deserving a Right or Claim to some good from the person of whom he deserves and as a Right in one to Claim this Good inferrs a Debt and Obligation in the other to pay it So certain it is by a direct Gradation of Consequences from this Principle of Merit that the Obligation to Gratitude flows from and is enjoyn'd by the first Dictates of Nature And the truth is the greatest and most Sacred ties of Duty that Man is capable of are founded upon Gratitude Such as are the Duties of a Child to his Parent and of a Subject to his Sovereign From the former of which there is required Love and Honour in recompence of Being and from the latter Obedience and Subjection in recompence of Protection and Well-being And in General if the conferring of a Kindness did not bind the person upon whom it was conferred to the returns of Gratitude why in the Universal Dialect of the World are Kindnesses still called Obligations And thus much for the first ground enforcing the Obligations of Gratitude namely the Law of Nature In the next Place 2. As for the Positive Law of God revealed in his Word it is evident that Gratitude must needs be enjoyned and made necessary by all those Scriptures that upbraid or forbid Ingratitude as in 2 Tim. 3.2 The Unthankfull stand reckoned among the highest and most enormous Sinners which sufficiently evinces the Vertue opposite to Unthankfulness to bear the same place in the rank of Duties that its contrary does in the Catalogue of Sins And the like by consequence is inferr'd from all those places in which we are commanded to Love our Enemies and to do good to those that hate us And therefore certainly much more are we by the same commanded to do good to those that have prevented us with good and actually obliged us So that it is manifest that by the Positive written Law of God no less than by the Law of Nature Gratitude is a Debt 3. In the Third and Last place As for the Laws of Men Enacted by the Civil Power it must be confessed that Gratitude is not enforced by them I say not enforced that is not enjoyned by the Sanction of Penalties to be inflicted upon the Person that shall not be found Gratefull I grant indeed that many Actions are punish'd by Law that are Acts of Ingratitude but this is merely accidental to them as they are such Acts for if they were punished properly under that Notion and upon that account the punishment would equally reach all Actions of the same kind but they are punish'd and provided against by Law as they are gross and dangerous Violations of Society and that Common Good that it is the Business of the Civil Laws of all Nations to protect and to take care of Which Good not being violated or endangered by every Omission of Gratitude between Man and Man the Laws make no peculiar provision to secure the Exercise of this Vertue but leave it as they found it sufficiently enjoyn'd and made a Duty by the Law of God and Nature Though in the Roman Law indeed there is this particular provision against the Breach of this Duty in case of Slaves That if a Lord Manumits and makes Free his Slave gross Ingratitude in the person so made Free forfeits his Freedom and Re-asserts him to his former Condition of Slavery Though perhaps even this also upon an Accurate consideration will be found not a Provision against Ingratitude properly and formally as such but as it is the Ingratitude of Slaves which if left unpunish'd in a Common-wealth where it was the Custom for Men to be served by Slaves as in Rome it was would quickly have been a Publick Nusance and Disturbance for such is the peculiar Insolence of this sort of Men such the uncorrigible Vileness of all slavish Spirits that though Freedom may rid them of the Baseness of their Condition yet it never takes off the Baseness of their Minds And now having shewn both what Gratitude is and the Ground and Reason of Men's obligation to it we have a full account of the proper and particular Nature of this Vertue as consisting adequately in these two Things First That it is a Debt and secondly That it is such a Debt as is left to every Man's Ingenuity in respect of any Legal Co-action whether he will pay or no for there lies no Action of Debt against him if he will not He is in danger of no Arrest bound over to no Assize nor forced to hold up his unworthy Hand the Instrument of his Ingratitude at any Barr. And this it is that shews the rare and distinguishing Excellency of Gratitude and sets it as a Crown upon the Head of all other Vertues that it should plant such an over-ruling Generosity in the Heart of Man as shall more effectually encline him to what is brave and becoming than the Terrour of any Penal Law whatsoever So that he shall feel a greater force upon himself from within and from the Controll of his own Principles to engage him to do worthily than all Threatnings and Punishments Racks and Tortures can have upon a low and servile Mind that never acts vertuously but as it is acted that knows no Principle of Doing well but Fear no Conscience but Constraint On the contrary the Gratefull person fears no Court or Judge no Sentence or Executioner but what he carries about him in his own Breast And being still the most severe exactor of Himself not only confesses but proclaims his Debts his Ingenuity is his Bond and his Conscience a thousand Witnesses So that the Debt must needs be sure yet he scorns to be Sued for it nay rather he is always suing importuning and even reproaching himself till he can clear accounts with his Benefactour His Heart is as it were in continual labour it even travails with the Obligation and is in pangs till it be delivered and as David in the overflowing Sense of God's Goodness to him cries out in the 116 Psalm verse 12. What shall I render unto the Lord for all his Benefits towards me So the Gratefull person pressed down under the apprehension of any great kindness done him eases his burthened mind a little by such Expostulations with himself as these What shall I do for such a Friend for such a Patron who has so frankly so generously so unconstrainedly relieved me in such a Distress supported me against such an Enemy supplied cherished and upheld me when Relations would not know me or at least could not help me and in a word has prevented my Desires and out-done my Necessities I can never do enough for him my own Conscience would spit in my face should I ever slight or forget such Favours These are the Expostulating Dialogues and Contests that every Gratefull every truly Noble and Magnanimous Person has with himself It was in part a brave Speech of Lu. Cornelius Sylla the Roman Dictator who said That He found no
