be as Mount Sion which shall not be removed but standeth fast for ever And the truth is that which is said of Temporal Kingdoms Justitia Thronum firmat Justice supports the Throne may be affirmed of God's Spiritual Kingdom in the World his Justice and Goodness establishes his Dominion in the Hearts of Men. For if it were not so That the Lord regarded the Righteous this great Incongruity would produce another great Incongruity and Irregularity The Righteous as the Psalmist says would put their hand to Iniquity i e. they would be no longer Righteous they would make Justice and Piety no more their Business and Concern if there were no Regard in Heaven for these things and so God would lose his Obedience when he neglected Good Men. Let us therefore be careful of our Duty and we need not be solicitous for our Safety let us firmly rely upon God in well-doing and believe that our Trust in our Divine Invisible Foundation is not merely Chimerical or Imaginary and while we fail not it it will never fail us but the Business of this Day shall be the business of the Year round viz. to praise and magnifie our Foundation for protecting and preserving our Foundations and these Lauds and Thanksgivings if they be Cordial and Real will create us new Occasions of Lauds and Thanksgivings even daily Mercies and Blessings I say if they be Cordial and Real not only Verbal and Vocal not only express'd in Bells and Bonfires Noises and Excesses but in true Piety and Devotion as our Prayer of General Thanksgiving teaches us In shewing forth God's Praise not only with our Lips but in our Lives by giving up our selves to his Service and so forth For though 't is impossible to solemnize Publick Joy and Thanksgiving without Publick Expressions of them yet these Publick Expressions should be but the Outward Signs and Significations of the Inward Sence we have of God's Benefits and the Gratitude that dwells in our Hearts and which ought chiefly to be shew'd in the Duties of Religion in the Acts of Mercy and Charity in a Day of Mercy and Deliverance in the Reformation of whatsoever is contrary to the Divine Will in us and the like 'T is not enough therefore that our Streets resound with Festivity and Joy or yet that we celebrate God's great Mercies in Psalms and Hymns sung to the Organ by Asaph and other Chief Musicians but every Faithful Person must be a Musician and every Grateful Heart that has been delivered an Instrument of God's Praise To God the Father Son and Holy Ghost be ascribed all Honour Glory Worship and Thanksgiving this Day forth and for evermore Amen The Sixteenth Sermon JOHN xvi 23 Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my Name he will give it you THESE Words are part of our Lord's Farewel-Speech to his Disciples when he was to leave the World the unexpected News of which did so afflict them that they had not the power as himself takes notice ver 5. so much as to ask him any Question concerning it But now I go to him that sent me and none of you ask Whither goest thou but because I have said these things unto you Sorrow hath filled your heart And very deservedly for what more amazing more Ominous Tidings could they have heard than that he for whom they had forsaken all they had should after that forsake them than that he that had put Enmity between them and the World should abandon them to the World he in whom they had plac'd all their Ambition all their Hope should at last leave them in a Riddle A little while and ye shall not see me and again a little while and ye shall see me To raise therefore their drooping and disconsolate Spirits he promises them a double Advantage by his Departure and which could only arrive to them by his Departure 1. That they should receive the Holy Ghost who would establish their Faith and wonderfully rejoice their Hearts by assuring them of the truth of the Doctrines he had taught them and of their own Divine Mission 2. That they should be under the immediate Care of the Father by reason of whose Almighty Protection they would have no Cause to deplore his Absence or in the least to wish for his Corporal Presence again for they would find their Dependance on the Father much more happy than the following his Steps through the Cities of Palestine The Words of my Text relate to the latter of these two Advantages Their being under the immediate Care and Protection of the Father While our Lord abode with his Disciples he supply'd all their Wants solv'd all their Doubts stopt the mouths of all their Maligners but he let them know that his Father was Greater than he and would perform all these things in a more uncontroul'd and unlimited manner than he had done when he acted only in the Flesh by his Commission that the Using only of his Name to the Father would be more Beneficial to them than his Person had formerly been for though in many things he had been kind to them there was nothing so Precious nothing so Difficult nothing so Wonderful but if they pray'd for it in his