endure the most painful sorts of death rather than Worship a Cake of Bread Invoke their Fellow-creatures admit any Advocate in Heaven but Jesus or make the Gospel depend upon the dictates of the Pope how illiterate and wicked soever he may be But were there no other Histories extant but the Bible the number of the Saints recorded there that have embraced the most bitter Ignominious Deaths and despised the Torments and Shame thereof are more than enough to prove that there is no Temptation so dreadful but what may be born by Man and that 't is neither impossible nor so exceeding difficult for Christians to conquer the fear of Death as the profane and sensual part of the World to the dishonour of our Religion pretend it to be The second instance under which I shall bring examples to prove that no Temptation is irresistible shall be taken from the Sin of Uncleanness or fornication a Sin which the World is so apt to excuse and pretend a kind of necessity to commit because it is so natural to Flesh and Blood And yet as natural and hereditary as the Advocates of Uncleanness represent in to be 't is so far from being an irresistible Temptation that Joseph resisted the frequent importunities of his own Lady or Mistress although besides the quality of her Person and the danger of denying his own Youth and all other circumstances concurr'd to make him consent and Yield And were the dread of the Majesty of the Pure and Holy God impress'd upon the heart of the most lustsul Satyr but half as deep as it was upon his that Grace alone would be sufficient to check his sinful propensions and make him cry out as he did in the critical moment of Tryal How shall I do this damnable act and sin against my God But lest you should object that Joseph was an extraordinary person and had more than common assistance from God let us suppose the most ordinary unexperienc'd Christian surrounded with the strongest Temptations imaginable to commit this natural and therefore concluded unconquerable Sin Let us suppose him to have the most charming Beauty to entice him together with opportunity and all other Circumstances to heighten the Temptation and make it as outrageous as it can be imagin'd to be yet for all this if this Man should say that he were not able to rosist this violent Temptation he would lye against his Conscience and contradict the universal experience of the World For if at that instant God should say unto him as unto the Rich Man in the Gospel Thou Fool this night thy Soul shall be required of thee That dreadful Summons to appear so soon in the next World would make this mighty Temptation become none at all and presently drive out that unclean Spirit of Lust which possest his Soul before But much more if at the same time should come forth the Fingers of a Mans hand and write upon the Wall Mene Mene Tekel Upharzin Do this and thou shalt be immediately damned I desire any one of you to Answer in his heart for this Man what you think he would do You cannot but confess that his Amorous intentions and Countenance would be chang'd his jovial Thoughts troubled his Joints loos'd and his Knees like King Belshazzar's knock one against another Or lastly let us suppose at the same instant that an unexpected Message should come from his Prince threatning the Gibbet or the Ax if he proceeded to gratifie his sinful Desires such a terrible Message would undoubtedly be sufficient to extinguish his present Flames and restrain him from the Sin he intended to commit Or not to take the advantage of such frightful Enemies to his Pleasure as Damnation or Death let us rather suppose That a little Child much more a Grave and Reverend Person should unexpectedly come into the Room before he proceeded to execute his filthy Lust certainly instead of finding it impossible to resist the Damnable Sin he would find it impossible for him to commit it in their prefence unless he had made an utter shipwrack both of his Conscience and Honour and were become as shameless as a Beast Or let us suppose that a mighty reward imagin a Kingdom or some vast Sum of Money were offer'd him upon condition he would resist this pretended irresistible Temptation what do you think would find Strength and Resolution enough to overcome the unconquerable Temptation upon these terms and be glad to be hired by such a Reward to abstain from his Damnable Lust And therefore if all this be true Why should not the remembrance of our own Mortality as effectually Mortifie our Lusts and keep us from daring to commit a presumptuous Sin as if God himself should tell us we should shortly dye Why should not the consideration of Eternal Torments threatned in the Gospel be as perswasive against Sin as the consideration of them written by a Spirit upon a Wall Or why should not the Message of Eternal Death which we deliver from God prevail as much upon Men as the Message of temporal Death from a King Lastly why should not the presence of the Omnipresent God over-awe Men more than the presence of a Man Or why should not the Infallible Promise of Heaven and Infinite Happiness be a more powerful motive to Self-denyal than the Promise of a Kingdom or Treasure here below The shameful inconsideration stupidity and carnality of Mens hearts is the cause why Temporal expectations and proposals have more force upon their Souls than the hopes of Eternal Glory and that present