I hope too that what I shall say will be able to support the honest and the feeble-minded Christians that though they are sadly sensible of some remains of Vnbelief in their Souls which need to be helped yet the Case is not so bad with them neither but that they may without Vanity that Profession in the beginning of my Text and say very truly Lord I believe This is my intention but the nature of the Subject will not so well bear to have the Argument branched out to these Two different sorts of Persons distinctly For the same Reasons which prove that No man arrives at an absolute Perfection in Faith do likewise prove That No man ought to despair because he discovers some Imperfections of Faith in himself Since at that rate Every ones Circumstances would be desperate and there could be no such thing as a worthy and true Believer in the World I must therefore content my self with handling this matter in the General and that which seems to me at present the best method for doing it effectually is to insist on these Three Heads I. First To assign some reasons for the weakness of mens Faith And these shall be such as every one of us will find himself more or less concerned in II. Secondly To shew that those things which Many People are apt to suspect as signs of Vnbelief or that they have not True Faith are not in reality any such Signs And III. Thirdly To lay down some Rules whereby the weakness of Faith may be distinguish'd from the Want of it And here I will shew how any man by examining his own Conscience carefully may discern whether his Belief be consistent with the Terms of Salvation or not I begin with the 1st And here by Faith I understand not only 1. The Assent of the mind to those Truths which God hath revealed in obedience to his Command and dependence on his Truth and Goodness Nor barely 2. An outward and express'd Profession of all such Articles are necessary to be acknowledged in order to make us Christians but also 3. Such a vigorous and lively Assent as may prevail upon men to enter into Covenant with God and may influence their Hearts and Practice powerfully such as may put us upon the performance of our Duty and the making good those Engagements in the whole Course of our Lives which we bring upon our selves when we thus enter Covenant with God For All This is comprehended under Believing and several accounts may be given of our failing in sundry instances of this Faith Particularly These that follow 1. As First One reason of this may be taken from the very Nature of those things which we are commanded to believe For Some of these being very dark and mysterious Truths it cannot be expected that our Minds should adhere to them with the same sort of Assurance that they are used to do in such Other matters as fall within our Comprehension and of which we have a clearer and more distinct knowledge The Attributes and Excellencies of God the Trinity of Persons in the Divine Nature an Eternal State of Bliss or Woe hereafter and the Restoring to us these fleshly Bodies again at the General Resurrection notwithstanding the infinite and unconceivable Changes which Time and Corruption bring upon them in the mean while These and some Others of the like nature are of the first Principles of Christianity the Prime and most necessary Truths to be entertained and firmly embraced But it is manifest withal that These are matters of which one cannot have any just and adequate Notions Because they are not commensurate to the Capacities of mortal men The largest mind is too narrow to receive them the most penetrating Wit cannot sound all their depths nor the most indefatigable Study conquer all the difficulties that may be charged upon them And therefore since Men's Assent is always governed by their Apprehensions the Mind will never find the same Evidence for those things that are far above out of our sight that it does for Others which we see and feel and daily converse with Such as are of the same level with our selves and we are able to give a tolerable good account of by our own serious Thought and nice Enquiry into the Nature of them I do not mean by this that we have not Sufficient Motives for our Belief even of those Truths which we are least able to comprehend For when we are once perswaded of the Being of a God and convinced that these are His Revelations nothing can be more equitable than to submit our own Reasoning to his Declarations This single Reflection that infinite Wisdom cannot be mistaken that Infinite Goodness cannot lead others into mistakes nor perfect Truth lye is a foundation strong enough to Build the firmest Faith upon But still the urging of this Reflection upon our selves must be the work of much application And though we are exceedingly to blame if any Objections which the Obscurity of those Great Important Doctrins is wont to raise in us be suffered to overthrow our Faith or dangerously to shake it yet such is the nature of our minds that where Sense or Demonstration do not represent things to us plainly and beyond all Contradiction there Scruples and Cavils will now and then arise and the Devil will not fail to make use of these Occasions and try by them to loosen and dissettle us from that firmness of perswasion