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
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
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
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
to the Actions and Concerns of this Life God neither promised nor exercised any such constant visible Justice which might distinguish the Good from the Bad and sensibly teach Men the necessity of Repentance much less can it be expected that in the more spiritual Religion of Christ and more abstracted from the Interests of the World any such discrimination of Good and Bad by External Circumstances of prosperity should take place that God should constantly awaken the negligence of slothful Christians by severe and visible Judgments or if he doth not should be thought to approve their Conduct Yet is this Error almost as frequent among Christians as it was formerly among the Jews While Men enjoy the satisfactions of this Life securely and find themselves at ease they fondly imagine that Heaven also hath declared it self in Favour of them and are not willing to entertain a thought of the displeasure of God towards their vicious Courses least the thoughts of it should abridge their present Happiness They are told indeed of the pleasures and punishments of another Life but conceiving no greater pleasure than what they now enjoy nor fearing any greater punishment than the deprivation of that enjoyment because they find the possession of it continued to them they â—…magine themselves secure and think that they either have escaped the Divine Punishment or not deserved it To be convinced of the unreasonableness of this conclusion we need only reflect upon the example of our Blessed Saviour who notwithstanding he was most dear to God publickly declared to be his beloved Son in whom he was well pleased and even in respect of his Humane Nature taken separately said to increase in favour with God and Man yet in the Opinion of the World led a miserable and afflicted Life underwent all those things which the sensual appetite of Man most dreadeth as Poverty Hunger Pain and a Violent Death yet all this while continued to be the most beloved Son of God In conformity to his Example his Apostles to whom he so often professed an extraordinary Love suffered all the sensible inconveniencies of this Life and were yet the peculiar Favourites of their Lord and Master now Exalted into Heaven So that Temporal affliction is by no means any Indication of the displeasure of God nor the contrary of his Favour So then in vain do Men reject or deferr Repentance because they see not the constant execution of his displeasure upon Notorious Sinners in this World For how should that displeasure exert it self Not in Poverty Afflictions or in Temporal Calamities For these we find in our Lord himself and his dearest Servants and therefore can never be any Argument of the dis-favour of God Yet from these Characters alone Man would take his measures who fondly imagineth nothing to be more dreadful than such Disasters and knoweth no greater misery than what ariseth from them while he consulteth his Sense alone But God seeth not as Man seeth he knoweth what will be real Happiness and Misery to Man and therein placeth his Rewards and Punishments As his Rewards are not adapted to the sensual imaginations of Men so neither are his Punishments to their Fears and Passions What they suppose to be a severe Punishment may possibly be a Benefit but certainly is so small a Punishment as does not at all compensate the guilt of having offended an Infinite Majesty To revenge therefore the Wickedness of Men wholly in this Life could not but come far short of the demerit of their Actions and after all would but little contribute to manifest the Divine Justice of God or excite the Repentance of Men since what God would in that case inflict would be far different from what Men esteem the greatest misery which renders the constant execution of Divine Justice in this Life unpracticable Other considerations make it unreasonable And first the Wisdom of God hath appointed some time wherein Man should give a trial of his Obedience and live in a State of Probation during which time neither Rewards nor Punishments of his Actions should ordinarily be distributed but both reserved till that Probation should expire and the last resolutions of Man were known This time can be no other than that of Life on Earth in which Man at his first entrance hath proposed to him the Arguments of Obedience to God the Rewards of that Obedience and all other Motives to his Duty On the other side the pleasures of Sin allure him the suggestions of evil Spirits tempt him the want of consideration fits him to follow the directions of sense alone and not to trouble himself with any other Interest than that of this Life His Will and the freedom of choice is still reserved intire to him Life and Death is set before him as it was by Moses before the Jews he is at liberty to choose which he pleaseth still remembring that upon his conduct in this Life depends the Happiness or Misery of his future State In the mean time God ordinarily affrights him not into his Duty by a certain Execution of Punishment consequent in this Life to the Commission of his sins neither doth he draw him to Obedience by the sensible experience of Rewards For that would destroy all the merit of Faith or Obedience since the Actions of Men would then proceed from the dictates of their own sense not upon the principle of believing this because God hath said it or doing that because God hath Commanded it I say that ordinarily God doth not dispose Men to Obedience by the sensible experience of Justice executed in this Life although often in mercy to Mankind he doth extraordinarily in this Life Reward the eminent good Actions of his Obedient Servants and Punish the more notorious Sins of wicked Men. This he doth for the Vindication of his Justice and for the Instruction of other Men to whom beside the ordinary Light of Revelation he doth sometime indulge these extraordinary admonitions But this is not to be drawn into any Rule by us we may not hence conclude that Prosperity is an Argument of the Favour of God or the not inflicting of exemplary Revenge a sign of Reconciliation with him Rather we ought to judge that the time of this Life God hath given us for a Trial of Obedience during which he patiently awaits our Resolution All this our Lord manifests to us in the parable of the Tares which the Housholder would not suffer to be plucked up till the time of Harvest but till then be mixed securely among the Corn plainly insinuating that the ordinary providence of God should in this Life make no discrimination between the Good and Bad but suffer both alike to live secure without any denunciation of his Judgment till the time of Harvest which himself explains to be the time of the last Judgment when the Tares and the Wheat should be severed from each other This proceeding indeed doth shock the common understanding of Men but that ariseth from