Opinion of his extraordinary Happiness Himself in order recounted his Dignities and they admired them He reported the Favours of his Prince and they extolled them He boasted of his Grandeur and Riches and they proclaim'd him Happy Yet himself who best knew what Happiness he received from thence declared himself unhappy and all this to avail him nothing Lastly this was spoken by Haman whilst yet in full Favour with his Prince and expecting to receive greater Demonstrations of it He suffered no Apprehensions of losing his present Enjoyment Such thoughts indeed distract a worldly Man imbitter all his Pleasures and suffer him not to rest contented It would be impossible to him to relish any delight while afflicted with Fears and Doubts while despairing to retain his present Happiness He would grow Pale at the Prospect of an approaching Storm and instead of receiving any Complacency from his present Prosperity distract his thoughts with the fear of future Misery In such Circumstances an Epicure might well Confess that all the outward Advantages of his Life profited him nothing while he suffered inward Distraction from the Apprehension of his Fall which would render him so much more miserable by how much it deprived him of a greater Prosperity Haman at this time had no such Fears he had yet received no repulse at Court his Favour daily increased he had that very day received eminent Marks of his Princes affection and was the day after to receive yet more All this he was sensible of and all this he acknowledged in the close of his Speech Ver. 12. For he said moreover Yea Esther the Queen did let no man come in with the King unto the banquet that she had prepared but my self and to morrow am I invited unto her also with the King Far from fearing the loss of his present Greatness he probably hoped the increase of it and yet concluded that all this availed him nothing If then Haman under all these Circumstances missed of his desired end of being made Happy by worldly Enjoyments we may reasonably suspect some defect to be in the Nature of them upon the account of which neither Haman could nor any other can receive any real Happiness from thence And this I proceed in the Second place to treat of in some few Considerations First then nothing on this side Heaven is able to satiate the Soul of Man and however temporal Benefits may at a distance ravish the Imagination and create extraordinary Conceptions of their own Excellency yet when obtained they are found to be empty and trifling unable to satisfie the Desires of the Soul and fill its Capacity They are like the Fruit of Sodom which by their external Beauty attract the Eye but when touched crumble into Ashes While they are yet only Objects of Desire Men frame to themselves as it were Systems of Happiness to be enjoyed in them No sooner do they become Objects of Fruition but the meanness of them is discovered and after a full Enjoyment of them Man is forced to Confess this is not that he desired that which he proposed to himself He is never enabled by the Possession of them to say I am now completely Happy I here terminate my Desires He is forced to carry his Desires yet farther and seek true Felicity somewhere else which while constant to his Principle he can place no where else than in a greater Degree of the same Happiness This therefore he earnestly pursues yet never attains that Degree If he fixeth the measure of the Degree he may indeed arrive at that but when arrived finds himself as far as ever removed from true Happiness He turmoils and distracts himself experienceth the Vanity of former Projects invents new Methods of Happiness until Death puts an end to his Life and Designs together The greatest of these worldly Enjoyments are generally supposed to be Riches and sensual Pleasures The latter are common even to Beasts who are endued with Senses no less strong and lively than Men. And then surely none will so far debase his Nature as to level himself with Beasts by proposing to himself a Felicity of which they are no less capable It cannot be denied indeed that as we consist of Soul and Body God intended Happiness to each part that he put us into this World to make our selves Happy even in this Life but then as Soul and Body together constitute but one Person the Pleasures of either must be such as consist with the Nature of both As the Soul ought not to tyrannize over the Body by imposing on it unnecessary Rigours and Mortifications so the Excellency of the Soul ought not to be debased for the satisfaction of the Body A limitted use of Pleasures is not to be denied to the Body but then that very Limitation supposeth a better and more noble end of Man for the sake of which they are limited And after all the real Happiness of such limited Pleasures consists not so much in the report of the Senses enjoying them as in the reflex thoughts of the Soul forming to its self an Act of Complacency for having limited them according to the Laws of God The unlimited use of these Pleasures instead of conferring a real Benefit involves Men in Troubles and Anxieties in Cares and Dangers and when enjoyed endures but for a Moment no longer than the impression of Sense continueth when expired leaves only a Weariness and Nauseousness behind them So then sensual Pleasures conduce little to the Supreme end of Man unless we should be so foolish as to imagine that to be the utmost Happiness of Man which renders him happy but for a few moments And then as to Riches the natural use of them is subordinated to sensual Pleasures and the Conveniencies of Life and therefore can bestow nothing beyond them If any imagine as it cannot be denied that too many do that the very satisfaction of possessing Riches without any respect to the use of them bears any part in the Happiness of Man this is so gross and unmanly a Conception as nothing can exceed the wickedness of it nothing can equal the Folly of it This is a greater Depravation of Nature than all the Villanies of Sense or Sins of violence and if no Punishment attended it hereafter would rather deserve our Scorn than Envy The Acquisition of Riches is generally indeed at least indirectly referred to the Enjoyment of sensual Pleasures to be procured by them and as such can carry the Happiness of them no farther than the Nature of them will permit which we before considered Not to say that it is an invincible Argument of the unsatisfactoriness of Riches that those who seek after them seldom or never set bounds to their Desires and although in the acquiring of them they generally please themselves with the thoughts of commanding all sensual Pleasures when they shall have obtain'd them yet they seldom begin in earnest a Fruition of them ever proposing an end to themselves
Holiness and Submission to the Divine Will and thereby to serve the great Ends of our Creation yet the Promise of an eternal Crown and the Consideration of so vast an Interest might enforce us to Obedience This obviates all the Objections even of worldly Men who must needs Confess that in vain do they Labour for the Attainment of Felicity in this Life if it can never truly be found on this side Heaven A thorough perswasion of the Truth of this would banish all sinful Temptations and extravagant Desires of carnal Pleasures For Men would be the most deplorable and irrational of all Creatures if they preferred a present trifle before a future Treasure and voluntarily quitted the Life of Angels to retain those Pleasures which are common to Beasts And not only doth this Truth hold in quitting the momentany Enjoyments of this Life and suffering our selves to be deprived of them for an exchange of future Glory but even in undergoing the greatest Afflictions of this Life and embracing Death it self upon the same Account This our Saviour chiefly aims at in this place For when in the foregoing Verses he had foretold that bearing the Cross should be inseparable from the Profession of the Christian Religion and that he who endeavoured to decline this Cross and save his Life by a denial of his Faith should thereby incurr a much greater Punishment than is the loss of this temporal Life he subjoyns in the words of my Text For what shall it profit a Man if he shall gain the whole World and lose his own Soul As if he should say That System of Religion which I have instituted and recommended to you is not intended to enlarge or satisfie the Pleasures of the Body but to increase the Dignity of the Soul improve its Faculties and procure to it a Happiness commensurate to the Vastness of its Desire and the Liberality of its Creator Whosoever therefore seriously intends to become my Disciple and partake of the Benefits of my Gospel must prepare himself with a firm Resolution to quit all the Interests and Advantages of the World embrace Afflictions and not decline Death whensoever the Malice of wicked Men and the Obligation of my Commands shall require that Tryal and Testimony of his Obedience And in so doing he shall not only perform his Duty but secure and promote his Interest For those who shall basely renounce their Allegiance to me or violate my Commands to save their own Lives and avoid the Malice of their Enemies shall after this Life undergo a much greater Loss and Punishment than that which they so Cowardly fear'd and ungenerously declin'd On the other side they who shall willingly lay down their Lives and slight all the Terrors of Men and Devils to preserve their Obedience to me intire and retain the Profession of my Gospel shall be certainly Crowned with so great a Reward that the loss of this temporal Life will be inconsiderable in respect of that eternal Life which is attained by it This is your Interest as well as my Command your Profit as well as Duty For it is not only reasonable that every Man should quit that particular share and Portion which he hath in the Pleasures and Possessions of this World to secure thereby his Hopes of a future Happiness but even if all the Riches and Possessions of the World were â—â—aped upon one single Man or could be all obtained by denial of my Religion or Violation of my Laws yet would it not be a sufficient Motive for so great a Crime And he that should prevaricate upon such mean Considerations would find in the end when he casts up his Account that he hath gained nothing To evince illustrate and recommend to you this great Truth is the Design of my present Discourse Which therefore I shall divide into these two Heads I. That the Interests of the Soul are infinitely greater and more considerable than those of the Body II. That this Interest is destroyed and the Soul rendred miserable by disobedience to the Laws of God I. That the Interests of the Soul are infinitely greater and more considerable than those of the Body And this appears if we consider either the Reason and Nature of things or the Revelation and Commands of God Under the first Head may be comprised the Nature and Dignity of the Soul and the Excellency of those peculiar Perfections and Rewards which the Soul is capable of First then the Dignity and Precedence of the Soul was ever acknowledged in all Ages by wife and learned Men of all Sects and Perswasions nay even the more rude and illiterate parts of Mankind did ever firmly believe this as an Opinion planted in them by the first Dictates of Nature and arising from the first Principles of Reason That we have an immortal Soul is a thing which ought to be supposed by all who profess the least shew of Religion and cannot be denied without the total Destruction of it All false Religions were invented by Men and the true Religion proposed by God merely for the Improvement and direction of this noble Being It is this only which distinguisheth us from the Rank and Condition of Beasts which likens us to God and makes us little inferiour to the Angels It is this whereby we contemplate the admirable and wonderful Perfections of God understand the Wisdom of his Government and the Greatness of his Works It is this alone whereby we form Habits of Vertue and do any thing grateful to our Creator whereby we receive the Instructions of God and know his Will And therefore Prov. XX. 27. the Spirit of Man is called the candle of the Lord because by that only we receive the Divine Illuminations and are instructed in the way to Happiness This Dignity and Preference of the Soul beyond the Body might be at large demonstrated from many other Considerations but I will insist only upon three which are plain and obvious to the understanding of all Men. As first by the Soul alone we receive the influence and benefits of God Some Divine Benefits indeed belong also to the Body as Creation and Preservation but those are common to all other Creatures and belong equally to the vilest of all created Beings whereas the Favours granted to the Soul are peculiar to it and to infinitely greater value For to pass by the natural Priviledges of Knowledge Desire and a Capacity of improvement all the superadded Happiness of our Nature is intirely bestowed on it alone All Revelation was given for the Instruction of this noble Being that so it might not be inferiour to the Angels in Happiness to whom it is little inferiour in Dignity To rescue this from the Slavery of Sin and Dominion of the Devil the Son of God descended from Heaven lived an afflicted Life and died a shameful Death Into this as into a capacious Treasure are all the Divine Graces conveyed Graces of which the Body is no more capable than a Stock or
Stone Lastly by the Merits or Guilt of the Soul the Body will be hereafter either saved or condemned If then all the Blessings of Heaven be primarily bestowed upon the Soul if this be the only receptacle of moral Vertues and Divine Graces if the Son of God vouchsafed to do and suffer so much for the Salvation of it if all the future Happiness of the Body depends upon the well-doing of the Soul certainly this Soul deserveth our greatest Regard and Consideration as by which alone we obtain the Favour of God and are made like unto him by imitating his Perfections as far as our finite Nature will permit us in the Practice of Vertue and Holiness of Life In the next place 't is the Excellency of our Souls alone which distinguisheth one Man from another and maketh any Person more excellent than his Neighbour It is a childish mistake of Men to imagine that Riches or Honour or temporal Greatness gives a real Excellency to Mankind or confers a true Dignity upon the Possessors of them since all these outward Advantages are common to the worst and most profligate of Men who as they are most miserable in themselves so they deserve no other than the Slight and Contempt of all who know them Not to say that all these things are frail and momentany of which a Man may be bereaved in an hour either by the inconstancy of Fortune or the Malice of others But we cannot imagine that our Wise Creatour should assign that to be our chief Perfection of which we might either be deprived or defrauded and that our Happiness should be in the Power and at the Mercy of another Man In that Case we should have been more miserable than all the rest of the Creation if it were not in every Man's Power to become Happy So true is it that all the Excellency of Man consists in the great and eminent Endowments of his Soul which the poorest of Men may obtain and when obtained can by no Art or Fraud be taken from him Thus the Scripture giving an account of the eminent Perfections of Daniel the Honour and Reverence paid to him and Dignities conferr'd upon him gives this as the Reason of it Because an excellent Spirit was in him Dan. VI. 3. It was that alone which caused him to surpass the ordinary Rank of Men and made him the Favourite of Heaven Not that a more excellent and perfect Soul was infused at first into him than into the rest of Men for all Souls are created equal and are capable of the same Improvements but that he had adorned it with all the Perfections of Reason and Religion and thereby rendred it worthy the Favour of God and Esteem of Men. And herein clearly appears both the Goodness of God and the Happiness of Men that all these Improvements and Cultivations of the Soul are equally possible to the Poorest as well as the richest Men. Poverty and temporal Calamity cannot exclude us from the utmost Perfection and in that from the greatest Happiness It is in the Power of the meanest Person to be truly more Excellent than his rich Neighbours and to ensure to himself the Favours of Heaven although not the Riches of the Earth Thus God hath in Truth made an equal Distribution to all Men by assigning to all Souls an equal Capacity For as for the Goods of Fortune when put in the Scale with Piety and the interests of Religion they deserve not the least Consideration There are some Endowments of the mind indeed which are not common and cannot be obtained by all Men as Learning and an exquisite Knowledge These may put in a fair Plea for an intrinsick Worth and Excellency as being inseparable from the Soul when once acquired of infinite use in this Life and perhaps greater in the next But then there are disadvantages attending such acquired Knowledge which may justly take off the immoderate Desire of it and make it become no reasonable Object of Envy to a pious unlearned Christian. As that it renders the way to Heaven infinitely more difficult to the Possessors of it exposeth them to many and great Temptations not common to all other Persons but chiefly because more and greater Duties are required of them greater and more severe Punishments attend the neglect of them In the more unlearned sort God requireth no more than a hearty Sincerity Belief and sure Trust in the Merits of a Crucified Saviour and living up to the great Truths of Religion and Principles of common Honesty In them he willingly over-seeth small and trivial Faults and imputes not Errors to them unless they influence and corrupt their Practice But of the more learned sort of Christians he requireth right Notions of Religion and worthy Conceptions of the Divine Majesty employing their knowledge to the good of others the Edification of the Church and after all an exact Observation of the most minute Punctilios of the Divine Laws In them mistakes are dangerous and Pardon not so easie to be obtained If indeed at last they be thought worthy of the Joys of Heaven they will shine there in a more eminent Station and brighter Glory But then even the lowest Degree in Heaven is a greater Happiness than we can either imagine or conceive Thus all the truly desirable Perfections of the Soul are possible to all and debarr'd from none Those are no other than an ardent Love of God an active Zeal to his Service a strict Sobriety in our selves and a fervent Charity to all our Neighbours How far these will advance the Dignity of our Souls appears hence that these only make us capable of the Joys of Heaven that 't is the perfect and uninterrupted Possession of these which maketh Angels and the want of these which maketh Devils Lastly Our Body when considered alone hath nothing excellent beyond other material Creatures nor is capable of any Improvements It is taken out of the same Mass of Matter with other Bodies and after the Separation of the Soul by Death is resolved into the same Corruption becomes Filth and Rottenness and in Truth the most odious of all things Nay even in this Life it would be subject to the same miserable Condition with the Beasts of the Field if it were not actuated by a noble and generous Soul which rescues it from the common Calamity of dull and vile Matter and giveth it the Honour to be joyned to and be the Companion of a most excellent and immortal Spirit And so far is this Body from receiving new Perfections in this Life that it continually decays till it be laid in Ashes and become as the Dung of the Earth None yet with the greatest Care and Diligence could give Beauty to their Bodies or as our Saviour expresseth it add one cubit to their stature None with the greatest Art and Industry can make their Senses more quick and accurate But certainly not any can procure immortality to their Bodies a Priviledge which naturally belongs
