assistence and charity of others how irksome and uneasie will it be to us to remember how little our bowels were moved at the misfortunes of our poor neighbours and what little compassion we shewed to the miserable and necessitous and how loth we were in our flourishing condition to doe any one a good turn if it put us but to the least expence or trouble However great and prosperous your present condition may be yet often consider it may shortly be otherwise with you daily interpose the thoughts of a change should I lose this honour esteem authority and dignity I am now possessed of how many untoward scars and blemishes will stick upon me should I be reduced to a mean low estate shall I not then blush to be put in mind of that pride vain-glory haughtiness oppression and domineering I was guilty of when I was in place and power and will not the forced remembrance of such our base and unworthy behaviour be more grievous and afflictive to us than any outward loss or pain our consciences which now we stifle and smother will at such a time be even with us and our own wickedness shall reprove us and our iniquity shall correct us as the Prophet expresseth it Learn therefore so to demean your selves in prosperity as that your hearts may acquit you and have nothing to chide and rebuke you for when you come into adversity and so to husband and improve those present advantages and opportunities you have in your hands that when they are withdrawn from you you may be able with great comfort and satisfaction to reflect upon the good you have done with them the sense of which will mightily blunt the edge and mitigate the sharpness of those evils that do at any time befall you this was Job's great comfort and support under all his dismal sufferings when he was fallen from the highest pinacle of wealth and honour almost as low as hell that he had held fast his integrity and that his mind could not reproach him 2. We should never either to prevent or to redeem our selves from any outward evil or calamity doe any thing which our own minds and consciences do disapprove and condemn Though Job had lost all other things that men usually call good yet his righteousness he held fast and would not let it go and indeed the peace of our own minds is more to be valued than any temporal blessing whatever and there is no pain or loss so intolerable as that inward fear regret and shame which sin and guilt create so that whatever external advantage we acquire in the world by wounding our consciences we are certainly great losers by it no real good can ever be obtained by doing ill a guilty conscience being the sorest evil that a man can possibly be afflicted with Herein especially do inward troubles exceed all outward afflictions whatever that can happen to our bodies or estates namely that under all temporal calamities how desperate and remediless soever they be yet we have something to buoy up and support our spirits to keep us in heart and ennable us to bear them the joys of a good conscience the sense or hopes of God's love and favour the inward satisfaction of our own minds and thoughts these things will wonderfully carry us through all those difficulties and adversities which we shall meet with in the world and are able to uphold and chear our hearts under the greatest pressures and hardships but when a man's mind it self is disturbed and disquieted where shall he seek for where can he find any ease or remedy This seems to be the meaning of the Wise-man in the 18th of the Proverbs the 14th Verse the spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity but a wounded spirit who can bear It is a saying much like that of our Saviours if the salt hath lost its favour wherewith shall it be salted if that by which we season all other things it self want it by what shall it be seasoned so here the spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity i. e. a mind and spirit that is at peace within it self that is conscious of its own innocence and integrity will enable a man to bear with great patience and contentment those chastisements which God may see good to exercise him with in this life but a wounded spirit who can bear i. e. if that spirit or mind which should help us to bear all those evils that betide us be it self wounded and disquieted what is there then left in a man to sustain it when our onely remedy is become our disease when that which alone can support us in all our troubles and distresses is become it self our greatest torment how shall we be able to bear it What dangers soever therefore we are exposed unto let us be sure to preserve a good conscience nay let us rather suffer the greatest evils than doe the least If we always continue faithfull and constant to the dictates of reason and religion our minds will be in peace and the conscience of our having pleased God and done our duty and secured our greatest interest will hugely ease and alleviate our afflictions and sustain us under the most pressing evils we can suffer in this life whereas on the other side the greatest confluence of the good things of this world will not be able to free us from the disturbance and anxiety of an evil conscience or to quiet and settle our minds when harassed and tortured with the sense of guilt And this shall lead me to the second thing I propounded which was II. To consider these words more generally as they may be applied to men in all states and conditions and then they propound to us this rule which we should always live by namely that we should upon no consideration whatever doe any thing that our minds or consciences reprove us for And this is the just character of an honest man and of one fit to be trusted that he will never either out of fear or favour consent to doe any thing that his mind tells him is unfit unworthy or unbecoming or that he cannot answer or justify to himself but in all cases will doe what is right and honest however it may be thought of and relished by other men and resolutely adhere to his plain duty though perhaps it may hinder his preferment and advancement his trade and gain and expose him to many inconveniences in this world I wish you would all with Job in my Text take up this brave resolution My righteousness I will hold fast and will not let it go my heart shall not reproach me so long as I live For your encouragement I shall onely crave leave to represent unto you these two things 1. That this is the plainest easiest and most certain rule that we can propound to our selves 2. That it is the wisest and safest rule the best policy all things considered 1. That this is the plainest easiest and
being the best expression of our duty towards God and either formally containing or naturally producing all our duty towards our neighbour whence this is said to be the fulfilling of the whole law It is not enough that we give to every man what is due to him His Religion is but very little and of a narrow compass who is onely just nay he that is rigidly so in all cases hath no Religion at all that I have wronged no man will be a poor plea or apology at the last day for it is not for rapine or injury for pillaging or cousening their neighbours that men at the last day are formally impeached and finally condemned but I was an hungry and ye gave me no meat I was a stranger and ye took me not in you neglected to doe that good which you had power and opportunity to doe Some men are so taken up with their courses of piety and devotion that they have no time to doe much good if they be but temperate and just and come frequently to Church and constantly perform the duties of God's worship this they hope will carry them to Heaven though they are notoriously covetous and uncharitable and hardly ever doe any good office for their neighbours or brethren Some again there are who pretend to be of a more spiritual and refined Religion spend their time in contemplation and talk much of communion with God but look upon this way of serving God by doing good as a lower attainment an inferior dispensation suitable to children and novices in Religion and think that they are excused from these mean duties and yet reade over the life of the best man that ever lived the founder of our Faith and Religion and you cannot but confess what I have already shewn you that the great thing he was most exemplary and illustrious for was his unwearied readiness to help and oblige all men he went about doing good and it is a scandal raised on our Church that we do not hold the necessity of good works in order to salvation but trust wholly to faith for we hold and teach them to be as necessary as Papists themselves can or doe but then we say they are accepted by God onely for the sake of Jesus Christ 6. And Lastly Nothing hath greater rewards annexed to it than doing good and that both in this life and that which is to come I have time now but just to mention to you some few of those benefits and advantages that do either naturally flow from it or by God's gratious promise are annexed to it To doe good with what we enjoy is the most certain way to procure God's blessing upon all we have it doth entitle us to his more especial care and protection Trust in the Lord saith David and be doing good so shalt thou dwell in the Land and verily thou shalt be fed The divine goodness cannot but be mightily pleased to see men so far as they are able imitating it self and following the example of God's benignity For every good office we doe to other men we have some thing to plead with God Almighty to engage him to bestow upon us what we want or desire not by way of merit or desert but God himself graciously becoming our debtour takes what is done to others in such cases as done to himself and by promise obliges himself to full retaliation By this means we provide against an evil day that which will mightily support us under all the troubles and afflictions that may happen to us in this life our good works will attend us and stand by us at the hour of death as I have already hinted to you nay farther our good works will appear and plead for us before God's tribunal and will procure for us for the sake of Jesus Christ at the hands of our mercifull God a glorious recompense at the resurrection of the just for at the last and final reckoning when all mens actions shall be scanned and judged the great King shall pass his sentence according to the good men have done or neglected to doe in this life Nay every way so great is the reward of doing good that even wicked men who yet have been of bountifull tempers and have had generous spirits shall fare the better in the other world for those good acts of mercy and charity they have done here and in this sense it is said with which I end all that Charity doth cover a multitude of sins and to cover sins in the Scripture phrase is to forgive them Now of this saying there are several senses given which I cannot stand now to recite but the words are true in these two senses 1. If he that is thus truly charitable and hath done a great deal of good in his generation be also endued with the other vertues and qualifications required in a Christian then though he may have a great many infirmities and miscarriages to answer for yet these failings shall be overlooked and buried in his good deeds and then they mean the same with that of the Psalmist with the mercifull God will shew himself mercifull he will shew him all favour possible 2. Or else secondly if you understand these words Charity shall cover a multitude of sins as spoken of a person who though vitious in all other respects yet out of principles of common humanity or natural goodness of temper or greatness of Spirit is very apt and inclined to doe generous and great things for the good of the world which is a case that may sometimes happen they mean this that though Charity alone will not be sufficient to make such an one happy in the other world because he is otherwise incapable of it yet it shall be considered so far as to lessen his punishment He shall be in a less intolerable condition though that be sad enough than the cruel and uncharitable or than they who have delighted in doing mischief A SERMON Preached at WHITE-HALL The Second Sermon 1 COR. XI 29. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself not discerning the Lord's Body THE Sacrament of the Lord's Supper which we are now to receive is undoubtedly the most solemn and venerable part of Christian worship a most excellent instrument of Religion an institution of our Saviour's of mighty use and advantage to us if we duly partake thereof and yet there is hardly any part of Religion so little or so ill understood by the generality of Christians amongst us as this duty which sufficiently appears from that great number of those who constantly join with the Church in all other publick offices of divine worship and yet wholly neglect the receiving of this Sacrament or at least communicate so seldom as if they looked upon themselves at liberty to doe it or not doe it as they thought best I speak not now of the prophane contemners of God and Religion who despise this as they do all the other duties
