those which are revealed by God supposing them to have been indeed revealed but only that any such Revelation is really made can appear no otherwise than by Arguments of probability Thirdly a perfect knowledge of all the Mysteries of Religion might have been extraordinarily obtained by the Apostles before the Ascension of our Saviour by conferring on them the same Gifts of the Holy Ghost as were afterwards poured on them on the day of Pentecost But neither was this convenient to the design of the Gospel nor the Wisdom of God Not to the former For the plentiful Effusion and Mission of the Holy Ghost was an Act of the Regal power of Christ which he commenced not till after his Ascension when he first began to exercise that Authority which he had obtained to himself by the obedience of Death And therefore our Saviour tells the Apostles S. Joh. XVI 7. Nevertheless I tell you the truth it is expedient for you that I go away For if I go not away the Comforter will not come unto you but if I depart I will send him unto you And in another place this is assigned as the Reason why the Holy Ghost was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified The Wisdom of God also was no less engaged which might justly have been arraigned if he had used so wonderful and signal a Miracle as was the Mission of the Holy Ghost for the extraordinary instruction of the Apostles before the Ascension of our Lord since no such Instruction was yet necessary which was the second Point I proposed to prove Namely II. That a perfect and infallible Information of the Apostles was not absolutely necessary till after the Ascension of Christ. For this was required in the Apostles for no other cause than that they might thereby be inabled to teach the Doctrines of our Saviour to the whole world and at last deliver them down in writing to succeeding Ages infallibly and without danger of any intermixed Enrour to the suspicion of which the Christian Religion would ever have been subjected if they had not been indued with such clearness of apprehension concerning every Point of it and attended by such an extraordinary assistance as might secure them from all possible danger of mistaking the Sense of that Doctrine which they were to deliver to the rest of Mankind To create this clear apprehension in the Apostles and convey down this assistance to them was the chief intention of sending the Holy Ghost as upon this day and the principal effect of that Mission at least as far as I am at present concerned So that since the sending of the Holy Ghost was designed purely to enable them to the due execution of their Office of preaching and propagating the Doctrine of Christ to the whole world which Office was not to be commenced till after his Ascension it manifestly follows that an exact and infallible knowledge of the Mysteries of the Christian Religion was not absolutely necessary to the Apostles before that time A perfect knowledge would have been useful indeed to them even before that time but useful to them only as private Persons not as bearing the publick Office and Character of Apostles whose Office before the Ascension of our Saviour consisted as we before observed in taking notice of the Actions Sufferings and Miracles of Christ that they might be able afterwards to testifie them to the whole world This Office of observing the Actions of Christ required no exact and perfect knowledge of all the Reasons of his Actions and Mysteries of his Doctrine but might be sufficiently discharged by any Persons who were not devoid of common Sense and Honesty The Mission of the Holy Ghost was necessary upon Reasons of another nature and would have continued necessary although the Apostles had perfectly understood all the Doctrine of our Saviour before his Ascension For however they might then sufficiently understand it nothing less than a perpetual extraordinary assistance of the Holy Ghost could infallibly secure them from all future Errour in delivering it to others or create such a degree of probability as might deserve the Assent and Belief of Mankind in all future Ages Thus I have shewn the Reasons of that Ignorance of the Apostles which is so remarkable through all the History of the Gospels and for which our Saviour promiseth so extraordinary a remedy in the words of my Text and withal demonstrated that there is nothing in all this Conduct of the Apostles continuing under that Ignorance till the Ascension and of our Saviour permitting it till that time disadvantageous to the Truth and Divinity of the Christian Religion It remains that I draw some few Conclusions from what hath been said which was the third and last Proposal First then if as we before shewed our Saviour and the Apostles who were unquestionably infallible never set up themselves for infallible Judges nor required from their Hearers a blind Assent to their Dictates if they submitted their Doctrines to the Examination of Scripture and Judgment of all private men in vain do any at this day pretend in vertue of an Authority derived from them to set up themselves for infallible Judges of Controversie from whom lyeth no Appeal either to Scripture or Reason and thereby exercise a Jurisdiction which they never claimed But I wave that Particular and choose rather to insist on some more practical Considerations Of which The first is That if the knowledge of the Christian Religion was so difficult to the Apostles who enjoyed so many and so great advantages under the Instruction and Government of their Divine Master the Author of this Religion if after the sight of his Miracles the Enjoyment of a triennial Conversation and the constant hearing of his Divine Discourses they continued ignorant of the true Spirit and Nature of Christianity this ought to excite us to great diligence in learning and studying the Mysteries of our Religion and enquiring the true Sense of those Revelations which our Saviour conveyed to the world It is indeed the peculiar Excellency and Glory of the Christian Religion that its admirable simplicity hath fited it to the Understandings and Capacity of all men that it is not such an abstruce Science as surmounts the ordinary reach of Mankind and must intirely be confined to the Discipline of the Schools and knowledge of Learned men the acquisition and understanding of it is possible and even easie to all men But then God in proposing this Religion intended not purely to supercede the Labours of men and consult their ease Some Conditions are also necessary on our side that we diligently search the Truth examine the Scriptures hearken to the instruction of our Pastors carefully weigh the Reasons of things and bring a mind ready disposed to assent to any Truths which shall evidently appear to us how contrary soever they may be to our Passions and Inclinations For although we labour not with those prejudices of a temporal Kingdom
Eucharist whereby we are initiated and enter into Covenant with God profess our belief of it and adherence to it intitle our Selves to the Benefits of it and continue to receive the influence of the Divine Grace Such Foederal Rites are absolutely necessary to all instituted and revealed Religions and so little derogate from the spiritual Nature of our Worship that they were intended on purpose to oblige us to it Thus the Christian Religion proposeth a Divine Worship most agreeable to the Nature of God and not only that but also most effectually secures his Honour and Majesty For it seems to have been the Principal design of Christianity to root Idolatry out of the world and introduce the sole Worship of the true God And how admirably it was fitted for this purpose appears as well from the Precepts as the Constitution of it which hath provided most excellent Remedies for those prejudices and imperfections of Mankind which before the coming of Christ betrayed it to an universal Idolatry The two great Motives and Causes of Idolatry seem to have been First That men inured to sensual and corporeal Objects either lost all Notions of an immaterial God and then betook themselves to the worship of their fellow Creatures or retaining the knowledge of the true God desired to worship him by some visible Representations which might strike their Senses Or Secondly that from a Sense of their sins and having deserved the Divine Displeasure they formed to themselves the Notion of an inexorable Deity who would not receive any Prayers from their polluted hands nor be intreated any otherwise than as earthly Princes by the Mediation of Friends and Favourites Hence they set up innumerable Intercessours with God either Angels whom they termed Demons or the Souls of departed Heroes whom they imagined dear to God solicited their Mediation directed their Prayers unto them and by them transmitted them to the Supreme God These Prejudices and false perswasions laid the Foundation of Idolatry in all Ages and are excellently provided for in the Christian Religion wherein God forbidding us to worship him by any corporeal Representations upon Earth hath invested his own Son The brightness of his Glory and express image of his Person with our Flesh and commanded us through him to worship himself And then to cure the Fondness of Mankind desiring to address themselves to God by Intercessours he hath constituted him our only Intercessour and promised to hear our Prayers directed to him in his Name and through his Merits and at his Mediation to be propitious to us Thus the wise Constitution of Christianity hath most admirably secured the Honour of God and indeed most successfully For hereby Idolatry was rooted out the constant Worship of one only God introduced and while the Church continued uncorrupted preserved inviolate In the antient Church not the least resemblance of Idolatry could be discovered the very Heathen Philosophers were forced to confess their Worship to be purely spiritual and most worthy the Nature of God No Images were used by them nor any Prayers offered up but by the alone Mediation of Jesus Christ. It was the ignorance and unhappiness of latter Ages which admitted corporeal Representations of God and set up new Intercessours in the Court of Heaven Saints and Angels who might receive and manage their Requests That so palpable a Corruption of the Christian Religion which intirely defeats the great Ends and Designs of it before mentioned should be still defended as lawful and continued in any part of the Church after so manifest Conviction of the unlawfulness of it may justly be admired But the maintenance of their pretence to Infallibility hath enforced them to do this which nothing but the defence of a desperate Cause could perswade Men to do It is our Happiness to be Members of a Church wherein no such Corruptions are practised nor any Acts of Worship taught which are not even by the Confession of our Adversaries undoubtedly lawful And it will be our Condemnation if after so plain Conviction we depart from a rational and truly Divine Worship to embrace one corrupted with so gross a Superstition which if it be not downright I dolatry hath at least all the resemblance of it Secondly Christianity doth not only direct the natural religious Inclination of Man into the right Channel the Worship of the true and only God but also promoteth the real perfection of Man by prescribing to him the most excellent Rules of Life and Conduct Which is no small Argument of the Divinity of it in that it beareth so manifest resemblance of the perfect Holiness of God And indeed what can be imagined more Excellent and Holy more conducing to Piety Justice and Temperance than the Rules and Precepts of the Christian Religion So admirably fitted to the Nature of Man that it would be his Happiness to Practice them although enforced with no Command nor crowned with any Reward For what can be more worthy a rational Soul than to entertain noble and reverent Conceptions of its Creatour to express an unlimited Devotion and Gratitude to him by all imaginable Actions of Respect and Honour to subdue our carnal Affections to the Government of Reason conquer our Lusts and trample under foot all Considerations of Interest and Prosperity when standing in Competition with Vertue and Holiness to maintain an exact Justice to all Mankind seek the good of others and delight in Acts of Charity Such a Conduct of Life even the more wise of the antient Heathens directed by the Light of Reason esteemed the utmost degree of humane Perfection and believed thofe Persons who possess it already enstated in the Supreme Happiness And that they might manifest themselves fully convinced of the truth of this Opinion there were not wanting some generous Souls who chose to foregoe all temporal Conveniences and even Life it self rather than violate any part of their Duty And is not the Exercise of all the aforementioned Vertues the very design of Christianity Are not those the very Precepts of our Religion With this only difference that we are taught to practice them in a more eminent and perfect manner and to refer all to God performing them from a Principle of Love to him and Obedience to his Commands Our Saviour hath obliged us to guard our thoughts with the same Care and Vigilance with which we do our outward Actions and possess those Vertues in our Soul which others are content to do in appearance The Jewish Religion required no more than the performance of the several Rites and Observances of the Law And whosoever performed them although without any inward Sense of Piety Had fulfilled all legal righteousness and was no longer a debter to the law But the Evangelical righteousness Soars higher and scorning to stoop at such mean and beggerly Elements primarily respects the Affections of the heart A manifest Argument that the Author of it was a Divine Person and could discover the most secret Recesses
who set upon the work without any Preparation of Learning or Interest proceeded in it with quiet and simplicity and in treating with the Jews chose rather to convince the Judgment than amaze their Senfes rather to argue from the Agreement of the antient Prophecies concerning the Messias to the Person of our Saviour than from the Performance of wonderful Miracles although those were not wanting upon just occasions Such were the Prejudices conceived by the Jews against Christianity which occasioned and continued their Illusion They knew very well that super-natural Revelation was the ordinary means by which Man should arrive to Happiness that it was agreeable to the Majesty and former Revelations of God to propose Matters of Belief and Practice not exceeding the capacity of the meanest Persons and thus far they proceeded in the right way but then the aforementioned Prejudices were a stumbling-block in their way which occasioned their Fall and hindered any farther Progress The Gentile Philosophers for against them and not the more unlearned sort of Heathens the Apostle here argues conceived yet deeper Prejudices against Christianity accounting it Foolishness and deriding the whole Design of it They were puffed up with an Opinion of their own perfect knowledge or at least Ability to obtain the perfection of it believing it therefore unnecessary for God to reveal the Truth to them which they could discover by their own Wit and Industry Or if God should put himself to this unnecessary trouble they vainly supposed that no Persons were so fit to be employed in it as themselves who were indued with extraordinary Assistances of acquired Learning Or at least not the Apostles of all Men who confessed themselves to be unacquainted with Secular Learning and appeared so to be and which mightily added to their Prejudice were by Birth and Education Barbarians whom the Greeks were wont to treat as the most vile and contemptible part of the Creation devoid of Reason and not much Superiour to Brutes And then as to theRevelation it self the Christian Religion seemed to them to be naked and homely and which they accounted a great indecency fitted for the Reception of all Men not the Contemplation of themselves only as not consisting of abstruse Mysteries and subtil Distinctions which by their Intricacy and Difficulty might Intitle themselves to Sublimity and a Divine Original but made up of easie natural and unaffected Truths equally obvious to the understanding of all Men equally concerning all and dispensing the Knowledge of her Mysteries to all Such were the Reasons and such were the Prejudices which caused the Christian Religion to become a Scandal to the Jews and Folly to the Greeks To these the Apostle giveth one general Answer in the 25. Verse Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men An Answer which invincibly overthrows the Plea of these Opposers of Christianity as who proceeded upon an arrogant Opinion of their Knowledge and Comprehension whereas the experience of many Ages might have convinced them how unsuccessfully Mankind hath ever endeavoured to obtain the knowledge of Divine Matters by its own Power Matters of Natural Religion were almost universally mistaken and how should we hope that the Mysteries of a Revealed Religion can be fully discovered by us We all find in our selves the defects of knowledge we acknowledge our Errours by changing our Opinions daily and may discover the imperfection of our Understandings even from the increase of Knowledge for every Degree added to it manifesteth a precedent Degree of Ignorance and that somewhat was still wanting to render our Knowledge compleat So difficult nay even impossible is it for Man to discover the Counsels of God in Relation to himself or to pass a Judgment on them He may easily perceive indeed whether any thing which pretends to carry that Sacred stamp be contrary to Sense and includeth a Contradiction and may thence certainly conclude it to be false and counterfeit but may not by any means be admitted to judge of the Conveniency or Inconveniency of the Divine Dispensations This is too high a Presumption and intrencheth upon the Majesty of God who being of infinite Wisdom knoweth always what is most convenient and knowing it doth effect it It is no hard matter to put plausible Colours upon this or that Model of Religion recommend it with abundant Arguments and pompously describe the Convenience of it But as the Apostle assureth us 1 Cor. III. 19. The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God or in comparison of his greater and infinite Wisdom who seeth all things and their Tendency or Subservience to procure the end he designeth so that to be taught or commanded by him is the most certain Argument of convenience which can be proposed Not only doth the Excellency of the Christian Religion in general appear from this Argument the Reasonableness of the whole Design and Revelation of it in those Matters which are before objected against is no less manifest For first As to the Spirituality of it this is so far srom prejudicing the truth of it that if justly considered it ought rather to recommend it to the Reception of all considering Persons being the most express Character of Divinity which can be conferred on any System of Religion whatsoever as bearing thereby a greater resemblance to God the Author and Object of it This the Jews themselves did not deny only they pretended that this spiritual Worship opposed their own more gross and corporeal Worship which was acknowledged on both sides to have been revealed by God and defeated their hopes of a promised Messias whom they expected would deliver them from the Slavery of other Nations and by force of Arms settle them in a quiet and perpetual Possession of all temporal Happiness It seemed to them absurd that the glorious Messias should live an obscure despised and ignominious Life and at last die a shameful and a painful Death An Errour indeed into which the Genius of their Religion depending upon temporal Promises and Rewards did almost naturally lead them but which might easily have been discovered if they would have wisely considered either the Nature of God or Condition of Man From the first they might easily be convinced that a spiritual way of Worship was far more noble pleasing and agreeable to the Divine Nature And if their former Religion induced them to different Sentiments God had taken abundant Care to prevent their mistake by frequent foretelling to them in the Prophets his intention of changing their Religion dis-burthening them of the imposition of their Rites and Ceremonies and reâ—…ining it into a spiritual Worship by describing the Condition and Office of the Messias That he should be a man of sorrows acquainted with grief bear the sins of the people heal them by his stripes and be reckoned among the Transgressours Then as to the Nature of the thing it self it was no other than a childish Fancy to
