Moses The Law saith he was given by Moses but Grace and Truth by Iesus Christ v. 17. God the Eternal Word gave the Law to Moses and Moses gave it to the People of Israel but Iesus Christ that is the Eternal Word incarnate gave not the Law but Grace and Truth So in the Text The Word incarnate or tabernacled in our Flesh did Shechanize or perform the Part of his Father's supreme Representative among us full of Grace and Truth which implies something beyond what he did when he dwelt in the Tabernacle of Moses and there as the Vice-Roy of God reigned over the House of Iacob That I may therefore more fully explain this Matter to you I will briefly consider these two Phrases apart and shew you in what Particulars they each of them distinguish his dwelling among us from his dwelling in the Mosaick Tabernacle 1. He dwelt among us full of Grace which distinguishes his dwelling among us from that more severe and rigorous manner in the former Tabernacle and that in these following Particulars 1st He dwelt among us full of Grace in respect of the Sweetness and Obligingness of his Behaviour in Contradistinction to that more dreadful and terrible manner of his conversing with the Iews when he tabernacled among them The Iews being a most stubborn and stif-necked Generation as they are often called in the Old Testament the Eternal Word thought fit to converse among them in such a way as was most suitable to their Genius and Temper to break their Stubbornness with the Dread of his Power and awe them with the Terror of his Majesty And accordingly you find that when he came down first upon Mount Sinai he was attended with a loud sounding Trumpet with Thunders and Lightnings with Fire and Smoak and all the Equipage of a most dreadful Majesty such as caused the Mountain and the People to tremble Exod. 19. 16 20. And afterwards it is said that the Glory in which he appeared when the People saw him upon the Mount was like a devouring Fire in which glorious Appearance he afterwards removed into the Tabernacle and there abode between the Cherubims Exod. 40. 34 35. And when in all this dreadful Majesty he appeared unto them they are kept at a great Distance from him and were severely forbid to approach him lest he should break forth upon them and destroy them Exod. 19. 24. And whenever they provoked him by their Murmurings and Rebellions his Wrath broke forth like Lightning upon them and consumed the ring-leading Rebels that by their Example the rest might be warned to do no more wickedly Thus in all his Converses with them he clothed himself in a formidable Majesty to break and awe their sturdy Spirits and force their stiff Necks to yield to the Yoke of his Sovereign Authority But when he assumed our Nature and tabernacled among us in our Flesh he laid by that astonishing Majesty that was wont to render him so dreadful to the Israelites and put on all the Condescentions and Sweetnesses of a most familiar and endearing Conversation and conversed among Men in such a generous friendly and courteous Manner as was most apt to charm and inamour the World He was free without being vain or trifling serious without being four or morose his Humour always chearful and uniform and his Gravity was equally distant from Moroseness and Vanity and in a word his Deportment was made up of all the Accomplishments that can command either Love or Honour And though now and then he falls into high Expressions of Indignation yet 't was only against those base Fellows the Pharisees who under a Pretence of being Saints and the Godly Party were bloted up with Pride and Arrogance and canker'd with Malice and ill Nature for which they were so abominable in his Eyes whose Temper was altogether so loving and divine that he could not mention them without calling them Hypocrites and the Children of the Devil And if to all this you add his profound Humility and Condescention his Meekness under Reproaches and his Constancy and Patience under the greatest Sufferings how much more sweet grateful and charming was this than when he appeared in such a dreadful and astonishing Majesty upon Mount Sinai and in the Tabernacle of Moses 'T is true the Innocency and Purity of his Life the Divinity of his Doctrine and the many mighty Miracles that he wrought could not but imprint an awful Majesty upon his Person but yet 't was a graceful Majesty a Majesty full of Grace and Sweetness and such as was much more apt to endear than to affright Men For as for the Virtue of his Life and the Divinity of his Doctrine it could not but attract all those who had any Love and Esteem for Virtue and Goodness And as for his Miracles they were vastly different from those which he wrought in the Wilderness which had little else in them but Matter of Terror and Astonishment but these were all such as did express his Kindness to the World and so were much more apt to oblige than to terrify those that beheld them For he went about doing good aâ—d healing all that were oppress'd with the Devil Acts 10. 