their lusts advance but their lusts are their plague and torment them and they extremely hate and curse those things which they do passionately desire Now that habitual Sinner his sins they are his emploiment his delight too he longs as those other but he satisfies also and finds pleasure in them and then if those others be fit company for the Devils onely canst thou believe thy self fit company for Christ that he should bid thee come to him No begin to act thy Hell a little sooner account them here thy torments hate them in time perceive them to be burdens while they may be laid down and then come unto Christ and he will give thee rest And evermore O Lord give us of thy rest a rest from sin here and a rest from misery eternally Yea O Lord give us to labor and to find trouble under that intolerable burden of our guilt that we may with eager hast fly to the refreshment that we perverse obdurate Sinners whom thy mercies cannot invite our own miseries may force to be happy and tho our wickednesses are multiplied into an infinite mass and weight yet despise us not when we fall under them for thou didst invite us to come and bring all that load to thee despise us not tho heavy laden for thou thy self didst bear this weight and didst die under it And O thou who didst thy self thus suffer by reason of this load pity us that labor with it ease us of the burden of our former guilt free us from the slavery of our iniquity from bearing any longer Sathan's loads then shall we at last sit down with thee in the Land of everlasting rest deliver'd from all weights but that eternal weight of glory and resting from all labors save that of praising thee and ascribing all Honor Power Praise Might Majesty and Dominion to Father Son and holy Ghost for evermore SERMON X. OF THE CHRISTIANS VICTORY Over Death Sin and the Law 1 Cor. 15. 57. Thanks be to God which giveth us the victory thro our Lord Jesus Christ. THE words are the close of an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Song of joy and triumph for a victory Now a victory supposeth Enimies and the verse before names them and the Text shews us the means that they art conquer'd by and who they are that are partakers of the Victory I shall declare and treat of both 1. The Enimies here mention'd and we may account them three if that which gives both aid and strength to fortifies our Enimy be so as sure it is 1. Here is Death which sin arms with a sting and do's envenome it 2. Sin it self empower'd and strengthned by the Law 3. That Law also In the second place here are the means by which the Victory is gotten and for whom us the victory thro Jesus In handling all which I shall shew First that the Law gives Sin all its strength and how it do's so 2ly That Sin is the sting of Death and how it is so 3ly That by Christ both the Law which is the strength of Sin is taken away and Sin which is the sting of Death pull'd out and so both Sin and Death so weaken'd that they cannot hurt now and they shall be swallowed up in perfect victory and who they are all this is don for Of these all in this order which I crave leave to speak to directly without any least diverting from the Text or Subject First I am to speak of the first preparations that are made against us in behalf of our Enimies and that is to shew you that the Law gives all the strength to Sin which it hath and how it do's so Sin hath its very being from Law it being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the transgression of the Law 1 John 3. 4. and Sin is not imputed where there is no Law Rom. 5. 13. yea where there is no Law there is no transgression c. 4. 15. But this is not all for in the Law besides the Precepts there is also Sanction and it lays a twofold obligation first to duty secondly upon transgression to punishment 1. To duty and that perfect and unsinning strict obedience for the terms are these Cursed is he that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the Law to do them And to this the whole man is oblig'd the soul as well as body caro spiritus Dei res est saith Tertull. God made the soul as well as body one 's his creature as much as the other and the one hath as much reason then to pay him honor and obedience as the other if indeed the spirit hath not much more to obey him in its own motions and actings than in those of the body which are onely under it and guided by it So that thoughts are criminal against this Law as well as doings by them the Soul fulfils its part of the transgression more it may be than its own share while it robs the Flesh seizes its satisfactions and makes them her own against her nature And indeed whatever part the Law is broken and transgrest by 't is transgression and sin still whether by the mind for lust when it hath conceived onely sin is then begotten James 1. 15. or by the tongue for of every idle word we must give an account at the day of Judgment Matth. 12. 36. and by thy words thou shalt be condemn'd Or lastly by the works So that according to the Tenor of this strict and severe Law whatever we can do or indeed whatever we do not is Sin besides commissions that are sinful there is still defect and so transgression in our thoughts our words and deeds even in the best and in not doing also there 's omission and so failing But besides this severe obligation of the Law to duty upon this our faileur there is a severer obligation 2. To punishment for every sin is cursed as we saw Upon this account the Law saith St Paul worketh wrath Rom. 4. 15. we are children of wrath Eph. 2. 3. whose inheritance is destruction and who are of right to possess onely the sad issues of God's indignation for to this the Law condemns us all by reason of our Sins and upon that account the Law is said to be the strength of Sin Because by force and vertue of this threatning of the Law we that have sinned are therefore liable and obnoxious to the condemnation of it And this I take to be the meaning of that place Rom. 7. 7 8 9 10. I had not known sin but by the law for I had not known concupiscence except the law had said thou shalt not covet But sin taking occasion by the commandment wrought in me all manner of concupiscence for without the law sin was dead but when the commandment came sin revived and I died and the commandment which was ordain'd to life I found to be unto death The Apostle's drift here is not to evince how the
commandment begets sin but how it makes sin condemning begets death and therefore I believe they are mistaken who expound sin taking occasion by the commandment wrought in me all manner of concupiscence as if it meant the Law onely prohibiting but not quelling sin in me the more it was restrain'd the more it wrought all manner of concupiscence in me especially since there was no punishment assign'd to that sin in the Law it took advantage thence more powerfully to engage me in the pursuit of all my lusts since thence I might have hop't without any fear of punishment to pursue them For this seems perfectly to thwart his aim which was to shew us how the Law wrought condemnation and inflicted death by threatning it It seems to mean I had not onely not known sin to be so dangerous but I had not known some things to be sins and by consequence condemning things but by the Law particularly I had not known concupiscence to be so had not the Law said thou shalt not covet The next words do not seem intended to declare how the Commandment work sin that being brought in by the by as it were thus but sin the corruption of my nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had wrought in me all manner of concupiscence all actual lusts and wickednesses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 got advantage over me or strength against me by the Law which he there proves for without the law sin is dead not as to stirring in us by its sinful motions sure corruption would not fail to do that and more if there were no check but dead had no strength nor power to condemn me For it follows when the commandment came sin reviv'd got strength to do that and I died was sentenc'd to death by it and the commandment which was ordain'd to life could I have obey'd it I found to be unto death by condemning me to death for my transgression of it For sin by the Commandment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 getting advantage over me slew me not onely made me liable to death but by its guilt envenoming that death for the sting of death is sin which that it is and how it is so is the second thing I am to speak to Sin is the sting of death which I could make appear two manner of ways in relation to two senses that may be given to the words both pertinent and the one but the Anticipation of the other The first is this Sin is the sting of death 't is Sin makes the thoughts of death pungent and stinging the wicked man cannot think of his last dying day without horrors the onely imagination of a sickness stings him because he is conscious to himself of sin and he knows that that after Death cometh the Judgment and he dares not think of beholding the face of his Judg with his guilt upon him To prove this to you I shall not need to fetch any heathen Testimonies that call the Conscience of Sin a whip a sting a goad a lancing knife things that gash and prick and gall and fret all words of all kinds of terrifying punishment but if there be any gross customary Sinner that now hears me I shall need no other way of proof but by appealing to his own conscience whether when he comes hot from his iniquity he dares entertain the thought of dying And why not Alas he is too deep in arrears to venture upon account with so impartial a Judg books must be laid open if he come there the closet curtain sins nay the bosom villanies must be displaied and every one receive his doom he hath heard that all the refuge of a deplored Sinner at that great and terrible Day of the Lord is but to fly unto the Mountains to cover him and to the Rocks to hide him A wretched hope for how shall the Hills hide him whose iniquities are like Mountains or how shall the rocks cover him whose rebellions are like the great deep as the Scripture words it To such a person Death and Judgment are words of too dangerous a sense and it 's easier for him as many do to resolve there is no such thing as one of them than to think of them and go merrily on in sinning For tell me what is the design of that variety of iniquities in which thou dost ingulf thy self that circle of sins wherein one relieves and succeeds another Sure by such a perpetuity of diversified delights to stave off those severer thoughts which if there were an intermission of sinning or a nauseating of one sin for want of variety would creep in the noise of our riots is not to please the ear but to drown the barking of our consciences When the Sinner's candle is put out if weariness in wickedness do not at once close up his eyes and thoughts if the dark solitary night do but suggest some melancholly thoughts into him how do's he tumble up and down as if he thought to role away from his imagination and he do's ransack his fancy and call up the memory of his past sins about him to entertain himself with all and keep out the torturing remembrance of that sad Day which the Scripture calls putting far from them the evil day for the truth is he dares not give it place least it should happen to him as to a man upon a pointed precipice as himself is indeed situated to whom the apprehension would be as mortal as the danger and he would tumble down for fear of falling So here his sin adds such sharps to the imagination of death that he dares not entertain the thought And if Sin be such a sting in the onely thought of death that the mere remembrance of it is insupportable the use is very natural by the frequent calling of death to mind to stop the current of sin For if the wicked cannot endure to think of death he that does think on it cannot well go on to be wicked Remember thy latter end and thou shalt not do amiss I would give this counsel Think thou art to die while doing it The original of the Turks Turbant which was but by continual wearing of his winding sheet by wrapping his head in his grave-cloaths to have always a shrowd and death upon his thoughts and the Philosophers defining their wisdom to be but contemplatio mortis are not such pregnant inforcers of this use as this practical apprehension of it The man that liv'd among the Tombs tho he had a legion of Devils in him yet when he saw Jesus afar off he ran and worshipped him Mark 5. 6. The sight of graves and conversation with monuments will make even Demoniacks Religious and is so far from thrusting Praiers out of the Liturgy of Burial that it brings the very Devils on their knees But there is yet another and a fuller sense of these words which St Paul repeats out of the LXX translation of Hosea 13. 14. tho not verbatim for there insteed of 〈◊〉
by except we will walk on in darkness unto the land of utter darkness But as a lanthorn is no guidance to the blind and a light is of use only where there is an eye so Gods commandments can have no influence upon nor give direction or assistance to our waies except this eye of the mind be enlightned by them for it is Conscience that is the conveiance to all duty to the heart of man that cannot set up obedience but as the Conscience do's press it on it that conveys the immediate obligation My Conscience tells me this I must forbear that I must practise Yea where there was no law to give direction the eye of Conscience looking o're the frame of man a creature reasonable in his making could strait see a necessity of doing things agreable to right reason and viewing the materials of the pile saw he was built of Soul as well as body of of an immortal Spirit as well as a carnal part knew that his life was to be order'd to the uses of the Spirit as well as of the flesh and more indeed that being the better part and easily could gather hence that man was not to serve his lower brutish part the body so as to discompose his soul and when it did so did condemn him for the doing of it And upon this S. Paul affirms Rom. 2. 14 15. When the Gentiles that have not the Law do by nature the things contained in the Law they having not the Law are a Law unto themselves which shew the work of the Law written on their hearts their Conscience bearing them witness Which says that tho the rest of the world had not the Revelation of Gods will and Law as the Jews had yet from the dictats of their reason and the notions of good and evil implanted in them their conscience did oblige them unto the performance of such things as the Law required and upon such performance or omission without any other Law did either excuse them as men that did not culpably wander out of those paths which the light and Eye that God had planted in them did direct them in or else accuse them as transgressors and render them obnoxious to punishment And so it did before the Law So Rom. 5. 13 14. For until the Law sin was in the world but sin is not imputed where there is no Law Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adams transgressions First after Adams time till Moses before the giving of the Law men fin'd and tho it be true that sin is not charg'd to punishment but where there is a Law to forbid it under that penalty and therefore it might be thought that sin without the Law would not have brought death into the world yet from Adam till Moses death reign'd men died that had not sinn'd as Adam did against an express actual precept promulgated as his was and establish't with a positive threat of death but died because they had sinn'd against the laws of their nature the principles of duty that were put into their making which Conscience prest upon their practise and whose guidance they would not follow they pull'd death upon themselvs in the errors of their waies 'T was by the equity of this that when the wickedness of men grew great in the earth the floud grew so too an inundation of waters overspread it when sin had once don so and iniquity against the dictates of conscience struck all the world at once with death except eight persons Conscience therefore where there is law and also where there is none is the great director of our actions and to this I shall apply our Saviors discourse dividing not the Text but Conscience and in the several members verifying what our Savior he reaffirms 1. Conscience either respecteth actions to be don or actions already don First as it respecteth actions to be don telling us this we must do that we must forbear so first as it answers to the single Eye it denotes the pure Conscience the enlightned Eye of the mind as S. Paul calls it that is a truly well inform'd Conscience a Conscience that judges according to its rule and to this I shall first tell you what is the entire rule of conscience and consequently when it s dictates are right when it informs me truly this I must do that I must forbear 2. Prove to you that all our actions that are regulated by such a well inform'd conscience are good and honest so that if this eye be single the whole body shall be full of light If the conscience be pure the man's holy and so the first part of the text is proved 2. As it answers to the evil eye so it denotes an evil conscience a conscience that do's not give true judgment of duty ill inform'd And this either First wholly so and then 't is reprobate sense such as that of them that call good evil and evil good from which men are stil'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Tim. 4. 2. or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Phavorinus Rom. 1. 31. Or secondly but in part and then 't is either first an erring conscience or secondly a doubtful conscience or thirdly a scrupulous conscience to which also several others will fall in And I shall shew you how every of these do's mislead a man into the dark The scrupulous raiseth clouds and mists about him dark errors and discomforts too the doubtful do's instead of guiding leave him so puzl'd that he knows not which way to be-take himself and the erring conscience lights him into the pit takes him by the hand to thrust him down guides him into a necessity of sin and the no conscience the reprobate sense it is a darkness somwhat worse then that the blackness of Hell here All this I shall do in order Upon the other part conscience as it relates to actions already don so it do's testify and in so doing either excuse or accuse Rom. 2. 15. Now tho conscience in the other former respect hath indeed the greater influence upon our practise and so to it the text do's more directly answer yet this latter having some also in order to the making future actions holy by repentance for when once the soul hath shipwrack't on a sin and she is ready to sink and perish there is no plank on which she can escape but repentance Now 't is this Eye that must look out for that 't is an accusing conscience that must set him upon Repentance this hurry's him about and will not let him rest 'till he get upon the plank that 's fastned to the Anchor even the Anchor of hope by which until it be secur'd a good conscience never is at quiet Because I intend to say but little to this I shall dispatch it now And that in order to its actions excusing and accusing And first if conscience be the
2 Tim. 3. 8. nor by a wretchless unconcerndness take up with slight appearances and receive a vulgar error for a sacred revelation and having mens persons in admiration Jude 16. believe as doctrines the devices or commandments of men Matt. 15. 9. not to consider what this celebrated Teacher or this Sect and Party say but make our resort to the Law and to the Testament what Law of God there is for or against this action For in this case it is most true There is one Law-giver who can save and destroy James 4. 12. and if sin be the transgression of a law 1 John 3. 4. it inevitably follows that where no law is there is no transgression Rom. 4. 15. And yet 't is strange to see how men amuse and embarras themselves in things that have no bottom or foundation in Scripture and in the mean time omit the weighty matters of the law judgement mercy and faith Thirdly if I have bin engag'd in any practices of which by the contrary practices of other sober rational men I see there may be reason if not to doubt yet to search into them then I 'le take the same course in order to the settling or the rectifying of my judgment and especially if any obligations to the contrary have got possession of me if obedience and meekness and peace of the State or Church or any sacred bond in a word if any commands of Superiors or engagements to them seem strong for the other side then nothing but clear Law of God or my Superiors shall fixe me Fourthly where things are not absolutely convincing on either side and there is no clear Law on neither or else so much like Law on both sides here as I must suspend if possible my action for these must needs make doubts so if I be necessitated to act on one side or other then if my conscience do mistake according to the degree of my diligence in examining so will be the degrees of my guilt If I have search't to my utmost and so offend out of an ignorance I could not overcome it is the constant doctrine of all that the mercy of our God by the tenure of the Gospel will not impute the error to a person otherwise of holy life but if there was a means of knowing that either heat or any other thing did hurry me from a sufficient consideration thereof according to my means so is my sin Abimelech had a competent ground to think that Sarah was not Abrahams wife when both herself and he had told him so and upon that he saies he took her to him in the integrity of his heart his conscience reasonably well-inform'd telling him that he might do it and yet God pâ—nisheth his hast he determin'd too speedily his desire was too quick did not proceed by those slow steps that a good careful conscience do's move with that will examin with all strictness where he discerns there will be gross sin on the other side The Jews had a strong prejudice against Christ's reformation of the Law by those so many promises of Scripture that their sacrifices should be eternal and when for many ages they had bin brought up in a Religion so own'd by God and were so harden'd in that Religion by all their Teachers 't was no wonder they rejected the Apostles preaching out of conscience of their own Religion Paul himself had don so and yet God gives them up to final induration for it because they had sufficient means of knowing Christ was sent by God to reform their Religion for have they not heard Rom. 10. 18. Thy diligence therefore shall alleviate the fault and where it is us'd in a good measure probably will not suffer the conscience to be long positive and peremtory in a mistake but at the most will let it only be a doubting conscience which how far 't is an evil eie and how we are to guide our selves out of that darkness it do's lead into we must now shew A doubting conscience may be either in things of very little moment and also where there is very little light to guide it and then we only call it scrupulous or else in things of consequence and of these we now treat and the Position is that he that acts according to a doubting conscience sins and this evil eie leads into utter darkness The Aphorism is a certain reveled pronunc't truth he that doubteth is damn'd if he eat Rom. 14. 23. However sacred the tribunal of conscience can be thought to be it must not stand in competition with the Throne of Almighty God and oblige us to do that which the Divine Command has interdicted or to leave that undon the doing of which he has expresly charg'd upon us It was thought to be a tyrannous hardship which the Egyptian task-masters put upon the Israelites that they should be beaten because they made not brick when they had no straw to make it with but it would seem a more tyrannous cruelty to punish them if they made and also to punish if they did not make it But so it is he who chuses to do that which his conscience suggests he ought to avoid as being ill and resolves to omit that which he judges or believes he ought to do as being good has all the inordination of mind that constitutes the most flagrant guilt he pursues evil and turns away from good apprehended to be such and so has that depravation of mind that constitutes a Devil But on the other side our opinions cannot alter the real natures of things nor will my belief that my act is laudable make it to be so any more than my fancy that Poisons are wholsome food will free them from their noxious venim and render them restoratives and cordials In like manner my adventuring on an action which I think is bad upon the cold reserve of a possibility that it may be otherwise involves the desperate resolution of doing it howsoever which differs very little from doing it tho I know it to be certainly unlawful But a doubting conscience admits of a counterpoise from a contrary doubt and there is fear of sin as on the one so also on the other part I am uncertain whether I may not do ill in acting and yet whether I may not do worse in forbearing or thus I am not sure that what I enterprize is lawful but yet I have no ground to believe it is unlawful Now from this exigent thus declared I might deduce resolutions in many cases of our life As 1. When there is no ground to build a certain judgment on of either side but it is only probable the thing is not sin and consequently I cannot be sure it is not yet if upon that probability I act this is clear different from the state of the doubting conscience for tho I may have some doubt 't is possible the thing may not be good yet having honestly examined it I have no reason to think it