to the Soul We believe indeed That our Bodies shall be hereafter invested with Immortality and made Partakers of the Glories of Heaven but then they shall be changed into a spiritual Nature devested of these gross Senses which now accompany us and are the great Instruments of our Worldly and admired Pleasures For then There will be neither eating nor drinking marrying nor giving in marriage but we shall be like the Angels of heaven in the Fruition of purely spiritual Delights Which is an invincible Argument of the Vanity and Vileness of earthly and carnal Enjoyments that we cannot be made happy without the loss of them If they had been indeed of any real worth God would have continued them to us in another Life But since he hath made way to the Consummation of humane Happiness by the Abolishment of all gross and sensual Pleasures and despoils the Body to enrich the Soul We cannot but conclude these transitory Enjoyments are light and trifling incompatible with real Happiness and unworthy the Spirits of just men made perfect I come next to consider the Excellency of those peculiar Perfections and Rewards which the Soul is capable of beyond the Body Those Pleasures of which alone our Body is capable and which we are apt so much to admire here below consist only in the Gratification of our Senses Delights which are so far beneath true Happiness that they are common to Beasts finite short and contemptible The frequent Repetition of them may be thought to increase their worth but then this very Repetition becomes nauseous and is nothing else but the Reiteration of the same thing The desire of them is commonly produced by an irregular Appetite but always by the infirmity of our Nature and when performed they leave no Satisfaction behind them They cloy the Appetite and by their frequency become troublesome and even odious to us are finished in a few moments and then leave nothing grateful behind them But which is chiefly to be considered end with our Life and even in Life may be obstructed by Diseases and Calamities An eminent Instance of this we have in Solomon in whom all the Greatness and â—leasures of the World were joyned He presided over a mighty and powerful People and that in greater Glory than all the Kings before or after him So that if Ambition worldly Honour and Pomp could make him Happy he possessed them all in great abundance If the Fame of Wisdom and a profound Veneration among neighbour Nations could increase this Happiness it was not wanting to him to whom the Queen of Sheba came from the farthest parts of the East to hear the wisdom of his mouth If Riches can confer any thing to this desired Perfection none can put in a better Claim for it than he in whose time Gold was esteemed no more than Iron and Silver as stones for the abundance of it Lastly if the Pleasures of Sense can compleat our Happiness none had greater Advantages than he at whose Command was the most fruitful part of the World and who was Blessed with a profound and uninterrupted Peace all his Life And least we should imagine that he made no use of all these Advantages and supposed means of Happiness he assureth us Eccles. II. 10. That whatsoever his eyes desired he kept not from them nor with-held his heart from any joy Nay by a strange kind of Curiosity that he might leave nothing unattempted he tells us That he gave his heart to know madness and folly Eccles. I. 17. One who had all these Advantages had run thro' all the Scenes of Pleasure and could by his exquisite Wisdom and Knowledge of the Nature of things heighten and refine these Pleasures must be allowed to be a competent Judge of the worth and value of them Yet after all he gives this Verdict of them Vanity of Vanities all is Vanity If then no real Happiness if no solid Pleasure can be had from the Enjoyments of Sense from Riches and the outward Pomp of the World we must recurr to the Faculties of the Mind where we shall find an Happiness truly solid and which is more eternal None but a vast and infinite Good can satisfie the unbounded Desires of our Mind nothing less than Eternity it self can satiate an immortal Being For however our Souls be finite as all other Creatures are yet our Wills have no limits but continually desire somewhat more unless that Good which they already possess can receive no farther Additions This Good is no other than God who alone can fix our restless Wills and by his infinite Perfections ravish them with Wonder and Pleasure at the same time This is a Happiness truly peculiar to spiritual Beings who alone can contemplate the Majesty and inimitable Goodness of their Creator and by so doing secure to themselves an Happiness infinite in it self not inferior to the vast Desires of the Will which surviveth all the changes of Fortune Malice of Men and even Death it self If we cannot or will not believe the Greatness of these spiritual Pleasures their convenience to the Nature of our Souls and the infinite duration of them 't is because we are unacquainted with them immersed in gross and earthly Delights so far that we are neither willing nor perhaps able to receive these greater and more real Enjoyments by attending so much to the things of this World we have even changed the Nature and Nobleness of our Souls and from Guides and Directors made them mere Instruments to our Bodies devested them of all remembrance of their Divine Original degraded them into a servile Condition and were we not sometimes put in mind of the interest of another World should perhaps forget that we were created in a Condition little lower than the Angels Thus far Reason teacheth us That the interests of the Soul are to be preferred to those of the Body Revelation doth the same no less fully This was the great end of the Christian Religion to wean our Affections from worldly Pleasures and fix them upon things above to withdraw us by degrees from the Earth and seat us at last in Heaven To this the whole Genius and Temper of our Religion plainly tends commanding us to be ready at all times to take up the Cross undergo Persecutions embrace Afflictions and even suffer Death when the interest of our Souls requireth us to do it Thus our Saviour tells us He who loveth Father and Mother Wife or Possessions beyond him is not fit to be his Disciple and among other Precepts commands that his Followers should deny themselves that is be ready to part with all the Pleasures of the World and imaginary Delights of Nature when they stand in Competition with the interests of another Life This Duty is so strict that for the Observation of the most minute Precept all Considerations of wordly Profit and Pleasure must be foregone and the whole Body destroyed rather than the Soul in the least be injured Our
Nature will be so far from helping it that it will infinitely aggravate the sharpness of its Pains For its Immortality will render them eternal and its Understanding will heighten the sense and feeling of them In this Life Sinners often are pleased with their own miserable Condition and Fancy themselves seated in Paradise when environed with Pleasures and glutted with Enjoyments They can stifle the Dictates of their Consciences and securely make use of their imaginary Happiness But in Hell their fire is not quenched and their worm dieth not The Sharpness of their Torments will not suffer them to rest And if those should be extinguished yet will they still be tormented with an inward Fire so much the more violent because then they will be certainly convinced in Judgment that they acted against their own Interests and the plain Rules of Reason in running the Danger of eternal Punishments for the sake of a few gross and trifling Pleasures We may next consider the peculiar influence of that Sin which our Saviour here chiefly intends This is the Sin of Apostacy or denial of the true Religion against which Christ fore-arms his Followers by inculcating this necessary truth of preferring the goods of the Soul to those of the Body For this foul Sin is ever committed for some temporal End being too odious to recommend it self without some outward Advantages Men deny not their God out of a dislike or disbelief of him but to secure to themselves a Fortune in the World prevent some Inconveniencies or gratifie some Lusts. This is a Crime of the same Nature and Contagion with Idolatry under the old Law For to worship a false God is the same thing as to deny the true one and the first cannot be done without the latter How heinous God accounted this appeareth from the whole Tenour of the Mosaick Law which is chiefly directed against this Sin alone All the Writings of the Prophets are employed against it and all the Judgments which God ever inflicted upon his People of Israel are solely owing to this Cause Insomuch as there is no Record left in sacred History of any Pardon ever granted to the Commission of this Sin And indeed a wilful Apostacy from the true Religion dissolves the very Union between God and Man and leaves no place for Pardon Such a Person openly by his Act proclaims to the World that he will have nothing to do with God bids defiance to him and disclaims his Pardon It would prostitute the Divine Mercy and make it cheap and easie to bestow it upon such execrable Villanies which do violence to Heaven and are the very last Efforts of Impiety This cannot but degrade the Soul from its Affinity to God and debar it from all nearer approach to his Presence We cannot hope to have any Interest left in God after a denial of him nor can without Horror entertain any remembrance of him How then shall we make our Souls happy with the continual Meditation of his Perfections or please our selves with the Hopes of the future Fruition of him In that Case it will be our Interest to banish all thoughts of God and remove from our selves as far as possible all Considerations of a future State that so we may not be alarmed with the dread of an angry God and the Terrors of future Torments Thus a denial of God against the Light of our own Consciences doth not only render us unhappy but causeth us to endeavour to become yet more unhappy by a total and wilful stifling of all Thoughts and Meditations of God in which alone true Happiness consists And this is true not only in the Case of notorious Apostacy when any one openly renounceth his Religion and denieth his belief of the true God which Case in these peaceable times of the Church doth not often happen but also in the Commission of every deliberate Sin which in truth is a no less formal Apostacy from God than that before-mentioned where the Sinner puts in the Scale the present Pleasure and Convenience of the Sin with the future Consequence and Divine Prohibition of it and after having weighed each rejects the Command of God of which he is very Conscious and prefers the present Satisfaction of the Sin This is done in every deliberate Sin and this is indeed a no less true Apostacy than an open denial of God For this we may be assured that whosoever upon a deliberate Choice prefers the seeming Pleasures of any sin to the Command of God would never foregoe all the Pleasures of this Life and even Life it self in obedience to the Will of God It remains that I make some Application of what hath been said First then if the Interests of the Soul be much greater than those of the Body and the Happiness of the Soul consists only in the due Contemplation of God and the possession of Piety and Vertue let us endeavour to render our Soul even in this Life as Happy as we possibly can It is not reasonable that all the Cares of our Life should be employed in providing Necessaries or rather Superfluities to the Body or attending to the Pleasures of it That no farther use should be made of the Soul than to serve as a Slave to the Body to heighten its Enjoyments and refine its Pleasures Let us remember that we carry about with us a more noble Being which deserveth our Care in the first place and cannot be neglected without the loss of Happiness May not God justly say to Mankind I have given to you great and Celestial Souls endued with wonderful Perfections and capable of much greater when rightly cultivated your Bodies I formed from the Clay of the Earth but your Souls I sent down from Heaven the one I permit to return to Corruption but the other I have invested with Immortality How justly might I expect that you would have valued these two according to their several worth and Dignity That you should not indeed starve the Body nor Tyrannize over it but however attend chiefly to the Concerns of the Soul that it might not fall short of that Happiness which I intended for it nor be deprived of those spiritual Enjoyments which it is capable of But alas Man is turned back and grown foolish employeth himself with all his Diligence to procure Pleasures for his Body rises early sits up late and eats the bread of carefulness to heap up Riches for the Continuation of these Bodily Enjoyments makes this the only Business of his Life and thinks of nothing else As for his Soul he makes it a Slave to his Body refuseth to receive Directions from it and sometimes forgets that he hath any What shall we answer to these Expostulations of God I fear we cannot plead Innocence Our Actions and the whole Course of our Lives demonstrate the contrary We are continually busie about enlarging our petty Acquisitions in the World we trouble and turmoil our selves about the Conveniencies of the Body but
afford no leisure to the Soul to meditate upon the Greatness and Worth of her Creator the necessity of her own Duties and to form these Meditations into Habits of Vertue and thereby procure to our selves that real Happiness even in this Life which is infinitely more valuable than all the Riches and Possessions of the World when joyned in one Again Secondly If the Happiness of the Soul in this Life deserveth our greatest Care much more doth the welfare of it in a future State as being free from all Passions and Infirmities of the Body and which is more eternal This ought to be the Business and Employment of our whole Lives that we fail not of the Consummation of our Hopes and Crown of our Happiness And it would be so if we were throughly perswaded of the Existence and immortality of our Souls of the Greatness and Importance of their Interests and the infinite Preference which is due to these beyond those of our Body For can it be that we are perswaded of the Truths of these things and yet Act as though we had neither Souls nor Reasons that we believe the Existence of another more Glorious and lasting State and yet set up our rest in this that we hope for the appearance of a Judge at the last day and yet never think of making our Accounts ready Let us reflect upon the Nature of our Souls and justly weigh the great Interests of them consider the Vanity of worldly Pleasures and the shortness and inconstancy of this frail Life remember the Glories of Heaven and the inconceivable Happiness of another Life and we must either put off our Reason or employ it in pursuing those Interests which do so greatly and so nearly concern us Let us be so brave and generous as not to think that we die like the beasts that perish that we were made for greater and more noble Ends intended for the Favour of God and Society of Angels that we carry about with us spiritual Beings which cannot die and will receive no Prejudice by the Dissolution of the Body that these Souls were designed by God to receive a Participation of his own Glory and will certainly do so if they be not debarr'd from it by our fatal Stupidity and Neglect and that in providing for this more Excellent part of us we secure likewise a Mansion for the Body which at the general Resurrection shall be received into the same Station and undergoe the same fate with the Soul If we were perfectly perswaded of the Truth of all this we could not consign our selves up to pursue the Vanities of the World and heap up Riches which are of no Service for the Interests of another Life and promote not our real Happiness in this Can you be supposed to believe all this and at the same time imploy your Lives upon the Practice of the contrary Hope for the Perfection designed and make no step towards the Attainment of it rather let us endeavour with our utmost Vigour to maintain that Degree which God hath assigned to us among created Beings and not by our Degeneracy become the vilest and most miserable of all Creatures Let us do nothing unworthy that noble Being which is seated within us nor cloath the Body with the Spoils of it Let us maintain the Dignity and Character of our Natures by a severe and unblemisht Integrity and procure to our selves an assurance of those Perfections which are allotted to us Certainly in worldly Matters we willingly over-see lesser and more trivial Gains for obtaining of a greater and more substantial Profit and should we not slight the impertinent Gayeties and vile Allurements of the World to secure to our selves a treasure which fadeth not eternal in the Heavens Lastly If the benefits of the Soul be ever preferable to the Interests of the Body if all the Glories and Riches of this World be of small account when opposed to the Happiness of the next if the Favour of God and Concerns of Religion be the only true Perfections of Mankind a firm Constancy in the Exercise and Profession of Religion although attended in this Life with the greatest Inconveniences Discouragements and Afflictions will not only be our Duty but our highest Interest This is the natural Consequence of the words of my Text and the Conclusion which our Saviour himself drew from them in the following Verse with which I shall conclude Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed when he cometh in the Glory of his Father with the Holy Angels The Ninth SERMON Preach'd on the 20. of Novemb. 1689. At LAMBETH CHAPEL St. Luke XVI 31. If they hear not Moses and the Prophets neither will they be perswaded though one rose from the dead THESE words are the Conclusion of a remarkable Parable of our Saviour and seem to be the Scope to which his whole Discourse was therein directed to shew the Vanity of that Pretence wherewith unreasonable Men have been wont to defend or excuse their Sins the uncertainty of the Rewards and Punishments of another Life arising from the defect of a visible Experience of them or an undeniable Attestation of the Truth of them by constant Miracles It was not for the peculiar Doctrines of Christ alone that the Jews required a Sign to be given to them to demonstrate the Truth of them but also in their ancient and received Doctrines they entertained Scruples because not confirmed by a constant Continuation of the same Miracles which at first established them An incredulity as it should seem Hereditary to the Jews and renewed as often as the Divine Miracles were interrupted No sooner was Joshua dead and that Generation which had seen all the great works of the Lord which he had done for Israel as we are told in Judges II. but the next Generation even lost the knowledge of God they knew not the Lord as it is there expressed and altho' Miracles were continued down among them by the Ministration of the Prophets and Holy Men yet as these could be visible but to a certain Number they produced no universal influence affected not the rest and even in those who saw them they seemed to have produced no other effect than wonder and Amusement They still continued their disbelief of those Promises and Threats which they saw not yet effected and of that future State which they did not yet perceive And it were to be wished that this incredulity of the Jews had been so hereditary to them as to be peculiar to them but it hath found place even among Christians also many of whom have even renounced and denied their Faith because themselves could not see those Miracles upon the Authority of which Christianity was at first founded Others become irresolute and remiss in the Prosecution of their Duty as being upon the same account unsatisfied in the event of it And all pretend
