a dawn and so grows into day and so shall thy prosperity which dawns and brightens by degrees as thou drawest out reliefs but he corrects these words and thinks this is not blessing quick enough for this vertue whose return shall be more eminent conspicuous and notable thy light saies he shall rise in obscurity shall have no creeping twilight for to usher it but they very night shall break into Sun-shine and in the midst of hopeless affliction the face of joy and gladness shall rise upon thee Yea more as if the rising light were but weak and too faint for his meaning Thy darkness shall be as the noon-day strong and hot brightness shall break in upon thy occasions of sadness which shall both cherish and enlighten thee thaw every thing that did sit cold about thine heart and make all pleasant shine about thee But where I pray you are the Luminaries that are to shed this Noon The Prophet hath them here thy Righteousness that is in Scripture dialect thy Alms shall go before thee and the glory of the Lord shall be thy reward Light express'd not only in terms of overflowing blessedness but terms of guard and strength Light he shall have here that shall be glory to him and shall be fortification to him the glory of the Lord shall be his reward as if the charitable man did also dwell in Light that were inaccessible who is so guarded as to have righteousness in his van for his avantguard and the glory of the Lord of hosts and victories for his rere-defence which means in plain words this that the Lord will make the righteousness of such a man appear and will do good and glorious things for him in this life And then let others please themselves to have their wealth break out in shining pomps of bravery about them or flow in streams of plenty and of delicacy or of pleasure alas the spring of these will quickly fail If any scorching weather come any fiery trial any persecution yea any daies of adversity the wealth will go out that is to furnish them or if there do not come such daies yet the too full streams will drain the fountain and there will be no spring to feed the current yea or however in a while these streams must grow unpleasant and they will choak the soul that swims in them but the charitable man the man that deals his bread and draws out his soul to the hungry in relief while he hath the means and in compassion and assistance while he hath not whatever fail the fountain of the glory of the Lord cannot be exhausted he will have righteousness and glory still about him the comfortable streams of which are of another relish than those carnal worldly delights which wealth provides or else can give of a more blessed goust the inextinguishable shine of which is surely far more cherishing and gladsom than the gauds of vanity or fading pleasures The brightness of God's glory cannot die cannot be
taken from thee it is its own defence and shine for righteousness shall go before thee and the glory of the Lord shall be thy rereward and then 't is clearly prov'd that such a single Eie shall make the body full of light 2. Light do's signify holiness of life deeds truly Christian walk as Lights in the Lord nothing more common in Scripture and Darkness signifies a sinful and un-Christian life a life that 's full of deeds of darkness And then the words mean thus as the eie is the candle of the body lightens and directs it well if it be as it ought but otherwise very ill and the man is in the dark if his eie be ill and do not serve him so is the heart of man as to the guidance and direction of his actions if his eie be single if he have an heart taken off from the world a liberal bountiful mind not set upon the love and desire of the things of this world his whole body will be full of light his whole life will be very Christian all his actions holy and heavenly and to the making of them so liberality of mind hath a very observable influence It will incline a man wonderfully to pious courses it is a leading vertue as the eie is a leading part But if the eie be evil but if the heart be worldly set upon wealth either for it self or for those heights or fine things or pleasures which wealth do's procure if it be unsatisfied in these things for it self or envious at others for them the whole body will be full of darkness the whole life will be very un-Christian such a disposition of mind as that quite draws a man off from the temper that Christ requires the unsatisfied the envious and the covetous person can never serve God but only Sin those dispositions being the root of all evil Now if the light that is in thee be darkness if thy heart be un-Christian and if thy leading vertue that was to take thee off from all worldly inclinations be extinct and dark in thee how great is that darkness what an un-Christian life will there be and whatever light do's shine about thee of the Gospel whatever light thou dost pretend of knowledg or of whatsoever else there is a deep darkness dwells upon thy heart and is in all thy actions Now this sense we see connects what went before and that which follows after drives on our Savior's design that he is pressing here and to this sense Scripture alwaies speaks in the expressions of single and of evil eie of light and darkness and therefore this was certainly the sense that was intended by our Savior and to the prosecuting of it I shall shew 1. That to have a generous liberal mind an heart taken off from the self uses and advantages of wealth is the great means the great engine and instrument of making all the actions very Christian the life holy 2. This grace in the heart bounty of mind is a great evidence of a true Christian heart 3. A worldly heart loving and desiring wealth troubled at its condition envying others that are in better and for the ends of any advantages to it self straitning its liberality is not only in it self an un-Christian temper but such as is the root and cause of a life wholly un-Christian and unholy Of these in their order 1. To have a liberal mind c. That the throwing of this earth out of the heart is a most hopeful way of making the man clean and pure we have most pregnant Scripture Luke 11. 39 40 41. Now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter but your inward part in full of ravening and wickedness Ye fools did not be that made that which is without make that which is within also But rather give alms of such things as you have and behold all things are clean unto you which bears this sene ye hypocritical Pharisees wash yor selve as if a man should wash his vessels the outside of them only leaving the insides of them full of filthiness for thus do ye wash your bodies leaving your souls full of all uncleaness This is an extreme folly for it your outward washings were in obedience to God you would cleanse the insides your hearts and souls as well as your bodies The best way of purifying your selves your estates your meats and drinks c. from all pollution cleaving to them is by works of mercy and liberal alms gifts and not by washing pots and vessels Thy broken meats thy scraps thy charities shall cleanse thy platters more than washing them shall do alms shall make all things clean But how this To cleanse hath two aspects either on the guilt of past actions or on the habits and dispositions to future commissions and is to cleanse us from the evil that we have don or to make us clean from those vices that were in us and which would make us do more evil the first of these is don by Repentance not by Alms. Indeed the Wise man saies the alms of a man is as a signet with the Lord and he will keep the good deeds of a man as the apple of an eie and give repentance to his sons and daughters Ecclesiasticus 17. 