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A61618
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A sermon preached at White-Hall, February the 19th, 1685/6 being the first Friday in Lent / by Edw. Stillingfleet ...
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Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699.
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1681
(1681)
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Wing S5658; ESTC R18636
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15,433
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36
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Thanksgiving but a solemn owning his Paternal Care and Bounty towards us And in these two the main Duties of Natural Religion consist The Neglect whereof is such a disrespect to our Heavenly Father as is not consistent with our believing him to be so For as God himself argues in the Prophet A Son honoureth his Father and a Servant his Master If then I be a Father where is mine honour And if I be a Master where is my Fear God was a Father by the Right of Creation and Providence but he was a Master to the Jews in respect of the Bondage of the Law and as there was a Spirit of Bondage on that account in them which inclined them to a more servile Fear so there ought to have been a natural Spirit of Adoption toward God as their Supreme Creatour and Father which should excite all men to such a dutifull Love such a Reverential Esteem such a mixture of Awe and Kindness as is in Children towards their Parents Yea it ought to be much greater than that can be supposed because the Distance is Infinite between God and us and our Dependence more immediate and necessary and there is in him a Concurrence of all Perfections which may cause in us the highest Esteem and the humblest Adoration There is an unquestionable Duty owing by Children to their earthly Parents but how much rather saith the Apostle ought we to be in subjection to the Father of Spirits The Fathers of our Flesh may be very Kind but not Wise in their Love or Wise and not so Kind or they may be both Wise and Kind but not Able to help their Children They may love and pity and pray for them when they are in Misery or Sickness and Pain but after all they are unable to relieve them For the most indulgent Father when his bowels yearn and his heart is ready to break at the sight of a Child lying under the Agonies of Death is not able to give a Moments Respite to the terrible Pangs which he can neither behold nor abate But our heavenly Father hath not onely Infinite Wisdom but Infinite Kindness and Power and where all these are joined together what Honour what Love what Fear is due unto him Although there be defects in their Parents yet Children are still bound to obey them and to shew a mighty regard and Reverence towards them but here it is so much otherwise that if we could conceive our selves without this Relation to God yet his Perfections are so many so great so infinite as to deserve and require our utmost Veneration The Prodigal Son could then have no Reason to complain of the Duty which he owed to his Father And was it not fit for him to appoint the Orders of his Family and to expect that his Children should behave themselves therein as became the Relation they stood in to himself and to one another That they should have a decent regard to themselves in Sobriety Temperance Command of their Passions and care of their Words That they should behave themselves towards their Brethren with Sincerity Kindness and Justice which comprehend all the Duties we owe to one another And what now was there in all this that the Prodigal could have any Cause to complain of or that should make his Father's House so uneasie to him But his Father had just Cause to be provoked when his Wise Counsels and Prudent Care and Constant Kindness and Righteous Government were so much slighted and despised by a disobedient and ungratefull Son who had so little Sense of his Duty or his Interest as to be weary of being so well at home and therefore impatiently desiring to find out new methods of Living well as he then thought when the best Orders of his Father's Family were become so displeasing to him 2. But what were these new and fine Contrivances for his own happiness He began to suspect his Wife Father did not allow his Children Liberty enough at home and that he concealed from him the great Mystery of the Happiness of Life and therefore concluded that if he did give way to those Desires which he found to be Natural but his Father thought Unreasonable he should enjoy much more Pleasure and Satisfaction than he did at home And being resolved upon this he gives way to those Inclinations he found strongest in himself denies himself no Pleasures of Life accounts Vertue but a Name which sowre and morose Persons put upon their own humours and Religion but a Device for Fools to deceive themselves and Knaves to deceive others by And so he throws off all checks and restraints upon himself and never regards the Good or Evil of what he doeth for his Lusts are his Laws and the satisfaction of