Name the Father would bestow it on them Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my Name he will give it you In this Singular Priviledge and Prerogative promised by our Lord to his Disciples there are three things very remarkable I. The Person with whom they are to have it The Father he will give it you II. The Measure in which they were to have it it is a Measure indeed unlimited and without Measure Whatsoever ye shall ask ask what you will he will give it you III. By what Means they are to obtain it by asking in Christ's Name Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my Name I begin with the first of these The Person with whom they are to have this Singular Priviledge The Father This was a comfortable Promise of our Lord 's to his Disciples if they had then understood it as they afterwards did but when the Words were spoken they were but as a Parable or Proverb to them as 't is ver 25. These things have I spoken unto you in Proverbs the time will come that I shall speak no more unto you in Proverbs but I shall shew you Plainly of the Father How was that in what fashion did he afterwards shew them plainly of the Father By his Charismata the miraculous Gifts of the Holy Ghost which they received from him and which bore the very Character of the Father stampt upon them For every Good and perfect Gift as S t James says is from above and cometh from the Father of Light And thus he shew'd them more plainly and convincingly of the Father than he did to Philip when he said Have I been so long time with you and yet hast thou not known me Philip he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father For he
these and stand not in need to have their Understanding instructed or their Reason convinc'd in this Particular But yet I know not how though Demonstration and Experience assure this Truth on the one side there is something in Life it self on the other something in Prosperity Youth Greatness the Businesses of this World and the like which strangely contradict it and though we believe nothing more certainly than that All Men must Dye we believe nothing more hardly than that we our Selves must Dye Those that burn in a Feaver feel no Cold that are encompass'd with much Light discern no Darkness no more can those that are incircled with the Splendour of a high Fortune see through it the gloomy Shades of the Grave nor those that are within the warm embraces of Youth and Health apprehend the Cold remote Hand of Death Paracelsus was perswaded that there was a Certain Spirit of Salt that gave Vegetation to all things in the World which if he could have found out he would have preserved himself and others Immortal All men have generally a Tincture of this foolish Chymical or rather Chimerical Salt in their Fancy which though it preserves them not from Dying yet it gives them a Perswasion of long Living and though it cannot defer the Fatal Hour one Moment it can make them forget it and put the Consideration of it far from them Our Reflections upon our own Dying are much like those of Raving Lovers upon the Loss of those they Immoderately affected who at the very Instant that they embrace their Dead Bodies in their Arms cry out They cannot they must not they shall not Dye What they are not able to support they are not willing to acknowledge the Sorrow which is too Great for their Hearts to bear is too Great also for their Tongues to pronounce And after the like manner though we see and feel Death daily marching towards us we being not able to brook its Approach we endeavour to disbelieve it and hope to avoid the Evil by disowning it to delude or delay our Destiny by entertaining Fictions of a Long Life and I may say There is nothing that we at once so much Believe and so much Disbelieve as the Necessity of our Dying 'T is not therefore Superfluous to teach Men the so Known Lesson of Dying to put them in mind of that which is daily presented before their Eyes And the Wisest in all Ages as well Heathens as Christians have used studied Arts to preserve a Memory of their Frail Condition some have brought Urns and Skulls and Coffins into their Bed-Chambers and Closets that where the Scene of their Business or Pleasure lay there they might be admonish'd that they must one day bid a Farewel to those things Others have served up Skeletons at their Feasts the whole Frame of a Dead man's Bones made with Art to turn to all the Guests and with a horrid Aspect to survey the Table and to insinuate that Death was always near though forgotten in the Noise of Mirth and Wine sate President of many Feasts though invisibly through the Reek of Jollity and Meat Others upon the Days of their Coronation and Triumph have placed those among the Multitude that might mingle Admonitions of their Mortality together with the general Applauses and Acclamations that they might not forget while they conquered or commanded many People themselves were Subject to Death and that their Heads which were now crown'd with Gold