22. the happiest way of purchase for a family in the world The give to children an estate perchance is but to give an instrument of vice bestow the means of sining on them at best 't is but to leave them pomp and superfluity but to give Repenetance to them is to give security of everlasting blessedness this is as it were to entail Heaven on ones children But this is not the thing we mean we are to see how Alms should make us clean from vice It is observ'd by a Reverend Expositor that our Savior speaking Syriack useth a word for alms which in that language and Arabick signifies cleansing that is give Alms which as it comes from a word that signifies to cleanse so all shall be clean to you and they give this reason of the notion they derive Alams from a word that signifies to cleanse quod opes ab inquinamento animum ab avaritiae sordibus purgat because 1. Alms purgeth our wealth from the pollution and filthiness that adheres to it As among the Jews it was not lawful for any man to use the increase of his own land or cattle to eat part of his own harvest nor feed on his own vineyard or imploy the profits of any one beast of his own herd or flock till he had given up to God the first-born of that beast offered the first fruits every year of his fruit-yards and dedicated a first sheaf of his harvest this must sanctify all the rest which till then was unclean not to be used by him to this it seems our Savior do's look in his direction There is an unclean tacke in every thing that comes from earth it do's derive a soil and
did warn thee and my Messengers call'd to thee yet I hardly expect that thou shouldst hear those whispers with all those Voices I did scarce break silence but now I will reprove thee and thou shalt hear the rod or hear thy own groans under it For that we may be sure to hear this Voice God does by it open the ear Job xxxiii 14 15 16. God speaks once yea twice yet man perceiveth it not in a dream and in a vision then he opens the ears of men by Chastisements as it follows in four Verses full of them 91 20 21 22. and sealeth his instruction that he may withdraw Man from his purpose i. e. that he may make him cease from sin It seems the place of Dragons is Gods chiefest School of Repentance and we may have a clearer sight of him in the dimness of anguish than Vision it self does give When men did not perceive that saith Job yet this open'd the Ear and so God sealeth the Instruction And truly when the Soul dissolves in Tears and when as David words it The heart in the midst of the body is even like melting wax then only 't is susceptible of Impression then is the time for sealing the Instruction Nor does Chastisement open the Ear only but the Vnderstanding also I will give her trouble 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I will take her into the Wilderness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he and speak unto her Heart There is convincing Experience of all this Pharaoh that was an Atheist in Prosperity does beg for Prayers in Adversity before he suffers Pharaoh says Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice I know not the Lord neither will I let Israel go Exod. v. v. 2. but yet Thunder preaches obedience into him and Pharaoh sent and called for Moses and Aaron and said I have sinned the Lord is righteous and I and my People are wicked intreat the Lord that there be no more mighty Thundrings no more Voices of God the Hebrew words it and I will let you go Exod. ix 27. And in the Book of Judges you will find that whole Age was nothing but a vicissitude of sinning and suffering divided betwixt Idolatry and Calamity When Gods hand was not on them they ran after other Gods as if to be freed from Oppression had been to be set free from Gods Worship and Service but when he did return to slay them then they sought him and they returned to enquire early after God and they remembred that God was their Rock and the high God was their Redeemer Psal. lxxviii 34 35. So that from such induction the Prophet might pronounce that when Gods Judgments are in the Earth the Inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness Esay xxvi 9. and S. Peter in the Text they that have suffered in the flesh have ceased from sin Which calls me to my second Task 2. To shew first by what arts the flesh engages men into courses of sin and by what methods it does work them up to the heights of it That I may Secondly declare how sufferings blast those methods and make all the arts of flesh either unpracticable or too weak 1. That the carnal appetite should reach after and give up it self to sensual delights is so far from strange that it is its nature 't is the Law of the members the very signature of flesh and inclination imprinted into it of which it can no more divest it self than the heated Deer can restrain it self from thirsting and panting after water-brooks But when Reason and Religion have set bounds to this appetite for it to scorn these mounds for that Law in the members to fight with and prevail against the Law in the mind those original dictates born in it and Christian Principles infused into it this is the Fleshes aim and sin Now this it does by exciting to ill actions as being sauc'd with pleasures and contents and by indisposing to good actions as being troublesom or not at all delightful to the sense and as for all other delights it hath no apprehension of but indisposeth for them perfectly So that this it does it engages too much in Pleasures here and it takes off all cares or thoughts of any joys hereafter both these I will shew you and thus it works 1. It prevails with us to indulge our selves the full use of lawful pleasures and for this the Flesh will urge it is the end of their Creation to do otherwise were to evacuate Gods purpose in the making Did he give us good things not to enjoy them Thus every sort of sin insinuates it self at first Youth will not deny it self converses with temptations although he have reason to fear they will commit a rape upon his warmer passions which are chafed by such encounters But God has not forbid him Conversation and why should he be an Anchoret and recluse in the throngs of Cities and of Courts Another that would not by any means be luxurious or intemperate yet goes as near them as he can and contrives to enjoy all those delights that do indeed but sauce Intemperance and make Excess palatable And truly why should he restrain himself from meats and drinks and be a Jew again All these believe they live righteously soberly and godly enough This resolution works in every recreation pleasure honour and advantage of this World men are content to make as near approaches to the Sin as they can and indeed believe they have no reason to be morose unto themselves I will deny my self nothing that God hath not denied me but enjoy as far as possibly and lawfully I may But then by doing thus it Secondly does oft take in somewhat of the immoderate and unlawful which cannot be avoided both because it is hard to set the exact bounds and limits of what is lawful The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Line that meres out Vertue from its Neighbour Vice is not so plain in every place as to chalk out exactly to this point thou mayst come and no farther hence the man sometimes mistakes himself into a fault however the extremity of Lawful is we know the confines and very edge of Vice And then to him that plays upon the brink of sin it is a very easie step into it and indeed unavoidable when a man is rusht and hurried on not only by his inward stings and inclinations but by the practice of the World which makes use of that holy Name of Friendship to bring Vice into our acquaintance and to befriend us into everlasting Death of such Friends I can have legions in Hell and the God of this World will serve me upon this account to procure for my Sin and my Destruction but howsoever when the Appetite is heated they are not to be denied Thirdly this happening therefore sometimes proves a Snare and bait still to go on both as it takes away the horrour and the aversation of the sins which at the first seem