them he now looks upon as the onely real Happiness of Mankind And could any thing be supposed more provoking to his Heavenly Father than such a wicked and dissolute way of Living So contrary to his Father's Will to his own Reason Conscience Interest Reputation and which soon brought him to Shame and Misery 3. But that which added yet more to the height of the Provocation was that he did not think of Returning home to his Father upon the first apprehension of his own Folly But he resolved to undergo any difficulty and submit to any hardship rather than doe what was necessary in order to Reconciliation with his Father How hard a Matter then is it to bring an habitual Sinner to Repentance It is not Easie to bring him to any due and serious Conviction of the Evil of his doings but it is far more difficult to change the inward Disposition of the Mind and to alter all the great Designs and Pleasures of Life It is but a mean Notion of Repentance which is apt to prevail in the World as though it implied no more than some Acts of Contrition for greater Sins when the Habit and Disposition remain the same But true Repentance is the turn of the whole Soul from the Love as well as the Practice of Sin and this is not a thing to be done easily or suddenly A Sinner will bear a great many Checks and Reproofs of Conscience before he will part with his beloved Sins he will struggle a great while with himself and endure many Conflicts between an awaken'd Conscience and rooted lnclinations before the Penitent Sinner can assure himself that his Repentance hath had its due and effectual operation upon him For we see here nothing but extremity brought the Prodigal to himself and made him at last to resolve to arise and go to his Father c. As Themistocles said of the People of Athens they did by him as Men commonly doe by a great Tree they run to it for shelter in a Storm but care not how they use it another Time that is too true of Sinners with Respect to God when they can make a shift for themselves any other Way they despise Religion and make God
Sin for its own Sake but not all equally some Sins being of a higher Nature than others are being against plainer Light stronger Convictions more easie Commands stricter Obligations than others are but yet it is the Temper of a Sinner's Mind which is most provoking when Sins are committed not through Infirmity or sudden surprise or a violent Temptation but habitually knowingly wilfully especially when they are done in Contempt of God and his Laws and with an obstinate Resolution to continue in the Practice of them This is so provoking to God that the chief Reason of the severe Punishments of Sinners in another World is taken from thence because God hates obstinate and impenitent Sinners And thus he will by no means acquit the Guilty There is a Sin unto death saith St. John and there is a Sin not unto death There is a Sin unto death which Christ hath said he will never pardon and that is blasphemy against the Holy Ghost a Sin which none who do truly own Christianity are capable of committing But is there then no Sin unto death to them Yes it is possible for Men who have clear Convictions in their minds of the Truth of the Gospel to act so plainly and wilfully and directly against it as either to provoke God to take them away by an extraordinary Judgment and so it is properly a Sin unto death or to withdraw his Grace from them and leave them to the hardness of their own Hearts and so it becomes a Sin unto a Spiritual death But besides these Cases Every Wilfull Sinner who adds Impenitency to his Sin commits the Sin unto death because there is no other Condition of Pardon allow'd by the Gospel without True Repentance How infinite is the Goodness of God that excludes no Sinners from the Hopes of Pardon who have a heart to repent sincerely of their Sins And how just is God in the final Punishment of those Sinners who still go on in their Sins and refuse to Repent after all the Invitations and Incouragements which are given them to that End Can we in Reason suppose that God should stoop lower towards Sinners than to offer them pardon of former Sins if they do Repent and to tell them they must Expect no Mercy in another World if they do not Repent But suppose we are come thus far that we are convinced we must Repent what course and method must we take in order to it Of this briefly and so to conclude Secondly I know no better than to follow the Example of the Prodigal Son here and in the first place to form a present sincere fixed and peremptory Resolution of doing it I will arise and go to my Father c. If we suffer Convictions to cool upon our Minds the force and spirit of them will soon be gone It hath been of late observed by the strictest Enquirers into Nature that the beginnings of Life are very small and hardly discernible It is but as a spark that appears and may easily be extinguished but if it be incouraged by a continual heat a wonderfull Alteration soon follows and the distinct parts begin to be formed the first which is discerned is the Eye but the Fountain of Life is in the Heart and when the course of the Bloud is there