38. and healing all manner of Sickness and all manner of Diseases among the People Matth. 4. 23. So that in respect of the Sweetness and Obligingness of his Conversation he tabernacled among us full of Grace in Contradistinction to that terrible Majesty in which he tabernacled among the Iews 2dly He tabernacled among us full of Grace in regard of the Sweetness and Gentleness of his Laws in Contradistinction to those many burthensom Precepts which he gave when he tabernacled among the Iews It 's apparent by the History of that People that they were obstinately addicted to the Customs of Egypt from whence they were brought and of the Neighbouring Nations round about them and thence it was that notwithstanding those manifest Discoveries that God had made of himself to them and of his being the only true God such as one would have thought had been sufficient to have convinced the most obstinate Gainsayers yet ever and anon we find them starting aside to the Idolatrous Customs of the Gentiles and revolting from that God who had so gloriously manifested himself among them The Eternal Word therefore when he came to tabernacle among them he gave them abundance of Laws the Matter of which was in its own Nature perfectly indifferent that by those as by so many Bounds and Fences he might keep them from breaking out of God's Inclosure into the wild Common of Gentilism and such were the greatest Part of their Ceremonial Laws some of which were instituted in Compliance with the more innocent Rites of the Heathen and others in opposition to those which were purely magical and idolatrous And hence it is that in the Law of their Ceremonies there are so many things enjoined them of which we can give no tolerable Account they being either innocent
a Mind to stear and manage it it would be an equal Chance whether we did well or ill with it So that unless there were some Vnderstanding either within or without us to conduct our active Powers and determine them to our Good we were as good be altogether without them because while they act by Chance it is at least an equal Lay whether they will injure or advantage us Since therefore Vnderstanding is the Rule and Measure of all our other Powers it necessarily follows that it self is the greatest and noblest of them all What an excellent Being therefore must a Soul be in which this great and Sovereign Power resides a Power that can collect into it self such prodigious Numbers of simple Apprehensions and by comparing one with the other can connect them into true Propositions and upon each of these can run such long and curious Descants of Discourse till it hath drawn out all their Consequents into a Chain of wise and coherent Notions and sorted these into such various Systems of useful Arts and Sciences That can discern the Harmonious Contextures of Truths with Truths the secret Links and Junctures of coherent Notions trace up Effects to their Causes and sift the remotest Consequents to their natural Principles That 〈◊〉 Abroad its sharp-sighted Thoughts over the whole Extent of Beings and like the Sun with it s out-stretched Rays reach the remotest Objects That can in the Twinkling of an Eye expatiate through all the Vniverse and keep Correspondence with both Worlds can prick out the Paths of the Heavenly Bodies and measure the Circles of their Motion span the whole Surface of the Earth and dive into its Capacious Womb and there discover the numerous Offsprings with which it is continually teeming That can sail into the World of Spirits by the never-varying Compass of its Reason and discover those invisible Regions of Happiness and Misery which are altogether out of our sight whilest we stand upon this hither Shore In a word That can ascend from Cause to Cause to God who is the Cause of all and with its Eagle-Eyes can gaze upon that glorious Sun and dive into the infinite Abyss of his divine Perfections What an excellent Being therefore is that Soul that is endowed with such a vast Capacity of Vnderstanding and with its piercing Eye can reach such an immense Compass of Beings and travail through so vast an Horizon of Truth Doubtless if humane Souls had no other Capacity to value themselves by but only this this were enough to give them the Preheminence over all inferiour Beings and render them the most glorious Part of all this sublunary World 2. The Soul of Man is of vast Worth in Respect of its Capacity of Moral Perfection For by the Exercise of those humane Vertues which are proper to it in this state of Conjunction with the Body it is capable of raising it self to the Perfection of those Angelical Natures which of all Creatures do most nearly approach and resemble the great Creator and Fountain of all Perfection For by keeping a due Restraint upon its bodily Appetites and thereby gradually weaning it self from the Pleasures of the Body it may by degrees be educated and trained up to lead the Life and relish the Joys of naked and immortal Spirits it may be contempered to an incorporeal State so as to be able to enjoy it self without