lives and so prepar'd themselves for Baptism on Easter Eve for that was their most solemn time as Tertullian do's assure us in the 2d Century just when that death and passion into which they were baptiz'd was celebrated Diem Baptismo solenniorem Pascha praestat cum Passio Domini in qua tinguimur odimpleta est And that they did prepare for it with watchings fastings weepings and all rigid mortifying discipline and before him Justin M. And they had in the Greek Church their forty daies for these severities and a while too in the Roman in St Hierom's time and Pope Siricius it was so but quickly sunk into this single weeks performances But in all those times they had their scrutinies their strict examinations to try whether their performances were real and sincere So nice and so severe a thing they thought it to become a Christian. The man was to be mortifi'd and die into the very name But now God knows as for the former discipline for Penitents one Church hath lost it and the other hath debaucht it into Pageantry and taught it to countenance and bolster mens continuance in Sin and minister to vice So for the other discipline too if that did import that Baptism hath such engagements in it men in every Church live now as if they either never had been Christian'd or had never known or had perfectly forgot the obligations of that Sacrament the thing which St Paul reproves here by his question Know you not c. And which therefore 't is impossible there can be a more proper time to call to your Remembrance then this is before you are to celebrate that death you were baptiz'd into Now to inform such he disputes here very closely The sum is this They that are dead to Sin cannot live any longer in it Now as Christs Death was a death to Sin for in that he died he died unto Sin once v. 10. i. e. there was an efficacy in that death of his to put an end to all the powers of Sin which being so it was impossible he could dye more then once but must be alive always afterwards to God So in like manner whoever is baptiz'd he is baptiz'd into the likeness of that death v. 5. namely into a death to Sin inasmuch as by solemn profession and express undertaking he do's die to it for he renounces it and if he answer that his undertaking do's so really and really as Christ died once so as to live always afterwards to God engaging himself to keep Gods holy will and commandments and to walk in the same all the days of his life So that the words suggest these things to be discours'd of 1. Christs death was a death to Sin 2ly They that are baptiz'd are baptiz'd into that death namely into a death to Sin 3ly They that are baptiz'd into that death are to die as Christ did i. e. to die to Sin once so as to live always afterwards to God 1. Christs death was a death to Sin i. e. there was an efficacy in Christs death to put an end to all the powers of Sin And here I mean not that extrinsic efficacy of his death as it confirm'd the Covenant of the Gospel whose rewards and punishments engage us against all those powers nor as his blood did also purchase grace whereby we are enabled to resist them but the direct influence of that death tends to destroy all the power that the Devil World or Flesh had either to command us or condemn us The Scripture tells us that by Death he destroy'd him that had the power of Death i. e. the Devil Heb. 2. 14. Christ tells us he hath overcome the world for us John 16. 23. and St Paul says by his Cross the World is crucify'd to us and assures us that God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and a Sacrifice for Sin condemned Sin in the flesh that the Righteousness of the Law might be fulfill'd in us Rom. 8. 3. Which place discovers how all was effected namely as he was a Sacrifice for Sin and that not only as that Sacrifice did consecrate him to and install him in a power to pardon Sins upon Repentance and so whomsoever by vertue of that motive he took off from serving Sin from them he took away the guilt of it but as that Sacrifice did take away the guilt of Sin from us by bearing it in his own body on the tree the direct consequence of which as to its tendency and efficacy is that we being dead to sin might live to righteousness And in both these manners by his stripes we are healed I do not mean to entertain you with the controversy that there is on the account of these two Schemes concerning the effects and uses of the death of Christ. Only I cannot choose but wonder why it should be said to be unjust in God to lay upon him the iniquity of us all so as that he bore death as the punishment due to sin by making satisfaction for us Sinners For I would gladly know to whom the wrong were don in this that makes the injustice and on whose part it was unjust not on his part that made the satisfaction sure For whether it be wrong to force an innocent person without his consent to suffer for the guilty I shall not dispute But here Christ gave himself for us Tit. 2. 14. and had power to do so John 10. 18. And having power to lay down his life and power to take it up again if he had so much love and pity for lost mankind as to lay it down for three days to prevent their everlasting death and misery no justice certainly nay no self-love forbids this Much less was there wrong don to them for whom the satisfaction was made unless eternal redemtion and eternal blessedness purchas'd at such dear rates with such infinite kindness be accounted injuries Nor yet was it unjust in him that did receive it for none charge it upon that account That death which all confess Christ did justly submit to God most justly might accept since he could so dispose it as not only by it to work the Salvation of those whom it was undertaken for but also the advancement of his humane Nature that did undergo it to the highest pitch of glory to all power in heaven and earth Phil. 2. 9. and withal thereby declare his own Righteousness Rom. 3. 26. and work the honor also of his other glorious attributes And therefore if there had bin no injustice as they say altho Sin had bin pardon'd without any Satisfaction much less could the receiving this be a wrong to him Indeed it seems as if there had bin no right don him by it because he furnisht all that makes the satisfaction and he could not receive it therefore since he gave the value to it And 't is most true in compensation of rights of real possessions and
of God but we see Mercy triumph against Judgment in that very blood He could have shew'n his detestation of Sin otherwise even in the Sinners punishment and so demonstrated his holiness and justice but it was impossible that he should otherwise shew mercy at these rates by crucifying his Son who was himself that he might spare Sinners Meer pardon had bin no such kindness as to let us see that God would do all this and suffer so that he might pardon us So that mankind forgiven and in glory had not bin so great an evidence of his compassion nor in torments so great an evidence of his holiness and detestation of iniquity He had such compassion of us as inclin'd him to deliver up his Son to torment that he might shew mercy to us yet all that compassion tho his bowels yern'd so over us that he would shed his blood for us could not incline him to forgive Sin without such an instance of his detestation of it nor yet with it but to such as will forsake their Sins For how should he appear by those inflictions to detest Sin if he should accept the Sinner that amends not give his pardons and rewards to one that will not part with his iniquities To such Christs sufferings are the Copy of their expectations he do's let them see how he detests and will for ever plague Sin unrepented of who thus torments the imputation of it on the innocent the blessed Son of God So that Christs sufferings not only are a perfect vindication of the honor of Gods person and his Government as to Sins committed but the most astonishing caution against committing them that can be imagin'd With us the Law is satisfied by the offenders suffering somtimes in effigie if we execute his picture any thing that by the fright of the example helps to guard the Law from being broken But see here an example which to make cost God the life of his own Son which to make dreadful he provided all the Agonies imaginable to assure us he that spared not his own Son will not spare the guilty neither can the Sinner possibly be able to endure that to Eternity which his Son the Son of God sunk under presently 'T is not a satisfaction that will give us leave to enjoy our vices and atone for us a price that will buy off the guilt of all our Sins and let us have them The satisfaction of this infinite value looks at vindication of Gods Honor and his Laws and serves the ends of Government and assures the Sinner which amends not that he must for ever perish And thus this Sacrifice for Sin condemned Sin to death by his own death Which death that we would imitate we did engage in Baptism which brings me to the second thing Whosoever are baptiz'd into Christ Jesus are baptiz'd into his death i. e. that which the efficacy of his death did work to that by Baptism we did engage our selves to Now as to this 1. Christs death was as we have now seen undertaken for the death of Sin Now Baptism imports the undertaking the same thing it being as Oecumenius upon this place do's say a Baptism unto that death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Because when we are baptized we do most solemnly profess and undertake to die to Sin renounce the Devil c. and put upon our selves the strictest obligations in the world to do this That Baptism from its institution was administred with express engagements to this in the very form of it I could prove out of that office in all ages that have any extant of it in the rest out of express testimony of Fathers thro every one to the Apostles Which so universal practice makes St Hieroms Primas and others explication not seem strange when they expound that good profession Timothy profest before many witnesses 1 Tim. 6. 12. to be that in Baptism However 't is sufficient evidence that St Peter when he says that the Baptism that saves us is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the whether question in St Cyprian or the Answer in Tertullian or indeed the stipulation which is both of a good conscience towards God do's as much as say there was in Baptism an obligation entred in that form of Law that stipulation was with questions an answers to them For they were askt and they did answer Dost thou renounce I do renounce Dost thou forsake I do c. And he that at Sacrament says that he do's this with a good sincere and upright Conscience hath the Baptism that saves But the importance of the Rite may be best known from them that us'd it first and whence it was deriv'd even from the Jews who when they did initiate a Proselyte into their Covenant did it with that Ceremony in this manner when any man desired to be of their Religion and they had by several scrutinies examined what the motives were of his conversion what his aimes if they were hopes of any thing of this world they refus'd him least his conversion should die or change as quickly as his worldly hopes or desires But if they saw all reason to believe he was sincere then they expounded to him all the Commandments laid before him the difficulty in keeping them if this did not affright him they explain'd to him the mysteries of their faith and the Commandments again together with the punishments that were allotted to transgression the Rewards to them that did observe them After all which if the man continued stedfast in his purpose they circumcis'd him sprinkling his own blood on him as a ceremony to affright him into the Observance And one would think it were sufficient engagement to have sign'd his resolutions in his blood and seal'd to them with Circumcision as the Targum words it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and carried the impression of his promise in his flesh to his lifes end But as if Baptism had obligation beyond that and it hath most certainly with those that are baptiz'd into the death of Christ for there the blood of sprinkling is Christs blood the blood of God but with them also after they had don this to the man he was no sooner cur'd of the wound of his circumcision but they put him having by him three Witnesses into the water and as he was there in it read to him once again all the Commandments and if he did profess his resolutions still to keep them they baptiz'd him and he was admitted thus into their Covenant the Conditions and the Hopes of it And by Baptism they did admit the children also if the three Magistrates of the place would undertake for them they should be brought up in the Jews Religion And this lets us see 't is the assuming to keep Gods Commandments to give over sinning to die to that and to live to righteousness to all holiness and vertue And with what strength of obligation this was understood to be perform'd
and means an unblameable conversation in thos duties that look towards God those of Devotion Piety and Godliness or of those duties that look towards man those of Justice and Honesty particularly so call'd Or 2. God and Man here may be look'd upon as having both to do in being the rule of Conscience God's law and man 's also that is the just laws of lawful Superiors both obliging it and a conscience void of offence towards God and towards man is such an one as does not onely not offend God nor man in that which God commands to be don to himself and to the neighbor but such also as doth not offend in what man the lawful Governor commands for to these we must needs be subject not only for wrath but conscience sake 3. Here are the seasons which this Conscience do's respect and they are all seasons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 alwaies 4. The interest St Paul does seek after in this condition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in this Jexercise my self as on one side it is not fancying or opining often hearing no nor talking of conscience but exercise and doing for the Christians life is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a constant exercise and that is at once his duty and profession here so on the other side it is not perfect possession of this state there is no such thing as perfection in this life but laboring towards it In handling which parts I shall thus proceed 1. Having in word explain'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I shall enquire what are those offences that must be remov'd in order to that state that 's here describ'd and having clear'd the conscience of those 2dly view the latitude and extent of its obligation see how it respects both God and man both as the rules and objects of its acts and as we go along we shall direct the practice of that duty which St Paul did labor in how we must exercise our selves that we may be in such a state which is the 3d thing and the application of all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may be understood from the use of that word as 't is taken either passively Phil. 1. 10. that ye may be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without offence not led into evil by mistakes of what is good or any other color whatsoever or else as 't is taken actively 1 Cor. 10. 32. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 give no offence to any man which as the context proves is but the same and means let nothing that you do be such as may induce another man to sin lay not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rocks of offence or stumbling blocks in any Christians course and therefore in my text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is such a conscience as does not induce the man himself to any sin against God or man and a life that is not led into it a conversation that is according to such a conscience is that which St Paul aims to have and which that we may have all such 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we must endeavor to remove which what they are I told you was to be my first inquiry And the first is error of judgment which makes an erring conscience such a one as gives false information of duty which either tells me that I may or must do that which God's law or some other law in force upon me saies I must not do or else tels me I must not do that which I may or am perhaps bound to do A rock of offence this upon which many men do split and make ship-wrack of a good conscience and which is worse error of judgment call'd by some new light is such a light indeed so plac'd between the rocks as must needs guide the Mariner upon them make it necessary for him to be wreckt for in this case sin lies on the right and the left hand which way soever he does turn he falls upon it For first if this man act against his erring conscience he sins altho the Law of God do not make the act sin Rom. 14. 14. to him that esteemeth any thing unclean to him it is unclean altho St Paul saies there he knew it was not in it self unclean yet so it was to him and that to such an height that the man whose example wrought with any one to eat against the perswasion of his mind destroieth him v. 15. 'T is therefore a destroying sin to do a thing against the express judgment of the mind And all the reason in the world for since good or evil do not nor can move the will as they are in themselves such but as apprehended and according to the notion we have of them in the mind 't is certain therefore every motion of the will to good or evil consequently every good or evil action must be formally accounted such from good or evil things not in themselves but in the apprehension of the mind that is according as our consciences dictate to us they are good or evil And indeed no law of God or man no rule of duty can be appli'd to us but by the mediation of conscience for till that tell me such a thing 's commanded and my duty it is to me as if there were no such command and it were not my duty for till then I am not conscious it is know nothing of it This alone therefore does propose and apply duty to us and consequently whether that which it proposeth be my real duty in it self or no yet I must needs look on it as so as having no direction in the world besides what to do or forbear but what my conscience some way instructed tells me God or my Governors require while therefore that does absolutely tell me such a thing is unlawful whether it be so or no while that perswasion lasts the soul yet judges it unlawful and consequently if the heart embrace it then it does deliberately embrace unlawfulness which tho it be not in the thing is yet in the choice I like and follow that which in my judgment is vicious and be it in it self what it will 't is so to me 't is evident the inclinations and actions pursue vice when they pursue that which they cannot look upon but as vice And therefore St Paul saith what soever is not of faith whatsoever is contrary to the persuasion or judgment of lawfulness i. e. in other words what is against conscience is sin Conscience therefore is the rule from which it is sin to recede But you will tell me where the conscience errs the rule is false and crooked and so must not be follow'd but the rule of this rule God's Law and not the conscience must be obei'd Good counsel if it could be follow'd for certainly if the man know what God's Law does require of him in that case his conscience does not err if he do not know what God's Word requires how then can he follow it against that which his conscience tells him God requires and
it is sure if the man should suspend his action or have reason not to act according to his erring conscience he never can have reason to act according to a conscience well inform'd for it is plain his conscience does as much propose the error as his duty as it does the truth the man as really believes the one is to be don as the other and hath no reason to make difference and therefore if at any time he must follow his conscience he alwais must and t' will be sin to act against it be it what it will But then you 'l hope it will excuse to act according to it No alas this is but the other rock it is sin too to act according to it The proofs are very pregnant Gen. 12. 17. Because of Sara Abraham's wife the Lord plagu'd Pharaoh with great plagues and all his house namely those that had commended her before him v. 15. and so had contributed to the offence On the same account he plagu'd Abimelech Gen. 20. 17. altho in the 6 v. God saith he knew Abimelech did it in the integrity of his heart and tho Abimelech did plead the same to God he did it innocently v. 5. yet in the 9. v. he expostulates with Abraham what have I offended thee that thou hast brought on me and on my Kingdom a great sin Again St Paul affirms of his own nation Rom. 10. 2. that it was out of zeal to God and his Law they persevered in infidelity and opposition to Christs doctrins yet for that very opposition he affirms that they were hardned and design'd to everlasting perdition And Christ saith of the same Jews John 16. 2. that the time would come when they that kill'd his Apostles and Ministers should think they did God service 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 think they offer'd an oblation The error was so strong it made the sin look like Religion and Attonement yet that zeal and conscience was plagu'd with wrath that came upon them to the uttermost even to an utter extirpation or to restrain our selves to our Apostle he saith of himself v. 1. of the foregoing chapter I have liv'd in all good conscience before God until this day and therefore when against Christ's reformation he defended the Mosaic Law and persecuted the opposers of it he did all out of a good mind according to the dictates of his conscience sincerely what he was perswaded that he ought to do and now if conscience could excuse here was enough of that a good Conscience and could his fiery persecutions by vertue of that conscience be christian'd holy Zeal could his pure heart make his bloody hands undefil'd Oh no! 't was blasphemy and persecution and injury for all 't was conscience If this seem strange that acting thus according to the conscience should make men such sinners since all facts are estimated cheifly by the heart that they proceed from by the good or bad mind they are don with that is by the conscience of the doer we must know that where the error is not the effect of any carnal prepossession or principle but truely error there the sinfulness in this case lies not altogether formally in acting so according to their conscience unless first the conscience take up perswasions give sentence without a sufficient inquisition when there is the least appearance of a danger that 't is plain such a perswasion may engage us in a state of sin we must examin strictly and this seems the case of Pharaoh and Abimelech they were glad to think Sarah was Abrahams sister therefore made no close inquiry were content with his once saying so and on that account altho the one and afterwards the other took her in the innocency of their heart the text saith they committed a great sin for which God did plague them Especially 2dly if men have bin call'd on to consider had the opportunity of means of conviction such as God will judg sufficient in their circumstances then retaining those perswasions following such an error gives it that which is equivalent to wilfulness makes the guilt This was the Jews case and St Pauls tho Moses Law were given by God himself confirm'd by wonders and by such a constant series of Gods most immediate dispensations as might give them just cause to believe it was their certain duty to adhere to it yet when God judg'd Christs works together with the Prophecies that went of him had given a sufficient testimony to his Reformation the Jews resisting that tho out of zeal to God and in obedience to his Law and to their Guides the Priests and Sanhedrim were harden'd to excision for it or if as 't is most certain they were leaven'd into aversation to Christs doctrine by their expectation of a pompous Messiah his Religion did not serve their sensual ends 't is to be fear'd the same do's influence the more sincere and erring party of the Church of Rome yet St. Paul also tho out of a good conscience doing so esteem'd himself the chief of sinners for so doing 'T is the too hasty taking up or the too obstinate retaining this erroneous conscience makes the sin it does ingage into be so exceeding sinful therefore certainly whoever lets their conscience be surpriz'd by prejudice or warmth of mind much more ambition pride revenge or incidental discontents and disobligation reputation of a party interest design if these or any sensuality tho but lurking indiscernably for the heart is deceitful above all things who can know it have given any tincture to the heart and pufft a passion into conscience or if in the uprightness of their heart they took up their perswasions yet if they retain them in the least on any such account or else however if they do not hearken to examin any calls or means which God does either by his Providence or Ministers offer the opportunities of for their conviction specially if by seeing good and wise men do judg otherwise they have any cause to doubt and yet persist still and retain the error it is this that spoils the Conscience so that while it errs it does ensnare the man entangles him in a necessity of sinning leads him into such labyrinths of guilt that whatsoever he does he offends if he do what his erring conscience dictates to him then he sins against God's Law if he forbear he sins then against God's Vicegerent his own Conscience there is the guilt of his deed here the guilt of his heart which does oblige a man to follow that which it is sin to follow and which makes him he must and ought to do that which he must not ought not to do And then the onely application to such a Conscience is to advise the laying it aside to rectify the error good counsel this indeed but hardest to be taken in the world For that a man may set himself to rectify he must know himself in an error and if he know that he hath not