not fully to know it and it will be our Happiness if we both know and do it Secondly the imitation of our Saviours Example was most wisely proposed to all his Followers for this end that it might convince them that Christianity was not a meerly Speculative but a practical Religion Men would have been willing to have taken up with the bare Contemplation of those Divine Truths which were by Christ revealed to the world and imagined the bare knowledge of them to be sufficient had not our Saviour by his own Example confuted that Opinion and taught them that the most exalted knowledge was not sufficient without a correspondent Vertue If we view the state of the World at that time in which Christ published his Revelation we shall find nothing to have been more necessary to his design than this method All Mankind at that time seemed to conspire in this common Error that the knowledge of revealed Religions drew no Obligation of practice with them The Heathens indeed pretended to sacred Mysteries and imagined themselves to know the secrets of Heaven But this knowledge was so far from having any influence upon their Lives that they believed not it ought to have any The Jews possessed truly a Divine Religion yet in a great measure defeated the ends of it by the same false Opinion They contented themselves with the satisfaction of having Abraham to their Father and thought nothing else was required of them than to know the Prerogative of their Nation Even the Pharisees who sate in Moses's Chair and pretended to a more strict and perfect Holiness laboured indeed to know the Precepts and Punctilios of the Law but believed not themselves obliged to a Conscientious performance of it fondly imagining that the defect of that would be abundantly supplied by the merits of their Descent from Abraham So prone is Mankind to this fatal Error which flatters their ease and indulgeth them in the Exercise of their Lusts and Passions This our Saviour therefore unanswerably confuted by his own Practice giving us thereby to understand that his Religion was designed no less to reform the Wills than instruct the Understandings of his Followers And how necessary this Conduct was appears not only from the prevailing Errors of those times but also from the depraved Inclination of Mankind in all Ages Even in our Age there are not wanting unreasonable men who pretend that Christians are not obliged by the Law of Nature nor bound to the Practice of it An Error than which none can be more directly contrary to the Spirit of Christianity and the whole design of the Gospel Our Saviour more than once assureth us That he came not to destroy but to fulfil the Law which since it cannot be understood of the Mosaick must necessarily of the Moral Law This makes the chief Subject of all his Precepts and Exhortations and in urging this his famous Sermon upon the Mount consisting of three whole Chapters is almost intirely taken up Lastly That no Argument might be wanting to enforce the Practice of it he hath recommended it by his own Example He prescribed no Duty to us which he practised not invariably in his own Person and as his Religion includeth the whole Duty of Man so himself exercised it in the most eminent and perfect manner which bringeth me to the second Head proposed Namely II. That the Life of Christ was the best and most compleat Example which could be proposed to Mankind as the Object of their Imitation All other men were never able to live up exactly to the Rules of their Religion but in many things we offend all It was Christ alone who performed a constant and universal Righteousness Who did no sin neither was guile found in his mouth But to represent this Matter more fully to you I will consider the Exemplary Holiness of our Saviour in some of the more illustrious Branches of our Duty to God our Selves and the rest of Mankind First then in relation to God to whom as partaking of the humane Nature he owed the same Subjection that we do his Piety and Devotion was remarkable He often withdrew himself from his Disciples and retired into Solitary places that he might calmly enjoy the Contemplation of God and pour out his Soul in Prayers unto him Sometimes departing late in the Evening alone into a Mountain to pray Matth. XIV 23. John VI. 16. Other times rising up early in the Morning and withdrawing into a Solitary place to perform the same Office Mark I. 35. And more than once spending whole Nights in Prayer thereby teaching us that we ought to Dedicate sometime daily to the private Devotions of the Closet where we may converse with our God by Prayer and Meditation He oftimes denied to his Body its natural Rest and Sleep to enjoy his Father in private Contemplation and offer up his Petitions to him And shall not we set apart some of our vacant hours to the Exercise of the same Piety Our Subjection to the Divine Majesty surely is not less and our wants infinitely greater The subject of his Prayers could be no other than to offer up to God the Tribute of praise and thanksgiving and to intercede for others whereas we besides all this have many sins to bewail and to implore the Pardon of them Then as for the publick Acts of Religion which tend most directly to increase the Honour of God and procure to him due Adoration amongst men our Saviour manifested by his constant performance of them how dear the Glory of God was to him He frequented all the publick and solemn Festivals of the Jewish Religion and that whether of Divine as the Passover or humane Institution as the Feast of Dedication omitting no ocsion whereby he might advance the Divine Honour by joyning in all the usual Solemnities of Divine Worship Even in his private State before he entred upon the Execution of his Ministerial Office however silent the sacred History be as to his other Actions yet this we are assured That he used to attend the publick Worship of God in the Synagogues every Sabbath day For so St. Luke relateth Chap. IV. 16. where describing his entrance upon his Ministerial Office he tells us And he came to Nazareth where he had been brought up and as his Custom was he went into the Synagogue on the Sabbath day What can be now wanting to render this Example of Piety most compleat and worthy our Imitation He frequented the publick Acts of Worship lest we should imagine private Devotion to be sufficient and intermitted not the pious Exercises of the Closet least we should rest content with having joyned in the publick Prayers and proceed no farther If we view the other Characters of Piety and Religion we shall find them all to have been eminently united in this illustrious Example With what profound Humility did he profess himself to come into the world to perform his Fathers Will How constantly did he ascribe the
of the Soul otherwise it would be vain and trifling to found Piety and Religion in the internal Acts of the Mind and appropriate either Rewards or Punishments to them only Again Christianity directeth all our Actions to their natural end the Supreme Good the Enjoyment of God and Obedience to him It is but too apparent and hath been plainly confessed by many of them that all the refined Morality of the Heathen Philosophers was founded upon a Principle of Vanity and directed rather to the Acquisition of Praise and Glory than the discharge of their Duty to God Themselves and their Neighbours Whereas the Christian Faith directs us to perform all in obedience to the Divine Laws to ascribe all our good Deeds to God the Author and Fountain of them and preserve an awful Sense of our own unworthyness in respect of the Divine Majesty and Goodness Hereby it addeth to all other excellent Perfections and Crowns them with Humility a Vertue almost unknown to any other System of Religion yet naturally arising from the Principles of Christianity Lastly This Religion is most pure and simple equally adapted to all Orders and Ranks of men and thereby may justly be accounted most agreeable to their Nature since it equally concerneth and includeth all The Precepts of it are plain and easie laying level with the meanest Capacity and placed beyond the Power of none such as carry their Conviction along with them and need no other Argument than to be proposed The Principles and Mysteries of it are perspicuous and significant such as may create a right Sense and esteem of the Divine Attributes and afford powerful Arguments to Men of manifesting their obedience to God In a word nothing can be found or discovered in it unworthy of God or not agreeable to Men nothing which doth not proclaim it self owing to a Divine Original Which brings me to the second Consideration Namely II. That the Christian Religion is rational and evident in respect of the undoubted certainty of its having been revealed by God To evince this we have already made no inconsiderable advance in shewing it to be most worthy of God and fitted to the Nature and Necessity of Mankind For hereby all Objections which can be formed against it are prevented and the Proofs of its Revelation left in their full force Whereas no one System of false Religion hath ever obtained in the World which hath not taught somewhat contrary to Reason and upon that account ought to have been rejected without inquiring into the truth of those Proofs and Arguments whereby it pretended to Revelation The falfeness of the Pagan Religion discovered it self in proposing the Worship of many Gods in giving extravagant and undecent Notions of them representing them as Murderers Adulterers and Criminals of the like Nature in practising Childish and oft-times brutish Superstitions and confining all Religion to external Worship To come to our own Times the falseness of the Mahometan Religion appears in the most absurd and extravagant Fables which it relates of God unworthy the petulancy of an Infant much more the Majesty of an all-wise Being But chiefly in placing the Supreme and eternal Happiness of Man after this Life in an open Violation of the Laws of Nature by the continual Practice of unbridled Lusts and indulging a brutish Appetite in all sensual Pleasures I will not add to these a corrupt part of the Christian Church which teacheth Doctrines contrary both to Sense and Reason But from the whole we may draw a convincing Argument of an All-wise Providence presiding over the World and directing all things to the good of Mankind In that it never suffered any false Religion to obtain which did not carry along with it most evident Marks of its falseness and consequently into which none could enter but by betraying their Reason and wilfully shutting their Eyes upon the Truth Hereby the Plea of Ignorance and involuntary Errour is taken from all For the existence of One only God may be easily discovered by the light of Nature The Laws of Nature are known to all and the meanest Ideots may judge of sensible things by their Senses So that to fall into any Errours contradicting the light of Nature or the report of our Senses may justly be accounted wilful and inexcusable Thus all erroneous Religions discover themselves by the falseness of their Doctrines whereas Christianity recommends it self to the Understandings of all Men by the reasonableness and Divinity of its Doctrines To this we may add that some Revealed Religion was plainly necessary to Mankind overwhelmed with an universal corruption of Ignorance and Superstition and miserably subjected to the Dominion of the Devil and their own Lusts. But as none more excel-cellent Religion than this could be proposed so none could be founded upon better Proofs For since all Revelation must be made at some certain time to some certain Persons and in some certain place However it might to them be attested with the greatest and most uncontestable Miracles yet the report of it could be conveyed to Persons distant in place and time no otherwise than by the Testimony of those who had been Eye-witnesses of it and consequently to them the Proofs of it could be no other than the Nature of the thing would admit Not Demonstrative and excluding all Doubt but Moral and excluding all just Doubt No general and universal Revelation such as is Christianity can be made in any other manner and therefore to expect any other Proofs of it would be highly unreasonable although these it possesseth in the highest and most eminent manner which I proceed in the next place briefly to shew Miracles are by all acknowledged to be the peculiar effects of God and to exceed the Power of a finite Being That wonderful and unaccountable Actions may be and often have been performed by the sleight of Men or concurrence of evil Spirits must be Confessed but these fail not to carry some Evidence of deceit and imposture along with them and may easily be discerned by judicious and attentive Persons from those which proceed from the finger of God and are the real works of Omnipotence Now it cannot be imagined that God will exert his Almighty Power in working Miracles upon slight and trivial occasions much less in Confirmation of a Lye or any pretended Revelation If therefore any Prophet appears invested with the Power of Miracles and we be satisfied that the Miracles are true and real and that his Revelations neither contradict the light of Nature nor any precedent Revelation we must own his Divine Commission and submit to his Revelations which in that Case will truly carry along with them a Divine Authority This was the Case of Moses whose Miracles were unexceptionable and his Revelations in no respect contrary to Reason nor yet to any precedent Revelation for no precedent one was yet made This also was the Case of our Saviour Christ but in a more eminent manner His Revelations far from opposing
tendeth no less effectually to the Honour and Glory of God than a due Command of our Will For God is no less dishonoured by mean and unworthy Apprehensions of him by Idolatry and Superstition by denying his Existence or debasing his Attributes which are the effects of misguided Reason than by an open Violation of his known Precepts which proceeds from the Corruption of the Will And thus it appears that a full Enquiry into the Reasons and Arguments of the Christian Religion and a perfect knowledge of the truth of them not only contributes exceedingly but in Persons having means to attain it is absolutely necessary to beget a true and perfect Faith and secure to us the reward of it III. A distinct and clear knowledge of the Mysteries of our Faith and Rules of our Religion will afford to us many and great Motives to the practice of our Duty and direct us in the performance of it It is the peculiar Prerogative of the Christian Religion that the more we search into the Reasons and Constitution of it the more fully the Divinity of it will appear Every new Discovery will give us fresh occasions to admire the Wisdom Goodness and Justice of God eminently conspiring in the Revelation of it This will excite in us if we be not insensible a profound Veneration of the Divine Majesty an ardent Love of his Excellencies and the most intense degree of Gratitude It will manifest to us the Misery of Man and his lost Condition without the Sacrifice of the Cross which might expiate for his Sins and mediate his Pardon and hereby will increase our Sense of the Divine Mercy will enhance the value of that inestimable Sacrifice teach us to adore love and devote our selves to our Saviour to resign up our belief to his Revelations as to our Prophet to depend wholly upon the Expiation of our sins once made and Intercession for us always continued by him as of our High Priest to yield an intire Obedience to his Commands and Precepts as to our King Can we view the Love and Mercy of God manifested in our Redemption the wonderful Contrivances of Providence both to secure the Divine Justice and Honour and yet give Pardon to sinful Man and not be wound up into an Extasie of Love and Admiration Can we consider the most wise Methods whereby God brought this wonderful design to perfection and trace the footsteps of it through all Ages can we think upon the Majesty of him who condescended to suffer for us and the unworthiness of Man to receive so great a Favour without filling our Understandings with awful and reverent Conceptions of him our Wills with a passionate desire of Union with him and enlarging all the Faculties of our Souls to approach his Presence and receive his influence Or can we hope to raise our Souls to a worthy Sense of the Divine Favours and Benefits and carry up our Affections to a gratitude not inferiour to the Greatness of them without a perfect knowledge of their Design and Excellency Surely the Admonitions of the Prophets Apostles and even our Blessed Saviour were not in vain which so earnestly press us to the study of Divine Truths command us to search the Scriptures assure us That they were written for our instruction and which is to be observed commend those who were conversant in them above all other Persons Yet how small a part of the Holy Scripture are those things which are absolutely necessary to be believed The infinitely greater part of it serveth only to declare the extraordinary Acts of his Providence to the Church and Testimonies of his Love to Mankind to celebrate his Mercy and Goodness and induce us by manifold Arguments to our Duty Yet these also hath the Divine Wisdom thought necessary to the knowledge and instruction of Men and surely not without Reason For what can be more worthy of Man more perfective of his Nature or conducing to enstate him in the greatest Happiness than to comprehend the Riches of the Divine Goodness to entertain noble Conceptions of his Creator and by a constant Meditation and exalted Knowledge raise his Affections to a vehement Love of him By this we anticipate the Joys of Heaven and begin to possess them even before we are received into them For both Reason and Revelation assureth us that the Fruition of Celestial Happiness consists in a constant and unwearied Contemplation and Love of the Divine Perfections The study of these sacred Matters was esteemed the best indication of a pious Mind and the most certain method of attaining the utmost degree of Happiness upon Earth even under the Old Law when God had not yet made a full Manifestation of himself and the Reasons of the Divine Oeconomy were obscure and hid under a veil of Ceremonies and Ritual Observations For proof of this to go no farther than the CXIX Psalm wherein such inimitable strains of Piety Devotion and an ardent Love of God appear The Holy Psalmist every where ascribes his Proficiency in Vertue and the inward satisfaction and Happiness of his mind to the assiduous study of the Divine Laws I will thank thee with an unfeigned heart when I shall have learned the judgments of thy righteousness Open thou mine eyes that I may see the wondrous things of thy law For I remembred thine everlasting judgments O Lord and received comfort Lord what love have I unto thy law all the day long is my study in it O how sweet are thy words unto my throâ—… yea sweeter than honey unto my mouth Thy word is a lantern unto my feet and a light unto my paths For thy testimonies are my delight and my Counsellours See all the Marks of a Soul big with Devotion and filled with transports of Joy from the Consideration of the Divine Goodness and Excellency manifested under the Mosaick Law But alas how inconsiderable is this if compared to that greater Light which Christianity hath brought into the world What satisfaction and advantage may not we now hope for from the study and Contemplation of the more perfect Law of Christ that hath revealed to us the Mystery which hath been hid from Ages and represents to us the Divine Goodness not under a veil and shadow but in its full Dimensions The antient Christians were truly sensible of this who placed their Happiness on this side Heaven in this Holy study chose rather to part with their Lives than Bibles and branded those who delivered them up to their Persecutors although in exchange for their dearest Blood with the name of Traditores or Traitors And in the last Age our Forefathers gave eminent Instances of the same perswasion and resolution when great numbers of them ventured their Lives to enjoy the advantage of reading the Scriptures in their Mother tongue and rather than forego that Benefit chose to forfeit their Lives to the Persecution of a Church whose interest it was that those Divine Truths should not be known It is our
if it teacheth Doctrines contrary to Reason and refuseth to give any account of them we may infallibly conclude it to be erroneous and to have departed from the true Faith Yet we know a Church that hath wholly evacuated the Apostles Precépt by inhibiting to private Christians the use of Reason in Divine Matters and setting up an infallible Judge to whom all ought blindly to submit that useth her utmost endeavours to disable private Christians from giving a Reason of their Faith by forbidding them to read the Scripture that hath made Christianity irrational by adding to it absurd and contradictive Doctrines For what reason can be given that men should not use their Reason What Reason can be assigned for Transubstantiation which is directly contrary both to Sense and Reason What reason for a blind Submission to a pretended infallible Judge which defeats all use of Reason But these things are too apparent I omit them and pass to the second and last Branch of Application That 2. We ought to adorn this most rational and Holy Religion of our Saviour with a correspondent Holiness and Purity of Life The Apostle draws this inference in the words immediately preceding and following my Text But sanctifie the Lord God in your hearts and having a good conscience and indeed most naturally For if it be the highest Perverseness to reject the Gospel after so clear a Demonstration of the Divinity of it what a degree of Folly and Impiety must it be in those who are perswaded of the truth of it to contradict the Evidence and Design of it by the wickedness of their Lives and live as if they believed it to be most false The Apostle urgeth it as the utmost Aggravation of the sin of the wiser Heathens that they held the truth in unrighteousness and surely with much more force will the Argument fall upon immoral Christians For the Heathen Sages dissembled their Opinions from the world and so no wonder that they directed not their Actions by them whereas these publickly profess their belief of Christianity and yet live in open Contradiction to it And indeed it is a most astonishing Consideration that rational Creatures should deliberately violate those Laws upon which they acknowledge the hopes of Eternity to depend Do we really believe the Christian Religion to be Divine and yet go on without remorse to trample under foot its Laws and Precepts Are we perswaded that infinite Rewards in another world attend the performance of our Duty in this and yet preferr the Temptations and Pleasures of the World to the Attainment of them Do we profess our Belief of eternal Punishments and yet are not affrighted from the Commission of any pleasing sin by the terror of them However we may pretend a firm Assent to all these Articles yet certainly it will be impossible to perswade a considering Man that the belief of them can be reconciled with the Practice of the contrary And after all if we should be allowed to be what we pretend Believers in Christ Can faith save us No Shew me thy faith by thy works If a sober Heathen should come among us and compare the Rules of Christ with the Lives of Christians the exercise of Piety Temperance and Chastity and all moral Vertues commanded by the one in the higest degree and upon the severest Penalties and Impiety Intemperance Lust and all enormous Vices openly and greedily practised by the other he would be tempted to believe that the Religion of Christ were no more than a pleasing Fable wherewith Christians sometimes entertained themselves An ancient Father who lived in the declining times of Christianity tells us how the Heathens in his Age formed dishonourable thoughts of Christ from the scandalous Lives of his Disciples Quomodo bonus est Magister cujus tam malos videmus Discipulos How can he be a good Lawgiver that hath no better Followers how can his Laws be excellent that do not reform the Lives of their Professours And then proceeds to deplore this Scandal In nobis Christus opprobrium patitur Thus we defame our most excellent Religion dishonour our Saviour and blaspheme him in our Lives Let us live up to the Rules of our Religion and by a Conscientious practice of them manifest that we are perswaded of the truth of it otherwise it will be in vain to be ready always to give an answer to every one that asketh us a reason of the hope that is in us This were unanswerably to refute our Arguments by our Practice and add to our own Condemnation Let us demonstrate the Divinity of our Religion by the influence it hath upon our Lives and profess an intire Belief of it by a constant Obedience to it that so we may not fall short of the Promises annexed to it and others seeing our good works may glorifie our Father which is in heaven The Fifth SERMON PREACH'D December 2d 1688. At LAMBETH CHAPEL Rom. II. 4. Not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance THE infinite and wonderful Love of God towards Mankind is in nothing more visible and conspicuous than in the various methods which he makes use of to draw us to himself The Faculties and Passions of our Soul are not more numerous and different than are the means which he hath employed to render us happy and oblige us to the performance of our Duty inducing us by all those Motives and Arguments which in other moral Actions are wont to make impression on us He hath engaged our Understandings by proposing to our belief and practice a reasonable and holy Religion attended with the greatest Evidence and in all things highly agreeable to the Nature of Mankind and first Principles of Reason He hath assured our Wills by presenting such Objects to it as employ every single Passion of it If the desire of obtaining the greatest good can move us he hath allured us by the Promise of an infinite and eternal Happiness If fear of Misery hath any influence upon our minds he hath deterred us from the Violation of his Laws by affixing to it the most severe and terrible Punishments If hope can excite us he hath given to us an infallible assurance of more than we can conceive If Love can affect us he hath obliged us by the greatest Benefits Lastly If reason and the sense of our Duty if Rewards and Punishments if Favours and Benefits can together engage us he hath united all in one most holy and excellent Religion And in this appears the wonderful Goodness of God that whereas any one of these methods were alone sufficient to oblige Mankind to the practice of our Duty he hath chose to employ them all that so that Attribute of Mercy wherein he most delights might be more conspicuous and the impemtence of Mankind in opposition to it might not only become irrational but even monstrous It had been sufficient as to the Obligation of it to have proposed a reasonable Religion without annexing to it