eating and drinking and live most happily upon the Fare of Angels upon Wisdom and Holiness and Love and Contemplation And then by governing its own Will and Affections by the Laws of Reason and Religion it may be degrees improve it self so far in all these Moral Endowments which are the proper Graces of every reasonable Nature as to be at last as perfectly wise and reasonable in its own Choices and Refusals in its Love and Hatred in its Desires and Delights as the Angels themselves are For though it cannot be expected that in this imperfect state a Soul should arrive to such a Pitch as this yet even now it may be growing up and aspiring to it which if it doth as I shall shew you by and by when this is expired it hath another Life to live which being antecedently prepared for by those spiritual Improvements it hath made here will furnish it with Opportunites of improing infinitely faster than here it did or possibly could For in that Life it shall not only be freed from those many Incumbrances which do here retard it in its spiritual Progress nor shall it only be associated with a World of pure and blessed Spirits whose holy Example and wise Converse will doubtless wonderfully edifie and improve it but be also admitted into a more intimate Acquaintance with God who is the Author and Pattern of all Perfection the sight of whose ravishing Beauty will inflame it with a most ardent Love to him and excite it to a most vigorous Imitation of him All which considered it is not to be imagined how much the state of Heaven will immediately improve those happy Souls that are prepared and disposed for it But then considering that Moral Perfection is as infinite as the Nature of God in which there is an Infinity of Holiness and Iustice and Goodness within this boundless Subject there will be Room enough for Souls to make farther and farther Improvements in even to Eternity And then when they shall still be growing on so fast and yet be still forever improving to what a transcendent Height of Glory and Perfection will they at last arrive For tho no finite Soul can ever arrive to an infinite Perfection yet still it may be growing on to it because there will still be possible Degrees of it beyond its present Attainments and when it is arrived to the farthest imaginable Degree yet still it will be capable of farther and so farther and farther to all Eternity And if so O blessed God of what a Capacious Nature hast thou made these Souls of ours which tho they will doubtless improve in Goodness as fast in the other Life as is possible for them with all the Advantages of a Heavenly State yet will never attain to an utmost Period but still be growing perfecter and perfecter forever 3. The Soul of Man is of vast Worth in Respect of its immense Capacities of Pleasure and Delight For its Capacity of Pleasure must necessarily be as large and extensive as its Capacity of Vnderstanding and of Moral Perfection because the proper Pleasure of a Soul results from its own Knowledge and Goodness from its farther Discoveries of Truth and farther Proficiency in inward Rectitude and Vertue and consequently as as it Improves farther and farther in Vnderstanding and in Moral Perfection it must still gather more and more Fuel to feed and encrease its own Joy and Pleasure For the Pleasure of every Being consists in the vigorous Exercise of its Faculties about convenient and agreable Objects but the Faculties of a Soul are Vnderstanding and Will to which
the Use of our Reason for in our tender years these are the only Goods that we can relish they are these that do feed clothe and furnish us in hand with whatsoever our natural Appetites do gape for that are the sole Entertainment of our childish Fancies and the only Objects our yet unfledg'd Thoughts and Desires can reach at and our Youth being thus intirely inured to them by that time we are grown up to the Age of Reason and the Capacities of Virtue and Religion we have generally contracted such an excessive Inclination towards them and are so strongly biass'd with the Love of them that whensoever they beckon to us we are ready to follow them through all the forbidden Tracts that lead to everlasting Ruin For our Natures being thus vitiated the Temptations without us have a strong Party within us a Party of traytorous Inclinations which upon every Summons sollicites us to yield and surrender up our Vertue and Innocence and no sooner can any Temptation from without give the Alarm but presently our own Lusts are up raising a Mutiny within us and with the Heats of our corrupted Fancy do many times so disorder our Understanding that it cannot rally up its Considerations against them For before ever our Understanding could be Furnished with Considerations our Hearts were prepossessed with such an excessive degree of ambitious covetous and luxurious Inclinations that when afterwards the Pleasures Profits and Honours without begin to hold forth their grateful Lures to us and to tempt us away to Fraud or Treachery to Vanity or Licentiousness