't is not this but how to secure Governments against it to rectify the erring conscience I would speak to and if the sense of any sacred obligations if the calamities of Church or State that cry aloud bemoaning the effects of conscience thus let loose call upon him to consider and at least suggest the duty of examining his conscience then the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here of the text the exercises that are like to have an influence upon him besides humble praier to Almighty God for a right judgment in all things together with a hearty resolution not to suffer any principle or interest so to engage him to a practice or opinion but that if God will please to shew him light he will follow it strait and utterly forsake those paths to which he was misguided by the error of his mind and so begins to act accordingly as well as he can Now such a resolution hath a promise If any man will do his will he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God or not Besides this I say let him thus exercise himself when any thing offers it self to practice and gets this holy advocate of its side brings conscience to plead then I will search and examine strictly that same action first undress it quite see what it is naked by it self and then ask not what fine motives what good end it hath but where the rule is for it If it be in things merely Spiritual then what Law of God but if in other things what Law of man what just subordination to Gods will is there for this action For laws not zeal do make the rules for Conscience for Conscience being nothing but a full perswasion judgment dictate that a thing is either duty under obligation is according to a Law that does command it or else is unlawful is against a Law If Conscience shall tell me such a thing I am bound to do but I have no Law of God or man for it or else such a thing I must forbear it is a sin absolutely unlawful but truly I can bring no Law in force against it sure I shall easily reject the clamors of this Conscience for it talks contradictions for nothing can be unlawful but what is against a Law If tho there be not express Law to forbid or command yet I see grounds that stagger me and several hard things which incline to my opinion this does not make the erring Conscience for that is dogmatical and positive and must have law doctrines and grounds of probability those onely make a doubt the next offence I mean to name An offence this that whosoever stumbles at does fall into the lowest pit for he that doubteth is damn'd if he eat Rom. 14. 23. Now the state of a doubting conscience is this either the man in himself really believes the thing he does consult of is forbidden but yet seeing the example of some man he hath esteem for or else hearing some good probable grounds to the contrary does entertain some doubt whether it be so bad and upon that without being resolv'd yea thinking still it is a sin yet ventures on it in this case tho the man may have some hopes it may not be a sin yet judging in himself it is and choosing notwithstanding it is plain he does not onely venture at but chooseth sin and therefore sins This was the very case of the weak Christians in relation to eating things offer'd to Idols which St Paul there speaks of Or secondly if he do not absolutely in himself judg it a sin yet really do's doubt it is and without endeavoring to be truly satisfi'd by all appointed fit means does it howsoever this man does as much as resolve I know not what it is I am about to do I doubt 't is sin but I resolve to do it tho it be so Now this is a wicked resolution and the consequent action must be so too it is as much as saying I resolve to venture Gods displeasure rather then loose the satisfaction of that action now whatsoever otherwise the action be yet such a resolution stains it with a vicious tincture by infusion of that wicked purpose To bring this to our own concerns if my lawful Superior command a thing by an establish'd law which yet either by some obscure place of Scripture or by the silence of Scripture or some inference of my own from others having put that action to an evil use or the infusion of some Teacher of whose holiness I have an opinion I doubt whether I may do it or no and cannot satisfy my self in this case if the man that doubts comply without acquiring any satisfaction do it merely too because he will not be obnoxious to the penalty of law 't is clear he does it with a doubting conscience and so sins but if he thus discourse which is the proper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for such a conscience to remove this offence I am sure God hath commanded me to obey the lawful commands of my lawful Superiors now am I sure this is not lawful No that I am not for I onely doubt why then I must needs also doubt it may be lawful therefore I must needs doubt God hath commanded me to obey them in this and then if I refuse I must needs do that with a doubting conscience for if the thing be lawful I am sure I sin in not obeying and I doubt it may be so and so not doing will have the same guilt which by not doing I endevor to avoid Now if whatever the action be as long as I know not certainly whether it be lawful or unlawful in it self I shall have equal guilt in the refusal altho there be no scandal or contemt as I can fancy to my self in doing and if I cannot satisfy my doubt my self since I have then no other way to seek for resolution but from those whom God hath set over me shall not the reasons and commands of my Superiors the example of all those that are obedient weigh as much with me as the opinion of some whom I think holy or some little color which can onely make me doubt If I be not sure it is unlawful and am perfectly assur'd of my duty to my Superiors this certainly ought to suspend my other doubt and in so doing I am sure I take far the more probable and safer course and he that does so cannot have the guilt of a doubting conscience for the resolution of that was clean another thing I doubt there may be sin in it however I will do it whereas this man that he may take the safest course to avoid sin resolveth thus merely for fear there may be guilt in my refusal I do that which otherwise truly I would not do I cannot pass by this reflection here how there will come a time when it shall be more tolerable for the erring or the doubting conscience notwithstanding their sad consequences than for
the conscience is past feeling then it is past cure The onely method is prevention here the onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to keep the conscience tender then it will be sensible of every the least touch of guilt check at whatever we shall do amiss Conscience is the eie of the soul now tenderness is a disposition very proper to the eie it is the tenderest part of the whole body and if the conscience be right that is so of the soul the smallest spill or mote is restless agony to the eie it never leaves to force out tears both to bewaile the torment and to wash away the cause I am sure our Savior calls a sin of the least size or guilt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Matth. 7. 3. things that should make the conscience as restless fret into lamentings prick passages for repenting sorrow The conscience of Converts always does so Acts 2. 37. When they heard this they were pricked in heart and indeed this is the necessary constitution of Soul for them that ever hope to have their conversation holy he whose eie is not tender 't is not useful if it be not sensible of spills that get into it it cannot be sensible of objects such a callum as will make it not feel will make it not see and when it cannot perceive pain then it cannot direct or light and so the conscience if it feel no grievance from thy vices it will never boggle at them but when it is tender as the eie then it will rowl and weep if any thing disturb it 't will be restless till it free it self Let other Souls be tickled when they feel the pleasures of a sin but Lord let my heart smite me then the stroke and smart may make me fly the cause Let sin that and cruel Serpent sting stab wound me thus for then it will make outlets for its putrifaction it will draw tears to cleanse me from it self and sure after the bloud of Christ there is no other laver to wash away the foulness of my sin but that which gushes from those wounds of spirit nothing else will quench the power of it This tender conscience will preserve the whole conversation pure if its respects be universal if its cares reach to the whole latitude of its object if it be void of offence both towards God and towards man which shews the extent of its obligation and is my next consideration of which in a few words Void of offence towards God and towards men a conversation unblamable in all things that relate to God or man both these must be join'd the Honesty without the Godliness is but Heathen Morality and the Godliness without honesty but Pharisaical Hypocrisy 'T is just that which our Savior describes and sentences Matt. 23. 14. Wo unto you Scribes and Pharisees hypocrites for ye devour widows houses and for a pretence make long praiers therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation as if their long and earnest praiers pull'd down nothing else but woes and condemnation on them and their more religion gain'd them but more hell The one of these for all his honesty if he have not piety he is without God in this world nor shall have any thing of his heaven in the other whose life did not look thitherwards but aim'd no further than a conversation that was regular betwixt man and man The other the dishonest man notwithstanding his Godliness shall be without God in the world to come for sure he is not fit to live with God in that who is not fit to live with man in this who will not behave himself honestly must not think he can live religiously nor can that help him towards Gods rewards that does but help him to the greater condemnation So that they must be join'd and our conscience must be void of offence towards God and towards men and that not onely as the objects of our duty but the rules That Gods Law is the rule of conscience that we are bound to do what he commands I think I need not prove in this I have onely to wish our practice were as orthodox as our opinions But that man can oblige the conscience that laws however just of our rightful Governors are a part of this rule and we are bound in conscience to observe what they would have us do many men doubt there bene qui latuit bene vixit a close offender does not sin and if they come not under the lash of the Law they think the conscience hath no whip for these offences yet Scripture is express Rom. 13. 5. Wherefore you must needs be subject not onely for wrath but also for conscience sake again 1 Pet. 2. 13 15. submit your selves to every ordinance of man for the Lords sake for so is the will of God I do not here set down that humane Laws oblige the conscience immediatly it is enough for me they do it by Gods constitution that what we do so is for his sake and 't is his will that we should do it and then he that does not obey he breaks the will of God and so does that which a good conscience must needs tell a man he must not do I know some have found out a subterfuge that onely passive obedience is required in conscience not active and tho this interpretation would secure the Magistrate for men must not rebel against that rod which they are bound to submit to yet 1. 'T is strange a man should not be bound in conscience to obey the Law yet should be bound in conscience to suffer for the not obeying it What reason for this difference Sure if either 't is most reasonable to escape the punishment if he can But 2. What sense will they make St Paul speak * wherefore ye must needs be subject not onely for wrath if wrath mean punishment as it certainly does and be subject signify submit not actively but submit to punishment as they will have it then it means therefore a man must submit to punishment not onely for punishment or for fear of being punished but also because he is bound in conscience to bear the punishment now 't is indeed impossible that a man ought and is necessitated to submit to the penalty of the Law for fear of the penalty of the Law be bound to suffer a thing for fear of suffering that very thing or that he may escape that very suffering which he is bound in conscience too to suffer These are contradictions But of the active obedience the sense is plain we must obey their just Laws not onely that we may avoid their punishments which we shall suffer if we obey not but because we are bound in conscience to obey All the Apostles instances also being of active obedience and the whole reasoning of the place evincing it might serve for further evidence but this shall suffice me for proof and St Paul truly seems to take in these here in the text for amongst several
full plenties of his Fathers house the unsatisfying transient delights of sin that have filthy toil and noisom drudgery in the gaining and instantly when they are gain'd put out themselves are gon and leave nothing but snuff or stink behind offence onely and trouble of mind compar'd those with the gladsom expectations of blessedness with the comforts that are in all the promises of Christ and the feasts of our Fathers mansion Gods entertainments the glories he hath studied for those that love him and being satisfied these are the better pleasure resolves to leave the swine his unclean beastly courses and betake himself to his Father he shall then find this fiction experience and God outdoing all the Parables of himself He will run to meet him that do's but set himself to come in earnest not onely as the proposition saies accept his service but prevent it and however miserable poor and naked he do meet him as the Sinner is Rev. 3. 17. he calls for the best Robe even the Robe of Christ's Righteousness to put upon him and puts a Ring upon his finger he does espouse him to his Son he kills the fatted calf makes ready the supper of the Lamb for him and it is the poor repenting Sinner's wedding supper with his Savior It is a chapter full of comfort to the Penitent and hath a greater advance for it than this story v. 3 4. The Sinner he hath straied into by-paths gon away from the Shepherd of his soul is a lost sheep but yet when he is gon his farthest and is in his mazes knows not which way to betake himself then this good Shepherd do's not invite onely to a return or as the Father in the Parable run to meet him in his coming back but he do's go himself to seek him seems to mind the recovery of each single one that is lost and contributes as carefully to his return as if that one were all his charge and the whole flock is not dearer to him than that one He leaves the ninety and nine to seek that one and he seeks till he finds it and when he finds it he laies it on his shoulders The wandring sheep was wearied it seems with straying and had tir'd it self with running from its shepherd but this too is provided for he could not come home therefore he is carried It is not now Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden I will not refuse you Nay when you are so lost in Labyrinths of guilt out of which you can see no issue when you have so labor'd in the paths of error that you are not able to come home if you will but be found I will seek you yea and carry you home too That no one how far soever he have gon away may yet despair of coming home this sheep had wander'd to such a distance and to so much weariness that he was fain to be born back when he was found And he laies it on his shoulders rejoycing was glad of such a burden How willing is our Savior to find out a straied Sinner when after such long errors he do's seek him till he finds him and carries him if he be weak and fainting yea and rejoyces in that carriage as if that rest he gives the Sinner were such ease and refreshment to himself he joys in it And that joy spreads it self to Heaven for there is joy in Heaven at that sight and v. 10. There is joy in the presence of the Angels of God over one sinner that repents Heus tu peccator bono animo sis vides ubi de tuo reditu gaudeatur Thou poor disconsolate Sinner that liest groveling under the sense of the burden of thy sins thy soul sinking under that heavy weight and sinking also in the waters of thy fears drown'd in thy sorrow be of good chear Dost thou not think there is some joy in this estate of thine when it can make a joy in Heaven Those tears assure thy self have comfort in them for God and Christ and all the Angels do rejoyce at sight of them And do not dread thy burden if thou dost truly labor under it and dost but faithfully desire and endeavor to throw it off thee Dost thou not see him that laid the lost sheep on his shoulders as ready to take thee up He that would not reject thy Cross when it was loaden with thy guilt will not reject thy self when thou art lighted from that guilt He that would receive thee on his shoulders when thou wast fainting under the burden of thy sins when that is cast away into the sea and buried in his grave will certainly receive thee into his bosom He that would carry thee to give thee ease when thou wert wearied with running from him when thou dost come to him and faint into his arms will give thee everlasting rest a rest whose blessedness to understand were to enjoy it and to be able to conceive were to be infinite as it self is a blessedness which to behold is beatific O cast away your burdens and make hast and come and see Lastly learn hence the method you are to take in coming to him how you are to begin your journey The first advance is by this conviction of the burden and horror of sin till this be in us we will never move a step towards him The Church hath taught us when she invites us to come to him in Sacrament to make the first step this confession We be heartily sorry for these our transgressions the remembrance of them is grievous unto us the burden of them is intolerable And Christ hath told us here that we must find the very same things in our selves an intolerable burden that tires and wearies us until we faint before we come to him we are otherwise no part of his invitation will be no part of his retinue And then whosoever thou art that art so far from finding them intolerable that without them thy life is hardly tolerable so far from burden that thy very days are burdensom that are restrain'd from conversations of sin that dost account them thy delight not weariness and art refresht not tir'd with them and canst not think of parting with them or if no very vicious company or custom hath brought thee to this necessity and height of sinning yet thou look'st upon them as slight regardless things mistakes and oversights that slip from thee all whose repentance is but Lord have mercy and never thinkest more of it dost not apprehend that every such gross fault hath an eternal weight in it and dost not humble thy self under that weight bethink thy self whether thou art yet in the way to Christ or whether thou indeed be called to come Oh no the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are the men for thou especially that takest pleasure in them dost thou think Christ will call thee to do worse with him than the damned do in Hell There they indeed nourish their sinfull appetites
which makes Death a miserable condition as it is the sting of the Serpent that makes him a poysonous creature so it is that which makes Death destructive For were Death the expiration of that little spark in the moving of our heart and if our spirit utterly vanisht as the soft air and were it as the Atheist in the Wise man says we are born at all adventure and shall be hereafter as tho we had never bin Death would be so far from all sting that it would be perfect rest and the end of troubles but Sin makes it onely the beginning of sorrows it changes the very nature of death by making that which seems to be the cessation of sensible function to be the very original of the sensibility of torments Then the Sinner doth begin indeed to feel when he dies Death were but the term of a miserable life did not Sin make it the birth of a more miserable life or death I know not whether to call it for it is of so strange a nature that the very uniting of a Sinner's body and soul which is the onely thing we call life God calls death Rev. 22. 13 14. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it and death and hell or the grave deliver'd up the dead which were in them that is the bodies to be joyn'd to the souls and they were judg'd every man according to their works and in that case all are cast into the lake of fire this is the second death Sin makes Resurrection to be dying and it must needs be so because as afflictions are in this life call'd death as St Paul saith in Deaths often so much more then may those torments of hell be call'd death So that in that death that Sin engages to it is necessary to live always that we may for ever die and it must be so because this makes us liable to the eternal indignation of the offended God which we were not capable of suffering were it not a death of this nature This is indeed death with a sting in it and it is the sense of this approaching that wounds the dying soul when it do's at once call to mind the wickedness of its past life and the wrath that do's await it when he recollects how sinful he hath bin and withall how hateful sin is to God so hateful that it was easier for God to send his Son to suffer death than to suffer sin to go unpunish'd then his own expectations sting and stab his very soul for if God did thus use his own Son how will he use me that have both sinn'd and trod under foot the death of that Son by going on wilfully in my sins Would you then my Brethren find out a way to make death easy and familiar to you you must pull out this sting The Jews say if Adam had continued righteous he should not have died but after a long happy life God would have taken up his soul to him with a kiss which they call osculum pacis he would have receiv'd that spirit which with his mouth he did inspire a kiss of taking leave here to meet in Heaven Wouldst thou have thy death to be the same thing 'T is but becoming righteous with the righteousness of Christ thro whom we have this Victory here in the Text the other part I am to speak to who giveth us the victory thro Jesus Christ our Lords where we have those that are partakers of the Victory and the means thro Jesus Christ our Lord and as to both these this I shall demonstrate over all those enimies in order who the us and how the Victory is gotten First the Law Now that Christ hath redeem'd us from the curse of the Law is said expresly and that by his being made a curse for us Gal. 3. 13. and what that curse of the Law was is set down in the tenth verse cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the Law to do them which no man besides Christ did ever or can do and consequently all mankind lay under that same dreadful curse obnoxious to the wrath of God and the effects of everlasting indignation but Christ by undergoing that curse and by that means satisfying that strict Law procur'd an easier to be set us upon gentler terms not perfect and unsinning strict obedience which was impossible but instead thereof the Law of Faith obsequious Faith that works by love endeavors honestly and heartily and where it fails repents that is grieves and amends and perseveres in doing so For as St Paul assures us we are not under the Law but under Grace Rom. 6. 14. tho we be under the directions of it the duty of it is most indispensable vertue always yet we are not under those strict terms of it according to the tenor of that curse but in a state of favor under terms of grace where there is mercy pardon to be had upon repentance thro faith and where there is encouragement and aid to work that faith and that amendment in us And thus far the Victory accrues to all mankind for all that will accept these terms of this remedying Law of grace the other killing strict Law hath no power over them For the Gospel was commanded to be preach'd to and its terms offer'd every creature under heaven all mankind a victory this that could not be obtain'd but by Christ's bloud the grace and favor of these easier terms for our obedience valued equal with his life for to take of this curse cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do it these strict terms he himself was made a curse and 't will be certainly a most unkind return if that which he thought worth the dying for to get us we shall not think worth the accepting slight these blessed terms and do not care unless we can be free from all necessity of an endeavor freed from vertue too as well as Law But secondly the Law being as we have shew'd it is the strength of Sin in giving it a power to condemn us that Law being taken off that power also cannot but be taken off from Sin and by that means the great strengths of that Enimy defeated Accordingly St Paul do's tell the Romans c. 6. v. 14. Sin shall not have dominion over you that is it shall not have by vertue of the Law a power to condemn you for you are not under the Law but under grace are in that state where men are not condemn'd for every gross or heinous sin altho too long continued in but there is pardon to be had for them that will but faithfully endeavor to amend turn from their sins return to Christ receive him and his pardon and where there is also help to do this 't is a true state of grace so that unless men will resolve to force their own
guards that are set about them to preserve them and break thro the strengths of grace and conquer all the strivings of Almighty God's compassion and goodness to them and beat off the very victory that Christ hath gain'd for them refuse all the kind offers of the Law of grace and chuse sin with damnation they are safe There is now as St Paul saith by the Law no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus to them who walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit Rom. 8. 1. in which words we have both an assurance that the strengths of Sin are broken and the persons too are partakers of the Victory that are in Christ Jesus for as it is by him the Victory is gotten so it is in him that we must get an interest in it Now to be in Christ if as most certainly it doth it mean here as in other places where 't is said of Churches housholds and of single persons then it means the Christians so in Gal. 1. 22 the Churches of Judea that are in Christ i. e. that have received the Gospel and the Faith of Christ Rom. 16. 11. greet them that be of the houshold of Narcissus that are in the Lord i. e. that are Christians and the seventh verse who were in Christ before me i. e. were converted e're I was But it means Christians not in judgment and opinion onely but in life and practice such as are in Christ by St Pauls character and description of it in the 2 Cor. 5. 17. If any man be in Christ he is a new creature he lives the life of Christ as a member does the life of that of which it is a member and so he walks not after the Flesh but after the Spirit For as members live by the vertue of the influence of spirits from the head into them and walk after its directions so those that are in Christ his members they must walk live act and practise by the Spirit of Christ guided not by carnal appetite the lusts and the desires of the Flesh but by Christ's directions Such they are who have this Victory to whom there is no condemnation For as he adds Rom. 8. 2. The law of the Spirit of life that is in Christ Jesus sets us free from the law of sin and death and so there is thro him a Victory over the third last enimy Death in which freedom from Sin and Death two things are intimated 1. That Sin the sting of Death is taken away which being once removed Death is the softest thing that can be 't is but falling asleep so it is call'd v. 18. of this chapter faln asleep in Christ it is so far from being hurtful that it is the first great happiness that does befall us 2. That Death it self also shall be swallowed up in Victory that we shall be recovered from its powers and triumph over it in Immortality of blessed life For if we be in Christ his members and so live the life of Christ and consequently when we die die in the Lord then tho the body be dead and corruptible yet if the Spirit of life that is in Jesus be in us he that rais'd up Jesus from the dead shall also quicken our mortal bodies by his Spirit Rom. 8. 11. It is this life in him that verifies the saying of St Paul Eph. 2. 6. He hath raised us up and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ as sure as if we were already there for there we are already as his members in our head And to the full and personal enjoyment of the blessings of those heavenly places it is death that lets us in that vale of Achor is the door of hope and Canaan the grave the avenue to God's right hand that death 't is but the Pascha in St Bernard 't is our Passover a repast of bitter herbs indeed but at the going out of Egypt from the house of bondage And tho the body seem in death a piteous despicable thing sown in corruption dishonor as St Paul expresses yet death gives that a relation too to Christ the Prophet Isaiah brings in the Lord calling His dead 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cadaver they my dead body shall aris◠saith he c. 26. 19. So that the corps of a good person is so far a member that 't is call'd the very body of his Savior into such a title Death translates it to such not to live onely but to die is Christ. And sure if they that die in him did live in him as none can die there where they did not live at all that is live as his members they that die in Christ must die his members But in the expression of the Prophet they do also die himself and are Christ's own dead body Death to such is as it were transfiguration and do's not so much strip and make them naked as cloath them and that with glory the shrowd may seem but their white wedding linnen and their dress for the marriage of the Lamb. Whoever is a faithfull sincere Christian if Death seem to make approaches to him arm'd with all his instruments of cruelty and terror charge him as assuredly as a Prophet could to set his house in order for he must die if he can say with Hezekiah in Isaiah 38. 3. Remember now O Lord how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart and have don that which is good in thy sight then if he have not fifty years yet he shall have a numberless Eternity added to his life and notwithstanding the dark solitude of the Grave to which he is retiring he shall have that which will accompany him to his infinite joy when he is torn from friends and all his dearest things do leave him yet he shall not be alone his faith and piety his vertues all go along with him and appear for him at that tribunal on the Judgment day All his relations even his bosom-guest the other half of his own soul forsake him bring him it may be to the grave and tho they carry blacks upon them to refresh and keep alive the memory of him yet in a while take comfort and forget yet the true conjugal affections of an untainted undefiled bed shall go along present the Soul white as a Virgin that 's unspotted And after this 't is in vain to say his riches will forsake him they go not so far as the grave afford nothing of themselves but the price of a sheet and coffin But then Charities will mount Alms will ascend as fast as the Spirit the wealth one piously bestow'd will meet him he shall eternally possess that which he gave away and tho his place know him no more they shall receive him into everlasting habitations Wherefore my beloved Brethren be ye stedfast unmovable always abounding in the work of the Lord which is the real way of giving thanks to God who giveth us the Victory SERMON XI