or approaching sensible Pain or Loss fills their earthy Minds with more dreadful apprehensions than the prospect of Infinite Misery to come But to conclude this Instance with a more familiar Argument If the Temptations to this Sin be so very difficult to be resisted as Debauch'd Men pretend it is how comes it to pass that careful and Religious Parents suffer their Children to Sojorn in Mesech and dwell in the Tents of Kedar I mean to go abroad and converse in this wicked World How dare they expose their Souls which they tender next to their own to such certain dangers in an Adulterous Generation if to deny ones self and resist the Temptations of the Flesh be either impossible or next to impossible as the injurious Discourses of the unclean Spirits of this licencious Age upon all occasions represent it to be My third Instance to prove how capable the nature of Man by Gods Grace is to resist or overcome the most dangerous Temptations shall be taken from a Temptation to commit some Sin upon a certain proposal of gaining or loosing a Crown Among all the Trials or Temptations the World the Devil or our own Hearts can present unto us none can be more powerful or unconquetable than this For a Crown is the highest secular Interest the possession of it is both Government and Riches and by consequence the hopes of getting or fear of loosing that supreme degree
much to be condemned by the Verdict of right Reason as he that gives an Affront And therefore since 't is plain by these Examples that bare Reason and Moral Gallantry of Spirit have sometimes enabled Heathens and Mahumet ans to resist those Pains and Pleasures and Interests which as all men grant are the strongest Temptations to Sin is it not shameful Nonsense and horrid Impiety for Christians whom God without a just provocation never fails to support and assist with his Grace to magnifie the weakness of Humane Nature and the strength of these and the like Temptations with a Malicious design nor only to justifie themselves and excuse others but to Debauch Mankind to the utmost of their power and render the Christian the most grievous intollerable Religion that ever was in the World From whence I proceed to prove by Reason that no Trial or Temptation can happen to Men but such as is suitable to Humane Nature aided with Grace and such as any Christian that is true to his own endeavours and faithfully uses the restraining and assisting helps of God my not easily conquer and subdue My first Reason shall be taken from the consideration of the nature of Virtue and Grace which are nothing but an habitual power and ability in the Rational Soul of Man to bear all sensible Pain and Loss and forbear all sensible Pleasure and Profit out of love to Reason and the Righteous Laws of God This excellent spiritual power and ability of the Soul as far as it is Natural or acquired by our own Acts and Endeavours is of Moral consideration but as it is supernaturally wrought in the Soul or infus'd into it by the Spirit of God so far it is of Theological consideration and belongs not to Moralists but Divines But because Grace as all Men grant is the perfection of Nature and acquired Virtue is consistent with infus'd I have put them both together in one Definition in which Divines and Philosophers both agree But were it impossible or so exceeding difficult as some Men make it to resist Temptations this definition of Grace or Virtue would be but an useless fictitious notion and Divines and Philosophers from the beginning of the World would have been either Knaves or Fools All the excellent Sermons the former have made with so much eloquence and authority concerning Mortification Self-denial and Perseverance and all the brave Discourses the latter have penn'd with such admirable Reason and Rhetorick concerning Fortitude Temperance and Patience are idle unprofitable Harangues and as insignificant to the impotent Race and Nature of Man as the practical Rules of Dancing to a Cripple or a Lecture in Geometry to a natural Fool. In particular St. Paul who Magnifies the Grace of God so much in his Epistles and protests he took pleasure in bearing Reproaches Persecutions and Distresses for Christs sake This great Doctor and Saint who declar'd upon his own experience that he was alwaies most strong when he was most weak and that he could do and suffer all things through the strength he receiv'd from Christ must pass for a Cheat or Enthusiast if Men by the promised supports and assistance of Gods Grace be not able to resist Temptations unto Sin There was never yet in the Church of God a more apt Example to confirm this Doctrin I now maintain than this Apostle was for when the Jews and Gnosticks persecuted his righteous Soul with so much rage and violence as to make him call them the Messengers of Satan and compare the sharpness of the Persecution which they rais'd against him to a thorn in the flesh like a true Souldier of Christ he still resisted and held out but yet suspecting his own perseverance and fearing lest his Faith and Patience might at last fail he Prayed God thrice to remove the sharp Trials from him But God who knew whereof he was made better than he himself still continu'd them assuring the suffering Apostle that his concurrent Grace was sufficient for him and that his strength was made perfect in his weakness This relation the Apostle makes of