his Enemies as well as Friends at that time The Soldiers sent to break his Legs while hanging on the Cross that so they might hasten his Death whom they supposed not yet to have expired found him already dead Joseph of Arimathea and the devout Women which followed him taking him down from the Cross laid him in his Grave being well assured that he was then Dead His Disciples who if any shew of Reason might be offered would not easily believe him dead from whom they then expected a temporal Kingdom yet were so far perswaded of it that at his first appearing to them they were affrighted and supposed they had seen a Spirit To these Proofs nothing more could be added to Evince the reality of his Death an Evidence which is wanting to all the Relations of Men raised from the Dead opposed by the Heathens to the Resurrection of our Lord. They alledged from Plato the Story of Eris lying for many days among the dead Bodies and after that recovering Life again and pretended that Apollonius Tyaneus whom they set up in opposition to Christ had raised a certain Person to Life But the first was not related by any for more than a thousand years after the Fact was pretended to be done and in the second Case the Heathen Historian confesseth that he dare not affirm that the Person was truly Dead Nor after his Resurrection was it less evident that Christ was truly alive invested with Soul and Body All the Actions of Life and Arguments of a real Body met in his He was seen by a great number of his Disciples who judged it to be such He eat and drank with them which proved his Body not to have been a meer Phantasm or Aerial Apparition He talked and reasoned with them out of the Scriptures which demonstrated that Body to be indued with a rational Soul He appealed to their Sense of feeling commanded them to handle him said to unbelieving Thomas reach hither thy finger and behold my hands and reach hither thy hand and thrust it into my side which manifests that the Body which he then offered to that Tryal was that very Body which had suffered on the Cross and still retained the Print of the Nails and the Impression of the Spear That this same Body and Soul reunited was also joyned to the Divinity as before his Passion appeared from his many Miracles wrought after his Resurrection Thus we have a true proper and real Resurrection And that all these things were so we have the Testimony first of his own Disciples the Faith of whom although so nearly related to him cannot be called in question since they laid down their Lives in Confirmation of it Nor can it be imagined that any Men should die for the Testimony of what they knew to be false Of these the pious Women were first Blessed with the sight of him whether it were in Reward of their maintaining their Love and Fidelity to him when his Apostles had forsaken him or that they came into the Garden where the Sepulchre was immediately after the Resurrection and before he was yet departed out of it They saw him knew him and saluted him held him by the feet and worshipt him The Apostles being advertised of it by them hasted to see their Master and received not only a transient view of him but conversed with him for forty days together and by many infallible proofs were assured of the truth of it Afterwards he appeared to more than five hundred at once and at last ascended up to Heaven in the presence of them all To the witness of Friends we will add the Testimony of his Enemies which in all Cases is allowed to be of great weight The Soldiers who were employed by the Jews to watch his Sepulchre plainly saw the Effects of Divine Power which accompanied his Resurrection although being astonished and confounded at such unusual Prodigies they did not well perceive it or perhaps were not suffered by their Fears to stay till Christ should proceed out of the Sepulchre They felt the Earthquake which removed the stone rolled to the mouth of the Sepulchre they saw the countenance of an Angel like lightning and his raiment white as snow upon which they did shake and became as dead Men and coming into the City shewed to the chief Priests all the things that were done as we read Matth. XXVIII II. The Angels and heavenly Hosts had before joyned with Men in celebrating the Nativity of Christ and they here concurred in witnessing his Resurrection The Women coming to the Sepulchre betimes in the Morning presently after the Resurrection and looking for the Body of their beloved Lord in the Sepulchre found there two Angels in white sitting one at the head the other at the feet where the Body of Jesus had lain who said to them why seek ye the dead among the living he is not here he is risen come see the place where the Lord lay Lastly If we should imagine both his Friends and Enemies the report of Sense oft-times repeated to have been deceived in the Opinion of his Resurrection God hath been pleased to confirm the Truth of it and to set his Seal to it This he hath done not only by his Holy Spirit comforting enabling and encouraging the Apostles in Preaching the Mystery of Christ's Refurrection but also in confirming their Testimony with concurrent Miracles As it is Acts IV. 33. With great power gave the Apostles witness of the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus They openly affirmed it upon their own Knowledge and then in Proof of the truth of their Affirmation wrought Signs and Miracles which to the Spectators did as fully evince the Truth of the Relation as if they had seen it done with their own Eyes since it was impossible that God should exert his omnipotent Power in working Miracles for the Attestation of a Lye Thus much for the reality I proceed in the second place to the II. Manner of the Resurrection expressed in those words having loosed the pains of death which are variously interpreted some maintaining that they imply only a Deliverance from Death and rescue from the Grave others that they point out the dolorous Sufferings by which our Lord was brought to the Grave and raising him up to a state opposite to that Humiliation a third sort understanding by them a Destruction of the Power and Dominion of Death All these Opinions are supported with great Reasons nor will it here be proper to enter into a strict Examination which of them rather is to be embraced They are all rational Consonant to the Design of the Apostle and Significative of the manner of Christ's Resurrection I will therefore apply them all The first Opinion includeth only a Deliverance from Death that is a reunion of Soul and Body separated by Death In which Sense it chiefly referreth to the words of David and the Promises made to him here alledged by the Apostle David had been often brought
by his Enemies into extreme danger of Death which he commonly expresseth by the same or the like words as Psal. XVIII 4. The sorrows of death compassed me and Verse 5. The sorrows of hell compassed me about and Psal. CXVI 3. The sorrows of death compassed me the pains of Hell gat hold upon me Yet trusting in the Promises of God amidst all these Calamities he rested assured of Deliverance and expresseth his Confidence of it in the words cited by the Apostle in the following Verses My flesh shall rest in hope because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see Corruption It was a Matter at that time received and on all hands granted by the Jews that David was a Type of the Messias that his Actions Sufferings and Deliverance prefigured the Office the Death and Resurrection of Christ who should descend from him and particularly the Apostle sheweth how this Passage was much more evidently and literally fulfilled in Christ than in David He indeed was delivered from his Enemies and died in Peace yet die he did and after Death his soul was left in hell that is among the Dead or in the place of departed Souls and his Body did see Corruption having been buried many hundred years But as for Christ he died indeed yet his soul was not left in hell neither did his Body see Corruption His Soul was presently reunited to the Body and even during the Separation not left by the Divine Nature which still continued to be joyned to it neither was his Body corrupted but raised up and united to the Soul in less than forty hours in which time the Bodies of deceased Men are wont to be corrupted According to the second Interpretation Christ was raised from a painful Death to an opposite State to a condition of Glory Happiness Power and Immortality The Sufferings of our Lord so lively described to us in the Holy Offices of the last week we cannot forget and over all these he eminently triumphed in his Resurrection upon this day He was then made subject to Death but is now become the Lord of life and set above the reach of Death For Christ being raised from the Dead dieth no more Death hath no more Dominion over him Rom. VI. 9. He then bore the wrath of God for the sake of Man He now dispenseth the Favours of God granted to Men. He was then subjected to the Contradiction of Sinners to the Will of his own Creatures appeared as the vilest of Men suffered as a Malefactor he is now entred upon his Kingdom raised above the Earth seated at the right hand of God Angels and Authorities and Powers being made subject unto him 1 Pet. III. 22. The words explained in their third Sense infer the overthrow of the Power and Dominion of Death effected by the Resurrection of Christ. The whole Design of our Lords Incarnation of his Death Burial and Resurrection was as it is expressed Hebr. II. 14. That he might destroy him that had the power of Death that is the Devil To do this all the parts of his Life contributed He converted Sinners from the Error of their way He confuted the Mistakes of the seduced World He founded a Church wherein open Enmity should be professed to the Devil He took upon himself the guilt of Death due to the sins of Men and all this Dispensation he gloriously finished in his Resurrection Therein he literally broke the bonds of Death he led Captivity Captive baffled the opposition and triumphed over all the Assaults of the Devil who had vainly imagined that by procuring the ever Blessed Jesus to be given up into the hands of wicked Men he had put an end to the Salvation of Mankind But to our eternal Happiness and to the Glory of our Redeemer his Designs and Attempts promoted that very end which he so much dreaded he knew not that it was the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God as it is in the precedent Verse that Christ should both die and rise again to perfect our Salvation that he was for a while to be subject to Death but that it was impossible he should be holden of it III. This was the third thing proposed to Discourse of that it was not possible that Christ should continue in the state of Death The Apostle foundeth the impossibility of it in this place upon the Determination of God to the contrary so that here it was not possible is no more than it was not Consonant to the decree of God it was not fit just or convenient as it is said Matth. IX It is not possible for the Children of the Bride-Chamber to mourn as long as the Bridegroom is with them that is it is not fit or convenient In this Sense then I shall consider it and 1. It was not possible or convenient that Christ should be holden of death because he was both God and Man the Divine was united to his Humane Nature It would have appeared surprizing to our Reason and been an Argument of little affection of God to Mankind if he should have suffered that very Body which had the Honour to be joyned to his own Nature wherein the fullness of the Godhead dwelled bodily to continue in Hell in the common state of Mortality or to see Corruption It was not possible that the Divinity should suffer that Nature to be corrupted or lye neglected among the Dead to which it self continued to be united even in the Grave This we of the Catholick Church do believe and if any should oppose this wonderful Union of the Divine and Humane Nature in the person of Christ his very Resurrection will convince their Error For to raise a dead Body to Life again must be allowed to be no less than the work of Omnipotence that it can be effected by God alone Yet it appeareth from the express words of Scripture that Christ had Power to raise up his own Body He saith of himself to the Jews John II. 19. Destroy this Temple and in three days I will raise it up Speaking of the Temple of his Body as the Evangelist subjoyns And again John X. 18. No Man taketh my Life from me but I lay it down of my self I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again Our Lord who came into the World to do the Will of his Father and to glorifie him would never have claimed this Power had it not been inherent in himself He therefore by his own Power reunited his Soul to his Body I mean not in Exclusion to the other persons of the Blessed Trinity who all concurred therein For Power being an essential Attribute of the Divine Nature continueth undivided in the Persons of it And therefore it is no Objection against the Truth of this that the Father is said in many places of the New Testament to have raised up his Son since he is the chief Person in that Blessed Trinity
them For however the external Circumstances of place and time are required but in Conjunction with the more essential Conditions of Prayer yet they are still required The necessity of publick Worship whereof Prayer is the principal part was in the former Discourse largely treated of This Worship cannot be reduced into Practice unless it be determined to certain places and times To speak of the times of Worship is not my present Purpose And if the places of it be not fixed no publick Worship can well consist The Apostle therefore in commanding Prayers to be offered up every where hath not therein taught that all places are equally fitted in which Prayers may be made He hath taken away the Singularity of one place and the Appropriation of all publick Worship to that alone but continued the necessity of fixing some certain places in all parts of the Believing World for that Purpose not left it indifferent whether Men pray to God in a place dedicated to religious Uses or in a place made common to all the ordinary Uses of Life The Christian Religion hath taken away whatsoever was merely Ceremonial in the Jewish Religion but retained all which was derived from the Law of Nature or the light of Reason And that the Consecration of certain places to the worship of God and appropriating them to that use alone is such will be useful to manifest since there are not wanting some who decry all difference between sacred and prophane places First then it was not in the Institution of the Jewish Religion that God began to be a God of order and Decency those Attributes were eternal in him and evidently appear in that most beautiful and harmonious Order of the World and all the parts of it which himself hath fixed in the Creation of it Which is contrived with the most exact Symmetry disposed in a most beautiful Order and continued in it The Worship which Man pays to God being founded upon his Attributes and the knowledge of those Attrributes chiefly appearing by the Effects of them it is Consonant to Reason that Man should direct his Worship with respect to them If then in the visible Operations of God such a decent Order be every where Conspicuous in the publick Worship of him the same Order ought also to be maintained otherwise no Acknowledgment is made no Homage paid to that divine Perfection which was the Principle of that Order and Decency which we see and admire in the Creation God hath not only formed what was absolutely necessary for the Life of Man but also added infinite variety of Lights Minerals Plants and Animals for his Delight and for the Ornament of Life Since therefore the Rules of Divine Worship are to be taken from the Divine Perfections manifested by their Operations this conduct of God in creating and governing the World doth not only warrant the Addition of Ceremonies and many Circumstances to the more essential Parts of Worship but also makes it to become a Duty And to accuse such Additions and external Ceremonies of Superstition is no less unreasonable than to question the Wisdom of God who hath added to the Creation many things not necessary yet ornamental to it How incongruous would it be to worship the God of Order and Decency in an irregular and slovenly manner how improper a return for the additional yet unnecessary Conveniences of humane Life to adore the Author of them without any Order or external Decency The Sense of this induced men before the Institution of the Jewish Religion to dedicate certain Places to the Worship of God and set them apart for that use only The Monuments of those times are few being all comprized in the Book of Genesis yet therein we find evident Footsteps of such Dedications more particularly in Gen. xxviii 16. where Jacob enjoying a Vision at Bethel because it was a Mark of the Divine Presence immediately concluded that the Place was dedicated to his Service And he said surely the Lord is in this place and I knew it not How dreadful is this Place this is none other but the House of God and this is the Gate of Heaven Which Reflection of Jacob proveth it to have been the Custom of the Patriarchs to Dedicate certain Places to be the Houses of God and to have been their Belief that in those places God was more peculiarly present And to manifest that his Notion of the House of God was no other than of a Place of Worship he immediately addressed himself to worship God in it as it follows in the 18th Verse I might add that the Dedicating certain Places to this use was not the Practice of the Patriarchs alone but of all Ages and Men professing any Religion whether true or false which general Practice and Perswasion is in all other Cases allowed to be a certain indication of the Voice of Nature But I proceed to observe the Reason of it where it may be considered that as God is the Author of Soul and Body of Heaven and Earth of Life and all the Conveniencies of it so he requireth as a just and necessary Act of Adoration that some part of every one of these should be dedicated to himself as an Acknowledgment of his Dominion over the whole Thus the Operations of the Soul pay Homage to him in the more essential parts of Worship the Body in the Concomitant Parts of it that is in the external Gestures of Adoration we acknowledge to have received our Goods and Wealth from him by offering up some part of it to himself to be employed as he shall direct which in the Jewish Religion consisted chiefly in Sacrifices and Oblations in the Christian Religion in Acts of Charity We confess him the Author of Life by dedicating certain times of it to his Service and we confess him the Lord of the whole Earth by appropriating and submitting some parts of it to his immediate Service By this his Right and Title to the whole Earth is eminently acknowledged and the Vassallage of Man the Inhabitant of it is declared Further the Erection and Dedication of Churches to the Worship and the Honour of God is an illustrious Testimony of the publick Religion of any Nation or Country and upon that Account is both useful and necessary It is our Duty to proclaim our Subjection to God and Belief in him by all significative Expressions to testifie it to the whole World and if it be possible perpetuate the Memory of this our Profession to all Ages and communicate the Knowledge of it to all men This Fabricks dedicated to the Service of God do most naturally signifie which are so many standing and lasting Monuments of our Belief in that God to whose Service they were appropriated For this Reason we often find in the Book of Genesis that the Patriarchs erected Pillars and Heaps of Stones to be so many lasting Monuments of their Belief in God and Subjection to him And how graciously God accepted such visible