those depraved Inclinations have gotten such Head within us that they prove most commonly too strong for all our Consideration and with their impetuous Current carry us away and drive us headlong down towards eternal Ruin and unless we put forth all the strength of our Reason and Resolution and the Grace of God also come in to our Aid it will be impossible for us to stem such a furious Tide when it is driven by the Wind of an outward Temptation When therefore our own Inclinations do so vigorously conspire with the Temptations without to thrust us on into Sin and Perdition how can we be insensible of the eminent danger we are in of Miscarrying forever But 5ly We are liable also to fall into a sinful State and from thence into Eternal Misery from the unwearied Diligence and great Subtilty of the Devil to make Use of and apply these Temptations to us For that the Devil doth commonly as an assistant Genius to the Corruption of our Natures excite and provoke Men to Wickedness is very evident from Scripture where he is said to work in the Children of Disobedience Eph. 2. 2. To fill the Heart of Ananias to lye to the Holy Ghost Acts. 5. 3. And to take away the Word out of Mens hearts lest they should believe and be saved Luke 8. 12. All which Expressions do plainly imply that the Devil is a constant Agent in the Sins of Men. And being a Spiritual Agent he must needs be supposed to have a nearer Access to the Soul than any material Cause whatsoever For tho he be totally debarr'd from all kind of Intercourse with the immediate Operations of the reasonable Soul and can no more look into the Thoughts than we can into the Bowels of the Earth yet he can easily get into the Fancy which stands next to that mysterious Chamber that is open to no Eye but Gods and make what use he pleases of the infinite Images and Phantasms that are in it and dispose and order and distinguish them into the Pictures of what Objects he pleases just as the Painter doth his numerous Colours that lie confusedly before him in their several Shells and continue and repeat those Pictures and Representations as long and as oft as he pleases And then considering what the natural Use of the Fancy is both to the Vnderstanding and Will how it prompts the one with matter of Invention and supplies it with Variety of Objects to work on and draws forth and excites the other to chuse or reject those Objects it presents according as they are pleasing or displeasing we must needs suppose that the Devil hath a vast Advantage of insinuating his black Suggestions into the Soul by having such free Access into the Fancy And accordingly he is said to put it into the heart of Iudas to betray Christ John 13. 2. But then he being not only a spiritual but also an intellectual Agent of a vast and capacious Understanding by Nature and particularly improved in the black Art of tempting by a long Experience of its Wiles and Stratagems having been a Tempter almost ever since he hath been an Angel he must needs be supposed to be wonderfully expert and sagasious in it that after having had five Thousand years experience of the Methods of seducing Souls to increase and perfect his natural Subtilty he must by this be fully instructed when and how to apply himself to every Age and Constitution For this hath been his sole Business wherein he hath been infinitely intent and active ever since he became a Devil and if from a Man then much more from a Devil of one Busines Good Lord deliver me from a Devil that for five thousand Years hath been continually making Experiments of Temptation and drawing them into Rules to direct and order his mischievous Practice on the Souls of Men. But besides as the Devil is of a spiritual and intelligent Nature so he hath a vast Number of his black Angels continually roving about the World to seduce and captivate us into Sin and Ruin And tho these malignant Spirits have no ligament of natural Love between them to tie and oblige them to one another yet by that perfect Hatred which they all bear to God and Men they are united together in an inviolable League and go hand in hand with one another in pursuance of their desperate Design to involve our wretched Souls in the same eternal Ruin with themselves which renders their Force so much the more formidable And when we have so many spiritual subtil and Powerful Adversaries combining against and continually wandring to and fro like roaring Lyons to devour us we cannot but apprehend our Danger exceeding great especially considering the infinite Temptations from without that this World fords the great Variety of sensual Goods and Evils which they have to object to our carnalized Minds For these mischievous Spirits having so great Insight into our Tempers and so great a Choice of Objects to suggest to our Fancies can never be at a Loss how they may nick us vvith a convenient Temptation and that which gives their Temptations a vast Advantage over us is that vve knovv not hovv to distinguish them from the Motions of our own Hearts For could vve see the Devil at our Elbovvs or hear him vvhispering at our Ears every time he insinuates his wicked suggestions into our Minds vve should doubtless