levell'd and the Mountains be brought low if we prepare the way for him The Gaudy people they that spend the severe hours of this sad Season and of the preparation for that Passion in the Arts and labours of Attire that mortifie and punish themselves onely in cares and in Contrivances to make and dress up Beauties and the study of these enters with thrusts out the grand concerns of their own Souls and the employments of this time even which they are about These doubtless are attir'd in Funeral conformity to wait upon him to his Cross on which he had no other dress but the rags of his own Skin Come they not rather to expose his nakedness and shame him from themselves that so he may go by and not take notice of them in his passage nor be concern'd for them in his Sufferings The Hypocrites either to God or to their Brethren that have onely the Ceremonies the Civilities of Honesty of Religion make shew of both but yet are false to God and insincere with Man cruelly betraying or deluding yea enraging those necessities which with fair speeches they pretend to smooth and salve they act over again the treacherous malice of his Persecutors who under the kindness of the Cup of Consolation which was given to them that were condemn'd to Die namely Wine mingled with Myrrhe to chear the Heart and cloud the Understanding and so lessen sense of Suffering in scorn and mischief gave him Vinegar and Gall which though it counterfeit the other taste serves onely to prolong life for more future Torment The Swearer stabs him all along his Journey and the Men of Black Designs and Malice they pour Venom in those Wounds But why stand I thus to enumerate particulars All such come not to the Redemption of the Day but onely to the Scene Amidst other like Entertainments of this Holy severe Time which the Theater affords they come also to see the Tragedy of Jesus to behold the dead march to Golgotha indifferent and unconcern'd in that as in the rest whether there were such a procession in earnest or whether he did come at all indeed which casts me on his other coming the last thing his coming in the first Revealing of the Gospel And here I hope I shall have no reflections to make as to preparing for this coming Christ certainly did find his Way prepared so to this Nation that we believe he was more early entertain'd in it than almost any where in the whole Gentile World And ever since his cares for it were so particular that they who would fulfil the Revelation in this Church seem to err with some reason when as his regards were so peculiar for this as if he had not concern'd himself in any other And sure none other ever had so long such opportunites and advantages so that I cannot press you to prepare the Lord's Way since he is among us Righteous art thou O Lord and wonderful in thy Mercies yet if I might plead with Thee concerning them I would enquire what hast thou done here all this while after thy so long abode among us what are we the better The last attempt of God to reclaim Man when he had shewed the World all other means were fruitless was by Thee his Son by whom he did conveigh all the full measures of his Graces and now what effect of these is there in us Shew me how all this care and cost hath made us be more just sober or chast in any way more virtuous than those Heathens whose Religion came from Hell We find Thee saying I beheld Sathan as Lightning fall from Heaven his Power vanishing like that which does but flash and perish never can be recollected But alas that falling flash hath kindled foul heats that will break out into Fire and Brimstone Idolatry 't is true is profligated hence the Devil is not worshipped as he was with a Religion of Impieties Uncleannesses Drunkenness and the like But yet the same things are now made to consist with thy Religion as well as with that of the Devil and we can do all those things and be Christians Some as if their Profession were a Charm which made them shot-free from Gods threats do they what they will they will adventure any the most desperate Impiety and choose Damnation in a sin and yet believe be confident and so secure On others it does work indeed the Form of Godliness makes them such perfect Pageants of Religion that they oft fall in love with their own Vizour and please themselves as if their dress were Nature while yet under that form there are the greatest falsnesses and black treacherous designs the most unjust and Bloody practices that even make the Form of Godliness look dismal and yet all this joyned with so much superciliousness with such difference to Christ that you would say the Pharisees were now all of Christ's side And is this all the Lord came hither for to be a Sanctuary for the prophane a Cloak for Hypocrites Give me leave to relate a Story I have read of four or five Vessels of Portugals who were Shipwrack'd to the drowning of almost five hundred men onely fifty three escaped and they were left naked and hurt upon an Island Desolate as the Israelites Wilderness which needed the same Miracle to sustain them and found the like For God as it were rained Fish upon them and so did that which kept them alive till at last they espyed a large Boat of Chineses making to the shore to take in Water in that Island and the people coming all to Land for their refreshment which they seeing resolved to make themselves the Masters of their Boat and Goods and go away in it A man would have thought their own sad state in that Land of Desolation should have taught them Compassion at least Gods Mercies to them should have taught them Justice to others But when men have received great signal instances of Gods Protecting mercies they think then that they are his Favourites and then they may do any thing They therefore got into a Wood near the Shore and Boat and it was ordered among them that when the Captain should pronounce Jesus three times then they should run out of the Wood and seize the Vessel Lord would not such a word be a Spell and Charm against unmerciful inhumane and unjust Designs would it not exorcize all impious Contrivances It is no new thing to preface mischief with an holy Name and bring in Jesus in the Prologue to Iniquity to talk of God and act the Devil They seiz'd it and driving from the Land left the true Owners of the Vessel to possess their misery Being secure they search'd and found no person in it but a Child of thirteen years of age and they fell to what Victuals they met and having eaten with hands lifted up they praised God solemnly and then proceeded to cut out and share the Silks and Riches of the Vessel The