Greatness of the Divine Favours conferred on him he cries out in Admiration Lord what is man that thou art mindful of him and the son of man that thou so regardest him The Apostle useth the same Argument Rom. V. 8. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die But God commendeth his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us That is scarce would any other conferr so great a Benefit as to lay down his Life for his sake upon any one however punctually performing all the Duties of Juftice and deficient in none of those Offices which are necessarily required of him Yet perhaps for one who out of the abundance of his Zeal and Charity for the good of his Neighbour doth more than was in common Justice required some men induced by a powerful Sense of gratitude would not fear to lay down their Lives And in this appeareth the incomparable Greatness of the Divine Goodness that while we far from performing those Duties which in the strictest manner we are obliged to pay to God much less from doing more than is necessarily required of us had by our sins provoked the Divine Displeasure and proclaimed our selves Enemies to God yet notwithstanding all this Christ vouchsafed to die for us If we apply this Argument to our own Obligation arising from the Divine Benefits we shall find it very cogent For if for a good although not for a just Man some would out of Gratitude even dare to die What ought not we to do for God who by his superabundant Goodness hath so far exceeded what he oweth to us in Justice that the latter holdeth no Proportion to the former In strict propriety of Speech he oweth nothing to us Since our Creation is an Act of his own Free-will and although when once created he cannot without Injustice necessitate us to be miserable or lay greater evil upon us without respect to our Demerits than what may be countervailed by the Happiness necessarily flowing from our Existence yet is this owing rather to the Justice of his own Nature than to any right acquired by us But then the undeserved Benefits bestowed on us are greater than we are able to conceive and hold no Proportion with any thing save the infinity of his Goodness as being no less than Redemption from eternal Death and the hopes of everlasting Happiness For what can we plead in behalf of our selves to render us worthy of the Divine Favour Not the Dignity of our Nature which in his sight is dust and ashes not the perfections of our Mind which are the Products of his own Power and miserably debased by sinsul Habits not our Righteousness or Piety which is infinitely inferiour to our Demerits and although most perfect yet were no more than our Duty not the Ability of magnifying the persections of his Nature and celebrating his Majesty for that is infinite already and can receive no Addition from our imperfect Praises The Angels were much more fitted by the Exâ—…lency of their Nature to persorm that Office as haâ—…ing more noble Conceptions of the Divine Majesty and â—…eing able by reason of their Spirituality to sing Praises unto him without intermission Yet obtained not they the same Favours with Mankind nor enjoy the Benefit of the forbearance and long-suffering of God For them after Apostacy he receiveth not to Mercy But the Angels which kept not their sirst estate but left their own habitation he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judement of the great day Jude VI. It is Man alone whom God seems to have chosen out for the darling of the Creation and to have tried how far it was possible to oblige his Creatures by undeserved Benefits to the Worship of him This Consideration cannot but strike our Souls with a lively Sense of our Obligation to God that in dispensing the riches of his Goodness he weighed not our Merits but chose to make known his Power in our weakness A Consideration which might justly find matter of Astonishmeâ—…t for our whole Lives and working up our Souls into an Extasie of gratitude constrain us to Obedience Wisely therefore did Moses so much inculcate it in the IX of Deuteronomy where aggraâ—…ating the Greatness of the Obligation which God had laid upon the People of Israel by his wonderful and numerous Benefits he chargeth them to remember withall that they were undeserved Speak not thou in thine heart after that the Lord thy God hath cast out the Canaanites from before thee saying For my righteousness the Lord hath brought me to possess this land Not for thy righteousness or for the uprightness of thy heart dost thou go to possess their land but for the wickedness of these Nations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee and that he may perform the word which the Lord sware unto thy fathers Abraham Isaac and Jacob. And this is the Second Head upon the account of which the Divine Benefits ought to appear infinite unto us and create a proportionable degree of thankfulness Bâ—…cause they are undeserved by us Lastly if we consider the Nature of Mankind we shall easily discover that no Argument so effectual could be proposed to us as this of Gratitude The greatest part of Mankind are no otherwise moved than by the report of their Senses and have not so far improvâ—…d their Reason as to conceive the perfection of the Divine Attributes without the Assistance of sensible Objects These can be no other than the visible and most remarkable effects of the Divine Power and Goodness By these as Men are chiefly led to the knowledge of a God so they are perswaded to pay him Worship and Adoration To this Purpose no Actions of God are so adapted as those which declare his Beneficence and Liberality in which Mankind is peculiarly concerned and receive the benefit of them Other Actions indeed might equally manifest his Nature if seriously reflected on but these few make the subject of their Meditations Men seldom consider God any otherwise than in Relation to themselves and therefore want some extraordinary Benefits to excite their Attâ—…ntion and entertain their Consideration These beyond all other Arguments make the deepest Impressions on our Imaginations and therefore continue longest in our Mâ—…mories So that if the remembrance of these be once effaced we may reasonably conclude all other Arguments of our Duty and Subjection to God to have been long before forgotten And accordingly the Scripture frequently expresseth the final Apostacy of Men from Religion by their forgetting the Benefits of God Thus Judges II. after it had been said Verse 7. That the people served God all the days of Joshua and of the Elders who had seen all the great works of the Lord that he did for Israel It is subjoyned Verse 10. That when all that generation was dead there arose another generation after them
for many years and yet are as solicitous about the affairs of this World as if we were to continue in it many Ages We own that the duration of this Life is even nothing if compared to the Eternity of the next and yet every trifling pleasure can perswade us to exchange Eternity for this nothing If we review all the reasons why God deferreth the Execution of his Judgments till another Life we shall find abundant cause carefully to prepare our selves to undergo it If God in mercy awaits our repentance even till the last scene of our Life how dreadful may we imagin those punishments to be which he would not inflict till the Sinner had filled up the measure of his Iniquities and by dying impenitent declared himself to be absolutely Incorrigible and worthy to undergo the utmost fury of an enraged God If he rather suffers his Providence and Justice to be traduced in this World than consent to dispose of his Rewards and Punishments according to the erroneous imaginations of Men it is because he hath reserved an unerring Judgment to the last times when he will infallibly return to every one the true Reward of their Actions and discovering the most secret faults of every individual Criminal make their demerits as publick as their punishment If in this Life Punishments cannot be imposed with sufficient severity how rigorous and terrible how much exceeding all the Calamities of this World must be the Torments prepared hereafter If the highest and most admired enjoyments here are not worthy to be conferred as a reward to a Pious Christian we may conclude the joys of Heaven to be inconceivable and ought to be powerfully insluenced by the hopes of them If the Final Judgment of Men was not to be executed upon Earth because inconsistent with the exercise of all more noble and Christian Vertues we may be then convincâ—… how necessary they are to fit us for the Judgment hereafter Lastly if God would not inflict the deserved punishments on Sinners here least he should represent a Hell on Earth and affright even good Men with so dismal a spectacle how dreadful must the Torments of Hell be which may in some measure even make the Spectators miserable Such powerful and forcing Arguments have we to oblige us to a careful practice of our Duty and yet all this can scarce induce us even to a serious consideration of it Neither the certain assurance of Death can move nor the Terrours of Hell affright us nor the Hopes of Heaven allure us nor the dread of future Judgment arrest us and then what if none of all these had been if neither Heaven nor Hell Death or Judgment had attended us If God had not appointed Men once to die and we had been permitted to live Immortal Sinners What Sins should we then have scrupled at what Violence should we not then have committed So that even the Final Decree of Death upon all Men is no small benefit to Mankind and far from being repined at ought to be gratefully received by us At least let us take care to improve the knowledge of this Decree to a real advantage by continually preserving it in our minds opposing it to all Temptations and acting under a constant sense of it So shall we not need to fear the Judgment which shall follow it but shall patiently a wait it boldly encounter it and joyfully receive it which God of his infinite Mercy grant for the sake and merits of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The Eighth SERMON PREACH'D February 10. 1689. At LAMBETH CHAPEL 1 Tim. I. 17. Now unto the King eternal immortal invisible the only wise God be honour and glory for ever and ever Amen THE Consideration of the Divine Attributes is of such excellent use to all Christians and tendeth so highly to beget and preserve true Notions of Religion in us that the Spirit of God hath chosen frequently and upon all occasions to inculcate it in Holy Writ St. Paul in this place breaks out in Admiration of the Divine Mercy to himself which he had described in the foregoing Verses and then returneth Praise and Thanksgiving to him in these words words so admirably framed that they express not only the extreme Gratitude of the Apostle but powerfully intice us also to joyn in the same Doxology to God by representing and briefly enumerating his infinite Perfections upon account of which he deserveth to be adored by us And indeed in this chiefly consists the difference between true and false Religions that in the one right Notions of the Divine Attributes are entertained and Worship founded upon them in the other erroneous and mean Conceptions of the Deity are taken up and religious Adoration paid upon Reasons which will not warrant it Religion is the perfection of Man and therefore ought to be placed upon such Foundations as may secure the Honour of it and convince the Consciences of Men of the necessity and reasonableness of it God hath indeed out of his abundantMercy andLove to Mankind provided many other Arguments whereby we may be induced to Fear him to love him to obey his Commands and yield Submission to him He hath sent his Son into the World to save Sinners as we are told in the 15th verse of this Chapter that the sense of so wonderful a Benefit might engage us to gratitude he sheweth forth his long suffering to them which believe and to them which do both believe and actagreeably to their belief he promiseth everlasting Life as it follows in the next verse The consideration of these matters will indeed strike us with a lively concern we cannot but love the Author of these signal Benefits admire his Goodness and fear to displease him least by his displeasure we forfeit the Reward proposed by him These are indeed powerful Arguments to us to be Religious but yet we find nothing whereon to place the most essential Act of Religion Worship and Adoration we know not how to Form it nor to whom to give it till we proceed to consider the Perfections and Attributes of God till we begin to reflect with the Apostle that he is a King Eternal Immortal Invisible the only wise God and then we cannot but conclude with the Apostle also to him be Honour and Glory for ever and ever Amen The words therefore present us with these two considerations of which I intend to Discourse I. The Reasons why Religious Worship and Adoration ought to be referred and paid to God by us namely because he is our King Eternal Immortal Invisible the only wise God II. The Nature of this Religious Worship to be paid to him to him be Honour and Glory for ever and ever Amen First then the Reasons why Worship and Adoration ought to be paid to God are his Infinite Perfections or Attributes That these belong to God we are taught by the light of Nature it being the very first Notion which all Men conceive of a Deity that he possesseth
to shew you that no objection to the Justice and Impartiality of God can be deduced from his conduct in relation to them Which not only tendeth to vindicate his Honour and to create in us a just esteem of his infinite Perfections not only restrains us from passing uncharitable censures upon our fellow Servants or conceiving amiss of those immutable Rules which God hath fixed to the exercise of his Mercy and Judgment but also teaches us that Salvation depends not so much upon any external Relation or Denomination as upon the eternal Obligations of Righteousness and Holiness This was the Second Head proposed to be Treated of namely the Conditions of the Divine Favour expressed in the latter part of the Text. But in every Nation he that feareth him and worketh Righteousness is accepted with him The favour of God is not now as it seemed to be under the Jewish dispensation annexed to a Family or a Nation to external Badges and ritual Observations but to the more noble and universal obligations of Fear and Righteousness offered and dispensed unto all Men upon the same Conditions Conditions from which none can plead exemption even although no Revelation had enforced them They had then been Duties even without a Reward but are now conditions of a Reward which manifesteth the infinite Mercy and Goodness of God which is also enhanced by the universality of it for that in eve y Nation he that worketh Righteousness is accepted by him For after all the Title to a Reward must be grounded upon the Divine acceptance not on any merit of the Work But the time will not permit me to Discourse farther of these things I will only exhort you to make a just use of what you have already Learned That God is no respecter of Persons This cannot but be a mighty encouragement to you to use your utmost diligence to attain that Reward which God hath rendered equally possible to you with those who are now the greatest Saints in Heaven that whatever your condition or circumstances may be here below God respecteth not that in distribution of his Favour but only what is in your own power On the other side if you neglect these possible these easie conditions offearing God and working Righteousness flatter not your selves with the thoughts of being exempted by any peculiar Favour from undergoing that universal Sentence of Condemnation which is indifferently pronounced against all Sinners Which is also the conclusion drawn by St. Peter from this very consideration 1 Pet. I. 17. And if ye call on the Father who without respect of Persons judgeth according to every Mans work pass the time of your Sojourning here in fear The Thirteenth SERMON PREACH'D Easter-Day 1689. At LAMBETH CHAPEL Coloss. III. 1. If ye then be risen with Christ seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God THE Resurrection of our Blessed Saviour from the Dead hath by the Church in all Ages been deservedly celebrated with a greater Solemnity than any other Festival whatsoever as being instituted in remembrance of the most signal Act of our Lord here on Earth and the final Completion of our Redemption by it Other Actions indeed prepared the Minds of his Followers to expect Salvation from him but this alone gave them infallible assurance of the performance of it Till then they retained Doubts and Scruples were meanly instructed in the Nature of his Office and Design of his Coming were confounded at his Ignominious Crucifixion and began to suspect that they had been mistaken in the Person of the Messias All their glorious hopes of a temporal Kingdom to be founded by their Lord and Master were laid aside and in a little time they began to doubt whether it were he that should have redeemed Israel The Church then was not only dispersed but destroyed and none left who would own their Belief in a Crucified Saviour The Apostles were fled The Women prepared Spices for his Body now lying in the Grave as not expecting it should rise again and the Jews triumphed over his afflicted Disciples as having defeated their hopes and overthrown their Pretences At this time in this State of things our Lord rose from the Dead and by his Resurrection demonstrated the Divinity of his Person dispelled the Anxiety of his Disciples and confounded his Enemies By this he retrieved the lost Faith of his Followers and put it beyond all possibility of being subject to any more Fluctuations Hereby he not only gave the last and most infallible Confirmation to the truth of his Doctrine by a Miracle unheard of in former Ages but also established in Mankind the glad assurance of a future Resurrection He had before indeed promised it but now gave an earnest of it in his own Person and manifested it to be possible by the actual effecting of it No wonder then that as the Church did at first receive our Lord from the Dead with unspeakable Joy and Triumph so it always continued to renew the remembrance of that Triumph by extraordinary Solemnities that the Apostles urged the Miracle of his Resurrection as the highest Argument of Conviction to Jews and Gentiles and admonished their Disciples to comfort one another with the Remembrance of it And not only so but also drew continual Arguments of Instruction and Motives of Holiness from it and made all the Mysteries and Sacraments of the Christian Religion to be in some measure subservient to it An Action of so great importance was not barely to strike the Senses and to satisfie the doubtful or convince the incredulous but to affect the Soul and become a Foundation of Practice as well as Belief to all Christians Our Lord raised not his natural Body from the Grave to leave us his Mystical Body groveling on the Ground he resumed not his bodily Life to leave us in a spiritual Death but taught us thereby to raise our Thoughts and Affections from the Earth to free our selves from the Power of Darkness and enter into the Regions of Light For we are risen with Christ if we be true Christians as the Apostle assureth us in my Text and if so the natural consequence will be That we seek those things which are above and act agreeably to the new state of Life into which we are entred If then ye be risen with Christ seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God The words therefore will oblige me to treatFirst of our Resurrection with Christ and Secondly of the Conclusion drawn from thence by the Apostle that we ought therefore to seek those things which are above That we shall hereafter rise and bewith Christ is the most firm Belief of all Christians but that we are already risen may not perhaps be so easily conceived especially by those who experience not in themselves any Effects of this Blessed Resurrection We are therefore said to rise with Christ even in this Life either by similitude or by
