one with another For where envying and strife is iii. Jam. 16. there is confusion and every evil work The Devil gets in at this breach above all others and tempts men to the most dangerous sins and most spiritual wickednesses Which prove not only the ruin of particular souls but of whole Societies and Churches and therefore the causes of such divisions ought most carefully to be avoided if we would stand fast like men and be strong in the evil day This is a point to be now most diligently studied because it is of great necessity to this Church and at this time When we had need be all prepared to maintain at least the Truth which we profess but cannot in all likelyhood secure unless we strengthen our selves by being knit together most heartily and firmly in such Brotherly affection that though there be too many Dissenters God knows who cannot or will not conform to the publick Laws yet the peace be preserved and not the least thing done to disturb the settlement of this Church Which whatsoever defects any man may think it hath is so well constituted that as there is little hope to see a better so if it be disturbed we shall find to our cost that we have changed for one infinitely worse though it be one of our own making and devising Let us consider that if the Apostles and others thought themselves obliged to propagate the Truth it self in a peaceable manner even the most necessary and essential Truths of the Gospel of Christ which they Preached without any disturbance to the publick Government much more ought we to be very careful not to unsettle a Christian Church well established nor to make a rupture in it about those things which are now controverted Which might be better handled and to more advantage and hope of convincing one another if we did live in Unity and in the same Communion notwithstanding our differences than when we separate and divide one from another For then we begin to look upon each other as Enemies and are not so apt to be moved by those Arguments which might be very effectual if we continued knit together in the same Society But if this cannot be yet whatsoever different perswasions we have about Rites and Ceremonies and such like things I am sure it is every mans interest to be thus far a peaceable Dissenter as to comply with the publick order so far as he is able with a safe Conscience and where he cannot comply to be quiet not to make a stir by contradiction and opposition but merely to omit what he cannot do Not reviling the Publick Establishment nor indeavour to bring it into contempt and to overthrow it For whosoever spends his zeal that way and takes himself for a man of spirit doth but abuse himself and the Gospel in giving the name of courage to hardness of heart and calling that resolution which is mere insensibility of Gods Holy Laws about Humility Meekness Patience Peaceableness long-suffering and such like Vertues Which great things did we lay to heart we should be more quiet and not make a quarrel about the small matters which now divide us but rather bear with what is well settled and not impious than go about to mend it by fierce oppositions Which commonly produce bitter strife and contention and that is followed by worse disorders which the Apostles to avoid connived at many things among the Jewish Christians which they by no means approved of but desired to see reformed And after men have done all they can if they be not able to endure some things peaceably which they do not like they must seek for another kind of world than this and for more perfect Creatures than Men. There will be defects in all humane constitutions there will be variety of apprehensions even in those things which God himself hath declared after never so many changes we shall be as far from settlement as ever if we will not be quiet till all things be according to our mind And therefore I take it to be much better as a wise man resolved many years ago to be driven on shore by a storm though in a crazy vessel than in a stronger to be still upon a tempestuous sea in the power of the winds and in danger of Shipwracks As for us who have consented to be governed by the Laws of this Church and have submitted to its orders there needs not many words sure to perswade us to lay aside all our enmities though never so small at such a time as this together with all jealousies suspicions and evil surmises much more all evil-speakings and whatsoever is contrary to that love which ought to be between us We ought not now especially to be so much as cold towards one another because of any differences that may happen to be in our opinions or which we fancy to be between us but embrace each other with a fervent Charity as those who are linkt together by the same common faith and ingaged in the same common cause and must stand or fall together But in the prosecution of this weighty point I have been transported so far that I have left but little time for the remaining which I must therefore pass over the more briefly IV. The next is the Shield of Faith v. 16. which the Apostle saith we must above all things guard our selves withal That is we must continually represent to our minds by a strong and lively Faith the great rewards which Christ hath promised to his valiant followers These we must ever carry before our eyes as a Souldier did his shield that by an actual present sense of them we may beat off all assaults either from pleasure or from pain which are made upon us to move us from our duty For either of them may be understood by the fiery darts of the wicked which the Apostle here speaks of the motions to inordinate pleasure being sometimes no less hot and violent than the grief and pain which we feel by sore persecutions which are more peculiarly called in the Holy Scriptures by the name of the Fiery Trial. As those work very fiercely upon fear so do pleasures upon desire and by this Faith we shall be able to vanquish both Witness the Confessors and Martyrs who having first overcome themselves could not be moved from their stedfastness when they saw a real Fire before them into which they were threatned to be thrown if they did not recant the profession of Christianity This Shield of Faith was their security they being fully perswaded that Christ our Lord who is greater than all Kings having all power in Heaven and Earth would raise them from the dead to an immortal and more glorious life if they did not to gain or save the best thing in this world break any of his Sacred Laws For this Faith was so potent that it wrought in them a lively hope which is the next thing V. And take the Helmet