kind when the sins therefore lie in the Attire and they may put them off without a Metaphor yet it is so hard that it cannot be done sometimes the worth of a whole Province hangs upon a slender thread about a Neck a Patrimony thrust upon one joint of one least Finger and these warts of a Rock or a Shell-fish with the appendages eat out Estates and starve poor Creditors for whom indeed they should command these stones to be made bread but that 's a Miracle too stubborn for their Vertue And then how will they proceed to the next expression of this Duty Circumcise your selves to the Lord and take away the foreskin of your hearts Jer. iv 4. These are harder and more bloody words they differ in the pain and anguish that they put us to as much as to uncloath and flea would do It appears indeed this punishment of fleaing often went before the Cross. To 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Ctesias of one having his Skin pull'd off he was Crucified And the scourges in some measure did inflict this on our Saviour when they put off his Cloaths they strip'd his Skin also left him no covering but some rags of that which whipping had torn from his flesh Yet this expression sounds harsher when it bids us circumcise the foreskin of our hearts and tear it from thence flea that When long Conversation with the pleasures of a sin hath not onely given them Regallias but hath made them necessary to us so as that we cannot be without them when Custom craves with greater feaver than our thirst when if we want it we have qualms saintings of Soul as if the life were in that blood of the grape when men can part as easily with their own bowels as the Luxuries that feed them if you take away their Dishes then you take their Souls which dwell in them when the sins of the Bed are as neâ—dful and refreshing as the sleeps of it when to bid a man not look not satisfie his lustful eye is every jot as cruel as that other Iâ— thine eye offend thee pluck it out For if he must no more find pleasure in his sight he hath no use of it yea if this be indeed a kindness not to leave him Eyes to be to him the same as Appetite to Tantalus that which he must not satisfie and is his hell 'T is easie if the Lust be got no further than the Eye to pull them out together but if through that it shoot into the Blood and Spirits mix heats with those if it enwrap the heart twist with its strings and warm the Soul with its desires so that it Spirit all the motions all the thoughts and wishes of the heart when it is thus to make the heart to stifle its own motions stab its thoughts and strangle all its wishes to untwist and disentangle and to tear it thence if this be to be Circumcised with the Circumcision of Christ and he that hath not the sign of this the Seal of the New Covenant as he that in the Old had not the other was must be cut off our long habituated hardned Sinners must not think that there is any thing of true Repentance in their easie perfunctory sleight performances there is something like Death in the Duty which yet is required of us farther under variety of more severe expressions for we are bid thirdly to slay the Body of Sin Rom. vi 6. to mortifie our members Col. iii. 5. and to Crucifie Gal. vi 14. which how it may be done the next consideration of S. Paul's condition in the Text and my next part declare I am Crucified with Christ that is first as he was by being made conformable to his Death And truly should we trace him through all the stages of his Passion we should hardly find one passage but is made to be transcribed by us in dealing with our sins First he began it with Agony when his Soul was exceeding heavy for it labour'd with such weight of indignation as did make the Son of God to sink under the meer apprehension And he was sorrowful unto Death so as that his whole Body did weep Blood The Sinners passion his Repentance is exactly like it it begins always with grief and sense of weight whoever is regenerate was conceiv'd in sorrow and brought forth with pangs and the Child of God too is born weeping And for loads the Church when she does call us to shew forth this Death of Christ as if she did prescribe that very Agony requires that we should find that Garden at the Altar makes us say we are heartily sorry for our misdoings the remembrance of them is grievous unto us the burden of them is intolerable So that the Sinner's Soul must be exceeding heavy too Secondly There he is betrayed by his own domestick sold for the poorest Price imaginable as a Slave for thirty pieces of silver I shall not mind you what unworthy things the love of Money does engage men to to sell a Christ a Saviour and a God! and rather than stand out at such a base rate as we scorn to buy a sin at every single act 's engagement to Damnation costs more than the Ransom of the World is sold for and the Blood of God is purchas'd cheaper than any one opportunity of Vice does stand us in But I onely mind you here that he shall have a better hire that will but be a Judas to his own iniquities do but betray the Regent sins deliver them up and thou shalt have everlasting Heaven Thirdly We find him next carried before the High Priest And the strictest times of Christianity would serve their sins so to receive his doom upon them to be excommunicated into Reformation But I shall not urge how we can discover to a Physician our shames all our most putrid Guilts as well as Ulcers and make him our Confessor in our most secret sins neither will I be inquisitive why the Physicians of our souls are balk'd but will pass this part of the Conformity and follow Christ to Pontius Pilate And for this part we our selves are fitted the whole furniture of a Judicial Court all that makes up both Bench and Bar is born within us God hath given us a Conscience whereby we are a Law to our selves Rom. ii We have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Jews did want such evidence as is sufficient to condemn us the same Conscience that is privy to our doings and stands by our thoughts and sees through our intentions is a thousand witnesses And that there may be a Prosecutor our own thoughts accuse us saith S. Paul and if we will give them way will aggravate each Circumstance of guilt and danger bark and howl and cry as loud against us as the Jews did against Christ for Sin is of so murthering a guilt it will be sure to slay it self and that he may not want his deserved Ruin the Sinner makes his
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
demonstrations had not convinc't them it had been no fault not to believe So when he had made appear he was that person whom their prophesies had pointed out the Messiah the Son of the living God and this not only his Disciples had acknowledg'd but the multitudes yea when his miracles had made one of the Pharisees confess Rabbi we know thou art a Teacher come from God for no man can do these miracles except God be with him Then if the Pharisees dispute against his Doctrine of Divorce urge the authority of Moses and Gods Law and the Disciples press the inconveniences that will happen If the case of Man be such with his wife he may answer them He that will not receive my Doctrines without dispute that is to say He that will not receive the Kingdom of God as a little Child shall not enter therein This King that cometh in the name of the Lord may well determin how we shall receive the Kingdom of God If he propose strange precepts to our practise it appears that he is sent from God and Gods commands are not to be disputed but obey'd if his revelations present dark unintelligible Mysteries to our faith his promises offer seeming impossibilities to our hope why yet he hath made proof he comes from God and surely we are not so insolent as to doubt that God can discover thing above our understanding and do things above the comprehension of our reason Therefore since we are as Children to all these it is but just we should receive them even as little Children With a perfect resignation of our understandings and of our whole souls Here 't is most true what S. Austin says Those are not Christians who deny that Christ is to be believ'd unless there be some other certain reason of the thing besides his saying Si Christo etiam credendum negant â—isi indubitata ratio reddita fuerit Christiani non sunt For to them that are convinc't of that 't is such a reason that he is the Christ. There is indeed no other name now under heaven to whom we are oblig'd to give such deference for however the modern Doctrines dare assert that Christ hath given the very same infallibility which himself had to all S. Peters successors as often as they speak ex Cathedrâ and that in matters both of right and of particular fact yet not to countenance this monster by admitting combate with it nor to put my self into the circle which these men commit who talk of the Authority of the Church to which they require us to resign our Faith I shall not stay to rack them on that their own wheel This I dare affirm it is impossible for any person or assembly to produce a delegation of authority in more ample terms then the great Councel of the Jews could shew sign'd both by God and Christ. According to the sentence of the Law which they shall teach thee and according to the Judgment which they shall tell thee thou shalt do thou shalâ— not decline from the sentence which they shall shew thee to the right hand nor to the left faith God Deut. 17. 