Prayer which maketh this whole Observation concerning the Veneration due to Churches not improper in a Discourse concerning the place of Prayer III. I pass now to the third Branch 〈◊〉 the Text that is the Posture that is 〈◊〉 be used in Prayer which is expressed in those Words Lifting up holy Hands Nor is the Posture of Prayer a Matter so indifferent as deserveth not our Enquiry It is indeed the Error of some that all external Modes of Worship are indifferent but to them who are no professed Enemies to Order and Decency it appears far otherwise For since God is the Creator both of Body and Soul since the Existence of both is derived from him and continued by him since he hath provided for the Body as well as Soul both in this Life and in the next it follows that both ought to make Returns of Praise and Worship to God This the Soul the sole Fountain of Reason doth by loving honouring obeying and submitting to him The Body indeed is not capable of such noble Operations yet is it enabled to give Praise and Glory to God by Gestures implying Adoration Submission and Subjection to him To worship God only with the Body were to make no returns of Gratitude for the Faculties of the Soul received from him and to worship him only with the Mind were to deny the Subjection of the Body to him Both thereâ—â—â— are alike necessary The Worship 〈◊〉 the Soul is indeed more acceptable because the Faculties of it are far more noble but the Worship of the Body is no less the Duty of Man and that especially in publick Worship where the chief Design being the Glory of God the Worship of the Body is the only visible Testimony of the internal Honour pay'd by the Soul to God and that not only because the Words of publick praise and adoration are expressed by the Organs of the Body but also in that the very Gesture of the Body is a Mark of Subjection paid to God since such Gestures used in sacred Places and to an invisible Being are notoriously known to be intended in Honour of God Bodily Worship therefore is absolutely necessary and that such as may express the greatest Submission and deepest Humility The most intense Operations of the Soul are due to God and so are the most significative Humiliations of the Body That posture therefore which expresseth the most humble Submission ought to be employed in Prayer the principal Act of Worship and is indeed an essential Part of Worship Only the particular posture is not determined in Scripture because the Expressions of Civility Honour and Subjection vary in several Ages and Countries So that it was impossible to determine any one Gesture since what was very expressive of Worship in one Nation might be contrary in another The external Mode of Worship therefore was left indifferent to the whole Church because such Modes varied in the several parts of it but in any particular Church it is not indifferent but that it be esteemed absolutely necessary essential and commanded by God which according to the received Customs of that Nation is most expressive of Humility Submission and Subjection If Kneeling be the most humble posture of Respect which obtains in any Nation that ought to be employed in the Worship of God and in that Case to pretend to pray to God standing is not only indecent but unlawful a detaining from God the Honour due to him and offering to him an inferiour degree of Worship when a more exalted degree is possible If by the Custom of the Country Prostration be the most significative posture of Humility that then becomes necessary in Divine Worship If neither Prostration nor Kneeling be in use neither ought it to be employed in Prayer but the same infallible Rule is always to obtain that whatsoever Posture by Custom Institution or Prescription is most significative of Honour and Subjection that ought to be made use of in adoring God and in Prayer which is always accompanied with Adoration To apply this Rule to our own practice It is notorious and undeniable that in the Nation wherein we live Kneeling is the most humble posture that whereof we should make use were we to do Homage to our Prince or to beg his Pardon This posture therefore becometh our indispensable Duty in Prayer wherein we adore God and implore his Mercy In this Nation therefore or in any other where Kneeling is the most submissive Gesture to practise Standing in publick Prayer is in truth to deny that the supream Honour is due to God to refuse to pay that Homage to him which Men are content to pay to earthly Princes as if either he were not worthy of it or themselves were too great and noble to condescend to it In many Eastern Countries Prostration hath been in use and there it was necessary in the Worship of God for the same Reason In others Standing with either spreading forth the Hands or gently inclining the Body and laying the Hand upon the Breast In all these Cases the Custom of the Country was to give Directions to the posture of Religious Worship To enquire which of these is the best and most significative posture is wholly vain since no posture signifieth any Respect in that Country where it is not used and what in one place includeth the highest Honour and Reverence in another may signifie none at all Among the Jews Kneeling with Hands lifted up or spread abroad was the most reverential Gesture as might be proved from innumerable places of Scripture Psal. CXLI 2. Dan. VI. 10. Luk. XXII 41. Acts IX 40. XXI 5 c. and so also among the Grecians St. Paul therefore writing to both of them joyned in one Church in Corinth expressed in this place the posture of Prayer to be lifting up of Hands because that Custom did prevail among them not that he intended to oblige us to the same posture in Prayer who for the same Reason are left to be directed by the Custom of our particular Nation amongst whom the most submiss and at the same time most civil posture is Kneeling with clasped Hands and that if I be not mistaken was always the most received Gesture in the Western World but most certainly was in use from the very beginning of Christianity in the Western Church vid. Tertul. Cypr. It hath been indeed received in all Ages and in all Countries as far as we can find that in Sacrifices the Priest who offers them up should do it standing In Compliance with this universal Custom our Church hath most certainly directed that the Prayers presented to God from the Altar where the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ the great Sacrifice of the Christian Religion is celebrated should be offered up by the Priest in a standing Posture which I would not omit to observe to you lest that Practice should be any Objection against the necessity of Kneeling in time of Prayer since it is founded
we seek for true Happiness somewhere else If the former cannot be the Supreme end of Man and if it be natural to us to direct all our Actions to some end it will be necessary for us to find out some other end and when found out to apply our utmost Diligence to obtain it And here perhaps humane Reason having thus far proceeded might continue to grope in the dark and after a tedious disquisition be unable to discover either the end or the means of obtaining it God hath therefore in Compassion to our Infirmities marked out both the Nature and the means of Supreme Happiness The Nature of it is Peace of Conscience here and therein the hopes of the Fruition of God hereafter which Hopes shall then be turned into Possession the means of it obedience to his Laws and Faith in Christ. By these we shall obtain an Happiness which shall fill the utmost Capacities of the Soul which shall be co-extended with the duration of it which shall satisfie us but never weary us which shall affect all the Faculties both of Soul and Body which shall be interrupted by no Crosses and Disasters which will never expire but be renewed every moment which no adversity of Fortune nor infirmity of Body which neither the Malice of Men or Devils shall be able to take from us To a serious Application of your selves to obtain this blessed State I hope what has been said will be no small Motive to you You all desire Happiness and if the Soul be once fully convinced what is the only true Happiness it cannot but move towards it and exert all its Faculties in the Acquisition of it After a firm perswasion that this is indeed the end of Man there needs no Exhortation to pursue it The pursuit of it will then be no less natural than the satisfying of Hunger or any other reasonable Appetite The misfortune is that we suffer our selves to be deluded by the impressions of Sense and unruly Passions representing and amplifying to us the Happiness arising from the Fruition of carnal Pleasures and secular Delights we are not unwilling these Passions should arise we permit these false Judgments to be formed we are pleased at first with the Delusion altho' conscious of it and at last become so far stupified that we do not perceive it until at last a terrible Affliction or the approaches of Death awaken the Soul and revive its better Notions What those dreadful remembrancers may then do Reason may now much more easily and more certainly effect to reflect upon the Nature of worldly Enjoyments to consider their Vanity and discover their Emptiness When this Conviction is throughly formed we shall be even necessitated to look upward and fix our hopes in Heaven and then we are assured that our Labours directed thither shall not miscary that they shall be assisted by God promoted by his Spirit and Crowned with Success Success which will give us satisfaction of Mind here and fulness of Joy hereafter To this Joy may God c. The Fourth SERMON Preach'd on the 23d of June 1689. At LAMBETH CHAPEL Job XXXVII 23 24. Touching the Almighty we cannot find him out He is excellent in power and in judgment and in plenty of justice he will not afflict Men do therefore fear him THE ground of all Religion whether Natural or Revealed consists in the knowledge of the Nature of God and of his Conduct in the Government of the World The first representeth him to Man as a fit object of Adoration the latter perswadeth Man to adore him Without the first there would be no reason to adore him without the latter no Obligation The perfection therefore of any Religion consists in an accurate Delivery of these Matters in giving right Notions of the Nature of God and in teaching with certainty the method of his external Actions The former is always the same and admits no Variation the latter may receive Improvements in relation to Man and lay greater Obligations on him under one Dispensation than under another So much of both may be known by the light of Reason as may direct Men aright to the Worship of God if they imploy their reason in a due manner and convince them at the same time of their Obligation to worship him but both may be mistaken in the natural use of the understanding and when mistaken will equally defeat the Worship of God a mistake of the first Nature leading Men into Idolatry of the second into Negligence and Impiety It is not so easie indeed to mistake concerning the first the Nature of God which may easily be discerned by the weakest understanding I mean so much of it as serves to beget Notions of Religion in Men. All Men whether true Believers or Idolaters agree in this common Notion of God that he is a most perfect Being and then surely it is no hard matter to determine whether Omnipotence Omniscience Omnipresence and such like be necessary Perfections without which a most perfect Being cannot subsist Yet Mankind hath most miserably mistaken in this plain and easie matter hath deified Creatures which have none of all these Perfections hath quitted sometimes even the Notion of God but oft-times corrupted it And these mistakes Revealed Religion doth rectifie and restore to Men what they had willfully lost the knowledge of the Divine Nature But this is not our present Design which concerns the external Actions of God and his Government of the World wherein it is no hard matter for Man to mistake deriving his knowledge from the light of Reason only It is possible for such a one to form such right Conceptions of the external Conduct of God from the Consideration of his Attributes as may incite him to the Worship of God and direct him in it But this perswasion will fall infinitely short of that Conviction and this Direction of that certainty which is to be had in Revealed Religions and even in Revelations admit of greater or lesser Degrees according to the greater or lesser manifestation of the Will of God therein and his intended Benefits to the followers of that Revelation So that however the primary Reasons of worshipping God continue the same in both Cases being drawn from the Attributes of God which are always the same yet in Revealed Religions they are both improved and enhanced and also secured from the danger of Error And how great that Danger is the Scripture fully declareth to us by the Example of Job and his Friends That whole Book being employed in discoursing of the Laws and method of the Divine Government in relation to Man as far as the light of Reason could discover For none of them had yet received the benefit of Revelation which was not made to them till after the Conclusion of their discourse in the end of the Book All of them both knew and worshipped the true God were eminent for Wisdom in their Generations and one of them approved by an extraordinary
thy Mind can affright thee from performing what is displeasing to it if thou darest not resist its Commands and quietly submitest to it how much more art thou obliged to revere the Omnipotence of God where Power and Goodness are sweetly joyned together where no Limitations can be found nothing excluded from the reach of it no Cessation to be expected If thou pretendest not to know this Power consider the Nature of God and judge whether Omnipotence be not a necessary Attribute of a most perfect Being If thou appealest to Sense view the Fabrick of the World pass through Heaven and Earth thou shalt discover the Footsteps of Omnipotence in every part of it If thou pretendest yet not to see what is most evident reflect upon the Faculties of thy own Soul and say who gave them to thee consider the Fabrick of thy Body who formed it for thee These are undeniable Marks of thy Subjection to an Almighty Power which even if thou dost deny it is by Faculties of Soul and Body created by him that thou canst deny it Thus we perceive that the Power of God is uncontroulable and infinite that he is able to inflict whatsoever Punishment he pleaseth on his disobedient Creatures And then lest we should vainly imagine this Power to be useless in respect of us and like antiquated Laws never put in execution we are told in the next place that God is excellent in Judgment also that he will most certainly judge Manking and punish them for the Omission of their Duty For so Judgment doth almost every where signifie in Scripture the infliction of Punishment upon Delinquents This is the chief Mark of the Divine Government of the World to take a Survey of the Actions of Men and punish them for the Violation of those publick Laws which are fixed to Mankind and prescribed for their direction Nothing but the most extreme stupidity can defeat the Success of this Argument of Divine Worship since this equally affects both the Wife and Foolish by striking their Imaginations with the fear of Misery A Fear which will affect the Mind of Man when no other Argument can prevail The Perfections of God may be slighted the Infinity of his Nature may be neglected his Power may be derided when not put in execution but the belief of Judgment to be inflicted upon Sinners will awaken the Consciences and affright the Thoughts of Men And that even altho' the manner of the Execution of this Judgment should be unknown to them as in natural Religion For let the Punishments be uncertain as to their quality let the time of their Execution be hid from Sinners yet this they cannot but know that God is the Supreme Governour of the World that as such he will exercise Judgment and that as his Power exceeds that of the most formidable Judicature on Earth so his Punishments will be correspondent exceeding what Man can inflict And herein appears the excellence of this Judgment mentioned in the Text. Humane Judicatures can take hold only of the external Actions of Men and even these may sometimes be hid from them the Power of the Offender may set him above the reach of Punishments they may be evaded by crafty Defences may be hindred by the Interposition of some greater Power may be avoided by Death and will certainly be finished by it But in the Execution of the Divine Judgment it is far otherwise There the most secret Actions of Men are call'd in question even their Thoughts cannot escape discovery The Judge cannot be blinded by crafty Insinuations nor diverted from his Resolution by extraneous Causes Nothing can rescue us out of his hands not even Death it self his Dominion extends beyond the Grave reaches the Soul of Man and surmounts the resistance of all created Beings If then Fear can affect Men if Punishments can deter them if Power can awe them if the certainty of all these can convince them they do all combine to secure the Worship of God and continue Religion in Mankind But then lest we should seem Slaves to God and Servants through Fear only he dispenseth Rewards as well as Punishments to Men. He is excellent in plenty of Justice in the words of the Text. He rewards the Obedience of Men to his Precepts not because any Reward was due to them but because he delighteth in dispensing his Benefits and then his Justice will require that he dispense them to the most worthy We are not ignorant how powerful an Argument Interest is in moving the Hearts of Men. What draweth Attendants to Princes or Servants to Great Men but the Power of rewarding them and the prospect of Preferment to be attain'd by their Favours This seldom fails to secure to them those Duties which are due from Dependants Honour and Service And if we would but raise our Souls from the Earth and carry them beyond the Objects of Sense it would no less effectually secure what is due to God from us Adoration of his Majesty and Obedience to his Laws The Rewards to be attained are far greater such as the Donor will not and such as all the other Powers of the World cannot take away from us such as shall not be determined by Time nor restrained by any Limitation The assurance also of obtaining them is far more certain being founded on the Promise of him who can give what he pleaseth and will give what he Promiseth whereas the Favours expected from Men may be defeated by Forgetfulness by Unfaithfulness may be intercepted by others may become impossible to be bestowed If then God by his Infinite and most certain Rewards cannot procure what Men obtain by their Petty and uncertain Favours Fear and Reverence we must deplore the Ingratitude and obstinate Perverseness of Men who refusing to hearken to the Arguments of obedience propos'd by God yield to those proposed by Men which yet affect the same Passion that of Desire but in a much lower Degree Lastly to secure in our Minds such Thoughts of God as are befitting his Majesty and Holiness lest our Adoration of him should be corrupted with any Suspicions of Injustice entertained at the same time it is added in the end of the Verse He will not afflict In this Life the Rules and Method whereby God dispenseth his Rewards and Punishments may be very obscure to us He may suffer the righteous to be afflicted he may permit the wicked to Prosper he may in appearance cut off the Hopes of good Men by present Miseries and encourage the Disobedience of bad Men by temporal Felicity His ways may be unsearchable and his judgments past finding out But from hence we must not conceive any Opinion of Injustice in God or Imperfection in the Administration of his Government Although the Secrets of Providence be unknown to us this we are assured of that he is infinitely Just and Holy and that being such he will not afflict The Mysterious Obscurity of Providence herein was the occasion of the
presumptuous Opinion of a peculiar unaccountable Love of God dispensing with the Necessities of these Conditions in any one or indulging to him more than to another Such are the Presumptions indeed and such is the ordinary Success of Favorites on Earth where Favour is often distributed not according to the Merits but the Fancies of Men. But with God it is otherwise the Reasons of whose Favour are certain fixed and universal Equally distributed to all who shall perform the Conditions of it bestowed on none who shall not qualifie himself by performance of these Conditions May we all therefore upon a full Conviction of the impartiality of God in the distribution of his Favours seriously apply our selves to the acquisition of 'em by the ordinary and certain Means Then shall we not doubt to obtain our Desires the assurance of which our Lord giveth to us in this blessed Sacrament that as surely as we here eat his Flesh and drink his Blood so surely will he compleat his Promises to us of Happiness hereafter The Sixth SERMON PART I. Preach'd on the 1st of Sept. 1689. At LAMBETH CHAPEL 1 Pet. V. 8 9. Your Adversary the Devil as a roaring Lion walketh about seeking whom he may devour Whom resist stedfast in the Faith IT is not the least Benefit of the Christian Religion that it makes known to Men the Causes and Occasions of that depravity of Nature and proneness to Sin that aversion to their Duty and readiness of complying with unlawful Suggestions which all discover in themselves All cannot but take notice that it is not without Labour and Difficulty without assiduous Care and Vigilancy that any habits of Piety or Vertue can be formed that it cannot be without strugling against the natural Desires and over-ruling the Propensity of the Soul when negligence alone or letting loose the Reins to the natural Appetite will produce an habit of Vice Whereas if we consider the nature and the end of Man we might rather hope the contrary since the performance of his Duty is no more than the end of his Creation and all things naturally tend to the acquisition of their end And Vice being a deviation from that end doth thereby become unnatural Yet the Experience of that Depravation of the Will of Man which we complain of is so undeniable that it hath put Men in all Ages upon enquiring into the Causes of it Some resolved it into Fate others into the contexture of the Body some into the malign Influences of the heavenly Bodies and not a few into the innate Principles of the Soul But as all these Conceptions were gross in themselves they could give no satisfaction to the Mind of Man and the matter would have still continued to have been Unaccountable without the assistance of Revelation Nor doth all Revelation clear this Doubt In the Jewish Religion little light was added to it it is Christianity alone which fully manifests the Causes and Occasions of this Unhappiness and as the discovery of Diseases facilitates the Cure of them thereby enables us to avoid or at least overcome the Contagion of it The Occasions manifested by Revelation only are two the Corruption of our Nature succeeding the fall of Adam or Original Sin and the temptation of evil Spirits or Devils The knowledge of both is of great concernment to us that so we may be able to apply fit Remedies to them yet the nature of both is little known by the ordinary Sort and frequently mistaken by the more knowing Sort of Christians I intend at this time to discourse of the latter taking occasion from the words of the Apostle who enforceth his Exhortation of Sobriety and Vigilance from the consideration of the constant Danger whereto Christians are exposed by the perpetual Snares and Temptations of the Devil who as their Adversary walketh about seeking their Destruction from the violence of Rage and Force wherewith he assaults the Faithful denoted by comparing him to the most terrible of Wild Beasts when enraged as a roaring Lion and from the miserable Consequence of being seduced by him which is to be devoured by him as utterly deprived of spiritual Life and Happiness as that Man is of natural Life who is devoured by a Wild Beast For Your Adversary the Devil as a roaring Lion walketh about seeking whom he may devour Whom resist stedfast in the Faith Which Words will oblige me to treat of I. The manner and method of the Temptations of the Devil II. Our Duty Ability and Means of resisting him First then Altho' the manner whereby the Devil tempteth us be very obscure as are all the Actions of immaterial Beings and altho' it becomes us not to determine rashly what we do not certainly know yet our enquiries herein will be Lawful while guided by Reason and useful because teaching us a Matter which doth so nearly concern us rectifying our Mistakes which may be fatal to us and convincing the opposition of unbelieving Men who mock at this Article of our Belief And here it is not my present purpose to prove the Existence of such evil Spirits For altho ' the common and constant Opinion of Mankind herein produced by their visible Effects doth render it highly probable altho' the nature of Things and the Existence of other immaterial Beings differing only in accidental Qualities prove it to be possible and altho' Divine Revelation added to all these hath put it beyond all Doubt yet it is not my design to improve and urge these Arguments since we enquire not after the Existence of Devils but the Manner of their Operation It will however be necessary to speak somewhat of their Nature and the Motives which induce them to busie themselves in tempting Men. Their Nature is the same with that of the blessed Angels from whom they differ no otherwise than as bad from good Men save that as the Purity of Angels exceedeth that of the best Men So the Wickedness of Devils exceedeth that of the worst Men They were once at their first Creation of the same Order with Angels endued with the same Faculties and enjoyed the same Happiness but when through Pride and Ambition they rebelled against God disobeyed his Commands forsook that Station wherein he had placed them and aimed at higher Dignities they were deprived of their former Happiness and thrown down from Heaven That whereas before they were infinitely happy in reflecting upon the Purity of their own Nature the Favour of God and that perpetual Communication of Light and Joy which the Angels may be supposed to receive from God in extraordinary Emanations they having now debased their Nature by violating the end of their Creation drew upon themselves the displeasure of God and being deprived of the Fruition of any Divine Illuminations were reduced into that State of Darkness which the Scripture describeth The thoughts of this Loss could not but infinitely disquiet them as soon as they perceived the Disappointment of their ambitious Designs and as they
