leaving it and that which He hath purchased so very glorious that some have mistaken it for his Eternal one To all this which He hath obtained for Himself let us add what He hath merited for us in that flesh He this day took upon Him and wherein He wrought out our Redemption offering up Himself to God and giving Himself for us the greatest gift He could give or we receive whereof in the next place II. Who gave Himself for us Every word here has its weight 1. He gave 2. Gave Himself and 3. For us 1. He gave A Gift this as much above Man's Desert as 't was above his Comprehension 'T was a free gift too no Attractive here but misery no Motive but his own goodness The Romanists indeed to establish their rotten Doctrine of Merit will needs persuade us that some Ancient Fathers before and under the Law did ex congruo if not ex condigno merit Christ's Incarnation or at least the hastning of its accomplishment This conceit of theirs they mainly ground on Gen. 22. 18. where 't is said to Abraham In thy seed shall all the Nations of the Earth be blessed Because thou hast obeyed my voice As if that Because denoted the meritorious Cause of Christ's Incarnation to have been Abraham's Obedience whereas Zachary ascribes it not to the Merits of any the most holy persons of old but to God's mercy and free promise to the Forefathers Luke 1. 72. St. Paul to the riches of God's mercy Ephes. 2. 4. To his benignity and loving-kindness to mankind here Tit. 3. 4. As our Lord Himself does also John 3. 16. God so loved the World that He gave his only begotten Son and so well did that his Son love it too that He gave Himself for us says the Text. 2. Himself And surely more He could not give For as the Apostle speaks in another case Because God could swear by no greater He sware by Himself So may we here because He had no greater thing to give us He gave us Himself The Almighty could go no higher than this Infinite goodness was here at its non ultra He who is All in All could bestow no more than that All. More then He could not give but could He not have given less and that less have been enough Or might not the party offended have freely remitted the Offence without any farther satisfaction or have obliged some other to make it Sent some glorious Creature some blessed Spirit of the noblest Order of created Beings to be a sufficient expiatory Sacrifice for Mankind and so have sav'd Himself the trouble of an Incarnation 'T is not for us here to be too inquisitive what God might have done let us rather admire and extoll his Goodness for not contenting Himself with less than what He did and withall dread the severity of his Justice not to be atton'd by any other Sacrifice than that of his own Son And indeed the most glorious the most innocent and perfect Creature God could make being but Finite it cannot possibly be conceived how it could satisfie an infinite Justice much less was it in the power of Man to satisfie for himself of the party guilty to expiate its own guilt This knot was too hard for any but a God to untie Nay the Godhead its self it seems could not doe it without the assistance of the Manhood For as the divine Nature could not suffer so the humane one could not merit This furnished the bloud but that made it passable and valuable None then but He who united both Natures in the Person of the word Incarnate He who was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God and Man could be a perfect Reconciler of both Parties This as his Justice and our Necessities required so his alone Goodness prompted him unto and his as infinite Wisedom found out the only way to doe it by taking our Nature upon Him and so giving Himself for us 3. For Us. This circumstance does yet very much heighten the Blessing and set off God's infinite Love to Mankind That He should give Himself for us us Sinners and Rebels and for us alone Were there no other Objects for his Mercy besides us Were there not Angels to be redeemed as well as Men Or were they not worth the Redeeming who were by Nature so much above them That God should pass by them and only vouchsafe to look upon us This is the great Mystery of his Love And that He did so is clear from Heb. 2. 16. Verily He took not on Him the Nature of Angels but He took on Him the Seed of Abraham whereupon He is called the Saviour of all Men but not of Angels 1 Tim. 4. 10. Whether it was because the sin of Angels had more of Wilfulness in it and less of Temptation or because they did not All fall as we did some of them still preserving their Station let the Schools dispute These may serve for plausible Conjectures but to find the true cause hereof we must go out of the World and seek it in the bosom of the Father and in the bowels of his own Son whose Love did even transform him into us this day whereon He was born for no other purpose but to dye for us and by his meritorious Death rescue us from the slavery of Sin the primary end of his Incarnation and the third Thing to be spoken to III. That He might redeem us For the better comprehending the benefit we reap from the Incarnation of our blessed Lord We must consider the main end and design of it which the Text says was to redeem us Now Redemption being a Relative supposes Bondage For we cannot say his Irons are struck off who never had them on or pronounce him releas'd who never was a prisoner Now such was all Mankind till Christ delivered it by taking upon Him the form of a servant and being made in the likeness of men For as Aristotle hath made some men born slaves and as others tell us of a Law whereby all the Posterity of Captives were Bondmen So in Divinity 't is a certain truth that not some but all Mankind are born under the Fork and that the Womb of our first Parent was like that in Tacitus Subjectus servitio Uterus a Womb from which issues a race of Slaves Christ then found us in Captivity and that according to the Divinity of the Schools a threefold one 1. To Sin as the Merit obliging 2. To Death as the Reward or Punishment 3. To the Devil as to the Executioner And to each of these the Scripture hath assign'd a Dominion over us and that in terms of the greatest subjection and which in the conveyance of Power give the strongest Empire For the first St. Paul hath told us That we are the servants of Sin so far 't is our Master And in another place 't is said to reign in our mortal Bodies That makes it our Prince And indeed as some
It was the design of his Spirit to imprint his Image in their Hearts which consisted in true holiness and righteousness But how could that Image be imprinted on them till they were first adopted his Children Or how could they be owned for his Children but in and through Christ his only begotten and beloved Son That Peace which his Holy Spirit brings into and settles in our Consciences is founded in that other which our Mediator hath procured and merited for us by his Death and Sufferings nor could our Minds ever have been calmed had not the Lamb of God taken away the sins of the World Our Peace was to be prepared by the Father ere it could be purchased by the Son and purchased by the Son ere it could have been applied by the Spirit The Gift of the Comforter was an effect of Christ's Intercession I will pray the Father and He shall send you another Comforter And it was requisite that He should go away to send that Comforter since he was the Effect of his Intercession and that Intercession the last Act of his Sacrifice in the Heavenly Sanctuary But then 2dly it was not fit that Christ should bestow his best and most excellent Gifts on us till he had recovered his first Majesty or that the Members should be thus adorned till the Head was perfectly glorious 'T is at the time of their Coronation and Triumph that Kings and Emperors scatter their Largesses When our Lord had ascended up on high and had led Captivity captive then was it a proper time for him to give gifts unto men and among the rest of his Gifts the Fountain and Giver of all Gifts and Graces the Holy Spirit it self This St. Peter tells his Auditors Act. 2. 33. That Christ being by the right hand of God exalted and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost he hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear Christ was first to rise from the dead and to be glorified before he could send down the Spirit And this we learn from Joh. 7. 