or Laurel must after a short time be laid in the Dust. All these confessing that it was not enough that Men should believe they must Dye when they Considered and Reasoned of it but that they ought frequently to Consider and Reason of it And now after all is done though these Courses may seem of great Power and Efficacy to take off the Strangeness and Terrour of Death yet they have been found to fall short of the End they aimed at For though men by these Artifices have become acquainted with the Name and Images of Death they have still been miserably Strangers to Death it self neither is it possible to strip the King of Terrours of his amazing Circumstances merely by remembring him and making Pictures and Representations of him but men must fit and prepare themselves to entertain him they must lye under no Guilt of Sin nor be too much in love with this Life before they can Master this Apprehension for 't is no less than a Contradiction that those that are fond of this Life should welcome Death that are inferior to every Lust and Temptation should be Superior to the Greatest of Evils We must make Death Harmless before we can make him not to be Dreadful take away his Sting and Curse by Repentance and a holy Life before we can take away his Terrour make him Beneficial and Advantageous before we can reconcile him to our thoughts and render him Familiar to us For to retain Sin and yet to hope to free our Selves from the Punishment of Sin would not be to set our selves to conquer the Unreasonable Fears of our Nature but to conquer God to wrest the Vengeance of Iniquity out of his hands which the Pain and Fear of Death are And if it be objected that the antient Heathen out of a Principle only of Magnanimity and an Emulous Bravery despised Death I answer That they cannot so truly be said to have Despised Death as to have been Ignorant of it they promised themselves after their departure hence a Being of Fame and Renown they knew nothing but Fables of the Punishments of another World for 't is not Courage but Madness to despise Torments that are Intolerable and Eternal If it be urged again That many Professors of Christianity who have heard the Doctrine of Damnation and another Life frequently preached have yet after many heinous and unrepented Sins rush'd as boldly upon Death as the Heathen I reply Though they often heard the Doctrine of Damnation preach'd they never believ'd it but Infidelity wrought the same Effect in them which Ignorance did in the other No we must disarm Death as I said of the Evil that accompanies him by a Righteous Life before we can disarm him of his Terrour if we will not be dismay'd when this Grim Landlord comes to turn us out of our Mortal Tenements we must provide our Selves before-hand Everlasting Habitations Which brings me to my Second General Part the Policy which is taught us to procure Everlasting Habitations when we fail in these and that is by making to our selves Friends Of the Mammon of Vnrighteousness We may observe in the Policy here prescribed us three things 1. The Instrument of it The Vnrighteous Mammon 2. The Use of this Instrument We are to make Friends with it 3. The End of this Use That we may be received into Everlasting Habitations I begin with the Instrument the Vnrighteous Mammon in which there are two things to be explained The Name and Substance of it Mammon And the
miscarry'd in their Journey We may therefore say of those that affect to be Proselytes to this Mountain what S t Paul says of the Corinthians That they more gladly submitted to those that took of them that brought them into bondage than to those that were Sincere towards them and abounded in labour for them Or else we may upbraid them as the Prophet Hosea did Ephraim Ephraim is like a silly Dove without heart they call to Egypt they go to Assyria i. e. to the places of their Captivity and Oppression So these delight in those that plume them and tyrannize over them that seal up their Eyes in Darkness and make them believe they towre towards Heaven and the Regions of Glory till they find themselves in the Precincts of Eternal Night And as Ephraim was not only made a Prey but a Scorn for their Folly This shall be their Derision says the Prophet in the Land of Egypt so those among us that call to go to the Spiritual Egypt shall be mock'd in the Day of Great Accounts as well as Condemned For what remains for those that would not be warned but to be laugh'd at for those that chuse Destruction but to be derided when they are fallen into it In the mean time let our Adversaries triumph in the Victories they obtain by their threefold Machinations Parley Violence and Stratagem for though they sometimes prevail upon Unstable Souls prepar'd by their own Vanity for Ruine yet they cannot prevail against our Cause they may deceive some particular Persons but they cannot overthrow our Foundations no more than the Enemies of David could his Which brings me to my second General Part The Absurdity or