of Truth put off with Similitudes Let him that says it is a trouble to refrain from a Debauch convince us that it is not a greater to undergoe one and that the Confessor did not impose a shrewd Penance upon the Drunken man by bidding him go and be drunk again and that lisping raging redness of Eyes and what is not fit to be named in such an Audience is not more toilsome than to be clean and quiet and discreet and respected for being so All the trouble that is in it is the trouble of being sound being cured and being recovered But if there be great arguments for Health then certainly there are the same for the obtaining of it and so keeping a due proportion between Spirituals and Temporals we neither have nor pretend to greater Arguments for Repentance Having thus now cleared off all that by way of Objection can lie against the Truth asserted by showing the proper Qualification of the Subject to whom only the ways of Wisdom can be ways of Pleasantness for the further prosecution of the matter in hand I shall show what are those properties that so peculiarly set off and enhance the Excellency of this Pleasure 1. The first is That it is the proper pleasure of that part of man which is the largest and most comprehensive of Pleasure and that is his mind a substance of a boundless comprehension The mind of man is an Image not only of God's Spirituality but of his Infinity It is not like any of the Sences limited to this or that kind of object as the sight intermedles not with that which affects the smell but with an universal superintendence it arbitrates upon and takes them in all It is as I may so say an Ocean into which all the little Rivulets of Sensation both External and Internal discharge themselves It is framed by God to receive all and more than Nature can afford it and so to be its own motive to seek for something above Nature Now this is that part of man to which the Pleasures of Religion properly belong and that in a double respect 1. In reference to Speculation as it sustains the name of Understanding 2. In reference to Practice as it sustains the name of Conscience 1. And first for Speculation the pleasures of which have been sometimes so great so intense so ingrossing of all the Powers of the Soul that there has been no room left for any other Pleasure It has so called together all the Spirits to that one Work that there has been no supply to carry on the Inferior operations of Nature Contemplation feels no Hunger nor is sensible of any Thirst but of that after knowledge How frequent and exalted a Pleasure did David find from his Meditation in the Divine Law all the day long it was the Theam of his Thoughts The affairs of State the government of his Kingdom might indeed employ but it was this only that refresh'd his mind How short of this are the delights of the Epicure how vastly disproportionate are the Pleasures of the Eating and of the Thinking man indeed as different as the silence of an Archimedes in the study of a Problem and the stilness of a Sow at her wash Nothing is comparable to the pleasure of an Active and a prevailing thought a thought prevailing over the difficulty and obscurity of the Object and refreshing the Soul with new discoveries and images of things and thereby extending the Bounds of Apprehension and as it were enlarging the Territories of Reason Now this pleasure of the Speculation of Divine things is advanced upon a double Account 1. The Greatness 2. The newness of the Object 1. And first for the greatnss of it It is no less than the great God himself and that both in his Nature and his Works For the Eye of Reason like that of the Eagle directs it self chiefly to the Sun to a glory that neither admits of a Superior nor an Equal Religion carries the Soul to the study of every Divine Attribute It poses it with the amazing thoughts of Omnipotence of a Power able to fetch up such a Glorious Fabrick as this of the world out of the Abyss of Vanity and Nothing and able to throw it back into the same Original Nothing again It drowns us in the speculation of the Divine Omniscience that can maintain a steady infallible comprehension of all Events in themselves Contingent and Accidental and certainly know that which does not certainly exist It confounds the greatest subtilties of Speculation with the Riddles of God's Omnipresence that can spread a single Individual substance through all spaces and yet without any commensuration of parts to any or circumscription within any though totally in every one And then for his Eternity which non-plusses the Strongest and Clearest Conception to comprehend how one single Act of Duration should measure all Periods and Portions of time without any of the distinguishing parts of Succession Likewise for his Justice which shall prey upon the sinner for ever satisfying it self by a perpetual Miracle rendring the Creature immortal in the midst of the flames always consuming but never consumed With the like wonders we may entertain our Speculations from his Mercy his Beloved his Triumphant Attribute an Atribute if it were possible something more than Infinite for even his Justice is so and his Mercy transcends that Lastly we may contemplate upon his supernatural astonishing works particularly in the Resurrection and reparation of the same numerical Body by a reunion of all the scattered Parts to be at length disposed of into an estate of Eternal Woe or Bliss as also the greatness and strangeness of the Beatifick Vision how a created Eye should be so fortified as to bear all those Glories that stream from the fountain of uncreated Light the meanest expression of which Light is that it is unexpressible Now what great and high Objects are these for a Rational Contemplation to busy it self upon Heights that scorn the reach of our Prospect and Depths in which the tallest Reason will never touch the Bottom yet surely the pleasure arising from thence is Great and Noble for as much as they afford perpetual matter and imployment to the inquisitiveness of Humane Reason and so are large enough for it to take its full scope and range in Which when it has suck'd and dreined the utmost of an Object naturally lays it aside and neglects it as a dry and an Empty thing 2. As the things belonging to Religion entertain our Speculation with great Objects so they entertain it also with new And novelty we know is the great parent of pleasure upon which account it is that men are so much pleased with Variety and Variety is nothing else but a continued Novelty The Athenians who were the profess'd and most diligent Improvers of their Reason made it their whole business to hear or to tell some new thing for the truth is Newness especially in great matters was a
length end in Death and Confusion There being as the Wise man tells us a Way that may seem Right in a Man 's own Eyes when nevertheless the End of that Way is Death Now as amongst these Principles or Rules of Action the pretences of the Spirit and of tenderness of Conscience and the like have been the late grand Artifices by which Crafty and designing Hypocrites have so much abused the world so I shall now instance in another of no less Note by which the generality of Men are as apt to abuse themselves And that is a certain Rule or sentence got almost into every Man's mouth That God accepts the Will for the Deed. A principle as usually apply'd of less malice I confess but considering the easiness and withall the Fatality of the delusion of more mischief than the other And this I shall endeavour to search into and lay open in the following discourse The words hold forth a general Rule or Proposition delivered upon a Particular Occasion Which was the Apostle's exhorting the Corinthians to an Holy and Generous Emulation of the Charity of the Macedonians in contributing freely to the Relief of the poor Saints at Ierusalem Upon this great Encouragement that in all such Works of Charity it is the Will that gives worth to the Oblation and as to God's Acceptance sets the poorest Giver upon the same Level with the Richest Nor is this all but so perfectly does the Value of all Charitable Acts take its Measure and Proportion from the Will and from the Fulness of the Heart