39. where 't is said That the Holy Ghost was not yet given because that Jesus was not yet glorified nor could he be fully glorify'd without the descent and testimony of the Spirit For 1. It had been some impeachment to Christ's equality with the Father had our Lord still remained on Earth for as much as the sending of the Spirit would have been ascribed to the Father alone as his sole Act. This would have been the most That the Father for his sake had sent Him but He as God had had no honour of sending Him 2. Nor indeed till he ascended up to Heaven could he have been fully glorified on Earth his appearance here having been very mean void of all pomp and state nothing about Him to strike men's Senses nothing of worldly grandeur to affect them who conversed with him neither wealth nor honour exposed he was to want and other inconveniencies of life and put at last to a cruel and an ignominious Death What strong prejudices had both Jews and Gentiles against Him upon this account And how could those prejudices be removed so long as he continued in that low state and condition But they were now quite taken away by the descent of the Holy Ghost which he had so often promised to send after his departure and which when they saw he made good their mean opinion of him was soon changed into veneration when they saw him who was made a little lower than the Angels nay who had appeared on Earth lower than the lowest of Men for the suffering of death crowned with such glory and honour And how can we but adore Him as God when we now behold Him that once stood before Herod and Pilate as a criminal exalted above all the Kings and Potentates of the Earth whose pride and glory now it is to be his Disciples to doe him homage and to lay down their Crowns and Scepters at the foot of his Cross We now see Temples every-where erected to his honour The most remote obscure Regions of the World enlightned by his beams That Jesus once so much despised become now the glory of the Earth His Name dreadfull to Devils adored by Turks and Infidels so that his Kingdom knows no bounds as it shall never have an end Had he still remained here below he had been lookt upon as no better than what the Arrians once styled Him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But now his Godhead is as visible to each Christian as his Manhood heretofore was to each Man the Spirit of God whom He sent down having born witness to Him in all those wonderfull Signs and Miracles that were wrought by his Apostles through his Name And thus we see how that Christ could not have been glorify'd on Earth as God had he not ascended up into Heaven and from thence sent down the Holy Ghost Nor 3. could the Holy Ghost himself otherwise have been discovered Christ's stay here would have been a lett to the manifestation of his Godhead also which appearing in those many great signs and wonders done by Him had not our Lord gone away those glorious Works would in all probability have been wholly ascribed unto him and so the Holy Ghost should have lost that honour which was due to him while his Deity should have been concealed from the notice of the World 4. A fourth reason of the necessity of Christ's departure respects his Apostles and all other his Disciples 1. His Apostles who we know were to be sent abroad into all Coasts to be dispersed over the whole Earth to preach the Gospel and not to stay in one place Now Christ's corporal Presence could herein have availed them little in order to this purpose He could not have been with St. James at Jerusalem and St. John at Ephesus whatever Ubiquitaries Papists or Lutherans say to the contrary in flat contradiction to all Philosophy and Scripture too which allows not this priviledge to Christ's Body now glorified Whom the Heavens must receive saith St. Peter untill the times of Restitution of all things Act. 3. 21. There He must be till He comes to fetch us to Him and when He promised his Apostles to be with them always even to the end of the World Mat. 28. 20. He meant no otherwise than by his Holy Spirit who should comfort and guide them into all Truth And therefore it was expedient for them as our Lord says here in the Text that himself should go away to make room for the Spirit as fitter for his Disciples in their dispersed disconsolate condition since He could be and was present with them all and with every one of them by himself as filling the compass of the whole World which cannot be affirmed of our Lord 's bodily Presence 2. Besides had this manner of Christ's Presence been possible without confounding the Properties of his humane and divine Nature it had been very
all sin both original and actual whereas her self by calling Christ her Saviour professes her need of him so especially by making her a vast and inexhaustible Ocean of all perfection the property of him alone in whom all fulness dwells and of whose fulness we all the Virgin Mary not excepted have received and all this upon a plain mistake of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which implies not any infus'd qualities or inherent gifts but God's meer gratious acceptation of her And yet as great an affront as this is to the divine Majesty there is yet one thing more intollerable that these Men not content to allow the Virgin equal to her Son will needs give her a kind of Command and Authority over him as if now in Heaven he were to be subject to her as once on Earth and she were a Queen Regent to govern and comptroll him as it were in his Minority Witness those expressions Monstra te esse Matrem and Jussu Matris impera salvatori words which I dare not English and which their Rosaries and Litanies are stufft with Nor does their Practice bely their Expressions their Addresses being more to the Mother than to the Son and her Temples having almost swallow'd up his which are now become Shops of lying Miracles one of them especially that of Loretto all Wainscoted within with them and its self the greatest of all as having been carried if we will believe them from Bethlehem by Angels and by them plac'd where now it stands I shall not trouble you with a description of all their fopperies their superstitious bowings cringings and lighting of Candles to our Ladies Images their ridiculous dressing and undressing them their vows offerings and presents to these dumb Idols so like the Cakes offered up to the Queen of Heaven Jer. 7. and the like which if they do not out-doe at least they bid fair for Heathenish Idolatry if this be not to worship the Creature more than the Creator 't is at least to doe service to her who by Nature is no God and who can no more endure it than St. Paul could a sacrifice Act. 14. or the Angel in the Revelations chap. 19. 10. divine Worship or to come a little more home than St. Peter to be styl'd Universal Bishop of God's Church a Title they will needs force upon him though himself expresly disclaims it 1 Pet. 5. 3. No let us honour the Blessed Virgin as becomes the Mother of God not as a Goddess she is but a Creature how glorious soever and we are not to make her an Idol neither to invoke her Name nor adore her Person we allow her God's Mother but not his Rival place her we may as near his Throne as Religion will suffer us not in it in the Throne God will be greater than any style her Queen of Saints while Christ remains the Sovereign King of them and 't is honour enough for this Queen to be solo Deo minor to be blessed even above the Angel that proclaim'd her so yea if they will have it above all Saints and Angels too but still below her Son who is over all God blessed for ever Rom. 9. 5. In a word Our endeavour should be to copy out those Perfections which were so eminent in this Blessed Mother of our Lord Her Faith by our ready assent to God's Word Her Devotion by frequently meditating on it a book which like Ezekiel's rowl must be eaten and well digested Her Purity by keeping our selves unspotted from the World and hating even the garment spotted by the flesh always remembring that they who follow the Lamb are Virgins Her Prudence by trying the Spirits by proving all things but holding fast that which is good suspecting even an Angel from Heaven could he propose any thing to us that should seem to cross a Precept of Christ and dreading not only every little stain but the very suspition of it Her Obedience by an entire submission to God's revealed Will and which is the crown and perfection of all grace her Humility These are the Copies we are to transcribe the best Gifts to be coveted such as will adorn and perfect us make us holy and glorious other may have more pomp and lustre in themselves these most use and benefit to us and therefore let our aim be to be pure as the Mother of God we who are commanded to strive to be perfect even as our Father which is in Heaven is perfect And if we hear the Word of God and keep it as she did the Lord will as certainly be with us as He was with her and we at last be with him where she now is eternally Blessed in the fruition of the most Blessed Trinity the Father Son and Holy Ghost To whom let us ascribe as is most due everlasting glory c. Amen A SERMON Preached on Christmas-day TITUS II. 14. Who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works THE greatest blessing God could bestow upon us or we receive took its rise from Man's sin The sin of the first Adam was the cause or at least the occasion of the Incarnation of the second Had the former still continued in Paradise the latter had not come down from Heaven Innocence was