11. compar'd with 2 Chron. 19. 8 9 10 11. And our Saviour says They sit in Moses Chair all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe that observe and do Mat. 23. 2. Let them of Româ— produce you a better and more large commission Yet did not this suppose that Councel was infallible either in the interpreting the Law or in attesting of tradition or in judging of a Prophet or that the Jews were blindly to give up their assent and their obedience to their sentence God did not mean the people should imagin that when he prescrib'd a Sacrifice for expiation of their errors in their Judgment when they found it out Lev. 4. 13. As their own Doctors do expound it Therefore God suppos'd that they might err and we know that their Traditions did evacuate the Law Mat. 23. 15. They judg'd and slew true Prophets v. 37. They declar'd the Messiah an impostor Mat. 27. 63. and blasphemer and for that condemn'd him Mat. 26. 65. and decreed what the Apostles told them they must not obey Act. 5. 25. But though there be no such Authority that 's absolute over the Faith of Men now upon Earth yet if this Jesus did acquire such by his Works if by the Miracles he wrought his raising others from the Dead his own Death and his Resurrection he sufficiently justified the Divinity of his Doctrine And if those Miracles were true they were not doubt sufficient and if those that did pretend they were eye witnesses and ministers of all this his Apostles and the Seventy Disciples and those others that accompanied him who conversed with him continually and could not therefore be deceived if they profess they heard and saw all this and Preacht it in the face of those that would have contradicted if they could and rather than their lives have proved all false yea Preacht it every where the Lord working with them and confirming the Word with signs following If they consign'd that Word in Writing also which they Preacht to be a measure and a Standard of that Doctrine to fnturity which Word so Preacht and Written by agreeing would in aftertimes give mutual illustrious evidence to one another and if any Heter â—â—â—â—ies should at any time creep by degrees into the Articles or the external practice of the Church they might he easily discovered by those Records And if the multitudes that heard and saw and did receive all this and which were grown extreamly numerous almost in every Nation of the then known World while those Apostles and Disciples liv'd if these deliver'd what they must needs know whether 't were true or not deliver'd both that Doctrine and those Books of it as most certain truth by Preaching and by Writing and by Living to it and by Dying for it and engaging their Posterity to do so and they also did that to all Ages if all this I say be true then it is easie to conclude that we are to receive the Doctrine of that Jesiâ— and this Book the Records of it with the resignation of a little Child and absolutely to submit our Faith to them But that it was thus first as sure as any of us here who have not seen the thing can be that Christianity is now profest the Bible now received in all the Regions round about us throughout Europe or indeed that there are â—â—ch Regions and places so sure we may be for we have the testimony of the World that for example in the days of Dioclesian 't was over the World profest both with their mouths and lives owned in despite of Spoyl of Torments and of Death and they did value the Records of this Doctrine so much dearer than their Lives or their Estates that in prosecution of those Edicts wherein the Christians were required to deliver up
their Bibles to be burnt in one Month 17000 were put to death And the Persecution lasted at that rate for ten years time so that in Egypt only it is said there were slain 144000 and 70000 banisht The Laity it seems were allowed Bibles then Or put the case higher in Adrian's or Trajan's time who both lived within an Hundred years of Christ who Martyr'd them 'till weariness slackned the Execution and they gave off onely as it were that so they might cease to persecute themselves and we have the Officers engaged attesting this all which must needs be as notorious as the Light Now Secondly 't is most impossible those so vast multitudes of every Nation should have met together forg'd a Code of Doctrines and agreed so uniformly in professing a Religion and in dying for it for we may as easily believe that there were never any men before this Age we live in but that these began the kind as that those of that Age began the Christian Religion Thirdly 't is as impossible that their immediate Ancestors who lived in the Apostles Age who heard their Preaching received their Writings saw the Miracles they did if they did any and many of them must have seen Christ also after he was risen if it were so yea multitudes of them were themselves parties in the gifts of Tongues and Miracles if there were any and so could not be impos'd on but must necessarily know whether they were truths or forgeries It is as Impossible I say so many should agree together to betray all their Posterity into the profession of a Religion from which they could look for no advantage but the certain total Ruin of themselves and their posterity it was not possible they could have done this if they had not thought all this was true and since they did know whether it were true or not if they thought it was true they did know it was and if they knew it was then it is certain that it was so and these Scriptures and the Doctrines Christians deliver so far as they have not varied since that time from these Authentical Records they have the Seal of God Miracles to attest they come from God I might have urged completion of Prophecies to prove the same First those in the Old Testament of the Messiah which so eminently came to pass in Christ that they sufficiently clear those Books to be Divine Next Christ's predictions in the New particularly those about Jerusalem which saith Eusebius He that will compare with what Josephus an eye-witness and no Christian writes of it or what our selves know of that Nation and that place indeed he must acknowledge the Divinity of his words But enough hath been said to prove they come from God and therefore we must so receive them as the Word of God with perfect resignation of our Souls and submission of our judgments denying every apprehension that would start aside from and not captivate it self to that prime truth which cannot be deceived nor lye and renounce all discourses Reason offers that resist such abnegation of it self and all our other faculties that is receive this word of the Kingdom as a little Child I do not here affirm by saying this