see him as he is add this Every man that hath this hope purifieth himself as he is pure doth righteousness in the words following and so is righteous even as he is righteous But that we may know what King David means by beholding Gods face in Righteousness we must know that first by Righteousness is meant uprightness and sincerity of a religious holy virtuous life and as for the beholding of Gods face we may take notice that altho God saith he spoke to Moses face to face yet he tells the same Moses that he cannot see his face and live Exod. 33. 11 10. so that Davids beholding of his face is not seeing him as he did hope to do when he did awake up after Gods likeness but 1. As for God to lift up the light of his countenance Psalm 4. 6. and to make his face to shine upon a man Psalm 31. 16. is to be favorable to him and to hide Psalm 30. 7. or turn away his face 2 Chron. 30. 9. is to withdraw his favor and to be displeased so also to seek his face 1 Chron. 16. 11. is to endeavor to obtain his kindness and accordingly to see or behold his face is to be in his favor to be in a state of enjoying it But besides this also 2. As those that are said to behold the face of Kings are those that minister about them do them service of the nearest admission and that stand in their presence and are ready still to execute whatever they command So 2 King 25. 19. and he took five men of those that saw the King's face of those that serv'd him in ordinary and so very often Ester 1. 14. c. And as secondly the Angels that are ministring Spirits sent forth by God to minister perpetually are said to see the face of God always Matt. 18. 10. so when David says of God thou settest me before thy face Psalm 41. 12. the Jews expound set me that he might serve minister unto him for that is to stand before the face of one 1 Kings 1. 2 4. and c. 10. 8. and c. 17. 1. c. as he had said dost appoint me for thy service and by consequence to see his face or to behold his presence is to wait upon him in all duty and obedience to his commands whom they attend accordingly to walk before him or walk with him in his presence is to serve him constantly with all uprightness Gen. 17. 1. and to please him Heb. 11. 5. cum Gen. 5. 24. But particularly in the acts of Worship and Religion his House the place that 's dedicated to his Worship being call'd his Court his presence Psalm 95. 2. and 100. 2 4. because he sate upon and spoke from the Mercy-seat Exod. 25. 22. Numb 7. 89. and the Ark is therefore his presence and his face those that serve there are said to minister before him in his presence those that come there to appear before him Psalm 42. 2. those that pray to seek his face 2 Chron. 7. 14. and to intreat the face of the Lord 1 Kings 13. 6. and our King David did desire one thing of the Lord which says he I will require even that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord Psalm 27. 4. So that to behold God's face in righteousness here does signify all this I will serve thee truly faithfully attend thy commands and wait upon thee in a constant diligent performance of my duty live as always in thy presence holily and righteously especially in attendance on thy Worship when I come to seek thy face to put my self before thee in thy presence and so doing I make no doubt but that thou wilt lift up the light of thy countenance upon me and I shall behold thy face to shine upon thy servant And indeed that this is the means and that there is no other way to arrive at this state is not difficult to prove for the righteous Lord loveth righteousness saith the same David Psalm 11. 7. his countenance will behold the thing that is just whereas without this no man shall see the Lord and thereupon the Prophet Micah after strict inquiry in the peoples name what they were to do that they might find God's face look pleasingly upon them and see his favorable countenance wherewithall shall I come before the Lord and how myself before the most High God Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings with calves of a year old Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams If his favor be to be bought tho at the greatest price 't will be abvisable to give it and the dearest purchase would be a reasonable one Or shall I give ten thousand rivers of oyl thereby to make his face to shine and look upon me with a chearfull countenance This sure were to be don Or farther yet shall I give my first-born for my transgression or the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul Time was indeed when men would do that offer up their tender infants in the fire to Moloch to preserve themselves from those sins of the other Tophet as if the burnt child were to expiate the foul heats that begat it I know not whether men believe now such transgressions can deserve so severe atonements that a sin of theirs is valuable at the life of their own first-born tho they take upon them to profess the faith that they were valued at the life of the first-born of God however there our Prophet shapes this answer to that question wherewithall shall I come before the Lord He hath shewed thee O man what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God And truly if we come before the Lord to behold his presence in the duties of Religion we must see his face in Righteousness otherwise he will either turn away his Face or else our praiers will but call his frowns upon us and indanger us to perish at the rebuke of his countenance The Prophet Isaiah speaking as from God to that vainglorious nation of the Jews saith c. 1. v. 12 c. When ye come to appear before me who hath required this at your hand to tread my courts Bring no more vain oblations incense is an abomination to me it is iniquity even your solemn meetings Sabboths and your appointed feasts my soul hateth they are a trouble unto me I am weary to bear them And when ye spread forth your hands I will hide mine eyes from you yea when ye make many praiers I will not hear Wash ye make ye clean put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes cease to do evil learn to do well seek judgment right the oppressed c. And surely if men do not put away the evil of their doings from them when they come before his face how lowd
it now unto thy Governor will he be pleased with thee or accept thy person makes use of the like climax and gradation as if he had said Had thy obedience to thy Ruler no more care nor endeavor in it had thy services to thy Lord no more devotion nor zeal were thy performances to thy Governor so slight and so regardless so full of supine negligence to say nothing of transgression and contemt were thy presentments to thy Prince so unhandsom slubber'd heedless so unchosen unprepared so trivial would they be content with them And must I No surely Cursed be the deceiver verse 14. that mocks me with his imperfect lame sick services with outsides of attendance yea with irreverence with casting of my words behind him with polluted offerings for I am a great King saith the Lord. But afterwards in case of an higher affront he breaks into an higher resentment c. 3. 8. Will a man rob God This is such a thing as the Lord's Rhetoric could lay no greater aggravation on it than by asking the question whether any man could heat himself into such a mad impiety and not be confounded at the thought of such an enterprise to abuse his God Now such an obligation of obedience to the Lord Christ he owns that does acknowledge him his God this it requires Now as to what the Title does import by way of promise here to be the God of any body signifies to be their Almighty Benefactor him from whom that person may expect and shall receive all good things that the power of a God includes So it is clear it does when God proclaims himself the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob and says that is his name and his memorial to all generations Exod. 3. 15 16. From whence our Savior concludes Matt. 22. 31 32. that Abraham and the other must have a life after this for otherwise how is he yet their God How can he be a Benefactor to the dead And in the tenor of the Covenant where it is past it means I will bestow upon them all the mercies of the Covenant So in the Old that place of Deut. 26. 16 17 18 19. so in the New Heb. 8. 10 12. where 't is explained I will be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more So that my God does mean first he that I vow all worship and service to and secondly he from whom I claim and challenge all those glorious things that are contracted for us in Christ's Covenant the happy issues of the whole chain of methods that he works for us the designed mercies of his Predestination and the privileges that he calls us to the comfortable condition in which his Justification does instate us the graces of his Sanctification and the incomprehensible blessedness of his Glorification yea and all the preservations and mercies of this life all these are challenged in this Thou art my God For so Jer. 31. 33 34. which is repeated in the Heb. 8. 10 11 12. whatever both parts do contract for man's duty and God's promises is all sum'd up in this I will be their God and they shall be my people By which words also he assures them all deliverances from evil and enstates upon them the securings of his Providence both to themselves and their posterity And if God mean all this when he does say I will be their God then man he vows and claims all this when he does say my God Now let us see how this days performance does both these First how it vows and swears all duty worship and service all that Christ requires by his Covenant I have already shewn so that that part is don onely we may take notice Whose belly is his God in St Pauls words Phil. 3. 19. the man who does mind nothing but his sensual appeties and notwithstanding Christ's commands contrives all satisfactions for that and enjoys them that either casts the body of Christ into a stomach filled with late surfet and drowns his bloud in such intemperate draughts as are yet unrepented of or else within a few days after overlaies that body with some riot or spews that bloud out in the overflowings of his woful draughts These whatsoever they have don to day cannot yet say my God not onely because they so defy his Worship which they vowed but because they set up an Anti-God against him and while they vow upon their knees he is their God yet at that same time they adore their appetites Nor if Covetousness or rather inordinate lusting as the word bears be Idolatry as St Paul oft expresses and surely without taking in the Heathen uncleanesses in Religion and it is ill for some persons of these days that they had not the luck to be born Heathens that so they might have bin unclean devoutly committed in obedience to their Gods presented their bodies living sacrifices to be kindled by the flames of lust and whose whoredoms were their pieties for many live now as if they did not onely wish but almost think so But abating this there is sure more Idolatry in the courthips and the practice of that sin than any other There is no other thing does cast a man into such base degenerate and unworthy submissions to atchieve or to cover his transgression lower than any thing but the unclean commission it self Now if this be Idolatry the lustful person hath an Idol and then he cannot say to Christ my God And thus they in whom the God of this world hath blinded their mind in St Pauls words 2 Cor. 4. 4. they who serve Satan by going on in any vitious custom of the World or in a word they that disobey Christ for this God of the World this Prince of the power of the air the Spirit that works in the Children of disobedience Ephes. 2. 2. they cannot say to Christ my God tho they bow at his Altar they obey the Devil and he will not be a partner together with the Devil So that every one of these is perjur'd when he says my God much less can he plead the claim my God the last sense Now in that sense My God does challenge as a right and a peculiar all the Blessings temporal Spiritual and Eternal all that the promises of Christ do offer or that the hopes and expectations of a Christian fly at all these I told you God included when he said I will be their God and therefore all these he does truly challenge that can say my God It is an huge Confidence that a poor soul may take when he can go to God as David does Psalm 119. 94. I am thine save me secure thine own O Lord or else it will be thy loss what I shall suffer For I am thine vindicate thine own right let neither Sin nor Devil rob thee of thy own peculiar Behold I commit thine own charge with thee and then take care of that
that feel no stripes from their commissions and are such whom sin do's not wound We read of a strange evil eye Matth. 7 3. seest not the beam that is in thine own eye A beam upon the eye must needs make all dark but the insensibleness of such an eye that do's not feel a beam is strange beyond imagination yet 't was but fit to word a conscience that was not sensible of the guilt of wilful gross deliberate sins 't is like an eye that under the dead weight of a mighty beam yet rouls and feels no pressure A much worse then feared conscience this That which is seared tho it will not shrink for a prick or gash yet 't will shrink under load but this feels no degree of weight but tho it be that weak and tender part the eye yet is this without feeling under that which the whole body cannot stand under nothing but pillars can support The characters of such a conscience and its dark consequence to fit it to my text are given by S. Paul Eph. 4. 18 19. You see here a blind heart like an evil eye creates a darkness such as makes them aliens to the life of God for indeed they lead the life of feinds the inhabitants of darkness and they do quickly grow to an estate past feeling and then they commit evil with greediness And indeed 't were very easy for me to shew how this do's grow by deading the tenderness of conscience at the first by fortifying against its checks and pricks by seeking little excuses to allay and palliate the sores either Christ do's not mean so strictly or getting other principles to set against the strictness as custome of the age or honor or the like God knows things that will not be principles nor be allow'd in any lest degree when he comes to examin but in the mean time they do stop the mouth of conscience and the doing so frequently together with the conversations of sin do clear take off the horror and the aversation and by degrees the senseâ— the mind first leaves to be affraid and startle at it and then leaves to check for it All this I could deduce at large but that I hasten to the other remaining consideration of conscience as it respecteth actions to be don as it signifies the judgment of the mind informing us what we may or must do or what we must forbear And so I told you as it answers to the single eye so it denotes the pure Conscience the enlightened eye of the mind that is a truly well inform'd conscience a conscience that judges according to its rule And to this I must what I promised tell you first What is the entire Rule of conscience that so we may know when conscience do's inform us truly this we must do that not For conscience being not it self supreme director it hath a God above it that conscience may be right it must be according to its rule therefore we must enquire of that and First 't is certain that the Law of God in force as all the law of Christ is to us Christians particularly that of these Chapters that contain Christs sermon on the Mount Repentance self-denial Charity forgiving injuries humility c. is a rule of conscience And here I will suppose that I do not speak to Antinomians and that I need not to prove that we are oblig'd to do what God by his commands has enjoin'd and that whether the mandate terminat in duty to himself or to our fellow men especially his Vicegerent upon earth the lawful Magistrate There are some men I know who would acquit themselves to their Governors if they are content to suffer in case of disobedience but unless there were guilt in the neglect of active obedience it would be very unjust to enforce passive especially when 't is plain that all the Apostles arguings Rom. 13. do prove an obligation to active duty 1. Because the Magistrate hath Commission from God and therefore he that will not yeild active obedience to their lawful constitutions will not obey the Lords commission v. 2. and then 4. he is the minister of God his officer and he that do's refuse obedience to those Constitutions of an officer which his superior hath impower'd him to make he do's refuse it to that Superior And out of these he then infers Wherefore ye must needs be subject Yea indeed if the just laws of such Governors do not oblige the conscience neither can many of Gods laws To instance God hath commanded me I shall not steal and I think my self bound in conscience not to do it but what is it to steal To take that which of right is another mans against his will And what do's give a right but human Law 'T is according to that any thing is thine or mine Christ do's not interpose in setling rights for when the man would have had him speak to his Brother to divide the inheritance with him answers Man who made me a Judge or a divider amongst you let the laws do it That inheritance which here a Man do's claim as eldest in other places of this very Nation the youngest should have only right too where the tenure of Burrough English takes place And again in other places each brother should have equal right to by Gavelkind And in some other Nations as in Denmark for example no child of any second Wife hath any right according to the example of Abraham yet all these several waies of right are one as just as another and in one place the one hath as true a right as the other hath in the other Establish't laws therefore do give the only right and by those human Laws thou hast a right in conscience to that which they make thine for otherwise how can it be a sin against my conscience to take that from thee which neither thou nor any man else hath a right in conscience to Such human laws therefore do oblige the Conscience or else Gods eighth and tenth Commandements cannot 3. There is yet another branch of the Rule of conscience and that is the law of scandal In things that both by Gods and by mans law are free to me to do or not if yet by doing any of them or by not doing I see others will be ensnared in sin I am bound in conscience to avoid either such actions or omissions 1 Cor. 8. from v. 8. Rom. 14. And here I will not wonder how barefac't temtations to vice and pressing sin upon a man with all the arts of friendship or of treachery or force should grow to be civilities and kindnesses when an innocent lawful action is so ill character'd because it may prove a stumbling block but I will only sum up what hath been said in one word the Will of God is the Rule of conscience I am bound in conscience to do what God will have and so the law of Christ and the just laws of our just Governors which
that we should submit too is the will of God saith S. Peter and the law of scandal are the full and entire rule of conscience Whatsoever they prescribe or forbid that my conscience if it be rightly inform'd will tell me I must do or forbear and if I act according to the dictates of a conscience so inform'd my actions will be good and honest and such a single eye makes my whole body full of light which was the second thing Now this is prov'd in one word that must needs be a good life which is regulated by a good conscience because all good life is call'd by the name of a good conscience 1 Tim. 1. 19. This was S. Pauls whole charge to Timothy holding faith and a good conscience there 's the belief and duty that 's the whole So 1 Pet. 3. 16. a good conscience is explain'd by a good Conversation in Christ and plainer yet Heb. 13. 18. We trust we have a good conscience willing in all things to live honestly Sincere endeavors to obey the conscience in every thing not boggling with it accepting the persons of duties and being very conscientious in some things but taking liberty in other bribing my conscience to wink like an evil eye and leave me in the dark as to some actions this is not to be conscientious he is so only that is willing to live honestly in all things and to do so is matter for the Apostles confidence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This also was the sum of all S. Paul himself endeavored after Acts 24. 16. And herein do I exercise my self to have alwaies a conscience void of offence towards God and towards man He had no stricter aims here was the height of his Religion these were his exercises And the antient Father Clemens Alex. Strom. 6. says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And what would any man have more Yea 't is apparent from the very terms for if thy conscience truly inform thee of all thy duty and thou dost accordingly then thou dost all thy duty or which is all that we can do So far as thy hearty endeavor is to this so far is thy life good and acceptable And here I have an hint for application by conviction of those who guide their conscience and consequently their lives by humors and fancies and not by the certain rules of conscience the laws I have assign'd Some men will call that conscience which is their inclination tho they do not examin whence the inclination springs from God or from suggestion of an interest or an affliction and think they are bound to do or may do that they have a mind to do Some mens rash heats that have somthing like zeal and it may be that have good intentions in them are strait the dictates of their Conscience and they must actuate those animosities and heats for they are bound in conscience Some men are advis'd by their fears and that will look like conscience in a little time Some mens imaginations promted by loose and libertine interpretations of Scripture or false infusions are strait their conscience and then their conscience tells them they must act accordingly But where 's the Law for these Conscience was I told you Gods Vicegerent possest his throne in man and was his Deputy prescrib'd to all mans actions and took cognizance of them and accordingly did sentence and will a man have humor give the Law to Gods Vicegerent or vain imaginations rule 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that God within us as the ancients call'd it set fancy on the Throne Or I might secondly complain of them that would divide the rule of conscience and pick and chuse and take but part of it the immediate law of God they would think themselves bound to but for the law of scandal they regard it little Who did make them the keepers of their brothers soul If others by misunderstanding of their actions be drawn to sin at their own peril be it and at so little rates they value the salvation of that soul which Christ thought worth his bloud that for their meat or drink as S. Paul words it they will let their Brother perish for whom Christ died do actions for their interest or security under a close and secret sense of their own which being not understood by other weaker souls that look on their example with some Reverence they are led to sin and to perdition But much less do they think a law of man a Rule for conscience According to the Spartan method to be found out was transgressing the law the crafty performance was merit and vertue and whereas only Almighty God has cognizance of the heart his laws alone can reach designs and the obortive issues of the thought or those reserv'd enormities that are committed in the dark and without the privity of a witness Here were a subject for a sad complaint but that I have occasion for a worse and that is of the conscience that answers to the evil eye the other subject of the parable that is an evil conscience a conscience that do's not give true judgment of duty ill inform'd And first that which is totally or for the most so and of that but a word for 't is not pleasant sure to rake in such a sinke We read in Scripture of men given up to a reprobate mind or sense Rom. 1. 28. and to every good Work reprobate Tim. 1. 16. men who against all the checks of conscience and in despite of all its oppositions have chosen and pursued forbidden interests and pleasures so long till custome of them hath made them a part not only of their family but themselves and they do nothing now but prosecute them by contrivances and actions and have don this till conscience is stupified and as pleasures are especially saith Aristotle corruptive of principles from the absolute necessity they have conceived of them they think them little sins and from a long practise none at all these men are so far in a reprobate ense their hearts give a false judgment as false indeed as Satan would have them give and falser much then he can give himself of things of Religion who believes and trembles For they stick not to think those terrors Clergy men do talk of are but mormo's vizards of fear only Religious spectres shades of terror those strictnesses of vertue and of the means of practising it but the dreams of bigots foolish self injuries and those things we with so much eager zeal call sins the only and not dangerous enjoyments 'T is the Apostles asseveration and it is justified by every daies unhappy experience that evil men and seducers wax worse and worse deceiving and being deceiv'd 2 Tim. 3. 13. Habits of ill emprove gradually as those of vertue only with this difference that the grouth is more suddain and prosperous like that of weeds and noxious plants in respect of those which are medicinal There is no opinion nor no practice so bad
