thereby offer to us a farther proof of all that they propose To wit The appearance of these scoffers in the World who laugh at all Religion and despise a future Judgment when so ere it happens is its self a very signal mark of its approch I stir up saies St. Peter at the beginning of this Chapter and the words immediately preceding the Text your pure minds by way of remembrance that ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy Prophets and of the commandment of us the Apostles of the Lord and Savior knowing this first that there shall come in the last daies scoffers c. To which St. Jude exactly accords at the 17 and 18 verses of his Epistle Beloved remember ye the words which were spoken before of the Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ how that they told you there should be mockers in the last time who should walk after their own ungodly lusts And St. Paul 1 Thes 5. 1. Of the times and seasons brethren ye have no need that I write unto you for you your selves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night for when they shall say peace and safety then sudden destruction cometh c. All which is in the same manner declar'd by our Savior himself Mat. 24. 37. who saies that his coming will resemble that of the Flood which fell upon a generation of men as they were eating and drinking marrying and giving in marriage and despis'd the warning and predictions of Noah the Preacher of righteousness as St Peter calls him in the fore-going Chapter to the Text. Nor may it be suggested that the scoffing at Religion and a future Judgment is no such new thing in the world as to be any way remarkable and made the Character of the greatest revolution that ever was For tho there have bin alwaies debaucht and profligate persons more then a good many yet to have them openly scoffe at Religion do it with assurance and impunity is a thing so unusual as may justly ground the observation laid upon it Indeed for a fool to say in his heart there is no God is not without example but for a Sect of men to say it with their mouth dictate it as Philosophy and for that be esteem'd Wits and Masters of Reason is utterly without the precedents of ancient times and an atchievment to commence with the last dotage of the world a prodigy great enough to go hand in hand with the Suns being darkned and the Moons not giving her light the Stars falling from their orbs and the powers of Heaven being shaken mention'd by our Savior as the prologues of his second coming at the 24 of St. Mathew the place before recited As no Nation in the world however barbarous has bin found to be without Religion so none has bin without a concern for it By Gods law among the Jews the Blasphemer was to be put to death and Levit. 24. we see that sanction by Gods particular command put in Execution Which severity afterward obtain'd even then when the worship of the nation diverted to Idolatry for when Gideon had cut down the consecrated Grove of Baal and destroied his Altar Judg. 6. his life was required as an expiation of the fact Nebuchadnezzar tho a Heathen Prince thought himself oblig'd to vindicate the honor not only of his Bel but also of the God of Israel and as we read Dan. 3. 29. decreed that if any one should speak amiss against him he should be cut in pieces and his house be made a dunghill At Ephesus upon the suggestion that the honor of Diana had bin toucht the whole city was put into a confusion Act. 19. and at the 17 we find St. Paul question'd at Athens for being a setter forth of strange Gods and probably would not have escaped had the accusation run that he deni'd the old For in that place Diagoras Theodorus Anaxagoras Stilpo Protagoras and others were on this account punisht by banishments pecuniary mulcts and confiscations and by death it self Nay what is most remarkable and particular to our present purpose when Alcibiades had here in the jollity of a feast indulged unto his Wit and made sport upon the Rites of Ceres in mockery personating the Priest tho he was their General in a most important war they recall'd him home who not returning they proscrib'd his Person seiz'd his Estate and publicly devoted him by solemn execrations It would be endless to deduce this subject thro ancient History all the persecutions with so much blood and fury rais'd against Christians are so many instances of this very matter they all arising from no other ground then the zeal they had for their false Gods and an opinion that Christians were Atheists and Blasphemers that mockt at their Devotions and despis'd their Deities Now whether it be reasonable for us to have less veneration and esteem for the true God then they had for the false and verify whatever was suggested by the Heathen it will not be difficult to determin But if after the preaching of the Gospel wherein are made discoveries of the Majesty of God and of his mercy beyond any vouchsaf'd to former ages men shall have less regard of Him and of his Honor and after that his Son has for our sakes expos'd himself to shame and mockery and become of no reputation we shall therefore add to his inanition and let him be of none with us converting all the obliging circumstances of his life and death to his continued reproch crucify him afresh and put him to an open shame and farther if these multiplied these unaccountable indignities which in former times had certainly bin Capital shall now become a Specimen of parts and education be committed by the Actors with bold insolence and by the Hearers entertain'd with plesure and applause these practices thus put together and enhanc'd upon a sober estimate must prove such as do carry with them as the blackest guilt so the most direful ominous abode That this Age of ours has somwhat of mockery for its particular Genius so that scarce any thing is so entertaining as to sport with the misadventures or failances of others nor no faculty more recommending then the being dextrous in turning serious things to Ridicule I think is a truth so notorious that I may say it without offence to any they that are passive in these skirmishes being sufficiently sensible of what they suffer and they that are active not desiring to concele or disown their Talent nay both sorts at one time or other being active those that have wit to shew it and those that have none to pretend to it Tho alas what great proof is it of wit to make others laugh which an Idiot can do as effectually by having none and as to what is the height of that celebrated faculty and is thought true bearing wit the saying sharp unexpected rambling things t