then becomes popular and creditable and he that startles at the commission of any Sin when he is alone shall make no stop or scruple when he hath the invitation and approbation of so many for he sins now by consent and sympathy and hath the opinion of others to vouch him when Conscience accuseth or vertuous men reprove him he hath his authorities ready to produce for his wickedness and can quote others to justifie his debaucheries Sin is infectious and when it once gets head and men dare be openly prophane it spreads like a contagious disease and though for some time we should keep our selves untainted yet by degrees we shall be apt to lose that averseness and abhorrence we had of it it will not seem so strange and dismal a thing to us it will become more familiar and then we shall proceed to wish our selves free that we might also doe the same to long and hancker after a greater liberty to think our selves too hard tied up and then the next step is running with others into the like excess of riot The sense and apprehension we have of any danger cannot but be much abated when we see the greatest part of men continually to outbrave and daringly to defie it and it is hard to retain a just value for goodness when it is despised and contemned by those who are famed for their wit and prudence in other things But though by experience we find that examples do thus strongly influence men yet that they should doe so reason there is none for what can argue greater stupidity and unmanliness than at a venture to take every thing for better for worse and to go on onely for company sake and leave all matters though we are never so deeply concerned in them to be judged of onely by others What doth reason or understanding advantage him who lives wholly by precedent and is always what others please to make him But alas it is very tedious and troublesome for a man to examine his own ways and ask himself a reason of every step he takes It would cost too much time and pains to be wary and thoughtfull and consider always what ought to be spoken or done next this is a dull and methodical way of living but to be always poised to be indifferent to every thing to wait the next tide and to follow the next hint this is gay and free and easie But be it as easie as it will it is nevertheless no other than the life of Beasts who herd together and follow one another and love to be in the same track But more particularly men are led by examples and tempted to doe as the most doe chiefly on one of these accounts either that they may not be thought singular or which is worse rude and uncivil or else that they may avoid scoffs and reproaches 1. To avoid the imputation of singularity and this indeed must necessarily be laid to the charge of good and vertuous men so long as the greatest part of the World is wicked and sensual But then it is to be considered that it is such a singularity as is most honourable and redounds the more to our credit by how much the fewer are of our side 'T is true to affect singularity in any indifferent or trivial matter is unbecoming and ridiculous but Men were never afraid of being singular in any excellency and though Religion and innocence may not always meet with that esteem which is due to them yet it is strange that any one should ever think them scandalous If this cast any disparagement upon piety and vertue that there are but few in the World that heartily regard them it does equally on all things that are extraordinary and really praise-worthy Are men ashamed of being counted singular in any knowledge or wisedom in any skill or trade and why should it be otherwise in the instance of true goodness the highest perfection our natures are capable of are not great honours and estates as liable to this exception since there are but few that can deserve the one or acquire the other and yet men rather vaunt and glory in such things as these which distinguish them from the vulgar rout and usually reckon those the most desirable accomplishments which few are masters of why then should this prejudice men against Religion that the greatest part of the World are fools and are contented to be miserable 2. We must follow say they the examples of others and doe as the most doe or else we shall be counted rude and uncivil we shall be thought ill-manner'd and to want fashionable breeding And this alone hath so far prevailed in the World that I doubt not but there are many who make themselves seem to be worse than really they are and boast of sins which they never durst commit onely that they may not be without this mark and character of Gentility who hypocritically dissemble wickedness that they may gain the name and reputation of Gentlemen and may not be thought precise or godly But surely it is a sign of a mean low and base spirit and doth not suit with that braveness and gallantry of mind which is or ought to be in all Gentlemen to suffer themselves thus to be usurped upon and so tamely to submit to mere wicked customes and instead of all those good qualities and dispositions and vertuous actions to which their Forefathers owed their good names and great titles to value themselves or others upon the account of such vices as in former times were found onely in Clowns and Beggars This indeed is the proof of a very wicked and degenerate age and a notorious sign that irreligion appears with a very bold face when it is accounted a piece of bad manners and becoming onely those of a mean rank to own a reverence for that Sovereign Majesty who made us all and a due respect to those Laws which not so much his power and dominion over us as our own interest and self-love do oblige us to observe when we shall be called rude unless besides the hopes of eternal happiness we foolishly hazard the loss of our health peace and every thing else that is truly valuable for a momentany satisfaction merely out of compliance with our company when to be able to walk stand or speak sense shall be thought an indecent thing an uncivil trick put upon those whom we either chanc'd or were forced to converse with to name no more when it shall be esteemed less dishonourable to be a murtherer than to forgive some petty injury or put up any small affront We should therefore in this case say as David did when he danced before the Ark of the Lord and was derided for it If this be vile I will yet be more vile than thus If meekness and patience chastity and temperance the fear of God and true Religion be uncivil and ungentile we will yet be more uncivil and ungentile and I should as soon
be persuaded that it was rude and clownish not to pledge one who drank to me in rank poyson as that it is any sign of want of good breeding and gentile accomplishments to be wiser and more sober than the rest of the World 3. Lastly Men are tempted to comply with bad examples and follow the multitude that they may avoid scoffs and reproaches and not expose themselves to the laughter and drollery of those who think every thing wit that is impudent or prophane But this surely is so little and inconsiderable that it deserves not to be named with the least of those inconveniences which attend a wicked life for what hurt can it be to us to have those speak ill of us whose very commendation and good word would be our greatest scandal and reproach and shall we to escape their irreligious scoffs and foolish jests justly merit the reproof of all wise men and make our selves liable to the censure of those whose opinion and judgment alone ought to be regarded Were we but once throughly convinced of the truth and excellency of that Religion we are baptized into how happy it would make us in this life and what great things it assures us of in the future no flouts nor railleries would any more be able to shake our purposes of good living than they are to persuade a rich man out of his estate and large possessions But farther the best way to preserve our reputation even amongst wicked men is to be true to those principles which we have first espoused for let men say what they will they have a secret respect and veneration for all those whose goodness is exemplary and conspicuous which appears sufficiently by their envying and snarling at them and they inwardly scorn none more than those whom they know to be guilty of those vices which yet they themselves tempted them to and he that will be drunk himself will yet be sure to laugh at another whom he sees in that condition But let us suppose the worst what is it that they can say of us onely that we are nice and squeamish and curious that we have not yet learned to live at random nor perfectly subdued our Consciences that we weigh and consider our actions and use our reasons and understandings and believe we were born into the World for some higher ends than pleasing our senses and gratifying our appetites that we are not indifferent to health and sickness peace and disquiet life and death that we think there is somewhat in the World besides what we daily see that we provide for a State which we may very soon enter upon and trouble our selves with thoughts of what will become of us after we are dead and the like but if this be all we ought to pray to God that we may constantly live under such ignominy and die under the disgrace To what I have already said on this subject I shall onely add that if bad examples even against our reason and interest do so far prevail with Men to their utter undoing what mighty power and influence would good examples have enforced with all the arguments for and advantages of Religion what an age of vertue and quiet and happiness should we enjoy if Men of dignity and renown of parts and understanding of birth and fortune would freely and conspicuously offer themselves to the World for patterns of life and conversation thus they might entice others to be good and soon retrieve the honour of our Religion and bring it again into credit and repute Were such Mens lives as good and holy as their profession is sinners would soon be put out of Countenance and be ashamed to appear in the World their party would be made inconsiderable and they would have but little power to draw others over to their side for there is not a more winning and taking sight in the World than the life of a Christian led exactly according to the prescripts of his Religion And were there not in all ages some such persons of authority and fame whose zeal for Religion inspires them with so much courage as that they are neither ashamed nor afraid of being honest and innocent whatever the mad World may say or think of them for it I say were it not for such we should soon lose not onely the power but even the form of Godliness too And God onely knows how many daily make shipwrack of their Consciences onely because they have not spirit enough to endure to be out of the mode and fashion II. But I hasten to the second thing propounded which was to shew how unreasonable it is to be enticed to sin by such as argue for it and would endeavour to excuse it for there are many that are not altogether thus easie and complaisant as to follow merely for company nor so lazy as to take up every thing on trust but they are men of prudence and discretion who desire first to be satisfied whether what they are inticed to be prudent and safe they like a wicked life well enough could they be but furnished with some small reasons and arguments for it by which they might justify their choice and stop the mouths of their Consciences I shall just mention these four ways whereby sinners ordinarily entice such as these to join with them either 1. by representing the pleasures or 2. by propounding the temporal advantages which attend sin or else 3. by speaking slightly of the evil of it or lastly by persuading them that there is no danger in it 1. Men entice others to sin by propounding to them the pleasures that are to be found in a loose and wicked life They tell them that the laws of Religion are fitted onely for the dull and Phlegmatick unactive and Hypocondriack who grudge at others enjoying those delights which themselves are not capable of that Nature designed we should freely use whatever she hath provided for our entertainment here and was not so unkind as perpetually to torment us with the sight and presence of such things as we are not permitted to taste nor touch that heaven indeed is the Lord's and he dwells there and doeth what pleaseth him best but that the earth by his grant and permission is ours and who shall interrupt or disturb us that God hath left this lower World to us to take our pastime therein and that that man makes the best use of it who improves it most to serve his own pleasures that to live honestly scrupulously and vertuously is to be buried whilst we are alive and that to order all our actions according to stinted rules and precepts belongs onely to slaves and those who are of a servile disposition but what greater pleasure say they than to be ungovernable and uncontrollable to satisfy every appetite with its proper object to deny our selves nothing that our lusts or passions crave in every thing to gratifie our own humour and fancy and to trouble our heads with nothing