are quick and knowing Spirits they could not but immediately perceive their Unhappiness and make a just Estimate of the Greatness of it The Sense of this indeed could not but make them lament their Folly and repent also if a violent Sorrow only for past miscarriages could be called Repentance For that the Devils have such sorrow cannot be denied since in this consists their Torment but an unsuccessful Sorrow a Sorrow without submission to the just hand of God a Sorrow which God will not accept and which therefore will continue for ever heightened by the greatest Aggravations as being the result of an unspeakable and which is more irrecoverable Loss not to be ended by Death nor diverted by a stupid inconsideration but placed in a knowing active always thinking and immortal Spirit Such a Spirit endued with such active Faculties and tormented with such dismal Thoughts of Unhappiness may well be supposed to conceive the utmost Degree of Rage and Malice The Disappointment of Pride naturally produceth those Effects in Men which Effects could not but be so much the stronger in the fallen Angels by how much their Faculties were more lively and capacious In Men indeed there are many sins which they are not capable of as all those which arise from the inordinate Appetite of the Body as Lust Intemperance and Covetousness but there are others which are purely immaterial and take place only in the Soul as Malice Hatred Envy and Revenge These those unhappy Spirits possess in their full Perfection which they continually exert either aganist God who inflicted that Unhappiness as a Punishment upon them and altho' he might have annihilated them in their first Attempt yet continues their Existence to them and therein their Misery or against Man who by the Favour of God is made capable of attaining that Happiness which they lost and placed in Dignity above them who had endeavoured to set themselves above their fellow Angels and even equal to God himself Inspired with these wicked Thoughts they employ themselves continually in opposition to the Will of God and because this Opposition can take place only in hindring the Happiness of Man designed and desired by God use their utmost Endeavours to effect it The Disposition of all inanimate Bodies and the Course of the material World God hath determined by fixed and certain Laws of Motion which it exceeds their Power to reverse or change but Man being left to the use of his own Free-will and not determined by the Power of God to any certain Actions admits the interposition of evil Spirits It is true they alleviate not their own Torments nor gain any real Advantage hereby yet ought not this to make us believe that they do not busie themselves in tempting of us since it cannot be denied that Man reaps no real Profit by his sins and yet it is too sad a Truth that Men do often sin and that false satisfaction which Men receive from gratifying their Lusts the Devils obtain by serving their Revenge and Envy So then that the Devils should desire to draw us into the same Unhappiness with themselves is no wonder It is only somewhat difficult to conceive how they should effect their Desires and have any influence upon our Wills To satisfie this Difficulty many have entertained false Notions of things which it will be adviseable to remove before I enter into the direct Consideration of the manner whereby evil Spirits tempt us And first It were needless to refute the Errour of the Manichees or Valentinians who gave to the Devil an independent Existence from God and uncontrolable by him nay all the Attributes of God save that of Goodness allowed him an infinite Power whereby he could force the Wills of Men and bind them to the Observation of his wicked Counsels It is not much to be feared that any Christian would at this time be guilty of such an absurd Heresie Yet many perhaps from the frequent Experience of their own yielding to the Temptations of the Devil may be so far corrupted in Judgment as to believe them irresistible or at least plead this in excuse of their Impenitence To such it may not be amiss to observe that it exceeds the Power of any finite Being to force the Will of Man for that were to overthrow the very Essence of Man and thereby change the ordinary Laws of Nature to which all Creatures and amongst them Devils also are subjected Add to this the many Exhortations in Scripture to resist their Temptations which would have been vain if these had been irresistible the Promise of God also that we shall not be tempted above what we are able to bear which would not have taken place if we could not overcome all Temptations and the Experience of good Christians who daily resist and surmount them Even the worst of Men might baffle them if they would use the natural Power of their Souls assisted with that common Grace which is denied to none So that what the Aposte saith of some Men 2 Tim. II. 26. That they are taken captive by him at his Will is not to be understood without their own Consent yielding up themselves to his Conduct and voluntarily following his Suggestions which also appears from the Apostles command to Timothy in the precedent words of instructing them That they may recover themselves out of the snare of the Devil A second Errour in this Matter is that God giveth to the Devil an extraordinary Power of tempting Men a Mistake which may be observed in many of the ancient and even modern Writers who hence take occasion to magnifie the Grace of God and the Merits of Mans obedience the First in that God hath graciously contrived this impediment of obedience to Man that so his obedience might become the more meritorious and the latter in that Man performs his Duty notwithstanding so great Impediments This opinion altho' received would not in the least clear our doubt since it would still remain to be enquired in what manner the Devils exercise this delegated Power but that it should not be admitted it is enough to say That it is injurious to the Honour of God If it were is God might justly be said to tempt us contrary to what the Apostle teacheth Let no man when he is tempted say that he is tempted of God For God tempteth no man It is impossible that so excellent a Being should be guilty of such double Dealing as to command the Observation of his Laws and at the same time tempt us to the Violation of them to allure and enable us to obey him by Promises by Threats and by the assistance of his Holy Spirit and to divert us from it by the interposition of evil Spirits employed by him This were to ascribe no less Injustice to him than to the Devils themselves Nay to blacken Him and to clear them in the matter of Temptation For if the Devils herein act by the extraordinary Power of God they act
directly affected not his Mind which still remained untouched exposed indeed to the ordinary assaults of the Devil which assaults as they were not suspended by God so neither were they assisted by him Which assaults how they are affected by the natural power of the Devil I come next to enquire having first observed to you that although we could not conceive or explain the manner of it we should have no reasonable cause to doubt of it Our own experience will not suffer us to admit such doubts and that the Faculties and Operations of immaterial Beings are imperceptible to us we have the example of our Soul which although it be so nearly related to us we know but very imperfectly the manner and spring of all her Actions The Devil is said to tempt us two ways properly and improperly Innumerable Examples of each may be brought from Scripture The latter is not hard to be conceived and is no more than this that as the Devil was the first Apostate and Rebel against God and still continueth his opposition to him so he is the Captain and Head of all which opposeth God as are the Lusts the Passions and the Sins of Men Which being excited by sublunary Objects by worldly Pleasures whatsoever is done by these in opposition to God is ascribed to him as done after his Example and under his Banner Since his Fall the World is in a manner divided between God and him whatsoever is good and excellent proceeds from God and is done by his Influence Command Direction and Perswasion Whatsoever is bad and repugnant to the Laws of God is done by the example of the Devil by imitating him following his Conduct and entring into his Government For thus all Beings disobedient to God may be said to constitute one Society whereof the Devil is the Head And because this Society busie themselves wholly in the things of this World and are deluded by gross Pleasures he is called the Prince of this World and the Prince of the Air not that he hath or ever had the disposition of things here below the disposal of Kingdoms or distribution of temporal conveniencies or inconveniencies which hath been the mistake of some Such Power never belonged to him He told our Saviour indeed in tempting of him that all the Kingdoms of the World and the Glory of them were his and that he would give them to him if he would fall down and Worship him But he was a Liar from the Beginning it was more than he could perform The Devil is said properly to tempt Men by acting immediately upon their Souls by suggesting wicked thoughts unto them by instigating them to Wickedness and Disobedience And this is that temptation by which we so much suffer which we so much fear and by which he executes his Malice and Hatred upon Mankind There are but two possible ways by which this can easily be supposed to be performed since an extraordinary Derivation of Power from God is rejected The first is by moving the imaginations of Men and producing whatsoever Thoughts and Ideas he thinks fit by moving their Animal Spirits which in Man have so near a Connexion with the thoughts of the Soul that such motions in them will infallibly and unavoidably produce such thoughts in the Soul Now it is not impossible to conceive that the Devils as they are most sagacious Spirits and of long experience may have observed and found to which motions of the Spirits such and such thoughts of the Soul are annexed and accordingly procure those motions as often as they desire to introduce such thoughts For it is highly probable that all immaterial Beings have a natural power of moving matter We find that in our own Soul which is the lowest of all such Beings that moveth our Spirits and by the assistance of those our whole Body It no sooner formeth an Idea but the Spirits attend the Formation of it and are moved according to its Diversity There is no more necessary Connexion between the Thoughts of the Soul and the Motions of the Body than between the latter and the Thoughts of any other immaterial Being So that the Devil may well be supposed to be able to make impressions on our Imagination by the Motion of these Spirits Yet it will not follow from hence that he is able to move or disorder our whole Bodies since to the former is required the consent of our Will which is in our own Power and doth not necessarily follow any Motion of the Spirits To the latter is required a Power transcending the ordinary Laws of Nature whereby the Causes and Effects of Health and Strength are settled and preserved which are not in the least violated by such Motions in the Brain as produce a bare Idea or naked Conception of any thing This way of impressing Thoughts in our Mind is possible But it is more probable that all immaterial Beings can communicate Thoughts and make impressions on each other Without this it not be imagined how a Society of Angels or Devils can consist and yet that there are a Society of each the Scripture assures us If one Man cannot immediately impress a Thought in the Soul of another it is no wonder We are here inchained in a Body in which state no approaches can be made to us but by the Organs of the Body Nature hath provided another way for Men to communicate their Thoughts which when it shall cease by putting off the Body we have just ground to believe that we shall obtain that Priviledge common to other imaterial Beings of communicating our Thoughts to each other by immediate influence At least it is most certain that Angels and Devils have that Priviledge because they have formed Societies which they could not have done without it And if they can impress any Thoughts upon each other that is upon Beings of equal Dignity they are surely much more able to do it upon those of an inferiour Rank and Capacity such as are the Souls of Men. Both these ways are possible but that the Devils do tempt us by either of these Methods I dare not determine It is sufficient to shew that what we believe concerning the Temptation of evil Spirits is possible and agreeable to Reason And this I have spoken to you as Persons desiring satisfaction in the Truth of this Article of Christianity I will now return and speak to you as Christians firmly perswaded of this Truth that the Devils do tempt us From what hath been said you may take a just Estimate of the efficacy of the Devil's Temptations and our Ability to resist him He can proceed indeed no farther than to suggest the first Cogitations of any Object and if Man also stopped here he would never forfeit his Innocence the Devil would never obtain his desired End He can do no more indeed yet this he improves to great advantage and with that success which we all lament He knoweth the Constitutions of all Men and
by God considers no further than whether it be grateful and acceptable to the Sense becomes clamorous if denied and can never be wholly rooted out while we carry this Body about with us whose Wants and natural Motions are the Spring of it It is indeed absolutely subject to the command of the rational Faculty if this exerts its self vigorously and maintains a constant Guard but if it grows remiss if those natural Motions either by Negligence or the Impression of evil Spirits be raised into strong Passions the Danger is evident Sin lieth at the doors and if not repelled by a vigorous Opposition will force its entrance This constant Rebellion of the sensual Appetite against the Reason of Man is that unhappiness which St. Paul so much complains of Rom. VII I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into Captivity to the law of sin c. This alone is a constant Temptation to Mankind but then most dangerous when excited and fomented by the impression of evil Spirits which imprint in the Imagination all those Arguments which can enforce the Desires of the sensual Appetite and render them plausible In Opposition to these we should prepare our selves by a frequent Meditation and full Comprehension of all those Arguments which may perswade us to the performance of our Duty to the restrainment of our Lusts to the continuance of our Obedience If by an assiduous Entertainment of these Arguments in our Thoughts they become familiar and as it were habitual to us no sooner shall we be prompted to sin by the Insurrection of our carnal Appetites or the Sollicitation of infernal Spirits but the contrary Arguments will present themselves oppose and defeat the other If it be suggested to us that this sin includeth some considerable Pleasure the mind on the other side will remember that God sent us not into the World to take our Pleasure as we should think most convenient but to perform those immutable Rules of Justice and Sobriety which he hath prescribed and for the sakes of which he bestowed Existence on us that this proposed Pleasure is indeed mean and trifling depriving us of a far greater Pleasure and drawing eternal Misery upon us If the Body or Imagination now affected urgeth vehemently for the Grant of their Desires the Soul will consider that it is better to deny an unnecessary Gratification to it than to destroy both Soul and Body by a soolish Compliance with it If Secrecy and Security in the Commission of this sin be suggested Reason will oppose the all-seeing Eye of God will dread his Majesty and fear his Anger If the smallness of the sin be pleaded a knowing Soul will presently call to mind that every wilful Sin is mortal and an open Rebellion against God If the uncertainty of future Rewards and Punishments be objected Reason silenceth the Objection and appeals to the Evidence of those Arguments from whence by frequent Meditation it hath received a thorough Conviction And thus in all other Arguments of sin suggested either by the sensual Appetite or the Temptation of the Devil if the Soul be prepared with an exact and ready Comprehension of all the Motives of Obedience if it hath fully weighed them thoroughly digested them and firmly retains them it cannot want the proposed end the defeat of Temptations continuance of Innocence and increase of Piety To prepare the mind with such Considerations will indeed successfully baffle the Assaults of our spiritual Enemy and to employ it continually in such would wholly prevent his Attempt But because such continual Attention to spiritual Meditations is I will not say rare but impracticable in this imperfect State of Life instead of that Men should endeavour to employ their Souls continually with some certain Thoughts which if not Pious yet at least may be innocent It is a no less true than common Maxim That Idleness lays men open to the snare of the Devil The reasonableness of which Position plainly appears from what I have already laid down concerning the manner of the Devils Operation in his Temptation For this Being by imprinting the first Thoughts of any Object in the minds of Men he hath no where so easie an entrance as where the Soul lies open on all sides uncultivated unemployed In such a state the mind of Man is capable of any Impressions and ready to receive them and when it hath received them will scarce make any other than a feeble Opposition to the plausible Insinuations of evil Spirits And for this Reason I suppose the Habitation of the Devil is so often in Scripture said to be more particularly in the Wilderness and in Desart Places where Men for want of Business or innocent Society wherewith to entertain the Faculties of the Soul lay open to his Assaults Whereas if the mind busieth it self continually either in pious Meditations lawful Concerns of the Body Knowledge and Prosecution of useful Arts and Sciences in a chast Society or innocent Recreations the Imagination being prepossessed with the Conception of those Objects wherein the mind is employed leaves no room for the Suggestions of the Devil and happily precludes them Man is a thinking Being enjoying an active and immaterial Soul which as such must necessarily be always employed in some Cogitation or other If then Men will take no care to direct and regulate their Thoughts at all times the infallible effect will be that they must blindly follow either the fortuitous Conceptions of a roving Imagination or the impressions of external Objects or the secret insinuations of subtile and wicked Spirits In this Condition Man inconsiderately follows that Idea which first strikes him and then no wonder the Devil makes use of this favourable opportunity to take Possession of his Imagination and turn it to his own Destruction Having thus represented to you the principal and most effectual Methods of resisting our grand Adversary the Devil arising from our own natural Power and Faculties I proceed to consider the external Assistances whereby Man is enabled to carry on the same Design with Success and these are chiefly two the Grace of God and the Assistance of good Spirits And of these briefly in their Order The Grace of God and the Inspirations of his Holy Spirit are never wanting to faithful Christians in this spiritual Combat He hath engaged that he will never suffer us to be tempted above what we are able but will with the temptation also make a way for us to escape And this Promise he observes inviolably by enlightening our minds by directing our Thoughts by influencing our Wills Not that all the aforementioned Faculties of the Soul of Man and Abilities of resisting the Temptations of evil Spirits are less owing to him than these more extraordinary Emanations both equally proceed from his Gift both are to be ascribed to his Liberality But the former are the natural Faculties of Man which cannot be wanting to him while he is