they can more easily assault us This he repeats again vers 13. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God that is because you have so many so great and dangerous Enemies to conflict withal take unto you to put it on that is that Divine Armour which God himself furnishes you withal and let no part of it be wanting but be intirely at all times covered with it that so you may be able to withstand or to resist with constancy and patience in the evil day or the time when you must indure many calamities for Christs sake And having done all to stand that is having compleated your resistance by an unyielding resolution to consent to nothing against your duty you may remain as conquerours over all those Enemies that assaulted you Stand therefore vers 14. he repeats it a third time the more to imprint their Duty in their mind and to excite and encourage them unto it He would not have them doubt of getting the better but be confident they should be able to withstand all manner of opposition provided they put on intirely that compleat Armour which he was about to recommend to them from God himself Without that their confidence even in Christ and his mighty Power would not keep them in safety but they were to trust in Him imploying those weapons which He had given them for their defence and security Let me therefore briefly explain them that you may see what you have to do if you would be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might In which it is impossible that any body should be able to direct you so well as the Apostle himself and therefore I shall seek for no other means of attaining this Divine strength but those which he hath set down in the remaining part of the Epistle for this day 1. And first you must take care to have your loyns girt about with truth vers 14. that is with a true understanding of all things that concern our duty safety and happiness Which we can receive from no place so certainly and so amply as from the Revelation our Lord hath made of the mind of God to us in his Gospel which is called the word of truth teaching us both what is true and false and what is good and evil so fully that we want no necessary Information Direction or incouragement in our Christian warfare Only we must make it our business throughly to understand the mind of God and to let it sit close to our hearts for that is to have it girt about us This will make us ready against all assaults and they will find us better prepared to receive them we shall be the more at liberty and have nothing interpose to intangle our mind and hinder us from doing our duty For that was the end of a Souldiers girding up his cloaths about his loyns that he might be the more nimble and expedite in action when he was not incumbred by his garments hanging loosely about his heels Such will the clear knowledge of things especially of the Truth as it is in Jesus render our minds Which will find themselves fit for any service and able to perform it with ease and freedom when they are delivered by this illumination from all vain opinions about those things which we call Good and Evil in this world from all false principles from causeless doubts and scruples from confusion of thoughts and uncertainty of mind which weaken and discourage the hearts of men in any incounter with their spiritual enemies Whose great advantage lyes in our ignorance and folly mistakes and false perswasions which this Divine Light shining in us will chase away and let us see through all the thin pretences whereby we are tempted to commit any Sin or to neglect our duty and make the vanity of them so transparent that we shall never be cheated by them any more For Truth is great and will prevail not indeed unless it be seated and rooted in our minds but if it have taken fast hold there it hath the Lord on its side whose mighty power resides there where his sacred Truth doth which being the sense of his own mind is something of himself residing in us There would not for instance be so many deserters and revolters from their Religion so many cowardly and timerous spirits who will do nothing for it so many cold and indifferent persons who care not what becomes of it if we understood the truth of it better and its principles did not hang loose in our minds but we had a lively sense of its excellency purity simplicity and Divine original Which would preserve us also from doing any thing unbecoming our Religion while we make profession of it and pretend to admire it and love it and to endeavour to preserve it For who could act contrary to its principles whose heart were affected deeply with this single truth that he who knows his Masters will and doth it not shall be beaten with many stripes It will go exceeding hard with that man and he will lye under the severest lashes of his own Conscience as well as under the heavy displeasure of his Lord and Master who taught him the way of God in truth if he would have taken care and set his heart to walk in it Which leads me to the next II. Unto this clear knowledg of the truth as it is in Christ we must add the Brest-plate of Righteousness Which is nothing else but integrity of heart and loyal Affection to our blessed Lord and Master Christ a sincere and unfeigned love to the business of Christianity which we understand to be the will of God For a Brest-plate you know is the defence of the region of the heart and Righteousness I take here to be as much as uprightness and sincerity in what we pretend and therefore both put together signifie the unfeigned bent of our will the cordial consent of our heart and affection to all that we know to be the mind of Christ aiming at nothing in the world but to keep a good Conscience and thereby to preserve the love of God and at last to obtain favour with Him in the day of the Lord. Which besides that it is most highly esteemed by our blessed Saviour above all knowledge and wisdom in the world and may certainly depend upon His power for the maintenance of that which is so dear unto Him hath many singular advantages in it to make us successful in our Christian warfare For a constant sense of our fidelity to our Lord naturally gives us a stronger confidence that He will be faithful unto us This makes us also as bold and fearless as Lyons when we have nothing within to dismay us but all the reason in the world to be secure and confident that we shall still attain our end which is to approve our selves to our Lord and Master whatsoever befals us And on the other side nothing more daunts all opposers