thereby clear his Memory from the unjust Aspersions of some who have been pleas'd to represent him as one who had not a sincere Affection for it In one place he has these words If to defend the Fatherless Orphans and Widows be so acceptable to God how noblc an Act must it be accounted to vindicate a whole Nation from Injuâ—…tice and Oppression to defend and maintain the Cause of the Church of God In aâ—…ther place these It is undeniable that the Profession of the true Religion is maintain'd in this Nation under the happy Government of Their Majesties as well as it was of old among the Jews in the Reign of Hezekiah In another place he speaks thus which are most remarkable But that other part of the Promise for my Servant David 's sake never had any People greater reason to apply to themselves than we of this Nation at this time have God hath Blessed us with Princes of eminent Vertue and Piety who not content to employ their Authority in the support and defence of Religion endeavour to retrieve the Power of it in the Lives of their Subjects by the Lustre of their own Example who have delivered this National Church from the Oppression of her professed Enemies and the apparent Dauger of sudden Ruin and have thereby become to us what Constantine was to the whole Catholick Church in the early Ages of Christianity and what Queen Elizabeth of Blessed Memory was to this particular Church in the last Age. God hath Blessed us with a King who to complete the Deliverance which he wrought for us and to settle us in Peace and Tranquility hath spared no Pains and continually hazarded his own Royal Person and is at this day acting with unwearied Vigour and Courage against the Common Enemy of our Nation and the Oppressor of the Christian World for the Vindication of Justice the relief of afflicted Innocence the Security of this Church and Nation But among his Manuscripts there is one especially which ought by no means to be past by in silence as giving such an instance of his wonderful diligence as cannot easily be parallell'd which is his Account of the Manuscripts in Lambeth Library Wherein besides giving a most exact Catalogue of them he has under every Book transcrib'd all those Treatises contain'd in them which are not yet published And what are he has compar'd with that exactness as to take notice of the words that are otherwise spell'd in the Original than in the Print That Catalogue purchased by the present Archbishop together with many other of his Manuscripts may when occasion shall serve see the Light Among the Printed Books towards a new and more Correct Edition of which whenever it shall be thought convenient he hath considerably contributed are these following Histoâ—…ia Matth. Parker Archiepiscopi Cantuar. De Antiquitate Britannicae Ecclesiae c. enlarg'd with Notes Collections and Additions partly made by the most Reverend Author himself and partly by others and several by Mr. Wharton himself together with the Life of the said Archbishop as also that of St. Austin of Cant. written by George Acworth Franciscus Godwinus de Praesulibus Angliae with some Notes Florentius Wigorniensis and Matthaeus Westmonasteriensis both enlarged with many Notes Corrections and Additions He had likewise made Notes on several of his own Books already published by him which 't is like were design'd for Additions to those Books when ever they should receive a New Impression For these his Performances for the Cause of Religion and Learning as he was admirably fitted by the Excellency of his Natural Endowments a quick Apprehension solid Judgment and most Faithful Memory so were these rais'd to a great Perfection by his Industry An Industry never sufficiently to be commended though in this alas to be lamented that it too much hastened his Death and our Loss Nor were his Moral Accomplishments inferior to his Natural and acquired Perfections He was Modest Sober and Pious in all things sbewing himself to be acted by a truly Christian and Religious Spirit Of which those two Instances to name no more may not unfitly be given The one That he never undertook any Matter of moment without first imploring the Divine Assistance and Blessing thereupon The other That in all those Journeys which his Learned Designs engag'd him in he was ever wont so to order his Affairs as not once to omit being present at the Monthly Sacrament where ever he came And then of his Zeal for Religion and the Honour of God those excellent Discourses which he has published in defence of the best and purest part of the Christian Church now extant upon the face of the Earth in Opposition to the Corruptions of Popery those Scandals to Christian Religion so highly dishonourable to God and so injurious to the Blessed Author of it and an offence to all that truly love and fear him will always be a constant and standing Evidence It has not been thought convenient to add any instances of his Charity though many might be given because agreeable to his own Desire which always was to be as private therein as possibly he could This one only may its presum'd not improperly be mention'd viz. That by his Will whereof he appointed his Father the Reverend Mr. Edmund Wharton the Reverend and Learned Dr. Thorp one of the worthy Prebendaries of Canterbury and his dear Friend Mr. Charles Battely the Executors he has order'd the greatest part of that Small Estate which he left to be dispos'd of to a religious use in the Parish of Worstead in Norfolk where he was born As to his Person He was of a middle Stature of a brown Complexion and of a grave and comely Countenance His Constitution was vigorous and healthful In Confidence of the Strengh of which he was too little regardful of himself and too intent upon his Studies Insomuch that he did often deny himself the Refreshments of Nature because of them And sometimes in the coldest weather would sit so long at them and without a Fire as to have his hands and feet so Chill'd as not to be able to feel the use of them in a considerable time His too eager Prosecution of thâ—…se together with a weakness contracted in his Stomach by the too violent Operation of an unhappy Medicine which he had taken so farr broke the Excellency of his Constitution that no Art nor Skill of the most experienced Physicians could repair it The Summer before he died he went to the Bath in hopes to have retriev'd his decaying Nature by the help of those excellent Medicinal Waters Some benefit he found by them but at his return from thence to Canterbury falling again to his Studies immoderately and beyond what his Strength could bear he quite undid all that they had done So that after a long and lingring decay of Nature he was brought at length to the utmost extremity of weakness under which languishing for some time at last in the
Thirty first Year of his Age on the 5th of March that sad day whereon that never sufficiently to be lamented Princess our most incomparable QUEEN was interr'd about Three of the Clock in the Morning he with an humble Patience submitted to the stroke of Death cheerfully resigning his departing Soul into the most Holy hands of his gracious Redeemer The loss of so extraordinary a Person in the Flower of his Age and one from whom the learned World had justly conceiv'd such great Expectations of most admirable Performances from his indefatigable Labours for the advantage of it was very much lamented by Learned Men both at home and abroad The Clergy in particular as a Testimony of that value which they had for him did in great Numbers attend at his Funeral Here ought by no means to be past by in silence that singular Honour which was paid to him by the Right Reverend the Bishops Many of which and among the rest the most Reverend Archbishop himself and the Right Reverend Bishop of Litchfield who had both of them visited him in his last Sickness being present at it while another of that venerable Order the Right Reverend the Bishop of Rochester performed the Funeral Office All sorts of Persons were willing to shew their Respect for him in the best manner they were able The Reverend the Dean and Prebendaries of Westminster not only caused the Kings Schollars to attend him to his Grave an uncommon respect and the highest they can shew on such an occasion but did also each for himself remit their Customary Dues for Interment in their Church as the last and most proper Testimony they could then give of the high Esteem in which they held Mr. Wharton and his learned Labours The Quire likewise committing his Body to Rest with Solemn and Devout Anthems compos'd by that most ingenious Artist Mr. Henry Purcel He lyes Buried in the South side of the Cathedral Church of Westminster towards the West end Near whereunto in the Wall is erected a small but decent Monument of White Marble whereon is the following Inscription H. S. E. HENRICUS WHARTON A. M. ECCLESIAE ANGLICANAE PRESBYTER RECTOR ECCLESIAE DE CHARTHAM NECNON VICARIUS ECCLESIAE De MINSTER IN INSULA THANATO IN DIAECESI CANTUARIENSI REVERENDISSIMO AC SANCTISSIMO PRAESULI WILHELMO ARCHIEPISCOPO CANTUARIENSI A SACRIS DOMESTICIS QUI MULTA AD AUGENDAM ET ILLUSTRANDAM REM LITERARIAM MULTA PRO ECCLESIA GHRISTI CONSCRIPSIT PLURA MOLIEBATUR Obiit 30. Non. Mart. A. D. MDCXCIV Aetatis suae XXXI THE CONTENTS SERMON I. On Whit-Sunday JOhn XIV 25 26. These things have I spoken unto you being yet present with you But the Comforter which is the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my Name he shall teach you all things and bring all things to your Remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you Pag. 1 SERMON II. Philip. II. 5. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus p. 51 SERMON III. and IV. 1 Pet. III. 15. Be ready always to give an answer â—…to every Man that asketh you a reason of the hope that 's in you with Meekness and Fear p. 108 144 SERMOM V. Rom. II. 4. Not knowing that the Goodness of God leadeth thee to Repentance p. 172 SERMON VI. 1 Corinth I. 23. We preach Christ crucified unto the Jews a Stumbling-block and unto the Greeks Foolishness p. 227 SERMON VII Hebr. IX 27. It is appointed unto Men once to die but after this the Judgment p. 261 SERMON VIII 1 Tim. I. 17. Now unto the King Eternal Immortal Invisible the only wise God be Honour and Glory for ever and ever Amen p. 287 SERMON IX Psal. XCV 7 8. To day if ye will hear his Voyce harden not your hearts p. 313 SERMON X. and XI Luk. XIII 5. Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish p. 337 365 SERMON XII Acts X. 34 35. Then Peter opened his mouth and said of a Truth I perceive that God is no respecter of Persons But in every Nation he that feareth him and worketh Righteousness is accepted with him p. 394 SERMON XIII Coloss. III. 1. If ye then be risen with Christ seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God p. 417 SERMON XIV John XIV 1. Let not your bearts be troubled ye believe in God believe also in me p. 439 The First SERMON ON WHITSUNDAY Prâ—…ach'd at Lambeth Chapel John XIV 25 26. These things havé I spoken unto you being yet present with you But the Comforter which is the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my Name he shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you THese words being part of the Gospel for this Day â—…o not only contain the Promise of that infinite and wonderful benefit the completion of which we this Day commeâ—…orate But also declare the nature and intention of it and thereby most fitly not only excite us to a grateful remembrance of the Divine beneficence but also teach us to form true apprehensions and a just veneration of so great a Mystery A Mystery which was promis'd by Christ to his Apostles as the greatest of all Benefits Which might alone supply the otherwise irreparable loss of his Presence and intirely dispel their grief arising from the melancholy apprehensions of his approaching departure A Mystery which was reserved for the ultimate consummation of the Christian Religion and Divine dispensation of the Gospel Which being designed by the Father and Founded by the Son was at last brought to perfection by the Mission and Descent of the Holy Ghost No wonder therefore if the promise of so great a benefit was so mightily insisted on by Christ as a sufficient remedy to his Disciples for all afflictions and the last and greatest Legacy which he could bequeath unto them If the performance of it was so earnestly expected by the Apostles and the remembrance of it with an uninterrupted solemnity Celebrated by the Church in all Ages more especially by the Antient Church in which all Christians used to stand continually in time of Divine Service from Easter to Whitsunday thereby testifying the impatient expectation wherewith they attended the Descent of the Holy Ghost as upon this Day The declaration of this promise made in the words of my Text was occasioned by the great anxiety which the Apostles expressed at the news of our Saviours departure and their wonderful ignorance of the true nature and design of the Christian Religion after so long and so excellent instruction from their Divine Master The former is related in the end of the preceding Chapter which therefore Christ endeavours to remove by a vehement exhortation to a steady Faith in the beginning of this Let not your heart be troubled ye believe in God believe also in me Assuring them that his departure was for no other end than to prepare a place for their reception
to be founded by the Messias or expected from him which so long clouded the Understandings of the Apostles and hindred them from entertaining true Notions of that Mystery although having the Happiness to be brought up in a Christian and Orthodox Church we suck in true Notions of the Christian Religion in general even from our Infancy yet the prejudices which arise from our Passions and corrupt Affections are no less violent and betray us to no less fatal mistakes These not only defeat the Benefit of that assistance of the Holy Ghost in the Inquisition of truth which God hath promised to all well disposed Persons who rightly ask it of him but also directly introduce the foulest and most pernicious Errours by prompting us to form such Notions of Religion as may be most adapted and favourable to those corrupt Inclinations And this diligence in the Inquiry and Examination of our Religion will be so much the more necessary if we consider that God had indeed provided an effectual remedy for all the mistakes of the Apostles by the plentiful Effusion of the Holy Ghost upon them but hath left us to the ordinary Emanations and Assistance of the Divine Spirit which will lead us into all necessary Truths if our own Endeavours be not wanting but upon defect of those or any other due disposition of the mind will not only not produce this happy Effect but also depart from us II. The Sense of this great and inestimable Benefit conferred this day upon the Apostles and then upon the whole Church and our selves in particular ought to excite us to the utmost gratitude and engage us to endeavour not to render our selves unworthy of it at least not permit our selves to be ungrateful for it For this Benefit was not confined to the persons of the Apostles it brings down with it many great and inestimable advantages to the Church which continue till this day By this we are assured that the Christian Religion hath received the last degree of Confirmation by this we know that Christ hath really ascended into Heaven and there taken possession of his Kingdom that however he hath removed his corporeal Presence he still continues to be present with us by the Influences and Operations of the Holy Ghost that he ceased not at his Ascension to govern and take care of the Church but abundantly provided for the necessity and convenience of it by sending the third Person of the ever Blessed Trinity who might actuate and direct it and performing the Office of a Paraclet teach exhort comfort and intercede for every single Member of it By this the drooping Spirits of the Apostles were erected their Fears dispelled and their Minds enlightened by this the truth of the Christian Religion was put past all Dispute and the Church invigorated with such an assurance of Divine assistance as might secure it from all Dangers and place it beyond the rage of men or fury of Tyrants We also at this day partake of the blessed Effects of this great Benefit we share in the Joys of the Apostles and experience the Influences of that Divine Spirit By this they were inabled to convey down to us infallibly the Christian Religion and found a Church of which to be Members we esteem our greatest Happiness By this Spirit we are united to the Body of the Church to Christ our Head and to one another By this we are excited to vertue and the practice of our Duty are assisted in the search of Truth are comforted in Afflictions and upheld in Dangers This Spirit our Saviour promised ver 16. should abide with us for ever not in that measure indeed and abundance which was conferred on the Apostles but according to the proportion of our necessities and the Improvement of that present Portion which is already conferred on us Let us endeavour by an exact discharge of our Duty and daily improvement in Piety to augment our Interest in the benefits of this Day and favour of the Holy Ghost at least let us take care least by our negligence and degenerate Behaviour we forfeit our Title to them both Lastly as we are obliged to admire and celebrate the infinite Goodness of God in bestowing upon the Church the diffusive Presence of the Holy Ghost by his Mission as upon this Day so are we no less engaged to be thankful for his particular Presence in the Holy Sacrament since this not only gives us a firm assurance of the continuance of that Presence which was at first granted as so great a Blessing to the Apostles but also derives down upon all worthy Communicants as far as is necessary to them the same Gifts and Graces which the first Descent of it procured to the Apostles By this means we may not only commemorate but act anew and experience in our selves all the Glories of this day by receiving into our Souls a plentiful Effusion of the same Spirit But then as several previous Dispositions were required in the Apostles to qualifie them for the reception of so great a Benefit so must we prepare our selves for the Participation of so great a Mystery with no less diligence and caution that as they firmly believed and constantly expected the Promises of our Saviour although he had removed his Corporeal Presence from them so we should without any Fluctuation believe the certain performance of all those Graces which are promised to all worthy Communicants and that however his natural Body is absent from us yet he is really present in the Elements by the Efficacy and Operation of the Holy Spirit that as they prepared themselves for the reception of the Holy Ghost by an intire Resignation of their Wills to his influence and direction so we should fit our Souls for the Entertainment of all those Graces conferred in the Sacrament by a perfect Resignation of our selves to God and steady Resolution of performing his Commands And that as they in order to obtain the promised Mission of a Comforter met all together with one accord in one house so we in order to receive the mighty Benefits of this Sacrament should be united in perfect Charity to one another If any of these due Qualifications be wanting we shall be so far from obtaining any share in the Benefits of this Day or Commemorating as we ought the wonderful Mission of the Holy Ghost that we shall forfeit our Title to all the Benefits of the Gospel and do despight to the Spirit of Grace Now to God the Father God the Son c. The Second SERMON PREACH'D Septemb. 16th 1688. At LAMBETH CHAPEL Philip. II. 5. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus OUR blessed Saviour hath not only revealed to us the whole Will of God in relation to Mankind and thereby given to us a most excellent and truly Divine Religion but also set us a most perfect Example of Holiness and universal Righteousness in the whole Conduct of his Life therein exceeding all other Lawgivers
Authority of his Example and direct us by the clearness of it But this is not all The Apostles having once converted Men to the belief and obedience of Christ thought no Argument more powerful to perswade them to the Practice of all Christian Graces than the Example of their Divine Master This they urge upon all occasions and with this they recommend their Precepts and Counsels Particularly St Peter 1 Pet. II. exhorting all Christians to Patience under Sufferings and a constant Resolution to endure the most grievous Afflictions and even Death it self for the sake of their Religion a Duty which may justly be accounted the greatest and most difficult of Christianity giveth this Reason for it Ver. 21. For even hereunto were ye called because Christ also suffered for us leaving us an Example that we should follow his steps By which Reason he manifestly shews that it is the indispensable Duty of Christians to follow the Example of Christ and that thereunto we are chiefly called otherwise he could never have inferred from those words that it was an Obligation incumbent upon all Christians to be patient under Sufferings and Adversities this being but a Consequence of that grand and more general Duty However that we may not doubt of it we are told That he who saith he abideth in Christ ought himself also so to walk even as he walked 1 Joh. II. 6. And in another place If any man hath not the Spirit of Christ he is none of Christ's So that if the command and intention of our Saviour can oblige us if the Sense of our Duty and Exhortation of the Apostles can move us if the desire of Union with Christ and being accounted Members of his Body can perswade us we have on all sides abundant Reason to apply our selves to the serious Imitation of his most holy Example 3. That the Example of the Blessed Jesus was intended for our Direction may be gathered from the manner of his triennial Preaching before his Passion This consisted not so much in revealing the Mysteries of the Gospel and inculcating the knowledge of his Office and the Redemption of Mankind which he designed as in performing illustrious Miracles and shewing in his Person a no less illustrious Pattern of consummate Vertue which after his Resurrection being testified to the World by his Apostles and Disciples the Eye witnesses of his Life and Actions might convince Mankind that he was in all Respects a Divine Person and when once convinced might engage them to the Practice of their Duty and direct them in it by the Lustre of his own Example That this not the clear Revelation of the Mysteries of Faith was the grand Design of his triennial Ministry may be concluded from the gross Ignorance of the Apostles concerning those things not only during that time but even after his Resurrection Insomuch as they asked their Lord being now ready to ascend up into Heaven Lord wilt thou at this time restore again the Kingdom to Israel Acts I. 6. They laid not aside their Prejudices and false Expectations of a temporal Mefsias till the Descent of the Holy Ghost upon them enlightned their Minds and dispelled their Ignorance Now if the compleat instruction of his Disciples had been the chief design of our Saviour while on Earth we cannot without Injury to his infinite Wisdom imagine that he should so far fall short of his aim and not be able to effect his Purpose So that the great Intention of this triennial Office seems to have been no other than to give abundant Proof of his Divine Mission by Miracles and the Completion of the antient Prophesies to finish the great work of our Redemption upon the Cross and exhibit in his own Person and Example of most perfect Holiness that so all these things being after his Ascension testified to the World by his Apostles the former might serve for the Conviction the latter for the direction of Mankind And accordingly it may be observed that â—…he Apostles confulting about choosing one into their number in the room of Judas the Traitor required before all things this Qualification in the Person to be ohosen Acts I. 21. That he should be one of those which had accompanied with them all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among them By which phrase the Jews were wont to design the moral Conversation Life and Conduct of any Man Even the Miraâ—…les of our Saviour tended no less to demonstrate his admirable Vertue than Almighty Power they all carry evident Characters of his Love Beneficence and Charity to Mankind and were employed in curing the Diseases healing the Infirmities and relieving the Necessities of Men that so his Goodness and Power might equally appear in the same Actions And thus it appears that one great end of our Saviours coming into the World was to give an excellent Example to it Lastly the Truth of this is manifest from the Consideration of the manner and quality of our Saviours Conduct which was peculiarly adapted to the nature and condition of Mankind and thereby rendred a fit Object of Imitation to it The Holiness and Vertue of our Saviour which so eminently appeared in the whole Deportment of his Life was easie humane and natural It consisted not in elaborate Austerities and rigid Acts of Mortification aimed at no such extraordinary Flights of apparent Holiness as might amaze rather than instruct Men and by the Greatness of them dâ—…ter them from Imitation His Deportment was grave and composed his Piety plain and unaffected his Devotion sober and rational We may discover far more evident strokes of Austerity and Mortification in the Life of John the Baptist not that the Vertue of our Saviour was less perfect but more humane Such extraordinary Acts of apparent Religion were necessary to John the Baptist to excite the attention of the Jews to his Message and Preaching For since he came not invested with the power of Miracles somewhat was necessary to him to fix the Eyes of the world upon him and create a Belief among the Jews that he was a Divine Prophet To this end it was required That he should come in the Spirit of Elias that is not only possess the same Zeal for the Divine Honour and use the same unwearied Diligence for restoring decayed Religion among the Jews but also practice the same Rigours and Macerations of his Body and procure to himself respect by the same Characters of external Holiness Not that these unusual Austerities had any thing excellent in themselves or were any certain Indications of a more refined Vertue but were absolutely necessary to him for the end before mentioned And therefore our Saviour who wanted no such Recommendation his Divine Mission being abundantly testified by his Miracles and whose Life was to be the standing Rule of Piety and Vertue to all Ages exercised no such wonderful Austerities but gave us a more easie and natural Example which might not surpass the common reach