short if the Devils bring great Detriment to the spiritual Interests of Mankind the Angels bring no less advantage to it that it may be questioned whether it were more eligible for Man to suffer the Temptation of evil for the Assistance of good Spirits or to want them both together Only the same Caution which we before observed to be necessary in procuring and continuing the Grace of God is also required here that we render our selves worthy of it by a diligent Concurrence and that as we should not by our Perverseness grieve the Holy Spirit of God so neither should we by our Negligence and obstinate Perseverance in Sin grieve the Holy Angels And this is the only Reward which for all their Labour and Care bestowed on us they require of us that together with them we pay a due Obedience to our common Master that we defeat not their Charitable Designs by our own Wilfulness Worship and other Signs of Divine Honour they affect not nay this they will not receive from us The end of their Labour is to procure Happiness to Man and the Reward of it next to the Conscience of having obeyed their great Master is the satisfaction of their Success in it Their only aim is that we would joyn with them here in paying intire Obedience to our common Creator that so we may joyn with them hereafter in singing Praises to him To him therefore be ascribed the Glory and Thanks of all their Charitable Operations in relation to Mankind to him be rendred all Praise and Honour who at first Created such excellent Beings and afterwards sent them forth to Minister to our Salvation who hath placed in us Souls not unlike to these noble Beings and hath Promised that if we be not wanting to our selves he will in due time make us fully like unto them To him with his Son and blessed Spirit be ascribed all Power Might Majesty Dominion and Adoration henceforth and for evermore The Eighth SERMON Preach'd on the 20th of Octob. 1689. At LAMBETH CHAPEL St. Mark VIII 36. For what shall it profit a Man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own Soul IT is the peculiar Character of the Christian Religion that it is adapted as well to the Interest as the reason of Mankind that it is not only Consentaneous to our Natures but advantageous to our Persons that it not only prescribes to us our Duty but directs us in the way of Happiness Herein it infinitely surpasseth even all the more refined Systems of the Gentile Divinity and Philosophy They pretended to no more than to refine our Reason and enlighten our Understanding by the Knowledge and consideration of Truth But then they could produce nothing wherewith to satiate the unbounded Appetite of the Will and create a real Happiness Many of them indeed asserted the immortality of the Soul but neither hoped a Resurrection of the Body nor any reward of the Soul beside the Conscience of a vertuous Life The Jewish Oeconomy indeed had a reward annexed to it but such as fell infinitely short of the Desires of Mankind and the Capacity of rational Beings as being wholly restrained to the Pleasures of this Life and appropriated to the more ignoble part of Man the Body Whereas our Saviour in this last Revelation of God communicated by him to the World whereby the Happiness of Mankind was fully to be compleated and our Natures raised to the highest Perfection hath consulted not only the Reason but the interest of Mankind He hath satisfied the first by giving us a spiritual and rational Religion not tied up to the beggerly Elements of the World nor wholly immersed in Rites and Ceremonies but agreeing to the Dictates of Nature and first Principles of Reason And then in the second Place he hath advanced our Interest by proposing to us an infinite and eternal Reward far surpassing all the Pleasures and Delights of this World Our most Wise and ever Blessed Law-giver knew very well that the greatest part of Men are more moved with Arguments of Profit than with Considerations of Duty The latter only affect our Understandings but the first strike our Senses and ravish our Will He might as well by the right of Creation as Redemption have enjoyned to us all the Precepts of the Christian Religion without annexing any Reward to the performance of them It had even then been our Duty to obey and a sufficient Happiness by obeying to serve the great ends of our Creator And therefore all the Patriarchs before Abraham served God without any express promise of a Reward much less a Reward of that Nature and Value as is proposed to us Christians They might indeed justly hope for the Favour of God but then that Favour might consist only in providing them food and Rayment and other common Benefits of humane Nature and could not with any certainty be extended farther Since our Saviour therefore together with a most excellent Religion hath delivered to us an assurance of eternal Happiness and requireth our Obedience for no other end than that we may thereby obtain this Reward as we ought to admire and magnifie the infinite Goodness of God so must we condemn our own extreme Folly if we neglect or contemn so great Happiness This is an Argument highly accommodated to the Understanding and Capacity of all Men and therefore is very frequently urged by Christ who beginneth his Sermon upon the Mount in the V. Chap. of St. Matthew with affixing this Promise to the greater and more arduous Duties of the Christian Religion that so the Difficulty of these might willingly be overseen by us upon the Prospect of the Greatness of our Reward So Matth. XIII 44. he compareth the Kingdom of Heaven to a Treasure hid in a Field the which when a Man hath found he hideth and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath and buyeth that field and in the following Verses to a Merchant selling all his Estate to buy on Pearl of great price By which Saleâ— and by the Joyfulness attending it he intimates that all worldly Considerations are to be foregone when they stand in Competition with the hopes of another Life A Position which might justly be esteemed a Paradox if that infallible Mouth had not pronounced it and Reason did not in some measure assure us of the Truth of it But such was both the Wisdom and Goodness of our Saviour in prescribing to us a rule of Life that he chose to make use of all the Arguments wherewith either the Will or Understanding of Mankind could be incited to engage us to the Observation of it that so if the Duty we owe to God for the Benefits of Creation Preservation and Life could not enforce us if the wonderful Love of our Redeemer dying for us could not perswade us if Gratitude to both could not oblige us if neither Reason nor Authority could prevail with us to endeavour the Perfection of our Nature by
Lives as it was highly generous so it was extremely difficult to retain a good Conscience and therewith the Hopes of Salvation This was a Difficulty indeed so great that your own Imagination will amplifie it more than any words I can use for that Purpose If it seem strange to us that God should suffer his chosen Servants to be thus afflicted and exposed to the Insults of wicked Men we must reflect upon the Condition of those Christians before they entred upon the Profession of Christianity That the far greater part of them had spent their Lives in the open Exercise of all those Sins to which the Temptations of the World the Flesh or the Devil could incite them and that without any remorse of Conscience or intervals of Piety This the Apostle chargeth them with in the 3d. Verse of this Chapter It was incongruous to the Divine Justice to suffer such enormous Sinners wholly to escape unpunished and therefore his infinite Wisdom so ordered the state of the World and of the Church at that time that they should undergo sharp Afflictions and Persecutions in this Life that so without any Diminution of his Justice he might receive them to Mercy in another World Not that the most Glorious Martyrs have been the greatest Sinners or that temporal Calamities do always attend the Sins of the Faithful But as in a general Persecution brought upon the Church for the precedent Sins of the greater part of it it would have been unreasonable for any particular Men altho' not Partakers of the Sin to have requir'd to have been excused from partaking in the general Calamity So neither may we flatter our selves that we are more righteous than those first Christians were before their Conversion for this Reason only because we are not punished in the same visible manner but ought rather to fear that a far greater Punishment is reserved to us hereafter if by a timely and hearty Repentance we prevent not the Execution of it This precedent sinful Course of Life was another great Difficulty to the Christians of those days who had contracted before their Conversion long and fixed habits of Vice effaced by disuse all Notions of natural Religion and Honesty which to restore could be the work of nothing less than an extraordinary Diligence and Application If to these peculiar Difficulties of those Times we add the common Difficulties of Christianity we shall soon perceive what just Reason the Apostle had to say That the Righteous are scarcely saved I will not here insist upon the Difficulty of particular Duties the depraved Nature of Man and the Solicitations of evil Spirits with many other disadvantages of Piety which we experience and lament That which chiefly deserveth to be considered is the spiritual Nature and Futurity of the Reward proposed by it Man in almost all the Actions of Life is inured to follow the Perceptions of Sense which are easily formed and affect the Mind without any precedent Preparation of it He is assured of the Existence and certainty of those Objects which Sense presenteth to him without entring into a serious Inquiry or forming any Conclusions by the strength of his own Understanding Whereas the Rewards proposed by Christianity being purely spiritual and Men not put into the present Possession of them they cannot obtain nor yet conceive them without a regular proceeding of Judgment They must first consider the Nature of God his Dignity Power and other Attributes their own dependence on him the Manifestation of his Will and the Contrariety of their own Actions to it the necessity of Repentance the certain Immortality of their Soul and the possible Immortality of their Body the assurance of both from him who can perform it and cannot lie and the end for which such Immortality shall be conferred to receive then the Reward or Punishment of the good or bad Conduct of this Life All this must be first considered and examined before any Conviction can be formed of the truth of Christianity And when the Mind is thus convinced there wants a second Series of Thoughts to convince Mankind that to embrace this Truth is their real Interest The Rewards proposed by it are chiefly spiritual they affect not the Senses nor strike the Imagination by which Man is wont to measure the fruition of all Pleasures He relisheth but little the Pleasures and satisfaction of the Mind he scarce knoweth wherein they consist And that which draweth nearest to it in this Life the Conception and Meditation of intellectual Objects he finds himself soon weary of it or perhaps is wholly unacquainted with it And when all these disadvantages are overcome here is still required another train of Thoughts to fix the Mind in a constant Expectation of the Reward notwithstanding the bestowing of it is deferred till another Life If then so much Consideration be required to render the Arguments of Christianity effectual if the Nature of the Reward be so hardly conceived so far removed from present Fruition and so little grateful to those Organs of Sense by which Men are wont to judge of the Excellency of Fruitions it may easily be foreseen that the Promises of the Gospel will lose their Efficacy upon the greater part of Men. For how small a part of Mankind allow their Souls to entertain any Conceptions beyond what Sense administreth to them How few ever entertain a Thought of immaterial Beings or spiritual Interests Not that any extraordinary strength of Mind is required to form such Thoughts and Convictions The Providence of God hath so ordered it that these things are brought home to every Man's understanding and frequently urg'd upon them It is only required of them that they would retain such Thoughts improve them and Act upon them But even this is irksome to his depraved Nature he seeth and feels his Body his Soul he little knows the Pleasures of the Body are always present to him the noblest Pleasures of the Soul are removed at a mighty distance He is convinced of the one by his own Experience for the other he must rely upon the assurance of Reason And this disadvantage betrays him either to neglect the Consideration of the Interests of the Soul or to prefer the Concerns of the Body before them unless by frequent Meditation and diligent Attention he hath formed a full Conviction both of the Truth and the value of them that as they will certainly follow the performance of the Conditions prescribed by the Gospel so even the Reversion of them is infinitely more to be esteemed than the present Possession of all corporeal Pleasures Another Difficulty alike common to all is the Extensiveness of the Duty required That it includeth every Action of Man and that the defect of any one part destroyeth the benefit of the whole that it is not sufficient to exercise this or that Vertue in the highest degree unless the whole Life be uniform and deficient in none of the parts of it Which putteth a Christian
Death of his Brother and Herod sought the Death of John the Baptist for reprehending his incestuous Marriage yet this we may be assured of as Revenge can never be formed in the Mind without precedent Malice and subsequent Envy of the others out-living altho' but for one moment the Execution of his Revenge so neither can Malice or Envy take place without a desire of Revenge And then as in all other Sins so in this also the Guilt of it consists not so much in the Execution of it as in the precedent Approbation of it by the Will and becomes not the less because not put in Execution And as all other Sins are proposed to the Will under some specious Pretence so Revenge assumeth the shew of Justice and therein chiefly makes good the Charge which we before mentioned of incroaching upon the Prerogative and Authority of God It is indeed a plausible Plea to pretend that Justice must be strictly observed in the World that it is not fit the least Injury of Men should pass unpunished that they ought to expiate the Guilt of their Injury by a proportionable Punishment that otherwise the Peace of the World cannot be maintained and good Men will be always exposed to the Insults and Oppression of others Upon this ground and with these Pretences Men take upon them the Office of a Supreme Judge they will needs determine the quantity of every Man's demerits and inflict a Punishment upon it This Arrogance is visible in every Act of Revenge where the Person revenging proposeth to himself to punish the Malice of the Offender not only to secure his own safety for while it proceeds no farther it is not Revenge but also to procure such a Punishment to the other as may compensate for the Flagitiousness of the Injury which he hath committed And herein chiefly consists the Offence of a revengeful Mind against God for as it is an Offence against our Neighbour I do not now consider it this constituteth the Guilt of it that it invadeth the Office of the Supreme Judge which belongeth to God alone And upon this is founded the Reason brought against Revenge by the Apostle in the Text Avenge not your selves but rather give place unto Wrath await the Execution of the Divine Wrath upon all Sinners For it is written Vengeance is mine I will repay saith the Lord. In which words God taketh the Execution of Revenge from Men in the former part of them and in the latter part appropriates it to himself I will consider both together for that the same Reasons which forbid the Exercise of Revenge to Man affix it to God and for this very Cause it is unlawful to Man because it belongeth solely to God To pass Judgment upon the demerits of every sinful Action to determine the quantity of the Guilt and affix a proper Punishment to it belongs only to the Supreme Judge of the World which Office is invested in God as being the Creator of all things living and the absolute Lord of the World which when he had formed he quitted not to the blind Operations of Chance nor to the Disposition of inferior Spirits nor yet to the unruly Wills of Men but retained the Government in his own hand reserved to himself the distribution of Rewards and Punishments upon which account he is called the Judge of all the Earth Gen. XVIII 25. One part of this Office of Judge is to execute Vengeance upon Sinners for which Reason he is called the God of Vengeance more than once in the Ninth Psalm The Execution of his just Sentence upon Sinners is termed Revenge and Sinners the object of it are called his Adversaries as Deut. XXXII 43. He will render Vengeance to his Adversaries and in many other places of Scripture To teach us that he claims that Office to himself and that he alone is capable of recompencing in due manner the Guilt of every injurious Act and all Sins are such to him He is the Supreme Lord of all and therefore hath a full Right to judge his Creatures he is the common Lord of all and therefore cannot be suspected of partiality His Justice will not suffer any Sin to escape unpunished He is merciful and far from punishing Offences beyond their Merit chastiseth Sinners less than they deserve He searcheth the Conscience of every Man cannot be deceived by false Representations nor be drawn aside by Passion or Prejudice He knoweth exactly the true demerit of every Sin and can unerringly Proportion the Punishment to the Crime He hath promised in a peculiar manner to revenge the Injuries done to his faithful Servants and by a positive Precept hath taken Revenge out of the hands of Men. If after all this Men will presume to intermeddle in the Cause of Revenge and pretend to punish the Pravity of any Action they manifestly usurp the Office of God and place themselves in his Seat of Judicature An attempt which he will not so easily pardon who as he saith of himself is jealous of his Honour and will not give his Glory to another Nor indeed can such Revenge be executed without pretending to that Supreme Power which is invested in God For not to say that this were to refuse Obedience to his Commands and therein to renounce his Government who hath commanded the contrary to pass by that to revenge an Injury must suppose an absolute Subjection of the Person on whom the Revenge is to be inflicted For after every Man hath used the Priviledges of Self-defence in opposition to the other he hath no more Right left of acting any against him The Punishment of the others injurious Malice belongeth not to him unless the absolute Subjection of the other gives him just Title to it And in this Case it is not sufficient that the Body of the one should be subject to the other for that doth often happen but the Cognizance of the secret Actions of the Soul must also belong to him who judgeth of the demerits of the Fact otherwise it will be impossible to determine how much or how little Malice the Injury included in it Whereas in this respect no Man is subject to another we are all equally Fellow-Servants to God And then the Expostulation of the Apostle will take place Who art thou that judgest another Mans servant to his own Master he either standeth or falleth This cannot be done without assuming the Authority of the Master and this is certainly done as often as Revenge is intended or effected But not only upon this account are we injurious to the Majesty of God inasmuch as we are all Fellow-Creatures and the works of his hands if we take Revenge and in that make our selves Judges of such our Fellow-Servants but in that while we all equally hope for Pardon from the hands of God our common Judge we deny it to one another and presume to require that from God which we will not Grant our selves If in pleading for Revenge we alledge that