the Eyes c. which Characters are proper only to that inward and spiritual Sense of the Law that was decyphered upon those outward Signs and Ceremonies Which Sense seems to have been very little taken notice of by the sottish Vulgar for only the Ceremony it self was Matter of Law to them which if they observed they were not punishable by that Law though they never took notice of its spiritual Sense and Meaning which made them neglect that inward Purity which was pictured on those outward Signs and place the whole of their Righteousness in an outside ceremonious Pageantry Hence is that of St. Paul 2 Cor. 3. 13 14 15. I used saith he great plainness of Speech And not as Moses which put a Vail over his Face that the Children of Israel could not stedfastly look unto the end of that which is abolished But their Minds were blinded for until this day remaineth the same Vail untaken away in the reading the Old Testament which Vail is done away in Christ By which Vail he means those outward Shadows and Types in which the mystical Sense of the Law was wrapt and involved and it seems they were so taken with the Pomp and Gaity of the outside that they never minded that rich Treasure of Sense that was contained within it and which the Apostle here calls the End of that which is abolished yea to this day saith he the Vail of outward Ceremonies stands so much in their Light that they cannot discern the internal Sense of the Old Testament but now saith he it is done away by Christ. Now that the Eternal Word hath pitched his Tabernacle in our Nature those outward Types wherein this inward Purity of Soul was so obscurely intimated are vanished like Clouds before the Sun and in their room are introduced the most pure and spiritual Laws of the Gospel which are no longer couched in Types and Ceremonial Shadows but in plain and naked Propositions Now internal Holiness is palpably declared to be the great Design of Religion that we should cleanse our selves from all Filthiness of Flesh and Spirit and perfect Holiness in the fear of God This therefore is another Instance of Christ's tabernacling among us full of Truth viz. the Purity and Spirituality of his Laws which heretofore he mystically represented to the Iews by outward Rites and Ceremonies 3. Another Instance of his tabernacling among us full of Truth in Contradistinction to that obscure typical Way of his conversing among the Iews is the Condition and Quality of his Church and Kingdom The Eternal Word designing to erect a glorious Kingdom in the World drew as it were a rude Scheme or Draught of it in the Form and Model of the Iewish Polity For first he erects a Kingdom among them of which himself was King to typify that Spiritual Kingdom which afterwards he meant to establish in the World then he adopts the Iews to be his Children by the external Sign of Circumcision who are therefore called a Holy Seed which was an Emblem of that holy Seed which afterwards he designed to beget to himself by spiritual Regeneration which is therefore called the Circumcision of the Heart whose Praise is not of Men but of God His delivering them from the Bondage of Egypt and leading them through the Red-Sea and the Wilderness into Canaan typified his delivering of his future Church from the Bondage of Sin and Satan and leading it by his own gracious Presence through the Red-Sea of Blood and Persecutions and the Wilderness of the World to the Canaan of eternal Rest. His giving the Law on Mount Sinai in Fire was a Figure of his delivering the Gospel by the Spirit which came down in fiery cloven Tongues at the Feast of Penteâ—ost Thus his erecting the Ark in the Wilderness was also another Type of that Spiritual Kingdom which afterwards he meant to erect in the World The divers Ornaments and Instruments of that Tabernacle represented the Diversity of spiritual Gifts and Functions in the Christian Church it s being covered with Skins without and adorned with Gold within shadowed the mean and contemptible Form wherein the Christian Church first appeared to the World notwithstanding the inward Glory and Purity with which it was adorned and embellished The Glory of God appearing in the Tabernacle denoted the Presence of Christ in his Church which he hath promised to continue to the end of the World it s being removed from Place to Place and finding no Rest till it was lodged in the Temple prefigured the persecuted State of the Primitive Church which was hunted up and down the World by the mighty Nimrods of the Earth and could find no Rest till it was transported to the Heavenly Temple By these and such like Types and Shadows did the Eternal Word prefigure the State and Condition of his future Church that so when it came to be erected in the World the Iews might know and own it having seen it before-hand so exactly decyphered and adumbrated in the very Frame and Model