was the Holy Jesus from disturbing the publick quiet violating the Rights of the Civil Magistrate invading the Property of his Neighbours or doing any thing in opposition to those common Rights which are upheld by the Execution of Civil Laws that neither his imbittered Enemies nor his corrupt Judges could find any Resemblance of such Actions None ever urged a more steadfast Loyalty to the Supreme Powers nor demonstrated a more ready Obedience to the Commands of his Prince in all lawful things in the whole Conduct of his Life He not only enjoyned his Disciples to render unto Caesar the things which are Caesars but himself exactly performed it in submitting to his Deputies in paying to him Tribute even with the Expence of a Miracle and in studiously declining all the Acclamations of his admiring Followers which proceeded from the Expectation of a temporal Kingdom to be founded by him And in this both the Author and Doctrine of Christianity are eminently distinguished from all false Religions which Subject the common Laws of Justice to the interest of Religion and permit them to be freely violated for the Propagation of it Whereas Christianity hath secured the Rights of Princes wheresoever it hath obtained and added new Bonds of Obligation to the natural Ties of Justice Such at least was the Spirit of Christianity in the primitive Times when the cruel Persecutions and tyrannical Oppression of three hundred years could not provoke its Followers to resistance And such is the Spirit of it at this day wheresoever the Doctrine of it remains pure and uncorrupted But to demonstrate and magnifie the Justice of our Saviour a Vertue common even to moral Heathens and which would be the Duty of Mankind in order to preserve Society although there were no Religion in the world might be thought injurious to the eminent perfection of his Holiness did not the Experience of latter Ages and chiefly of our own Times evidence that not only the Precepts but also the Example of our Lord was necessary to recommend this Duty to his Followers And yet alas both are insufficient through the obstinacy of Men. No one Duty is more frequently or more securely violated by Christians than that of common Justice It was the Character which Pliny returned to the Emperour Trajan of the Christians when required to give him an account of their Opinions and Conversation That they were innocent and honest People who often meeting to celebrate the publick Worship of God bound themselves by the most solemn and sacred Oaths not to commit any Acts of Injustice Rapine and Violence to abstain from Theft Oppression and Fraud to be faithful to their Trust and not circumvent their Neighbours If that Learned Heathen were now alive I fear he would not be able to discover Christianity by this Note and Character and would hardly be perswaded that modern Christians were Professours of the same Religion But it is neither my business nor design to arraign the scandalous injustice of Christians in these times I will only add That this will increase our Condemnation that herein we have not only violated the Rules of a most just Religion but also departed from the Example of a most just Saviour The Meekness and mild Disposition of our Lord his Patience under Sufferings and readiness to forgive the greatest Injuries were no less Exemplary His meekness and patience were foretold by the Prophets He shall not strive nor cry neither shall any man hear his voice in the streets Esai XLII Tell ye the daughter of Sion Behold they King cometh unto thee meek and sitting upon an Asse Isa. LXII He was oppressed he was afflicted yet he opened not his mouth he is brought as a Lamb to the slaughter and as sheep before her shearers is dumb so opened he not his mouth Esai LIII 7. How exactly all these Prophesies were fulfilled in his Person the whole History of the Gospel manifests He might if he had so pleased come attended with numerous Guards and a powerful Retinue which might have secured his Honour from Contempt and Scorn and struck Terrour into his Enemies yet he condescended to appear in a meek and humble Condition rather as the Lamb of God than as the Lion of the Tribe of Judah In the Execution of his Office he was frequently opposed by the unreasonable unbelief of some and obstinate Perverseness of others And not only so but despised reviled and slandered provoked with the most outrageous Injuries and betrayed by his own Friends and Creatures All these Affronts he might easily have revenged with the breath of his Mouth and returned upon his Adversaries their deserved Punishment by a single Demonstration of his Almighty Power But he quietly endured the highest Contradiction of sinners and possessed his soul in Patience With what Goodness and affectionate Terms did he urge the Practice of his Precepts to Mankind These he might have imposed on us as his Servants and Vassals He might have delivered them as God did the Law at Mount Sinai with Thunder and Lightning and given no other reason than his own Authority but he chose rather to urge them in a sweet and familiar manner and conjure Mankind by their own Good by the hopes of Happiness and by the remembrance of his Benefits to the observance of them With what Calmness and Serenity did he treat his most inveterate Enemies and not deny to the Traitour Judas even in the very Act of his Treason the endearing Compellation of Friend But then if we view the Circumstances of his Passion with what courage and composure of Mind he underwent those terrible Sufferings with what Meekness he bore the Insults and Scoffs of his Enemies how when he was reviled he reviled not again when he suffered he threatned not but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously If we consider the Tranquility of his Soul in all these things and the unparallel'd Excess of his Mercy in praying for his Persecutors Father forgive them for they know not what they do We must conclude the whole to have been a most amazing instance of Meekness and Patience Such was the Example of our Saviour which fully expressed the force and meaning of his many Precepts and Exhortations relating to this Matter No Duty is more frequently and more largely urged by him than this of forgiving Injuries and overcoming Revenge That we should treat our Adversaries sweetly and without Passion that we should win them by kindness to an acknowledgement of their Fault and then freely forgive it to them or if they cannot by Mildness be obliged to Repentance yet at least to banish all thoughts and revenge of anger Not that the Religion of Christ forbids Men to use all lawful Defences or invoke the assistance of the Civil Magistrate against Injuries and Violences offered to them when impunity may encourage wicked Men to a greater Boldness and tend to the loss of private Persons or the disadvantage of the publick Christianity preserves intire all the
priviledges of Nature and derogates not in the least from the Rules of Justice but forbids Men to be transported by Passion against their Adversaries and not to seek revenge for revenge sake that is it does not forbid to repair the loss of this Injury or prevent the like Injustice to himself or others for the future but to return the Injury and gratifie his anger in creating a like Inconvenience to his Adversary or maintaining an inward Hatred to him And herein the Spirit of Christianity most eminently discovers it self For to preserve the common Rights of Justice is no extraordinary matter for a revealed Religion to perform This the Dictates of Nature the Sense of our own temporal Interest and the Rules of civil Society may effect But to conquer those violent Passions of Hatred Anger and desire of Revenge to retain a quiet and undisturbed Mind amidst provoking Injuries and Affronts to entertain the insults of an Enemy rather with Pity than Resentment and manifest how little we were affected with them by a constant readiness to forgive them These are the proper Characters and most certain Marks of a Soul filled with the Love of God and plac't above the reach of humane things which hath an intire Command of the inferiour Faculties of the Body and doth in earnest pursue the ends of a Divine Religion These chiefly rendred the Life of Christ admirable and extraordinary and will make us the not unworthy Disciples of so great a Master Lastly the Charity of our Lord was correspondent to all the other perfections of his Mind that is most intense and of the highest degree Indeed this seems to have been the darling Vertue of the Blessed Jesus Which he studiously cultivated above all others to promote which all his designs did in some measure tend and his Example most directly lead All the Actions of his Life were almost so many Demonstrations of his Love to Mankind Even his Miracles which were primarily wrought to testifie his Divine Power bore eminent Characters of this Loving kindness being employed in healing the Diseases and supplying the wants of Men upon account of which the Apostle saith That he went about doing good and even his Enemies were forced to confess Mark VII 37. He hath done all things well he maketh both the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak But the highest Testimony of the Charity of our Saviour was his inestimable Love in the Redemption of Mankind his descent from Heaven ignominious Life upon Earth and at last most painful Death upon the Cross to rescue his own Creatures who had rebelled against him from the Power of Satan and the consequences of their own sins Hereby perceive we the love of God because he laid down his life for us 1 John III. 16. And greater love than this hath no man A Love so stupendious that it no less confounds the Apprehension than exceeds the imitation of finite Men. To this the highest Expressions of our Charity are but faint attempts and imperfect shadows A perfect imitation of it is beyond our Capacity and therefore not required but whatsoever is possible to us can be but a mean return to so vast an Obligation St. John therefore makes this easie and natural inference from it Beloved if God so loved us we ought also to love one another 1 John IV. 11. If our Creator loved us his Creatures who had nothing in us worthy his Love but had many ways offended and deserved his extreme Displeasure if he loved us to so wonderful a degree surely we ought to love our Fellow Creatures who have in them no less excellent Perfections than our Selves with all possible affection which however to the utmost of our power is yet infinitely beneath the Love wherewith he loved us Especially since our Saviour chiefly imposed this Condition on us in return of his infinite Kindness and that also in respect to his own Example John XIII 34 35. A new commandment I give unto you That ye love one another as I have loved you that ye also love one another By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye love one another So that in this consisteth the very Life of Christianity without this no man can pretend to be the Disciple of our Lord. By this in the Apostolick times Christians were eminently distinguished from the rest of the world when they devoted all their Possessions to the Offices of Charity and had all things common An excess of Charity which however no longer Practicable than while the number of Disciples continued to be small and was therefore laid aside when the Church became numerous as being neither necessary nor convenient nor even possible yet clearly shews what was the primitive Genius of Christianity how exactly they followed the Footsteps of their Blessed Master and with what fervour of Charity they were indued A fervour which expired not with the disuse of that Apostolick Custom of sharing their Possessions in common but continued to exert it self for some Ages after in all possible Demonstrations of a real Charity Insomuch that the Heathens used to cry out in admiration See how these Galileans love one another If then we be unwilling to be accused of having disobeyed the great Commandment of our Saviour forsaken his Example and intirely lost the genuine Spirit of Christianity we must retreive that admirable Charity which was by him so mightily enjoyned practiced and bequeathed to his Disciples Thus I have considered the Example of our Lord in some of the greater lines and strokes of it and shewn it to have been in all respects the most excellent which could possibly be proposed to Mankind It remains that I urge the imitation of it in some few words First then the imitation of this Divine Example is the Duty of every Christian considered in the Notion of a Disciple which includes not only an Obligation of yielding an intire Obedience to the commands of Christ but also of following his Example as near as possible and that in the first place To assent to and obey the Divine Precepts is properly the Notion of a Believer but of a Disciple to imitate the Actions and Conduct of his Master And therefore the Patriarchs and Jews might well be called Believers in God but not the Disciples of God Precepts only were given to them the Divine Example was not proposed as a Rule unto them The Apostles of our Lord are also by way of eminence called his Disciples Because they were the constant Witnesses and Attendants of his Life who did partake of the same manner of living and were supposed to be his Companions as well in moral as natural Actions Although this Title is not so far appropriated to them as to be denied to us if we take the same care to follow the Example of our Lord and Master as they did We may follow it though at a distance we may pursue it though we cannot attain to it And that
we may do it those first and chief Disciples have enabled us by giving us large Accounts of the Actions and Life of our Saviour in the Holy Gospels Himself tell us John XV. 8. If ye bear much fruit so shall ye be my Disciples and then Ver. 10. explains their bearing much Fruit by imitating his obedience to the Divine Commands If ye keep my commandments ye shall abide in my love even as I have kept my Fathers commandments and abide in his love So that if we desire to retain the name of a Disciple and thereby preserve our Relation to Christ we must perform the Duty of a Disciple by religiously following the Example of our Lord and Master But then in the next place to imitate the Life and Actions of our Saviour is not only our Duty but our Happiness We may be sure that while the Blessed Jesus lived on Earth he pursued the true ends of Happiness and cultivated those Vertues which were most conducive to the perfection of his Nature and the Dignity of his Office What Honour then must it needs be to us mortal Men to be made like unto the Son of God in the Practice of the same Vertues in pursuing the same Methods of Happiness and in an intire Conformity of Actions It was the highest Ambition of the more generous among the Heathens to imitate the Lives of their antient Heroes and be thought like unto them And shall not we ardently desire to resemble our most Blessed Redeemer by a similitude of Holiness and Vertue Their Ambition was misplac't and therefore the occasion of their Unhappiness ours is directed to the right Object and therefore cannot be too great It must needs be an infinite Satisfaction to every pious Soul to be employed about the same Duties wherein the Blessed Jesus spent his Life to exercise the same Offices of Piety Charity and Devotion to be inspired with the same Principles of Humility Meekness and Patience This Consideration will dispel all weariness will add Vigour to our Souls and remove the fear of all temporal Evils which may attend the performance of our Duty This will support us under all outward Calamities alleviate our Sorrows and calm our Tempests to remember That our Lord endured the same Afflictions upon the same account If he was content to undergo the Malice of men and fury of Devils shall we hope to be exempted from the Attempts of the same Enemies If the world hate you ye know that it hated me before it hated you John XV. 18. And shall we refuse to undergo the same Fortunes with our Lord and Master No surely Only let us take care that the Hatred and Persecution of Men be brought upon us for no other Cause than they were on him that is not through any fault of ours but only for the sake of God and our obedience to his Commands So shall we imitate him as well in the most happy tranquility of Mind under all Afflictons as in the Afflictions themselves and the Causes of them Lastly The constant imitation of our Lords Example will be our Comfort and Satisfaction in the whole course of our Lives which will remove all Doubts and Difficulties and give us the best assurance that we have performed the whole Duty of Man If only Precepts of a good Life had been given to us we might have been daily distracted with Doubts and Scruples concerning the meaning extent and Application of them they might have been perverted by the errour and craft of Men and rendred useless by false Glosses and Interpretations whereas the Example of our Saviour hath taken away all these Scruples and placed every Precept in its full light If we truly imitate his Example we are infallibly assured That we have in all things done our Duty even as he performed the whole Will of God and more than once obtained that Testimony from Heaven This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased So much greater assurance may we have by following his Example than by respecting his Precepts only And therefore St. Paul after so many Rules and Precepts given to his Converts still adviseth them to be Followers of him but then no farther than he followed Christ. Be ye followers of me even as I also am of Christ. r Cor. XI 1. By this also we shall be inabled to give a satisfactory Reason of all our Actions and put to silence the Gainsaying of foolish Men without the assistance of any profound knowledge or deep Speculation If they deride our Christian Vertues and scoffe at the Duties of Humility Self-denial and Mortification it will be sufficient to answer That in practising them we imitate the Example of the Son of God the eternal Wisdom of the Father Let them please themselves with their Mirth and false supposal of a more refined knowledge We follow an infallible Guide and Pattern who if he hath not placed the Wisdom of his Precepts in so clear a light as the Sun in Heaven hath at least recommended them by his Practice and can assert them by his Power Such are the Obligations of all Christians to imitate the Example of their Saviour and such are the Benefits which result from it Let us by an earnest endeavour to follow this most excellent Example fullfil the Obligations and obtain the Benefits that as we have been on Earth made like unto him in Vertue and Holiness so we may hereafter in Heaven be made yet more like unto him in Glory and Immortality The Third SERMON PREACH'D October 1688. At LAMBETH CHAPEL 1 Pet. III. 15. Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear THE most Wise God hath so contrived that most Holy and excellent Religion which he intended as the most perfect and ultimate Revelation of his Will to the World that it tendeth equally to manifest his own infinite Wisdom and Goodness and to procure the Salvation of Mankind His Wisdom appeareth in the Excellency and Simplicity of those Rules which it proposeth in its immediate tendency to beget and establish due Notions and Apprehensions of the Deity in the reasonableness of its Constitution and admirable Congruity to the nature of Mankind His Goodness is conspicuous not only in those infinite Rewards which he hath affixed to the performance of it in the Free Pardon of rebellious Sinners and liberal distribution of his Graces but which more directly comes under our present Consideration in adapting that Religion which he intended for the benefit of all to the Capacity of all and thereby rendring it no less easie than advantageous And in this the Christian Religion infinitely exceeds all other Systems of Religion whether true or false Among the Heathens many great and learned Persons had imployed their Wits in refining the Superstitions of their Countrey and assigning Reasons for that way of Worship which obtained among them But their Notions were abstruse and mystical their
of Heathen Philosophers tended to no other End than to foment their Pride and create in them a vain Opinion of their own Wisdom and Merits They referred it not to God nor employed it as a Principle of obedience to him It abated not their Passions reformed not their Lusts and had no visible influence upon their Lives save in making them haughty and supercilious the constant Character of those Philosophers In opposition to this the Apostle Wills that we express the Divinity of our Reâ—…igion in the Holiness of our Lives that we be not puft up with Pride nor imagine it to be the product either of our own merit or understanding that we acknowledge to have received it from God and profess that we expect either to be saved or damned by our obedience to the Rules of it that we perpetually maintain an awful regard of the Commands of our Almighty Lawgiver and set our selves to the performance of them with the most profound Humility and Submission that we be not affrighted from the profession of our Faith by the greatest threats or Terrours nor be betrayed to the Omission of our Duty by supine Negligence and want of Consideration But this in a word That we be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh us a reason of the hope that is in us with meekness and fear In Discoursing of these words I shall insist upon these two Heads which naturally offer themselves to our Consideration I. That the Christian Religion is agreeable to the Principles of Reason and carrieth sufficient Evidence along with it II. That it is the Duty of every Christian not wanting the means of sufficient Instruction to enable himself to give a Reason of his Faith I. That the Christian Religion c. For the Apostle commanding us To be always ready to give a reason of the hope that is in us plainly intimates that a Reason may be given of it For that by this term of the hope that is in us is to be understood the whole System of our Faith appears as well from the Context as from the frequent Acceptation of those words in the same Sense in divers places of the New Testament This Religion as it carrieth eminent Marks of its Divinity on many other Accounts so chiefly in the reasonableness and evidence of it and that either 1. In respect of the Nature of it and the Rules prescribed by it Or 2. In respect of the undoubted certainty of its having been revealed by God I. If we respect the Nature and Constitution of the Christian Religion and the Rules of Life and Worship proposed by it we shall find it exactly rational and attended with the greatest Evidence This might be proved by many Considerations But at present I shall insist on no more than two As I. Christianity proposeth a Divine Worship most consentaneous to the Nature of God and tendeth most effectually to secure his Honour among men The Brimary end of all Religion is the Worship of God and is intended cither to pay to God that tribute of Adoration and Thanks which his infinite Majesty and right of Creation Redemption and other benefits require or to implore his Favour in pardoning our sins supplying our Necessities or conferring his Graces on us All these Actions ought to be directed in that way which is most sutable to his Nature and may best express the perfection of it God is a Spirit and therefore requireth to be worshipped in spirit and truth Our Soul alone is truly capable of Religon can alone entertain the Idea of God and form an Act of Worship All outward Ceremonies and corporeal Modes of Worship are no otherwise Holy or to be accounted of than as they tend to shew the inward Devotion of the Soul which is wont to declare its Thoughts and Motions when vehement and intense by external Indications All other voluntary external Acts of Worship which are not the natural Effects and Signs of an inward Zeal and warmth of Devotion serve only to gratifie a foolish Superstition and relate no more to the Worship of God than any other irregular Motions of the Body If we really imploy the Faculties of our Soul as we ought to do in admiring the perfections of the Divine Nature in adoring his Majesty loving his Goodness and fearing his Justice these affections of the Mind will naturally discover themselves in outward Acts and Gestures and cannot be suppressed These external Actions declare to others the inward Sense of our Minds and thereby tend to manifest the Honour of God and publish his Glory but deserve no otherwise to be regarded either by God or Man than as they are the Signs and Effects of an inward Piety And hence we may judge of the Excellency of our Religion without considering the Evidence of its Revelation If it be chiefly employed in external Shews and Ceremonies and makes the performance of them without any inward Motion of the Soul an Act of Worship if it represents the Divine Attributes and Perfections by corporeal Symbols rather than noble Conceptions of the Soul and desires God to accept of that mean and imperfect Service instead of a near Conformity to himself by the Exercise of Holiness and Vertue Such a Religion may perhaps be true but neither agrceable to the Excellency of God nor answering to the Dignity of our own Nature God may accept it or even Command it for a time in Compassion to the Blindness and infirmity of Mankind not capable under some Circumstances of a more noble and spiritual Religion but could never intend to continue it any longer than till he should please to make a more full and open Revelation of himself And this was the Case of the Jewish Religion For the Heathens deserve not here to be considered among whom religious Worship consisted wholly in external Rites and Actions and those oft-times such as were in their own Nature unlawful The Religion of the Jews however instituted by God was chiefly employed in outward Rites and Observances in Washings and Abstinence from certain Meats in Observation of times and tedious Ceremonies which although they served to typefie the coming of the Messias and with him the Revelation of a more perfect Religion Yet did not directly signifie any inward Acts of Reverence Piety or Devotion nor were necessarily accompanied by them The perpetual offering of carnal Sacrifices alone argued the imperfection of their Worship Since therein the Sacrificers desired of God to accept the Lives of Beasts instead of a more holy and reasonable Sacrifice the devoting their own Wills and Affections to his Service 'T is the peculiar Honour of the Christian Religion to worship God in a manner agreeable to the simplicity of his Nature in Spirit and Truth In this the Affections of the Soul are alone respected no Ceremonial Observances imposed on us nor indeed any external Acts of Worship save only those Foederal Rites I mean the two Sacraments of Baptism and the