Impossibility of the Design of David's Enemies To destroy his Foundations for then the Righteous would not know what to do If the Foundations be destroyed what can the Righteous do What shall I do is the Expression of a Person driven to the greatest Exigence and knows not which way to turn himself in the Difficulties he is in they are the Words of the Unjust Steward in the Gospel when he was turn'd out of his Stewardship What shall I do says he Dig I cannot and to beg I am ashamed The only two Means of Livelihood left to those that are reduced to the Extreamest Poverty Labour and Begging were taken from him the one by Shame and the other by a Soft Education Such an Utter Distress as this the Words of my Text imply they being a Negative by way of Question which is the strongest kind of Negative What can the Righteous do i. e. They can do nothing And if any say Yes the Unjust Steward had still recourse unto his old Arts of Cheating and False reckoning and so David and other Righteous men in case their Foundations be destroyed may make some shift they may fly as a Bird to the Mountain of their Enemies I answer That this is not to be admitted Unlawful Remedies come not so much as into the Consultation of the Righteous be their Distress never so great what is Wicked is to them Impossible and what they cannot do justly they cannot do at all How can I do this great Wickedness and sin against God said Joseph when his wanton Mistress tempted him i. e. I cannot possibly do it He could have done it actually but he could not do it honestly and what was impossible to his Vertue he resolv'd to be impossible to his Practice But the Supposition here it self is vain That the Foundations of the Righteous can be destroyed But how some will say not possible to destroy their Foundations Why Commanders will affirm that no Place is impregnable and consequently that there are no Foundations but may be destroyed When Philip of Macedon was told of a strong Place which by reason of the steepness rockiness and narrowness of the Ascent to it was Inaccessible he ask'd in derision If an Ass laden with Gold could not get up to it Intimating that no place was impregnable to Force and Fraud both But the Distinction I gave before of a Visible and Invisible Foundation answers all such Objections David beside his Rock as ye have heard had the Rock of his Rock namely his God 'T is the Invisible Divine Foundation that is the Security of the Visible No City or Fortress is safe by its natural or artificial Strength for as the Psalmist says A horse is but a vain thing to save a man so Rocks and Bulwarks are but vain things to save a City Except the Lord keepeth it the Watchman waketh but in vain But on the other side if he be the Rock and Defence if he be the Sion himself unto Jerusalem no Force no Stratagem whatsoever can prevail against it but Jerusalem on Earth shall be as invincible as Jerusalem in Heaven whose Builder and Maker is God And if any say What is this to us who are not to promise our selves the Priviledges of Israel I answer If we be Faithful like them we may promise our selves God's protection no less than they For as Saint Peter says God is no Respecter of Persons but in every Nation they that fearh im and work Righteousness are accepted by him We have a Kingdom thanks be to Providence more strongly fortify'd by Nature than Israel was founded as the Psalmist says the World is upon the Waters He laid it in the Waters and founded it upon the Flouds And though our Foundations be moveable and fluctuating yet their Mobility and Mutability being only Local and not Substantial they are not less permanent We may compare our Political Foundations also with Israels But be our Material or Moral Foundations what they will our Invisible is the same with theirs For God is not only our Founder but our Foundation too he has not only founded us By but On himself He brought us one of the first of the Nations out of the Darkness of Paganism to the Light of the Gospel and again one of the first of the Nations out of the Bondage of Spiritual Babylon to the Liberty of the Truth and free Use of his Word and he has not only given us more Excellent Ordinances than he did to his people Israel but many Advantages even above our Fellow-Christians and no Church can boast more truly than ours That 't is built upon the Foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Christ himself being the Chief Corner-Stone and what is this but to be Founded on God himself And 't is our Reliance on this our Invisible Foundation which makes us with David not to fear the Designs of our Enemies upon our Material and Visible For though God has made us no particular Promise concerning our Temporal Prosperity in case we keep his Commandments as he did to Israel yet we may rest assured on his Holy and Divine Nature and Promises in general which are to Love and Protect the Righteous and not only Israel as the Psalmist says but all that put their Trust in the Lord shall