the discountenancing of sin and vice that did give more forcible arguments for the one and against the other that did lay greater stress upon a pure mind and a blameless life and less upon voluntary strictnesses and indifferent rites and ceremonies than we do I would very soon be of that Church and even entice all I could to it but till such an one can be found nay so long as it is manifest that all the zealous opposers of the Church of England do hold opinions either destructive of or in their plain tendencies weakening the force of all the precepts promises and threatnings contained in the Gospel and such as if they do not encourage men to yet at least furnish them with pleas and excuses for their wickedness I am sure it is our interest no less than our duty if we sincerely love God and our souls and have any real desire of our own or others welfare faithfully to adhere to that Church we have the happiness to be members of and vigorously to maintain and defend it A SERMON Preached at WHITE-HALL The Fourth Sermon ROM XII 16. Be not wise in your own conceits THERE is hardly any vice that men do so readily condemn in others and yet so easily overlook and excuse in themselves as this of self-conceit or a fond opinion of their own great wisedom and understanding None of us can endure that another should assume to himself continually to prescribe to us or usurp so far upon us as to be always imposing on us his own private customs humours or manners as if we had no wit or judgment of our own whereby to govern and order our own affairs and yet it is to be feared most of us who call this intolerable pride in another are so deeply in love with our selves and our own ways that we cannot forbear to censure and despise to charge with folly and ignorance all that do not believe and practise just as we our selves do Every one thus in his own vain imagination presuming himself wise and good enough to set a pattern and give law to all round about him It is the observation of the great French Philosopher That the most equal distribution God hath made of any thing in this world is of judgment and understanding because every man is content with his own and thinks he hath enough and though as to the outward gifts of nature or fortune he be willing to yield to others yet he doubts not but he himself is as far removed from a fool hath as large a share of reason and discretion is as able to manage himself and his own business as any other whatever Whence it is that all men are apt so confidently to lean unto and rely upon their own understandings so peremptorily to trust to and follow their own judgments so resolutely and inflexibly to adhere to their first choices and determinations scorning and taking it in great snuff and dudgeon to be taught advised check'd or controlled by any Now this is to be wise in our own conceits against which the Apostle here in my Text cautions us when any man hath a vast and undue opinion of his own powers and faculties and thinks of himself above what is meet when he will hearken to none other nor believe any one but just himself when he knows all things does all things is all things to himself and within himself alone not needing at least in his own big thoughts any ones help counsel or assistence In short when he rates and values himself above his true worth and despises others and judges meanly of his Betters then a man may be said to be wise in his own conceit Which self-conceit undoubtedly lies at the bottom and is the original cause of all Atheism and sceptical disputes against Providence and Religion of all undutifull carriage towards governours and superiours and of all those uncharitable separations and unchristian divisions that are so rife amongst us and do so sadly threaten the ruine both of our Church and State Whereas on the other side the great foundation of all true Religion and civil order the onely effectual means of procuring and advancing peace real wisedom and truth amongst men is an humble and lowly esteem of our selves a modest diffidence of our own apprehensions an hearty and serious acknowledgment of our own defects and a willingness to be instructed directed ruled and governed by others who are better and wiser than our selves I shall at this time propound to you some plain instances wherein this sort of pride or self-conceit doth shew it self particularly in matters of Religion together with the folly and mischiefs of it I. This self-conceit shews it self in being confident and positive about things which we do not understand and in intermedling with affairs which do not belong to us II. In being obstinate and pertinacious in some singular fancies and opinions though upon never so slight grounds at first believed and entertained III. In affecting to impose our own humours and conceits upon others and in despising and condemning all that are not in every thing just of our own mind and persuasion I. This self-conceit appears in being confident and positive about things which we do not understand and in intermedling with affairs which do not belong to us When we reject every thing as false which we cannot presently comprehend and damn every thing of which we cannot easily give a satisfactory account when we speak evil of those things which we know not as St. Jude says of some in his days when nothing shall escape us which we do not streight arraign and bring to the bar nor any thing pass with us for wise good or decent but what is exactly fitted to our own palate and suited to our raw and unwary notions of things when we measure and judge of the nature of God the counsels of heaven the methods of Providence the constitutions of our governours the doctrines of our approved teachers the reasonableness of publick laws the designs and undertakings of other men truth and falshood good and evil onely according to the agreement or disagreement of things with our private fancies childish prejudices and rash judgments But more particularly 1. Hence it is that men are apt to quarrel with God and Religion and endeavour either to dispute or rally them out of the world Into this one principle I think may be resolved the most considerable if any such there be nay almost all the objections that ever were framed against the existence of a God and the truth and certainty of Religion viz. that there are many things commonly taught and believed which some pert young sinners cannot by any means understand and therefore all of it must presently be false They cannot possibly frame a notion of a spirit or immaterial substance Every thing they think of is clothed with corporeal accidents they cannot conceive an infinite Being nor solve all the difficulties about eternity omnipresence
omniscience and the like and therefore the whole Idea of an invisible power as one of the most conceited men in our Nation says is feigned onely by the mind or imagined from tales publickly allowed of The Resurrection seems a very unlikely and improbable story How can these things be It is past their finding out why God did not send Christ sooner into the world if there be no salvation to be had without him It seemeth to them very absurd and unworthy that the Son of God should appear here in so mean a condition and dye so shamefull a death They understand not the reason of some of God's Laws and think they themselves could make better They conclude the parts of this visible world might have been much more conveniently ordered and contrived than now they appear to be if all were managed and conducted by an infinite power and wisedom and thus rather than in any case doubt or suspect their own want of understanding they turn Atheists or Scepticks and renounce the most certain and plainest truths God shall not be at all unless he please to be and doe just as his creatures would have him These now are the persons that conceit themselves the onely men of parts and deep reach who will not be born down by a popular faith who search and dive into the very bottom of things and have alone happily smelt out that grand cheat and juggle with which the rest of mankind hath been so long abused I know not one objection or doubt against the being of a Deity and Providence but what is thus raised onely by pride and an arrogant opinion of our own understanding as if nothing could be either true or reasonable but what is perfectly within our own ken and cognisance If such conceited and haughty persons cannot apprehend the usefulness of any part of the creation if any thing happens in the world that seems to them confused and disordered if their wisedoms cannot discern the end benefit and design of every thing that falls out presently they either charge God with folly and ill contrivance or banish him out of the world and impute all to blind fortune or inexorable destiny Whereas indeed it is onely their own ignorance they ought to accuse and others may perchance comprehend what they cavil at nay they themselves may possibly arrive to the complete knowledge of that hereafter which now seems so mysterious to them Let us but suppose God infinitely wiser than we poor mortals are or can be and that he may doe and order many things for good and great reasons which yet we who can see but a little way and consider but of a few things at once are not able as yet to grasp or find out Let us I say but suppose our understandings in this state imperfect and limited and capable of far greater improvement in another and all these scruples of the Atheist presently vanish into nothing Thus you may observe with my Lord Bacon that no great proficients in Philosophy who have really improved their minds and reasons have ever been Atheists but such onely as have had a little smattering of it and being puft up with a small pittance of knowledge became presently ready to conclude they understood all things and being wise in their own conceits did therefore huff against every thing they were not able to render a reason of And if you consult the experience of these days you will find those onely to swagger and hector against Religion who have a lofty opinion of their own learning and parts begot and maintained by a slight and superficial skill in Philosophy by a little dabling in the Mathematicks and Mechanicks and a small share of wit and drollery enough to render themselves the scorn and compassion of all truly wise and good men but who art thou O vain man that thus exaltest thy self against God and settest up thy puisne wit and understanding in competition with his eternal reason 'T is strange that when men find themselves at a loss and utterly to seek about the nature of things visible and sensible about the ordinary appearances of this world when it is easie for a man but of little parts to raise such a mist about the plainest truths and invent such difficulties and objections as shall puzzle the sagest Philosophers handsomly to solve and unriddle when men do and must believe several things the causes of which they can onely guess at nor can ever be certain they are in the right when a Load-stone's drawing of iron the ebbing and flowing of the Sea the striking fire out of a Flint shall find mens wits employment enough nor shall they ever be able perfectly to satisfy themselves or others about them when they are forced in such things as they see daily before their eyes to confess their ignorance and the uncertainty of all their reasonings that yet I say when they come to discourse of such things as are plainly above their reach and capacity being invisible and infinite they will believe nothing but what they can fully comprehend and count all that absurd which they cannot satisfactorily explain This is the first particular instance of that sort of self-conceit which consists in medling with things we do not understand nor do belong to us 2. Then also we meddle with things we do not understand and which do not belong to us when we take upon our selves to give peremptory accounts of God's providential dealings with the sons of men when without controll we pass our rash verdicts upon God's Actions and sit in judgment upon the various occurrences of this world accusing and arraigning God of arbitrary tyrannical government if every thing happen not according to our minds as we had before-hand wished or projected if those we love much thrive not so well or if our enemies prosper more and grow greater in this world than we would have them when we offer to prescribe to Providence and teach God how he should rule the world and dispose of his favours When we dare clamour and mutiny at God's proceedings imagining that he hath not done well or that we our selves could have done better that if the Government of mankind were but committed to our care as the Chariot of the Sun is said once to have been to Phaethon we could order and determine things more wisely and equally and to better advantage This is a most notorious piece of arrogance thus saucily to affix senses and meanings on God's providences where he has given us no rule to judge by and to interpret them according as our own interest prejudice passion or some other vice doth sway us to bring arguments for any way or sect from temporal successes or to condemn any who differ from us by reason of some calamities or unfortunate accidents that may have befallen them This shews us mightily conceited of our selves and our own judgments when we think God so fond of our private and singular sentiments
thus when they have vented a most cursed malitious lye with the woman in the Proverbs they wipe their mouths and say they have done no wickedness and would have you impute it wholly to their zeal and not to their malice This I cannot better represent unto you than by translating the words of an ancient Father who thus describes some in his days There are saith he who shall endeavour to shadow and disguise the malice and ill-will they have conceived against any sort of persons or company of men with the false colour of zeal for the glory of God and sorrow for the wickedness of the times and then looking very sadly and premising a deep sigh with a dejected countenance and dolefull voice they vent their lies and slanders and therefore saith he they doe all this that they may the more easily persuade those who hear them of the truth of what they relate that the story may be the sooner believed and more readily swallowed as seeming to be uttered with an unwilling mind and rather with the affection of one that condoles than any fetch of malice I am grievously sorry for it saith one for I love the man well he is one of excellent parts and hath many things very laudable in him but and then he aggravates this particular sin whether truly or falsly imputed to him it matters not to the highest degree Another tells you I knew so much of him before but it should never have gone farther for me but now seeing the matter is out though perhaps he was the first broacher of it he shakes his head and lifts up his eyes and tells you it is indeed too true he speaks it with grief of heart and then tells it in every company he comes in but adds it is great pity he otherwise excells in many things but in this he cannot be excused Thus far my Authour There is saith Solomon Prov. 12.18 that speaketh like the piercings of a sword and Prov. 18.8 the words of a tale-bearer are as wounds and they go down into the innermost parts of the belly Curse the whisperer and double tongued for such have destroyed many that were at peace saith the son of Syrach This if any thing is point blank contrary to charity for love covereth all sins Prov. 10.12 Charity hideth all things 11. Yet farther Charity believeth all things hopeth all things It maketh us to believe all the good of others we have the least probable ground for and to hope that which we have no reason to believe We very easily believe those things to be which we before-hand wish were true and therefore charity being a wishing well to all men must needs incline us to believe well also of them this daily experience tells us that where we love there we are very unapt to discern faults though never so plain and obvious to the impartial and disinterested witness the strange blindness