which men by degrees cannot make plausible as custome renders vice necessary so by familiarity it becomes acceptable the first horrors are soon worn off and as it fares in War the enemy is made a servant and after grows up to be a favorite and is at length a master The progress from bad to worse is like that of heavy bodies downwards the native weight gains fresh accessions from the decent already made and the motion being continued grows still more rapid and irresistible That fool who said in his heart there is no God e're long emproves into a wit and loudly saies there neither is or can be one Conscience gall'd with perpetual ill usage contracts a callows hardness and becomes utterly insensible and by these unhappy steps ungodly men are dead while they live 1 Tim. 5. 6. are dead in trespasses and sins Eph. 2. 1. O thou the day-spring from on high that cam'st to visit us who sat in darkness and in the shadow of death in ignorance and sin and in the suburbs of eternal darkness shed thy light in our hearts we beseech thee and by the Illuminations of thy Holy Spirit give us enlightned minds and sanctified wills and affections Thou hast plac'd conscience in thy stead within us to do thy offices and to be thy Vicegerent to lay thy laws to us for our direction and to watch over all our actions to teach us to convince us to correct or comfort us Furnish we beseech thee then this thy commissioner within us with all qualifications necessary for thy offices endue it with the knowledg of all thy will that we may have a right judgment in all things and then endue us with obsequious hearts that may be alwaies ready to obey the dictats of our consciences willing to live piously and honestly in all things exercising our selves alwaies in this to have a conscience void of offence both towards God and towards man and when the good Lord delivers us from this sad state and the occasions of it and if at any time we do rebel against thy officer our conscience Lord arm it with thy terrors that it may whip and lash us back again into our duty and sting and goad and never let us rest till we return to our obedience and persevere therein unto the end then shall we have the blessed comforts of a good conscience here and the gladsome light of a clear heart in this world and in the world to come light and Glory with the in thy Kingdom c. SERMON XX. THE LIGHT OF THE BODY is the Eye Matt. 6. 22 23. The light of the body is the eye if therefore thy eye be single thy whole body shall be full of light But if thine eye be evill thy whole body shall be full of darkness If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness how great is that darkness I Have drawn you the parallel betwixt the Eye and the Conscience to several of their objects and uses shew'd you how the clear eye is not a better guide to a mans walks nor finds more pleasure in the prospects of those beauties that are made to temt and entertain the sight then a pure conscience do's find in looking over the landshape of a life led righteously soberly and Godly which it must needs if it follow the guidance of this single eye this well-inform'd conscience I have lead you also to the confines of that more dismal prospect the dark of that sad state which an evil conscience do's lead into This I have done in one and that in the worst consideration that of a sear'd reprobate conscience there remain three that I propos'd to consideration the first that of an erring conscience second doubtful third scrupulous And now I am to shew how each of these do's lead a man into the dark the scrupulons raiseth a dust about him leads into error and discomfort too the doubtful do's instead of guiding him leave him so puzl'd that he knows not which way to betake himself and the erring conscience lights him into the pit and takes him by the hand only to thrust him down if in any of these waies the eye be evil the whole body shall be full of darkness Of these in their order 2. An erring conscience a conscience that gives false information of duty that either tells me I may or I must do that which either Gods Law or some Law in force upon me tells me I must not do or else tells I must not do that which I am bound to do or at the least may do Now that this is a light indeed like those deceitful ones that lead men over precipices into dark ruins like such lights that were so plac'd between the rocks as to guide the mariner into a shipwrack to make it necessary for him to be dasht against the one or the other is most certain for so it is here There is scarce such another infelicity as that this man lies under whose conscience tells him one thing when God's Law or that which is any way his duty do's require the contrary for if he do according to the Law of God he acts against his conscience and so sins and if he act according to his conscience he sins against the Law of God Poor soul Sin lies on the right and on the left hand which way soever he do's turn it seizes on him and all this I shall prove 1. That if he act against his conscience he sins tho the Law of God make it no sin Scripture and reason shall make good Rom. 14. 14. I know and am perswaded by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of it self but to him that esteemeth any thing unclean to him it is unclean God had once forbidden such and such meats under pain of sin to the Jews by Moses Law and made them unclean that is unlawful to their use Now Christ had taken off this obligation and made all meats lawful for any man S. Paul saith that he knew so I am assur'd that Christ hath so remov'd all obligation to the Law of Moses that to a Christian no meat is unlawful to be eaten but yet for all this 't is unlawful to him who thinks it still prohibited and if his erring conscience tell him he ought not eat it tho by Christ's certain Law he may he sins if he do eat against his conscience and that to such an height that he whose example wrought with him to eat against the perswasion of his mind destroyeth the man v. 15. Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died 't is therefore a destroying sin to do a lawful thing against a mans conscience The reason of all this is cleer because no Law of God or man no rule of duty can be applied unto us but by the mediation of conscience for till my conscience laies it to my heart and tells me such a thing is commanded and my duty it is to me as if there were
another occasion for God's remitting him not from his conscience which might alleviate the faults but by his being by the horror of his sins a greater instance of God's wonderful grace in forgiving v. 16. Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all long-suffering for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe in him to life everlasting God dealt most mercifully with me call'd me from heaven whilst I was persecuting him to be a prime object of his patience and longanimity and in order of time the first that was so miraculously call'd that so the wickedest of the Gentiles may in me have an example of hope of mercy if they shall come in to Christ. And will it now be fit my Brethren with this of S. Paul who notwithstanding such true pleas of conscience is forc'd to seek out for such motives of forgiveness and plead hard ignorance and unbelief and yet confess himself the cheif of sinners with this I say to parallel some actions of our daies that under the pretence of conscience which too hath no Law as that of S. Paul had tho then outdated will justify forbidden actions even against repentance men will not ask forgiveness where they can pretend conscience I could instance in a strange particular of one of my remembrance and my knowledg of the person and the story sufficiently notorious who because the Papists believing that to be Christ which indeed is bread worship it therefore thought in his conscience all kneeling at the Sacrament Idolatry and to that error adding the command Deut. 13. 6 7 8 9. cut off his brother's and his mother's head yea and when condemn'd to death by sentence of Law for the action would not be beaten from his hold but on the strength of that mistaken place went as boldly with that bloud on his hand and his soul to face the judgment seat as he could have don had he bin wash'd in Christ's own bloud and of this resolute fury the Zealots of our neighbor country of Scotland have made many recent instances in their reviv'd Ravilliacs See the sad issue of an erring conscience an action whose horror feinds would startle at such a perswasion do's make meritorious and yet God knows that erring consciences have brought the Parent of a Nation a thing of much direr guilt to the same state and yet that conscience must be admitted an excuse when God knows jealousies and suspicions have bin all the ground and all the rule for their determinations of conscience and yet on that stock alone they could misjudge and censure speak evil of and revile the actions of just Governors and do that which I dare not say When against all Laws both of God and man all ties sacred and civil obligations of oaths and duties that it may be impossible to plead ignorance men yet will act under the banner of such a thin conscience that never could produce any Law of God for its direction or its quiet and yet think themselves secure When a confident perswasion of heart God knows how taken up shall quite annual that command of Christ of taking up the Cross and change that state which he calls blessed suffering for righteousness sake if there were such a thing change it into so great a curse as men will rather embowel themselves in their brother's hearts involve a Nation in bloud and misery in guilt and ruin than not throw off the Cross from off their shoulders And now 't is to no purpose to observe that when perjury and sacriledg and breach of almost every Commandment in the Decalogue shall not only become tolerable but be the only character of a godly side by vertue of a thing call'd conscience surely S. Paul was a weak man that when he had don some such things out of a good and pure conscience yet calls himself the chief of sinners In like manner in the Church new religious fancies are bold to take upon them the holy face of conscience and then to quicken men into schisms and all uncharitable separations and factions withdrawing them from the obedience of them that have the spiritual rule over them not at all submitting themselves to them who by Gods appointment watch over their souls but rather flying in their faces at once with open disobedience loud reproches bitter censures and severe condemnations Others by having had mens persons in admiration and consequently their opinions suffer'd their models to be stampt upon their conscience and then that must justify Ecclesiastical parricides destroying their own fathers that begot them to the Church and at once cutting off the whole line of those progenitors that can derive their race from Christ a fairer stem and pedigree than most can shew But alas my Brethren if we shall grant that these opinions really possess their souls and that in the uprightness of their heart they did pursue them that neither interest nor faction nor having bin disoblig'd or having suffer'd hath pufft up a passion into conscience but that 't is all sincerity yet we have seen that cannot bear us out in such commissions 't is but an erring conscience still that animates a man into any breach of duty and if there be no other Law to warrant actions the conscience is so far from being able to justify them that while it errs it but entangles a man in the necessity of sinning leads him into such Labyrinths of guilt that whatever he do's he offends on one side if he do what his erring conscience dictates to him he sins against God's Law on the other side if he forbear he sins against God's Vicegerent his own conscience there is the guilt of his deed here is the guilt of his heart which do's oblige a man to follow that which it is sin to follow and which makes him he must and ought to do that which he must not nor ought to do And sure my Brethren the only application to such a conscience is to advise the laying it aside to rectify the error Good counsel that indeed but the hardest to be taken in the world for that a man may rectify he must know himself in an error and if he know that then he hath not an erring conscience this when it is strongly so doth not so much as doubt of his opinion and while he do's not doubt what temtation hath he so much as to set upon the rectifying I shall but name some means The first will be Praier for Divine illumination S. James has directed this if any man lacks wisdom let him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not c. 1. 5. and our Savior has promis'd that he will give his Holy Spirit to them that ask him Luke 11. 13. whose office we know is to lead us into all truth John 16. 13. The second means will be not to be wanting to our selves not to shut our eies against or resist the truth Acts 28. 27.
still proves them in the right But I shall do it from a plain notorious effect nor do I know what else can be more seasonable than while some men seem to stand candidates for sufferings and choose Sedition and Schism rather than lose the reputation of not being afflicted with their Party and while others plead the merits of affliction and Trumpet out their having suffered as a pretence for the ambition and the covetousness the luxuries and intemperance and all the other vices of prosperity which their late sufferings have before hand expiated while it is thus on each side to give both a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereby to judg the Case which my Text here presents for He that hath suffered in the Flesh hath ceased from Sin The words make a single Proposition and therefore cannot well be taken asunder nor indeed need they the Terms being very well understood The Subject every one is willing to assume to himself no one I believe that hears me but will say he hath suffer'd in the Flesh. Therefore we have no more to do but to see whether the other Term agree as universally which certainly it must if our Proposition here hold good if He that hath suffered in the Flesh hath ceased from Sin Therefore in order to this I shall offer at Three things First Discourse of the truth of the Proposition in General and see if we can discern how necessary and how effectual this Instrument of Reformation is whether it be such as may build a confidence of asserting That He who hath suffered hath ceased from Sin Secondly Because discoursing in General is not so practical and useful I shall endeavour to discover in particular By what Artifice of method the Flesh engageth men into courses of sin and how it works them up to the height of it and then see how sufferings blast that method and make the Arts of the flesh either unpracticable or too weak Thirdly I will attempt to view our own concerns in all this propose to consideration Whether this method hath had this effect on us or Whether indeed it be as easie to confute God's Word as to break his Commandments and contrive that his truth shall no more stand than his will does but notwithstanding Scriptures bold affirmation here yet they that have suffered have not ceas'd from Sin and if so then to propose the danger and infer Christ's Application that at least we begin to cease and sin no more least a worse thing come unto us I. He that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from Sin None but He and He certainly When it appear'd that Eden had too much of Garden for innocence to dwell in and although man were made upright yet amidst such delights he could not be so a whole day but of the many inventions he found out the first was to destroy himself immediately and under the shadow of the Tree of life he wrought out death and made the Walks of Paradise lead him towards Hell God saw himself concern'd to take another course He sets a guard of fire about Eden about the place of pleasure as well as in the place of torments and there was as much need of flame to keep man out of Paradise as flame to fright him from Hell He makes the Earth not spring with Garden any more but bring forth thorns and briars that might scratch and tear man in the pursuit of things below which if the Soul should cleave and cling unto the Earth might gore and stab it in the embrace Nothing but sufferings will do us good The Earth was most accurst to man when it was all Paradise nothing but the malediction could make it safe and bless it to us our happiness must be inflicted executed on us and we must be goaded into blessedness and therefore God hath put afflictions into every dispensation since the first Among the Jews sin did receive immediate punishment by the tenour of the Covenant and though the retributions of our Covenant be set at distance as far remote as Hell yet Christ has drest his very promises in sackcloth and in ashes tears and trouble when he would recompence heroick vertue he says it shall receive an hundred fold with persecution Mar. x. 30. and he does grant us sufferings To you it is given in the behalf of Christ to suffer Phil. 1. 29. so that the sting of the Serpent is now the tempter his bitings and his venom moving us to obedience as much as his lying tongue did our first Parents to rebellion and when he does fulfill Gods threat and wound the heel he only drives us faster away from him and makes us haste to him that flies to meet us with healing under his wings This method God hath always us'd and the experience confirm'd by the blood of all Ages even from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of this season of all the Prophets that went before us and the Apostles that came after them as if those were men inspir'd for ruine and what ever Judgment they denounc'd it was their own burden and as if these were men chosen out for and delegated to Persecution men appointed unto death as St. Paul expounds their Office none escap'd and the next succeeding times of Primitive Christianity were but Centuries of Martyrdom so many years of Fire and Faggot and worse tortures This method hath not past by any Grandeur but of those great ones that have been eminently good their afflictions have vy'd with their Majesty the Calendar hath had as much share of them as the Chronicle the Martyrology as the Annals and their blood not their Purple put them in the Rubrick Gods Furnace made Crowns splendid gave them a Majesty of shine and an Imperial glory and so all our Crowns indeed must be prepar'd in the Furnace he that told us we must be Baptiz'd with fire saw there was something in us that the Christians water will not cleanse Baptism may wash sullays but not dross away That must be washt in flame and nothing else but fire will take away our base alloy And it cannot be otherwise never was there any other way to Glory for when God was to bring many Sons to glory he sanctified the very Captain of our salvation through sufferings Heb. ii 10. Who though he were a Son and that the Son of God yet learned he obedience by the things that he suffered Heb. v. v. 8. This therefore is the only and most effectual way of teaching it when God speaks in Judgment and indeed he counts all other of his Voices but as silence in comparison of this and though he gave his Law in Thunder and sent his Prophets dayly to denounce wrath to transgression yet he reckons of all this as if he had said nothing till he speak Plagues and command afflictions Psal. l. 21. after a Catalogue of sins he tells the man these things hast thou done and I kept silence though my Law
did warn thee and my Messengers call'd to thee yet I hardly expect that thou shouldst hear those whispers with all those Voices I did scarce break silence but now I will reprove thee and thou shalt hear the rod or hear thy own groans under it For that we may be sure to hear this Voice God does by it open the ear Job xxxiii 14 15 16. God speaks once yea twice yet man perceiveth it not in a dream and in a vision then he opens the ears of men by Chastisements as it follows in four Verses full of them 91 20 21 22. and sealeth his instruction that he may withdraw Man from his purpose i. e. that he may make him cease from sin It seems the place of Dragons is Gods chiefest School of Repentance and we may have a clearer sight of him in the dimness of anguish than Vision it self does give When men did not perceive that saith Job yet this open'd the Ear and so God sealeth the Instruction And truly when the Soul dissolves in Tears and when as David words it The heart in the midst of the body is even like melting wax then only 't is susceptible of Impression then is the time for sealing the Instruction Nor does Chastisement open the Ear only but the Vnderstanding also I will give her trouble 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I will take her into the Wilderness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he and speak unto her Heart There is convincing Experience of all this Pharaoh that was an Atheist in Prosperity does beg for Prayers in Adversity before he suffers Pharaoh says Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice I know not the Lord neither will I let Israel go Exod. v. v. 2. but yet Thunder preaches obedience into him and Pharaoh sent and called for Moses and Aaron and said I have sinned the Lord is righteous and I and my People are wicked intreat the Lord that there be no more mighty Thundrings no more Voices of God the Hebrew words it and I will let you go Exod. ix 27. And in the Book of Judges you will find that whole Age was nothing but a vicissitude of sinning and suffering divided betwixt Idolatry and Calamity When Gods hand was not on them they ran after other Gods as if to be freed from Oppression had been to be set free from Gods Worship and Service but when he did return to slay them then they sought him and they returned to enquire early after God and they remembred that God was their Rock and the high God was their Redeemer Psal. lxxviii 34 35. So that from such induction the Prophet might pronounce that when Gods Judgments are in the Earth the Inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness Esay xxvi 9. and S. Peter in the Text they that have suffered in the flesh have ceased from sin Which calls me to my second Task 2. To shew first by what arts the flesh engages men into courses of sin and by what methods it does work them up to the heights of it That I may Secondly declare how sufferings blast those methods and make all the arts of flesh either unpracticable or too weak 1. That the carnal appetite should reach after and give up it self to sensual delights is so far from strange that it is its nature 't is the Law of the members the very signature of flesh and inclination imprinted into it of which it can no more divest it self than the heated Deer can restrain it self from thirsting and panting after water-brooks But when Reason and Religion have set bounds to this appetite for it to scorn these mounds for that Law in the members to fight with and prevail against the Law in the mind those original dictates born in it and Christian Principles infused into it this is the Fleshes aim and sin Now this it does by exciting to ill actions as being sauc'd with pleasures and contents and by indisposing to good actions as being troublesom or not at all delightful to the sense and as for all other delights it hath no apprehension of but indisposeth for them perfectly So that this it does it engages too much in Pleasures here and it takes off all cares or thoughts of any joys hereafter both these I will shew you and thus it works 1. It prevails with us to indulge our selves the full use of lawful pleasures and for this the Flesh will urge it is the end of their Creation to do otherwise were to evacuate Gods purpose in the making Did he give us good things not to enjoy them Thus every sort of sin insinuates it self at first Youth will not deny it self converses with temptations although he have reason to fear they will commit a rape upon his warmer passions which are chafed by such encounters But God has not forbid him Conversation and why should he be an Anchoret and recluse in the throngs of Cities and of Courts Another that would not by any means be luxurious or intemperate yet goes as near them as he can and contrives to enjoy all those delights that do indeed but sauce Intemperance and make Excess palatable And truly why should he restrain himself from meats and drinks and be a Jew again All these believe they live righteously soberly and godly enough This resolution works in every recreation pleasure honour and advantage of this World men are content to make as near approaches to the Sin as they can and indeed believe they have no reason to be morose unto themselves I will deny my self nothing that God hath not denied me but enjoy as far as possibly and lawfully I may But then by doing thus it Secondly does oft take in somewhat of the immoderate and unlawful which cannot be avoided both because it is hard to set the exact bounds and limits of what is lawful The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Line that meres out Vertue from its Neighbour Vice is not so plain in every place as to chalk out exactly to this point thou mayst come and no farther hence the man sometimes mistakes himself into a fault however the extremity of Lawful is we know the confines and very edge of Vice And then to him that plays upon the brink of sin it is a very easie step into it and indeed unavoidable when a man is rusht and hurried on not only by his inward stings and inclinations but by the practice of the World which makes use of that holy Name of Friendship to bring Vice into our acquaintance and to befriend us into everlasting Death of such Friends I can have legions in Hell and the God of this World will serve me upon this account to procure for my Sin and my Destruction but howsoever when the Appetite is heated they are not to be denied Thirdly this happening therefore sometimes proves a Snare and bait still to go on both as it takes away the horrour and the aversation of the sins which at the first seem
