the Pardon and Salvation of Mankind than by the Death of his Son For since it was the Pleasure of God to pitch upon this way of doing it to what purpose is it for us vainly to enquire whether he might not have made use of some other This we ought at least to believe That God had his Reasons for preferring this and that however we ought not so far to tye up the Power and Liberty of our Creator as to presume to say he could not otherwise have redeem'd us than by the Death of Christ yet thus much we may and 't is our duty to conclude That none could have better or so well have answer'd the great Ends both of his Justice and of his Mercy or more illustriously have set forth the Riches of his Love and Favour to Mankind or more powerfully have engaged us to a suitable return of Love to him or more clearly have convinced us of the hatred of God to Sin or more effectually have stir'd us up to our utmost endeavours to live as we ought to do and as becomes those who had been so wonderfully redeem'd by the precious Blood of the Son of God himself But though this then be a Question otherwise of more Curiosity than Vse and raised for the most part rather to cavil at Religion than to magnifie the Power of it yet may it here perhaps be of some benefit to us to fill our Souls with the highest resentments of Love and Gratitude to our Great Redeemer to consider not only from what Miseries he has delivered us but with what a freedom and readiness and good-will to us he did it No God was not constrain'd nor any necessity put upon our Saviour Christ as if either the one must have died or that the other could not by any other means have reconciled Mankind unto himself It was the free Choice of both by this means the better to magnifie their Love to us and to secure our Love and Duty to them again that so as St. John says 1 Ep. iv 19 We may love God because he first loved us Hence it is that the Holy Scriptures every where set out to us the whole business of our Salvation as the effect of the free Choice and Pleasure of God So says St. John cap. iii. 16 God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life So says St. Paul 2 Tim. i. 9 where he makes the business of our Redemption to have been the eternal purpose of God before Adam had yet sinned or by consequence before there could be any necessity of Christ's dying for us who hath saved us says he and called us with an Holy Calling not according to our works but according to his own purpose and Grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the World began And of our Blessed Saviour the same Apostle tells us not only that He gave Himself for us Tit. ii 14 but that he did it with all imaginable readiness and with the same good-will with which God designed it Lo I come says he to fulfil thy Will O God Heb. x. 7 9. And again in St. John speaking of laying down his life for us he declares ver 18. No man taketh it from me but I lay it down of my self I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again Such therefore was the love of our Blessed Saviour to us in freely giving up himself to the Death for us And for the reason that induced him to it and the benefits which thereby accrue to us I shall not need to say either what or how great they were Indeed the time would fail me should I go about particularly to lay them all before you Miserable was the State and deplorable the Condition of Mankind beyond any thing that we are able almost to conceive We were all dead in Trespasses and Sins and must for ever have lain both under the Guilt and Punishment of our Transgressions had not the Blessed Jesus opened to us the Gates of Heaven and sealed a Gospel of Repentance with his own Blood for the Remission of our Sins Our Nature was decayed and that he has restored so that whereas before we had no sufficiency of our selves we have now a sufficiency of God and can do all things through Christ that strengthens us Our Sins had got the dominion over us and these he has not only very much prevented by his Grace but will also utterly wipe away by his Death and Satisfaction for us We were under a miserable Sentence of Death and Judgment But Christ has now took away the sting of the one and the danger of the other so that our Temporal Death is no longer a Punishment but rather a Blessing to us and the Eternal Judgment of God shall instead of being our Condemnation prove to us perfect Absolution and a glorious Reward This is the blessed Change which has been made in our Condition and which certainly ought to render the remembrance of our Text most dear and precious to us But I must not insist any longer upon this Point I am persuaded there is no one that now hears me so ignorant in the great Mystery of Godliness as not to be fully acquainted with this first and chiefest Foundation of all our Faith Nor have I mentioned that little which I have now remark'd of it so much to instruct you in what you ought to make a great part of your Memorial when you come to this Holy Sacrament as rather if it shall please God to stir up some Affections both in my self and you that may be suitable to a serious Reflection on all these things There being nothing it may be in the World more apt to fill our Souls with that due resentment we then especially ought to have of the Death of Christ when we come to this Sacred Memorial of it than to consider the wretched condition from which we were delivered by it nor more apt to engage us to live as becomes those who have been freed from such unspeakable Miseries and are now put into a capacity of Everlasting Glory and without which our remembrance of him in this Sacrament will be a Reproach and a Scandal not an Honour and a Service to him we shall forfeit all the benefits of that Death we are call'd to commemorate and as our Apostle phrases it ver 29. of this Chapter Eat and drink our own Damnation not discerning the Lord's Body This is the first thing we are to do in pursuance of the Command of the Text This do in Remembrance of Me. Secondly This remembring of Christ in this Holy Sacrament will oblige us to consider what that Death and Passion was which he underwent for our sakes and commanded us in this place to continue the Memory of in this Institution And this to be sure must be the proper business of every one when