to be lost before it could be recovered nor was the Physician but for the sick nor the Redeemer but for the captive But as the first Man did not therefore sin or was ordained to sin that the Son of God might be incarnated so his Goodness who can fetch light out of darkness took advantage by that sin to manifest its self in its expiation and his Wisedom contriv'd a way to make that very sin instrumental to a greater good than Man had forfeited which gave occasion to a Father to style Adam's first Transgression Foelicem culpam a happy crime that procur'd him such a Redeemer as could doe him more good than 't was in his own or Satan's power to doe him hurt and so well repair his Ruine as to make it more advantageous to him than his Innocence He is now a gainer by his loss his falling so low has but rais'd him up the higher being made more happy by his very unhappiness so that where Man's sin did abound God's grace has much more abounded And never sure did it more abound than at this time when the Son of God took our humane nature upon him that he might unite it to his divine one Visited us from on high to this end that he might redeem us was born only to dye for us cloathed with our flesh to be in a capacity to suffer in it and by his own suffering to advance us to glory in Heaven And next to that his transcendent Mercy of giving us Heaven is this That He prepares us for it That He is pleased to refine as well as to exalt us We may now
who is our Comforter if so the following Verse here will tell us That He can Reprove as well as Comfort But on the other side if we obey his Motions submit to his Dictates follow his Guidance and Direction in a word be led by Him we shall then be the Sons of God and the only-begotten of the Father will not fail to send him to us as He did to his Apostles Then especially above all other times when we eat and drink his flesh and bloud in the Holy Sacrament For as his Bloud was the meritorious Cause to procure us his Spirit so is his Holy Sacrament the Pipe or Conduit to convey Him unto us For hereby we are all made to drink into one Spirit 1 Cor. 12. 13. And then as there is plentifull Redemption here on Christ's part so if we duly partake of that Redemption there will be plentifull Effusion of his Spirit on us Which God of his infinite Mercy grant c. Amen Soli Deo gloria in aeternum A SERMON Preached on Michaelmas-day HEB. I. 14. Are they not all ministring spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation 'T IS the great happiness and priviledge of Saints to be under the care and protection of an Almighty God Others have the benefit of his general Providence These of his particular Love and Kindness The clearest Evidence of that his Love appears in sending his only beloved Son into the World to merit Salvation for them and next to that in employing Angels to further it He being our alone Saviour These our Guardians and Assistants Wherein the Almighty has abundantly provided as well for the honour as the security of his Servants For what greater honour next to the having Christ for our Brother than that we should have such glorious Creatures as Angels for our Ministers Their Nature we know places them above us and yet God's Love and their Humility sets them here below us Even while those excellent Spirits attend on the Throne of God we may see them waiting on us Men While they behold his Face there they cast a benign aspect on us here These bright Morning-stars do at the same time praise Him and assist and guide us Their Employment in Heaven does not exempt them from their Services on Earth dividing them as it were between those two places ever ascending and descending i. e. perpetually employ'd in discharging their Duties to their Creator and for his sake performing all good Offices to their fellow Creatures 2. And hence it is That in consideration of those great and various Benefits she receives by their appointed Aid and Ministration The Church has set apart this Day as to praise Him who makes use of such glorious Instruments for her safeguard and protection so gratefully to commemorate those advantageous Services they doe her And although the Title of this Festival carries but a particular denomination of St. Michael's Day yet does the Church herein celebrate the general Memorial of all Angels and the Text I have chosen leads us to it as the Scope thereof does to the whole Chapter wherein the Apostle's design is to compare Christ with Angels and to prove his Superiority over them which He does by several Arguments taken 1. From his Sonship He God's Son by Eternal generation These only by Creation and Resemblance v. 2. 2. From his Name more excellent than that of Angels v. 4. 3. From the Worship peculiarly due to Him even from Angels themselves v. 6. 4. From his being the Head of Angels who at best are but his Ministring spirits v. 7. 5. From his Kingly Authority over all Creatures Men and Angels too v. 8. 6. From his creating the Heavens and the Earth which Angels neither did nor could doe v. 10. 7. And lastly from his sitting as Equal with God at his right hand whereas the most glorious Angels doe but stand there as Ministers of his Will and Commands and to serve the necessities of his Chosen ones in the question here put Are they not all c. In which Words you may observe 1. Something imply'd or suppos'd and that is Their Existence Are they not c. The Apostle speaks of them as of persons really and actually subsisting 2. Something plainly exprest and those are four Particulars here mention'd 1. The Essence or Nature of Angels They are Spirits i. e. intellectual immortal and incorporeal Substances 2. Their Office Ministring spirits and that without any reserve All of them such none excepted not the most glorious not the most excellent of their Order 3. Their Commission from God who sends them forth deputing them their several Ministerial Charges and Employments 4. The End or Design for which they are employ'd viz. God's glory and the benefit of those who shall be heirs of Salvation These be the several Stages through which I shall lead you And first of the Existence or Being of Angels suppos'd in the question Are they not all c. 1. Since the Being of Angels is here suppos'd and taken for granted one would think there should need no farther proof of it and surely 't would be needless did not the Infidelity of some Men make it necessary And 't is strange that Divine Revelation should not be sufficient to settle this Truth among Christians which Heathens by the dim light of Nature have so clearly discern'd For what-ever mistakes they were guilty of as to the Nature they believ'd the Existence of spiritual Substances and we find them very curious in ranking and disposing them into their several Classes and describing the Hierarchy of their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with as much exactness I had almost said as good ground as the pretended Dionyfius has done that of Angels whom the Schoolmen so passionately doat on And the same reason which taught Heathens so much Divinity fetches this Truth also from the Order of Nature which seems to require it For as here we find some things without life others living but without sense some again sensible and others rational yet so as to be of a mixt Nature partly Corporal and partly Spiritual there would want one main link in the Chain of Providence had not the Divine Power made some Creatures purely Intellectual such as might be a Mean between God and Man as Man is between them and Beasts to prevent a chasm or vacuum in Nature Besides since every part and place in the World is fill'd with Inhabitants proper for it it seems but requisite that the highest Heavens should not be left void of such as might be fit to dwell in those pure and glorious Mansions But not to build so necessary and important a Truth on meer rational Conjectures we have a more solid foundation for it which is Divine Revelation the Scriptures every-where not only mentioning the Being of Angels but giving us a clear account of their Creation of their manifold Apparitions and Discoveries to Men on Earth together