rather than that of the Hand that a lesser Supply may be oftentimes a greater Charity and the Widow's Mite in the Balance of the Sanctuary out-weigh the Shekels and perhaps the Talents of the most Opulent and Wealthy The All and utmost of the One being certainly a Nobler Alms than the Superfluities of the Other And all this upon the Account of the great Rule here set down in the Text. That in all transactions between God and Man wheresoever there is a full Resolution drift and purpose of Will to please God there what a man can do shall by virtue thereof be accepted and what he cannot do shall not be required From whence these Two Propositions in Sence and Design much the same do naturally result 1. The first of them expressed in the Words To wit That God accepts the Will where there is no Power to perform 2. The other of them Implyed Namely That where there is a Power to Perform God does not accept the Will Of all the Spiritual tricks and legerdemain by which men are apt to shift off their Duty and to impose upon their own Souls there is none so common and of so fatal an import as these Two The Plea of a good intention And the Plea of a good Will One or both of them being used by Men almost at every turn to elude the Precept to put God off with something instead of Obedience and so in effect to out-wit him whom they are called to Obey They are certainly two of the most Effectual Instruments and Engines in the Devil's hands to wind and turn the Souls of Men by to whatsoever he pleases For first the Plea of a Good Intentention will serve to Sanctifie and Authorize the very Worst of Actions The proof of which is but too full and manifest from that Lewd and Scandalous Doctrine of the Jesuits concerning the Direction of the Intention and likewise from the whole Mannage of the late accursed Rebellion In which it was this insolent and impudent Pretence that emboldened the Worst of Men to wade through the blood of the Best of Kings and the Loyallest of Subjects namely That in all that risk of Villainy their Hearts forsooth were right towards God and that all their Plunder and Rapine was for nothing else but to place Christ on his Throne and to establish amongst us the Power of Godliness and the Purity of the Gospel by a further Reformation as the Cant goes of a Church which had but too much felt the Meaning of that Word before But such persons consider not that though an Ill Intention is certainly sufficient to spoil and corrupt an Act in it self Materially Good yet no Good Intention whatsoever can rectifie or infuse a Moral Goodness into an Act otherwise Evil. To come to Church is no doubt an Act in it self Materially Good yet he who does it with an Ill Intention comes to God's House upon the Devil's Errand and the whole Act is thereby rendred absolutely Evil and Detestable before God But on the other side if it were possible for a Man to Intend well while he Does ill yet no such Intention though never so good can make that Man Steal Lye or Murther with a good Conscience or convert a Wicked Action into a Good For these things are against the Nature of Morality in which nothing is or can be really good without an Universal concurrence of all the Principles and Ingredients requisite to a Moral Action though the failure of any one of them will imprint a Malignity upon that Act which in spight of all the other requisite Ingredients shall stamp it absolutely Evil and corrupt it past the Cure of a Good Intention And thus as I have shewn that the Plea of a Good Intention is used by Men to Warrant and Patronize the most Villainous and Wicked Actions so in the next place the Plea of a Good Will will be found equally efficacious to supersede and take off the Necessity of all Holy and Good Actions For still as I have observed the great Art of the Devil and the principal deceit of the Heart is to put a Trick upon the Command and to keep fair with God himself while men fall foul upon his Laws For both Law and Gospel call aloud for Active Obedience and such a Piety as takes not up either with faint Notions or idle insignificant Inclinations but such an One as shews it self in the Solid Instances of Practice and Performance For Do this and live saith the Law Luk. 10.28 And if ye Know these things Happy are ye if ye Do them says the Gospel Joh. 13.17 And not every one that saith Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven but he that Doth the Will of my Father which is in Heaven Matth. 7.21 And Let no man deceive you He that doth Righteousness is Righteous 1 Joh. 3.7 With innumerable more such places All of them terrible and severe Injunctions of Practice and equally severe Obligations to it But then in comes the benign Latitude of the Doctrine of Good-Will and cuts asunder all these hard pinching Cords and tells you That if this be but piously and well inclined if the Bent of the Spirit as some call it be towards God and Goodness God accepts of this above nay instead of all External Works those being but the Shell or Husk this the Kernel the Quintessence and the very Soul of Duty But
for all this these Bents and Propensities and Inclinations will not do the Business the bare bending of the Bow will not hit the Mark without shooting the Arrow and Men are not called to Will but to Work out their Salvation But what then Is it not as Certain from the Text that God sometimes accepts the Will as it is from those forementioned Scriptures that God commands the Deed Yes no doubt Since it is impossible for the Holy Ghost to contradict that in one place of Scripture which he had affirmed in another In all the foregoing places Doing is expresly commanded and no Happiness allowed to any thing short of it and yet here God is said to accept of the Will and can both these stand together without manifest contradiction That which enjoyns the Deed is certainly God's Law and it is also as certain that the Scripture that allows of the Will is neither the Abrogation nor Derogation nor Dispensation nor Relaxation of that Law In order to the clearing of which I shall lay down these Two Assertions 1. That every Law of God commands the Obedience of the Whole Man 2. That the Will is never accepted by God but as it is the Obedience of the Whole Man So that the Allowance or Acceptance of the Will mentioned in the Text takes off Nothing from the Obligation of those Laws in which the Deed is so plainly and positively enjoyned but is only an Interpretation or Declaration of the true Sence of those Laws shewing the Equity of them Which is as really Essential to Every Law and gives it its obliging Force as much as the Justice of it and indeed is not another or a distinct thing from the Justice of it any more than a Particular Case is from an Universal Rule But you will say How can the Obedience of the Will ever be proved to be the Obedience of the Whole Man For answer to which we are first to consider Every Man as a Moral and consequently as a Rational Agent and then to consider what is the Office and Influence of the Will in Every Moral Action Now the Morality of an Action is founded in the Freedom of that Principle by virtue of which it is in the Agent 's Power having all things ready and requisite to the performance of an Action either to perform or not to perform it And as the Will is endued with this Freedom so is it also endued with a Power to Command all the other Faculties both of Soul and Body to Execute what it