men generally have towards their own though never so gross and foolish The judgment of charity is very large and comprehensive it takes in all and believes well of every one who continues within the pale of the Christian Church doth never presume to judge mens hearts or pry into their secret intentions Nay where there is some reason to doubt of a man's truth and sincerity yet charity hopeth the best It despairs of no man's repentance and salvation but entertains some hopes that even the worst of men the most refractory and disobedient will at length amend and grow wiser Whoever sins charity hopes it is out of weakness or surprise or inadvertency and not out of wilfulness or habitual custome whoever mistakes charity hopes the errour proceeds from ignorance onely or unavoidable prejudice or unhappy education and not from a bad and wicked mind or from any worldly sensual interest And in this particular is the charity of our Church much to be commended who contents her self with propounding an undoubted safe way to Heaven without passing any reprobating sentences and anathema's on all other Churches and societies of professours and excluding them from all hope of mercy or possibility of salvation And indeed it concerneth us all to take great care rightly to discharge this office of charity since according as we judge others so shall we our selves be judged it is our interest as well as our duty to be very mild and mercifull in our censures of others and to judge of them with favour and allowance since with what measure we measure unto others it shall be measured unto us again 12. Lastly charity endureth all things never will be wearied or tired out is not fickle and wavering thinks nothing too much to doe nothing too great to undertake nothing too hard to undergo for the good of others Love sticks not at any thing nay makes any duty or labour easie and pleasant as Jacob after his disappointment grudged not to serve the other seven years for the sake of Rachel Love is strong as death many waters cannot quench it nor the flouds drown it nothing can allay the heat of its endeavours or stop its progress it easily surmounts all difficulties and triumphs over all opposition though we meet with great ingratitude contradiction and unworthy returns from those whom we have obliged yet love is not apt to repent of the good it hath done but still perseveres endeavouring to overcome evil with good unkindnesses with courtesies Love doth not invent excuses or seeek delays when a fair occasion of exercising it self is offered it makes us willing for some time to leave our own business though of near concernment to us to expose our selves to heat and cold to wearisome and painfull journies to deny our selves our own ease and pleasure and profit in some measure rather than to forfeit an opportunity of shewing a great kindness Charity endureth all things This now is that affection of love which we ought to bear one towards another this is that kind benign and gratious temper which manifests us to be the children of God and to partake of his nature and to be like unto him who is good and doth good which shews us to be the followers of our Saviour in deed and in truth who went about doing good and which alone can fit us for that Kingdom wherein true love undisturbed peace and universal charity dwells and reigns for evermore To convince you of the necessity of this frame and temper of spirit let me onely put you in mind of what St. Paul saith in the beginning of this Chap. that though a man should be able to speak with the tongues of men and angels had the gift of all languages and could discourse with the greatest eloquence and efficacy yet without this charity he would be but as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal Though a man had the gift of prophecy and could foretell things to come were inspired from above and were able to convert others to the Faith and propagate the Christian Religion in
should all this that I have now rehearsed and whatever else can be added to it which a wicked man may doe upon his death-bed should it all amount to repentance yet where in the mean time is obedience to all the laws of the Gospel As for those indeed who in the sincerity of their heart have done God's will their repentance shall be accepted for what they have fallen short in or those few things they have miscarried and transgressed in and which the best of us all have need to lament over but I cannot think that a short repentance at last was ever intended to answer for an universal disobedience and a whole life of wickedness for repentance from dead works and resolutions of a godly life are required as a preparative for Christianity and are therefore accounted necessary in adult persons even before their Baptism but then by our Christian profession which we take upon us in Baptism we are obliged to more viz. to a new life and all manner of purity and righteousness and therefore to hope to be happy in another world without living well here is against our own very bargain and that agreement and covenant which we made with God in our baptism wherein we expresly promised to walk in God's holy Commandments all our days and therefore this keeping God's commands must be as necessary for the obtaining the reward as sorrow for or forsaking of our sins This I shall illustrate briefly thus The ways of vertue and righteousness and of sin and wickedness are not like two roads that lie nigh or parallel one to the other so that with ease and in a little time a man may step out of one into the other but they are perfectly opposite and directly contrary to each other Suppose that a man for a great reward be obliged in one day between Sun-rising and Sun-setting to travel so many miles Northward and moreover by a solemn oath as all Christians are to the practice of Christianity engaged to the performance of it but that the man freely presuming he hath time enough to doe this in doth not set out at the first rising of the Sun but loiters and trifles away all his time nay not onely so but that for his pleasure or some little convenience he travels the quite contrary way and goes Southward and finding that road very smooth broad and full of company and diversion is by any little temptations drill'd on still farther in it wholly forgetting his bargain till on a sudden the Sun is just ready to set night comes on a-pace and then the wretch begins to consider how much he is out of his way and finds himself weary and tired and unfit for travel and curseth his own folly and promiseth if he were to begin again he would go directly to the place commanded but by that time he hath thus resolved the Sun is set shall this man now obtain the promised reward Alas before he can challenge that he must first return back all the way he hath gone even to the point from whence he first set out and also after that will have his whole days journey still to go and all that task to doe which he at first engaged himself to perform so a wicked man upon his death-bed is not onely to unravel all his former works to break off all his lewd customs to mortify all his foolish passions and unruly lusts to forsake all his deadly sins and to repent of his past ill-spent life but he is then to live a new life he is then to accustome himself to the practice of goodness and to make it habitual to him his mind is then to be furnished with all Christian vertues and graces he hath his whole race still to run and his salvation still to work out and is the least part of this possible to be done on a languishing bed of sickness Had we made Religion the business of our whole lives and in every thing exercised our selves to keep a conscience unblameable yet at such a time when we come to die we should find work and duty enough to employ us to the utmost To manage our selves well and decently and as becomes Christians in such a condition patiently to bear our affliction chearfully to submit to God's will to beg pardon of our manifold failings and miscarriages readily to leave this world and all that is dear to us in it at his call these and many other are the exercises of a Christian on the bed of sickness And how few are there in those agonies that are able to bear up with any tolerable manhood or courage and therefore we do not ordinarily account him a wise man that will leave so much as his worldly affairs then to be setled How then besides taking care of all these things at a time when our very natural powers and faculties are disabled when our bodies are full of pain and our minds full of distractions and perplexities shall we be able also to doe all that work for which our whole life is little enough and for which alone we were born into this world and this the Devil subtilly foresees that if he can but prevail with men to put off the care of Religion till a sick bed he shall find othergess employment for them then He will not fail to be present at such an opportunity and as before in their life-time he told them it was too soon so now he will himself suggest to them that it is too late to repent and turn to God Ye therefore that are apt to defer your repentance till a death-bed condescend sometimes to visit your sick neighbours and friends look on their condition when they lie on their dying bed and by it judge whether that be a fit time to doe so great a work in see how troubled and disturbed their thoughts are how uneasie and distempered their minds are as well as their bodies how fast their reason and understanding decays how their memories are lost and their senses fail them and they cannot in the least help themselves Is this a time say then to prepare for eternity to vanquish all sin and to obtain all grace is this the fittest opportunity we can chuse to make our peace with God in to sue out our pardon and to perform all those duties of piety mercy justice and charity that we were before wanting in or rather are not they then happy who at such a time have nothing else to doe but to die would you but take the opinion of those who are themselves in this condition and be moved by their judgments they will all give their suffrages for what I have been now proving Do not they when surprized by death offer all their goods and substance that they have so long and vainly laboured and toiled for for some longer time for a little truce and respite what are they not willing to give on condition that God would spare them yet a little while before
that they mean as they say And it being necessary for the government of the world in so many cases not proper now to be named that truth should be found out and the greatest certainty of it be given that can possibly and that men should by the strictest ties be obliged to some duties it thence also becomes necessary that oaths should sometimes be required especially when men cannot by other means well assure the sincerity of their intentions or secure the fidelity of their resolutions I confess amongst Christians in the first ages I believe oaths were not so commonly required in such little matters as now sometimes they are but the reason was because truth and honesty then prevailed far more amongst them and lying was then more scandalous than I fear perjury is now but perfidiousness and dissembling and equivocating and fraud encreasing have made the use of oaths more ordinary than otherwise would have been necessary For if Christians did generally observe the laws of their Religion in all other instances men would fly to this greatest security onely in extreme and highest cases and not find it needfull to require it in common and more trivial matters 6. Lastly I onely observe farther that what seems thus to be the doctrine of our Saviour concerning swearing was delivered by the Philosophers of old amongst the Heathens as agreeable to the light of nature and right reason that is to say they advised their Scholars to forbear all oaths as much as possibly they could never to swear but when it was necessary to reverence an oath as Pythagoras express'd it in his golden Verses not easily or lightly or want only to take God's name into their mouths I forbear to trouble you with the Authours or the Sentences themselves and I propound this onely to shew that the wise men of this world did agree with our blessed Saviour in this rule which he hath prescribed to us concerning swearing and I have been the larger in it that you might see what little reason any Enthusiasts amongst us have to stand out so stubbornly against the wholsome laws of our Countrey and the proceedings of the Courts of Judicature who though it were to save the King's life will not give their testimony upon oath because our Saviour hath said Swear not at all The sum of all is Our Saviour absolutely forbids swearing in our communication or ordinary discourse together and about the unlawfulness of this there is no dispute and strange it is that against such express words of our blessed Lord and Master men should so openly allow themselves in such a vile practice and yet have the face to call themselves his disciples and followers This evil of voluntary rash swearing hath prevailed amongst us even almost beyond all hope of cure and remedy That great Oratour St. Chrysostome made no less than twenty Homilies or Sermons against this foolish vice and yet found it too hard for all his reason or Rhetorick till at length he attempted to force his Auditours to leave off that sin if for no better reason yet that he might chuse another subject They are ordinarily men onely of debauched minds and consciences that freely indulge themselves in it and if any such now hear me I cannot expect by those few words I have now to deliver to dissuade them from it I had rather endeavour to offer something to your consideration who are not yet infected by it to persuade you to watch severely against it and resolve never to comply with such an impious senseless custome 1. Consider what an horrid affront it is to the divine Majesty All sin reflects dishonourably upon God but other sins do this by consequence onely this directly flies in his face and immediately impugneth his justice and power Other sins are acts