make nothing for it As first that they have often appeared to Men in visible forms and shapes and perform'd such actions as are proper to us as eating drinking and the like All which was by divine Dispensation for a time the better to accomplish their enjoyn'd Duties Yet were those Bodies whereby they perform'd such actions no other than assum'd ones they were no part of their Natures but only as Garments are to us and were laid aside when there was no farther use of them which being made of Air quickly resolv'd into it and vanisht away as their Meat also did One passage there is in the 6th of Genesis which being mistaken has occasion'd gross conceits in some of the Nature of Angels 't is on the second Verse of that Chapter where 't is said That the Sons of God saw the Daughters of Men that they were fair and took them Wives of all which they chose The not understanding of which place has betrayed many and among those some Ancient Fathers of the Church as Justin Martyr Tertullian Lactantius Ambrose and Sulpitius Severus into so foul an error as to conceit That those Sons of God were no other than Angels who being enamoured with the Beauty of Women and defiling themselves with Lust of Angels became Devils and which is yet as ridiculous a Paradox That those Gyants there mention'd were their Off-spring As if those blessed Angels who continually behold the Face of God could be taken with the Beauty of a little varnisht Dust and Ashes As if Spirits could beget Men or Holy Spirits wicked Men. Nay Tertullian who as he had greater Parts than most of the Fathers so had greater Errors too to establish one Error by another adds withall That for this reason the Apostle bids Women be Veil'd in the Church lest some of the Angels should once more be Captivated by them Thus does one gross mistake usually draw on another as gross and the first great one proceeds only from hence That in many Copies of the Seventy Interpreters heretofore the word Angel crept in as St. Augustine has observ'd But that those Sons of God were not Angels but Men and of the Posterity of Seth besides the express words of Moses both St. Cyril and St. Augustine have at large demonstrated And what some erroneously have fancy'd of the good others as ridiculously have done of bad Angels which Aquinas and Fr. Valesius maintain as a probable opinion and accordingly Bellarmine himself is not asham'd to affirm That Antichrist shall be born of the Devil and a Woman Surely none so fit to be his Father as the Devil the Father of Lies nor to be his Mother as the great Whore in the Revelations And therefore one of his Tribe in a book to the like purpose fraught with no less malice than absurdity endeavours to prove that Luther was so But 't is no marvel that they who hold that Accidents can subsist without their Subjects should also with equal contradiction to Philosophy affirm That Devils can be the Fathers of Men or they who can paint God the Father in a piece of Arras should make Angels corporeal All this I say proceeds from a false apprehension of the Nature of Spirits and Philastrius ranks such Opinions among his other Heresies which Wierus at large shows to be as void of Sense as they are full of evil Consequences For we find that Heathens who held the Corporeity of their Deities did withall render them obnoxious to all those vile Lusts and Impieties which the most profligate Wretches on Earth were capable of committing and found opportunity of doing so upon the strength of that prevailing fancy To which purpose I might produce several instances and among them one famous one recorded by Josephus of one Paulina the Wife of Saturninus in the Reign of Tiberius a noble beautifull and vertuous Lady whom one Dacius Mundus by the assistance of the Priests of Isis much abus'd upon such an account These are the wicked Consequents of drawing Spirits into a participation of our Natures and then of our Vices I shall not dwell any longer on this subject nor trouble my self to satisfie their curiosity who cannot understand how such incorporeal Beings can be capable of that punishment by Fire which the Scripture says shall be their as well as their associates portion Surely no Man ought to question how they can be lyable to such a punishment that finds a Soul within him troubled with Passion even while no offence or distemperature ariseth from that corporeal part nor how such spiritual Beings can be wrought on by material Fire till he can understand what nature Hell-fire is of That they shall suffer by it the Scripture assures us but how it tells us not nor can our best Reason tell us no more than St. Augustine's could tell him who plainly here confesses his ignorance Our care should be not to examine what Hell-fire is but to avoid it and though we cannot resolve all those difficulties which arise from the Nature of Angels yet since the Text here tells us they are Spirits we must have so much Faith as to believe it and consequently that they are Immortal it being impossible that Spirits as such should be Mortal since there can be no internal Cause of their corruption nor any external physical one but God who as he made them of nothing can indeed reduce them to nothing In which respect no Creature is Immortal none but the great Creator of all things who alone as the Apostle tells us hath immortality 1 Tim. 6. 16. as eternally subsisting by himself and by no other But not to speak of the absolute Power of God 't is certain that as to their Nature Angels are immortal and therefore by God's Decree too 't is said of them that have their share in a blessed Resurrection that they cannot dye for this reason because they shall then be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Angels in Heaven Luk. 20. 36. And this is a quality as proper to bad as good Angels who though Devils are still Spirits and shall remain objects of God's everlasting Justice as the elect Angels of his Love and Mercy For though they lost their Purity they can never lose their Nature All of them then are Spirits and so by Nature immortal and those good ones which kept their station glorious heavenly and elect ones and yet such noble Creatures as these has God design'd for the Ministry of his Saints The second Particular to be considered Ministring Spirits To God himself in the first and chiefest place They are his Creatures and consequently his Servants The Psalmist expresly calls them so Psal. 103. 21. O praise the Lord all ye his Hosts ye servants of his that doe his pleasure and Psal. 104. 4. his Ministers Such they are and Estius well observes it out of the Text Non dicit Apostolus says he eos mitti in Ministerium
even now Heirs of a kingdom Jam. 2. 5. The wise that shall inherit Glory Prov. 3. 35. Heads destinated to a Diadem in Tertullian's expression which their Heavenly Father hath prepared for and will at last put upon them who alone too makes them fit to wear it meet to be Partakers of the Inheritance of the Saints in light III. How differently soever the Children of God may share in the same Inheritance This is certain that every one's share therein shall be the Gift of his Heavenly Father The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here imports it The Apostle alluding to the Division of the Land of Canaan a Type of Heaven which God had appointed to be done by lot wherein Himself we know had the main hand according to that of Solomon Prov. 16. 33. The lot is cast into the lap but the whole disposition thereof is of the Lord. Thus it was in the Choice of Matthias to the Apostleship Act. 1. And thus it is as to our share in the Inheritance of Glory It falls to us by lot by the disposition of God the Father we have no part here but what he gives us And if so then no merit of Condignity nor so much as of Congruity can be pleaded by us And truly one would think it were sufficient to partake of the Inheritance without making out our own Title to it That we might be content to be Heirs without coming in as Purchasers or if we will needs be so to be Purchasers on Christ's score and not our own But this is too low and mean for some men who come with Counters in their hand ready to reckon with God to shew Him how much he is in their debt and who stick not to tell Him to his face that He is an unjust Master if he pay them not their due wages But 1. Our Lord Himself hath told us That God is beforehand with us That whatsoever we can doe is due from us to Him That when we shall have done all those things which are commanded us we must say that we are unprofitable servants and have done but that which was our duty to doe Luk. 17. 10. And then what merit can there be in paying just debts And 2. St. Paul hath told us That we can doe no good thing without Him too who worketh in us both to will and to doe of his good pleasure Phil. 2. 13. So that He crowns His own gifts in us and rewards not our deservings Besides 3. Our goodness extendeth not to God says David Psal. 16. 2. And being unusefull how can it be meritorious Nay our best works are so imperfect and so sinfull too that the utmost they can expect is but a Pardon and not a Reward And were they never so good and perfect yet what proportion can they bear to such a Reward as an Inheritance in light Our light affliction which is but for a moment to a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory 2 Cor. 4. 17. where we must not let pass an elegant Antithesis For Affliction there is Glory For Light affliction a Weight of glory And for Momentary affliction an Eternal weight of glory to shew the vast disproportion between these things so vast that even Martyrdom it self the highest utmost proof of our love to God is in St. Paul's account nothing in comparison of that Glory we expect For I reckon says he that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us Rom. 8. 