himself is either true or false If false then he was either an Impostor or a Mad-man If he was Mad as the Festuses of this Age represent him to be how came he to speak the words of Truth and Soberness Hw came he to write such learned and profound Epistles and make such admirable defences for himself and the Christian Religion before so many Procurators and the Emperour himself at Rome How came he to be so very Wise upon occasion as to plead the Priviledge of a Roman Citizen and divide the Sadducees against the Pharisees when they had both conspir'd to take away his Life How came he to baffle the Jews out of their own Traditions and Prophecies to convert the greatest Cities of the World to the Christian Religion and acquire such a particular Veneration and Authority not only among the common People but among the Philosophers both of Greece and Rome To conclude how came the Church Universal to Canonize his Writings and how came they particularly to be ador'd by such gallant Men as Justin Origen Tertullian and Clemens of Alexandria who were all as great Wits and Philosophers as ever the World could shew An Impostor likewise he could not be for then he must have acted for Glory or Gain For Glory he did not because he hath so often acknowledg'd his own Sinfulness Unworthiness and Insufficiency representing himself as the least of the Apostles and freely confessing that he was what he was by the Grace and designation of God And for Gain or secular Interest he could not act for in this Life he was of all Men most miserable his Apostolical Office rendring his whole Life but a continual Tragedy or Catalogue of Miseries as you may read 2 Cor. 11. from the 23. to the end of the Chapter This Story then I cited out of his Writings must be infallibly true and if it be then Virtue and Grace are real notions and by consequence no Tempation can happen to any Man but what Humane Nature is able to bear And lest you should think that God had a more particular care for this Apostle than other Christians and supply'd him with more particular aids than the rest of the Church you may find him exhorting the whole Church of Ephesus to be strong in the Lord and the power of his might you may find him charging Timothy to be strong in the grace that is in Christ and exhorting the whole City of the Philippians to work out their Salvation with care and sollicitude because God by his preventing and assisting Grace was working in their hearts both to Will and to Do. Perseverance or the working out of Salvation consists in nothing but in constantly resisting Temptations to Sin and there can be no sense in that nor any other such like Exhortations unless God as the Psalmist speaks be a present help in time of trouble and his
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 proportionable to the Nature of Man or such as others before them had endur'd So for the future he likewise assures them that God who was faithful to his Promises would not suffer them to be tempted above their Strength but upon the due exercise of their patience and courage in resisting would make a way for them to escape in all their Trials and give them sufficient supplies of his Grace to support and overcome the violence thereof There hath no Tempation taken you saith he but such as is moderate or common to man for God is faithful who will not c. This is the true and obvious meaning of these words and therefore by good analogy both of Faith and Reason we may counclude that God who is acquainted with the infirmities of our Nature takes the same care of us in all other Trials and Temptations as the Apostle here assures us he doth in persecutions which are in this and many other places of the Gospel emphatically called Temptations because that of all the Trials which men can undergo for the sake of God and Religion those terrible pains and sufferings wherein persecutions consist are by far most difficult to be withstood by feeble Flesh and Blood But what need is there of proving so great a Truth by consequence and analogy when the promise of the Spirit that assistant form of Christians is the most general promise of the Gospel and one of the principal terms upon which we are encouraged to enter into Covenant with God For we bind our selves by our Sacramental Oaths to resist such Temptations as unassisted Humane Nature is not able to resist because we are assur'd from the beginning to the end of the New Testament That God will give his Spirit to them that sincerely ask it that the Graces of it are sufficient for us that he will perfect his Strength in Human Weakness and that he will make us more than conquerours in all Temptations and find out a way by which we shall escape A considerable part of the Gospel consists in such like promises of receiving sufficient assistance from God and indeed in had been inconsistent with his Wisdom and Goodness as he is the Author of the Covenant of Grace to require us to swear resistance against such Temptations as depraved Human Nature is not able to withstand unless withal ne would have given us concurrent supplys of supernatural Strength sufficient of support us in them and enable us to perform what he doth exact This then being certain that God stands bound in his Gospel to take special care to assist us in all Temptations and grant us sufficient supplys of his Grace I proceed to prove the Apostles