which is due to such a Revelation Even They who struggle most successfully against such attempts of his may yet sometimes find a tendency to doubt or some little disturbance from them But those men will be sure to find a very great deal who over-looking the Credibility of the Testimony and Revelation it self which is Reason's proper Province in these matters they expect their satisfaction from the sight and knowledge of the things Revealed Which is in effect to put their Enquiry upon a wrong Scent to require an Evidence of which the Condition of this Subject is not capable and to destroy the very Essence of Faith which in strict speaking could not be Faith if it were not the Evidence of things unseen Now if such be the Condition of our Faith with regard to the very first Act That of Assenting to the Truths revealed by God We shall find the Difficulties grow upon us in the following parts of it when it comes to influence our Practice and to govern our Affections And this will appear very evidently if we consider 2. Secondly After what manner it is that the Belief of these Truths come to gain a power over our Wills and to command our Actions One would think that to be once throughly convinced of the Truth of Christianity and the Reasonableness and Excellency of the Duties it enjoins were enough to fix a Man all his Life long And perhaps in matters of mere Speculation it is so After any point hath been duly considered and all the Arguments for
Matter which it no way concern'd him to know And an Intimation withal that the great and only thing he ought to be solicitous for was to prepare himself for the Discharge of his own Duty And as Providence intended to liken him to his Master in the manner of his Death so his Thoughts should be employed in taking good heed to be like him in a meek and patient and constant suffering of the Tryals appointed for himself Now the Rebuke applyed here to one particular Instance I shall so treat of at this time as to render it an Admonition of general Use and Benefit For such no doubt it may prove to every Christian if we from this Example take the hint of forbearing to indulge all needless Curiosities in Matters of Religion And bending our Studies to those Objects which have a direct Tendency to Practice and a good Life lay aside such aiery Speculations as deservedly fall under this Reprehension of our Saviour If it be thus or thus what is that to thee Now I would fain hope That even in this busy and pretending Age of Ours men might be prevailed upon thus far to consult their own Ease and Benefit would they but seriously consider these Three Arguments 1. First That Many if not Most of the abstruse Points of Religion are beset with such Difficulties as they cannot receive any positive and full Satisfaction in 2. Secondly That could they go to the bottom of all these Difficulties yet such Knowledge would be of little or no real use to them 3. Thirdly That the employing their Thoughts in such intricate Questions is not only fruitless but dangerous and many times of very fatal Consequence to themselves to others and to Religion in general This I shall endeavour to convince you is ordinarily the Case of those nice and curious Persons who spend their time and pains in the speculative Parts of Religion And not only so but I shall urge withal that the Study of the Practical and necessary Duties is the very Reverse of all this That these are very possible to be attain'd exceeding profitable when understood and that all the Hours and Industry laid out upon them turn to the truest the best account both for our Selves and for the Publick I. My first Discouragement against curious Speculations in Matters of Religion consists in this that they are entangled with such Difficulties as men cannot receive any positive and particular Satisfaction in And would not one choose of the two rather to sit still and be idle than to travel through Briars and Thorns and after infinite Toil and Trouble give out at last heartily tired with one's Journey but still as far from the End as when he first set out And yet this is the Consequence of those sublime Notions and subtle Distinctions which have taken up the Thoughts and employed the Pens and swell'd the Volumes of a great many Learned Men in almost all but especially in these later Ages of the Church The Mysterious Union of the Blessed Trinity and that of two Natures in the Person of our Saviour Christ The Secrets of Providence and the Methods of Divine Grace the State of Souls departed and the particular Nature and Quality of those Rewards and Punishments which await men in the next World These and abundance more such Points there are in which the Scriptures have given us some general Insight as much as is necessary for our present purpose But when men not content to be wise according to that which is written plunge themselves into Controversies about the particular Modes and Circumstances of them the farther they wade the more they are carried out of their Depth And how should it be otherwise indeed For when all is said and done these are Subjects not of a size with us our own Understanding is not qualified to fathom them The Light from above is our only safe Guide in these matters So far