18. IV. And lastly The very word Inheritance excludes all Purchase on our part For this were to renounce Succession to cast off all Filial Duty and Affection not to own our selves Sons but mercenary Purchasers yea and Purchasers of an Inheritance already purchased for us by Christ and for his sake freely bestowed upon us by our Heavenly Father out of His own pure Goodness and Bounty to which alone we must ascribe it For we all the best of us have sinned and come short of the glory of God Rom. 3. 23. And we are told ch 6. 23. that The wages of sin our proper wages is death but the gift of God is eternal life The Apostle might have said and indeed the Antithesis or Opposition there seem'd to require it But the wages of Righteousness is eternal life But he altered the Phrase on set-purpose and chose rather to say The gift of God is eternal life That we might from this change of the Phrase learn That although we procure Death unto our selves yet 't is God that bestows eternal life on us That as He hath called us to his kingdom and glory 1 Thess. 2. 12. so he gives that glory and that kingdom for no other reason but because He is pleased so to doe It is your Father's good pleasure for into God the Father's good pleasure Christ resolves it to give you a kingdome Luk. 12. 32. No merit nor so much as any good disposition in us for it He propares it for us Matt. 20. 23. And he prepares us for it too here in the Text by making us meet to be partakers thereof For what meetness could he find in us for such an Inheritance Title to it we have none being by nature the Children of wrath and disobedience Eph. 2. 2 3. Mere Intruders here and Usurpers The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence and we the violent take it by force Mat. 11. 12. Qualifications proper for it we have none too That An Inheritance in light we darkness That An Inheritance incorruptible undefiled and that fadeth not away 1 Pet. 1. 4. we corruptible polluted and still decaying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cries out our Apostle We are not sufficient not fit for the word signifies either as of our selves but our sufficiency or fitness call it which you will is of God 2 Cor. 3. 5. 2 Pet. 1. 4. who as He makes us Partakers of his divine Nature so meet Partakers of the divine Inheritance not by pouring out the divine Essence but by communicating to us those divine Qualities which will fit and prepare us for the Sight thereof by putting light into our Understandings and holiness into our Wills without which no man shall see the Lord Heb. 12. 14. By cleansing our hearts and washing our hands that so we may ascend into the hill of the Lord dwell and rest in his Tabernacle Psal. 15. 24. He gives us Faith and with that a Prospect of our Inheritance and He gives us Hope and with that an Interest therein And to summ up all in one He gives us his Holy Spirit the earnest of that Inheritance Eph. 1. 14. who worketh all our works in us writes his laws in our hearts and by softning makes them capable of his divine Impressions In short That divine Spirit which by Regenerating makes us new Creatures and so fit Inhabitants for the new Jerusalem calling us first to Vertue and then to Glory to that as
the Way to this as the End 2 Pet. 1. 3. 2. But besides this divine Operation we need divine Acceptation also whereby we may be accounted worthy of the Kingdom of God our Inheritance 2 Thess. 1. 5. For all our works and graces here being imperfect can never capacitate us for it without God's gratious Acceptance And therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith St. Chrysost. here 'T is God's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his dignifying of us not our own dignity that renders us worthy And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He makes us accepted in the Beloved Eph. 1. 6. And when the Saints of God are said to be worthy to walk with Christ in white Rev. 3. 4. 't is because He casts his garment of Righteousness about them and if their good Works which yet are but God's own gifts weigh down 't is because He puts his grains of Allowance into the Scale But what need all this either Divine Operation or Acceptation to make us meet partakers of the Inheritance in light may the Enemies of God's Grace here say What need we go farther than our selves and our own Nature for it For Pelagius will tell us That we are in as good a condition now as Adam himself was before his Fall Our Faculties the same as strong and as able as ever Our Understandings as clear to discern and our Wills as free to chuse good and evil That all the harm our first Parent did us was but to give us a bad Example which 't is our fault if we will follow and since our Happiness depends on our selves that we are to blame our selves if we miss of it And although some have thought this too gross to make Man the sole Author of his own Fate yet they have very little mended the matter by so parting stakes between God and him that they still allow the latter the better share in the work of his Salvation For they deny all preventing Grace the proper mark of a Semi-Pelagian although they are pleased to grant a concurrent and subsequent one on God's part to enable him to doe his work with more ease and sureness which otherwise would cost him more pains and hazard However they so far agree with Pelagius as to place this meetness for the Inheritance in Man himself putting it into his own power to dispose himself to his Conversion by an Act of his own Free-will antecedent to God's Grace A piece of Heathen Divinity borrowed from Seneca and Tully For Seneca in a Stoical brag could say That we live is from God but that we live well is from our selves And This is the Judgment of all Mankind says Tully That Prosperity is to be sought of God but Wisdom to be taken up from our selves On which Saying of his St. Augustine passes this Judgment That by making Men free he made them sacrilegious For what greater Sacriledge than to rob God of his Power to convert us or at least to let him go but as a sharer with as therein When as to the first Act of our Conversion we are as purely passive as to that of our Creation or Resurrection We cannot create our selves and being dead in trespasses and sins no more raise up our selves to a spiritual than to a natural life No God must convert us that we may be converted Turn thou us unto thee O Lord and we shall be turned says the Prophet Jeremy Lament 5. 21. Jer. 31. 18. Nay The very preparations of the heart in Man are from the Lord says Solomon Prov. 16. 1. And It is God who worketh in us both to will and to doe says St. Paul Phil. 2. 13. We cannot come to Christ except the Father draw us Joh. 6. 44. Nor when we are drawn to Him doe any thing without Him Himself plainly telling us so Joh. 15. 5. Without me ye can doe nothing He does not say a little but nothing God must prevent and follow us with his Grace plant good inclinations in us and nurse them up too He hath chosen us in Christ before the Foundation of the World that we should be Holy Ephes. 1. 4. not that we were so before he chose us He chose us first too Ye have not chosen me but I have chosen you Joh. 16. 15. 1 Joh. 4. 10. He chose us also out of his own love and then loved us for his choice and made us Holy by his very chusing us No Prevision of our Faith or Good Works but his own free Goodness and Mercy determined his choice He found us not meet to partake of the Inheritance but made us so says the Text Could we make our selves meet we might thank our selves and not the Father as the Apostle here exhorts the Corinthians and us to do in the last place Giving thanks to the Father or as some Translations have it To God the Father God is content we should have the Benefit upon this easie and pleasant condition that we give Him the glory of his Blessings And surely he that grudgeth Him so little for so much deserves not the continuance much less the increase of any of them Still to partake of the streams of the divine Bounty and never to bless not so much as to mind the Fountain still to be receiving and never returning argues an ingratitude as void of all Ingenuity as of Piety Rivers pay their Tribute to that Ocean from whence they flow unto the place from whence they come thither they return Eccles. 1. 7. Nature teaching us to make our Returns thither from whence we derive our Benefits Praise and Thanksgivings are the Reflection of God's glory upon Himself the constant employment of Saints in Heaven and most becoming those on Earth who hope to share with them in their Inheritance so that of all others it becometh most the Just to be thankfull Psal. 33. 1. And indeed it is not only a becoming thing a piece of Decency this but of Justice For Thanks are a Debt we must always be paying to God A Rent our great Landlord requires and indents for the omission whereof will forfeit our Tenure Offer unto God thanksgiving and call upon me in the time of trouble so will I hear thee and thou shalt praise me Psal. 50. 14 15. But then let us be sure to be thankfull to Him and to none besides Him since He is the only Author of all our Good For to misplace our Thanks here would be as bad as to deny them Nay to pay this our Rent to a wrong Landlord worse than not to pay it at all to the right one God will by no means give this his Glory to another nor suffer any to share with Him in our Thanks since from Him alone we receive All those Thanks are due for We must then give them to God alone and to God the Father as some Translations have it not excluding the other Persons in the Trinity but chiefly directing our Thanks to Him