that our Religion does disdain or keep distance from the service of any of Mans faculties for it sometimes admits them not as Ministers only but as Judges 'T is plain the senses were the first I do not say conveyance onely but Foundation of Faith which was built on the first believers eyes and ears they heard the Doctrine saw the Miracles were sure they saw and heard them and so supposing the signs sufficient to confirm the Doctrine to have come from God were certain of their truth without any Authority of a Church to influence that faith into divine And S. John therefore does not onely call in and admit and urge their testimony That which we have heard which we have seen with our Eyes which we have lookt upon and our hands have handled of the word of Life that declare we unto you But our Saviour in the highest point of Faith appeals directly to their Judgment Reach hither thy finger and behold my hands and reach hither thy hand and thrust it into my side and be not faithless but believing And S. Austin also gives them the decision of a point of Doctrine which of all others now troubles the Church most for speaking of the Eucharist he says that which you see is Bread and 't is a Cup it is that very thing which your eyes tell you ' t is Tertullian also long before that had appealed to them in that very cause And in an instance where their sentencè passes 't is not strange if Reason also take the Chair and do pretend to Judge And truly when the Scripture that does call those Elements Christs Body and his Blood does also call them after Consecration Bread and Wine and since they must be called one of them by a figure for they cannot be in Substance both and since that Scripture hath not told us where the Figure lies hath not expresly said 't is this but in resemblance that in Substance Here if Reason that hath Principles by which to judge of Bodies which are expos'd to all the notices and trials of our several faculties and to which a Trope is not a stranger it can judge of figurative speeches when it therefore finds if it admit the figure in that form This is my Body 'T is but just the same which was in the Jews Sacrament the Paschal Lamb which they call'd the Body of the Passover though it were but the memorial a figure which was always usual in Sacraments and is indeed essential to Sacraments And which is used in all things that are given by exhibitive signs But if it should resolve it to be Bread and Wine onely in a figure besides a most impossible acknowledged Consequence that a man can be nourisht by them which the Romanists dare not deny nor yet dare grant that men can feed upon a trope be nourish't with a figure besides this if reason shall resolve that it must judge against all Rules it hath of judging by and judge in contradiction to known Principles and trample on all Laws of sense and understanding which especially when the Scripture hath no where defined expresly must be most unreasonable yea most impossible to judge that true that is to say believe that thing which it sees is most irreconcileable with known truths Here therefore Reason is not insolent if it give verdict by its proper evidences men are not bound to swallow contradictions as they do the Wafer or receive as a little Child that discerns the Lords Body no more then it does the repugnancies that are consequent to their Hypothesis concerning it Or to make another instance when the Scripture says God is a Spirit yet does also give him hands and eyes
and ears and wings and these of strange prodigious dimensions neither tells us which of these is proper and which figure Here if Reason that can prove God cannot be a Body and cannot endure his God should be a monster shall be called in to pass sentence they that make Philosophy interpret Holy Writ in this case and give the last resort to Reason do no more usurp or trespass on Religion then they that make use of Authors or a Dictionary judge of the sense of any Greek or Hebrew word in Scripture But notwithstanding this we may not think the mysteries of Faith are to be measured by the Rules of natural Reason so to stand or fall as they approve themselves to its discourse or Principles for though it be impossible that any Revelation can contradict right Reason truth cannot be inconsistent with truth yet it is very possible God can reveal those truths which we have neither faculties analogal nor Principles or notions proportioned to nor any natural ways of judging or examining And if those faculties which are not capable of cognisance will judge and judge of things removed from all our notices such as Spiritual Infinite Eternal being is and do it by principles gathered from the information of our Sences and by analogy with things of another kind corporeal finite things that are about us reason need not be informed how liable such judgments must be to mistakes and how that which we call repugnancy in one may have no place in the other Here therefore to submit ourunderstandings and believe is but modest justice and to receive as Children what our Heavenly Father says And therefore they that will presume to comprehend what ere they are commanded to believe and those that will believe nothing but what they are able to comprehend are alike insolent if not pernicious 'T is true God by the Gospel hath revealed and brought to light many things which before appeared onely as he himself did in the Temple in a Cloud namely concerning the Divine nature Persons Properties and the Eternal being and the Incarnation of his Son but still as God himself is said to do these also dwell in Light that no man can approach unto Which he that will needs gaze and pry too near to must be dazled into blindness and be only so much more in the dark But he that proudly does conceit his little spark of Reason can bear up with that Divinity of brightness and enlighten him to look through all those inaccessible discoveries with Lucifers assuming he hath reason to expect his fall The one of these that will needs clear all mysteries the other will take them all away the one that with his Pencil will presume to figure him who is the brightness of Gods glory and trace out the lineaments by which that everlasting Father did impress the character and express Image of his person on him and the other that with a bold hand dashes out the Person from the Nature the one that will untie the knots of the Hypostatick union and the other that will cut them and the union too asunder the one that will needs prove by Reason whatsoever is in Scripture and the other that speaking of Christs Satisfaction saith for my part if it were not onely once but oftentimes set down in holy Scripture yet would not I therefore believe it because forsooth it was against his reasonings Neither the one or other of these sure receive revelation as a little Child not like young Samuel Speak Lord for thy Servant heareth But these as all extravagance is wont are profited into much worse The one that would be proving making reasons for the mysteries often God knows framed only shadows and the other by their light of Reason being able to dispel and make those shadows vanish that so easie victory encouraged them to frame reasons against and to attaque the mysteries themselves and then others finding there was something that was taken to be reason not agreeing with some chief heads of Religion as they had been still received took occasion thence to conclude against the whole Religion and by scruples at some Articles taught themselves to dispute all the Creed and now a difficulty in one Doctrine makes the rest suspected and regarded onely as things made to amuse and the unusual wording of a Command is thought ground enough to turn