then as this leads us we may go on boldly and stand upon sure and firm ground but where that Light forsakes us all the Discoveries pretended to beyond must needs be very fanciful and precarious and weak So full of Delusion are those very profound Contemplations which lose the Mind in matters too high for it so liable to that Reproach of St. Paul * Rom. I. 21 22. though in another Signification of the words for These men too becoming vain in their Imaginations their foolish heart is darkned and professing themselves to be wise they become Fools But now the most important part of Religion is of a quite different kind For those things which the Gospel commands to be believed or done in order to Salvation lie level to every ordinary Capacity Thus for Belief It asks no mighty Depth for a Man to convice himself that what the God of Truth hath revealed ought readily to be embraced that He who was pleased to declare his Will to Mankind did certainly do it with a design to be understood that therefore we ought to take his word in its plain and natural Sense except where there appears manifest Reason to the contrary That its containing some things which we cannot perfectly comprehend especially when treating of God's own Nature and Operations is no good Argument of any Necessity to take him otherwise Because our Reason tells us that God is infinite and yet it tells us at the same time too that infinite he could not be if a finite Mind could fully comprehend him In a word it requires Modesty and Integrity rather than Acuteness and Skill to be satisfied that the true and proper Foundation of Faith is not the Quality or Perspicuity of the things revealed but the Authority and Testimony of the Party revealing These are matters that lie sufficiently fair and open to every considerate Person and They who come to the Scriptures with these Impressions will find no difficulty in assenting to what they meet with there nor any occasion for flying to wretched Criticisms as an Expedient for bringing down the loftiest Doctrines to their own narrow Apprehensions So again for the Moral Precepts of Piety and Justice and Charity and Purity and Meekness and Patience and Perseverance and the like These are so suited to our natural Notions of God and Goodness that if a Man hath but once thrown off the dead weight of his own Prejudices and corrupt Inclinations they cannot but cast the Scale against the contrary Vices Nor must I upon this occasion forget to put put you in mind that the Practice of Religion is a mighty Help to our more compleat Knowledge of it It is so as it engages our diligent Attention and fervent Love to that which is good It is so as it secures Probity of Mind a teachable and impartial Disposition It is so as it entitles us to the Blesling of God upon our Studies Whose Goodness will never suffer those who serve and seek him with their whole Heart to continue in dangerous and fatal Mistakes
of it imperceptible Then every Admonition from the Pulpit Every wholsome Law Every Advice from a Friend or a Parent Every good Book Every pious Example Every Motion and Intention to do well Every Conviction or Check of our own Conscience is a Blowing of this Wind a Call or Impulse from above And as often as any Man refuses to comply with these things so often he resists God and quenches his Spirit within himself Thirdly This shews us what Course men should take in order to get or to grow in Grace For since God works by and with his Ordinances our Business must be to use the Word and Sacraments and other means of Grace diligently to seek him there to put to the Shoulder and do Our Part resolutely and manfully and then not doubt his Assistance For upon these Terms we may depend upon it that He will forward and strengthen our good Intentions and since he creates all our Works in us that he will not fail to finish what he himself hath begun but will perform and continue it until the Day of Christ Jesus and in that day for his Sake and Merits will most assuredly crown Us and our Labours with Everlasting Glory Now to God the Father c. SERMON VIII THE Conditions and Privileges OF THE SECOND BIRTH St. John I. 12 13. As many as received him to them gave he power to become the Sons of God even to them that believe on his Name Which were born not of blood nor of the will of the Flesh nor of the will of Man but of God THE Evangelist after having in the beginning of the Chapter with great Exactness declared the Eternal Divinity of the Word of God and that This was the very Person testified of by the Baptist by which we are assured that this Word is no other than Jesus Christ the Son of God incarnate and having likewise spoken of his coming into the World he mentions here with what different success he did it Some that were more peculiarly obliged and most nearly related to him from whom an honourable Reception might most reasonably be expected gave him no Respect no Entertainment at all And this was the case of the perverse Jews whom God had laid his hand upon and singled out from the rest of Mankind for which reason they are called in the 11th Verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his proper Possession Christ's being refused there was an indignity like that of a