who as He is the Fountain of the Deity and of all operations in the Divine Nature so of all our gifts and graces too Every good and every perfect gift whether of Nature Grace or Glory coming down to us from the Father of lights Jam. 1. 17. especially the Inheritance in light which is so peculiarly his gift that our Saviour appropriates it to Him telling his Apostles Mat. 20. 23. That it is not his to give but the Father's Hence that Blessing of St. Paul Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Christ Ephes. 1. 3. directing his Thanks to Him as the Original of all our Blessings whether Temporal or Spiritual Now of these two sorts the latter being far the greatest our Thanks for them ought to be so too We are to thank God then 1. That He hath made us partakers and 2. meet partakers of the Inheritance in light First I say That He hath made us partakers of so glorious an Inheritance as that in light it being nothing less than his very self who is Essential light and who dwelleth in that light which no Man can approach unto 1 Tim. 6. 16. A rich and a glorious Inheritance indeed fit for the Majesty and Mercy of an Almighty God to bestow the unvaluable Bloud of his Son to purchase and the dearly beloved of his Soul to enjoy How thankfull ought we then to be for being made partakers of such an Inheritance as is as far above those here below as Heaven is above the Earth or God above All things But this is not All. We are in the second place to thank God the Father for making us meet partakers thereof which is a greater Blessing than we are aware of We would fain have the Inheritance at any rate but we consider not whether we be fit for it or no and if we be not Heaven it self will be no place of Happiness to us nor shall we take pleasure therein For Pleasure being nothing else but the suitableness of the Object to the Faculty because things agreeable alone can agree together then what satisfaction should we find in Heaven while our selves were altogether Earthly Light is a pleasant thing to an Eye prepared for and that can bear it not to that of a Bat or of an Owl nor to that of a Man that should suddenly be brought into it out of a dark Dungeon it would rather blind his Eyes than delight them And what would the Inheritance in light be to a Child of Darkness but as the pleasure of a rational Man is to a Beast or of an Intelligence to a bruitish Man He who is wholly taken up with Sensual Objects and so unacquainted with Intellectual rests there and seeks no farther Tell a Mahumetan of such a Heaven as the Gospel describes and you may then make him fall in love with that place when you can persuade a Hog to leave his Stye for a Palace or that to lye in perfumes were better for him than to wallow in the mire What a Transcendent blessing then is it and how thankfull ought we to be to God for it that He makes us meet for the Inheritance above in order to our better partaking of it that He gives us his Grace here as a preparative to Glory hereafter makes us Holy in this life that we may be capable of being Happy in the next his Goodness being not more conspicuous in the reward He designs us than in the manner of bestowing it in giving us a Crown of Glory than in fitting our Heads for it 'T is a greater honour to be accounted worthy of it than to wear it As Vertue is beyond a Title and a Man more than a Place And now since our lot is fallen unto us in so fair a ground and that we have so goodly a Heritage let us highly value it make it our chief Treasure that our Hearts may still be there where we have such a glorious Inheritance laid up for us and such an indefeisible Estate as shall never be either in another's power to defeat us of or in our own to lose when once possest of How do we value our Earthly Inheritances How dear are they to us How loth are we to part with them The Lord forbid it me that I should give the Inheritance of my Fathers unto thee said Naboth to Ahab when he would have wrested it from him 1 King 21. 3. And yet this being but an Earthly Inheritance whereas ours is an Heavenly He chose rather to part with his Life than with the Inheritance of his Fathers and we are willing to part with the Inheritance of the Saints in light for nothing to sell our spiritual Birthright with profane Esau for a mess of Pottage while every trifling Argument shall make us disbelieve and every trifling Lust make us forfeit it Is the price of Christ's bloud the purchase he has made for us of an Eternal Inheritance become so cheap unto us in comparison of those uncertain perishing ones which the malice of Men can and death in a very short time will be sure to strip us of so subject to alteration and decay so polluted and defiled The Inheritance of the Saints in light is by St. Peter described by three such properties so peculiar to it that they are not to be found in worldly ones He tells us 1 Pet. 1. 4. That 't is an Inheritance incorruptible undefiled and that fadeth not away Now 1. Worldly Inheritances even Kingdoms are Transitory whereas that of Heaven cannot be moved Heb. 12. 28. Estates here shift their Landlords what is one Man 's to day is another's to morrow nay all the evidence Men have of their Estates here shall one day be burnt with the World and be made void at the Day of Judgment And yet how do they call their Lands after their own names when those names and those very lands that are called after them shall perish together when they who are Owners of them shall one day become part of their own lands retain nothing of all their Possessions but Graves and in a short time scarce be distinguished from that Earth wherein they were buried 2. Again Should Inheritances here be continued to their Owners never so long yet are they fading still losing their beauty verdure and lustre there is some moth or canker that continually frets and at last eats them up But in Heaven as we shall have an Incorruptible so an Immarcessible Crown Not like Olympick ones of Bays or Herbs which immediately withered even on the heads of those that wore them but always fresh and green 3. Lastly Worldly Inheritances are so far from being undefiled that their Owners may well blush when they consider how many times they come by them with how much sin Themselves enjoy and Others to whom they must leave shall spend them Yet as pitifull things as they are how thankfull
the time cometh that whosoever killeth you will think that he doth God service And these things will they doe unto you because they have not known the Father nor Me. THAT Religion is the great Instrument of that happiness they expect hereafter is what all good men doe believe And that it is withall a special means of procuring Temporal happiness is what the most unbelieving doe allow by making it or at least the pretence thereof so necessary to the well-being and support of humane Societies that without this foundation they cannot in their opinion possibly subsist And therefore Politick men finding this Engine so forcible to turn and manage the World have always successfully employ'd it to that purpose and governed others though Themselves were least governed by it And certainly if the bare appearance of Religion hath been thought even by the worst of men so effectually conducing to the peace and benefit of Mankind It is a plain confession that the Reality thereof must needs be much more and that not only by a Divine but also by a Moral Causality For besides that Religion by over-awing men's Consciences keeps them firm and steady in their Obedience to Magistrates It does in its own Nature and Constitution carry such a mollifying uniting Vertue in it as is apt to soften the most obdurate and pacifie the most turbulent Minds having such a powerfull Influence as well on the Persons as Actions of Men that it turns Wolves into Lambs and where it once lays hold on Conscience is the strictest band of humane Laws the best security for Princes and the greatest Endearment of Obedience which can never be firm and lasting without it It being impossible that He should ever be true to Man that is not so to God But if this be the natural Effect of Religion how comes it then to pass that it is not constant If it