of life and it is not without some violence that they break through the restraints of Shame and Modesty to pursue it Sometimes it sets before them the obligations which their duty lays upon them to fulfil it How worthy and honourable a thing it is to live Virtuously what a Credit and Respect it gains a man here and what a glorious Reward shall be the consequence of it hereafter Sometimes it calls to mind the terrors of the Lord and forces them whether they will or no to think of that Time when for all these things God will bring them to Judgment and how they shall then be able to endure an Eternity of Torments in that wretched place where the Worm dieth not and where the fire never shall be quenched Now all these and many other hindrances of the like kind which the Sinner meets with in the first beginnings of his Evil Course are not only so many Barriers which it has pleased God to set in our way to keep us from ruine but so many helps too to assist us if we should at any time be enticed to do wickedly to recover our selves again out of it But by a longer Continuance in Sin all these are overcome and we are not only thereby more deeply engaged in the ways of wickedness but having lost all these Assistances our retreat is also rendred infinitely more difficult than whilst we lay under the restraints of Shame and Fear and Conscience to reclaim us But this is not yet all for by continuing in Sin and putting off the time of our Repentance we do not only diminish our own Natural strength and thereby render our selves still less able to encounter with it but what is yet more to be consider'd we deprive our selves of the Assistance of God's Grace too without which it will be impossible for us ever to overcome it It is laid down by Isaiah as the reason why God forsook his ancient People the Jews Chap. lxiii vers 10. That they rebelled and vexed his Holy Spirit therefore was he turn'd to be their Enemy and He fought against them And our Blessed Saviour in his Gospel every-where proceeds upon this measure in the dispensations of his Grace that to Him who has i. e. who makes use of and improves what God has already bestow'd upon him shall be given and he shall have more abundantly But from him that has not i. e. that does not make use of and improve what he has even that which he once had shall be taken away And however it may sometimes please God in an extraordinary manner to raise up Sinners at the last and though they continue long in their Wickedness yet nevertheless still continue his Divine Assistance to them to bring them to Repentance yet cannot this be any Ground for any one to rely upon in this matter seeing it is plain both from the Authority of Holy Scripture and the Common Experience of Mankind that in the ordinary Methods of God's Providence his Grace is withdrawn in proportion to Men's neglect of it till at last they are utterly deprived of it and given up to be led Captive by the Devil at his Will Hence it is that we sometimes read in Holy Scripture of Persons deliver'd up to a Hardness and Impenitence of heart Not that I think God ordains any man to destruction or denies him such a measure of his Grace as may be sufficient to preserve him from it But when Men neglect his Offer and despise and grieve his Holy Spirit and go on in their Sins notwithstanding all the methods of his Providence to bring them to repentance When the measure of their Iniquities is now fill'd up and they are become ripe for Vengeance then God is pleased sometimes to withdraw his Grace from them and seal them up unto destruction And tho he may sometimes permit them for other ends of his Providence to continue still in this World yet he no longer continues the Power and Assistance of his Holy Spirit to them to bring them to repentance This I take to have been the Case of Pharaoh after the Sixth Judgment Till then the Scripture tells us that He hardned his Heard or that His Heart was hardned But when his own Magicians confess'd that the finger of God plainly shew'd it self in the Miracles of Moses and yet he still continued obstinate then God declares that He hardned him Exod. ix 12 and caused him to stand i. e. kept him alive when he had deserved to be punish'd with a quick destruction for this very end that he might shew in him his power Exod. ix 16 Many are the Declarations of the Holy Scripture that confirm this to us If we look into the state of the Old World before the Flood God himself declares Gen. vi 3 That his Spirit should not always strive with Man Yet a hundred and twenty years and if they repented not in that time then He would bring an utter Destruction upon them And in the same manner we find Holy David speaking in the person of God concerning the Rebellious Israelites and which I the rather remark because Saint Paul applies it Hebr. iii. 12 to the very purpose of what I am now speaking That because they hardned their hearts and tempted and grieved God forty years therefore he at last sware to them in his wrath that they should not enter into his rest And the application which the Apostle makes is this plain Conclusion Take heed Brethren lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God But exhort one another daily while it is called to day lest any of you be hardned through the deceitfulness of Sin And lastly to mention no more The same is the Declaration which Solomon makes in the Name of God concerning the Destruction of hardned and impenitent Sinners Prov. i. where having first set forth the Grace of God ready to assist them if they would repent verses 22 23. How long ye simple ones will ye love simplicity And ye scorners delight in their scorning and fools hate knowledge Turn you at my reproof Behold I will pour out my Spirit upon you I will make known my words unto you He afterwards declares the just indignation of God against them if they should still continue obstinate and impenitent verses 24 25 26. Because I have called and ye refused I have stretched out my hand and no man regarded But ye have set at nought all my Counsel and would have none of my Reproof I also will laugh at your Calamity and mock when your fear cometh And again Verses 28 29 30. Then shall they call upon me but I will not answer they shall seek me early but they shall not find me For they hated knowledge and did not chuse the fear of the Lord They would none of my Counsel they despised all my Reproof Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own