or strikes such a terror into our Enemies who are in dread of those alone who fear nothing but to lose their integrity If this be the sole thing we resolve to preserve and upon no terms part withal we shall have this advantage also by it that we shall the more clearly discern what is the surest way to safety in dangerous times if it may be had together with innocence Whereas they that bend every way and sail with every wind where they think their worldly interest lyes are alwayes blinded so much by that as never to see the rocks upon which they run and are split at last Now the surest mark of this integrity is an equal uniform zeal for all manner of goodness and vertue diffusing it self like the spiritous blood from the heart through the whole body of our Christian duty though never so cross to our natural inclination or worldly interest And as this is the surest mark of it so the surest way to preserve it is to give daily proofs of it to our selves upon all such occasions as continually present themselves which will wonderfully incourage and animate us to go on when we meet at any time with more dangerous opposition This will make us undaunted in case any hard service be put upon us when we are not conscious to our selves of any hypocrisie or base design or unworthy behaviour in lesser trials of our Christian resolution in the daily common course of our life Or if at any time we have prevaricated our Repentance for it hath been so sincere that in those instances especially wherein we did not keep our Faith with God we since have approved our selves better unto Him and given testimony of our renewed settled purposes by no means to displease Him This will arm us against the most terrible impressions that can be made upon us by the enemy of mankind against the sorest sufferings of which the Apostle here particularly speaks even against Death it self the last and greatest Enemy we have to conflict withal in whatsoever shape it shall approach us To be conscious then to our selves of no enormous crime or to call to mind how solicitously we have made our peace with God and what full satisfaction we have given for any injury done to our neighbour to have nothing then to agast us nothing to fill us with pale fears no guilt unrepented of to stare us in the face and threaten us will be as good a Brest-plate as if we were inviron'd with a wall of Brass Take a man that is just and upright unmoveable from his honest purpose that hath setled a firm love to Goodness in his Soul and neither the rage of the People nor the countenance of stern Tyrants commanding him wicked things will shake his solid mind but though the world should be supposed to crack and break in pieces and fall about his ears the ruin of it will oppress a fearless person Thus an Ancient Poet could boast inspired only with a natural sense which he had of the courage and strength that true integrity and sincere love to vertue gives the heart of him in whom it dwells He hath inward peace and tranquillity as an upright Christian feels more lively than any other man can do which makes him less regard all outward accidents Whereas if a mans heart correspond not with what he knows to be the truth what contentment can he have to suffer any thing for that which doth him no good Who can doubt but the covetous man will rather forsake the Truth than his Riches which he takes to be infinitely more pretious and an ambitious man rather quit it than his preferment and an intemperate man abandon it than forego his pleasure For they have corrupted his Soul and thereby made it weak and feeble and deprived it of that Breast-plate which a man that intirely loves the Truth and follows it is armed withal In one word if we have not sincerely practised that which we understand to be our duty or if we have done it lamely and by halves this will give us the most grievous wound when we reflect upon it and so gall our Consciences that we shall find it to be the sharpest Enemy we have in a day of trial III. But the Apostle further advises them if they would be strong in the Lord to have their feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace vers 15. In which advice he supposes that they who believed the Truth and heartily loved it would be desirous to propagate their belief and perswade others to entertain it For all men are naturally inclined to endeavour to make others of their opinion and the more necessary they apprehend any thing to be with the greater earnestness they press to have it generally received But he would have them be sure not to forfeit the reputation of true wisdom nor to lose their integrity which he had spoken of before by being turbulent in this business but dispose themselves to go for that is the end of putting on shoes and endeavour to spread the Gospel or Christianity among their neighbours after a peaceable manner Which are two counsels that contribute much to the securing our Christian Resolution For he that designs sincerely to promote Religion in others will not easily forsake it himself And the more good any man doth the more he is like to receive from the hand of the Lord. But we shall do little good unless we do it in a peaceable manner with the spirit of meekness and love and quietness without which a man can neither be thorougly Religious himself nor make others so For nothing more takes us all off from the business of true Religion than contentions and quarrels though they be about Religion Therefore we must follow Peace as well as that Purity without which no Man shall see the Lord and be readily prepared rather to suffer any thing than to make a bustle and a stir about that which teaches us all to study to be quiet and is very much dishonoured and indangered too by our unnatural and unseasonable contentions For Souldiers to whose warfare the Apostle here alludes are never safe but when they all agree and are in unity one with another as well as with their chief Commander whose great lesson is this in the Christian discipline be at Peace among your selves By Christian Love Charity and friendly Communion we shall be much stronger against all assaults whether from the Devil the Flesh or the World than if we fight single against them or which is worse be divided and at last perhaps fight one with another For to omit other reasons we shall invite more of the Divine power into our hearts when we live in Unity and Peace and brotherly accord wherein He delights but shall weaken our selves extreamly and lye open and exposed to the common Adversary both to the Devil and all his instruments when like quarrelsome Souldiers we fall out and are at fewds