of disobedience but 't is high contempt of God thus to toss about his excellent and glorious name in our unhallowed mouths and to prostitute it to so vile an use as onely to fill up the vacuities of our idle prattle That great and terrible name of God which all the Angels and host of Heaven with the profoundest submission continually adore which rends the mountains and opens the bowels of the deepest rocks which makes hell tremble and is the strength and hope of all the ends of the earth our onely refuge in the day of trouble the very thought whereof should fill all sober persons with a reverential awe and horrour how do men most impudently and rashly almost every minute pollute and tear without fear or sense or observing what they say as if God Almighty the Maker and Judge of us all were the meanest and most despicable Being in the universe What unaccountable boldness and intolerable sauciness is this to dare to invoke the dreadfull Majesty of heaven and earth to witness to every impertinent saying silly story vain fancy almost every five words we utter thus at our pleasure to summon our Omnipotent Creatour as if he were at our beck and a slave to our humour thus to play and dally with him who is a consuming fire and can in the twinkling of an eye make us all as miserable as we have been sinfull How shall we ever be able in the day of our fears to address our selves to the throne of his grace whom every time we speak we thus madly defy with what shame and regret and confusion must we needs appear before his Judgment seat whose honourable name we have thus foully prophaned and used so ignominiously Can they ever think to plead that bloud of our dearest Lord and those wounds made by the spear and nails in his most pretious body for the pardon and expiation of their most grievous sins who thus daily have made a mock of them Can they ever with the least hope of success pray God when they come to die to deliver them from that damnation that they have a thousand times before wished to themselves And yet this sin which argues such slight and abuse of the divine Majesty such rudeness towards him and draws so many dire consequences after it is now adays pardon me if I say it one of the fashionable accomplishments of too many of those that should be precedents of civility or good manners to others but this is so sad a consideration that I cannot endure to dwell longer upon it I proceed to other mischiefs of this vice though none need be named after this for those whom the awe of God and sense of his power and infinite greatness will not keep and restrain from such desperate profanations of his holy name it is not to be imagined that any less arguments should 2. This practice of common swearing must of necessity frequently involve men in the heinous sin of perjury He that swears at every turn in his ordinary discourse how often doth he call God to witness even to what he knows is false and as often forget to doe what before God he hath engaged himself
save to the utmost all that come unto God by him Thus this Jesus hath saved us from our sins in the first sense that is obtained and purchased the pardon of them and made God placable to us But this is not all 2. In order to the salvation of sinners it is farther necessary that men should be freed from the power of sin and from their evil natures and become really good and holy It is not enough that God should be made willing to forgive our sins unless we also are made willing to forsake them Christ came not to save us from the evil consequences of our sins whilst we loved them and delighted our selves in them He did not purchase for us an indulgence or licence to sin without punishment That indeed had been an employment unworthy of the Son of God nay an impossible task to have reconciled God to unhallow'd and impure minds The reformation of the world the reparation of our natures the purifying our minds the implanting the divine nature in men were as much the design of his incarnation as the vindication of the divine justice to which all the world was obnoxious and pardon me if I say it he is more our Saviour by freeing us from the dominion of sin than from the penalty Our blessed Lord had not been so kind and gratious to us had he obtained Heaven for us could such a thing possibly have been whilst we continued impenitent and utterly unlike to God Now there are these two things absolutely necessary for the recovery of mankind and making us really happy repentance for sins past and sincere obedience for the future and to effect both these no means so likely as this appearance of the Son of God in our nature 1. As for repentance for sins past what in the world can be imagined more effectual for the working in men an ingenuous shame and sorrow for what they have done amiss than these tender offers of God's pardon and acceptance upon our submission and returning to a better mind We have now all possible assurance given us that mercy is to be had for the most grievous offenders Nothing can exclude or exempt us from this act of grace but onely our own wilfull and obstinate refusal of life and happiness All men are in the condition of the prodigal Son in the Parable of our Saviour Luke 15. They have gone astray from their Father's house after their own inventions promising themselves indeed great pleasures and full satisfactions in a licentious riotous course of life but soon wearied with such painfull drudgeries and many woefull disappointments at last they begin to recollect themselves to remember that plenty they had enjoy'd of all good things in their Father's house how easily and happily they lived whilst they continued under his mild and gratious government and to think of returning thither again but the sense of their horrid guilt and unworthiness flying in their faces fills them with dismal fears and anxious despair so that they cannot hope for any kind reception or entertainment after such an ungratefull rebellion Now let us suppose this Parable thus continued that the Father who was so highly provoked had nevertheless sent his other Son who had never offended him into a far Countrey exposed to many difficulties and hazards to seek and find out his lost Brother to beseech him to be reconciled to promise him that he should be dealt with as if he had never displeased him Would not such condescension and unparallel'd goodness have melted and dissolved the poor Prodigal 's heart what joy would soon have o'erspread his face with what gladness would he have hearken'd to such an overture what haste would he have made home Could he after this have doubted of his Father's love and kindness to him This therefore is the greatest encouragement that can be given to our repentance that God hath now by his Son declared himself exorable and placable more willing to forgive than we can be to ask it of him and can we desire pardon and peace upon more equal and easie terms Can any thing be conceived more reasonable than that before our sins be forgiven we should humbly acknowledge our faults and with full purpose of heart resolve to doe so no more and if such love and kindness of Heaven towards us will not beget some relenting and remorse in us if such powerfull arguments will not prevail with us to grow wise and considerate it is impossible that any should 2. As for sincere obedience for the future without which we can never be accepted by God nor be made happy this also our Saviour hath most sufficiently engaged us to by his doctrine clearly revealing God's mind and will to us setting before us his own most excellent example promising us all needfull help and assistence and propounding eternal rewards and punishments as the motives of our obedience 1. He hath clearly revealed to us God's nature and his whole mind and will concerning our salvation He came into the world a Preacher of righteousness plainly to instruct mankind in all their duty towards God themselves and one another He freed men from the intolerable yoke of many burthensome and costly ceremonies and brought in a rational service an everlasting righteousness consisting in purity humility and charity all his commands being such as are most becoming God to require and most reasonable for us to perform They are most agreeable to our best understandings perfective of our natures fitted to our necessities and capacities the best provision that can be made for the peace of our minds quiet of our lives and mutual happiness even in this world they are easie and benign humane and mercifull institutions and all his laws such as we should chuse to govern our selves by were we but true to our selves and faithfull to our own interest He hath not denied us the use or enjoyment of any thing but what is really evil and hurtfull to us he hath considered our infirmities and manifold temptations maketh allowances for our wandrings and daily failings and accepteth of sincerity instead of absolute perfection so that the advantages and excellency of his laws are as great an argument to oblige us to the observance of them as the divine authority by which they were enacted 2. Our Saviour propounded himself an example of all that he required of us the better to direct us in our duty and to encourage us to the performance of it since nothing is expected from us but what the Son of God himself was pleased to submit unto He conversed therefore publickly in the world in most instances that occur in humane life giving us a pattern of an innocent and usefull conversation thereby to recommend his Religion to us and to oblige us to tread in his steps and to follow him as the leader and great Captain of our salvation 3. He hath promised and doth continually afford the mighty assistences of his holy Spirit to all
unmixt from the dust of other bodies be all disposed into the same order figure and posture they were before so as to make the very self-same flesh and bloud which his soul at his dissolution forsook This seems a Camel too big for any considering person to swallow he must be of a very easie faith who can digest such impossibilities Ezekiel indeed when the hand of the Lord was upon him and he was carried out in the spirit of the Lord thought he was set down in the midst of a valley full of dry bones and that afterwards he heard a noise and behold a shaking and the bones came together bone to his bone the sinews and the flesh came up upon them and the skin covered them above and the breath came into them and they lived and stood upon their feet This may pass well enough in a Prophetical Vision and did handsomely represent the wonderfull restauration of the Jewish People But that all this and much more should in truth come to pass that our bones after they are resolved into dust should really become living men that all the little atoms whereof our bodies consisted howsoever scattered or wheresoever lodged should immediately at a general summons rally and meet again and every one challenge and possess its own proper place till at last the whole ruined fabrick be perfectly rebuilt and that of the very self-same stuff and materials whereof it consisted before its fall that this I say should ever really be effected is such an incredible thing that it seems to be above the power of reason so much as to frame a conception of it And therefore we may observe that the Gentiles did most especially boggle at this Article of our Christian faith as we reade in the 17th of the Acts when St. Paul preached unto the Athenians concerning the resurrection of the dead the Philosophers mocked at him and entertained his doctrine with nothing but scoffs and flouts and indeed it was one of the last things that the Heathens received into their belief and it is to this day the chiefest objection against Christianity How are the dead raised up and with what body do they come In my discourse of these words I shall doe these three things I. I shall shew that the resurrection of the dead even in the strictest sense as it is commonly understood and explained of the very self-same body that died and was buried contains nothing in it impossible or incredible II. Since it is certain that the body which we shall rise with though it may be as to substance the same with our terrestrial body yet will be so much altered and changed in its modes and qualities that it will be quite another kind of body from what it was before I shall give you a short account of the difference the Scripture makes between a glorified body and this mortal flesh And III. Lastly I shall draw some practical inferences from the whole I. I shall shew that the resurrection of the dead even in the strictest sense as it is commonly understood and explained of the very self-same body that died and was buried contains nothing in it impossible or incredible Whether this strict sense of the Article be the true or not I think I need not determine it is sufficient for me to shew that if this be the true sense of it yet the Atheist or Sceptick hath nothing considerable to object against it but what is capable of a fair and easie answer However give me leave just to lay before you some of the principal reasons and Scriptures upon which it is built and established And 1. I think it must be acknowledged that this hath been all along the most common received opinion amongst Christians that at the last day we shall rise again with the very same flesh with which we are clothed in this state and which we put off at our death and that our heavenly bodies will not onely consist of the same substance and matter with our earthly but will be of the same consistency and modification perfect flesh and bloud though in some properties altered and changed Most of the ancient Fathers of the Church excepting some few that were of a more inquisitive temper and philosophical genius than the rest as Origen and some others did believe and teach that at the general resurrection men should he restored to the very same bodies which they dwelt in here and which at last were laid in the grave that their bodies should be then as truly the same with those they died in as the bodies of those whom our Saviour raised when he was upon earth were the