has so Will'd or Decreed and that without Resistance So that upon the last Dictate of the Will for the Doing of such or such a thing all the other Faculties proceed immediately to act according to their respective Offices By which it is manifest that in point of Action the Will is Virtually the Whole Man as containing in it all that which by virtue of his other Faculties he is able to do Just as the Spring of a Watch is virtually the whole Motion of the Watch forasmuch as it imparts a Motion to all the Wheels of it Thus as to the Soul If the Will bids the Understanding Think Study and Consider it will accordingly apply it self to Thought Study and Consideration If it bids the Affections Love Rejoyce or be Angry an Act of Love Joy or Anger will follow And then for the Body if the Will bids the Leg go it goes if it bids the Hand do this it does it So that a Man is a Moral Agent only as he is endued with and acts by a Free and Commanding Principle of Will And therefore when God says My Son give me thy Heart which there signifies the Will it is as much as if he had commanded the Service of the Whole Man for whatsoever the Will commands the Whole Man must do the Empire or Dominion of the Will over all the Faculties of Soul and Body as to most of the Operations of each of them being absolutely Over-ruling and Despotical From whence it follows That when the Will has exerted an Act of Command upon any Faculty of the Soul or Member of the Body it has by so doing done all that the Whole Man as a Moral Agent can do for the Actual Exercise or Employment of such a Faculty or Member And if so then what is not done in such a case is certainly not in a man's Power to doe and consequently is no part of the Obedience required of him No man being commanded or obliged to obey beyond his Power And therefore the Obedience of the Will to God's Commands is the Obedience of the whole Man forasmuch as it includes and inferrs it which was the Assertion that we undertook to prove But you will say If the Prerogative of the Will be such that where it commands the Hand to give an Alms the Leg to Kneel or to go to Church or the Tongue to utter a Prayer all these things will infallibly be done Suppose we now a man be bound hand and foot by some outward violence or be laid up with the Gout or disabled for any of these Functions by a Palsy can the Will by its Command make a man in such a condition utter a Prayer or Kneel or go to Church No 't is manifest it cannot but then you are to know also that neither is Vocal Prayer or Bodily Kneeling or going to Church in such a case any part of the Obedience required of such a person But that Act of his Will hitherto spoken of that would have put his Body upon all these Actions had there been no impediment is that man's whole Obedience and for that very Cause that it is so and for no other it stands here accepted by God From all which Discourse this must naturally and directly be inferr'd as a certain Truth and the chief foundation of all that can be said upon this Subject namely That whosoever Wills the Doing of a thing if the Doing of it be in his power he will certainly Doe it and whosoever does not doe that Thing which he has in his power to doe does not really and properly Will it For though the Act of the Will Commanding and the Act of any other faculty of Soul or Body executing that which is so Commanded be Physically and in the Precise Nature of things distinct and several yet Morally as they proceed in Subordination from one Entire Free Moral Agent both in Divinity and Morality they pass but for one and the same Action Now that from the foregoing Particulars we may come to understand how far this Rule of God's accepting the Will for the Deed holds good in the Sence of the Apostle we must consider in it these Three things 1. The Original Ground and Reason of it 2. The just Measure and Bounds of it And 3. The Abuse or Misapplication of it And first for the Original Ground and Reason of this Rule it is founded upon that Great Self-evident and Eternal Truth that
the Just the Wise and Good God neither does nor can require of Man any thing that is Impossible or Naturally beyond his Power to Doe And therefore in the Second place the Measure of this Rule by which the just extent and bounds of it are to be determined must be that Power or Ability that Man Naturally has to doe or perform the Things Willed by him So that wheresoever such a Power is found there this Rule of God's Accepting the Will has no place and wheresoever such a Power is not found there this Rule presently becomes in force And accordingly in the Third and Last place The Abuse or Misapplication of this Rule will consist in these Two Things 1. That Men do very often take that to be an Act of the Will that really and truly is not so 2. That they reckon many things impossible that indeed are not impossible And first to begin with Men's mistakes about the Will and the Acts of it I shall Note these Three by which Men are extremely apt to impose upon themselves 1. As first the bare Approbation of the Worth and Goodness of a Thing is not properly the Willing of that Thing and yet Men do very commonly account it so But this is properly an Act of the Understanding or Judgment a faculty wholly distinct from the Will and which makes a Principal part of that which in Divinity we call Natural Conscience and in the Strength of which a Man may approve of things good and excellent without ever willing or intending the Practice of them And accordingly the Apostle Rom. 2.18 gives us an account of some who Approved of things excellent and yet Practised and consequently Willed things clean contrary Since no Man can commit a Sin but he must Will it first Whosoever observes and looks into the workings of his own heart will find that noted Sentence Video meliora proboque Deteriora sequor too frequently and fatally verify'd upon himself The 7th of the Romans which has been made the Unhappy Scene of so much Controversie about these Matters has several passages to this purpose In a word to Judge what ought to be done is one Thing and to Will the doing of it is quite another No doubt Vertue is a beautifull and a glorious thing in the Eyes of the most Vicious person breathing and all that he does or can hate in it is the Difficulty of its Practice For it is Practice alone that Divides the World into Vertuous and Vitious but otherwise as to the Theory and Speculation of Vertue and Vice Honest and Dishonest the Generality of Mankind are much the same For Men do not approve of Vertue by Choice and free Election but it is an Homage which Nature commands all Understandings to pay to it by necessary Determination and yet after all it is but a faint unactive thing for in Defiance of the Judgment the Will may still remain as perverse and as much a stranger to Vertue as it was before In fine there is as much Difference between the Approbation of the Iudgment and the Actual Volitions of the Will with relation to the same Object as there is between a Man's viewing a Desirable thing with his Eye and his reaching after it with his Hand 2 dly The Wishing of a Thing is not properly the Willing of it though too often mistaken by Men for such But it is that which is called by the Schools an Imperfect Velleity and imports no more than an idle Un-operative complacency in and desire of the End without any Consideration of nay for the most part with