consequnce That no Temptations how violent soever are irresistible by Christians or that no Temptation or Trial hath or ever shall happen by Gods permission unto any Person in Covenant with him but such as is suitable to the Powers of Human Nature strengthened by Grace and such as a reasonable considerate Man that duly uses and improves the present assistance of God may not easily conquer and subdue This assertion I shall prove two ways First by authority or precedent and Secondly by reason First by authority taken from the practice and examples of wise and sober Men in all Ages who have resisted the strongest and overcome the most difficult Temptations for the sake of God and therefore those Traiterous ungodly Christians who love to represent the cause of Virtue and Religion as desperate and indefensible contradict the experiences of Ages and belye the Records both of God and Man I shall but instance in three or four of the most violent assur'd Temptations which the Devils and their cursed Agents use as the strongest battery to subdue the souls of the bravest Men. The first whereof is the fear of Death which Bildad in Job calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the King of Consternations or Terrors and yet as terrible as are the approaches of this King of Terrors the brave adventures of those gallant Heathens who have met him with all his train of Terrors without astonishment and fear and sacrific'd their lives for their Country and Friends These generous souls I say who could scarce dye for higher ends infallibly shew that 't is so far from being impossible that 't is neither strange nor difficult for Reason without Grace or unassisted Humane Nature to overcome the fear of Death But then if we consult the Records of the Church we shall find the supreme motives of Religion to have made Cowards and common People valiant and the Spirit of God which the Jewish Writers call the Spirit of Might so to have fortifi'd the Courage of Women and Children as to make them dye with more Resolution than the Worthies of Greece and Rome The time would fail as the Author to the Hebrews speaks in telling of those that were ston'd sawn asunder (a) Vid. imadversios honorabilis doctis Nort. natchbulli u. aur in Ep. Hebr. c. 11.7 empaled and slain with the Sword And the Jewish and Christian Martyrologies the bloody Calendars of the Greek and Latin Churches the Histories of the Persecutions of the Jews by the Heathens of the Christians by them both and of the former and latter Reformers by the Papal See from the time of the Waldenses to this last Age are so many standing Acts and Monuments to prove that no tryals can happen to Men but what Humane Nature is able to bear and particularly that Death in all his array of Terrors is no such insuperable consideration when it stands in competition with our Duty to God The Spanish Christians in the time of Trajan behav'd themselves with such resolution and assurance at the Heathen Tribunals that his Procurator and their Judge Pliny mistook their constancy and perseverance for stubbernness of Opinion or a certain Superstitious obstination of Mind And afterwards in the tenth Persecution they so little regarded their Lives that they threw them away and offer'd unnecessary affronts to the Heathen Gods that so they might be sure to dye Martyrs in the Fact and have the honour to Seal the Truth with their Blood Insomuch that the Wise Council of (a) Ex. Consil Elib annv 305. siquas idola for gerit ibidem fuerit occisus placuit numerum eun nonre ipi Matyrum Eliberis was fain to make a Decree to correct such unwarrantable riotous Zeal and make them less prodigal of their Blood But both they and the more Primitive Christians of other Countrys would have dy'd had it been possible a thousand times rather than drop a grain of Incense bow before an Idol or do any other significant Action which Custom had made a sign of denying Christ And since the corruption of the Latin Church the noble Army of reformed Martyrs in these Western parts of the World have chosen to meet the King of Terrors in his most terrible appearance I mean in the dreadful Inquisition and
assisting Grace concur to the aid and relief of all those that need and sincerely desire it and like the good and faithful Servant in the Gospel improve it as fast as it is bestowed To all which let me add the Precepts of Mortification Patience and Self-denial the Exhortations to keep our selves Pure Temperate Sober Chast to be stedfast and unmoveable to be stedfast to the end to resist the Devil to resist him unto Blood Of all which and the like Exhortations if we consider God as the Original Author it must needs follow that Men in Covenant with him have ordinarily power to resist the World the Flesh and the Devil nay to resist them all to Martyrdom and to Blood And therefore none but Fools and Atheists can be so absurd and impious as to imagin that God with Reverence be it spoken can so transgress the Rules of common sense as to advise his Creatures to the practice of those Duties which he knew bofore were impossible to be done Nay this damnable assertion of the Libertines of this Age who like that filthy Goat Nero think all the World as lascivious as themselves robs God of his Goodness by imagining he can delude his reasonable Creatures so far as to put them upon the Practice of those Duties which