all Christian duty into Raillery For instance If Christ intending by prescribing patience to teach men how to escape not onely from the guilt and present torture that a Spirit which will needs return each sleight offence is subject to but also from the future and eternal recompences of revenge shall in phrasing his injunctions but bid them turn the other cheek no Gentleman can be of his Religion and that is cause enough I hope not only to renounce but scorn it If in meer compassion meaning only to make virtue easie by advising us against the snares and the occasions of Vice he word his Counsel in prescriptions to pull out the right eye cut off the right hand His Religion is a much worse Tyranny then the Covenant Naâ—ash offered to the men of Jabesh Gilead and they think themselves as much concern'd to make parties against it In fine if that he might at once instruct us how to pull up the root of all evil he forbid us to lay up treasures upon the Earth and tell us that our treasures should be laid up in Heaven and say it is impossible for a rich man to enter into Heaven here they cry out mainly he supposeth us and treats us just as Children This Command requires indeed that they who do receive it should be Children whom we use to cheat of gold by the same methods telling them it is not good for them at present that it shall be laid up for them and therefore when Religion does attempt to deal with men so 't is concluded it designs to cozen them as they think it does indeed and is a cheat and all that minister about it are meer fourbes And truly if we rackt the Consciences of dying men and if so be they would give so much to this Cloyster or that Order promised them remission of their sins and worse than Judas sold the purchase of Christs Blood at those base rates and betrayed the Redemption so on Gods name let them so account us but if we do attempt on nothing but mens vices and would onely steal their Souls from Hell and cheat them into piety and blessedness these we hope are very unreproachful frauds But alas to talk to them of these after-things of Heaven and Hell is altogether as much liable to their contempt as the commands are If we tell them of a Resurrection to Judgment and of everlasting fire to punish wicked men because their reason cannot comprehend how flame can hurt a Soul or for the Body how devouring fire can repair the food it
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
reasonably think would be to libel your judgment and the prefixing your Name to it and this mean address would look rather like revenge than homage or obedience If I did not know that low performances are due to the transcendency of such a subject as I then discours'd upon and such a Patron as I now Dedicate to So I lie prostrate under my great Arguments here insufficiency is Art and Rhetorick And the truth is My Lord it was not this which made me so sollicitous to avoid your injunctions but apprehensions of the unusefulness of the Discourse it self When God's most signal methods of all sorts do not seem to have wrought much conviction when neither our own dismal guilts nor miseries nor most express miracles of deliverance have made us sensible but after the equally stupendous Thirtieth of January and Twenty Ninth of May and the black time that interven'd we are still the same perverse untractable people when luxury is the retribution made for plenty license for liberty and Atheism for Religion whil'st miracles of mercy are acknowledged only by prodigies of ingrateful disobedience And on the other side when factious humours swell against all Laws as they would either over-flow those mounds or make them yield and give way to them when Declarations and Decrees which infallible when they came only from a party of a part of a Parliament are neither of force nor esteem when they have all solemnity and obligation that just and full authority can give alas what hopes of doing any thing can a weak Harangue entertain But My Lord since you are pleas'd to Command I give up both it and my understanding to Your Lordship and the weaker the Discourse is so much the more pregnant testimony is it of the obsequiousness of My Lord Your Lordships most devoted and most humble Servant RICH. ALLESTRY SERMON XVII AT HAMPTON-COURT May 29. 1662. HOSEA III. 5. Afterward shall the Children of Israel return and seek the Lord their God and David their King and shall fear the Lord and his goodness HE has said in the words before that the Children of Israel shall abide many days without a King and without a Prince without a Sacrifice and without an Image or Altar and without an Ephod and without Teraphim Now when they shall have been for many years in such a state of helpless desolation shall have no King under whose shadow they their Laws and Rights might hope for shelter no Prince to guard them from the sad calamities of wild confusion or usurping violence shall have no exercises of Religion to allay and soften those calamities and give them comfort in the bearing of them no Altar to lay hold on for security against them or to stretch out their hands towards for deprecation of them no nor a God to put an end to this sad state nor any means of direction what to do under it no Ephod to ask Counsel at nor yet the pageantry the fallacy of these no Teraphim for Ephods nor Image for a God the same destruction having seized these and their worshippers the people and their Idols going into Captivity together and the only true God having forsaken them Now when the Prophet had denounc'd this state of Woe which was to dwell with them so long as that their very expectations of deliverance should be dying having continued threescore years and ten a longer and more wearisome age of patience then life he then proceeds to sweeten all by telling them of a return and what things they shall do in it and they are three First Seek the Lord their God apply themselves to his Worship and Obedience and cleave to him for so the word is rendred 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lev. 19. 23. and Jeremy repeating this c. 30. 9. words it shall serve the Lord their God and David their King Which is the second thing they were to do As the Ecclesiastical state was to be setled so the secular too upon its just foundations Religion and Loyalty both running in their ancient current Thirdly They shall fear the Lord and his goodness Not only tremble before him who is the Lord that did exert his power in their destruction but shall much more revere his goodness that did flow out in such plentiful miraculous expresses of deliverance Now these being not only prophecy what in that juncture they would do nor only duties what they were to do but also counsels and directions immediately from God what they were best to do the only prudent and safe course according to the policies of heaven the direct view of these particulars in reference to that state of theirs is not an unconcerning prospect at this season which is the Anniversary of an equal return and therefore I shall lay them so before you and the reflection on them in our practice shall make the application 1. They shall seek the Lord their God is my first part and the Lord 's prime direction for the repairing of a broken Nation Neither indeed can any other course be taken for 'till we have found him while he does hide his face nothing but darkness dwells upon the land or if any light do break out 't is but the kindlings of his anger So he expresses Deut. 31. 17. Thâ—â— people will forsake me and break my Covenant then my anger shall be kindled against them and I will forsake them and hide my face from them and they shall be devoured and many evils and troubles shall befall them so that they will say in that day Are not these evils come upon us because our God is not amongst us This absence is only another word for desclation Be thou instructed O Jerusalem saith God by Jeremy c. 6. 