of their own Polity But when he came to tabernacle in our Nature he gave actual Being to those Things which before he only shadowed and represented for then he erected this glorious Church of which the Iewish was only a Model and Platform delivered it from the Egyptian Bondage of Wickedness and Idolatry and by his own glorious Presence conducted the Members of it through all the Persecutions of an enraged World to the Canaan of eternal Rest and therefore this also is another plain Instance of his tabernacling among us full of Truth the State and Condition of his Church which before was so obscurely represented 4. And lastly Another Instance of his tabernacling among us full of Truth in Contradistinction to that obscure and typical Way of his conversing among the Iews is the glorious Recompences which he hath so plainly and clearly promised to his Subjects For this he also obscurely typified to the Iews for as I have already hinted by that Canaan which he bestowed upon them after their tedious Travel through the Wilderness he did darkly represent to them that Canaan above flowing with infinite Delights which he hath promised to bestow upon his faithful Servants after they have pass'd through the Wilderness of this World So also by their Sabbaoths and especially their Year of Iubilee wherein they were to rest from all their Labours and keep a perpetual Festivity He did obscurely decypher to them that Sabbaoth of Rest and Iubilee of endless Pleasure which vertuous Souls shall enjoy in Heaven after they have finished their Labours here on Earth as you may see at large Heb. 4. Now by these and such like Shadows of their Law which possibly the Prophets by Divine Inspiration might expound to them those who were wise and good among them it is very probable were instructed in the Article of eternal Life Hence it may be might arise that famous Controversy among the Iews concerning the Written and Oral
courted you to accept of it and though time after time you scornfully refused and rejected it yet in hope that at last you might be prevailed with you know how long I waited upon you even till you had tired out my Patience and I saw there was no Remedy And do you now charge your not returning to your Duty upon your Hoplesness of Pardon for your former Rebellions 'T is true Lord we cannot deny but thou didst offer us Pardon but alas it was upon an impossible Condition even upon a hearty Repentance and a thorough Reformation which thou knewest we were not then able to perform For by a long Custom of Rebellion against thee we had contracted so many inveterate evil Habits which had so weaken'd and debilitated our Powers that we were no more able to reform and amend our selves than the Leopard is to change his Spots or the Aethiopian his Skin To what Purpose then should we attempt Impossibilities or set our selves to wrestle with Difficulties which we knew we were never able to surmount But pray how did you know that it was impossible for you to repent when by all the Arguments I used with you I could never persuade you to make Trial of it You know in your own Consciences that there are many things that you could do you could have betaken your selves to a serious Consideration of the Duties and Motives of Religion you could have attended and abstained at least from the outward Acts of Sin and humbly implored my Grace and Assistance and that to encourage you to do this and what else was in your Power I gave you the most ample Assurance in the World that I would back and enforce your Endeavours with the Aids of my Grace and in despite of all opposition crown them with Success So that though by your own single Strength indeed you could never have effected your Repentance yet it was far from being impossible to you since you knew that by doing what was in your power you should infallibly oblige me to enable you to do all the rest But blessed Lord what Encouragement had we to repent and return to our Duty for if we had done it we must have bid adieu for ever to all those Pleasures and Delights by which we were invited and detained in the Service of our Lusts and Thou offered'st us nothing in exchange for them but only Sighs and Tears with other ungrateful Rigours of a bitter and severe Repentance How then canst thou blame our Disobedience against thee when we had so many inviting Temptations to it and so little Encouragement to the contrary O prodigious Impudence with what Face can you assert such a notorious Falshood when you know in your own Consciences that besides all those Pleasures that are connatural to my Service and which do vastly exceed all the Pleasures of Sin I laid an immortal Crown at your Feet and faithfully promised you that if you would but spend a short Life in my Service I would at the End of it receive you into that blissful State where you should be happy beyond all your Wishes and to the utmost Capacity of your Nature where you should live with God and Angels in the most rapturous Exercise of everlasting Love and Joy which one would