of Heathen Philosophers tended to no other End than to foment their Pride and create in them a vain Opinion of their own Wisdom and Merits They referred it not to God nor employed it as a Principle of obedience to him It abated not their Passions reformed not their Lusts and had no visible influence upon their Lives save in making them haughty and supercilious the constant Character of those Philosophers In opposition to this the Apostle Wills that we express the Divinity of our Reâ—…igion in the Holiness of our Lives that we be not puft up with Pride nor imagine it to be the product either of our own merit or understanding that we acknowledge to have received it from God and profess that we expect either to be saved or damned by our obedience to the Rules of it that we perpetually maintain an awful regard of the Commands of our Almighty Lawgiver and set our selves to the performance of them with the most profound Humility and Submission that we be not affrighted from the profession of our Faith by the greatest threats or Terrours nor be betrayed to the Omission of our Duty by supine Negligence and want of Consideration But this in a word That we be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh us a reason of the hope that is in us with meekness and fear In Discoursing of these words I shall insist upon these two Heads which naturally offer themselves to our Consideration I. That the Christian Religion is agreeable to the Principles of Reason and carrieth sufficient Evidence along with it II. That it is the Duty of every Christian not wanting the means of sufficient Instruction to enable himself to give a Reason of his Faith I. That the Christian Religion c. For the Apostle commanding us To be always ready to give a reason of the hope that is in us plainly intimates that a Reason may be given of it For that by this term of the hope that is in us is to be understood the whole System of our Faith appears as well from the Context as from the frequent Acceptation of those words in the same Sense in divers places of the New Testament This Religion as it carrieth eminent Marks of its Divinity on many other Accounts so chiefly in the reasonableness and evidence of it and that either 1. In respect of the Nature of it and the Rules prescribed by it Or 2. In respect of the undoubted certainty of its having been revealed by God I. If we respect the Nature and Constitution of the Christian Religion and the Rules of Life and Worship proposed by it we shall find it exactly rational and attended with the greatest Evidence This might be proved by many Considerations But at present I shall insist on no more than two As I. Christianity proposeth a Divine Worship most consentaneous to the Nature of God and tendeth most effectually to secure his Honour among men The Brimary end of all Religion is the Worship of God and is intended cither to pay to God that tribute of Adoration and Thanks which his infinite Majesty and right of Creation Redemption and other benefits require or to implore his Favour in pardoning our sins supplying our Necessities or conferring his Graces on us All these Actions ought to be directed in that way which is most sutable to his Nature and may best express the perfection of it God is a Spirit and therefore requireth to be worshipped in spirit and truth Our Soul alone is truly capable of Religon can alone entertain the Idea of God and form an Act of Worship All outward Ceremonies and corporeal Modes of Worship are no otherwise Holy or to be accounted of than as they tend to shew the inward Devotion of the Soul which is wont to declare its Thoughts and Motions when vehement and intense by external Indications All other voluntary external Acts of Worship which are not the natural Effects and Signs of an inward Zeal and warmth of Devotion serve only to gratifie a foolish Superstition and relate no more to the Worship of God than any other irregular Motions of the Body If we really imploy the Faculties of our Soul as we ought to do in admiring the perfections of the Divine Nature in adoring his Majesty loving his Goodness and fearing his Justice these affections of the Mind will naturally discover themselves in outward Acts and Gestures and cannot be suppressed These external Actions declare to others the inward Sense of our Minds and thereby tend to manifest the Honour of God and publish his Glory but deserve no otherwise to be regarded either by God or Man than as they are the Signs and Effects of an inward Piety And hence we may judge of the Excellency of our Religion without considering the Evidence of its Revelation If it be chiefly employed in external Shews and Ceremonies and makes the performance of them without any inward Motion of the Soul an Act of Worship if it represents the Divine Attributes and Perfections by corporeal Symbols rather than noble Conceptions of the Soul and desires God to accept of that mean and imperfect Service instead of a near Conformity to himself by the Exercise of Holiness and Vertue Such a Religion may perhaps be true but neither agrceable to the Excellency of God nor answering