a Direct Abhorrence of the Means of which Nature I account that Wish of Balaam in Numb 23.10 Let me die the Death of the Righteous and let my last End be like his The thing it self appeared Desirable to him and accordingly he could not but like and desire it but then it was after a very irrational absurd way and contrary to all the Methods and Principles of a Rational Agent which never Wills a Thing really and properly but it applies to the Means by which it is to be acquired But at that very time that Balaam desired to Die the Death of the Righteous he was actually following the Wages of Unrighteousness and so thereby engaged in a Course quite contrary to what he desired and consequently such as could not possible bring him to such an End Much like the Sot that cried Utinam hoc esset Laborare while he lay Lazing and Lolling upon his Couch But every true Act of Volition imports a respect to the End by and through the Means and Wills a Thing only in that way in which it is to be compassed or effected which is the foundation of that most true Aphorism That He who Wills the End Wills also the Means The truth of which is founded in such a Necessary Connexion of the terms that I look upon the Proposition not only as True but as Convertible and that as a Man cannot truly and properly Will the End but he must also Will the Means so neither can he Will the Means but he must Vertually and by Interpretation at least Will the End Which is so true that in the account of the Divine Law a man is reckoned to Will even those things that Naturally are not the Object of Desire such as Death it self Ezek. 18.31 only because he Wills those Ways and Courses that naturally tend to and end in it And even our own Common Law looks upon a Man's raising Arms against or Imprisoning his Prince as an Imagining or Compassing of his Death Forasmuch as these Actions are the Means directly leading to it and for the most part actually concluding in it and consequently that the Willing of the One is the Willing of the Other also To Will a thing therefore is certainly much another thing from what the Generality of Men especially in their Spiritual concerns take it to be I say in their Spiritual concerns for in their Temporal it is manifest that they Think and Judge much otherwise and in the Things of this World no man is allowed or believed to Will any thing heartily which he does not endeavour after proportionably A Wish is properly a man of Desire sitting or lying still but an Act of the Will is a Man of Business vigorously going about his Work And certainly there is a great deal of Difference between a Man's stretching out his Arms to work and his stretching them out only to yawn 3 dly and Lastly A mere Inclination to a thing is not properly a Willing of that thing and yet in matters of Duty no doubt men frequently reckon it for such For otherwise why should they so often plead and rest in the goodness of their Hearts and the honest and well-inclin'd disposition of their Minds when they are justly charged with an Actual non-performance of what the Law requires of them But that an Inclination to a thing is not a Willing of that thing
sweetness in being Great or Powerfull but only that it enabled him to Crush his Enemies and to Gratifie his Friends I cannot warrant or defend the first part of this Saying but surely he that imploys his Greatness in the latter be he never so great it must and will make him still greater And thus much for the first General thing proposed which was to shew What Gratitude is and upon what the Obligation to it is grounded I proceed now to the Second Which is to give some account of the Nature and Baseness of Ingratitude There is not any one Vice or ill Quality incident to the mind of Man against which the World has raised such a loud and universal Out-cry as against Ingratitude A Vice never mention'd by any Heathen Writer but with a particular height of Detestation and of such a Malignity that Human Nature must be stript of Humanity it self before it can be guilty of it It is instead of all other Vices and in the Balance of Morality a Counterpoise to them all In the Charge of Ingratitude Omnia dixeris It is one great Blot upon all Morality It is all in a word It says Amen to the Black Roll of Sins It gives Completion and Confirmation to them all If we would state the Nature of it Recourse must be had to what has been already said of its contrary and so it is properly an Insensibility of kindnesses received without any Endeavour either to acknowledge or re-pay them To re-pay them indeed by a Return equivalent is not in every one's Power and consequently cannot be his Duty but Thanks are a Tribute payable by the poorest The most forlorn Widow has her two Mites and there is none so indigent but has an Heart to be sensible of and a Tongue to express its Sense of a Benefit received For surely Nature gives no man a Mouth to be always Eating and never saying Grace nor an Hand only to grasp and to receive But as it is furnished with Teeth for the One so it should have a Tongue also for the Other and the Hands that are so often reach'd out to Take and to Accept should be sometimes lifted up also to Bless The World is maintain'd by Intercourse and the whole Course of Nature is a great Exchange in which One good turn is and ought to be the stated price of Another If you consider the Universe as one Body you shall find Society and Conversation to supply the Office of the Blood and Spirits and it is Gratitude that makes them Circulate Look over the whole Creation and you shall see that the Band or Cement that holds together all the Parts of this great and glorious Fabrick is Gratitude or something like it You may observe it in all the Elements for does not the Air feed the Flame and does not the Flame at the same time warm and enlighten the Air Is not the Sea always sending forth as well as taking in And does not the Earth quit Scores with all the Elements in the Noble Fruits and Productions that issue from it And in all the Light and Influence that the Heavens bestow upon this Lower World though the Lower World cannot equal their Benefaction yet with a kind of Gratefull return it reflects those Rays that it cannot recompence so that there is some Return however though there can be no Requital He who has a Soul wholly void of Gratitude should do well to set his Soul to learn of his Body for all the Parts of that minister to one another The Hands and all the other Limbs labour to bring in Food and Provision to the Stomach and the Stomach returns what it has received from them in Strength and Nutriment diffused into all the Parts and Members of the Body It would be endless to pursue the like Allusions In short Gratitude is the great Spring that sets all the Wheels of Nature a-going and the whole Universe is supported by Giving and Returning by Commerce and Commutation And now thou Ungratefull Brute thou Blemish to Mankind and Reproach to thy Creation what shall we say of thee or to what shall we compare thee for thou art an Exception from all the visible World neither the Heavens above nor the Earth beneath afford any thing like thee And therefore if thou would'st find thy Parallel go to Hell which is both the Region and the Emblem of Ingratitude for besides thy self there is nothing but Hell that is always Receiving and never Restoring And thus much for the Nature and Baseness of Ingratitude as it