he knew were impracticable and above their Power to do But God that is better acquainted with our Nature than we our selves can put us upon nothing but what he knows is either absolutely in our power or at least as to conquer Temptations is within the power of our Nature assisted by Grace to perform For this very reason it is that God and the Church bind every Christian at his first admission into Covenant by such a solemn Oath to resist Temptations as I mention'd in the beginning of this Discourse the substance of which solemn obligation amounts to thus much I do here in the presence of God my Saviour and all the Heavenly Host devote my self to the service of God I call Heaven and Earth the Church Militant and Triumphant to bear witness that I renounce the World the Flesh and the Devil and that I 'le resist their Temptations to my last breath This I avow to be my resolution and upon this condition and this alone I now desire to enter into Covenant with my God and be admitted into his Church and I call my Conscience to Record this day that I will never repent of this Promise nor revoke it but continue Christs faithful Souldier to the end of my Life So help me O my God 'T is impossible for the Conscience of Man or Angel to be bound by a stronger Obligation than this but unless the Matter of it be practicable 't is a solemn piece of Nonsense and Delusion and God and his Church for above 1600 Years have mock'd and abus'd the World The second Reason by which I undertake to prove my Assertion shall be taken from the consideration of the nature of Repentance which consists in an unfeigned sorrow for our Sins past and a sincere Resolution by Gods assistance to lead an Holy Life for the time to come But if Men be conscious to themselves that the Sins they committed they could by no means resist why should they sorrow and repent for what is past or so contradict themselves and mock God as to promise amendment for the time to come Why instead of confessing their Sins to him do they not rather expostulate with him and say 'T is true O Lord I have done many things which Men that pretend to be thy Ministers and trouble the World by thy Authority declare to be grievous Sins but if they be I protest I could not help it Thou knowest I could not resist them and if Thou wouldst have me do better for the time to come thou must give me more Grace than hitherto I have had Which horrible Expostulation shews how inconsistent this damnable Doctrin I oppose is to the Duty of Repentance how ridiculous it renders Confession and Contrition for Sin nay how it makes the greatest Sins we are tempted to commit no Sins at all And many more such dreadful consequences flow from it as may justly make the Blades or licentious Wits that talk it about the Town if they have any Sense or Conscience left to abhor it and recant My third Reason is taken from the consideration of the Nature of Laws which commonly besides the things they command or forbid contain either general or special Threatnings and Promises as most proper and suitable motives to engage us to perform the Duties we ought to do and abstain from the Sins we ought not to commit But if the free and rational Nature of Man neither simply in it self nor with the assistance of God if Reason with no more than without Grace have power to overcome Temptations to wilful Sin it would be transcendent Folly and Cruelty for Princes and States to make Temporal Laws for their Subjects and much more for God to make Spiritual Laws for his Church He might with as much Wisdom and Justice have charged Men not to be Hungry or Sick not to be Hot or Cold as not to commit Adultery not to Steal not to Murther not to bear False Witness c. unless by some means or other it be in their power to resist the strongest Temptations that the Wit of Men or Devils can invent to induce them to commit the foresaid Sins My fourth Reason I ground on the 10th of St. Matthew v. 33. where our Saviour declares that Whosoever shall deny him before Men that him will he deny before his Father whith is in Heaven But were any Suffering so intolerably sharp were any persecutions so dismal and grievous that it were impossible for supported Humane Nature to bear them were all the Torments of a Roman Inquisition and all the Artifices of Cruelty which Wit and Malice could invent above the Courage and Resolution of a Christian and insuperable by Reason strengthened with Grace The Blessed Jesus who took our Infirmities upon him and knew by experience what Humane Nature was He I say that was made like unto his Brethren that he might be a Merciful and Faithful High-Priest would never deny any Man a share in his Atonement for doing that which extremity of Torment must force him to commit To conclude with such another Reason You may remember that our Saviour in the Description he gives of Hell in the 9th of St. Mark hath this ingenious Hebrew Phrase Where their Worm dyeth not which Worm according to the sense both of the Jewish and Christian Church signifies nothing here and in the 66th of Isaiah but that Stinging remorse of Conscience or continual Fret or Vexation of Soul in Damned Spirits caused by the remembrance and consideration of the wilfull Treachery and Baseness of their own Hearts in committing those Sins and yielding to those Temptations which they knew they had power sufficient to resist But were the