8. lest my soul depart from thee and I make thee desolate a land not inhabited As if without him there were nothing else but solitude in Cities and in Courts and all were desart where he does not dwell Yea there is something beyond desolation Hos. 9. 11 12. As for Ephraim their glory shall flee away like a bird from the birth and from the womb and from the Conception though they bring up their Children yet I will bereve them that there shall not be a man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yea wo also to them when I depart from them And it must needs be so for let our state be never so calamitous if God be not departed there is comfort in it and a deliverer at hand If we are in the place of Dragons his presence will make heaven there and although we be covered with the shadow of death if the light of his Countenance break in we are in glory and the brightness of that will soon damp and shine out the fiery Trial. But if the Lord depart then there is no redemption possible God hath forsaken him persecute him and take him for there is none to deliver him Psal. 71. 11. But if there were deliverance some other way yet the want of God's
Condition There never was so much pretence of seeking God as in those late days of his absence from us and it should seem indeed we knew not where to find him we took such several ways to seek him But if God did not look down from heaven then as he did Psal. 14. to see if any did understand and seek after God should he not then have found it here as there They are altogether gone out of the way their throat is an open sepulcher with their tongues have they deceived the poison of asps is under their lips their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness their feet are swift to shed blood destruction and unhappiness is in their ways and the way of peace have they not known there is no fear of God before their eyes They eat up my people as it were bread and which is worse in these then them they even then call upon God as if they craved a blessing from the Lord upon that meal that did devour his people and when they did seek God they meant to find a prey Yet where were any others that did seek him Or that do cleave to him now The Schismatick does not seek God who shuns the place where he appears and meets and dwells nor does he cleave to God who tears himself off from the Lord's body Mark such as cause divisions saith S. Paul and avoid them and if all Christians must avoid them then I am sure God is not with them The other Schismaticks that divide from the World by cutting off the World from them do they seek God that are diverted by so many Saints and Angels that terminte divinest Worship in a creature Or do they cleave to God when their devotion embraceth stocks and stones Or did they seek God for the purpose of my Text who did not seek David their King but did apply themselves to several foreign Princes and to others which they hoped would set up their Golden Calf Incendiaries that make fires and raise commotions these are farr from God for the Lord was not in the fire or in the Earth-quake but in the still small voice in the soft whispers of peace and love The Atheist he that says in his heart there is no God will not seek God you may be sure nor does he care to seek David his King who is equally well under all Governments that will allow his Licences and who hath no Religion to tie him to any If he at all disliked the former it was upon reasons of Burthen or of Pride or Libertinism So much Religion though counterfeit was a reproach to him and the face of such strictness was uneasie to him These are so far from seeking God that God says these did drive him out of Israel Ezek. 9. 9. And then when that hath so long been the Wit that it is now the Complexion of the Age and they who thought fit to shew their not being Hypocrites by License and to give it an easie word by drollâ—ry in sacred things have now made nothing to be sacred to them how shall the Lord dwell among such They are enough to exercise God out of a Nation The Hypocrite also for all his Fasts and Prayers never did seek God for he is but a whited Sepulcher our Saviour says Now who would seek the Living God among the dead the Lord of Life sure is not to be found in Graves Golgotha was a place to crucifie him in not Worship him He takes not in the Air of Funeral Vaults for Incense it was a Demoniack that used to be among the Tombs The subtle false and faithless men that walk in Mazes never shall meet God These are the windings and the tracts of the Old Serpent and they lead only to his habitation They that do climb as if they meant to find God on his own Throne that follow Christ up to a pinnacle of the Temple or to the top of that exceeding high Mount whence they can over-look the glories of the World and pick and chuse these do not go to seek Christ there It is the Devil that does carry up thither upon his own designs Nor is it possible to seek the Lord in the ways that lead to the strange Womans house for her house is the way to hell Solomon says and he did know nay more her steps take hold on hell seise on those everlasting burnings which her foul heats kindle and begin In a word they that seek their own that turn all meerly to their advantage they cannot seek God too he will not be joynt God with Mammon And then where are the men that sought him That did retrive him to us Or with whom does he dwell If he be not among us we do in vain flatter our selves in our prosperity and peace gawd it in all our bright appearances Have we not seen the Sun rise with a glory of day about him and mounting in his strength chase away all the little receptacles and recesses of the night not leave a cloud to shelter the least relicks of her darkness or any spot to chequer or to fleck the countenance of day When strait a small handful of vapor rais'd by that Sun it self did creep upon his face and by little and little getting strengh be-dasht his shine and pour'd out as full streams of storm as he had done of light 'till it even put out the day and shed a night upon the Earth in spight of him So may prosperity it self if the Lord and his blessing be not in it raise that which will soon overcast and benight the most glorious condition of a Nation That Wine which now makes your hearts glad may prove like that which did commit the Centaâ—res and the Lapithae first kindle Lusts then Wars and at last onely fill a Cup of trembling and astonishment and that Oyl that does make you chearful countenances may make your paths slippery and nourish flames that will devour and ruine all But God who is found of them that seek him not nay who himself sought the lost sheep and carried him when with his straying he was wearied into impossibility of a return as also sought and found and brought together us and our great Shepherd For this is the Lords doing and it is marvellous in our eyes These ways of his also are so past finding out that we may well conclude they are the meer foot-steps of his incomprehensible goodness and we have onely now to fear that goodness But give me leave to say Those that despise his goodness do not fear it and they whom it does not lead to repentance do despise it S. Paul says Rom. 2. 4. Despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long-sufferance not knowing that the goodness of the Lord leads thee to repentance And now O Lord what sort of men among us hath thy goodness wrought upon and made repent Those whom it was directed to convince