has been represented in the Description given of it Come we now to the Third Thing proposed which is to shew the Principle from which it proceeds And to give you this in one word It proceeds from that which we call ill-Ill-nature Which being a word that occurrs frequently in discourse and in the Characters given of Persons it will not be amiss to enquire into the proper Sence and Signification of this Expression In order to which we must observe that according to the Doctrine of the Philosopher Man being a Creature designed and framed by Nature for Society and Conversation Such a Temper or disposition of Mind as enclines him to those Actions that promote Society and mutual fellowship is properly called good-good-Nature Which Actions though almost innumerable in their particulars yet seem reduceable in general to these Two Principles of Action 1. A proneness to do good to others 2. A ready Sense of any Good done by others And where these two meet together as they are scarce ever found asunder it is impossible for that Person not to be Kind Beneficial and Obliging to all whom he converses with On the contrary Ill-nature is such a Disposition as enclines a Man to those Actions that thwart and sower and disturb Conversation between Man and Man and accordingly consists of 2. Qualities directly contrary to the former 1. A Proneness to do ill turns attended with a complacency or secret joy of Mind upon the sight of any mischief that befals another And 2ly An utter insensibility of any good or kindness done him by others I mean not that he is unsensible of the good it self but that although he finds feels and enjoys the good that is done him yet he is wholly unsensible and unconcerned to value or take notice of the Benignity of him that does it Now either of these ill Qualities and much more both of them together denominate a Person Ill-natured they being such as make him grievous and uneasy to all whom he deals and associates himself with For from the former of these proceed envy an aptness to slander and revile to cross and hinder a Man in his Lawfull advantages For these and such like Actions feed and gratify that Base humour of Mind which gives a Man a delight in making at least in seeing his Neighbour miserable And from the latter issues that vile thing which we have been hitherto speaking of to wit Ingratitude
him they neither melt nor endear him but leave him as hard as rugged and as unconcerned as ever All Kindnesses descend upon such a Temper as Showers of Rain or Rivers of fresh Water falling into the main Sea The Sea swallows them all but is not at all changed or sweetned by them I may truly say of the Mind of an Ungratefull person that it is Kindness-proof It is impenetrable unconquerable Unconquerable by that which conquers all things else even by Love it self Flints may be melted we see it daily but an Ungratefull heart cannot no not by the strongest and noblest Flame After all your Attempts all your Experiments for any thing that Man can doe He that is Ungratefull will be Ungratefull still And the reason is manifest for you may remember that I told you that Ingratitude sprang from a Principle of Ill-nature Which being a thing founded in such a certain Constitution of Blood and Spirits as being born with a Man into the World and upon that account called Nature shall prevent all Remedies that can be applied by Education and leaves such a Byass upon the Mind as is before-hand with all Instruction So that you shall seldom or never meet with an Ungratefull person but if you look backward and trace him up to his Original you will find that he was born so and if you could look forward enough it is a Thousand to One but you will find that he also dies so for you shall never light upon an ill-natur'd Man who was not also an ill-natur'd Child and gave several Testimonies of his being so to discerning Persons long before the Use of his Reason The thread that Nature spins is seldom broken off by any thing but Death I do not by this limit the Operation of God's Grace for that may do Wonders But humanly speaking and according to the method of the World and the little Correctives supplied by Art and Discipline it seldom fails but an ill Principle has its Course and Nature makes good its Blow And therefore where Ingratitude begins remarkably to shew it self he surely judges most wisely who takes the Alarm betimes and arguing the Fountain from the Stream concludes that there is Ill-nature at the bottom and so reducing his Judgment into Practice timely withdraws his frustraneous baffled Kindnesses and sees the folly of Endeavouring to stroke a Tyger into a Lamb or to court an AEthiopian out of his Colour 3 dly In the Third and Last place Wheresoever you see a Man notoriously Ungratefull rest assured that there is no true Sense of Religion in that Person You know the Apostle's argument in 1 Iohn 4.20 He who loveth not his Brother whom he hath seen how can he love God whom he hath not seen So by an exact parity of Reason we may argue If a man has no Sense of those Kindnesses that pass upon him from One like himself whom he sees and knows and converses with sensibly how much less shall his Heart be affected with the gratefull Sense of his Favours whom he converses with only by imperfect Speculations by the Discourses of Reason or the Discoveries of Faith neither of which equal the quick and lively Impressions of Sense If the Apostles reasoning was Good and Concluding I am sure this must be Unavoidable But the thing is too evident to need any proof For shall that man pass for a Proficient in Christ's School who would have been Exploded in the School of Zeno or Epictetus Or shall he pretend to Religious Attainments who is defective and short in Moral Which yet are but the Rudiments the Beginnings and first Draught of Religion as Religion is the Perfection the Refinement and the Sublimation of Morality so that it still pre-supposes it it builds upon it and Grace never adds the Superstructure where Vertue has not laid the Foundation There may be Vertue indeed and yet no Grace but Grace is never without Vertue And therefore though Gratitude does not inferr Grace it is certain that Ingratitude does exclude it Think not to put God off by frequenting Prayers and Sermons and Sacraments while thy Brother has an Action against thee in the Court of Heaven an Action of Debt of that Clamorous and Great Debt of Gratitude Rather as our Saviour Commands Leave thy Gift upon the Altar and first go and clear accompts with thy Brother God scorns a Gift from him who has not paid his Debts Every Ungratefull person in the sight of God and Man is a Thief and let him not make the Altar his Receiver Where there is no Charity it is certain there can be no Religion and can that man be Charitable who is not so much as Just In every Benefaction between Man and Man Man is only the Dispencer but God the Benfactour and therefore let all Ungratefull Ones know that where Gratitude is the Debt God himself is the chief Creditor Who though he causes his Sun to shine and his Rain to fall upon the Evil and Unthankfull in this World has another kind of Reward for their Unthankfulness in the next To which God the great Searcher and Iudge of Hearts and Rewarder of Men according to their Deeds be rendred and ascribed as is most due all Praise Might Majesty and Dominion both now and for evermore Amen A SERMON Preached at CHRIST-CHURCH Oxon. Before the University Octob. 