have thought had been sufficient to recompence you for those silly Pleasures for whose sake you deserted me and my Service But since you have trampled upon all my Offers and would by no means be perswaded by all those mighty Tenders I have made you Go ye deservedly cursed into ever Hold Lord we beseech thee and before thou passest thy irrevocable Doom upon us hear this last Petition we shall make for our selves We now confess that we are fully convinc'd and O that we had understood it sooner what infinite Reason we had to adhere to thee and thy Service It is our Misery that these things were not sooner discover'd to us or at least that they were not so clearly discovered as to convince and perswade us Had we but known what we now know we would never have deserted thee as we did and therefore we beseech thee have Pity upon our Ignorance and impute not to our Wills the Faults of our Vnderstandings which are not in our Power to remedy Why is this the utmost that you can plead for your selves Have I not told you all these things before-hand as plainly as Words could express them Have I not instituted an Order of Men in my Church to explain these things to you and to put you in mind of them So that whatever you pretend you could not but know and understand them or if you did not it was because you would not And if you would wilfully shut your Eyes against the Light it was your own Fault that you did not see and you may thank your selves for the Consequents of it I plainly told you where your Wickedness would end and unless you were wilfully blind you could not but see what the Event of your Sin would prove even while you were committing it and you know in your own Consciences that this fearful Doom which now you deprecate you were fairly warned of when you might have easily avoided it by a timely Submission but you would not And seeing you would be so mad as to reject Heaven when it lay before you and leap into Hell with your Eyes open your Blood be upon your own Heads For I have tried all the Arts of Love and Methods of Kindness to reclaim you and since you have render'd them all ineffectual what remains but that you depart from me like accursed Wretches as you are into that everlasting Fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels And now I beseech you do not your own Consciences consent to the Justice and Righteousness of this Procedure Is there any tolerable Plea you can urge at the Judgment-Seat of Iesus Christ which here hath not been fully answered And if so how inexcusable shall we be when we come to plead our own Cause in the great Assembly of Spirits For when these Aggravations of our Disobedience shall be laid open our Guilt will appear so foul and monstrous that we shall doubtless be condemned by the unanimous Vote of all the Reasonable World and as soon as the great Judge hath pass'd his Sentence upon us our own Consciences will be forc'd to eccho Iust and righteous art thou O Lord in all thy Ways Wherefore as we would not be found inexcusably guilty when we come to plead for our Lives before the Tribunal of our Saviour let us all be perswaded to return to his Service and faithfully to continue in it that so instead of Go ye cursed we may hear from his Mouth that welcome Approbation Well done good and profitable Servants enter into the Ioy of your Master III. I come now to the last Proposition in the Text viz. And we beheld his Glory the Glory as of the only Son of the Father In
retained against you and the Man being got loose from all the Tyes and Obligations of Fidelity you may be sure he will stick at nothing be it never so foul that his present Interest invites him to to serve himself he will make no Bones whenever he hath a fair Opportunity to cheat and betray his own Father or supplant his dearest Friend or Benefactor and what should hinder him his Conscience and Religion being gone and with them all binding Principles of Truth and Honesty For when a Man forsakes his Religion out of any vicious Affection he doth in Effect make this publick Declaration to the World By this my own Act and Deed I do here for ever renounce all the Obligations to Honesty and fair Dealing with God or Men and am resolved for the future to be deaf and inexorable to all the Importunities of Conscience and Religion From henceforth I will listen to no other Call but that of my worldly Interest when that bids me be honest I will be honest and when it bids me play the Knave I will play the Knave and therefore for the future I warn all that know me to trust me no farther than they can make it my Interest to be true and not to venture the most trifling Matter in which they are unwilling to be wronged either upon my Faith or Word or Oath without demanding of me such ample Securities as may render it impossible for me to wrong them without wronging my self For this is the Principle I now intend to live by That is always best and fittest to be done that is most subservient to my present Interest This in Construction of Fact is the Profession