least it cannot be denied that the assurance of God in the latter part of the Text Vengeance is mine I will repay hath taken from them that common pretence before mentioned of Zeal for the satisfaction of Justice least if Revenge should not be inflicted the Guilt of any sin should escape unpunished This therefore God hath fully provided for who as he is the supreme Lord of all and Judge of the whole World cannot be supposed to fall so far in the Distribution of Justice as to permit any sin to pass unobserved by him neither expiated by Repentance nor attended with Punishment and hath moreover obliged himself by Promise to revenge the Injuries offered to his faithful Servants and that as our Lord saith he will do although he bears long with them Luk. XVIII 25. It would be unreasonable to expect that his Punishments should always be inflicted on the unjust Aggressor in this Life nor hath he promised any such thing The place in Deuteronomy referred to in the Text in the Original runs thus To me belongeth Vengeance or Recompence in time or to be executed in due time It cannot be expected that his Punishments should always immediately follow the Commission of every Crime or Injury unless we desire the World should be in a manner dispeopled and become a Theatre of dreadful Tragedies It is sufficient that he hath ordinarily secured us from the more disquieting Injuries of unjust Men by the Commission which he hath given to the Civil Magistrate to revenge them in his stead And if he should fail in the Execution of his entrusted Office we are not so considerable as singly to deserve an extraordinary Interposition of Providence in behalf of us If we desire this Revenge should be extended yet farther and should punish in this Life and for our Sakes even the Guilt of Injuries offered to us we manifest an inhumane Disposition of Mind delighting in the Miseries of other Men. God hath promised indeed as a benefit to his faithful Servants that he will revenge the Injuries offered to them But if this Revenge be taken in this Life the benefit consisteth not in the Pleasure arising from the suffering of Enemies but either in the Enjoyment of temporal Peace secured thereby or in the perswasion which good Men may thence conceive that they are beloved by God If the Revenge be taken in another Life the benefit consisteth wholly in the latter For far be it from the Spirits of good Men now in Heaven who were injured by bad Men when alive to take delight in the Torments of the Damned because they were once their Enemies and far be it from us to enhance the Joys of Heaven by such unworthy Considerations Complacency in the Sufferings of other Men which is to be found in all Revenge properly so called can find no place in Heaven and that it may find no place on Barth may this Discourse conduce The Fourteenth SERMON Preach'd on Easter-Day 1690. At LAMBETH CHAPEL Acts XI 24. Whom God hath raised up having loosed the pains of death because it was not possible that he should be holden of it HOW Glorious the Resurrection of our Lord was which we this day Commemorate how undeniable at that time how powerful an assurance of all his precedent Promises and Revelations what effect it had both in the Mind of his Disciples and his Crucifiers how effectually it demonstrated to the whole World the Divinity both of his Mission and his Person as the whole Series of their Actions immediately subsequent to it do demonstrate so this Declaration made by them in the Text doth evince They who before had fled upon his apprehension had lost all their hopes at his Crucifixion had either denied or forsaken him who began to doubt whether it were he that should have redeemed Israel and gave up all for lost resumed their Courage and their Faith at the news and assurance of his Resurrection They now saw that Salvation wrought which before they had even ceased to hope for The most incredulous of them could now say to him My Lord and my God nor did they henceforward admit any doubt of those glorious Promises of which they had herein received so great a Testimony They feared not to profess their belief in him openly to Arraign the Impiety of the Jews in Crucifying an innocent Person and him no other than their own Messias the Lord of Life to denounce to them the certainty of their Destruction without belief in him not only to testifie his Resurrection in that great Concourse of the Jews met together at the Feast of Pentecost but also to declare it impossible that he should not have risen again as in these words Whom God hath raised up having loosed the pains of death because it was not possible that he should be holden of it which present us with I. The Affirmation of the Resurrection of Christ. Whom God hath raised up II. The manner of it Having loosed the pains of death III. The Reason of it Because it was not possible c. 1. The words assure us of the Truth of Christ's Resurrection a Truth both well known to the Apostles who did then relate it and attested by many infallible proofs as it is in the foregoing Chapter Verse 3. so that it could not be denied by those who should only hear it Let us take a view of these Proofs both for the Confirmation of our Faith and to amplifie the Glory of that Mystery to the Memory of which this day is Sacred In relating then the Resurrection of our Lord the Holy Penmen have been very exact in relating all the Circumstances and the Proofs of it manifesting that he was really dead after his Crucifixion and as truly alive again after his Resurrection that this was known to his Enemies as well as his Disciples and attested from Heaven by the Ministry of Angels and by God himself In a matter of so great Concern it was necessary that all the Points of it should be clearly proved and none remain liable to the least Exception In the first place it was required that assurance should be given of his having been really dead An Article which is fully expressed in the Creed the common Profession of our Faith wherein we declare him to have been dead and buried and to have descended into Hell that his Soul was truly separated from his Body the places being therein assigned wherein each were contained from the time of his Burial to that of his Resurrection His Body remained in the Grave His Soul was in the state of other separated Souls in Hell whether we understand thereby either the ordinary Condition of departed Souls or the place of damned Souls I will not now engage in that Controversie it is sufficient to say That either Opinion placeth his Soul in that interval of time among other Souls separated from the Body That the Soul of Christ was thus truly separated appeareth from the concurrent Judgment of
before mentioned that is unless we rise from Sin to die again Lastly the Justice of God and the incomparable Humility and Patience of Christ manifested in his Sufferings rendred it not possible not fit that he should be holden of Death He died not for his own but for the Sins of others and to demonstrate that his own Guilt drew not that Punishment upon him it was agreeable to the Justice of God to raise him up to relieve the Cause of oppressed Innocence and not suffer his Persecutors any longer to triumph in their wickedness Further by his exact Obedience by his inimitable Patience in suffering the Pains and his admirable Humility in undergoing the Shame of the Cross he did deserve to be raised up that as he had humbled himself in so extraordinary a manner so he should be exalted to a no less illustrious Glory And therefore the Sufferings and Humility of Christ are frequently assigned as the meritorious Cause of his Exaltation It was long before Prophesied of him Psal. CX 7. He shall drink of the brook in the way therefore shall he lift up his head And after his Passion and Ascension it is said of him by St. Paul Philip. II. He humbled himself and became obedient to death even the deash of the Cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him The first step of his Exaltation was his Resurrection which therefore was to relate to both those parts of his Humane Nature which had undergone that meritorious Humiliation Not only his Soul had suffered Agonies and the Contradiction of sinners had resigned it self intirely into the hands of God and submitted quietly to the Execution of that bitter Sentence which was inflicted on him as the Representative of sinful Men had endured the Shame of the Cross the insults of his Enemies a violent Separation from the Body with invincible Patience and Charity But also his Body had partaken in his Agony had sweat drops of Blood had endured Scourgings and Buffettings Crucifixion and the wound of the Spear Both Soul and Body therefore were to share in the Reward of all these Sufferings which began to be bestowed on him in his Resurrection His Body was to be raised from the Grave and his Soul being in no other Sense capable of Resurrection was to be reunited to the Body and both to continue for ever joyned since by his Death and Resurrection he is become the Mediator of a new and eternal Covenant Thus I have passed through the several parts of the Text and from the whole I shall make but one Inference proper to the Solemnity of this day If the Resurrection of Christ be the great and ultimate Confirmation of the Christian Religion that upon which our Faith is founded our hopes are raised that by which the Mystery of our Redemption is compleated the Author of it Crowned and advanced to be the Head of all the faithful who look for the same Resurrection it becomes us to celebrate this Festival Dedicated to the Memory of it with a suitable Religion We are not to account it an Arbitrary institution or the invention of the Church that this day is accounted Sacred beyond all others of the Year Our Lord hath made it so by rising from the Dead and compleating the Redemption of Mankind on it No revealed Religion was yet ever professed in the World which did not celebrate some certain and solemn Festivals at fixed times of the year and to cast off the publick Solemnization of those Festivals upon which the most illustrious Acts of the Life of our Saviour were performed is no other than in Fact to deny all belief in him and relation to him It is not enough to say that he hath declared he will be worshipped in Spirit and Truth He was himself then going up to Jerusalem to celebrate a solemn Festival when he spake those words And surely unless there be solemn times and places of worshipping him in Spirit and Truth it will never appear that he is so worshipped nor is he worshipped in Truth when Men pay no external Acknowledgments of those eminent Benefits which he hath truly obtained to them Himself hath consecrated this day by his rising from the Grave on it The Apostles have Dedicated it to this sacred Use by their own and by Divine Authority The Jews had before celebrated one day in seven in Recognition of their adoring that God who had created the World in Six days and rested on the Seventh and that Seventh day which they celebrated rather than any other of the Week was sanctified in Memory of their Deliverance out of Egypt wrought upon that day as it is Deut. V. 15. Remember that thou wast a Servant in the Land of Egypt and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence by a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm Therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day As the Jews therefore dated their Seventh day for ever from that day of their Deliverance out of Egypt so the Apostles began and the Church hath to this day continued to date their Seventh day from the day upon which their Redemption was compleated A Redemption so far greater than that given to the Jews from the Bondage of Egypt that well might the day instituted in remembrance of their Deliverance give way to the day celebrated in Honour of our Redemption This change therefore was made by the Apostles immediately upon the Resurrection of our Lord and even before his Ascension and so no doubt by his personal Direction and Approbation For all the religious Assemblies we find of them both before and after his Ascension were upon the first day of the Week That so as the Jews acknowledged their belief in God the Creator of the World by celebrating one day in seven and manifested their Worship of that God who brought them out of Egypt by Solemnizing for ever that Seventh day in which he brought them out So we Christians should declare that we worship the same God the Creator of the World by celebrating one day in seven and also manifest that we worship him in and through Jesus Christ by Sanctifying for ever that Seventh day upon which the great and last Act of our Redemption wrought by him was performed which is therefore in Scripture called the Lords Day Rev. I. 10. Farther as the particular Day of the weekly Festival of the Jews was determined by their Deliverance out of Egypt wrought upon the Seventh day so the far greatest of their Annual Solemnities was instituted in Commemoration of that Deliverance effected in the first Month of the year This God did institute by a special Command which was at large repeated to you in the first Lesson of this day And exacted the Observation of it with so great Rigour that he declared That Soul which did not keep this annual Feast should be cut off from Israel And can we imagine that God should require such eminent external Testimonies
to learn how to worship him and to be excited to it The chief Design of your meeting in this holy Place is that you may worship God herein But how can you be said to worship him who place your selves in no Posture of Worship who express no Concern at the words of publick Prayer joyn not in them nor add an Amen to them Can you really believe standing or sitting to be a posture of Worship Or will you not confess kneeling to be really the most humble Posture And if so surely the Creator of Heaven and Earth the Lord of Life and Death is to be approached in the most humble and most devout manner Be not ashamed to correct an ill Custom study to offer up to God a compleat Service to be present at the beginning of Prayers to attend diligently to them to joyn devoutly in them to worship God both with Body and Soul since both were created by him So shall you truly worship God so shall you Entitle your selves to all those glorious Promises which are annexed to true Piety and Devotion obtain your Desires and save your Souls The Sixteenth SERMON PREACH'D 1690. At LAMBETH CHAPEL 1 Tim. II. 8. I will therefore that Men pray every where lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting IN my last Discourse upon these words I treated largely of the Duty of Prayer enjoyned in the former part of the Verse I will that Men pray and urged the Obligation of this Duty from these two Conâ—iderations especially that Prayer is a principal Act of Adoration and the most essential part of the positive Worship of God which being a Duty incumbent upon all Men and at all times maketh the Duty and the frequency of Prayer to be no less necessary In the Second place I laid open the Advantages to be received from Prayer and the Promises annexed to it that so if the Sense of Duty could not engage yet at least that of Interest might perswade I then proceeded to apply all this to publick Prayer having first proved to you that the Apostle in this place treateth of that especially and therein manifested how much greater the Obligation is to publick Prayer how more expressive of our Subjection to God what greater Advantages it bringeth to devout Supplicants and what more noble Promises are annexed to it It remaineth now to pass through the other parts of the Text which are these three I. The place of Prayer Every where II. The posture of Prayer Lifting up holy hands III. The Conditions of Prayer required to make it acceptable and effectual Lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting I. The place of Prayer the Apostle teacheth to be every where that is not in all places alike but in all parts of the World wherever any Members of the Christian Church are to be found Herein he distinguisheth the publick Worship of Christians from that of the Jews among whom the more solemn parts of Divine Worship nay all the parts of the positive Worship of God instituted by himself were affixed to one certain place where the Priests daily offered Sacrifices and performed the other Offices of Legal Worship and adult Males among the Jews thrice every year gave their Attendance This was both easie to the Jews by reason of the small Dimensions of their Country and also necessary to preserve them from relapsing into Idolatry and Superstition which would not have been avoided in that stiff-necked People had the publick Worship of God been permitted to them in many separate places where the High Priest had not the immediate over-sight of them as they did actually fall into Idolatry and corrupted their Religion whensoever quitting the Temple at Jerusalem they began to worship God upon every high Hill and under every green Tree To this Temple therefore after the full Settlement of the Jews in the promised Land the publick Worship of God was wholly affixed out of which it was not lawful to offer Sacrafice nor was any Expiation of sin provided To it many glorious Promises were appropriated as that God would hear the Prayers offered up in it and be gracious to his People for the sake of it But in the Christian Religion which was not to be contained in one Family or Nation but to be propagated to all the Members of Mankind the Observation of this Institution became both impossible and unnecessary and was therefore abolished by God The publick Worship of him was thenceforward commanded to be alike celebrated in all places that is in all parts of the Church His Presence was not confined nor his Promises annexed to one place he is equally present in all Congregations of devout Believers and receiveth their Petitions with equal Favour Upon this account the Apostle distinguishing the Christian from the Jewish Worship directeth publick Prayers to be offered up every where as he had before distinguished it upon another respect in the first Verse of this Chapter there commanding that Supplications Prayers and Intercessions be made for all Men whereas the Jews never prayed for any but those of their own Nation and Communion This Enlargement of the place of Worship could not indeed but be extremely surprizing to the Jews who had been brought up in a profound Veneration of the Sanctity of the Temple of Jerusalem to which the publick Worship of the true God had been now appropriated for near twelve hundred Years And therefore the Divine Wisdom which from all Ages determined to enlarge his limits of the Church and gather into it as many of the Jews as by a right use of their Reason should be brought to believe in Christ had both by precedent and subsequent Facts provided abundant Reasons to convince the Jews that the publick Worship of himself should not always be confined to the Temple of Jerusalem but after the coming of the Messias should be extended into the whole Earth Thus Zeph. II. 11. it is foretold That when God should found the glorious Kingdom of the Messias then Men shall worship him every one from his place even all the Isles of the Heathen And in Mal. I. 11. For from the rising of the Sun even unto the going down of the same my name shall be great among the Gentiles and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name and a pure offering for my name shall be great among the Heathen saith the Lord of hosts Which Prophesies did clearly instruct the Jews that when the Gentiles should be gathered into the Church that is at the coming of the Messias he should be worshipped alike in all places of the Earth and even those Acts of publick Worship which were more peculiar to the Temple of Jerusalem that is Incense and Sacrifice should be then offered up from the rising up of the Sun to the going down of the same although in a more spiritual manner This Doctrine and Institution therefore ought not to have appeared strange unto the Jews whose Minds God had prepared for