your duty by Faith by Hope by reading and meditating in the Holy Scriptures by ardent Prayer to the Almighty especially in sincere fellowship and communion one with another you shall prevail likewise and get the better of every thing that opposes your sincere resolution to do and suffer the whole will of Christ Jesus In Him therefore incourage your selves and receive this word of Exhortation which the Apostle here gives us be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might Fortifie your selves with a firm belief that he is able to send you relief and that He will not fail to succour you from above if you resolutely indeavour to do your duty in the way that He hath prescribed you The words seem to me to be the very same with those of the Lord to Joshua when he was to enter into Canaan and subdue that Country which are repeated thrice within the compass of a few Verses i. Josh 6. Be strong and of a good courage and vers 7. only be thou strong and very couragious and again vers 9. Have not I commanded thee be strong and of a good courage neither be thou dismayed for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest From which words you may take the truest interpretation of my Text and look upon Joshua and the Israelites as a lively picture of the state of us Christians The Lord promised to be with him whithersoever he went and bad him nothing doubt but by his strength he should vanquish all the Canaanites But for all this he and the Israelites were to go up armed against them and both to fight according to such directions as He gave them and to keep themselves from every polluted thing which He forbad them and not depend merely on the arm of the Almighty to give them the victory Even so must we strengthen our selves in our Blessed Lord and the power of his might and think we hear Him say to us Have not I commanded you be strong therefore and of a good courage be not dismayed I the Lord am with you whithersoever you go and whatsoever you do and by me you shall overcome all difficulties But we must not so trust to this Power of his as to be remiss and negligent our selves no He will strengthen and impower us if we put on the whole Armour of God and fight against our own passions and evil desires the worlds temptations and the Devils suggestions continually opposing to them Faith and Hope and the word of God and Prayer and an honest resolution not to yield by any means to their importunities but to be the more excited by their solicitations to use our most earnest indeavours to vanquish them Then as David saith to his Son Solomon perswading him to enter upon a great work 1 Chron. xxviij 20. so may I say to every one of you Be strong and of a good courage and do it fear not neither be dismayed for the Lord God will be with thee He will not fail thee nor forsake thee until thou hast finished all the work for the service of the House of the Lord. It is for God and for His glory that we fight resolutely against the Devil the World and the Flesh and therefore why should we doubt of his aid when by the Victory He will be honoured as well as our selves We not only may but ought to ask it and to expect it with a humble confidence in his Almighty Goodness who hath told us He will deny us nothing which we beg in the Name of the Lord Jesus And what can we beg of Him more acceptable to Him as well as necessary for us than this that we may be able in our place and station and in every condition to do Him all faithful service And when will his Name think you be more prevalent and obtain greater Salvation for us than when according to his own particular order and last desire we make mention of it and commemorate his love in the Communion of his body and blood There we may offer up our Prayers and Meditations in the most acceptable and prevailing manner There also we may excite our Faith and quicken our Hope and inflame our Charity and knit our selves one to another in Brotherly love and ingage to Him our Fidelity and by all these means receive a greater increase of strength and courage to do and to endure whatsoever He would have us And therefore let me admonish you of this for a conclusion of this discourse in which I have delivered or rather the Apostle taught us many important truths but none perhaps of greater moment than this that when the Apostle advises us here to Pray with all Prayer and Supplication this way of praying and supplicating by making a commemoration of Christs Death and Passion in the Holy Eucharist where we represent to God how He offered himself a Sacrifice for us is certainly included This is one sort of Prayer and the chiefest among Christian people nay the most proper to them of all other From whence we may safely conclude that they who neglect this lye more open to temptations than other men They have not put on the whole Armour of God but want a principal part of it and that part which is most properly Christian and therefore must blame themselves that they are no better men but are so frequently overcome and fall into sin even against their resolutions perhaps and notwithstanding their Prayers and their looking up to the Lord Jesus for help There is a great thing still wanting they do not use all the means that He hath appointed for the obtaining of his help There is one manner of address to Him which they either live in a constant neglect of or but seldom apply themselves seriously to its solemn use For if they did in good earnest and with all their hearts do this often in remembrance of Him as He hath required they would find their Christian resolution mightily fortified and their souls indued with much strength to do all the rest of the will of Christ Nay they would at last do their duty though in it self difficult chearfully and triumphantly saying with St. Paul elsewhere viij Rom. 35 c. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ shall tribulations or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword Nay in all these things we are more than conquerours through Him that loved us To whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be Glory and Majesty Dominion and Power both now and ever Amen FINIS