which that Man takes up who in Compliance with any vicious Affection abandons the Profession of his Religion 4. Consider the shameful Cowardize of it The Advantages of true Religion are great enough to encourage a Mind of any Constancy or Firmness to charge through the greatest Difficulties the World can interpose between them and him Who that hath the Spirit of a Man would ever boggle to wade through a narrow shallow Stream of temporary Sufferings whilst on the farther Shore he beholds a Heaven of immortal Joys ready to receive and reward him But for a Man to turn his Back and run away from God and Heaven for Fear only of being disappointed by some leud or covetous or ambitious Hope is such an Instance of vile prostitute Baseness as is beneath even Contempt and Derision For what Danger or Difficulty dares that Wretch encounter that dares not stand by his Religion in which he confesses all his future Hopes are involved for Fear of losing such a Place or being disappointed of such a Preferment which within a few Days or Years he knows very well he must lose for ever He who hath a Mind capable of being scared out of his Religion by such mean Considerations as these is good for nothing but only to be made the Foot-Ball of Fortune to be kick'd up and down upon her scornful Toe at Pleasure who by threatning him with the smallest Evil can huff him out of the greatest Good and finding him a wretched passive Thing that hath not Strength enough to resist her weakest Impressions makes him her Sport and Recreation and turns him into any Thing and tosses him any whither she pleases from Truth to Falshood from God to the Devil and from Heaven to Hell without the least Controul or Opposition For the poor Man's Soul is grown so tender and effeminate that for the greatest Good in all the World he cannot endure the least Air of Suffering to blow upon him Tell him of Suffering for Righteousness Sake and the very Thought of it frights and appales him Present but a Persecution at his Breast and bid him stand and deliver and the crest-fallen Pultroon is presently ready to cry out O spare my Life spare my Skin and take my Religion take my God and all my Hopes of Heaven and Immortality And who but an infamous Coward would ever endure to be hector'd out of so vast a Good by the weak and impotent Evils of this World which if they do their worst can only rob him of a few transitory Enjoyments which without their Constraint he must ere long take his leave of for ever How ridiculously mean-spirited would it be for a Man to deliver up his Purse to a Thief who he knows hath no other Weapon but a slender Switch to hurt and offend him But for a Man to deliver up his Religion and with that his God and his Heaven at the demand of a short Skin-deep Affliction which can only disease him for a few Moments and shall then determine in everlasting Pleasure and Delight is a thousand times more mean and ridiculous 5. And Lastly Consider the vast Hazard and Insecurity of a Man's parting with his Religion in Compliance with his vicious Affections For that which moves him to it is only his Prospect of living at Ease a few Years longer or gratifying some covetous Desire or Ambition but whether he obtain these Ends by parting with his Religioâ— is vastly hazardous and insecure Perhaps when I have acted this impious and perfidious Part I may be cast into such Circumstances as may force me upon impartial Reflections and make me see whether I will or no the Blackness and Infamy of my Revolt and Apostacy which if it should happen would inevitably raise such a Swarm of Horrors in my Conscience and cast me into such Agonies and Convulsions of Soul as will render me a Hell and a Devil to my self and give me a thousand times more Pain and Uneasiness than all those temporal Evils could have done for fear of which I ran away from my Religion And if to shun Poverty I should throw my self into Desparation if to avoid a Prison which to an innocent Mind with a righteous Cause can make a Heaven upon Earth I should cast my self into a Hell upon Earth if to keep in a whole Skin I should bring upon my self the intollerable Anguish of a wounded Spirit if to escape being rejected disgraced and discountenanced by Men I should expose my self to the perpetual Clamour and Reproaches of my own Conscience If these Things I say should happen as it s very probable they may I shall find my self miserably disappointed of that Ease and quiet Enjoyment for the sake of which I basely abandoned my Religion I shall find that to save my Garments from being singed I have thrown my Body into a consuming Flame and only exposed my Breast to save my Buckler But then suppose this should not happen suppose my Conscience should be stupid and insensible enough to bear the Guilt of my Apostacy without Remorse or Relenting yet my Prospect of Gain and Advancement in this World is extreamly hazardous and insecure For it is a thousand to one but they to whose Religion I turn and upon whose Favour I depend will by one Means or other