the natural reason and sense of Mankind are most perfective of it as hath been already in some measure shown Neither are they contrary to any precedent Revelation For although they tend to abolish and destroy the Mosaick Institution This doth not in the least derogate from the truth of it The Mosaick Law by the very Nature of it was fitted only for the Nonage of Revelation and to continue no longer than till the times of Reformation should come But which cleareth the matter beyond all doubt God had expressly foretold to the Jews that he would put an end to their Dispensation and institute a new and more perfect Covenant Infinite places to this purpose might be alledged out of the Old Testament I shall name but one In the aforementioned passage of Jeremy God tells them Behold the days come that I will make a new Covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah Not according to the Covenant which I made with their Fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt But this shall be the Covenant which I will make with the house of Israel The Christian Religion doth not only not contradict the Jewish Revelation but also receive infinite Confirmation from it God by foretelling the coming of the Messias with all the Circumstances of it had abundantly provided that when he should come unless a fatal Blindness and Stupidity intervened he should not be rejected by those for whose sake he came God had promised his coming to our first Parents had assured Abraham That in him all the Nations of the carth should be blessed had revealed to Jacob That before the departure of the Scepter from Judah Shiloh should come and had declared to the Jews by the mouth of Moses That he would raise up a Prophet from among them like unto him whom they should be bound to hear in all things But all this is inconsiderable in respect of that full and more clear Manifestation given by God in after Ages The most Wise God choosing to prefigure him by more express Characters according as the time of his coming drew more near In the Psalms and Prophets the manner and place of his Birth the Nature of his Office the meanness of his Condition the manner and bitterness of his Sufferings the Triumphs of his Resurrection in a word all the Circumstances of his Life and Death are so plainly pointed out and related that nothing less than a perverse Blindness could doubt of the Person designed by them Among the latter Prophets Daniel foretold that he should come at the end of seventy weeks of years and Malachi the last of all that he should come before the Second Temple was destroyed and honour it with his Presence So that all the Miracles which were wrought in Confirmation of the Jewish Religion tend most effectually to establish the Christian Faith Not only because all the Characters assigned by the Prophets to denote the future Messias met most exactly in the Person of our Saviour but because they can meet in no one else For the time prefixed for the Accomplishment of the Prophecies concerning the Messias is plainly expired and yet no other Person hath yet appeared to whom the Characters of the Messias can with any shew of Reason be applied So that either the Jewish Religion is wholly false or the Christian infallibly true Then as for the Miracles of our Saviour it is impossible to imagine any more wonderful in their Operation more beneficial in their Nature more Convictive of their Divine Original or better attested than they were So great and stupendious that they forced even his Adversaries to confess That no man ever did such works as he convinced the multitude That even when the Messias should come he could not do greater works than those and induced the Roman Centurion watching at his Cross even at the lowest ebb of his Fortunes and after he had lost his Life by an ignominious Punishment to acknowledge him to be the Son of God They were not performed once or twice but frequently upon all occasions and for many years together by himself and his Apostles Not in Corners or before a few Confidents but in the Face of the world in the publick Streets before vast multitudes and in all parts of the Earth They tended not so much to raise the amazement and astonishment of Spectators as all false Miracles do as to relieve the Infirmities cure the Diseases and procure the benefit of some part at least of Mankind and therein by a wonderful mixture of Wisdom served no less to declare the Goodness than the Power of God That the History of the Miracles and Life of our Saviour as it is delivered to us in the Books of the New Testament is true we have all the Reason in the world to believe These Books were written by Persons who were Eye-witnesses of what they relate or at least who received Instructions from such They had all the advantages which could possibly be required of knowing the truth of them And so could not be mistaken in their Relations and that they should wilfully deceive us we have no reason to believe We might with as much reason call in doubt and dis-believe all the Relations of former Histories which depend upon no other Authority than that of their Writers yet should we justly esteem him Mad who should doubt whether there were ever such Persons as Caesar and Alexander in the world and we daily regulate our Actions and found our Concerns upon matters attested with no better Proofs But to our comfort and entire conviction Christianity hath yet much greater Evidence The Writers of these Books are known to have been Persons of unquestioned Integrity who far from managing any worldly design or interest in this matter quitted all the Conveniences of Life underwent the most toilsome Labours and Miseries suffered Punishments Contempt and Scorn and at last laid down their Lives in Attestation of the truth of what they had related Not to say that they confirmed the truth of their report by Miracles while alive and that their Holiness Sincerity and miraculous Power was in like manner attested for some Ages after by many pious and learned Persons who laid down their Lives in Testimony of their veracity and wrought Miracles in Confirmation of it until a great part of Mankind being by these convincing Proofs converted to the belief of Christianity and the truth of them fully made known to the world Miracles became no longer necessary All these things happened in a learned and inquisitive Age and were Matters of the greatest moment concerning no less than the eternal Happiness or Misery of Mankind So that on both these Accounts if the least ground of Forgery or Imposture could have been discovered in the Christian Religion it would have been impossible for it to have gained any Success or made any progress in the World Especially if
we consider with how great Zeal and Vehemency both the Magistrates and Philosophers of those times opposed it and undertook the Extirpation of it They applied themselves to this design with the utmost Diligence and Fervour and left no stone unturned whereby they might either discover any Imposture in it or stop the Progress of it But the Evidence of its truth assisted with the Divine Providence bore down all opposition The blood of the Martyrs became the seed of the Church and its learned Adversaries were forced to Confess its Doctrines to be Divine and the Founder of it an extraordinary Person Lastly that the Writings of the Apostles and Evangelists were the same which we now possess under their Names and were conveyed uncorrupted through all Ages appears not only from the constant Tradition of Christians and their great care to preserve those sacred Monuments intire and uncorrupted in which their eternal welfare was so nearly concerned But also from the several Translations made of them immediately after the times of the Apostles some of which are now extant from written Copies preserved even to this day written not long after the Apostolick times and from the Citations of antient Writers in all Ages Thus I have briefly proposed to you the Proofs upon which the Christian Religion depends to which I might have added many more as the exact Completion of all our Saviours Prophesies more particularly in that remarkable Destruction of Jerusalem within the time prefixed by him the Constancy Resolution and Number of Christian Martyrs in those ancient times when they had certain means of infallibly knowing the truth of these Matters the Conquest which under so many disadvantages it made over the feircest opposition of the Roman Empire and Heathen Philosophy and those many extraordinary Interpositions of Divine Providence in favour of it which have signally appeared in all Ages of the Church but these shall at present suffice The Fourth SERMON PREACH'D November 1688. At LAMBETH CHAPEL 1 Pet. III. 15. Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear IN Discoursing on these Words I did propose to insist on these two Heads I. That the Christian Religion is agreeable to the Principles of Reason and carrieth sufficient Evidence along with it II. That it is the Duty of every Christian not wanting the means of sufficient Instruction to enable himself to give a Reason of his Faith The former of these I dispatched in the foregoing Sermon I now proceed to the Second Head of Discourse Namely II. That it is the Duty of every Christian not wanting the means of sufficient Instruction to enable himself to give a Reason of his Faith That this not the constant resolution of professing the Faith at all times without Fear or Cowardice was the Primary intent of the Apostolick Precept in my Text appeareth in that the Apostle willeth us to do this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which our Translators have not so exactly rendred by way of Apology or in Confutation of the Calumnies and Objections brought against our Religion by the Adversaries of it I will not say that such a perfect and compleat knowledge is absolutely the Duty of every private Christian so that he cannot be saved without it God requireth of no Man any thing beyond his natural strength or capacity or which he had no Opportunities nor means to attain unto We know how great a part of the Christian Church over-run with Tyranny and Oppression hath insensibly fallen into a deplorable Ignorance These we cannot in Reason condemn as wanting all means of better Instruction but rather applaud their Constancy and pray for their Delivery We know also how great a Society of Christians labours under miserable Ignorance and the consequence of its gross Erroâ—…s by the artifice and contrivance of their Guides who deny to them the use of the Seriptures and teach them to content themselves with an implieit Faith These also we will not in Charity condemn To their own Master they either stand or fall Lastly we are not insensible how many Members of our own Communion either through want of leisute or natural imbecillity of understanding through default of Education or other accidental defects un-foreseen and unprovided for are but meanly instructed in the Mysteries of the Christian Faith But to us who want neither means of Instruction nor Capacity of receiving them no excuse is left if we do not improve them to a full Comprehension of the Mysteries of our Faith whereby we may both obtain a rational Conviction of the truth of it in our selves and be enabled to vindicate the honour of our Lord and Saviour from the Contradiction of foolish and unreasonable Men. Christianity indeed iâ—… not in our Age opposed with that open and barefac't Confidence wherewith it was in the Apostles time when it was forced to wrestle with Principalities and Powers and spiritual wickedness in high places the united force of a Victorious and learned Empire Yet we want not secret impugners of our most Holy Faith who if by the natural Light of Reason and remorse of Conscience they he restrained from professing their secret Atheism and denying the Existence of a God yet stick not to oppose all revealed Religions and especially Christianity because most contrary to their beloved Lusts in defence of which only they maintain their impious Opinions It is the interest of these Men that Christianity should be false that so the licencious practice of their Lusts and Passions may not be abbridged to them and the Expectation of eternal Punishments imbitter all their Pleasures For to the Honour of Christianity be it said that in these latter Ages it hath had no Enemies but Men of profligate and debauched Lives who either denyed the Being of a God or lived as without God in the world However the Conviction of these Men is far more difficult than antiently of the Heathen Philosophers Of whom many sincerely searched after the Truth which commonly ended in the discovery of it and embracing the Christian Religion whereas these dispute only for the Love of their Lusts and sensual Pleasures are thence transported with violent Prejudices willfully shut their Eyes against the Truth cast the words of Convicton behind them and hate to be reformed To vindicate the Honour of God of Christ and our Religion against the Blasphemies of such men is the Duty of every Christian in his place and station and as opportunities are ministred to him Nor are there wanting those among us who openly and with great excess of apparent Zeal seek to withdraw us from our most Holy Religion endeavouring to impose upon us the belief of pernicious Errours and Superstitions They oppose not directly indeed the Faith of Christ but corrupt it with Errours and false Opinions rend in sunder the Unity of the Church by promoting and perswading a Schifmatical departure from it and openly impugn the
most Holy Reform'd Religion of our Church which is indeed no other than the pure and genuine Christianity by decrying it as Heretical and Damnable To obviate the Designs of these men nothing can be more effectual than to apply our selves diligently to the study of Christianity to enquire in the Holy Scriptures what Christ hath revealed to us and to search the Design and Mysteries of his Religion This is become the Duty of every private Christian at this time that so his Ignorance may not lay him open to the Attempts of designing Men who lay in wait to deceive and betray him to be a prey to Errour and Superstition To this pursuance and encrease of knowledge our Church encourageth and earnestly intreats us She taketh no refuge in the Ignorance of her Communicants nor discourageth them from examining her Doctrines and Opinions as well knowing that this Examination will end in a full Conviction of the truth of them and that the Improvement of our knowledge in Divine Matters and an impartial study of them will infallibly secure us from the delusions of her Enemies And this is the first Reason why every private Christian ought to be fully instructed concerning the Reasons of his Faith that so he may answer the Objections and escape the Assaults of those who endeavour to withdraw us from the truth or seduceus to the belief of any Enrour II. It is a strict Enquiry into the Reasons and Arguments of our Religion and full Comprehension of them which properly maketh Faith to be praise worthy in it self acceptable to God and capable of reward An assent to Christianity without respect to the Arguments of its truth may be a Happiness to ignorant Persons in as much as they enjoy those opportunities which lead to such an assent such as are Education in a Christian Countrey or under Christian Parents or Masters whereby through custom or respect to the Authority of those Persons they embrace Christianity and are led thereby to the knowledge of God the Practice of their Duty and dependence upon the Merits of a Crucified Saviour But surely we cannot imagine this to be an Act deserving the Favour of God or even comparable to the meanest of moral Vertues Before all which a true Divine Faith is so frequently and so eminently preferred in Scripture For since such a Disposition of Mind I mean an inclination to follow the Example and Authority of our Countrey Parents or Masters in assenting to the Religion received by them may and doth equally dispose Men to the embracing of Errour as of Truth it is to be accounted a thing wholly indifferent and if it proceeds from a a willful Negligence of examining the Grounds of any Religion when means and ability are not wanting to us is extremely vicious but no otherwise laudable than in the happy consequences of it and opportunities it may possibly minister of coming to the Truth Indeed Christianity is so admirably fitted to the perfection and Salvation of Mankind that it cannot be assented to upon any Grounds whatsoever even by the most ignorant Persons without a precedent habit of Mind which is truly vertuous and excellent and in an extraordinary manner testifying a profound obedience to the Commands of God in the Person assenting may not unfitly be thought to qualifie him for the Divine Favour For Christianity proposing such Rules as restrain the corrupt Lusts and Passions of men teaching a strict Sobriety and Abstinence from unlawful Pleasures forbiding the satisfaction of the most darling Lusts and commanding men to deny to themselves what they are apt to imagine an extreme Happiness the unlimited Fruition of all sensual Pleasures and even upon occasion to forforsake the Conveniences of Life it self Choosing rather to suffer affliction than enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season None can assent to a Religion of this Nature without first overcoming his Lusts and Passions and being thoroughly convinced that all these ought to give place to the Command and Will of God which he believes to be proposed to him in the Christian Religion Such a Disposition is truly excellent and in them who want means of attaining a more perfect knowledge is rewarded by God as a true and perfect Act of Faith who condescends to the imperfection of Mankind and requiring of none more than he hath given to him supplyeth by his Mercy what is wanting to the perfection of our Faith But then such a Disposition of Mind is so far from being a true and proper Faith that it may consist without it and be joyned with Errour Neither can we imagine that Faith which hath all those glorious and particular Pro rises of Reward annexed to it in the Holy Scripture consists only in assenting to and firmly believing what we are assured God hath revealed to us For that we cannot but do None ever that believed the Existence of a God dis-believed what he was perswaded to have been revealed by him To do that were to suppose that God could err or lye and consequently were not God Such an assent therefore being necessary and unavoidable is not capable of a Reward and hath nothing excellent in it No Man can be an Infidel in this Sense And therefore none can be esteemed faithful from it And hence it appears that to have only moral and not demonstrative Proofs is so far from prejudicing the truth of Christianity that it is both necessary and advantageous to it For if the Truths of Christianity had been self evident or placed in as clear a Light as the Sun in Heaven Assent to them had been necessary and no Act of Choice and therefore incapable of reward Whereas now God hath so wisely contrived it that a rational Afsent to it and perfect Comprehension of it will exercise the diligence obedience and reason of Mankind in enquiring into whatsoever carrieth the stamp of Divine Authority in submitting to whatsoever justly appears to bear that sacred Character in using aright our Faculties of Reason and Understanding and employing them to the Glory of God All these Acts and Habits are in themselves praise worthy and rewarded by God with the Reward of Faith that is with infinite and eternal Happiness For 't is in a rational and just Assent to the Christian Religion for the sake of those Arguments which perswade it to have proceeded from the Divine Authority and a due use of our Reason in discovering its Divine Original that a true and perfect Faith consists For upon Conviction of its having been revealed by God we cannot but yield to the truth of it and if we desire or expect to attain the Rewards proposed by it betake our selves to a serious obedience to the Precepts of it For as a due use of our Understanding is no less difficult in it self and advantageous to us than of our Will so we ought to suppose that God will no less favourably accept it and no less highly reward it Certainly a right use of our Reason