it would A setled tendency a resolv'd inclination to sin that presseth with its utmost agitation is that weight which though it may perchance be stop'd in its career yet it tends to the Abysse its center and will not rest but in that Pit that hath nor rest nor bottom the Heart in this case is as liable as it can be because here it hath done its worst and such a Will shall be imputed to its self And now I need not tell those who are still designing sin or mischief in the heart although it never dares come out of those recesses how far they are removed from the goodness of God to Israel A Father finds a way to prove such souls have larger doses of Gods Vengeance who when he had asserted that the soul does not die with the body and then was ask'd what it did in that long interval for sure it is not reasonable that it should be affected with any anticipations of the future Judgment because the business of the day of Judgment should be reserved to its own day without all prelibation of the sentence and the restitution of the Flesh is to be waited for that so both soul and body may go hand in hand in their Recompences as they did in their demerits joynt Partners in the Wages as they were in the Works To this he answers The Soul does not divide all its operations with the Body some things it acts alone and if there were no other cause it were most just the Soul should there receive without the Body the dues of that which here it did commit without the Body That 's for the former sort of sins those meerly of the Heart And for the latter sort the Soul is first engaged in the commission that does conceive the sin lays the design of compassing and does contrive and carry on the machination and then why should not that be first in Punishment which is the first in the Offence Go now and reckon that thy outward gross Transgressions are the only dangerous and guilty ones and slight thy sins of Heart but know that while thy flesh is sleeping in the quiet Grave at rest and ease thy Spirit then 's in Torments sor thy Fleshes sins and feels a far severer Worm than that which gnaws thy Body Poor Soul Eternity of Hell from Resurrection to For-ever is not enough to punish it all that while it must suffer with the Body but it must have an age of Vengeance besides particularly for it self to plague it for those things it could not execute and punish it for what it did not really enjoy only because it did allow it self to desire and contrive them and it must be tormented for those unsatisfied desires And though indeed desires where they are violent if they be not allayed by satisfaction are but so much agony yet do they merit and pull on them more these Torments shall be plagued and the soul suffer for its very passion even from Death to the last Judgment and 't is but just that being it usurp'd upon the pleasures and the sins of Flesh it should also seize on and take possession of the Vengeance appointed for those sins it should invade and should usurp their condemnation But why do I stand pressing aggravations against uncleanness of Heart in an Age when God knows Vice hath not so much modesty or fear to keep within those close and dark restraints Instead of that same Cleanness which the Text requires we may find Purity indeed of several sorts but 't is either pure Fraud or pure Impiety the one of these does make a strange expression very proper pure Corruption for so it is sincere and without mixture nothing but it self no spots of Clean to chequer it but all stain The other is pure white indeed but it is that of whited Sepulcres a Life as clean as Light a bright pure Conversation but it shines with that light onely which Satan does put on when he transforms himself into an Angel of Light and it is but a glory about a fiend But yet this shines however whereas others do stand Candidates of Vice and would be glorious in wickedness and that is such a splendor as if Satan should dress himself with the shine of his own flaming Brimstone and make himself a glory with the streamings of his Lake of Fire And yet thus is the World we do not onely see men serve some one peculiar vicious inclination and cherish their own wickedness but they make every Vice their own as if the Root of bitterness branch'd out in each sort of Impiety in them such fertile soyls of sin they are here insincerity were to be wish'd and where there is not cleanness that there were a Mask that there were the Religion of Hypocrisie We may remember God was good to Israel of old by Obligation and performance the one as great as he could enter the other great to Miracle and astonishment when after seventy years Captivity and Desolation he did rebuild a Temple where there was no Monument of its Ruines and raised a Nation and Government of which there was no Reliques And yet at last when the Religion of some turned into Faction of others into Prophaneness when the strictest Sect of them the Pharisees became most holy outwardly to have the better means 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to mischief those that were not of their Party and got a great opinion of Sanctity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so as to be believed in whatsoever they did speak against the King or chief Priests and that so far as to be able openly to practise against both and raise Commotions They are Josephus's words of them and when another Sect the Zelots the most pernicious of all saith Bertram did commit Murders Sacriledg Prophanations and all kind of Villanies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with good Intentions saith the same Josephus and when those who did not separate into Sects but were the Church of Israel became lukewarm supine and negligent in their Profession yea and licentious and Prophane fit only to be joyned with Publicans in Christs expressions when sin grew generally Impudent when they did live as if they would be Scandalous as well as vicious as if they lov'd the guilt as much as the delights of sin and cared not to be wicked to themselves but must debauch as if they did enjoy the ruine of other persons sinning just as the Devil does who does not taste the sin but feasts upon the Sinners Condemnation Then did God execute a Vengeance whose prediction was fit to be mistaken for that of the Day of Judgment and whose event almost fulfill'd the terrors of that day I need not draw resemblances shew how Gods goodness to our Israel does equal that to them applying to our selves their Raptures how when the Lord turned the Captivity of our Sion we also were like them that dream surprized with Mercy Indeed as in a Dream Ideas
Brutes when thou hast set us here to train and discipline our selves for a condition of such glorious Joys as are fit to entertain Souls of Reason with and to make them blessed which to enter upon our Bodies must drop from us our Souls must be clarified from Flesh and Flesh it self refined into Spirit that we should make our selves Antipodes to this walk contrary to all and so debase our spirits as that they are qualified for no other satisfaction but those of dull sense and carnality Adam fell his great Fall by Eating but ever since men fall further by riotous intemperate Eating He fell from Paradise and they from Reason the Man sinks into Beast and the Soul falls into very Flesh and hath no other faculties or appetites but fleshly ones Such people of all others are not to be raised up by Religion their fulness gives no place to that but does exclude it God did complain of this of old Deut. xxxii 15. Jesurun waxed fat and kicked that we may see they want to brutish quality who do allow themselves the appetite of Brutes they that pamper themselves like to fed Horses will also neigh like them and kick even him that fed them thou art waxen fat thou art covered with fatness then he forsook God that made him and lightly esteemed the Rock of his Salvation When they came once where they did suck honey cut of the Rock and Oyl out of the flinty Rock they could not mind the Rock of their Salvation Indeed this sensuality as it consumes Estates eats Time and all the faculties of the Mind so it devours all Religion too it hath not only a particular opposition to some one duty as the other Vices have but by a direct influence it destroys the whole foundation of Vertue and obedience to God I mean subordination of the lower appetite to Reason and Religion which it renverses quite and breeds an universal cachexy of the Soul as well as Body For ever since Adam did eat of the forbidden Fruit the carnal mind we know is neither subject to the Law of God neither indeed can be as S. Paul says Rom viii 7. because Gods Commands are restraints upon those things which Flesh desires eagerly Now therefore while that Mind is unsubdued it must needs lust against the Spirit for those things that are forbidden nor endure to be limited which he that feeds it is so far from working towards that he does give it still more provocation and more power and makes the Flesh more absolute for it is clear that Plenty does encrease all its desires and their unruliness it ministers both vigor to it by which it is enabled to fulfill its lusts and it ministers aptness and incitation also both by custom of satisfaction and by adding heat which makes it more prone to rebel and more impossible to be kept under The progress of this is apparent in the Scripture Exod. xxxii 6. The People sat down to Eat and Drink and rose up to Play Lusum non denotasset nisi impudicum he means to play the wantons But Jeremy is plainer Chap. v. 7 8. How shall I pardon thee for this thy Children have forsaken me when I had fed them to the full they then committed Adultery and assembled themselves by troops in Harlots houses Nor stays it there but does encrease as well as feed to an Excess we may discern that by the Wisemans Prayer xxiii Ecclesiast 6. O Lord Father and God of my Life Let not the greediness of the Belly not the lust of the Flesh take hold of me and give not over me thy Servant to an impudent mind Gyant-like he had called it in the Verse before and sure the Wiseman in the Proverbs apprehended it as such and dreaded it accordingly as if Bellies full gorg'd were those Mountainr which the Gyants cast up to storm Heaven on He look'd upon this Vice as that which would bid defiance to God and out him and therefore thinks it necessary to beseech the Lord not to afford him so much as would furnish Plenty Prov. xxx 8. Give me not Riches feed me with food convenient for me 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with an Allowance with no more than is sufficient for me lest I be full and deny thee and say who is the Lord. It seems such persons know no other God besides their Belly nor is it any wonder if a Soul made Flesh cannot well apprehend a Deity that is a Spirit or believe it but thinks all Notions of such beings to be contradiction when once by the suffusions of Carnality all the impressions of a Spirit are wrought out of it self And truly this is the most natural and certain way to become Atheists Whether this time that hath been almost always set aside for strict Severities and to work out Repentance and if it be not so intended now I know not what pretence did call us hither for though there be some relaxation of the severer Dyet of this time sure there is no indulgence of that Penitence which the strictness of this time design'd and let some men talk what they please of the Intention of their Statutes yet these Assemblies certainly were not intended for th◠increase of Cattel and advance of Fishing these were for higher aims of Piety Now whether we employ if so much towards this as to afflict our Souls i. e. our appetites and to revenge our superfluities upon our selves and to teach our desires to be denied Or whether we do teach the Dyet of this season to be but a variety of Luxury and if the Law did not command it and so make it Pressure by giving it the inconvenience and the uneasiness of being duty and obedience our selves could make it be one of the changes of our Vice only another course a diverse service of the same Riot and so defeat the Law by our obedience to it Or whether we do break the Law outright and to our superfluities add disobedience to Authority whether we do the one or other is not for me to say But if the Nation and we our selves have any sins to be repented of and we design this season for that use as sure some season must be so employed and why not this as well rather indeed than any other if we be not of those that would be glad to see all thrown again into Confusion glad to see a return of the same Vengeance as indeed a return of the same sins and the abuse of Mercies seem to call for it while men do live as if they thought God had wrought all these Miracles meerly to give them opportunity to serve their Vices or their other ends to put them in a way to get Places Estates and Dignities and by uncharitable gains hard-hearted griping yea by false unworthy treacherous Arts to heap up Wealth to raise their Families or feed their Lusts These these cry out to God to renew his Commission to the Sword to pass through all
and his Brother's blood upon his Soul to seize his Sentence Go ye Cursed into everlasting Fire 'T is plain against all Interests of this World and the World to come this man will dye And yet this is one of the laudable and generous Customs of the Age. Neither doth this man stand alone the desperate Rebel would come into the Induction that without any hopes sets all on fire to consume all here and to begin his Flames hereafter But I have said enough to prove the Resoluteness of a Sinners Will which is so great indeed that it is this especially which does enhance the guilt of sin into the merit of an endless punishment this persevering obstinacy does deserve Hell and make it just For whatsoever inequality there is betwixt the short-liv'd pleasures of a sin which dye while they are tasted and put out themselves and those eternal never-dying retributions of Vengeance As sure there is also betwixt the life of Man and several of those petty felonies that forfeit it yet the Law does not murder when it Executes I might have instanc'd in the gathering sticks upon the Sabbath day in Israel For since the preservation of publique safety and propriety is valuable with the lives of many men and to secure that and affright the Violation it was necessary to affix such punishments to such offences they that know the penalty and wilfully meerly to feed their other Vices run upon it justly suffer it So that Man might not rob himself of that Immortal Glory which God had ordain'd him when he did see it absolutely necessary thus to hedge Vice with Eternal Death And as he set Angels and Flaming Swords to keep him out of Paradise so to set Fiends and Flames to guard Hell from him and to entail those Torments on Man's sin which he had prepared for the Devil and sealed the Deed in the Blood of his Son If notwithstanding men renounce the blessedness and against all their Interests and Obligations in spight of all the Arts and Powers of Heaven they will have the Torments and what they never would attempt for Paradise invade those flames to get to Hell 't is very just that God should let them have it should not break his Decrees dispence with Holy Laws so confirm'd meerly to gratifie those that are obstinate for ruine and against his whole Gospel quench Hell fires because men are resolv'd to run into them This Will does as it were even the Scales betwixt the Sin and the Damnation equal the pleasure to the punishment and fill the distance from a moment to Eternity But though this Will do clear God's Justice yet it does not satisfie his Reason he seems astonish'd at the choice God himself cannot find a Ground for such a Resolution and therefore does enquire Why will ye dye Which is God's question and my second Part. It is the present pleasure sin does tempt your sensuality withal whose agitations are so quick and strong that they surprize or break the forces of your Reason and your Principles put the Mind in disorder and then seize it with such violence as to lead it captive to the Law of Sin and Death 'T is true indeed thus both of them had their original so they prevail'd in Paradise for when the Woman saw the Tree was good for food and pleasant to the eye and a Tree to be desired to make one wise she took thereof and she did eat although she knew that God had said In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely dye Gen. iii. But there was generous pleasure here such as tempted the Soul assaulted it with the appearances of Wisdom and divine Knowledg Ye shall be as Gods Gen. iii. 5. And sure 't is no great wonder if the proper pleasures of the mind ingage it therefore when God would give a Precept liable to a Temptation of being broke he laid it in the sphere of those things that delight the Soul of Knowledg but far be it that those of sensuality should ever have prevail'd Man may yield to the pleasure of being like God but for pleasure to make himself a Beast is contradiction to Nature For pleasure is but satisfaction of our appetites and the more natural the inclination is the higher and more powerful that Nature and the desire eagerer so much the more delightful is the satisfaction Now it is certain that the reasonable faculty the Soul or Spirit is the highest and most proper nature of a man In all the rest he 's not a step remov'd from Beasts unless it be in shape but in the accurateness of his senses is below them far and therefore must be so in sensual satisfactions but in his Soul he borders upon Angels and does come towards God Now then that Soul being mans peculiar nature the highest part of him It follows its delights Spiritual reasonable Joys must needs be the most natural and most proper for it most conform'd to it and therefore the most taking with it This may be cleared most irrefragably A Beast hath several ingredients of Nature in his making he is an heavy body and a Vegetable and he hath also Sense which is his highest nature Now though the onely inclination of heavy bodies be to fall down to the Earth and this be also natural to a Beast we do not find that 't is his greatest pleasure sure he had rather feed than tumble in the Pasture his chief delight lies in the satisfaction of his chiefest faculties wherein he does excel his Senses and as Beasts differ and transcend in these so do their pleasures also differ and exceed A man also as Aristotle says does live a threefold Life At first he is but a Plant-man a growing span of living Creature and he 's born only into Animality a Life of Sense and at last educated into reasonable Now the delights of his first Stages whilst onely Vegetation and Sense live although proportioned to those states yet have no savour to the mind he grows through Nuts and Rattles to the use of Reason and the pleasures of it also these must keep even with the growing faculties and become higher rational and manly Which if they do not but the man still dwell upon the satisfaction of sense he does confound the Stages contradict the progresses of Nature he hath the age and strength of Reason but to play the Child with to exert it in those things that are but a Man's Rattles hath the sagacity of an Intelligence meerly to find out how to be a brute with greater luxury and rellish Come therefore shew me now the sins which the delights of Reason do betray you to and I 'le admit the Plea But if you live your own reverse that you may dye renounce all your own pleasures first that so you may renounce the joys of God and Heaven and fall from Nature that you may fall into Hell this case hath no pretence and those pleasures cannot toll man on to
hold on any noble part take in some Nerve or Artery then he must cut the thread of Life that cuts it off So he must rent my heart indeed that tears my pleasures from me Life it self does seem to have so little salisfaction without them that it is a death to me to part with them Or else hath the Old Man no Soul is he all Flesh and hath Iniquity debas'd the whole of him so that his very Spirit is become Body of Sin so as that Wickedness should be our very Being be all one with us and I and my corruptions prove denominations of one importance signifie the very same so it is indeed Besides the carnal part that is sold under sin and consequently does deserve the Cross that punishment of Slaves the part also that is in the quite opposite extream that lusts against the flesh that must be made away Be ye 〈◊〉 ansform'd by the renewing of your mind Rom. xii 2. And if there be any sublimer and more deâ—â—â—cated past in that it must submit to the same Fate 〈…〉 in the spirit of your mind Ephes. iv 23. Corruption hath invaded that To 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the diviner ruling part is grown a slave to the Beast part of him it hath debauch'd its notions whereby it should discriminate good from evll so that now it can discern no natural difference between them but does measure both meerly by his present inclinations and concerns and the eternal Laws of Honesty are blotted our and principles of interest and irreligion rais'd there in the place and buttress'd by false reasonings and Discourses Now all these Fortresses of Vice that maintain and secure a man in sin must be demolish'd all such imaginations cast down and every high thing that exalteth it self against the knowledg of God and every thought brought into Captivity to the obedience of Christ That Spirit of the mind must be destroyed and we transformed into persons of new notions and reasonings But above all the remaining part of Man his own Will must be mortified which besides its natural 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by perverse inclinings to sollicitations of flesh is most corrupted and most dangerous in that which way soever it inclines it draws the whole Man after it If any thing in us be crucified in a Conformity to Christ it must be this for in that death wherein Christ offered up himself upon the Cross where although the Divine Nature gave the value 't was onely the Humane Nature made the Offering there it was the crucifying his own Will that above all other the ingredients made his Death a Sacrifice and the price of our Redemption God that had given him his Blood and Life might call for it again when and how he saw good and being due it was not properly a price that could be given him for sin but his free voluntary choice his being willing to endure the Agonies and Contempts of the Cross his stabbing his own natural desires with a resolute determination Not my will but thine be done This his own Will was his own Offering and such is ours if we be Crucified with Christ made conformable to his death if we present our selves a Sacrifice acceptable to the Lord for our will is not given up to him till it do perfectly comport with his but that it cannot do till we renounce our own desires till we have brought our selves to an indifference in outward things to such a resignation as she is storied to have had who being in her Sickness bid to choose whether she rather would have Health or Death made answer Vehementissimè desidero ut non facias voluntatem meam Domine this above all I desire that thou wilt not do my will I would have thee not do what I desire and would have So that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the whole of us the Spirit Soul and Flesh go to make up this Person and the body of Sin is the Old man entire I whole I am nothing but a mass of guilts my Senses are the bands of wickedness that procure for my evil inclinations my members are the weapons of unrighteousness my Body is a Body of Sin and Death and the affections of my Soul are Lusts its faculties are the powers of Sin yea and the Spirit of my mind that Breath of God is putrefied that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Angel-part of me is fall'n and turn'd Apostate and however I be partly Son of Man and partly Son of God yet I am wholly Child of Wrath and so fit to be Crucified Which calls me to the next Enquiry to the nature of the duty here intended I am Crucified What is design'd by it S. Paul does perfectly declare Rom. vi 6. Our old man is crucified with Christ that the body of Sin might be destroyed that we should no longer serve sin So that it means a through Repentance and abandoning of former evil Courses A Duty which there are few men but in some instants of their life think absolutely necessary and persuade themselves they do perform it At some time or other they are forc'd to recollect and grow displeas'd and angry at their sins and have some sad reflections on them beg for mercy and forgiveness and do think of leaving them and when they have return'd to them again they shake the head and chafe and curse at their own weakness and renew their purposes it may be and do this as oft as such a Season as this is or other like occasions suggest it to or move them And with this they satisfie themselves and hope if God do please to take them hence in some such muddy gloomy fit of their Repentance all 's well Now shall we call this being Crucified are there Racks and Tortures in this discipline hath a Spear prick'd them to the heart and no blood nor no water no tears gush out thence hath it made no issue for some hearty Sorrow to purle out Indeed I must confess the Scripture does sometimes word the performance of this Duty in expressions that are not so sower but of an easier importance as first put off the Old Man as if all were but Garment put it off I say not as they strip'd our Saviour in order to his Scourgings and his Cross but intimating to us what an easie thing it is to cast off Sin for them who do begin with it betimes before it get too close to the heart 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. saith Theophyl even as easie as putting off thy Cloaths and thy Repentance is but as thy Shift thy change of life like changing thy Apparel But alas for all the easiness which this expression hints where the sins also lie in the Attire as besides emulation pride vainglory great uncharitableness and inhumanity cruel injustice and oppression often do when many are undone through want of those dues which do furnish other men with the excesses of this
triumphing in the Blood of God To see those dire instances of the deservings of a Sinner those amazing prelusions to his expectations and consider it was easier for God to execute all this upon his Son than suffer Sin to go unpunish'd Indeed they make all that is real in the whole account they give of satisfaction made to God for sin to consist in this that the temporal Death of Christ which God by vertue of his absolute Dominion may inflict on the most innocent taking away that which himself had given especially since Christ who had that right over his own life which none else had did of his own accord submit to it and he laid down his life who had a power to do so That Death I say might justly be ordain'd by God for an Example of his Wrath and Hatred against Sin and then might be accepted in the stead of their death who were warned by that example and affrighted from committing sin And truly there is colour for it for all satisfaction seems either of a loss sustain'd which is acquired by compensation or the satisfaction of our Anger which is commonly appeased by the sufferings of the injurious party or else the satisfaction of our fears and doubts that we may be secure not to sustain the like again which is most likely to be best provided for by punishment For sure one will not venture upon that which he must suffer for the doing Now of all these the first the satisfaction of compensation as it cannot properly be made to God who could sustain no real diminution by Man's sin For though thy wickedness saith Job may hurt a man as thou art yet if thou sinnest what doest thou against God or if thy transgressions be multiplyed what doest thou to him but onely as the breaking of his Law does in S. Paul's expression dishonour him amongst men so also it were easie to demonstrate that this one example does exalt more of Gods attributes and to a greater height than either if his Law had been obey'd or executed if that either were our business or if this sort of satisfaction did not properly belong onely to the offended party not the supream Judg or Governour as such under which notion God is here to be considered As neither does the second satisfaction that of anger the Judg being to be like his Law that hath no passions or affections And truly â—â—e the things that do satisfie our angers and revenges are no real goods the satisfactions of them are unnatural and therefore surely not Divine Monstrous appetite that hath learn'd to desire mischief hath also taught us to delight in misery and be satisfied with the griefs of others which being nothing to us cannot be our good And although we are stil'd Children of Wrath as if our portion were to be onely Plagues our inheritance Perdition and the fearful issues of Gods Fury Yet since to be angry signifies in God no more than this to testifie what great abhorrency he hath to sin how contrary to him how not to be indur'd it is It was impossible for God when he had once resolv'd to pardon sin to testifie that more than by resolving not to pardon it without such an Example so that it did satisfie his anger perfectly But all true satisfaction lies in the provision that is made by punishment against future offences This is that which the Magistrate and Law requires nec enim irascitur sed cavet for by Punishment they cannot call back the offences that are past undo or make them not have been but they can make men not to dare to do them again nor others by their example This is the end why they annex Penalties to their Laws expresly said so Deut. xix 20. Which end therefore when they attain by Punishment the Law and Magistrate is satisfied For it is not so much the Death of the Offender that is satisfaction of the Law as the Example of Terror that it gives and therefore humane Lawgivers have oft thought fit to change the Penalty and where Death was appointed to assign other sufferings that consist with Life and prolong Misery and Terror as Proscription and the Gallies c. Accordingly to propose an Example of Terror to us God laid all the severe inflictions of the Passion-day upon his own Son Now it is evident that the example of a Man suffering for the breach of Laws does certainly hedg in those Laws keep them more safe from violence therefore we see those Laws are best observ'd which the Magistrate's Sword does most guard and Experience would quickly make it good a Land would prove but a meer Shambles and a Man's life cheaper than a Beast's if Murtherers and Duellists shall get impunity more easily than he that steals an Horse or Sheep When on the other side that Nation from whom we most receive the fashions of our Vices also whom the honour of that sin is most peculiar to though they seemed to value it above Estate and Life and Family and Soul yet we know could be beaten from it be some sharp Examples And then when our Lawgiver as he spake his Laws at first with Thunder and with Lightning as if they brought their Sentence along with them and the very promulgation was a Copy and Example of their Execution So also he did write those Laws in Blood to let us see what does await transgression how he that spar'd not his own dear Son will certainly not spare any impenitent this could not chuse but have some influence if 't were consider'd Should we call to mind the kindness God had at this time to lost Man how he so long'd to pity him that he resolv'd not to pity himself how yet in all those turnings of his bowels within him his repentings over Man when his Compassion was at such an height as to give his well beloved Son to satisfie for our transgressions in the midst of all those inclinations to us at that very time how yet he did so hate our sins that â—â—athing else could satisfie him but the Blood of God How he made the Son of God empty himself of his Divinity and of his Soul and all to raise a sum only to purchase one example of that Indignation that attends a Sinner it will be easie then to recollect how unsupportable that Wrath will be to the impenitent in the Day of his fierce Anger when he shall have no kindness left for them but the Omnipotence of Mercy will become Almighty Fury Who shall be able to avoid or to endure the issues of it shall I think to scape them when he spared not his own Son or shall I venture upon bearing that to all Eternity which that Son was not able to support some hours Thus as S. Paul expresses God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh a Sacrifice for sin condemned sin in the flesh that is he shewed what did await iniquity that men by