THE Character of the last Daies A SERMON Preached before THE KING By JOHN FELL D. D. Dean of Christ-Church and Chaplain to his MAJESTY Printed by Command At the THEATER in Oxford Anno Dom. 1675. 2 Pet. 3. 3. There shall come in the last daies scoffers walking after their own lusts and saying where is the promise of his coming For since the Fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning of the Creation THE great business of Religion is to oblige its Votaries to present duty by the awe and expectation of future retribution and the particular design of the Gospel the Doctrine of our Lord Jesus Christ is to oblige to this by the assurance and belief that he who came unto us heretofore to teach his Law will come again to execute the sanctions of it Behold saies St. John Rev. 1. 7. He cometh with clouds and every eie shall see him and they also which pierced him And he saies of himself Behold I come quickly and my reward is with me to give every man according as his work shall be Rev. 22. 12. Which weighty truth tho abundantly establisht by all the miracles the types and prophecies that attend the Gospel is most particularly enforc'd by the two inimitable expresses of Divinity our Saviors Resurrection from the dead and his Ascension into Heaven Concerning the former of which St. Paul remonstrates Acts 17. 30. The times of ignorance God winked at but now commandeth all men every where to repent because he hath appointed a day in which he will judg the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordain'd whereof he hath given assurance unto all men in that he hath rais'd him from the dead The other is exprest by St. Peter Act. 2. 19. Repent and be converted that your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord. And he shall send Jesus Christ which before was preached unto you whom the Heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy Prophets since the world began Indeed this second advent is the foundation the support and end of our Religion If in this life only we had hope we were of all men most miserable 1 Cor. 15. 19. If to the other Articles of our Creed which concern our Savior there had not succeded the belief that he shall come again to judg both the quick and the dead we were as ridiculous as these mockers of the Text pretend us hated and scorn'd by men and deserted by Almighty God It will therefore import us highly to examine whether the Christian be so absurd a person as these drols and merry men would make him a creature only useful because he finds them sport and entertainment And for a just survey hereof t will be material to consider First the personal qualifications of the Disputers here describ'd and Secondly the force of their arguments and discoursings according to those two prevailing Topics in use among us from the head of Autority and that of Reason And this being well deduc'd t will not be hard to bring the whole debate to a short and certain issue both in regard of speculation and what is more important in reference to practice I begin to consider what I first propos'd the personal qualifications of the Disputers here describ'd They are said to be scoffers walking after their own lusts To be a Scoffer is sure no very laudable Character being the joint result of Pride and Malice the doing mischief and the doing it in sport So that whereas t is said that the Flatterer is the worst of tame beasts and the Detractor of wild the Scoffer has the ferity of both Amidst the pretences to Urbanity and being plesant company he is the bane of all society the poison of Asps is under his lips his teeth are spears and arrowes and his tongue a sharp sword Psal 5. 7. Any injury is supportable that has not contemt and scorn superadded to it we can better bear the wounds then the insultings of an enemy or if we must submit to that we would not have our understandings trampled on be run down like fools and Idiots or fall the victims of petulant ill nature edg'd with envenom'd wit But as this temper is most injurious and unsociable t is also ignorant and indocile The sure effect of knowledg is an humble sense of the want of it the deeper we immerse our selves in any Art or Science the greater and more insuperable difficulties are started by us and the same event happens to all industrious enquirers which befel Socrates to arrive at last to this one great discovery that they know nothing T is the peculiar priviledg of the ignorant and half-wited by thinking well of their own skill and acquisitions to make it impossible for them to have any Seest thou a man wise in his own eies saies Solomon there is more hope of a fool then of him Prov. 26. 12. and at the 9. Chap. ver 7 8. He that reproveth a scorner getteth himself a shame and he that rebuketh a wicked man getteth himself a blot rebuke not a scorner least he hate thee rebuke a wise man and he will love thee and Chap. 14. ver 6. A scorner seeketh wisdom and findeth it not But farther over and above the before-mention'd ingredients of pride ill nature and incorrigible folly the mockers of the Text are branded with immorality and vice to walk after their own lusts And sure there cannot be a more prodigious impudence then that the guilty and obnoxious persons liable to the severest punishments as well as censures should dare to awaken observation by being sharp on others But so it is the man that walks in the counsel of the ungodly and has stood in the way of sinners will not fail to recreate himself by sitting down in the seat of the scornful Aristotle truly resolv'd that the sensual or passionate were incapable of receiving moral knowledg and t is hard that they who are not in a possibility to be learners should take upon them to be judges But in the present case t is their great concern and interest not to be instructed To convince the sensual man that there is a future doom is to sour all his joies and torment him before the time So that to pass all other grounds of prejudice whatever is suggested by these mockers of the Text their testimony at least is not to be consider'd they being brib'd and led aside by interest to all that they assert And let this suffice to have bin said of the personal qualifications of the disputers against a future judgment I come now to examin the force of their discoursings Where first t is obvious to advert that the Enquiry Where is the promise of his coming is very extravagantly made As the Apostle saies that hope which is seen is not hope Rom.