same with those they had before that no other body should be raised but that which slept and that as our Saviour Christ arose with his former flesh and bones and members so we also after the resurrection should have the same members we now use the same flesh and bloud and bones And that this was the common belief and expectation of all Christians in the primitive times that they should appear again at the general resurrection with the very same bodies they lived in here on earth will appear from that spite and malice which the Heathens sometimes shewed to the dead bodies of Christians reducing them to ashes and then scattering them into the air or throwing them into rivers that thereby they might defeat and deprive them of all hopes of a resurrection of this Eusebius gives us an eminent instance out of the Epistle of the Churches of Vienna and Lyons in France to those in Asia and Phrygia under the Persecution of Antoninus Verus which gives an account how that the Heathens after many vain and fruitless attempts to suppress the Christian Religion by inflicting the cruelest torments on the Professours of it which they bravely endured looking for a joyfull resurrection at last thought of a way to deprive them as they fondly imagined of that great hope which ministred so much joy and courage to them under the severest trials which was by reducing the wrackt and mangled bodies of the several Martyrs into the minutest Atoms and then scattering them in the great River Rhodanus Let us now say they see whether they can rise again and whether their God can help them and deliver them out of our hands Now this is a sufficient intimation to us that it was then the known common opinion of Christians that the very same body and flesh which suffered and was martyred here on earth should be raised again at the last day And indeed those amongst the Ancient Christians who have undertaken to defend or explain this Article of the resurrection of the dead do it mostly by such principles arguments and illustrations as do suppose the very same body and flesh and members to be raised again which the soul animated here in this life 2. This hath not onely been the common received opinion of Christians but also the most plain and easie notion of
fortuitous circumstances who in all things keeps an exact conscience and in all times places and conditions acts by the same unalterable rule of righteousness and steadily pursues what is good and honest whatever he may lose or suffer by it Would you know saith Seneca whom I call a good and perfect man I mean such an one quem malum facere nulla vis nulla necessitas potest Whom no outward force no exigence or turn of affairs neither prospect of advantage nor fear of inconvenience can ever prevail with to doe an evil or base action who can never be swayed by any particular sinister interest to doe that which his own mind inwardly disapproves and condemns A truly honest man considers not what will take best or please most whether it will prove for his credit or profit whether he shall gain or lose friends by it whether it will hinder or further his advancement in the world but in all cases inviolably keeps to what is fit just and reasonable and behaves himself as becomes a good honest man being wholly unconcerned for the success and event of what his conscience tells him he ought to doe he is resolved to please God and to doe his duty and to maintain the peace of his own mind let the world go as it will But on the other side the crafty wise politicians of this world live by no certain law profess believe practise this Religion or that or none at all as may best suit with the present state of things and juncture of affairs or with those particular private designs which they carry on in the world and in all their actions are governed by the giddy and uncertain measures of interest and worldly policy and though sometimes if it happens to be for their interest so to doe they may seem to speak and act as fairly as any men whatever yet to serve a turn to promote their temporal safety and advantage or some other bye and selfish design they shall not refuse to commit the basest and foulest crimes Now that which I would persuade you to from these words is this that in all your actions you would govern your selves by the fixt and immutable principles of conscience and honesty and always stedfastly adhere to your plain duty though never so highly tempted to swerve from it Till I die I will not remove my integrity from me My righteousness I hold fast and will not let it go my heart shall not reproach me so long as I live I shall handle these words I. More particularly as they relate to Job by whom they were spoken II. More generally as they may be applied to men in all states and conditions I. As to the particular instance of Job we all know he is propounded to us in holy Scripture as the most eminent example of an invincible resolution and unshaken constancy in maintaining his innocence and integrity in two very different fortunes the one highly prosperous and flourishing the other no less strangely adverse and calamitous both which one after another by God's wise providence did befall him for the more illustrious trial and manifestation of his sincere and disinterested loyalty to God and Religion and it is no easie matter to determine in which of these two states he met with the greater temptations whether he found it the more difficult task to keep a good conscience in that splendid and plentifull condition he was once in or to hold fast his righteousness in that deplorable poverty and want of all things which he was at last reduced unto For without doubt riches and honours and high places and an uninterrupted prosperity are as great snares and as dangerous temptations and often prove as fatal nay I may say are generally more apt to draw men aside from the love of goodness and the care of their souls than the severest afflictions or the most surprizing calamities and outward crosses So that Job perhaps was as much to be admired and as hard to be imitated in his vertue and piety when he was the greatest man in the East as in his submission meekness and patience when he became the miserablest spectacle that eyes ever beheld 1. Job in his most prosperous state held fast his righteousness and would not let it go Though he enjoyed all the pleasures riches and worldly satisfactions that the most ambitious or covetous mind could crave yet he was so strictly religious and temperate that when he was deprived and stripp'd of all and left as bare and as naked as he was when he first came into the world his mind could not reproach nor condemn him for any unworthy or unhandsome carriage for any one notorious failure in his duty that should provoke God to deal so harshly with him His three Friends indeed unadvisedly fell into that fault which is so common amongst us even to this day of judging and censuring men by their outward conditions and by what befalls them in this life they could not imagine that such unheard-of calamities could betide an innocent person when therefore they saw so great a Lord and Prince in so forlorn a plight him whom but a little before all men called blessed and accounted the darling and favourite of Heaven sitting among the ashes and scraping his painfull boils with a piece of a broken pot they presently began to suspect his piety and integrity and to call upon him to confess those grievous sins which had plucked down such terrible vengeance upon his head fondly presuming that he must needs be a greater sinner than others because he was more miserable and unfortunate Which uncharitable censure forced from this excellent person those rhetorical and pathetical vindications of himself and all his actions in the days of his prosperity which you may find scattered up and down in this Book especially in the 31st Chapter Though his Friends were so unkind as to reproach and condemn him as guilty of some notorious crimes whereby he had justly deserved all those evils which God had been pleased to lay upon him yet his own conscience a more impartial judge acquitted him and spoke peace to him He was not afraid or ashamed to have all his life past impartially and thoroughly examined and whatever he had done exposed to publick view and to the knowledge of all the world Nay he durst appeal to God himself the searcher of hearts and call the righteous and impartial judge of the earth to bear witness to his uprightness and sincerity He challenged even his very enemies those who had the least kindness for him to draw up a bill against him and to try if they could find any thing whereof to accuse him He was so just so humble so moderate so charitable when he was in power and prosperity that none either envied his greatness or rejoyced at his fall With such prudence and sobriety with such integrity and temper did he manage a great and magnificent fortune that in the lowest ebb of
his own conscience will be sure to come off well at last in the final account and judgment then God will confirm and ratify the sentence of his conscience and publickly own and approve of what he hath done and clear and vindicate his innocency and reward his fidelity and constancy before all the world At that day when all our great undertakers and contrivers of mischief all the cunning practisers of guile and hypocrisie shall lie down in shame when their secret arts and base tricks whereby they imposed on the world shall be detected and proclaimed as it were upon the house-top and all their unworthy projects and designs shall be laid open and naked being stript of those specious pretences they here disguised them with when the hidden things of darkness shall be brought to light and the counsels of all mens hearts shall be made manifest as the noon-day at that day I say the upright and righteous man shall stand in great boldness and shall lift up his head with joy and confidence and then it will appear that he was the best politician and the onely person that either understood or regarded his true interest To conclude all Our consciences are either our best friends or our greatest enemies they are either a continual feast or a very hell to us A conscience well resolved and setled is the greatest comfort of our lives the best antidote against all kind of temptations the most pretious treasure that we can lay up against an evil day and our surest and strongest hold to secure us from all dangers which can never be taken unless through our own folly and negligence But an evil clamorous conscience that is continually twitting and reproaching us is a perpetual wrack and torment it wasts our spirits and preys upon our hearts and eats out the sweetness of all our worldly enjoyments and fills us with horrid fears and ghastly apprehensions this is that knawing worm that never dieth the necessary fruit of sin and guilt and the necessary cause of everlasting anguish and vexation A SERMON Preached at WHITE-HALL The Thirteenth Sermon 2 TIM I. 10. And hath brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel LIFE and immortality by a figure often used in the holy Scriptures is the same with immortal life which our Saviour hath brought to light that is hath given us undoubted assurance of by the revelation of the Gospel For though all men by the light of nature have some apprehensions of a future state yet their reasonings about it when left to themselves are miserably vain and uncertain and often very wild and extravagant The best discourses of the Heathens about the other life were weak and obscure and the wisest Philosophers spake but doubtfully and conjecturally about it nor even in the books of Moses or writings of the Prophets are there contained any plain express promises of eternal life all the knowledge men had of it before was but like the faint glimmerings of twilight till the sun of righteousness appeared till God was pleased to send one from that invisible world even his own most dear Son to dwell here and converse amongst men to make a full discovery to us of this unknown countrey and to conduct us in the onely true way to this everlasting happiness an happiness so great that we have not words big enough to express it nor faculties large enough to comprehend it but yet so much of it is clearly revealed to us in the Gospel as is most abundantly sufficient to raise our thoughts and incite our sincerest endeavours for the obtaining of it By which plain revelation of this state of immortality First Is most illustriously manifested to us the transcendent goodness and indulgence of our most mercifull Creatour in that he will be pleased to reward such imperfect services such mean performances as the best of ours are with glory so immense as that eye hath not seen nor ear heard nor can it enter into the heart of man to conceive the greatness of it There is nothing in us nor any thing done by us that bears the least proportion to such an ample recompence Our best actions stand in need of a pardon so far are they from deserving to be crowned All possible duty and obedience we certainly owe to him to whom we owe our beings and should God almighty have exacted it from us onely on the account of his sovereign authority over us as we are his creatures we had been indispensably obliged to all subjection to him but that he should over and above promise to reward our faithfulness to him with eternal life this is a most wonderfull instance of his infinite grace and goodness Secondly By this revelation of immortal life is farther demonstrated the exceeding great love of our ever blessed Saviour who by his death and perfect obedience not onely purchased pardon for all our past rebellions and transgressions not onely redeemed us from hell and destruction to which we had all rendred our selves most justly liable which alone had been an unspeakable favour but also merited an everlasting kingdom of glory for us if with true repentance we return to our duty And this if any thing shews the infinite value and efficacy of our Saviour's appearing on our behalf that by his most powerfull mediation he obtained not onely freedom from punishment but also unexpressibly glorious rewards for us vile and wretched sinners upon easie and most reasonable conditions Thirdly This especially recommends our Christianity to us which contains such glad tidings which propounds such mighty arguments to engage us to our duty such as no other religion ever did or could For since hope and fear are the great hinges of all government and the most prevailing passions of humane nature what better thing can be propounded to our hope than to be as happy both in body and soul as we can be and that for ever what more dreadfull thing to our fear than everlasting misery and this indeed is the utmost that can be said or offered to men in order to the reclaiming them from their sins and recovering them to a conscientious observance of God's laws that God hath appointed a day wherein he will call all men to an account for the deeds they have done in this body and reward the sincere faithfull Christian with immortal glory and punish the disobedient and impenitent with everlasting vengeance and if men can harden themselves against these most powerfull considerations if they are not at all concerned or solicitous about their eternal happiness or misery what other motives are likely to prevail with them or able to make any impression upon them For is there any thing of greater weight and moment that can be propounded to the reasons and understandings of men than what shall become of them in a state which they are very shortly to enter upon and which shall never have an end I humbly therefore beg your patience whilst with all the