to the Dignity of our own Nature God may accept it or even Command it for a time in Compassion to the Blindness and infirmity of Mankind not capable under some Circumstances of a more noble and spiritual Religion but could never intend to continue it any longer than till he should please to make a more full and open Revelation of himself And this was the Case of the Jewish Religion For the Heathens deserve not here to be considered among whom religious Worship consisted wholly in external Rites and Actions and those oft-times such as were in their own Nature unlawful The Religion of the Jews however instituted by God was chiefly employed in outward Rites and Observances in Washings and Abstinence from certain Meats in Observation of times and tedious Ceremonies which although they served to typefie the coming of the Messias and with him the Revelation of a more perfect Religion Yet did not directly signifie any inward Acts of Reverence Piety or Devotion nor were necessarily accompanied by them The perpetual offering of carnal Sacrifices alone argued the imperfection of their Worship Since therein the Sacrificers desired of God to accept the Lives of Beasts instead of a more holy and reasonable Sacrifice the devoting their own Wills and Affections to his Service 'T is the peculiar Honour of the Christian Religion to worship God in a manner agreeable to the simplicity of his Nature in Spirit and Truth In this the Affections of the Soul are alone respected no Ceremonial Observances imposed on us nor indeed any external Acts of Worship save only those Foederal Rites I mean the two Sacraments of Baptism and the
them When ye have lift up the Son of Man then shall ye know that I am He. And this in some measure mitigates and excuseth the present ignorance of the Apostles that they had not yet seen the completion of the last and greatest Acts of Christ particularly his Resurrection Lastly To say no more the extraordinary Gifts and Graces of the Holy Ghost were not yet poured forth Of these Gifts none of the least was a due preparation of Will and penetration of Judgment to conceive rightly the sence and meaning of all Divine Revelations and Mysteries This was afterwards plentifully poured down upon the Apostles as upon this Day but before that time was not conferred on them That the want of this extraordinary assistance of the Holy Ghost was a main cause of their Ignorance is plainly insinuated by all those Texts wherein Christ promiseth to the Apostles the Mission of the Holy Spirit to dispel their Ignorance and enlighten their understandings as in the words of the Text and John XV. 26. But when the Comforter is come whom I will send unto you from the Father even the Spirit of Truth which proceedeth from the Father he shall Testify of me and when He the Spirit of Truth is come He will guide you into all Truth The ordinary assistance of the Divine Spirit had indeed all along accompanyed the Apostles which had been abundantly sufficient when added to the Motives of Faith and advantages of Instruction which they received from Christ to inform them in all things necessary considered as private Persons if they had removed all prejudices and used due attention and reason but the extraordinary Inspiration of the Holy Ghost being not necessary was not yet conferred on them For the Holy Ghost was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified St. John VII 39. These were the principal causes of that Ignorance of the Apostles which we proposed to inquire into of that misapprehension of the Nature of our Saviours Office and Design which so eminently appears in the context as we before explained it which disabled them from considering the consequence of his Miracles For their heart was hardned Mark VI. 52. by reason of which They understood none of these things his Passion and Resurrection and this saying was hid from them neither knew they the things that were spoken Luc. XVIII 34. which caused the words of the women relating to the Resurrection of Christ to seem to them as idle Tales and incredible Fables Luc. XXIV 11. and the indignation of which drew from Christ that sharp Exprobration O ye of little faith Mattâ—… VIII 26. That this Ignorance ought not in the least to surprize us or induce us to entertain any thoughts prejudicial to Christianity it self appears from the Reasons which I have already assigned to it but will more fully be manifested in considering the second Head proposed which was To shew That the permission of this Ignorance till the sending of the Holy Ghost was not in the least repugnant to the Divine Wisdom or the design of the Gospel This will evidently appear from these two Considerations I. That it would be incongruous to the Divine Wisdom to use any extraordinary methods in removing the Ignorance of the Apostles and perfectly informing their Understandings until such Information not being possible to be obtained by the ordinary methods of Instruction should become absolutely necessary to the being of the Church II. That such a perfect and plenary Information was not necessary to the Apostles till after