setled the other Parts come to their due formation with greater quickness This may be a Representation of the first Beginnings of Spiritual Life that which answers to the Eye is the Conviction of the Mind where the inward Change first appears that which answers to the Heart is Resolution and when that is fixed a mighty Reformation will soon follow But Spiritual Life as well as Natural is in its first beginnings a very nice and tender thing it may be easily stopt and very hardly recovered It is therefore of very great concernment to keep up the Warmth of our first Resolutions and to improve them into a present Practice agreeable thereto as the Prodigal Son here did who when he had Resolved upon it did accordingly arise and go to his Father v. 20. I do not think there are many Persons in the World who have Convictions upon their Minds of the Evil of their Ways but do Resolve at one time or other before they die to Repent of their Sins and to make their Peace with God But alas these are Ova subventanea they make a fair appearance but there is no principle of Life in them or as St. Jude expresses it they are Clouds without Water of no Consistency but carried about with winds hurried to and fro with the force and power of Temptations and then their Resolutions are like the Vapours St. James speaks of which appear for a little Time and then vanish away Trees they are without fruit as St. Jude goes on 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not that make no shew or appearance of Fruit but it hath no such firmness and substance in it as to endure the nipping Frosts and so it drops off and withers away Just such are the effects of faint and imperfect Resolutions they never hold out long and onely aggravate the Sins committed after them For every such Sin is a plain sin against Conscience or else they would never have made any Resolution against it And those who continue to sin after Resolutions against their Sins not onely lose all the Peace and Comfort of their Minds but make it much harder for them either to make or trust their Resolutions again and consequently to be satisfied of the Sincerity of their Repentance If we would then lay a sure Foundation for the Satisfaction of our Minds in a matter of such unconceivable Moment as the Truth of our Repentance is let us call our Selves to an Account as to this matter of the firm Purpose and Resolution of our Minds Have we strictly examin'd our Selves as to our particular Sins For there is no Age no Imployment no Condition of Life but hath its Temptations belonging to it which require not onely our Care and Consideration but Resolution to keep us from them But suppose we have been overcome by the Sin which doth so easily beset us the Work is harder to recover the Ground we have lost than at first to maintain it but if we have sinned we must Repent and the sooner the better but it is not to be done without awakening the drousie and benummed Faculties of our Minds and exercising the secret and hidden Powers therein Not as though this were to be done without the Grace of God preventing and assisting us but because God worketh in us to will and to doe of his good Pleasure we ought to Work out our own Salvation with Fear and Trembling Let us then trifle no longer in a Work we can never doe too well nor too soon nor go about it with too much Resolution It is the want of this which ruins such a Number of those who would fain go to Heaven but have not Courage and Resolution enough to own their Repentance and to break off their former Sins They are half Penitents they are inwardly troubled for them and wish themselves able to withstand the next Temptation but when it comes they yield and suffer themselves to be drawn away as a bird hasteth to the snare and knoweth not that it is for his Life Now in such Cases Resolution is not onely a convenient and proper thing but a very Wise thing For when once a Resolution is found to be serious and in good earnest the former Companions in Wickedness will leave off to solicit and if once a Penitent Sinner can endure to be despised and exposed for a time by Evil Men for owning his Repentance he will find the other parts of his Change grow more easie to him and the Devil's Instruments in Tempting will be like himself i. e. they will give over Tempting when they see no hopes to prevail And let no Men ever complain that they want Power to break off their former Sins till they have tried what the strength of a Vigorous Resolution will doe But because we have always Reason to suspect our selves let us make our Devout Applications to Almighty God to give us the Assistence of his Grace through the onely Mediation of his Son Jesus Christ. To whom c. THE END Malac. 1.6 Heb. 12.9 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aelian var hist. l. 9. c. 18. Is. 55.8 9. Matt. 7.9 10 11. Heb. 4.15 5.2 Ps. 103 8. Jam. 5.11 Exod. 3◠6 7. Ps. 103.13 Is. 55.7 v. 7.10 Lact. de Ira Dei c. 4. Exod. 32.10 Is. 5.26 Jon. 3.9 Psal. 45.7 Tit. 3.4 v. 24.32 Jam. 4.6 Ps. 51.17 Rom. 3.23 Eccl. 7.20 Exod. 34.7 1 John 5.16 17. Matt. 12.32 Harv Exerc 16 17 18. Jud. v. 12. Jam. 4.14 Prov. 7.23