souls such a lively apprehension of it as that they must offer the greatest force and violence to their own minds before they can bring themselves to disbelieve it nay I believe let the most resolved sinner labour and struggle never so hard with himself to subdue and extirpate this natural persuasion of another life yet after all his pains he will not be able wholly to root out all thoughts and fears of it This shall suffice for the first sort of persons those who doubt of or deny this great fundamental of Religion I proceed now II. To those who profess to believe this immortal life but yet doe it not really and heartily And this I fear is the case of the generality of Christians amongst us For it may well be enquired what is the reason that this promise of eternal life than which there cannot be a greater hath yet so little power upon mens minds doth so little move their affections what makes their endeavours after it so faint and languid Are any of those good things which men here court and seek after so desirable and considerable as the glories and joys of Heaven or are there any evils in this world that can vie terrours with Hell this cannot be pretended since all the good or evil things of this world can onely make us happy or miserable for a short time for this life at most which is not to be named with living for ever either in unspeakable happiness or misery Whence is it then that Christians are so strangely cold and indifferent about these most weighty things of another life as if they were of no concernment to them After all our search we must resolve it into one of these two causes Either that men whatever they profess do not heartily believe this Doctrine or else that they do not duly consider it 1. Most men whatever they profess or pretend though they dare not renounce or deny it yet are not heartily and thoroughly persuaded of the certainty of this future state Their understandings were never rationally convinced of the truth of it and so the belief of it is not firmly rooted and setled in their minds Would but God Almighty be gratiously pleased to indulge to us a sight of those future glories and miseries which he hath revealed in the Gospel this we imagine would certainly prevail for the conviction and reformation of all men Would he give us though but a short and transient view of that blessed place where himself dwells that we might but for a few moments behold the joys and triumphs of those happy souls that are admitted into his beatifick presence or would he but open the gates of Hell and once suffer us to look into those dismal receptacles of impure spirits that so we might be eye and ear witnesses of their grievous torments and horrid despair such a sight as this we doubt not would presently change us all and make us whatever God requires us to be But God's ways are not as our ways nor his thoughts as our thoughts He governs men in a method suited to their reasonable natures and hath given us such assurances of another life as are abundantly sufficient to satisfy and convince the understandings of men but yet may be resisted by those who have no mind or are resolved not to believe it For there could have been no trial of men no discrimination made between the wise and considering and the foolish and wicked if the rewards of Religion had been present or exposed to our senses God will not force a faith upon us as the sight of these things would do but will have it to be a matter of choice and an instance of vertue in us No praise is due to them who believe onely what they see Such cannot be said to believe God but their own eyes but rather blessed are they saith our Saviour who have not seen and yet have believed God hath denied us the sight of these things to prove us and try whether we dare trust his promises and threatnings Our belief therefore of this invisible world if we would have it effectual for the amendment of our hearts and lives must be so strong and powerfull as to serve instead of ocular and sensible demonstration Whence the Apostle calls it Heb. 1.11 the evidence of things not seen that so the things unseen which God hath revealed to us may have the same effect upon us not as to degree but the same real effect as if the other world were always visible to us Now our belief of any thing must necessarily be stronger or weaker according as the evidence is upon which it is believed and that not onely as the evidence is in it self but as it is perceived by us For however evident a thing may be in it self yet if it doth not appear so to us our belief of it must be very uncertain and wavering because it is groundless Since then the truths or principles of Religion which relate to another life are not things to be seen or felt we can be assured of them onely by undeniable arguments and testimonies about which we must use our reasons and our discerning and judging faculties before we can understand the force of them or be really convinced by them Not that there is any great difficulty in apprehending these arguments but yet there is required such attention of mind and serious thoughts about them and a frequent revolving over the proofs and evidences of a future state with such diligence and carefull examination of them as all men ordinarily use about other matters wherein they are greatly concerned to find out the truth But now is any thing more plain than that the generality of Christians who profess these Doctrines of Religion are so far from being rationally by the force of arguments convinced of the truth of them that very few amongst them ever so much as set themselves to enquire into the reasons of their belief They owe their faith solely to education prepossession instruction and example of others take it up without any consideration of the grounds and reasons of it and is it then at all wonderfull that this faith should have but very little force or power on mens minds which is thus received without any rational conviction of their understandings which is thus weakly founded and supported Any little blast will overthrow that house which is thus built upon the sands I deny not but that a belief thus taken up upon trust and confirmed by a long and customary profession of it may be so strong and a man may be so resolved in it as that he will never stir from it But then I say this is not the faith which our Saviour requires or which God will accept of in those who are capable of a better and a Mahometan born and bred at Constantinople hath as good reason for his belief of the Alcoran as such a one hath for the belief of Christianity Such a
faith is onely an obstinacy in adhering to those things which we were first taught whether true or false and is common to men in all Religions Our understanding is the imperial and governing faculty of our souls It is that which doth engage our wills and affections and so consequently by them move and excite us to action When therefore our understanding doth assent to any truth upon clear and satisfactory evidence being overpowred by the force of reason and argument it must needs propound it with greater strength and authority to the lower faculties and so must have more powerfull influence upon all our affections and actions Otherwise how can we expect but that any little reason should be too hard for and baffle that faith which is grounded on no reason at all or how can we think that those things which we believe but without any sufficient convincing motive or evidence should outweigh those things which we are more certain of which we daily see feel and experience such as are the present sensible pleasures and the visible good and evil things of this life This therefore is one great reason of the inefficacy of mens faith that their belief of these great truths was never well rooted and fixed in their understandings 2. If our understandings are so fully convinced of these truths that we cannot any longer doubt of them and yet this belief is not effectual for our reformation the reason then must be onely because we do not really consider them The understanding hath not such an absolute power over the will as necessarily to determine it always to that which it judges best and fittest but after our understandings have yielded our wills may stubbornly hold out against the siege and batteries of the clearest evidence and strongest reasons if the truths propounded be contrary to our fleshly lusts and worldly interests For the will of man is a kind of middle faculty between the understanding and the bodily inclinations and as it is moved by our understanding to follow and obey its dictates so also it is most importunately solicited by our lower fleshly appetites and lusts craving their several satisfactions and gratifications and by outward objects that continually thrust themselves upon us agreeable to those desires and propensities Hence ariseth a great conflict between those truths of Religion which are propounded by our understandings on the one side and our inferiour sensitive faculties on the other Our lusts being checked and crossed by the hopes and fears of another life make the shrewdest objections against the principles of Religion and do with all their force and power oppose the entertainment of them in our minds and on the success of this contest doth especially depend the efficacy of our faith Thus it was with very many amongst the Jews whilst our blessed Saviour was alive here upon earth They could not resist those undoubted testimonies which he gave of his being the Son of God but yet the love of this world or fear of sufferings had so much greater power over their wills as that they could never prevail with themselves to become his Disciples St. John 12.42 43. Among the chief rulers many believed on him but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him lest they should be put out of the Synagogue For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God It is not enough therefore that these truths of Religion have subdued our understanding by the evidence of reason but they must also conquer our will and draw out its affections after them before ever they can have any lasting effect upon our lives For the affections of the will are the most immediate principles of all our actions and therefore till our belief hath powerfully wrought upon these affections of love desire hope fear it can have little or no influence upon our outward actions Now the way and means to obtain this consent of our wills and affections to these truths thus propounded by our understandings is often and most seriously to consider the immense greatness of the happiness offered to us the extremity of the misery threatned how vastly it concerns us what our portion shall be in that eternal state how unspeakably sad and unpitied our condition will be if we foolishly neglect providing for it how infinitely the glory of Heaven doth surpass all the joys and pleasures of this life These things and the like in a lively manner represented unto and fixed in our minds will by degrees so captivate our wills and affections as that we cannot but love and chuse this future happiness as our greatest good fear and fly from this eternal misery as the greatest evil that can possibly betide us Of such infinite moment are the concerns of eternity that if we do but patiently attend to them and exercise our thoughts freely about them if we will not suffer our lust to bribe and byass our judgments or to stifle and choak these principles of Religion they will at last awaken our consciences and prevail above all present temptations And when our faith by the frequent and serious consideration of the mighty importance of these matters and of their consequence to us hath made such a complete conquest over our minds and wills then our actions will of themselves naturally follow For men will live and act agreably to what they love desire hope for or fear most So effectually hath our Christianity provided for the happiness of all men that nothing can make us miserable but either not believing or not considering the great arguments of Religion The different behaviour of men as to the promises of our Saviour concerning another life I shall beg leave to illustrate by this plain similitude Suppose a person of great credit and authority should now appear amongst us and should propound to us that if we would follow him entirely resigning up our selves to be governed by him he would safely conduct us all to a certain Countrey or Island where we should possess all that our hearts could wish should be all Kings and Princes and flow in all manner of wealth and enjoy an uninterrupted health in a word want nothing that men can fansie could contribute any way to their complete satisfaction and contentment and farther that he should give all the security that any reasonable man could expect or demand that this was no vain promise or illusion Now some amongst us will give no heed at all to what this man offers nor be convinced by any reasons or arguments he can give them but being either prejudiced against his person or disliking the conditions streight reject him for a Deceiver and Impostour These are the Atheists and unbelievers Others are indeed convinced that all this is likely to be true they cannot see any sufficient cause to doubt of it but yet they enjoy such conveniences and are so taken with their present circumstances here as that they will not quit them for these hopes These