likeness of his death by being made conformable to that in crucifying of our sins we are inoculated as it were and both together ingraffed in into the Cross and so there is deriv'd to us the vertue of that Stem that Root of Expiation and Atonement and by this insertion being as the same S. Paul says Phil. iii. 9. found in him we have his Righteousness That poor Soul that does throw himself down in the strict humiliations of Repentance at the footstool of the Cross and there beholds his Saviour dying for him and that is himself by Penitence incorporated into him graffed into his Death and planted in his very Passion as Origen and Thomas interpret He may take confidence to say Behold Lord if the satisfactions of thy Eternal Justice be acceptable to thee if the blood of God that is offer'd up without spot be a well-pleasing Sacrifice look down at once on thy Messiah and on my poor Soul turn not thy face from me for whatever my guilts are I have an equal Sacrifice those are my satisfactions and that blood my Offering the Passion and propitiation of the Cross are 〈◊〉 I am Crucified with Christ. We have gone through all the Parts all the Considerations of this Expression and have no more now to take notice of but this that all of them must go together that they never are fulfill'd asunder but he only whom the efficacy of the Cross of Christ hath wrought on to the Crucifying of sin he onely hath the satisfactions of the Cross imputed to him he is planted with ingraffed into Christ For if any man be i◠Christ he is a new creature old things are done away 2 Cor. v. 17. Whosoever is not such he hath no interest in the Jesus of that day He may perchance in some one of those easie Saviours which these times afford wherein Opinions call'd holy or a sanctify'd Faction give such interests and to be in a party is to be in Christ or else he may depend upon that Christ that may be had with meer Dependance that is ours if we persuade our selves he is so Now sure he that is persuaded he is Christ's is either truly so persuaded or else falsly if but falsly that will not advantage him for God will never save a man for believing a lye but that he should truly be persuaded so without this Duty is impossible for he that is Christ's hath crucified the Flesh with the Affections and Lusts therefore by good Logick he that hath not crucified them is not Christ's and evidently whosoever is not crucified at all he is not crucified with Christ. And sure I need not put you in remembrance that the man in whom sin reigns and whensoever his Lusts and Passions bid him go he goeth or come he cometh or do this he doeth it that the body of sin is not crucified in him that which were nailed and fetter'd on the Cross and slain there could not command and rule him so Or if sins dominion be not so absolute but God hath got some footing so as that his Law hath power in the man's mind so as to make him make resistances against his sin and he dislikes it but alas commits it still yet what he does allows not but returns to do it at the next Temptation afterwards would fain be good yet does not find how to perform something governs in his members leading that Law in his mind into captivity to the law of sin this man although he hath the body of death yet 't is not crucified and slain for it does live and exercise the greatest tyranny upon him forces him to serve and to obey against his mind it overcomes his own heart and all inclinations to good and conquers God within him Till men have left off the custom of the works of sin and all gross deeds of the flesh it were as vain to prove they are not crucified as that he is alive that walks and eats Those works they are the fruits of the flesh the off-spring of its lusts and were that crucified and we by likeness to Christ's death planted into the Cross we could no more produce them than that dead Tree the Cross could bear fruit or than a Carcass could have heat to generate the Grave become a Womb or the dust bring forth Secondly Yea more they perform not the outward actions of life who have but the image of death on them and a man asleep works not yet is alive his fancy and his inwards work and if sin be onely kept from breaking out and men commit not gross deeds of the flesh but yet indulge to these things in imagination and the heart cherish them in phansie and design and wish onely restrain the practice or indulge to spiritual wickednesses you may as well say that a man is dead because he does not walk abroad because he keeps within doors and lives only in his Closet or his Bed Chamber as say that sin is crucified which while it stirs but in the heart it is not dead Thirdly Once more we part from all acquaintance with the dead the Corps of one that had the same Soul with us howsoever we may have some throes of grief to leave it yet we put it from us we admit it to no more embraces but if 't were the loathsom Carcass of a Villain Traytor that was Executed we turn from the sight as from a Fiend it is a detestable and accursed spectacle And so he that hath put his Body of sin to death would have great aversations to it yea how dear soever it had been he would no more endure the least acquaintance with it than he would go seek for his old conversations in the Chambers of Death he would shun the sight of any the most bosom custom as he would the Ghost of his dead Friend he would abandon it as a most ghastly dreadful spectacle he would also bury these his dead out of his sight Thus he must needs be dispos'd that hath crucified his Old man And they that are thus dead with Christ shall also live with him yea those that are thus crucified with him he hath already rais'd up together and hath made them sit together in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus There already in their cause and in their right and pledge and there hereafter in effect and full enjoyment The Tenth SERMON Preached at CHRIST-CHURCH IN OXFORD Novemb. 5. 1665. LUKE IX 55. Ye know not what manner of Spirit ye are of THE state of that great Controversie which the words suppose between the Jews and the Samaritans as it then stood seems briefly thus Those that were planted in the Regions of Samaria by Salmaneser however great Idolaters at first having admitted in a while the God of Israel among their Gods and after having an High Priest of Aaron's Line a Temple too built on that place where Abraham and the Fathers of the Hebrews friends of God did chuse to offer Sacrifice and on that
Church First If the Church of Rome have reason to expect infallible assistance of the Spirit in any case it is as much in Canonizing of a Saint as in any other it being as unhappy to determine a false Object for Religious Worship to their Church as a false Article of Faith there is as much need that there should be an infallible proposal of the one as other for when she does Decree by the Authority of the Omnipotent God such a one is a Saint receiv'd in Glory and so renders him the Object of their Worship if he should chance to be a Reprobate to cause the People to fall prostrate to the Shrine of one that 's damn'd and call his flames to warm Gods Altar and the Votaries breast to make the whole Church worship one that is in Hell is liable to greater aggravations of impiety than an erroneous Opinion in very many of their points of Faith can be But it is known their Church hath Canoniz'd one of this Nation Becket who though he was indeed illegally and barbarously Murthered yet 't is not the Suffering but the Cause that makes the Martyr now he did not fall a Sacrifice for his Religion but was slain because he did disturb the State by suspending all the Bishops that upheld the Kings just cause against him so that neither King nor State could live in peace for him for opposing also those Laws which himself had sworn to Laws that were not onely truly Sovereign Rights but are maintain'd even unto this day as Priviledges by the Gallican Church and they not branded for so doing In a word he was slain for those actions which his own Bishops condemned him for as a perjur'd man and a Traytor And for persisting in them to the death he was Sainted Now whatever the estate of this man be in the next World I meddle not with that Yet for Disobedience and Rebellion to place one in Heaven whence for those things Lucifer did fall does seem to shew what Spirit they are of that Canonize such Saints For the Church to pray to Christ that by the wounds of this Saint he would remit their sins does express what rate their Church does set upon the merits of resisting Princes and disturbing States in the behalf of Holy Church When such actions make men fit to be joynt purchasers with Christ in the Redemption of the World But when the French Histories say 't was disputed long after in Paris whether he were Damn'd or Sav'd that the Church in her publique Offices should pray to go thither where he is gone to have his Society though it express their most infallible assurance of the condition of those men who for their sakes resist the Secular Powers yet O my Soul enter not thou into their counsels in this world neither say a Confederacy to whom they say a Confederacy much less pray to be in their Society who by resisting S. Paul says do receive unto themselves Damnation Secondly It is notorious that in their first General Council at Lyons Anno 1245. the Emperour Frederick the second by the Sentence of the Pope and the whole Council after long deliberation and producing several Arguments which they say are not sleight but effectual to prove the suspicion of Heresie is depriv'd of his Empire all his Subjects are absolv'd from their Oath of Allegiance and by Apostolical Authority forbidden to obey him Therefore that such things may be done in the cases of Religion hath the Authority of a General Council 't was that Council that Decreed Red Hats to Cardinals Hats red it seems not onely with the Royal Purple but with the Blood of Kings and of Royalty it self Thirdly I should have urged the well known Canon of the General Council of Lateran the greatest their Church ever boasted of which says That if the temporal Lord shall neglect to purge his Territories from such as the Church there declares Hereticks he shall be Excommunicated by the Metropolitan and if he do not mend within a year complained of to the Pope that so he may declare his Subjects absolv'd from their Allegiance and expose his Lands to be seiz'd by Catholicks who shall exterminate the Hereticks saving the right of the chief Lord Provided he give no impediment to this But the same law shall be observed to those that have no chief Lords that is who are themselves Supream This I should urge but that some say that penal Statutes which are leges odiosae tantum disponunt quantum loquuntur Therefore this Canon since it does not name Kings it does not they say concern them although 't is plain it do sufficiently enough But that there may be therefore no evasion Fourthly In the General Council of Constance that part of it I mean that is approv'd by their whole Church The Pope and Council joyn together in commanding all Arch-Bishops Bishops and Inquisitors to pronounce all such Excommunicate as are declared Hereticks in such and such Articles and that of Transubstantiation half-Communion and the Pope's Supremacy are among them or that favour ot defend them or that Communicate with them in publique or in private whether in sacred Offices or otherwise etiamsi Patriarchali Archiepiscopali Episcopali Regali Reginali Ducali aut aliâ quâvis Ecclesiasticâ aut mundanâ proefulgeant dignitate And Commands them also to proceed to Interdicts and deprivation of Dignities and Goods and whatsoever other Penalties vias modos Thus that Council though it took away the Peoples right to the Blood of Christ denying them the Cup in the Sacrament gave them in exchange the Blood of their own Kings making them a right to that And that they extend the force of these Canons to the most absolute Princes even to him that pleads exemption most to the King of France is plain because when Sixtus the fifth thundred out his Bulls against the then King of Navarre afterwards King Henry the fourth of France and the Prince of Conde depriving them not onely of their Lands and Dignities but their Succession also to the Crown of France absolving their Subjects from their Oaths forbidding them to obey them he declared he did it to them as to relapsed Hereticks favourers and defenders of them and as such fal'n under the Censures of the Canons of the Church Now there are no other Canons that do take in Kings but these which can touch him for that of Boniface the eighth which says the Pope hath power to judg all temporal Powers is declared not to extend to France Cap. meruit de priviledg in extravag communibus Thus by the publique Acts of their Church and by the Canons of their General Councils we have found in causes of Religion Deprivation of Princes Wars and Bloodshed and the other consequent Miseries are establish'd Rebellion encouraged by a Law And if Rebellion be as the sin of Witchcraft then we know what manner of Spirit they are of that do
severe Judges were appointed meant the same thing with our last Assize and their Elizian fields were but Poetical Paradise their Phlegethon River of Fire was set to express our stream of Brimstone flame Thus Resurrection in fable made them vertuous the guess at it made Socrates die chearful and though his hopes had faint weak Principles they had Heroick almost Martyr resolutions And on the other side of those that among them deny'd an after life though we are told that Epicurus was a vertuous man yet his Sect did give name to Vice and is still the expression for it and all that did espouse the Tenents of it did the Vices too the Sadduces among the Jews are call'd Epicures not onely for Opinions sake because they did make God a body and totally denyed his Providence as Zakuth says but Epicures also for their practice sake For they used to scoff at the Pharisees for afflicting themselves by Fasting and Austerities in this life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when there is nothing at all of recompence for them in any life to come Yea and Josephus says of them they were the worst of all Sects living like savage Beasts towards one another and uncourteous to their own Sect as to strangers and this says he was but a natural effect of their Opinion which wholly denied the Immortality of the Soul and all Rewards and Punishments after this Life which Principle one coming from the dead would rectifie and so contribute to Repentance Especially if Secondly That one were Lazarus if he that at the Supper of the Lamb sits next the Father of the faithful and the friend of God in one of the higher Seats of Paradise in Abraham's Bosom if he would go and speak his knowledg of the Pleasures of that Bosom which he tasts and of the glories of that Place and but compare them with the little gayeties of my Fathers House shew them the difference betwixt their Structures and that Foundation whose builder and maker God is betwixt the entertainments of their riotous Palats and the Festivals of the Blessed Trinity then sure they would disrellish those and catch at these which do exceed them by a whole Infinity and will out-live them an Eternity And here should I attempt what he would have had Lazarus perform to dash out the blessedness of that place making the first draught of them with notions of delight not such as the Understanding cannot apprehend but such as seize the heart with pleasure in this Life and that give it the strongest agitations here and sweetning that by those transcendencies which I could fill it up with and should I raise it then with shadow evince that reason though it cannot fathom can yet by sure Discourse conclude the greatness of those Glories which I would leave for your expectations to loose themselves into should I attempt all this I were an insolent undertaker Yet were it very easie to describe them so as that viewing them with the things below these would vanish in the comparison And to do so much was the utmost that our Rich Man could design by sending Lazarus who if he could have been believ'd might probably have done the work for if Faith did but do what Lazarus did look into Abraham's Bosom were it but turn'd into a little Vision and but as clear an evidence of things not seen as eye-sight hath of its temptations had the spiritual Object but that advantage the carnal hath of being present now it is the work of Faith to give it that advantage sure it would be impossible for the sensitive Objects the pleasures or the Profits of this World which ae so far inferiour to the other in desireableness and onely make advantage of their being present when the other is so far off 't would be impossible for them to gain our wills consent at any time and therefore when those glories shall be present to the Soul 't will be impossible for any other Object to steal or ravish any way to engage one thought away from them In Heaven they cannot wish to sin Nay the flash alone of that glory fascinates the heart Peter and James and John saw but a glimpse of it and that transfigur'd too onely the other way that Moses and Elias were for the glory suffered an exinanition and they but wak'd into the sight of it so that 't was but an apparition of Heaven and yet they never would have left the place which it once lightned Master it is good for us to be here let us go down no more never converse with any thing beneath Mount Tabor but let us build three Booths such Tents would be like that which He hath spread and such Booths be some of the many Mansions of his House who spreadeth out the Heavens for a Tent for himself to dwell in But the truth is while men do onely hear of Joys above and have but thin neglected notions of them and on the other side a sense of present profits pleasures honours which the World affords they will not be affected with the future dry hopes of those as with all these in present will nor have as effectual a tast of the Supper of the Lamb as of their own delicious daily fare nor be as much wrought upon by the Promises of being Cloath'd upon with the white Robe of Immortality and by the mentions of a Crown although of Glory as they are pleas'd with their own Royal Purples they have much surer Conviction of the delights of present things than of those far removed futurities but now if Lazarus would go from Abraham's Bosom he might Convince them from his own Experience and then they would Repent Especially Thirdly because Lazarus hath seen me in my Torments and can give account of them wherefore I pray thee Father Abraham send him for if such an one went unto them from the Dead one that could testifie of this place he would tell them such sad stories of my condition here how in lieu of all my sumptuous fare I have nothing now but gnashing of teeth streams indeed of Brimstone and a lake of fire but everlasting feaver of thirst for my delicious intemperate Palate my short-liv'd sins turn'd to eternal Agonies sure this would prevail with them to cut off their sins by Repentance before Death cut off their sin and them together and so they might prevent the coming hither And very probably it might have taken for upon such Conviction 't is hard not to resolve to change for who is he that can resolve thus with himself well I will now content my self with everlasting Condemnation and this sin for I see they are consequent now this I cannot leave therefore let the other come they that were once affected with the apprehensions of the greatness and the certainty of that Damnation cannot resolve thus and therefore we see fewer men adventure to transgress Man's Law whose Punishment is near and most assur'd than God's
interpose to hinder it and hide the possibilities of mercy from their eyes that they may never see them nor recover What can then become of those for whom God does contrive that they shall not escape when instead of those bowels that did make him swear he would not have the sinner die but would have him return and live he puts on so much indignation at such Sinners as to take an order they shall not repent and take an order that they shall be damn'd And yet all this is onely to those men who being dull of hearing the suggestions of the Spirit and not willing to give entertainment to his holy motions grieve him so that they repell and drive him quite away and so by consequence onely make way for the Devil Whereas there are others that directly call him force him to them ravish and invade occasions to serve him Some there are that study how to disbelieve and with great labour and contrivance work out arguments and motives to persuade themselves to Atheism Others practise discipline and exercise themselves to be engag'd in Vice Some dress so as to lay baiâ—s snares to entrap Temptation that they may be sure it may not pass them Others feed high to invite and entertain the Tempter do all that is possible to make him come and to assure him that he must prevail when they have made it most impossible for themselves to stand and to resist Some there are indeed whom he does not overcome so easily but is put to compound with them takes them upon Articles for when he would ingage them to a sin to which he sees they have great inclinations with some fears he is fain to persuade them to repent when they have done to lay hold upon the present opportunity and not let the satisfaction escape them but be sorry after and amend For where these resolutions of Repentance usher in transgression there we may be sure it is the Devil that suggests those resolutions But if he can get admittance once thus by prevailing with a person to receive him upon purposes of after-Penitence he is sure to prosper still in his attempts upon the same condition For Repentance will wash out another sin if he commit it and so on And it is evident that by this very train he does draw most men on through the whole course of sin and life For never do they till they see themselves at the last stage begin repenting When they are to grapple with Death's forces then they are to set upon resisting of the Devil And when they are grown so weak that their whole Soul must be imployed to muster all its spirits all their strength but to beat off one little spot of phlegm that does besiege the avenues of breath the ports of life and sally at it and assault it once again and a third many times and yet with all the sury of its might cannot break through nor beat off that little clot of spittle when it is thus yet then are they to wrestle with and Conquer Principalities and Powers all the Rulers of the utter darkness pull down the strong holds of sin within cast down imaginations and every high thing that did exalt it self against the knowledg of God and bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ and with those feeble hands that they are scarcely able to lift up in a short wish or prayer they must do all this resist the Devil and take Heaven by force Now sure to put it off to such a fatal season is a purpose of a desperate concern In God's Name let us set upon the doing it while there is something left of Principle and vigor in us ere we have so griev'd Gods Spirit that he do resolve to leave us utterly and before the Devil have so broke us to his yoke that we become content and pleas'd to do his drudgery We deceive our selves if we think to do it with more ease when Constitution is grown weaker as if then Temptations would not be so â—rong For the Habits will be then confirm'd Vice grown Heroical and we wholly in the power of Satan dead and sensless under it not so much as stirring to get out But if we strive before he have us in his clutches we have an Enemy that can vanquish none but those who consent to and comply and confederate with him those that will be overcome So that if we resist he must be Conquer'd and Temptation must be conquer'd too for he will flie and then by consequence must cease to trouble and molest us This is the sure way to be rid of Temptations to put to flight the great Artificer and Prince of them subdue and overcome him and our selves And to him that overcometh thus Christ will grant to sit with him on his Throne as He also overcame and sate down with his Father on his Throne To which c. The Fourteenth SERMON Preached at WHITE-HALL Last Wednesday in LENT 1667 8. PHILIPP III. 18. For many walk of whom I have told you often and now tell you even weeping that they are the Enemies of the Cross of Christ. THough many by the Cross of Christ here understand any sort of Suffering for the sake of Christ or Religion it being usual with the Scripture to entitle Christ to every evil that befals a man for doing of his duty yet others looking on it properly as that on which Christ himself suffered by the Enemies of the Cross understand those that set themselves against the whole design and influence of Christ's death upon it Now to name that in few words the Cross of Christ not onely is one of the greatest Props on which our Faith of the whole Gospel leans which it establisheth the truth of as Christs Bloud shed upon it was the sanction of the Covenant on Gods part who by that federal Rite of shedding Bloud engag'd himself and we may certainly assure our selves he cannot fail to make good whatsoever he hath promised in that Covenant who would give the Bloud of his own only Son who was so holy and who was himself to Seal that Covenant and his Bloud is therefore called the Bloud of the Everlasting Covenant But besides this extrinsick influence of it all the blessed Mercies also of the Gospel are the Purchase of this Cross and all the main essential duties of the Gospel are not onely Doctrines of the Cross such as it directs and does inforce but the Cross also hath an immediate efficacy in the working of them in us For S. Paul saith by the Cross of Christ the World is Crucified to me and I unto the World On it the Flesh is also crucified with the Affections and Lusts And to say all that comprehensive Duty of the Gospel Self-denial is but another word for taking up the Cross And then as for the Mercies of the Gospel on the Cross the satisfaction for our sins was made the Price of