the Ascension of Christ. The first of these Propositions naturally follows from that known truth and received principle that God never worketh Miracles without necessity nor recurreth to extraordinary causes while natural and ordinary will suffice However fully to evince this matter and clear all remaining doubts I will consider all the possible methods of perfectly instructing the Apostles before the Ascension of Christ when the natural and ordinary means failed and demonstrate that God could not use any one of them without being injurious to his Wisdom and Honour These extraordinary methods may be reduced to these three Heads First God by his Almighty power might have over-ruled their understanding and without expecting the assent of the Will violently imprinted a perfect knowledge of his Revelations in it or even forced the Will to assent to it although it had not yet discoverd the truth of it But nothing can be imagined more injurious to the honour of God than a proceeding of this kind to prepare the way for Religion by violating those Priviledges of reasoning and free will which he at first conferred on them which were in truth to make Mankind happy by destroying their Nature Secondly our Saviour having already abundantly convinced the Apostles of the Divinity of his Mission and consequently of his Infallibity might have plainly and openly revealed to them all the Mysteries of his Religion and future Actions to be yet performed and required their immediate Assent to them without taking care to satisfie them at the same time of the truth and reasonableness of such Revelations by their Conformity to all precedent Revelations or the Law of Nature but this also was irrational in it self and consequently unworthy of the Divine Wisdom and might justly have been esteemed unsatisfactory by the Apostles For as they were fully convinced that our Saviour was a Divine Person so were they no less that all the precedent Revelations were delivered by inspired men and consequently deserved the same degree of Assent which his could do So that if the least repugnance between the Doctrine or Life of Christ and the ancient Prophesies could have been difcovered they were not in the least obliged to assent unto them Nay to a full and unexceptionable Proof of the truth of his Revelations it was not only necessary that no repugnance between them and the predictions of the Old Testament were discovered but also that an entire Conformity should appear Since the true Messias was by God designed to the Jews under those two Characters of extraordinary Miracles and perfect agreement of Life Actions and Doctrine to the precedent Predictions and Revelations and consequently could not be evidently distinguished without the concurrence of both those Proofs And indeed such an arbitrary Command of a blind Assent to any Revelations confirmed by Miracles without a previous Examination of the truth of them is so absurd and repugnant to the Laws of reasoning that it could not be used by Christ himself even in respect of Heathens For such a resignation of the Understanding could rationally be made to no other Authority than an Authority founded upon Arguments of greater Credibility than can be found in any other Case But such is not the Authority derived from Miracles for all objects of Sense and necessary Deductions from reason include at least an equal many a greater degree of Credibility I mean not hereby that any truths whatsoever can have a greater certainty than
to be founded by the Messias or expected from him which so long clouded the Understandings of the Apostles and hindred them from entertaining true Notions of that Mystery although having the Happiness to be brought up in a Christian and Orthodox Church we suck in true Notions of the Christian Religion in general even from our Infancy yet the prejudices which arise from our Passions and corrupt Affections are no less violent and betray us to no less fatal mistakes These not only defeat the Benefit of that assistance of the Holy Ghost in the Inquisition of truth which God hath promised to all well disposed Persons who rightly ask it of him but also directly introduce the foulest and most pernicious Errours by prompting us to form such Notions of Religion as may be most adapted and favourable to those corrupt Inclinations And this diligence in the Inquiry and Examination of our Religion will be so much the more necessary if we consider that God had indeed provided an effectual remedy for all the mistakes of the Apostles by the plentiful Effusion of the Holy Ghost upon them but hath left us to the ordinary Emanations and Assistance of the Divine Spirit which will lead us into all necessary Truths if our own Endeavours be not wanting but upon defect of those or any other due disposition of the mind will not only not produce this happy Effect but also depart from us II. The Sense of this great and inestimable Benefit conferred this day upon the Apostles and then upon the whole Church and our selves in particular ought to excite us to the utmost gratitude and engage us to endeavour not to render our