SERMONS Preached upon Several Occasions Never before Printed BY BENJAMIN CALAMY D. D. Late Vicar of St. Lawrence Jewry and one of His Majesty's Chaplains in Ordinary LONDON Printed by M. Flesher for Henry Dickenson and Richard Green Booksellers in Cambridge and are to be sold by Walter Davis in Amen-Corner 1687. To his Worthy Friends The INHABITANTS Of the PARISHES OF St. LAWRENCE JEWRY AND St. MARY MAGD MILK-STREET Gentlemen I Here present you with some Sermons of my dear Brother deceased your late if I may be allowed to say it worthy and faithfull Pastour in transcribing them for the Press I have not presumed to make any alteration or to correct so much as the plain errata's of the original Copy except onely some few and those such as any Reader almost would have observed and may well be supposed to have been occasioned onely through his haste in writing and if after all there happen to be any such still remaining in the print I hope you will blame neither him nor me since I pretend not to publish any discourses designed or fitted by him for the Press but onely those very Sermons which you your selves heard just as I found them in his notes If it be asked why these rather than others I answer these were the Sermons which I found had been preached by him in the most publick places to which however because they would not alone have made a just volume I thought it necessary to add two or three more and I doubt not but you will find them all plain and usefull and every way fitted to doe good And if it be asked why no more I think it will be time enough to answer that question when I shall have seen what acceptance these now published meet with in the world It was some time before I could persuade my self to comply with your desire in publishing these Sermons because I have sometimes heard my Brother express an unwillingness that any thing of his should be printed after his death but when I had once resolved to print them it took me no time to consider it was not left to my choice to whom I should present them seeing you had an undoubted title to them and all the world would have blamed me if I had not taken this occasion of acknowledging with all thankfulness your extraordinary respect to his person whilst alive and to his memory after his decease one particular instance of which I must by no means omit I mean your generous Present to his Widow a kindness which as I am confident he never expected even from you from whom he might have expected any thing that was kind so I dare say if he could have foreseen it would have pleased him more than any nay than all the other kindnesses he ever received from you In the words therefore of Naomi concerning Boaz Blessed be ye of the Lord who have not left off your kindness to the living and to the dead I am Gentlemen Your most obliged Servant James Calamy The CONTENTS SERM. I. Act. X. 38. Who went about doing good Page 1. SERM. II. 1 Cor. XI 29. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself not discerning the Lord's Body p. 37. SERM. III. Prov. I. 10. If sinners entice thee consent thou not p. 67. SERM. IV. Rom. XII 16. Be not wise in your own conceits p. 101. SERM. V. S. Matth. XV. 19. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts p. 135. SERM. VI. 1 Cor. XIII 4 5 6 7. Charity suffereth long and is kind charity envieth not charity vaunteth not it self is not puffed up doth not behave it self unseemly seeketh not her own is not easily provoked thinketh no evil rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth beareth all things believeth all things hopeth all things endureth all things p. 177. SERM. VII Numb XXIII 10. Let me die the death of the righteous and let my last end be like his p. 219. SERM. VIII S. Matth. V. 34. But I say unto you swear not at all p. 255. SERM. IX S. Matth. I. 21. And thou shalt call his name Jesus for he shall save his people from their sins p. 291. SERM. X. S. Mark VI. 12. And they went out and preached that men should repent p. 323. SERM. XI 1 Cor. XV. 35. But some man will say how are the dead raised up And with what body do they come p. 365. SERM. XII Job XXVII 5 6. God forbid that I should justifie you till I die I will not remove my integrity from me My righteousness I hold fast and will not let it go my heart shall not reproach me so long as I live p. 423. SERM. XIII 2 Tim. I. 10. And hath brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel p. 459. IMPRIMATUR Nov. 29. 1686. Ex Aedibus Lamb-hithanis Jo. Battely Rmo P rl ac D no D no Wilhelmo Archiep. antuariensi a Sacris domesticis A SERMON Preached at WHITE-HALL The First Sermon ACTS X. 38. Who went about doing good WHICH words give us a short account of our blessed Saviour's life here on earth it was spent in doing good They also teach us after what manner we his disciples ought to live in this World namely that we should omit no fair opportunity of doing good according to our several abilities and capacities I shall speak to them I. As referring to our Lord and Saviviour and describing his manner of life to us II. I shall consider them as prescribing to us our duty in imitation of his most glorious example who went about doing good I. As referring to our Lord and Saviour and describing his manner of life to us Now these words he went about doing good especially signifie these three things 1. That this was the chief business and employment of his life to doe good 2. That where he did not readily find he went about to seek objects of pity and compassion 3. This he constantly persevered in notwithstanding the foul ingratitude and malicious opposition his good works met with in the World 1. This was the chief business and employment of his life to doe good To propound to you the several instances of it were to give you an history and account of his whole life the four Gospels being nothing else but the authentick records of those good works Jesus of Nazareth did containing his excellent instructions his free reproofs the wise methods he used for the bettering and reforming men's minds together with those various kindnesses he shewed to their bodies and outward estates with a generosity and charity not to be parallell'd by any thing but the divine goodness it self I shall not therefore descend to particulars but onely take notice 1. That doing good was his ordinary daily employment 2. That to the same end tended all his extraordinary miraculous works and 3. That this was also the sum and substance of his Religion From all which it will easily appear that he made doing
good the chief business of his whole life 1. Doing good was his ordinary dai-employment He did not onely by the by and on great occasions exercise his charity and compassion but it was as it were his onely profession his meat and drink his business and recreation too so that he denied himself the conveniences of this life that he might attend this work How was he throng'd after and press'd upon by the miserable and unfortunate the diseased and possessed in all places where-ever he came and can you tell of any one person whom he ever sent from his presence dissatisfied It was but saying Lord have mercy upon me and the poor humble beggar's wants of what kind soever were strait supplied And by these acts of love and kindness he did engage men to hearken to his wise counsels and obey his gratious commands for he had a farther design in all this compassion which he shewed towards mens bodies and outward estates viz. to heal their bodies and their minds both together to instill and insinuate good instruction and to promote men's eternal welfare by contributing so much to their ease and happiness in this present life All this good he did with the greatest readiness and joy it was his greatest pleasure to spread his healing wings over every place continually to dispense his benign influences and favours and to make every one who had the happiness to converse with him sensible of his good-will to Mankind Nor from this would he ever rest not so much as on the Sabbath-day though he was accounted a Transgressour for it He consulted the good of other men above his own reputation and would cure the sick on that day even before those who thought it a great piece of prophaneness and wickedness so to doe He wanted objects sooner than will to shew kindness and nothing grieved him so much as that men by their own malice and perverseness should obstruct and defeat his gratious designs toward them and obstinately refuse to be made happy by him 2. This was not onely his ordinary daily employment but for this end did he always exercise his extraordinary divine power to doe benefits All his Miracles were mercies to men so that his wonderfull works proved him to be sent from God not more by that infinite power that was seen in them than by that surpassing goodness they demonstrated to the World He never employed his omnipotence out of levity or ostentation but onely as the necessities and wants of Men required it His miraculous works were not such as the Jews sometimes demanded and expected from him such onely as would strike their senses and fancy with admiration and astonishment as the making prodigious and amazing shews and representations in the Heavens or in the Air but they were all expressions of a most immense benignity and charity to Mankind such as healing the sick of all manner of diseases making the lame to walk and the blind to see and the deaf to hear cleansing the lepers feeding the hungry raising the dead and casting evil spirits out of those that were miserably possessed with them and cruelly tormented by them In such good offices so usefull and profitable to Men did he all along exert and manifest that divine power which God had anointed him with thus demonstrating himself to be the most divine person that ever appeared in our flesh not onely by doing the strangest and most miraculous works but especially by doing the most good in the World 3. To doe good was the sum and substance of his Religion He affected not any precise singularities or unusual severities of life Of all the time he was here on earth he spent but forty days in the Wilderness in close solitude and retirement the rest of his time he conversed freely and openly that thereby he might have opportunity of obliging and benefiting all sorts of Men. He neglected not indeed any duty of piety towards God but then his love to God shone forth most resplendently in his incessant care of and charity to his Creatures He knew he could not please or glorify his Father better than by bearing much fruit or which is all one doing much good in the World His Religion was active and operative it consisted not in notions or formalities or external abstinences and strictnesses by which the several Sects amongst the Jews were distinguished one from another but the principal thing he was most remarkable for in his way of living was a most sincere readiness to doe all manner of good to all that came to him He pretended not to any seraphick enthusiastical raptures or inimitable unaccountable transports of devotion or wonderfull mortification others might pray oftner and longer fast more than He or his Disciples did as we know was objected against him by St. John's disciples but no Saint no Prophet no Man ever before him so served God in his generation or was either able or willing to shew such considerable kindnesses to the World as our blessed Lord and Saviour did And in this chiefly did his holiness and godliness appear above the rate and pitch of other mens in that he was so infinitely mercifull and charitable He made not such a pompous outward shew of Religion as some of the Pharisees did but his actions truly bespoke him what he was a person infinitely full of goodness that could not be at ease without continual venting it self nor yet by all the wants infirmities necessities either of mens minds or bodies could ever be exhausted Thus he made doing good the chief business and employment of his whole life which is the first thing signified by these words 2. That he went about doing good implies farther that where he did not easily meet with he industriously sought out objects of pity and compassion His goodness did often prevent mens desires always surpass them doing for them beyond all their requests or hopes He came to seek and save that which was lost He descended from the bosome of his Father and eclipsed the glory of his Divine Majesty with a veil of flesh and lived amongst us that he might redeem us from the greatest evils and miseries even whilst we were enemies to him and desired no more than we deserved his love and favour And whilst he was here upon earth he was not onely easie of access he did not onely courteously receive all that addressed themselves to him he not onely freely invited and encouraged all men to repair to him for succour and relief but also did not disdain himself to travel up and down the Countrey on purpose to give opportunity to all that stood in need of him to partake of his healing vertue and power Those whom his Disciples checked for their rude and troublesome importunity he lovingly entertained and never dismissed without a blessing This mightily enhanced the value of every kindness he bestowed the frankness of his doing it doubled the benefit We spoil a good turn when it is extorted from