disposeth Men to Peace and Order why does it so often break them How comes that which is the Cement of humane Societies and the bond of peace to be such a Make-bate in the World as we see it is by those bitter Feuds and Animosities those mortal and implacable Hatreds it raises and foments every-where to the ruine and destruction not only of private Families but even of States and Kingdoms This I confess is a fatal Consequent and an accidental Event not any proper and natural Effect of Religion but rather of men's Lusts Passions or their Mistakes about it Of the Hypocrisie of some who make it a stalking-horse to temporal Interest carrying on their worldly designs under its Mask and Vizard As the Pharisees made long prayers to devour Widows houses or Of the misapprehensions of better-meaning people who fight against God under his own Banner break his Laws in pure Obedience to them and while they turn his Servants out of their Synagogues and kill them into the bargain think thereby to doe their Master service with these in the Text. One would think it should have been impossible for any Men to be so persuaded but that our Lord hath here plainly foretold it and the Experience of all Times and of ours especially hath abundantly verified his Prediction For we see Men though most opposite in their Judgments yet perfectly agreeing in this Point That whosoever is not with is against Them and whosoever is against Them is against God and so to be run down as an Enemy to him So that when once people make their own God's quarrel no quarter then is to be expected from them and to be remisly cruel shall pass with them for a doing of the work of the Lord negligently And this shall justifie yea and sanctifie all inhumane bloudy acts propitiate for all other faults and turn Murther it self into a Sacrifice and by slaying all that stand in their way Men shall consecrate themselves to the Lord as they are said to doe who slew the Idolaters Exod. 32. 29. or as 't is in the Text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Chaldee Paraphrase renders Offer an oblation unto God Now it seems very strange how any Man should be able so far to subdue his Reason as to persuade himself that to persecute excommunicate nay and to kill another meerly for differing from him in opinion can be an acceptable service unto God But what Natural Reason boggles at Religion we see or rather a false conceit thereof not only swallows but digests as a pleasing Morsel making some doe that out of choice which others doe out of rage and frenzy and corrupting their Judgments to that pass as to persuade themselves they doe best where they doe worst Such were the Persons our Lord speaks of forewarning his Disciples that they might not be offended v. 1. when they should be counted as sheep appointed to be slain when they should see themselves set apart for the Altar killed all the day long for his sake and the Gospel Appointed unto death in the design and intention of their cruel and implacable Enemies who should not only safely but meritoriously kill them as so many proscribed Persons on whose heads rewards are set and who thereby should not only deserve well of Men but of God 1. Now who they were that should doe so and what were the Reasons or Motives prevailing with them to make them think they should doe God service by such violent ways as the putting Christ's Disciples out of their Synagogues and killing them I shall in the first place inquire into And then in the next 2. I shall shew you our Saviour's judgment of or rather the heavy doom He passeth here upon all such Men and their Practices as proceeding from perfect ignorance from their not knowing the Father nor Him And wherein this their Ignorance did consist shall be my second Inquiry Which two Heads of discourse when I shall have gone thorough I shall 3. In the third place conclude with some Application The first thing to be inquired into is who They were our Saviour here points to And to this Query my Answer in short is That they were three sorts of very different people Jews Heathens and Christians 1. Jews Against whom these words are here directly levelled For who could those be that should put Men out of their Synagogues but the Jews especially the leading Men amongst them The Scribes and Pharisees The Elders or Sanedrim who were the Highest Ecclesiastical Court in that Nation Had they not agreed among Themselves That if any man did confess that Jesus was Christ he should be put out of the Synagogue Joh. 9. 22. And in pursuance of that Order and Agreement doe we not find that they did cast out the blind Man for owning Christ to be the true Messiah ver 34 Nor did their rage stop here but as in process of time they proceeded to the Murther even of the Son of God Himself so to the Persecution of all his Followers They both killed the Lord Jesus and have
implies Tender compassions even beyond those of Mother Bowels of Mercies not one Mercy but a cluster of them nor those common ones promiscuously scattered on good and bad but such as concern our Souls and better life which the Illative Particle Therefore implies sending us back to the former part of this Epistle wherein the Apostle had at large discoursed of God's infinite Mercies from all Eternity prepared for us of our Predestination Election Justification in Christ and the like These are those Bowels of Mercies by which the Romans and we are conjured The Mercies of God indeed for who but He could bestow them And who so hard a Flint whom such soft Feathers cannot break Who such an Adamant whom the Bloud of God shed for him cannot soften Who as he gave Himself for us may well expect we should offer up our selves unto Him Which leads me to the main Duty of the Text in these words That ye present your Bodies c. And here the first thing to be considered is What we are to present unto God to wit Our Bodies and those first in the most strict and literal sense as being the most visible part of our Christian Sacrifice the Organs of our Souls whereby they both work and discover their Operations There is indeed a hidden man of the heart as St. Peter calls it 1 Pet. 3. 4. whose inward Oblations are as invisible as that God to whom they are made and only discernable by that Eye to whom all things are naked But there must be something visible that must take and affect ours The smoak of our Incense must yield a pleasing odour to Men as well as to God and the fire of our Sacrifice blaze out on the Altar There are who would exempt their Bodies from the Service of God God say they is a Spirit and must be worshipped in spirit and in truth and Evangelical worship is Spiritual worship These Men are so Angelical that they forget themselves to be Men and yet St. Paul will tell them that the very Angels themselves have their knees Phil. 2. 10. and we find that Holy Men have ever employ'd them in the Worship of God and yet never thought their Worship the less spiritual for all that The Prophet David calls for falling down and worshipping and kneeling before the Lord Nay our Lord Himself in his prayers lay prostrate on his body and bowed his head on the Cross with adoration as much as languor thereby teaching us that our addresses to God are not the less spiritual for being mannerly 'T is true indeed that an humble Body and a stiff unpliant Soul doe ill suit together The service of That like the Mint and Cummin is not to be left out while the inward devotion of the Soul like the weightier matters of the Law claims the precedency and is the main part of our Sacrifice without this the bowels thereof will not be sound and entire but like Caesar's portentous Sacrifice want a heart or resembling that hypocritical one of him in Lucian who presented his Deity with an Oxes bones covered with the Hide when the Flesh and Entrails were gone But St. Paul has made up the Christian Sacrifice full and compleat 1 Cor. 6. 20. Glorifie God in your body and in your spirit and he has given us a very good reason why each of them should be employ'd because both are God's both bought with a price and therefore 't is no less than such a kind of Sacriledge as was that of Ananias and Saphyra to keep back any part of this price to make any reserve where all is God's Our Bodies and Souls cannot be parted here and 't is the Devil that would fain divide them And therefore well knowing that God would be glorified in both he required but one part of Christ for his share only the homage of his outward Man being assured that if God had not both he would have neither But not to trouble you with the proof of so clear a truth let it be our endeavour so to present each part to God that it may be acceptable And first Our Bodies The Psalmist prophetically bringing in Christ into the World shapes him a Body A Body hast thou prepared me Psal. 40. 