neither were the Gentile Christians utterly without fault in it but so far stood fast in that liberty wherewith Christ had made them free as not only to despise the weakness and ignorance of the others but to be ready almost even to cut them off from their Communion I need not say how dangerous such a Controversie as this might have proved nor what a stop it might have put to the progress of Christianity in those first beginnings of the Gospel Great were the difficulties which the Apostles underwent on this occasion whilst they endeavoured so to menage themselves between these two Parties as not only not to offend either but if it were possible to bring them Both to such a temper with one another that neither the Gentile Convert might despise the weakness of his Judaizing Brother nor the Jewish Votary judge too severely of the Liberty of the Gentile Christian. And this was the design of St. Paul in the Chapter before my Text. Where addressing himself as indeed he seems to have done this whole Epistle to the Gentile Christians and whom as having the truer Notion of their Christian Liberty as to this matter he therefore calls the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the strong in the Faith v. 1 he exhorts them in a most admirable Discourse on this Subject throughout the whole Chapter to bear the Infirmities of the Weak i. e. not to grieve nor despise them for their mistaken Zeal but by complying a little and condescending to their Infirmities to endeavour if it should please God to draw them out of their Error Let every one of us please his neighbour for his good to Edification And then concludes all in the words of the Text wherein we have First A hearty Prayer to God Almighty That he would inspire them so effectually with a Spirit of Vnity and Charity that notwithstanding all their differences they might joyn unanimously both Jews and Gentiles not only in the same common Worship of God but with the same hearty affection to one another Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be like-minded one towards another according to Christ Jesus that ye may with one Mind and one Mouth glorifie God even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And Secondly an Exhortation as the final result of his whole Discourse That they should with all charitable condescension and kindness receive and love and assist one another and not despise and censure and deprive one another either of their Charity or their Communion Wherefore receive ye one another as Christ also received us to the Glory of God In which words as they thus lye before us in the Occasion and Design of them there are two things that will offer themselves to our consideration First An Exhortation to these Dissenting Christians and in them to all of us Not to break either Charity or Communion with one another upon the account of such things wherein we may securely differ but mutually to bear with one another in our differences Secondly An Enforcement of this Exhortation from two of the greatest Considerations that can possibly engage any Christian to an observance of it viz. First From the Example of Christ towards us Secondly From the greater Glory that will hereby redound to God Wherefore receive ye one another as Christ also received us to the Glory of God I shall make it my endeavour with all the plainness that I can to pursue both the Exhortation and the Enforcement in the three following Propositions I. That there may be differences in matters of lesser moment between very good and zealous Christians without any just reflection either upon the Men or upon their Religion II. That these differences ought not to hinder such Persons from agreeing together not only in a common Charity but if it be possible in a common Worship of God too III. That to this End it is the Duty of all Christians but especially of those who are the strong in Faith not only to pray for such a Vnion but as they have opportunity heartily to labour Themselves and earnestly to stir up all Others to endeavour after it And First That there may be Differences in matters of lesser moment between very good and zealous Christians without any just Reflection upon the Men or upon their Religion For proof of which I think I need go no farther than the very History of my Text. I have already said how great a division there was between the Jewish and the Gentile Converts about the Ritual Observances of the Law of Moses and with what a Zeal the Dissenting Parties managed the Dispute till they had almost lost their Charity and made a deplorable Schism in the Church of Christ. And yet I am confident no Man will say that this was at all derogatory either to the Truth of their Common Christianity or to the Infallible Authority with which the Apostles had deliver'd it unto them And for the Parties themselves that thus differ'd with one another that they had a true Zeal on both sides for the Glory of God and thought it matter of Conscience the one to observe these Ceremonial Institutions as what God still required of them the other to refuse any such Imposition as not only a needless Burden but even repugnant to the Grace of Christ declared to them in his Gospel S. Paul in the prosecution of this very Argument does clearly bear witness to them Ch. xiv 6 Where he makes use of this very thing as one Reason why they should mutually tolerate one another in their Dissensions viz. That however they differ'd in their Notions as to these particulars yet they were both perfectly agreed in the same common Zeal for the Glory of God and the Discharge of their Duty He that regardeth the day regardeth it unto the Lord and he that regardeth not the day to the Lord he doth not regard it He that eateth eateth to the Lord for he giveth God thanks and he that eateth not to the Lord he eateth not and giveth God thanks And indeed either we must say that all even the least Points relating to our Religion are so clearly and plainly revealed that no Honest Man can possibly be mistaken if he will but impartially enquire into them which from the Differences of whole Parties concerning these things 't is plain they are not Or else Men's different Capacities and Opportunities and Tempers and Education consider'd 't is in vain to expect that all Good Men should agree in all their Notions of Religion any more than we see they do in any other concerns whatsoever And who am I that I should dare to pronounce a Sentence of Reprobation against any one in whom there appear all the other Characters of an humble upright sincere Christian only because he has not perhaps met with the same Instruction or read the same Books or do's not argue the same way In a Word because he is not