to be to us the grand Motive of obedience to his Laws II. That it is the best and most effectual Motive which could be employed for that Purpose I. Then That gratitude or c. And this appears from the very Nature and end of Religion which was intended to bring Man to the practice of his Duty and consequently to Happiness and Salvation by other Arguments than what arose from the bare Consideration of the Divine Attributes and our own Relation to God our Creator our Selves and our fellow Creatures suggested by the light of Reason If these Considerations had been duly pondered by our first Parents they would have prevented the Misery of their Fall And that they were sufficient none will deny who acknowledgeth their Fall to have been an Effect of Choice not of Necessity Yet was the light of Revelation which God conferred on them very small and dim in respect of that Evidence which God conferred on following Ages He shew them the means whereby they might obtain remission of their Sins by promising that in due time The seed of the woman should break the serpents head and thereby to the Obligation of Creation added that of Redemption But it was the Memory of their Creation yet fresh in the Minds of men that maintained Religion in the world and preserâ—…ed a right Sense of the Majesty of God and their Duty to him It could not so easily be forgotten that God had produced Man out of nothing and eminently distinguished him from all other Creatures by giving him Dominion over them So great a Benefit could not easily be obliterated from their Minds but for many Ages kept alive an awful regard of the Divine Power and Beneficence When the Memory of that decayed and therewith an universal Corruption of Life and Manners ensued God re-inforced it with the Benefit of preserving Noah and his Family from the common Destruction of Mankind His Descendants could not but for many Ages retain a lively Sense of so signal a Mercy which had rescued them from an universal Calamity and manifested thereby how dear they were to God Yet in time the remembrance of this Benefit grew faint and Men thought themselves little concerned in that which was common to them with the rest of Mankind I mean the Benefits of Creation and Preservation They required nearer and more particular Testimonies of the Divine Favour which being appropriate to themselves might distinguish them from other Men by a greater Participation of the Divine Bounty This was the effect indeed of an irrational Judgment and prevailing ingratitude for was it not enough that God was the Author and Continuer of their Beings to engage them to his Service But an effect to which the corrupt Nature of Mankind was so prone that to restore decayed Religion in the World and revive the true Worship of himself he found it necessary to set apart a peculiar People whom he might oblige by particular Benefits to retrieve that gratitude which the Sense of his universal Benefits ought in all reason to have produced yet wanted its effect Hence forward God was worshipped primarily not as the Creator of Mankind and producer of the ordinary effects of Providence but as the Author of particular and peculiar Favours Which however could have no other direct influence upon the minds of Men thus signally obliged than to produce an extraordinary Sense of gratitude since the common Benefits of Creation and Conservation tended more naturally to beget a right Apprehension of the Divine Omnipotence and our dependance on it Thus God separated Abraham from the rest of Mankind and assured him with his Posterity to himself by a particular Covenant and Promise of giving to him the Land of Canaan Upon which account he was worshipped by Abraham under the Notion of the Author of that Promise by Isaac as the God of his Father by Jacob as the God of Abraham and the fâ—…ar of his Father Isaac by their Descendants till their Deliverance out of Egypt as the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob that is as the God who by the Promise made to their Forefathers had entailed upon themselves particular Blessings After their Deliverance out of Egypt and those many wonders and prodigies wrought in Favour of them God chose to be worshipped by them as the Author of that Deliverance and ushers in all his Commands with this Preface I am the Lord thy God which brought thee out of the land of Egpt out of the house of bondage And accordingly he was in all succeeding Ages worshipped by them under that Notion as appears from the frequent Commemoration of that Benefit in the Old Testament and the whole System of the Jewish Religion In which God challengeth Adoration and Worship from them not as the Author of their Creation but of their Deliverance who had so signally employed his Almighty Power in their Favour and by the very words of the Covenant so often repeated declared himself to be their God and them to be his people whereby he manifestly implyed that he intended to distinguish them from the rest of Mankind by the greatness of his Benefits and to be worshipped by them upon that account For to all other Men he was a God in the Notion of a Creator but to them only he was a God in the Notion of a particular Benefactor The Memory of these particular Benefits are every where the chief Argument which he employeth to excite the Jews to his Service or reduce them to Obedience when gone astray Thus Esai XLI 8 9. But thou Israel art my servant Jacob whom I have chosen the seed of Abraham my friend Thou whom I have taken from the ends of the earth and called thee from the chief men thereof and said unto thee Thou art my servant I have chosen thee Could any thing be spoken more passionately or more effectual to gain the Devotion of that People whom if the Sense of being the Servant the Friend and the Chosen of God could not perswade to an exact Obedience the Dictates of Nature and common Principles of Reason would be little able to over-rule them Not only doth he own them in other places for his chosen People but as if for their sakes he disclaimed his Relation to the rest of Mankind he condescends to be in a peculiar manner called their God as Esai XLIII 14 15. Thus saith the Lord your Redeemer the holy one of Israel I am the Lord your holy One the Creator of Israel your King In urging the practice of his Commands he seldom makes use of his Supream Authority or Claims Obedience to them any otherwise than in Gratitude to those wonderful and signal Mercies Thus Ezek. XX. 5 6 7. reproving them for their Idolatry he justifies his Law whereby he had appropriated all Divine Worship to himself alone not from the Incommunicativeness of his Divine Nature but from the right which he had acquired by conferring on them those many Benefits Thus saith the Lord
that inestimable Sacrifice which was offered on the Cross may confess and firmly believe that Jesus Christ died for the sins of Mankind was buried and rose again But then I fear this remembrance will without the use of those Commemorative Rites which God ordained for our Instruction and the compleat Manifestation of those infinite Benefits become purely Historical and have little influence upon our Practice and contribute much less to excite that Sense of Gratitude which might induce us to resign up our selves to his Will and Direction who had done and suffered so great things for us This is best procured by the use of those most Holy Mysteries where the Death and Passion of our Saviour is in the most lively and significant manner represented to us where the benefit of it is in particular applied to every one of us where every single Communicant may behold the Body of Christ broken and his Bloodshed for him and by descending into a serious Consideration of it form a right Judgment of the greatness of that Benefit which will then only appear infinite and transcendent to him when he is convinced that it reacheth to himself in particular and may be productive of his eternal Happiness This cannot but raise the utmost affections of his Soul and create such a Sense of Gratitude as shall not easily expire but endeavour to exert it self in all those Actions which shall be judged acceptable to so great a Benefactor while the lively Memory of those Benefits continue which shall ever continue if often repaired renewed and increased by a frequent Participation in that solemn Act of their Commemoration How great therefore was the prudence of the Apostolick and Primitive Times which repeated that Commemoration every day and when the increase of their number permitted not that at least every Sunday and esteemed every baptized Person who being come to years of Discretion omitted constantly to bear a part in it to have by that Intermission fallen from the Faith and cut himself off from the Church of Christ This produced and secured that lasting Gratitude which served for the grand Motive and Spring of all Christian Vertues permitted not their Zeal to grow cold and continued the same heat of Devotion among them as if their Saviour had been yet present with them And shall we deplore the decay of Religion in our Age and the degeneracy from the Spirit of those antient Times and yet neglect to make use of those means whereby they raised and fomented a just Sense of their Obligation to God and therein laid the Foundation of their so much celebrated Piety We are equally convinced of the truth of those Benefits we no less firmly believe that Christ died for us than they did we no less passionately desire eternal Happiness and have all other means of Instruction equally afforded to us We enjoy the same Faculties of Soul and Body and believe our selves to have the same innate generous Inclinations of mind the Grace of God doth no lefs abound to us and the same Rewards do yet attend us How then comes it to pass that we cannot equal their Piety and Holiness that we fall short of their Zeal and Devotion and come so far beneath the Example of those Holy Persons that we seem to be the Followers of a different Religion and the Disciples of another Master This can rationally be ascribed to no other cause than to the willful neglect of those Assistances in the performance of our Duty which our Saviour bequeathed to us of which the chief and infinitely greatest is the frequent Celebration of the Holy Eucharist whereby that great Principle of Obedience in revealed Religion I mean Gratitude might be produced kept alive and receive continual Accession in the Minds of Christians This to the no less scandal than prejudice of Christianity hath in latter Ages been fatally neglected and discontinued reduced to some few Seasons and Festivals of the year and then performed by a very inconsiderable part of the Church in her several Congregations An abuse which perhaps cannot be equalled in any System of Religion which ever obtained in the World that the Primary and Essential Rite of it should be generally omitted by those who pretend to be Disciples of it Justly therefore doth it turn to the Honour of the Reformation in general that it hath in some measure removed this abuse and given occasion to more frequent and numerous Celebrations of the Holy Eucharist over all Christendom which before that time in the Church of Rome were by long disuse almost become unknown For as for their constant private Masses whatsoever may be pretended for their being a Propitiatory Sacrifice for the quick and dead most certainly they do not in the least conduce to Commemorate and set forth the Death of Christ. Justly also to the Honour of the Church of England in particular which after a lamentable and universal disuse of these Holy Mysteries introduced in the late times of Confusion both of Church and State hath happily restored the use of them renewed frequent Communions and enjoys numerous Communicants May Pastors and People conspire to make this excellent Custom become universal that so at last we may have the Happiness to see this Church equal the Apostolick times in Zeal and Piety as it doth in Purity of Doctrine But I return to the prosecution of my Text although even this conduceth mightily to the Illustration of the Argument now in hand and having sufficiently manifested that Gratitude or a right Sense of our Obligation arising from the Considerations of the infinite Benefits of God was intended by him to be to us the grand Motive of Obedience to his Laws I proceed in the Second place to shew that II. This is the best and most effectual Motive which could be employed for that Purpose Which however it cannot be called in question since as we have already shewed this Motive was before all others chosen by the infallible Wisdom of God to lead us to Repentance and thereby to Salvation yet I will proceed to demonstrate the truth of it by these following Considerations First then if we respect the force of Goodness in general and how prevalent the Obligation of Benefits is in its own Nature we cannot but conclude it to be the most effectual of all Arguments Nothing is so amiable and perswasive as this Vertue of Beneficence which carrieth invincible Charms along with it and maketh greater Conquests in the hearts of Men than all the force and terrour of the World Other Vertues may create a Veneration some a fear and others an admiration of the Persections of the Person endued with them but this alone produceth Love the most active Principle of our mind In God there are many Attributes which may confound the apprehension of Mankind as the infinity of his Nature his Eternity and Omnipresence others which may create awful Apprehensions of him as his Omnipotence and Omniscience and some which may produce
reverent Conceptions of him as the perfection of his Wisdom and Holiness but none of all these would naturally lead Men to the worship of him without the addition of his Goodness and Liberality Without these men would esteem his Worship both unprofitable and unnecessary and think themselves little concerned in the Adoration ofhim from whom they neither received nor expected any Good The Benefits indeed of Creation and Conservation if Men would duly consider the Greatness of them were sufficient to introduce and secure the constant Worship of the Author of them But such is the Nature of Mankind that they little consider those Benefits which are common to them with inanimate Beings and require to be distinguished from the rest of the Creation by a greater proportion of the Divine Favour as who alone can render Worship and Honour to their Creator and conserve a Grateful esteem of their Benesactor To this we may add that as it is the Sense of our own Wants which chiefly induceth us to look up to God and make our Addresses to him so it is the sensible experience of the supply of those Wants which moveth us to return thanks to God and continueth the remembrance of him in our Minds Without this it may be justly feared the Worship of God would be lost among Men and Religion vanish into unaccountable Superstitions If we view the several Religions of the World we shall find that they all worshipped God on the account of his supposed Benefits Insomuch as the Heathens enjoying no peculiar Benefits of God worshipped with Divine Honour those men whom they fancied when alive to have been their greatest Benefactors They did equally partake of the common Benefits of Creation and Conservation and as St. Paul assureth us Acts XVII 28. acknowledged that in God they did live and move and have their being But the want of peculiar Favours conferred on them occasioned the loss of all true Notions and worship of the Deity not necessarily indeed for then they had not been inexcusable but in Conjunction with the depraved Nature of Mankind which is led more by the Impressions of Sense than mature Judgment of the Understanding whence being more affected with the visible Benefits of mortal Men than the common Benefits of God which however infinitely surpassing the others yet were not perceived by Sense they forgot their Creator and imagining Beneficence to be the best Indication of a Deity ranked among the Gods their sellow Creatures from whom they had received some extraordinary Benefit These they worshipped with the utmost Efforts of Piety and Devotion which however being in them directed to false Objects tended to their Condemnation yet may justly make us ashamed who incited by infinite Benefits and allured by subsequent Rewards render not those Duties of Gratitude to an Object in its own Nature worthy of Adoration which they returned to mortal Men for petty inconsiderable Favours They were content even to debase their Natures and stoop to the Worship of their fellow Creatures that they might not seem to be wanting in returning thanks for slight and temporal Obligations and we can scarce be induced by infinite Benefits to pay that Tribute of Adoration to our Creator which is due to him on many other accounts also For it is our Happiness that our Gratitude is directed to the right Object that it cannot be excessive or degenerate into Idolatry or Superstition while paid to the true God who deserves the most profound Subjection and highest Adoration from us Even this is none of the least Benefits for which we owe unto him the utmost transport of Gratitude that he hath been pleased to awaken us and draw us to himself by wonderful Acts of bounty and lay new Obligations upon us least we should forget the old that he should condescend to conquer the Ingratitude of Mankind by heaping new Benefits upon us and prepare our Minds to the reception of true Knowledge by striking our Senses with amazing Acts of Mercy For if we consider the several Revelations made by God unto the world we shall find them all to have been preceded by extraordinary Arguments of peculiar Favour to that People unto whom those Revelations were made which might raise their Apprehensions and induce them to consider themselves obliged in Gratitude to pay an intire Obedience to the Dictates of so great a Benefactor Thus God had newly created Adam given him Dominion over all Creatures and seated him in Paradise when he made known to him the Mystery of the promised Seed He had assured Abraham to himself by a continued Train of stupendious Blessings before he entred into Covenant with him or required him to manifest his Obedience in his Circumcision But the Revelation of the Mosaick Law upon Mount Sina was the most express Instance of this kind which was not delivered until God had abundantly convinced the Jews of that peculiar Favour which he bore unto them by working Signs and Miracles in their behalf in Egypt bringing them out thence with a mighty hand and a stretched out arm drowning their enemies in the Red Sea and miraculousty nourishing themselves in the wilderness Such amazing Prodigies of particular kindness could not but unite them to God their Benefactor in a firm resolution of Obedience to his Commands and convince them of their Obligation to worship him and amidst all their most gross Idolatries force them to acknowledge that God was chiefly to be adored Who had brought them out of Egypt although their ignorance and proneness to Superstition often betrayed them to worship him in a manner unbecoming his Nature and displeasing to him Insomuch that it may be observed that when they committed that foul Apostacy related in the XXXII Chapter of Exodus and worshipped God under the Representation of a molten Calf they still forgat not that Benefit but directed their Worship to him chiefly upon that account saying These be thy Gods O Israel which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt Ver. 4. And when the last and most perfect Revelation was made unto the world by our Saviour the same method of Divine Providence was retained and made use of by him who in his triennial Preaching preceding his Crucifixion and final Completion of his Office upon Earth went about doing good healing the Sick raising the Dead curing Demoniacks and restoring the use of their Limbs and Senses to unhappy Persons who before wanted them These Miracles indeed were likewise intended to demonstrate the Divine Mission of our Saviour who performed them But since the Conformity of the ancient Prophecies concerning the Messias to his Person was to the Jews the far greatest Argument of his Divinity and to the Gentiles not the Relation of his Miracles but the performance of other Miracles by the Apostles in Attestation of it the Primary intention of his own Miracles feems to have been no other than to raise the attention of the World by the Greatness of them and excite their