the practice of those men who minding Earthly things and all their wisdom lying as to them they therefore think themselves concern'd to represent the Doctrines of the Cross which does so contradict their wisdom as meer madness and the Cross it self as the Ensign of folly And accordingly they do treat it en ridicul and make the proper Doctrines of it the strict duties of Religion matter for their jests and bitter scoffs They character Religion as a worship that befits a God whose shape the Primitive persecutors painted Christ in Deus Onochaetes as if Christianity were proper Homage onely to an Asses person as Tertullian words it And the Votaries transform'd by this their service and made like the God they worship were what they were call'd then Asinarii creatures onely fit for burthen to bear what they magnifie a Cross and scorns No persecutions are so mortal as those that Murther the reputation of a thing or person not so much because when that is fallen once then they cannot hope to stand as because those murder after death and poison memory killing to immortality They were much more kind to Religion and more innocent that cloath'd the Christians in the skins of Bears and Tygers that so they might be worried into Martyrdom Than they that cloath their Christianity in fools Coat that so it may be laugh'd to death go out in ignominy and into contempt If to sport with things of sacred and Eternal consequence were to be forgiven yet to do it with the Cross of Christ Thus to set that out as foolishness which is the greatest mystery the Divine wisdom hath contriv'd to make mercy and truth meet together righteousness and peace kiss each other to make sin be punish'd yet the Sinner pardoned Thus to play and sin upon those dire expresses of Gods indignation against sin are things of such a sad and dangerous concern that S. Paul could not give a caution against them but with tears For many walk saith he of whom I have told you often and now tell you even weeping c. Which calls me to my last Consideration Indeed the Cross of Christ does represent Almighty God in so severe a shape and gives the lineaments of so fierce displeasures against sin as do exceed all comprehension There was a passion in Christs Prayer to prevent his Passion when he deprecated it with strong cries and tears yea when his whole body wept tears as of bloud to deprecate it and yet he cryed more dreadfully when he did suffer it The Nails that bor'd his Hands the Spear that pierc'd his Heart and made out-lets for his Bloud and Spirits did not wound him as that sting of death and torments sin did which made out-lets for God to forsake him and which drove away the Lord that was himself out of him Neither did his God forsake him only but his most Almighty attributes were engag'd against him Gods Holiness and Justice were resolv'd to make Christ an example of the sad demerit of Iniquity and his hatred of it Demerit so great as was valuable with the everlasting punishment of the World fal'n Angels and fal'n Men for to that did it make them liable Now that God might appear to hate it at the rate of its deservings it was very necessary that it should be punish'd if not by the execution of that sentence on Mankind as on the Devils yet by something that might be proportionable to it so to let us see the measures God abhors it by to what degrees the Lord is just and holy by those torments torments answerable to those attributes Now truly when we do reflect on this we cannot wonder if the Sinner be an enemy to the Cross and hate the prospect of it which does give him such a perfect copy of his expectations when our Saviours draught which he so trembled at shall be the everlasting portion of his Cup For if God did so plague the imputation of Iniquity how will he torment the wilful and impenitent commission of it But then when we consider those torments were the satisfaction for the sins of man methinks the Sinner should be otherwise affected to them Christ by bearing the Cross gave God such satisfaction as did move him in consideration thereof to dispence with that strict Law which having broken we were forfeit to eternal Death and to publish an act of Grace whereby he does admit all to pardon of sins past and to a right to everlasting Life that will believe on him forsake their sins and live true Christians He there appears the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the World for that he does as being a Lamb slain then he was our Sacrifice and that Cross the Altar And the humbled Sinner that repents for notwithstanding satisfaction God will not accept a Sinner that goes on by all those Agonies his holiness would not be justified if when he had forsaken and tormented his own Son for taking sin upon him he should yet receive into his favour and his Heaven Sinners that will not let go but will retain their sins but the penitent may plead this expiation Lo here I poor Soul prostrate at the footstool of the Cross lay hold upon the Altar here 's my Sacrifice on which my fins are to be charg'd and not on me although so foul I am I cannot pour out tears sufficient to cleanse me yet behold Lord and see if there ever were any Sorrow like the sorrow of thy Son wherewith thou didst afflict him for these sins of mine And here is Bloud also his Bloud to wash me in and that Bloud is within the Vail too now and that my Offering taken from the Cross up to thy Throne thou hast accepted it and canst not refuse it now my Advocate does plead it and claims for me the advantage of the Cross. Now that men should be Enemies to this and when they are forfeit to eternal Ruine hate that which is to redeem the forfeiture that they should trample on the Cross whereon their satisfactions were wrought tread down the Altar which they have but to lay hold on and be safe wage war with beat off and pursue a Lamb that Lamb of God that comes to take away their sins and make a spoil and slaughter of their Sacrifice hostilely spill upon the ground that Bloud that was appointed for their Bloud upon the Altar for their blood of sprinkling and was to appear in Heaven for them If men resolve to be on terms of Duel with their God and scorn that Satisfaction shall be made for them by any other way than by defiance and although their God do make the satisfactions for them to himself yet not endure it but chuse quarrel rather this is so perverse and fatal an hostility as no tears are sufficient to bewail But possibly men sleight these satisfactions because some terms are put upon them which they know not how to comport with the merits of the
and Sedition rather and therefore must needs look upon damnation in them these differences make as great a gulf and chasm as that which does divide Dives from Abraham's bosom It is one God one Faith one Worship makes hearts one Hands lifted up together in the Temple they will joyn and clasp And so Religion does fulfil its name à religando binds Prince and Subjects all together and they who thus do seek the Lord their God will also seek David their King God's next direction and my second part 2. And here three things offer themselves a King their King and David their King I am not here to read a Lecture of State-policy upon a vie of Governments why seek a King not any other sort of Government and why their King one that already was so by the right of Succession not whom addresses or election should make so And though I think 't were easie to demonstrate only Monarchy had ever a divine or natural original and that elective Monarchy is most unsafe and burthensome full of dangerous and uneasie consequences and this so much to sight that choice for the most part bounds it self proves but a ceremony of Succession yet this I need not do for I am dealing with the Jews who had God's judgment in the case and his appointment too and to me that is argument enough And when God hath declar'd for the transgressions of a land many are the Princes thereof many at once as in a common-wealth or many several families successively for so God reckons also one or many 't is still we see David their King while 't is in David's line and so the King does truly never die while his race lives If either of these many be Gods punishment for the sins of a land I will not say that they who love the many Princes love the transgressions which God plagues so but I will say they who do chuse that which God call his plague that quarrel for his vengeance and with great strife and hazard take his indignation by force I can but pity them in their own opinions and enjoyments But O my soul enter not thou into their counsels As for seeking their King I shall content my self with that which Calvin says upon the words Nam aliter verè ex animo Deum quaerere non potuit quin se etiam subjiceret legitimo imperio cui subjectus erat For they could not otherwise truly and with all their heart seek God except they did subject themselves to his Government to whom they did of right belong as Subjects And I shall add that they who do forsake their King will soon forsake their God The Rabbines say it more severely of Israel that they at once rejected three things the Kingdom of the house of David and the Kingdom of Heaven and the Sanctuary And truly if we do consult that State from the beginning we shall find that when they were without their King they always were without their God Moses was the first King in Jeshurun and he was only gone into the Mount for forty days and they set up a Golden Calf they make themselves a God if they want him whom the Lord makes so as he does the Magistrate If they have not a Prince that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 living Image of God then they must have an Idol When Moses his next successor was dead we read that the man Micah had an house of Gods and consecrated one of his Sons to be his Priest And truly he might make his Priest who made his Deities And the account of this is given in those days there was no King in Israel Jud. 17. 5 6. The very same is said ch 18. 1. to preface the Idolatry of the Tribe of Dan There was no heir of restraint as it is worded ver 7. It seems to curb impiety is the Princes Inheritance which 'till it be supprest he hath not what he is heir to But Vice will know no Boundaries if there be no King whose Sword is the only mound and fence against it for if we read on there 19 20 21. ch we shall find those dismal Tragedies of Lust and War the one of which did sin to death the Levites wife the other besides 40000. slain of them who had a righteous cause and whom God did bid fight destroyed also a Tribe in Israel These all sprang from the same occasion for so the story closes it In those days there was no king in Israel ch 21. 25. Just upon this when God in their necessities did raise them Judges that is Kings read all their story you will find to almost every several Judge there did succeed a several Idolatry God still complaining the Children of Israel did evil again after the death of such an one 'till he raised them another Those 450. years being devided all betwixt their Princes and their Idols After them Jeroboam he that made the great secession of that people from their Prince hath got no other Character from God but this the Man that did make Israel to sin at once against God and against their King Yea upon this account they are reckon'd by God to sin after both their Idolatry and State were ended when their calves and their Kingdom were destroyed Ezek. 4. 4 5. the Lord does bid the Prophet lie on his left side 390 days to bear the iniquity of Israel according to the number of the years of their iniquity But this was more then the years of their State which were only 255 390 years indeed there were betwixt the falling off of the Ten Tribes and the destruction of Jerusalem by the King of Babel but those ten Tribes were gone their Kingdom perfectly destroy'd above 130 years before But their iniquity was not it seems that does outlive their State so long as that God's Temple that King's house did stand from which they did divide As if Seditious men and schismaticks sin longer then they are even while those are whom they do sin against in separating from 'T is true there was an Ahaz and Manasseh in the house of David but Hezekiah and Josiah did succeed Mischief did not appear entail'd on Monarchy as 't is upon rebellion and having no King It does appear their Kings were guards also to God and his Religion the great defenders of his faith and worship God and the Prince for the most part stood and fell together Therefore St. Paul did afterwards advise to pray for Kings that we might live in godliness and honesty and still they were the same who sought the Lord their God and David their King But why David their King For could his Kingdom disappear and be to seek of whom the Lord had said I have sworn once by my Holiness I will not fail David Psal. 89. And his Throne therefore was as sure as God is holy But yet the Lord had said to the
such as can be satisfy'd no otherwise then by that which we call restitution As for example in a debt be I never so willing 't is impossible I can truly restore or satisfy a debt in any part with what the creditor do's furnish me to do it with for that is really his extinguishing and forgiving it and not my paiment But 't is not so in compensation of the rights of estimation or of honor which are satisfy'd by that which we call reparation The man that had brought up a false report of me and lessen'd my just reputation and esteem but yet repents upon his death bed and would fain repair my honor sign a recantation but hath nothing then to make it with nor strength nor skill it may be to subscribe it tho I furnish paper pen and ink write the form and hold and guide his hand to sign it and explain the marks too of the witnesses and publish it which makes the very matter of the Satisfaction yet he truly satisfy's The case here also was a case of honor there was no restitution to be made to God from whom it was impossible we could take any thing or make him sustain any real loss but we had don that which tended to his dishonor infinitely For when God had made man in his Image righteous and Lord of all his creatures built for immortality of happiness and as in order to his Government of the whole Universe he put rules into them to guide their workings so he gave man laws to direct him how to use the other creatures regularly and to steer himself in order to attaining his own ends of blessedness so least he should transgress those laws and so disorder and deprave himself and the whole Government indeed if there were neither check nor fear upon him he did therefore add a Sanction to his Laws decreed death the penalty of each transgression and God knows that could not be but death eternal for it was not possible we could recover and rescue our selves out of it if dead once Now if notwithstanding men did slight this mound and broke out into all excess of licences so as to discompose and vitiate the order the whole frame of things not only using other creatures to irregular ends and so abusing them but themselves also disturbing the whole kind their vices forc'd them to invade other mens proprieties and and liberty and life and consequently to expose their own no one thing could be safe their coffers and their beds and their breasts too were broke into and thrown open and having broke the Government thus far they also set up other Governors fram'd new Gods and forgot him that made them and gave all their service to those forg'd usurping Deities and worship't them with villany and vices so far as that they lost the very rules of vertue and the principles of honesty were quite debauch't Things being thus it is impossible that any thing in the world can be more reproachful to one then this is to God for what can so much tend to the disgrace of an Artificer as that his workmanship should by no means serve those ends which it was made for but the direct contrary to all design'd to work the glory of their Maker and their own Eternal happiness and instead of that they work out nothing but their own destruction and eternal misery and their Makers disservice and what could more reproach the wisdom of the Maker Or what can so much tend to the dishonor of a Supreme Governor as to have his Autority slighted his laws broken trampled on and for any trifling least occasion as if it were don contemtuosly his threatnings all despis'd his person libel'd and before his face his homage worship Throne given to the meanest vilest of his creatures to his basest Rebels If God suffer this and cannot help it where is then his power If he can and will not where his holiness how do's it appear he is displeas'd at Sin or do's indeed not like it He is aware the Sinner cannot chuse but make such Judgments of him for he told him long since these things hast thou don and I kept silence and thou thoughtest wickedly that I was such an one as thy self At least as St Paul asks the wicked Jew thro breaking the Law dishonorest thou God For so it is the name of God among the Gentiles is blasphemed thro you that pretend to his service but live wickedly which makes them think your God is not a God that do's require good life Now if he do not vindicate himself from these aspersions and his laws from violation his autority from contemt how is he just to himself or how a righteous Governor 'T is true he knows to vindicate himself and make appear he is an holy God a righteous Governor namely if he but execute his laws But then alas mankind must perish for evermore and so the whole design of the creation which was made for man to serve God with it and to praise him for it to be religious and be happy had bin lost and still the wisdom of the Maker had bin question'd Hereupon the Son who is the wisdom of the Father is to take flesh and be made man to teach vertue once more and assure immortal blessed recompenses to it and then suffer death the dire expresses of Gods detestation and abhorrence of Sin what ever he should think fit for vindication of his laws and his autority his righteousness and holiness and upon condition that he would receive to favor and to blessedness those that sincerely would believe repent of all their evil deeds renounce them heartily and faithfully endeavor to obey him he would fully satisfy for the dishonor man had don him And truly when he bore the sharp inflictions of the wrath God had for Sin as certainly he did for otherwise scarce any malefactor but did meet death with more alacrity and courage The two Thieves that suffer'd with him did not entertain the apprehensions of it with such agonies nor cry out so with the pain of it nor so soon sink under it It was the sense of this which made his blood run out in clots as it were flying from that sense it was the apprehensions of the guilt imputed to him and the wrath which he knew was due to it and did apprehend must fall on him in such degrees and by such measures as might shew how God detested Sin it was this that did make him apprehend his God who was himself was gon from him since he left him so long lying under it as if he had not yet exprest that detestation full enough Now if we consider that it was the Son of God that did and suffer'd all this we must see more of Gods attributes exalted to a greater height of honor then by mankind's either suffering or performing what the Law requir'd We see his Justice satiate it self in infinitely richer blood then mans the blood
Commandments And when their fears of the Lords Judgments stare them in the face they quickly tremble into the terrours and the agonies of Penitence For who dares sin and who does not repent upon his Death-bed he sinks at the remembrance of his former draughts when he does apprehend his next is like to be in the Infernal Lake he hath the frost of the Grave on him when he but thinks of his lascivious heats and does think too that his hot lustful Bed will turn him off straight into Tophet And then if Lazarus could raise these apprehensions in them sure they would repent 'T is plain these were the grounds our Rich Man built this his request upon I do not lay them as infallible I make no question but that men are able to defie their knowledg and charge through their own belief to sin and to destruction but commonly men do not lay things deep enough to their heart to be throughly convinc'd in earnest and thus he believed for had Abraham granted his desire and sent Lazarus to testifie the Glories he had tasted in himself and the Torments he had seen their Brother in all he could hope from this was but to make them more believe the one and other therefore he thought for want of this they would miscarry and this alone would do it so that wâ— may conclude that in the judgment of one that dy'd without Repentance having resisted all God's Methods and knew upon what score he did it and suffered the deserved pains of so doing the reason why men do not repent is because they are not sufficiently convinc'd of the next Life and of its two Eternities of Joy and Torment they do not credit them but notwithstanding all that God hath done his truths want witnessing for if one went unto them from the Dead one that could testifie they would Repent I should now make reflections on this and our selves together and truly all this would bespatter fouly such as go on in a Vice for it does conclude concerning them that they do not believe Gods Truths but in the midst of their professions of Religion are Infidels 't is plain they are so in the aknowledgments of one of their own Tribe who in the anguish of his Torments does confess this of them from his own experience But worse things will appear when we have seen that God hath done all this to us with more advantage than this man in Hell did think sufficient or indeed desire which was my next undertaking and I shall manage it in the same order First If one went unto them from the dead says he they will Repent And now to answer that Christ is come from the dead an Article this is that made its way through all the Swords and all the Racks and torturing Engines that the powerful witty malice of a whole World could find out and execute And shall it find its death among the softs and glories of its own victorious profession when it was instant Ruine to ackowledg the belief of it then Myriads ran into the flames at once to own and to partake Christs Resurrection but now they that profess it are so well here in this Life that in defiance of their own profession they will not think there is another Life It is not out of Principle they doubt as it were easie to demonstrate but out of improbity They have an aversion to severe Piety and are uneasie under any thing that does engage to it and must therefore work themselves out and here they storm Unkind men to themselves not onely in imprudence who adventure all upon such hazards but in disparaging themselves who being men of reason and that set it up to such an height as to make it contend with God and dispute out his Power of raising them again yet can think such a reasoning Soul was given them for no other end but to procure for and to animate the Organs of their sensuality But this is dash'd if Christ be risen because His Resurrection did make Faith that he would Judg the World in Righteousness on purpose to make them Repent Acts xvii 20 21. So that this his first expectation is most fully answered to us But Secondly if Lazarus would go one out of Abraham's Bosom then they would Repent And hath there not a greater than Lazarus been with us one not out of Abraham's but Gods Bosom even the Son of his Bosom one that himself prepar'd those Joys for them that would believe him and obey him one that from all Eternity enjoy'd them in the Bosom of the Divinity And who could better reveal them to us than the Author and the God of them who knew them more than he that did create them and possess them Yea when this Son of God would be Incarnate and take Flesh and was to carry it through all the Miseries that Sin deserv'd and God's Wrath could inflict he thought these Joys encouragement enough to do it willingly these Pleasures were worth Agonies which none but a God could suffer Heb. xii 2. Now sure he that prepar'd these Joys did understand them and he that is the Word of God knew best how to reveal them too And now how poor a wish was that of our Rich Man Let Lazarus go tell them why a Person of the Trinity hath told us indeed how could God do more than come himself to reveal the truth of them and himself die for them to reveal the greatness of them Good God! that no body could serve thy turn to tell us of the pleasures of thy Bosom but the Son of thy Bosom that thou shouldst think it worth an Incarnation to reveal them and we not think it worth a little Reformation to have them that he should part with Blood and give his Life for those Joys and we not be content to forsake a Custom to give away the pleasures of a Lust the neither pleasures nor profits of an Oath the sick delights of an Excess nor the vexations of a Passion in exchange for them what will Hell say to us when one there said if Lazarus will go they will repent If Lazarus Thirdly one that saw me in Hell and so can testifie the Torments of this place yet God hath out done this too Our Creed will tell us who descended into Hell and the Psalmish saying concerning him God should not leave his Soul in Hell S. Austin asks Quis ergo nisi infidelis negaverit fuisse Christum apud inferos 'T were easie for me to produce enough besides that say so Clem. Alex Origen Hier. Greg. Naz. Fulgent Euseb. Emissenus Caesarius Anastas Jobius Damâ—scenus Oecumenius c. But because we are not agreed what he did there I 'll take a surer medium That no Lazarus can decipher the condition of a Sinner after the pleasures of his iniquity have left him to the recompences of it so well as Christ who not onely did prepare the Plagues and therefore can describe them but also himself