selves unworthy of it at least not permit our selves to be ungrateful for it For this Benefit was not confined to the persons of the Apostles it brings down with it many great and inestimable advantages to the Church which continue till this day By this we are assured that the Christian Religion hath received the last degree of Confirmation by this we know that Christ hath really ascended into Heaven and there taken possession of his Kingdom that however he hath removed his corporeal Presence he still continues to be present with us by the Influences and Operations of the Holy Ghost that he ceased not at his Ascension to govern and take care of the Church but abundantly provided for the necessity and convenience of it by sending the third Person of the ever Blessed Trinity who might actuate and direct it and performing the Office of a Paraclet teach exhort comfort and intercede for every single Member of it By this the drooping Spirits of the Apostles were erected their Fears dispelled and their Minds enlightened by this the truth of the Christian Religion was put past all Dispute and the Church invigorated with such an assurance of Divine assistance as might secure it from all Dangers and place it beyond the rage of men or fury of Tyrants We also at this day partake of the blessed Effects of this great Benefit we share in the Joys of the Apostles and experience the Influences of that Divine Spirit By this they were inabled to convey down to us infallibly the Christian Religion and found a Church of which to be Members we esteem our greatest Happiness By this Spirit we are united to the Body of the Church to Christ our Head and to one another By this we are excited to vertue and the practice of our Duty are assisted in the search of Truth are comforted in Afflictions and upheld in Dangers This Spirit our Saviour promised ver 16. should abide with us for ever not in that measure indeed and abundance which was conferred on the Apostles but according to the proportion of our necessities and the Improvement of that present Portion which is already conferred on us Let us endeavour by an exact discharge of our Duty and daily improvement in Piety to augment our Interest in the benefits of this Day and favour of the Holy Ghost at least let us take care least by our negligence and degenerate Behaviour we forfeit our Title to them both Lastly as we are obliged to admire and celebrate the infinite Goodness of God in bestowing upon the Church the diffusive Presence of the Holy Ghost by his Mission as upon this Day so are we no less engaged to be thankful for his particular Presence in the Holy Sacrament since this not only gives us a firm assurance of the continuance of that Presence which was at first granted as so great a Blessing to the Apostles but also derives down upon all worthy Communicants as far as is necessary to them the same Gifts and Graces which the first Descent of it procured to the Apostles By this means we may not only commemorate but act anew and experience in our selves all the Glories of this day by receiving into our Souls a plentiful Effusion of the same Spirit But then as several previous Dispositions were required in the Apostles to qualifie them for the reception of so great a Benefit so must we prepare our selves for the Participation of so great a Mystery with no less diligence and caution that as they firmly believed and constantly expected the Promises of our Saviour although he had removed his Corporeal Presence from them so we should without any Fluctuation believe the certain performance of all those Graces which are promised to all worthy Communicants and that however his natural Body is absent from us yet he is really present in the Elements by the Efficacy and Operation of the Holy Spirit that as they prepared themselves for the reception of the Holy Ghost by an intire Resignation of their Wills to his influence and direction so we should fit our Souls for the Entertainment of all those Graces conferred in the Sacrament by a perfect Resignation of our selves to God and steady Resolution of performing his Commands And that as they in order to obtain the promised Mission of a Comforter met all together with one accord in one house so we in order to receive the mighty Benefits of this Sacrament should be united in perfect Charity to one another If any of these due Qualifications be wanting we shall be so far from obtaining any share in the Benefits of this Day or Commemorating as we ought the wonderful Mission of the Holy Ghost that we shall forfeit our Title to all the Benefits of the Gospel and do despight to the Spirit of Grace Now to God the Father God the Son c. The Second SERMON PREACH'D Septemb. 16th 1688. At LAMBETH CHAPEL Philip. II. 5. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus OUR blessed Saviour hath not only revealed to us the whole Will of God in relation to Mankind and thereby given to us a most excellent and truly Divine Religion but also set us a most perfect Example of Holiness and universal Righteousness in the whole Conduct of his Life therein exceeding all other Lawgivers