14. 1688. PROV XII 22 Lying Lips are abomination to the Lord. I Am very sensible that by discoursing of Lyes and Falshood which I have pitched upon for my present Subject I must needs fall into a very large Common Place though yet not by half so large and Common as the Practice Nothing in Nature being so Universally decryed and withall so Universally practised as Falshood So that most of those things that have the mightiest and most controlling Influence upon the Affairs and Course of the World are neither better nor worse than down-right Lyes For what is common Fame which sounds from all Quarters of the World and re-sounds back to them again but generally a Loud Ratling Impudent Overbearing Lye What are most of the Histories of the World but Lyes Lyes immortalized and consigned over as a perpetual Abuse and Flam upon Posterity What are most of the Promises of the World but Lyes Of which we need no other Proof but our own Experience And what are most of the Oaths in the World but Lyes And such as need rather a Pardon for being took than a Dispensation from being kept And lastly what are all the Religions of the World except Judaism and Christianity but Lyes And even in Christianity it self are there not those who teach warrant and defend Lying And scarce use the Bible for any other Purpose but to swear upon it and to lye against it Thus a mighty governing Lye goes round the World and has almost banish'd Truth out of it and so reigning Triumphantly in its stead is the True Source of most of those Confusions and dire Calamities that
infest and plague the Universe For look over them all and you shall find that the greatest Annoyance and Disturbance of Mankind has been from one of these Two things Force or Fraud Of which as boisterous and violent a Thing as Force is yet it rarely atchieves any thing considerable but under the Conduct of Fraud Slight of Hand has done that which Force of Hand could never do But why do we speak of Hands It is the Tongue that drives the World before it The Tongue and the Lying Lip which there is no Fence against For when that is the Weapon a Man may strike where he cannot reach and a Word shall do Execution both further and deeper than the mightiest Blow For the Hand can hardly lift up it self high enough to strike but it must be seen so that it warns while it threatens but a false insidious Tongue may whisper a Lye so close and low that though you have Ears to hear yet you shall not hear and indeed We generally come to know it not by hearing but by feeling what it says A Man perhaps casts his Eye this way and that way and looks round about him to spy out his Enemy and to defend himself but alass the fatal Mischief that would trip up his Heels is all the while under them It works invisibly and beneath And the Shocks of an Earthquake we know are much more dreadfull than the highest and loudest Blusters of a Storm For there may be some Shelter against the Violence of the One but no Security against the Hollowness of the Other which never opens its Bosom but for a killing Embrace The Bowels of the Earth in such Cases and the Mercies of the False in all being equally without Compassion Upon the whole Matter it is hard to assign any One Thing but Lying which God and Man so unanimously joyn in the Hatred of and it is as hard to tell whether it does a greater Dishonour to God or Mischief to Man It is certainly an Abomination to both And I hope to make it appear such in the following Discourse Though I must confess my self very unable to speak to the utmost Latitude of this Subject and I thank God that I am so Now the Words of the Text are a Plain Entire Categorical Proposition and therefore I shall not go about to darken them by any needless Explication but shall immediately cast the Prosecution of them under these Three following Particulars As 1 st I shall enquire into the Nature of a Lye and the proper essential Malignity of all Falshood 2 dly I shall shew the pernicious Effects of it And 3 dly And lastly I shall lay before you the Rewards and Punishments that will certainly attend or at least follow it Every one of which I suppose and much more all of them together will afford Arguments more than sufficient to prove though it were no Part of Holy Scripture that Lying Lips are an Abomination to the Lord. And first for the first of these 1. What a Lye is and wherein the Nature of it does consist A Lye is properly an outward signification of something contrary to or at least beside the Inward Sense of the Mind so that when One thing is signified or expressed and the same thing not meant or intended that is properly a Lye And forasmuch as God has endued Man with a Power or Faculty to institute or appoint Signs of his Thoughts and that by vertue hereof he can appoint not only Words but also Things Actions and Gestures to be signs of the inward thoughts and conceptions of his Mind it is evident that he may as really Lye and Deceive by Actions and Gestures as he can by Words for as much as in the Nature of them they are as capable of being made Signs and consequently of being as much abused and misapplied as the Other Though for Distinction Sake a Deceiving by Words is commonly called a Lye and a Deceiving by Actions Gestures or Behaviour is called Simulation or Hypocrisie The Nature of a Lye therefore consists in this That it is a false Signification knowingly and voluntarily used in which the Sign expressing is no ways agreeing with the Thought or Conception of the Mind pretended to be thereby expressed For Words signifie not immediately and primely Things themselves but the Conceptions of the Mind concerning things and therefore if there be an Agreement between our Words and our Thoughts we do not speak falsly though it sometimes so falls out that our Words agree not with the Things themselves Upon which Account though in so speaking we offend indeed against Truth yet we offend not properly by Falshood which is a speaking against our Thoughts but by Rashness which is an Affirming or Denying before we have sufficiently informed our selves of the Real and True Estate of those Things whereof we affirm or deny And thus having shewn What a Lye is and wherein it does consist the next Consideration is of the Lawfulness or Unlawfulness of it And in this we have but too sad and scandalous an Instance both of the Corruption and Weakness of Man's Reason and of the strange Byass that it still receives from Interest that such a Case as this both with Philosophers and Divines Heathens and Christians should be held disputable Plato accounted it lawfull for Statesmen and Governours and so did Cicero and Plutarch and the Stoicks as some say reckoned it amongst the Arts and Perfections of a Wise-man to lye dextrously in due Time and Place And for some of the Ancient Doctors of the Christian Church such as Origen Clemens Alexandrinus Tertullian Lactantius and Chrysostom and generally all before St. Austin several Passages have fallen from them that speak but too favourably of this ill Thing So that Paul Lay-man a Romish Casuist says That it is a Truth but lately known and received in the World That a Lye is absolutely sinfull and unlawfull I suppose he means that part of the World where the Scriptures are not read and where Men care not to know what they are not willing to practise But then for the Mitigation of what has proceeded from these great Men we must take in that Known and Celebrated Division of a Lye into those Three several Kinds of it As 1st The Pernicious Lye uttered for the Hurt or Disadvantage of our Neighbour 2dly The Officious Lye uttered for our Own or our Neighbour's Advantage And 3dly and lastly The Ludicrous and Iocose Lye uttered by way of Jest and only for Mirth's Sake in common Converse Now for the first of these which is the Pernicious Lye it was and is Universally condemned by all but the other Two have found some Patronage from the Writings of those forementioned Authors The Reason of which seems to be that those Persons did not estimate the Lawfulness or Unlawfulness of a Lye from the intrinsick Nature of the Thing it self but either from those External Effects that it produced or from those Ends to