is most happily acquir'd by an approch to drunkenness or frenzy and t will be no very advantagious barter to loose our understandings to advance our wit The Masters of Greek and Roman Rhetoric in their Institutions discourse indeed of causing laughter as a piece of the Art which they pretend to teach but they tell us t is only to be allowed in those causes which admit no other defence The Buffoon in a desperate exigence is to relieve the Orator impudence to supply the place of argument and wit fill up the room of sense as we see men who have no better weapon think it no shame to rake the canal and secure themselves by throwing dirt But what shall we say of those who have introduc'd this way of fight into the Christian Warfare those Schole divinity Drolls of this our Age who defend the Faith by destroying Charity attaque their fellow-men by those opprobrions methods of disputing by scoffs and railing accusations with which t were not allowable to oppose the Devil himself Jud. 9. T is certainly great pity a good cause should be asserted by such arguments as libel and reproch it such as cannot be urg'd but by the worst of Men and which even they will not produce till that all others fail them And were those flowers of Rhetoric weeded out of our late controversial books we should find large Volumes shrink into Manuals and be as little in their bulk as they are in their conviction Where ere this procedure takes place t is not at all material on what side the truth lies a Jest will as effectually provide an answer to a demonstration as to the most manifest inconsequence The brightest evidence and vertue disguis'd and render'd monstrous by burlesque like the Primitive Christians in the skins of wild beasts will easily be worried and destroied Nay so it fares that the most venerable persons things and actions are most liable to be thus expos'd and made ridiculous for whatever this beloved acquisition proves be it the gift of Nature meant certainly for better purposes or the product of drunkenness or frenzy or what is yet a shorter method of spight or malice it has a peculiar faculty to pervert the best and most useful things traducing sobriety for dulness gravity for foppishness order for formality learning for pedantry and is most immediatly prepar'd to cut the nerves of Government by despising Dominion and speaking evil of Dignities Jude 8. These are the men who as the roial Psalmist tells us make Songs of him who pretend therein not only to impunity but authoritative right and say they are those who ought to speake When these are once on the Tribunal nothing can scape their sentence the modesty of Virgins learning of Scholars wisdom of Counsellors integrity of Magistrates honor of Nobles the dearest interests of all conditions and estates are laught away as things not worth the keeping Nay Majesty its self is here obnoxious treated as our Savior was in order to his Crucifixion arai'd in a ridiculous robe arm'd with a reed instead of a roial Scepter then mockt and bowed to in reproch and then t is thought high time to hang it on a tree This leud familiarity ends in the worst contemt and nothing can be so unhappy as Autority when baffled The Coffee-house Rebell is more mischievous then he that takes the field and a Prince is sooner murder'd with a libell then a sword And therefore it will concern those who are in Autority to consider of what effect it may be that there are so many mockers of this form and level in these last times of ours My present enquiry is after those of a higher dispensation who set their mouth against Heaven and defy God and Providence which yet is but a natural emprovement of the other and no less powerfully if not much more destructive of Government and Lawes And therefore it will also be the Magistrates great interest as t is their highest duty to be concern'd herein To these ungodly mockers walking after their own lusts proud as they are and confident that the day of Judgment will either never be or is far off I shall not add more words upon that Head to their disturbance but mind them of another day which they cannot deny to be approching I mean the day of Death that sentence of the Lord over all flesh as the Wise man calls it which is the day of Judgment to each particular person as that of Doom is to the World And will these mockers ask in scorn where is this promise of his coming tho the Fathers are faln asleep do they hope by a peculiar privilege to continue still and reverse the general law of the Creation If the long day of the Fathers had a night who after 7 8 or 900 years went down to sleep in dust and when they did so there was no inquisition in the grave whether the date had bin so many hours but all their labors vanisht as they did in dull forgetfulness and silence shall our winter Solstice day whose Sun scarcely looks over the Horizon but instantly starts back again to dwell upon the other World so lye upon our hands as if the Sun were to stand still as it did in Joshuas time or to go back as it did in Hezechias that we might frolic it without disturbance in everlasting riot and excess The sensual Epicure describ'd at the 12 of