Repentance they cease to be sinners If the Repentance be true perfect and serious the Sinner thereby cleanseth his Soul and in that Moment may be truly said to lift up holy Hands in Prayer If not so an imperfect or a feigned Repentance will no more promote the Efficacy of Prayer than if the Supplicant had still continued in the open Practice of his Sins Nor ought this to be any Disswasion from early and constant Innocence that the same Promises of Audience and Favour are annexed to the Prayers of penitent Sinners as to those of holy Men who need no Repentance that is no total Change of their Life and Actions That was indeed objected by the envious Labourers in the Vineyard against the good Housholder who rewarded the late-comers into his Vineyard equally with those who had born the Heat and Burden of the Day as an Act of Injustice and unequal Distribution To this it may be sufficient to answer what that good Housholder representing God in the Parable replied Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with my own Is thine Eye evil because mine is good That is in a strict Sense a Man Pious from his Infancy without any notorious Sin deserveth no more from God than a penitent Sinner newly return'd to Obedience yet to assert both the exactness of the Divine Justice and to inforce a constant Holiness from the Motive arising from this Consideration I will proceed in it a little further It is most true that God hath promised pardon and Favour to the Petitions of repenting Sinners that he will blot out their Iniquities take away their Guilt and remove the Punishment of their Sins This he did to Manasseh to the Ninevites to many both under the Old and the New Testament But we find neither Promise nor Example of any extraordinary Favour beside Pardon conferred immediately at the Prayers of Penitents such as miraculous Deliverance from Enemies Prolongation of Life Communication of Benefits to others for their sakes Effusion of eminent Graces and the like All which seem to have been Rewards reserved to Persons of more illustrious and more constant Piety who by a long Obedience gave undoubted Proofs of their Devotion to the Service of God and were in their times as shining Lights in the World such as Abraham Moses and Daniel the Prophets and Apostles who were never defiled with any notorious Habit of Sin And therefore as they distinguished themselves from the World by remarkable Acts and uninterrupted habits of Piety so they were distinguished by God by visible and extraordinary Benefits and Graces consequent to their Prayers Their Piety Patience and Obedience were raised far above the Standard of latter times No wonder then that we who have so far degenerated from their Example find not the same Effect of Prayer and that we even dare not to ask those things which were so easily vouchsafed to them Many indeed of those extraordinary Benefits granted at the Prayers of ancient Saints were intended as so many miraculous Proofs of the Doctrine which they professed and under the Law were the only promised Reward and under the Gospel were at first necessary to confirm the Faith yet still we may be assured that the Efficacy of Prayer doth at this Day decrease with the Excellency of Piety and may be raised with it A second Reason of the Necessity of lifting up holy Hands in Prayer is taken from the Nature and chief Design of it which as I before largely proved is the Worship of God in that it acknowledgeth his Dominion over Mankind his Justice his Power his Goodness and his Omniscience In praying to God man declareth his Belief of all these Divine Attributes but without lifting up holy Hands at the same time he affronts them all defeats the End and Design of Prayer and far from worshipping God in it denieth his Perfections and overthroweth what otherwise he might be supposed to do This we shall soon be convinced of if we pass through all the Reasons upon the Account of which Prayer is an Act of Divine Worship If it be considered as a Testimony of Obedience because the Practice of a Duty enjoyned by God no less is that concomitant Purity commanded for which we now plead The same Authority which requireth Prayer willeth withal that it be offer'd up with Innocence and Purity of Mind To perform the Act and withhold the Condition is then no other than to confess an Obligation and immediately to deny it If Prayer includeth a Confession of our Wants and Imperfection and Dependance upon God continuance in Sin argueth that we have no Sense of that Imperfection that we affect to be independent from God and exempted from his Government If in that Man professeth Subjection to him by not purging his Mind from Sin he makes his Profession to be no other than a Protestation against plain Fact If there he implyeth a Belief of the Justice and Goodness of God here he manifests by his practice that he thinks it not just to be deprived by his Laws the satisfaction of his beloved Lusts. If by addressing himself to God he confesseth him to know all things and to be every where present by his Sins he pretends to escape his Knowledge and retire from his Presence If in the one he publisheth a Belief of his Almighty Power in the other he defieth the Execution of it He boweth his Knee indeed and prostrates his Body in Honour of God but at the same time he giveth up the Government of his nobler part the Soul to the Adversary of God the Devil Thus a Sinner willfully continuing in sin destroyeth that Adoration which by Prayer he pretendeth to pay to God Nor is that the only Consequence attending Sin in Prayer that it defeateth the Act of Adoration and obstructeth the Rewards annexed to it It farther involveth the Soul of Man in a most horrid Crime in that he therein affronteth all those Perfections of God which in praying to him he professeth to believe The guilt of Perjury consisteth in commiting the Fact after a solemn and deliberate Invocation of the Divine Presence and the guilt of Blasphemy in reviling the Attributes of God after a particular mention and profession of them Both these and many more Crimes are Acted as often as a Love or Resolution of sinning is retained with Prayer So that if the mind of Man were not depraved to a most deplorable Degree it would fear to approach to God in Prayer without a perfect Innocence that is either Conscience of having committed no sin or unfeigned Sorrow for it If we joyn all the Aggravations of sins in one we still shall not conceive a greater than to fall down and worship God professing his supreme Dominion and at the same time proceed to violate the â—aws which he hath founded to call him by the Glorious name of God and acknowledge his Power yet neither to revere his Majesty nor to fear his Punishments to celebrate
Divine Power our Lord had exercised among the Jews for three years together and that not in private in a corner among his own Followers but in all the great Cities of that Nation in the Presence of multitudes in their Streets and Synagogues before the Scribes and Pharisees the most Learned and discerning Men among them in the solemn Festivals and Concourse of the Jews at Jerusalem where every Male was bound to appear three times a year before the Lord and where Christ never failed to be present and to declare his Mission by Miracles and by Oral teaching So that it is not improbable but that every Male of Judea arrived to Man's Estate had at the time of his Death personally seen some Miracle wrought by him Even at his Death such manifest Indications of his Divinity appeared that an unprejudiced Heathen the Roman Centurion who guarded his Cross could not forbear to confess that he was the Son of God that is in the Language of the Heathens a Divine Person Yet notwithstanding all these Proofs and Miracles it was found that the Jews retained their Infidelity that far from being converted by them even while the Sense of them remained they did affront and revile him accused him of Combination with the Devil even while they saw him cast out Devils and were scandalized at his Doctrine even before they had digested the Bread wherewith he had miraculously fed them as we read Joh. VI. What then could be concluded from this whole Carriage of the Jews but that they were a People whom no Arguments could perswade no Miracles could affect who deserved no farther to be regarded by God and who would have treated the visible Resurrection of Christ with no less Contempt than they had done his former Miracles It is at first sight somewhat incredible indeed that Man endued with a rational Soul could possibly so far deprave his Reason as to withstand such powerful Arguments and deny the Truth set in so clear a Light And some have not failed hereupon to object to the whole History of the Life of Christ that it is impossible he should have wrought so many Miracles since had he done it it cannot be conceived that the Jews should disbelieve him and deny Assent to his Revelations But alas who can account for the Perverseness of the Will of Man or the Failures of his Understanding A little reflection upon our own Experience of humane Life will convince us how gross and to us unaccountable Errors many Men commit How often a Matter which seems most clear and evident to us when proposed to others cannot or will not be understood by them To recurr to more particular Examples this very Nation of the Jews continued stubborn incredulous and rebellious amidst all the Miracles which Moses wrought in the sight of them They murmured against him even while they subsisted by his miraculous Ministry and notwithstanding all the wonderful Benefits and Punishments of God daily visible to them for Forty years together often renounced their Allegiance to the true God Nor are they the former Ages only which have committed such prodigious Mistakes even in our own Age we have no less eminent Instances of unaccountable Corruption of understanding in some Men which because they are ordinary and common we cease to wonder at but in Truth had the Ancients by Revelation foreseen them they would have no less admired the Folly of subsequent Ages than we now do the Errors of precedent times To name only one now among many who could have then believed that in the latter times of the World there should exist a large Society of Men who should pretend to eat their God to devour his Body ten thousand times and yet retain it whole to divide it into as many parts every one of which should be equal to the whole and infinite other like Absurdities And yet this we know the Papists do Upon the whole it ought not to be concluded that because such a Perverseness of Will or Corruption of Judgment cannot be well conceived by us or seems incredible to us judging according to the Nature of the things themselves that therefore it is impossible Mankind should be ever Guilty of them For it doth appear that there is no Error so gross no Miscarriage so enormous which Man may not commit And that if the Jews had seen and handled the Body of Christ after his Resurrection it is more than possible that they who had rejected so many antecedent Proofs would have been insensible of this also but it is most certain that they were not worthy to whom such a Favour should be granted It remains That I speak to the third and last Consideration that notwithstanding our Lord vouchsafed not to the unbelieving World the visible Presence of his Body after his Resurrection yet that he hath by other Methods offered to Mankind sufficient Arguments of reasonable Conviction of the truth of it This was absolutely necessary not only in Relation of the rest of the World who had not seen his precedent Miracles but also in regard of his undertaking to the unbelieving Jews whom demanding a Sign from him he had referred to his Resurrection from the Dead after three days continuance in the Grave And this he hath effectually performed by the Testimony of unexceptionable Witnesses his Apostles and other Discliples who as they were well assured of the Truth of it themselves so they were fitted and enabled to testifie it to the World beyond all Contradiction They had seen and Familiarly conversed with their Lord after his Resurrection handled his Body clearly perceiv'd that a rational Soul was united to it and the Divinity to both as before his Resurrection They were afterwards enabled to testifie this to all Nations of the World by the gift of Tongues and to do it successfully by the Power of working Miracles not only conferred upon themselves but upon whomsoever they laid their hands for that Purpose They confirmed the Truth of their Testimony by voluntary laying down their Lives by undergoing all the Hardships of Life the Persecution of the Jews and the Contradiction of Heathen Philosophers all which none can be supposed to have been done without an inward Conviction of the Truth of what they Preached And if they were indeed so convinced it is impossible that in forming their Judgment of it they should have been mistaken Or if it can be imagined that any should be so Vain-glorious as to forego the Pleasures of Life and suffer a Death in defence of what they knew to be false yet are we not in this Case permitted to believe it by Reason of the many and wonderful Miracles wrought by them by the various Operations of the Holy Ghost working in them and communicated by them by which God himself gave a concurrent Testimony to the Resurrection of Christ preached by them and set to his Seal that what they taught and affirmed was true But of this Head I need add no
Scripture is faid to be the footstool of God Upon all these Reasons it was necessary just and convenient that Christ should ascend into Heaven II. And that he really did ascend thither which was the 2d Head proposed evidently appeared from the History of his Ascension recorded in the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles That Body of Christ which the Apostles had felt and handled that with which they had conversed for forty days together that whereof they were assured by many infallible Proofs that it was no other than the material Body of Christ which hung upon the Cross and was laid in the Grave which was united to the Soul again and had performed all manner of vital Actions that very Body they saw ascend into Heaven For that Jesus who had rose again and conversed with them who had led them out of Jerusalem and was visible and present to them till the very moment of his Ascension as he was yet speaking with them was parted from them and carried up into Heaven as we read Luk. XXIV Which refutes the Opinion of those ancient Hereticks who taught that Christ ascended in Spirit only having first put off and returned to the several Elements that Body which he had received from them Again that Body which the Apostles saw and felt to be locally present with them upon Earth they saw soon after to be really removed from the Earth and carried into Heaven For as it is related in the sacred History When he had spoken unto the Disciples and blessed them which being performed by laying his hands upon them testified his real and corporeal Presence with them in that moment in the next moment even while he blessed them he parted from them and while they beheld he was taken up and a cloud received him out of their sight Which proved his Ascension to have been a true proper and local Translation from the parts here below to those above and that at that moment he was indued with a perfectly humane Body whatever glorious Changes it underwent after its Reception into Heaven the Seat of Immortality and Spiritual Beings Other Circumstances deserve to be observed in the History of this Ascension And First Our Lord at his Ascension was pleased to call together many if not all his Disciples and admit them to the sight of it a Favour which was not vouchsafed to them at his Resurrection The Conduct indeed was different but the Reason not unlike in both Cases Both the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ were thenceforth to pass into necessary Articles of Belief to the principal supports of the Faith and Hopes of Mankind both therefore was to be placed beyond all doubt and contradiction by the Attestation of many and credible Witnesses To effect this at his Resurrection it was not necessary that any witnesses should be present since the Actions of Life visibly and in the Presence of many performed by him after his known Crucifixion and Burial abundantly and even demonstratively proved that he was really risen from the Dead They were well assured that some few days before he was truly Dead their Senses assured them that he was now truly alive Whence they might as certainly conclude that he was risen from the Dead as if they had actually seen his Resurrection Whereas in the Case of his Ascension he was to be taken from them no more to be seen by them in this Life no Mortal was thenceforward to see his State of Glory or testifie his Station in Heaven upon which account it was absolutely necessary that his Disciples should be present at his Ascension and be Eye-witnesses of that Action which afterwards they were to testifie and preach to others In the second Place it deserveth to be observed that the Testimony of Angels was added to that of the Apostles Those blessed Spirits far from repining that the Nature of Man in Christ was by his Ascension exalted to a superior Degree of Glory descended from Heaven to bear the glad Tidings of his Arrival there as at his Nativity they had done to proclaim the Descent of the Deity upon Earth For it follows Acts I. 10. Behold two Men stood by them in white Apparel which also said Ye Men of Galilee why stand ye gazing up into Heaven This same Jesus which is taken up from you into Heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into Heaven Nor was this Apparition of Angels an empty Pageant or an unnecessary Addition to the Glory of our Lords Ascension By their Ministry and Attendance they demonstrated the Divinity and Dignity of his Person by their Testimony concerning his Ascension they proved the truth of it The Apostles indeed saw him received upon the Clouds they looked up and followed him with their Eyes as far as their sight could reach but that being terminated in the lower Regions and not able to penetrate into the highest Heavens their Sense could not assure them that their Lord was carried thither To evidence therefore the truth of it it remained that God by these ministerial Spirits should declare it to the Disciples These Angels were wont to Minister before and see the face of God in Heaven they were known to come down from thence They testified that Christ had ascended thither from whence they had descended and thereby perfected the Testimony of the Disciples concerning the Ascension of Christ into Heaven whose sight could not reach so far Farther these blessed Spirits not only brought Evidence to the Disciples of the real Ascension of their Master into Heaven but also gave them Comfort and alleviated their sorrow conceiv'd for his Departure by adding those words This same Jesus which ye have seen taken up from you into Heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into Heaven Elisha had seen his Master Elijah carried up into Heaven yet knowing not certainly how the Divine Goodness would dispose of him and despairing of ever seeing him again he entertained the sight with Grief and in Testimony of it rent his Clothes Nor had the Disciples been free from the same Anxiety without the present Consolations of these Angels When their Lord had before his Death declared to them his Resolution of returning to the Father John XVI they could not dissemble their Grief as himself observeth Verse 6. Because I have said these things unto you sorrow hath filled your heart And immediately before his Ascension still retaining their erroneous Opinion of a temporal Kingdom to be founded by him they had asked him whether he would not at that time restore the Kingdom unto Israel which hopes were totally defeated by his Departure into Heaven Both these occasions of Sorrow therefore the Angels happily do remove in these words They assure them that the Presence of their Master shall not be for ever taken from them but themselves should see him return in the last of days and that they may not imagine his Kingdom to be abolished they