its Promises and its Payments together And as the Devil first brought Sin into the World by a Lye being equally the base Original of both so he still propagates and promotes it by the same The Devil reigns over none but those whom he first deceives Geographers and Historians dividing the Habitable World into Thirty parts give us this account of them That but five of those Thirty are Christian and for the rest Six of them are Iew and Mahometan and the remaining nineteen perfectly Heathen All which he holds and governs by possessing them with a Lye and bewitching them with a false Religion Like the Moon and the Stars he rules by night and his Kingdom even in this World is perfectly a Kingdom of Darkness And therefore our Saviour who came to dethrone the Devil and to destroy Sin did it by being the Light of the World and by bearing Witness to the Truth For so far as Truth gets ground in the World so far Sin loses it Christ saves the World by undeceiving it and sanctifies the Will by first enlightning the Understanding 2 dly A Second Effect of Lying and Falshood is all that Misery and Calamity that befalls Mankind For the Proof of which we need go no further than the former Consideration For Sorrow being the natural and direct Effect of Sin that which first brought Sin into the World must by necessary Consequence bring in Sorrow too Shame and Pain Poverty and Sickness yea Death and Hell it self are all of them but the Trophies of those fatal Conquests got by that Grand Impostor the Devil over the deluded Sons of men And hardly can any Example be produced of a man in extream Misery who was not one way or other first deceived into it For have not the greatest Slaughters of Armies been effected by Stratagem And have not the fairest Estates been destroyed by Surety-ship in both of which there is a Fallacy and the Man is over-reached before he is overthrown What betrayed and delivered the Poor old Prophet into the Lyon's mouth 1 King 13. but the mouth of a false Prophet much the crueller and more remorseless of the two How came Iohn Husse and Ierome of Prague to be so cruelly and basely used by the Council of Constance those Ecclesiastical Commissioners of the Court of Rome Why they promised those Innocent men asafe Conduct who thereupon took them at their Word and accordingly were burnt alive for trusting a Pack of perfidious Wretches who regarded their own Word as little as they did God's And how came so many Bonfires to be made in Queen Mary's days Why she had abused and deceived her People with Lyes promising them the free Exercise of their Religion before she got into the Throne and when she was once in she performed her Promise to them at the Stake And I know no Security we had from seeing the same again in Our days but One or two Proclamations forbidding Bonfires Some sort of Promises are edged Tools and it is dangerous laying hold on them But to pass from hence to Phanatick Treachery That is from one Twin to the Other How came such multitudes of our own Nation at the beginning of that monstrous but still Surviving and Successful Rebellion in the Year 1641. to be spunged of their Plate and Money their Rings and Jewels for the carrying on of the Schismatical Dissenting King-killing Cause Why next to their own Love of being Cheated it was the Publick or rather Prostitute Faith of a Company of faithless Miscreants that drew them in and deceived them And how came so many thousands to fight and die in the same Rebellion Why they were deceived into it by those spiritual Trumpeters who followed them with continual Alarms of Damnation if they did not venture Life Fortune and All in that which Wickedly and Devillishly those Impostors called the Cause of God So that I my Self have heard One say whose Quarters have since hung about that City where he had been first deceived that he with many more went to that execrable War with such a controlling Horrour upon their Spirits from those Sermons that they verily believed they should have been accursed by God for ever if they had not Acted their part in that dismal Tragedy and heartily done the Devil's work being so Effectually called and commanded to it in God's Name Infinite would it be to pursue all Instances of this Nature But consider those grand Agents and Lieutenants of the Devil by whom he scourges and plagues the World under him to wit Tyrants and was there ever any Tyrant since the Creation who was not also false and perfidious Doe not the Bloody and the Deceitful Man still go hand in hand together in the Language of the Scripture Psal. 55.23 Was ever any People more cruel and withal more false than the Carthaginians And had not the Hypocritical Contrivers of the Murder of that Blessed Martyr King Charles the First their Masks and Vizards as well as his Executioners No man that designs to rob Another of his Estate or Life will be so impudent or ignorant as in plain Terms to tell him so But if it be his Estate that he drives at he will dazle his Eyes and bait him in with the luscious Proposal of some gainfull Purchase some rich Match or advantageous Project till the easie Man is caught and hampered and so partly by Lyes and partly by Law-suits together comes at length to be stript of all and brought to a Piece of Bread when he can get it Or if it be a Man's Life that the Malice of his Enemy seeks after he will not presently clap his Pistol to his Breast or his Knife to his Throat but will rather take Absalom for his Patern who invited his dear Brother to a Feast hugged and embraced courted and caressed him till he had well dosed his weak Head with Wine and his foolish Heart with Confidence and Credulity and then in he brings him an old Reckoning and makes him pay it off with his Blood Or perhaps the Cut-throat may rather take his Copy from the Parisian Massacre One of the horridest Instances of barbarous Inhumanity that ever the World saw but ushered in with all the Pretences of Amity and the Festival Treats of a Reconciling Marriage a new and excellent Way no doubt of proving Matrimony a Sacrament But such Butchers know what they have to doe They must sooth and allure before they strike and the Ox must be fed before he is brought to the Slaughter and the same Course must be taken with some Sort of Asses too In a word I verily believe that no sad Disaster ever yet befell any Person or People nor any Villainy or flagitious Action was ever yet committed but upon a due Enquiry into the Causes of it it will be found that a Lye was first or last the principal Engine to effect it And that whether Pride Lust or Cruelty brought it forth it was Falshood that