5. For what end and purpose It follows ver 7. To doe thy will O God And we must endeavour so to fit and prepare ours that by them God's will may be done too And that we shall doe by making them as much as in us lyes Spiritual and Angelical active and nimble in the Service of God by laying aside every weight that clogs and renders them unapt for that service by keeping them under and making them servants to those Souls which have a natural right over them by preserving these garments of the Soul unspotted from the world and by the flesh so far should we be from presenting God with Bodies worn out in the drudgery of Sin and Satan and which have as it were pass'd through the fire to Moloch to whom our Souls like Mezentius guests in the Poet are ty'd as to so many loathsome Carkasses Bodies not of God's making but of our own ours indeed appropriated to us but not such as the Apostle here beseecheth us to offer up unto God But then 2. As our Souls doe as far exceed our Bodies as Jewels doe their Caskets so should our main care be for them so to adorn and enrich them with all spiritual graces that they may be fit presents for God For if our Souls which are but like Salt to keep our Bodies from Corruption shall themselves be rotten and unsavoury wherewith shall they be seasoned Now as these have their fleshly part too which must be mortified and consumed so have they their spiritual part which must be refined St. Paul calls it the spirit of our mind Eph. 4. 23. wherein we are chiefly to be renewed viz. the superior faculties of Reason and Understanding which we are to offer up unto God as the purest part of our Sacrifice and which is properly our Reasonable service For God who is a God of Understanding is to be worshipped purâ mente in those faculties which carry in them a more express character of his Image and whereby we doe in a more especial manner partake of the divine Nature as we doe by our Reason which in a Heathen's expression is nothing else but Deus in humano corpore hospitans And this we give up to Him when we wholly resign it up to his Wisedom when we sacrifice this our Isaac at the foot of his Altar We give Him our Wit by maintaining his Truths and our Memory by treasuring them up We give Him our Thoughts by meditating on his Word and Works Our Wills by thoroughly conforming them to his Will and our Affections by setting them on things above 3. And this is properly that Sacrifice which the Text enjoyns us alluding to that manner of Worship which was ever in
up the Law of Nature each Pagan may confute an Infidel and each Sinner himself That there is a God to be worshipped is founded in that natural Dependence Rational Creatures have on their Creator and that Good and Evil are different things is the Voice and Dictate of Natural Reason too which he that contradicts unmans himself and is to be lookt on as a Monster in Nature Such there have been in all times and which is strange even in those of Divine Revelation for we find the Jews themselves upbraided here with this Impiety which was so much the grosser in them because besides the unwritten they had withall a written Law to instruct them better Both in effect the same the same Precepts in stone and in the heart The Mosaical Law being nothing else but a Digest of that of Nature where the only difference is in the Clearness of the Character For Moses did but display and enlarge the Phylacteries of Nature This was still the Text and all his Precepts but so many Commentaries on it He did but trim up that Candle of the Lord natural Reason which before burnt dim set off Vertue with a better Lustre and expose Vice in its proper shape and hue giving That all its natural Advantage to charm the Eye and painting out This in such lively Colours as might represent it in its utmost Deformity Yet such was the perverse blindness of some that they could see no difference here at all no distinction between an Angel of Light and a Fiend Good and Evil were to them both alike or rather not alike for they preferred Evil to Good did not only confound the Names and Nature of these things but in a cross manner misplace them putting Darkness for Light and Light for Darkness like those Antipodes to mankind who by their strange way of living turn Day into Night and Night into Day This is that abomination the Text takes notice of which drew this severe Imprecation from the Almighty uttered by the mouth of his Prophet Wo unto them that call Evil good c. Which words seem to point to the Jews but are indeed directly levelled at all those who remove the natural Land-marks and Boundaries of Moral Good and Evil and they present us with these three Observations 1. That there is a Real and Natural difference between Vertue and Vice called here Good and Evil. 2. That there always have been and still are such as labour to take away this Difference Men that call Good Evil and Evil Good 3. That to do so To endeavour to alter the Nature and Property of Moral Good and Evil is such a heinous provocation as will inevitably bring a Curse upon it Of these in their Order And 1. That there is a real and natural Difference between Vertue and Vice called here Good and Evil. It seems the Academician and Epicurean Sects were rife in the Prophet Esay's Days who being a loose sort of men and impatient of all natural and moral Restraints would fain perswade themselves and all others That nothing was in it self good or bad that there was no such distinction in Nature but only in the opinion of men who were pleased to make an inclosure where God and Nature had laid all in common Nec natura potest justo secernere iniquum was their fundamental Principle A Principle which because I find taken up and improved by some of the like depraved Judgment and it is the very Source and Fountain of much of that Corruption that is in the World deserves to be considered and the direct way to disprove it will be to make out a real and natural Difference between moral Good and Evil which I shall endeavour to do 1. From the Nature of a Divine Being 2. From our own Make and Constitution 3. From the natural Beauty of Good and Deformity of Evil whereof every Man's Reason is the proper Measure and Judge 4. From such contrary Effects as must of necessity argue a Contrariety in their Causes 1. The first proof of this Truth I shall fetch from God Himself in whose very Nature and Being the difference between Good and Evil is conspicuous For 't is evident that there is something simply Good and something simply Evil even to Divine Being something which God is by the Necessity of his Nature and something which by the same Necessity He cannot be For should I ask Epicurean Christians whether God can be other than what He now is or the Scripture represents Him They must needs resolve the question in the Negative unless they will deny Him to be God or which is the same thing grant him mutable Immutability being so essential to him that what he now is he ever was and what he ever was he ever shall be and cannot chuse but be so Now God from all Eternity was just mercifull good and true 'T is the Description he gives of Himself Exodus 34. 6. The Lord the Lord God merciful and gracious long suffering and abundant in Goodness and Truth And were not these his essential and unalterable Properties the Reverse of that Description might as well befit him which were the highest Blasphemy imaginable and the Manichees needed not to have invented two distinct Principles of Good and Evil when by the Epicurean Doctrine these so contrary things might well enough be reconciled to one and the same Divine Being whereas the Scripture tells us that some things are impossible for God to do As to lye and to be unjust And surely what He cannot Man ought not What is good or bad to Him must be so to us too and what is contrary to the divine can never be a part of humane Perfection If God cannot be other than good mercifull and just Man who was created after his Image must of necessity resemble his Creator and the Copy to be complete in all points answer its Original 2. As indeed it does For upon this account of a natural resemblance 't is that we are said to be Partakers of the divine Nature and God has so wrought and woven his Image into the very frame of our being that like Phidias his Picture in Minerva's Shield it can never be totally defaced without the ruine of that frame And herein also the differences of Good and Evil are apparent For our Passions Fear and Shame especially do manifestly betray them Omne malum aut timore aut pudore persudit natura Nature saith Tertullian hath dasht every Vice with Fear or Shame As for the first of these Fear The continual Frights the pale Countenances and broken Sleeps of wicked Men do plainly argue the inward dissatisfactions of natural Conscience when they doe amiss the guilt of the heart usually spreading it self over the face As on the other side Innocence is ever quiet and bold and they who act by the rules of right reason always calm and serene Of which so apparent contrary effects no better account can be given than