of it to all Persons without Distinction the most learned as well as ignorant is no less apparent For however these Philosophers might please themselves with the false Opinion of a perfect Knowledge it is too notorious that their Pretences were vain and trifling They professed indeed a Science of Divine Matters but such as included only unuseful and oft-times absurd Notions which were as various as their several Sects and those as numerous as the Whimsies of ambitious Men and all derided by a powerful and learned Sect which denied any truth to be in things Or if any of them entertained right Notions of a Deity and Religion yet was it rather by way of Conjecture than Certainty which therefore had no influence upon their Lives nor afforded any other hopes of a future State than what were founded only on faint Wishes and uncertain Desires such as would never induce them to forego their Lives or any part of their temporal Happiness rather than renounce it or give them intire assurance of any Reward or Punishment in another Life If to pretend that Revelation is unnecessary and unuseful to them was frivolous and irrational in these Heathen Philosophers much more absurd was it to arraign the Christian Religion of its simplicity which fitted it for the Reception of all the members of Mankind not appropriating it to the Benefit of Philosophers only by proposing abstruse Contemplations and nice Subtilties beyond the ordinary reach of unlearned Persons This was the chief Reason why Christianity was by them accounted Folly as being hereby become the Portion of reputed Fools as well as the Science of those who flattered themselves with the Title of Wisdom And this is none of the least Reasons why we ought to esteem it the most excellent of all Religions and condemn the intolerable Pride and Superciliousness of such Men who either then did endeavour to engross the Knowledge of Divine Matters or now do true Belief and Salvation to themselves only Religion was intended by God to procure the Happiness of the whole Race of Mankind not of any Sect or Denomination of Men much less of a small inconsiderable Party who by appropriating to themselves the greatest Blessings of Heaven make themselves unworthy of the least of them Nothing therefore contributes so much to declare the Mercy of God or is so befitting the Holiness and Beneficence of his Nature as the generous Spirit of the Christian Religion which equally admitteth all Men and acknowledgeth no other distinction in Persons than what ariseth from their more or less perfect Obedience to the Law of God To this end it is admirably fitted by the Simplicity of it imposing no necessary Duties of Life and Conversation but what are commanded even by the Law of Nature and observing no other Sacraments or Ceremonies than what are easie and significant few and instructive And if this must be accounted a Prejudice against the Truth of Christianity to what a deplorable Condition hath the Reason of Mankind degenerated disliking Divine Truths because rational plain and obvious It hath indeed been a common mistake to despise all Doctrines recommended with these excellent Qualities and because lying level with the Capacity of the unlearned multitude and to pronounce them foolish as the Greek Philosophers in the Text accounted the Gospel to be Foolishness because of its Simplicity But this is such a Prejudice as nothing less than the most invincible Ignorance of the Nature of Truth and Religion can excuse A mistake however to which the corrupted Inclination of humaneNature is so prone that it hath not only affected the Greek Philosophers but also great numbers of Christians in all Ages who disdaining the Profession of a simple and easie Religion either added abstruse and sometimes incredible Articles to it or turned it into an artificial Science involved in the most perplex and intricate Subtilties or affected to propose and deliver it in an Enthusiastick stile in wild and undigested Conceptions It remains that I confider our Obligation notwithstanding all these Objections and the Scandals derived from them to believe and openly to profess the Faith of Christ. For however it be to the Jews a stumbling-block and to the Greeks foolishness we still preach Christ crucified and as it appears from what hath been said have Reason so to do being neither scandalized at the Contradiction and Opposition of the Jews and Gentiles nor deluded by the same Prejudices with them Which two Heads I will briefly speak to First then If the Christian Religion be to the Jews a Stumbling-block and to the Greeks Foolishness if a great part of the World continue not only in Ignorance of it but in Opposition to it if the Mysteries of it appear to some incredible and the manner proposing it ridiculous this ought not to scandalize us or induce us to believe the Truth of our Religion to be either less plain or less certain We all know Mankind to be subject to Errour and experience the weakness of humane Understanding We cannot be ignorant how prone all Men are to follow the direction of their Lusts and Passions and then if we consider that Christianity opposeth and restraineth these unruly Passions we shall cease to wonder at its Rejection and Contradiction God hath indeed set his revealed Truths in as clear a light as is sufficient for the Conviction of men but still leaveth our Will in its full Liberty to embrace or reject them that so he may leave place either for Reward of Belief or Punishment of the contrary Not that God requireth us to believe any thing incredible or extraordinary not that we merit any thing at the hands of God by being more credulous than the rest of Mankind or believing those things which other Men reject as foolish or monstrous Our Faith is no otherwise capable of a Reward than as it is just and rational as it is the result of the right Exercise of our Faculties and a Demonstration of readiness to obey the Will of God and acknowledge his Attributes of Veracity and Dominion over us It was therefore a strange Expression of an ancient Writer That the Mysteries of the Christian Faith are for that very reason certain credible and meritorious to be believed because they are foolish incredible and impossible that in this consists the merit of Christian confidence and that God therefore chose this way that he might as it were retaliate to Men the impudence of Idolatry in which they had voluntarily engaged themselves by the impudence of Faith which he imposed on them If things were so justly might Christianity be a Scandal to the Jews and Folly to the Greeks But blessed be God and blessed be that Holy Religion which we profess nothing is required of us to be believed but what is entirely Conformable to the Laws of Nature and Reason and which would be our Duty to assâ—…nt to although no Reward attended the Assent In the next place if we ought not to
worthily be executed upon Sinners in this World much lefs can the righteous receiâ—… the recompence of their just Deeds therein What Happiness can be bestowed upon Man in this mortal Life worthy either the Supernatural Gift of God or constant endeavours of Men Is it Riches or Prosperity sensual Delights and temporal Conveniences Alas that God should conferr no more noble Reward on his Servants and Followers That for such trifles only we should employ all the Faculties of our Soul and Body in a careful discharge of our Duty and universal Obedience to the Divine Laws That after our Labour and Study to procure the perfection of our Nature by Vertue Holiness and Obedience we should attain no other Reward than what even brute Beasts are capable of the Satisfaction of our Senses and ease of our Bodies Or if any voluptuous Person should be found so degenerous as to place his utmost Felicity in these carnal Enjoyments he would fall infinitely short of his designed Satisfaction although heaped with all the temporal Blessings of Heaven and Earth The constant thoughts of his approaching End which may be deferred but cannot be removed will imbitter all his Pleasures create a continual disquiet and torment him with perpetual Fears And then what an inconsiderable Happiness is that which an Ague or a Fever a Mistake or a Casualty may destroy So foolish is it for a pious Man to expect or desire the Completion of his Reward in this Life And yet much more if we consider that it would be as well impossible as unreasonable to exercise the most Noble and pleasing Acts of Vertue and Religion in such a state If Riches and Prosperity were entailed on just Men only there would be no room left for the exercise of Patience and Constancy under Affliction no occasion for Charity and Contentment in a word all the Beatitudes of the Gospel would be destroyed What greater Demonstration of Religion can there be than to conquer all the Temptations of the Flesh and despise the Pleasures of the World Yet this would then become not only indifferent but even unlawful being in that Case a Renunciation of the Supream Happiness and relinquishing the assigned Reward by God What more certain Manifestation of an ardent Love of God than to lay down our Lives for his sake or at least to forego all worldly Possessions when called to it Yet this would be then no less foolish than impracticable when God should suffer no Persecutions to arise and dispense no Rewards after Death It would then in Wisdom concern every Man to continue his Life and Possessions by all possible means and over-look all Interests standing in Competition with them Charity to miserable Persons would be unlawful for to the good who should be free from all Calamity it would be unuseful and to shew it to the bad in whom Misery were a Punishment would be to reverse and overthrow the Sentence of God Nay to proceed yet farther no Vertue or Vice Obedience or Disobedience to God would then take place For no Vertue is acceptable no Obedience deserveth any Reward from God any otherwise than as it is a free Act of our Soul strugling with the Temptations of the World the Flesh and the Devil or its own corrupt Inclinations as it includes somewhat of difficulty in it somewhat which evidenceth a mature Choice of right Reason prevailing over the opposition of Lusts and Passions Whereas if Rewards and Punishments be executed in this Life nothing will be left wherein free-will may interpose all will indifferently strive to be good and it will be no less difficult then to be Wicked than it is now to be Pious when the Commands of God and the Temptations of the World and the Flesh shall draw the same way and the means to gratify our Carnal desires will be to yield our selves up to the Obedience of God What wonder will it be if Men then serve God when it is even their Temporal Interest and believe him to be a Righteous Judge when their own Senses permit them not to disbelieve it So that while the Nature of things remain while the Notions of Good and Evil continue while a real difference between Vertue and Vice is maintained and room left for the laudable exercise of free-will We cannot judge it possible or expedient that the Final Sentence of God upon all Men should be Executed in this Life I will add but one consideration more which is that Punishments cannot be inflicted on Wicked Men in this Life without making Good Men at the same time miâ—…erable It would be highly unreasonable to expect from God the benefit of a constant Miracle in favour of Good Men which may rescue them from the common calamities of Pestilence Sword or Famine Or if so great a discrimination could be allowed Good Men would necessarily be involved in the same sufferings by their compassion by the loss and torments of their dearest Friends and nearest Relations who being tormented for their Sins in this Life would interrupt all the pleasures of Pious and Compassionate Men by their Shrieks and Clamours It is impossible to conceive what a Scence of horror theEarth would then be if God should choose to execute his Vengeance upon Sinners in this World What a Face of Cruelty and Desolation would then appear It would then bear so true a resemblance of Hell that Good Men would rather choose to be annihilated than to be present in it So that even for the sake of Good Men the Punishment of the bad is deferred to another Life And thus I hope I have at last abundantly satisfied you both of the Justice and Wisdom of God in Forming both the Decrees mentioned in my Text of appointing all Men once to Die and in exercising a Final Judgment not till after Death We may perhaps imagine that we are long since convinced of the Truth of this But if we descend into our own Souls and examin them throughly I fear we shall find too much reason to question the reality of our conviction We are inured to sensual things and sensual proofs and apt to disbelieve all that we are told of another Life because the experience of sense doth not confirm it We are too prone to call in question the Justice and Providence of God if he interposeth not in our behalf in this World we are ready to believe that the wicked escape his knowledge when they Die in peace and a seeming neglect of the Righteous in this Life betrays us into a false opinion that they are equally forgotten in the next Or if we cannot find in our Souls any traces of such incredulity and suspicions I am sure our Actions will discover them We believe that it is appointed for all Men once to die and yet put the thoughts of it far from us We are assured that we cannot escape that Fatal Sentence and yet live as if we were not concerned in it We despair of prolonging our Life
by reflecting on it would perswade himself that his Interest is indeed engaged in it For it affects those very Passions which are wont to betray the Will of man to sin desire and fear and would men consider could not but be more prevalent than all other Objects which move those Passions since the Reward proposed is more desirable the Punishment denounced more to be feared than any other thing whatsoever This was the Argument which our Lord his forerunner John Baptiâ—…t and his Apostles employed to convert the World Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand the time now cometh when he will no longer wink at the Sins of Mankind when he will evidently declare his Resolution to punish impenitent Sinners and even exemplifie it in the terrible Destruction of the impenitent Nation of the Jews as he did shortly after The axe is now laid to the root of the tree and every tree which bringeth not foâ—…th good fruit shall be hewen down and cast into the fire These and such like Denunciations of the wrath of God to unrepenting Sinners drew multitudes of Men to a sense of and sorrow for their Sins not only the more devout Jews but also Soldiers and Publicans who confessing their Sins were then Baptized manifesting by that anciently received Emblem of Purity and Innocence their Resolution of sinning no more Even after a full Conviction formed of their Duty our Lord thought fit to propose this very Argument to his Disciples who had been long trained up in Obedience to him and were now entring upon the most difficult Point of Christianity the patient enduring of Persecution Affliction and even Death it self all which he foretold should befall them in that Mission which he then enjoyn'd them Yet to these Fears he opposeth as the greatest Remedy this Consideration only Fear not them which can kill the Body and after that can do no more but I will tell you whom you shall fear Fear him who can destroy both Body and Soul in Hell All other Motives of Interest all other Objects of fear or hope concern the Body only and terminate there But in the Matters of Religion the Reward to be desired the Punishment to be feared equally concern both Soul and Body the common Happiness or Misery of both which depends upon it The Reward you may slight perhaps as not desiring any greater Satisfaction than what you now enjoy but the Fear you cannot surmount that will still affect you For if you so much value the present ease of the Body the one part of you you cannot but be affrighted at the certain Expectation of the eternal Misery of both Soul and Body If this Consideration hath not that effect upon us which it had upon the Hearers of Christ John Baptist and the Apostles it is because the Expectation of this denounced Destruction far from being certain in us is eluded by vain Perswasions that Destruction may be avoided without Repentance We all believe the truth of the Divine Revelations prescribing Rules of Piety Justice and Temperance commanding Repentance upon neglect or violation of these Rules giving Sentence of dreadful Punishments upon Impenitence We all confess that we have violated those Rules we apply not the Remedy of Repentance and yet we hope to avoid the Punishment For did not Men really flatter themselves with those hopes it is impossible that the mind of Man convinced of the truth of such a future Punishment and conscious of its own Demerits should not immediately apply it self to prevent the Execution of that dreadful Sentence by a timely Repentance These false hopes and perswasions may be referred to a double Head either that of Presumption or that of Inadvertency That men through a fond Opinion of their own worth fancy God will exempt them from the general Sentence and from the necessity of Repentance or at least allow this and another and a third Sin to them or that they proceed in sin securely and with a sort of Stupidity never willingly considering the consequences of Punishment upon Sin and when they are suggested to them still putting them off and continuing to imagine that God will however save them though theyk now not why Both these sort of Prejudices are too common among all Christians and to both I shall oppose some general Considerations shewing it impossible that Goâ—… should not execute the Sentence of Destruction pronounced universally against all impenitent Sinners or in the words of my Text that it cannot be that Men should not repent and yet should not perish The necessity of Destruction consequent upon Unrepentance is drawn chiefly from the Determination of the Divine Will which hath so appointed it And the resolution of God herein is so frequently and fully expressed in Scripture that no doubt can be admitted of it Nay the holy Spirit of God seems to have taken particular care least men should be deceived herein by affixing vehement Asseverations to his Threats of Punishments As in Ezech. XVII 19. Thus saith the Lord God as I live surely my Oath that he hath despised and my Covenant that he hath broken even it will I recompense upon his own head And in the XXII Chapter having denounced to Sinners the extremity of his anger he subjoyns Verse 14. Can thy heart endure or can thy hands be strong in the days that I shall deal with thee I the Lord have spoken it and I will do it So that those who promise Salvation to themselves without Repentance of past Sins or Reformation of Life must either pretend to new Lights and new Revelalations new terms of Covenant or disbelieve those contained in Scripture which are indeed the only true ones Yet I will not say dis-believe them For far be it from me to judge that of many Christians who do firmly indeed believe all the Revelations of that Sacred Writing and yet continue their hopes of Salvation without employing the means of it Only we must confess that believing them we do not regard them and when we do seriously reflect upon it must acknowledge that such vain hopes are inconsistent with those revealed Truths For I hope none of this Assembly have been deceived with the idle Pretences of inward Lights or unaccountable Revelations of Arbitrary Election for secret Reasons and absolute Reprobation for unknown Causes which Delusions when once entertained would render all Repentance useless We hold fast to the old form of Tradition delivered to the Saints pretend to no Revelations unknown to former Ages to know more of the Will of God than what our Lord or the Apostles have plainly delivered in Scripture We are content to go to Heaven the same way that all Saints have gone before us by the Exercise of Repentance and good Works Nor if there be any truth in those Sacred Writings is there any other way Yet we hear those Holy Scriptures daily read to us wherein we are commanded by Precepts we are allured by Promises we are terrified by Threats
are above so fit our selves for the Reception of his Representative Body in the Holy Sacrament that we be not unworthy after Death to be received unto the Society of his Natural and now glorious Body in Heaven Where he sitteth on the right hand of God To him with the Father and the Holy Spirit be ascribed all Honour Power and Glory henceforth and for evermore The Fourteenth SERMON PREACH'D May 4th 1689. At LAMBETH CHAPEL Joh. XIV 1. Let not your heart be troubled ye believe in God believe also in me OUR Lord and Saviour being now ready to leave the World and return to his Father endeavoured by many Preparatory Discourses to confirm the Minds and dispel the Anxiety of his Disciples who began to despond at the News of his approaching Departure This to them not yet fully understanding the design of Christ's Coming seemed a total Dereliction of them and abandoning them to the World They had forsaken all the present Conveniences of Life when they entred into the number of his Disciples and had all along shared in the Miseries and Hardships that their Master was content to endure on Earth in hopes of partaking at last in the Glories of that temporal Kingdom which they fondly imagined he would found on Earth With these Hopes they supported themselves under all their Calamities and busied themselves in proposing imaginary Methods of enjoying what they so long and so earnestly expected We find them disputing who should be the greatest Officer or the principal Favourite in this Kingdom who should sit on his right hand and on his left And now that after their Lord had entred into Jerusalem in a triumphal manner their Hopes were enhanced and Expectations grew higher as believing the Completion of them to be at hand and that this glorious Kingdom of the Messias would immediately commence When on a sudden all their Hopes were dashed and their imaginary Happiness overthrown by a free and open Declaration of their Lord concerning his Sufferings and ignominous Death which now drew near and were immediately to be accomplished In what Confusion and Anxiety must we then conceive them to have been when not only their Hopes and therein in their own Opinion the Fruits and Reward of so many Labours so much Hardship undertaken and endured in prospect of their Preferment in a temporal Kingdom to be founded by their Master were in an instant overthrown and cancelled When not only themselves were to be dispersed as sheep having no Shepheard exposed to the Derision Insults and Persecution of the Jews who as our Lord foretold should even force them to deny their Master and thereby renounce all Title to any share in the Glories of his Kingdom When they were to be left alone without any Head to direct comfort and protect them When not only all these Calamities were to come upon themselves but also their dearest Lord and Master was to be delivered up to the Rage of wicked Men to be treated with the utmost Indignities and at last Crucified as a Malefactor What Distraction must they then have suffered when so many contrary Passions Love of their Master and fear of their own Misery Deprivation of past hopes and Despair of future Happiness wrought together in their Minds They retained still indeed some faint Hopes of the Resurrection of their Lord after three days Imprisonment in the Grave who should then enter upon his Kingdom and satisfie all their Expectations but alas even these remaining Hopes are dissipated by our Saviour's acquainting them in this Chapter that immediately after his Resurrection he was to leave the World and go unto the Father In this disconsolate Condition of the Church our Lord seeks to chear up the Spirits and remove the Despair of his Followers by representing to them the necessity of his Suffering That thus it was written and that thus it behoved Christ to suffer by giving them the Promise of the Holy Ghost who should both Comfort Instruct and Guide them by assuring them this Comforter could not be sent untill himself first returned to the Father and by his Intercession should obtain the Mission of him that although his Bodily Presence should be taken from them yet that it was for their good and that he would ever continue to be present with them by the influences of his Government and Blessed Spirit by interceding for them continually with the Father by promoting their Requests in the Court of Heaven by pouring down his Gifts and Graces on them and watching over them with a constant Eye of Providence but above all in preparing Mansions for them in Heaven to receive them after Death and the Final Completion of their Labours upon Earth Upon all these Accounts he bids them not be troubled in their Hearts for his Departure and the temporal Calamities which they fancied would ensue upon it and for an Argument of Consolation says to them Ye believe in God believe also in me As if he should say You cannoâ—… deny that it is both your Duty and Safety also to trust in God considered only as the Creator and Governour of the World to resign up your Wills to his difposal and upon firm assurance that he both knoweth and willeth what is best for you rest contented in all the various Conditions of Life If you consider him as the Author of your Religion in which ye have been brought up ye have yet much greater reason to rely upon his Care and Providence in all doubtful Cases and Distresses as having often experienced his peculiar Kindness to your Church and Nation in many and wonderful Instances which were therefore at first recorded that ye might from thence conceive assured hope of the Divine Goodness and Providence interposing in your behalf in all Calamities as it is in the LXXVIII Psalm He gave Israel a law which he commanded our forefathers to teach their children To the intent that when they came up they might shew their children the same That they might put their trust in God and not to forget the works of God If for these Reasons you are content to trust in God and depend on him for relief in your Afflictions for much greater Reasons ye ought to confide and relye upon my Promises of Assistance to you and constant Care of you even after I shall be removed from you inasmuch as ye have received from me more manifest Assurances of the peculiar Favour of God to you than ever were indulged to any part of Mankind to the Patriarchs or the Jews My Ability to do all this you cannot doubt As knowing who I am and what place I bear in Heaven or if ye should not believe this merely for the Consideration of the Divinity of my Person yet believe me for the very works sake Ver. 11. being convinced by so many Miracles as I have wrought for your Satisfaction that I am able to perform whatsoever I Promise to you And then for my willingness to do it you have