St. Luke who said unto his soul Soul thou hast much goods laid up for many years take thine ease eat drink and be merry tho he only overlookt and not deni'd a Providence was stopt in his carriere by hasty vengeance which pronounc'd this irreversible decree Thou fool this night thy soul shall be required of thee and then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided And let our jolly men of dissolute ungodly life who notwithstanding the concerns of their immortal soul are at leisure to make sport with every thing however Sacred who with scorn and greediness pursue unlawful plesures and bid defiance to Almighty Justice lay their hands upon their breast and ask themselves at what ensurance office they have secur'd a longer date of life how they come to know their soul shall not be requir'd or if it be how well they are prepar'd to give an answer to the question but now askt This very sentence at this moment is really pronounc'd against many thousands in the world who ere to morrows night will breath their last of which number not one single person that now hears me is sure that he is not Have they debated calmly with themselves what death is how many unwelcome circumstances are hudled up in that short word Can they willingly forego their houses and estates their tables and their beds and bid a long farwell to their dear company their paramours and flatterers lying gastly and cold and senseless imprison'd in a Coffin and immur'd in Earth To speak in the language of
the Scripture will the tender and delicate women who would scarce adventure to put their feet unto the ground thro delicacy Deut. 28. be content to be despoil'd of their rings and jewels the changeable suits of apparell the mantles the wimples and the crisping pins the glasses and fine linen the hoods and veiles Isa 3. and as he adds take in exchange insted of a sweet smell a stink insted of a girdle a rent iusted of well-set hair baldness and burning insted of beauty But this is not all will they be willing to come to the Tribunal of their Maker and render an account of all the words the thoughts the actions and omissions of an ill led life answer for their noon-day insolence and mid-night revels answer for their own and others guilts the sin of their rebellion and greater sin of their impenitence the accusations of offended justice and deeper charge of slighted Mercy Or lastly can they after the confusion and horror of having all their guilts set in aray before them enhanc'd by the no less numerous overtures of grace and mercy out-brave that dreadful sentence of Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire prepar'd for the Devil and his Angels Mat. 25. Will they maintain the jolly humor there and like the three Children in the Babylonian furnace sing in the midst of flames and resemble them in being untoucht by pain as they shall in not being wasted and devour'd Will they find arguments of mockery and laughter in the place of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth If they can do this on Gods name let them mock on deny a future Judgment or what is more generous and brave let them provoke and dare it But if they cannot dwell with the devouring fire nor abide with everlasting burnings Isa 33. If they cannot wrestle with Omnipotence nor have an arm like God t will be advisable to take a timely warning and according to the counsel given to Job Chap. 41. 8. to think upon the battell and do no more I shall close all with the inference and in the words of St. Peter pursuant to my Text. The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night in the which the Heavens shall pass away with a great noise and the Elements shall melt with fervent heat the Earth also and the works that are therein shall be burnt up Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolv'd what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God wherein the Heavens being on fire shall be dissolv'd and the Elements shall melt with fervent heat Nevertheless we according to his promise look for new Heavens and a new Earth wherein dwelleth righteousness Wherefore beloved seeing that ye look for such things be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace without spot and blameless and account that the long-suffering of the Lord is Salvation Ye therefore seeing you know these things before beware least ye also being led away with the error of the wicked fall from your own stedfastness But grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ to him be glory both now and for ever Amen FINIS a ad Nicom Eth. lib. 1. a Epig. lib. 5. a Ptolem. Campanel a Thalmud Abod Zara. c. 1. fol 9. R. Ketina in Ps 92. Hilar. in 17 Mat. Just Mart. in Dial. cum Tryph. quaest ad Orthod 71. Iren. l. 5. c. 28. 30. Cypr. l. de exhort Mart. Lactant. l. 7. c. 14. b Abyden Beros Nic. Damasc Plat. in Tim. Suidas in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ex Apollin a Plat. in Tim. Senec. Nat. quaest 3. 13. Ep. ad Polyb. Minut. Fel. Ovid. Metam l. 1. f. 7. Lucan l. 1. Hystasp in Euseb Praep. Justin in Apol. a Suid. in Diag Diog. Laert. Corn. Nep. in Alcib a Arist Rhet. l. 3. Quintil. Instit l. 6.