Man's being driven or shut out of his Demesnes or Dwelling-house He came to his own and his own received him not The Loss however was not His but Theirs in denying Him they denied their own Happiness which was so great so evident that St. John thought no other expression of their Misery and Punishment was needful than only to describe the Privileges of those who behaved themselves more kindly and dutifully to him And this is done in the Text it self But as many as received him to them gave he power to become the Sons of God even to them that believe on his Name Which were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God For the right understanding and due Improvement whereof it will be expedient to consider the following Particulars First The Persons who alone are capable of Benefit by Christ's coming into the World They who receive him and believe on his Name Secondly The Nature of that Benefit which they obtain by so doing To them he gives power to become the Sons of God Thirdly The manner how this Sonship is conferred They are born not of blood nor of the will of the Flesh nor of the will of man but of God Fourthly The Extent of this Privilege he gives it to as many as receive and believe on him I. The First thing we are concerned to know upon this occasion is Who those Persons are to whom the Advantages of Christianity belong or What that Condition is which must qualify men for the Benefits of Christ's coming into the World This the Text hath expressed in those words who receive him and believe on his Name Now these are Terms explanatory of one another And as the Jews are therefore said not to have received him because they believed him not but rejected his Authority and Doctrine So Faith in what he hath revealed and Obedience to what he hath commanded are the Marks and Means of our receiving him And These consist not in a mere giving him the hearing and forbearing all publick and malicious Opposition to his word but in acknowledging the Truth and the Evidence of it depending upon his Promises expecting Salvation from that Name and no other and diligently endeavouring to perform all that is required on our part All that according to the Covenant of the Gospel can any way contribute to the rendring what he hath done and suffered effectual in our own particular Case That This must needs be the meaning of the Phrase is manifest to any man who will consider it closely For to receive Christ is to receive him as he is to submit to him in all those Capacities which God hath placed him over us in To receive him as our Prophet implies a firm Adherence to the whole of that Message which he hath brought us from Heaven to own his Divine Commission and be instructed by him To receive him as our Priest is to rely upon his most meritorious Sacrifice to confess the Sufficiency of his Atonement and to detest and forsake those Sins for which he hath made so perfect but withal so severe and painful an Expiation To receive him as our King is to own his Legislative Power to pay him strict Fidelity and Allegiance to bring all our Passions and Interests under Subjection to his Will and suffer no rebellious Appetites to raise wicked Seditions or tempt us to Unfaithfulness and Disloyalty against him The same is likewise necessarily consequent upon Believing For since the Object of all Faith is Credible Testimony and that of Religious Faith is Divine Revelation He who acts or entertains Persuasions contrary to or derogating from what God hath declared in Christ cannot properly be called a Believer on his Name If therefore God hath made something else necessary besides a bare Assent of the mind to the Truth of his Doctrines All That must needs come within the compass and be included under the notion of Faith If the Evangelist tell us in one place as he does here particularly that by believing men acquire the Privilege of becoming Sons of God and are born of God and yet our Saviour says positively in another as in the Third of this Gospel at the fifth Verse we find he does that Except a man be born again of Water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God it is very plain that this Belief must be such as is accompanied with and evidenced by a solemn entring into Covenant with God by Baptism
Because it keeps Men sensible of their Diseases and Wants and best qualified to receive a Cure for them Whereas Pride on the Contrary not only makes Men Fools but keeps them so It fills them full of themselves alone and never looks but through the Magnifying part of the Perspective It renders them deaf to all manner of Admonition because it never suffers them to suppose they want any And instead of growing wiser and better they are only exasperated and hardened the more in their Folly In short take Faith in its utmost Latitude and you will find in every Instance the same Event with that which our Saviour hath described in the Parable * Luke 18. 9. of the Pharisee and the Publican He that descends into his own Breast and sadly reflects on his Unworthiness and Deficiencies that laments and condemns himself with a God be merciful to me a Sinner or as in the Text cries out with Tears Lord help my Vnbelief is likely enough to go down to his House justified †Psal 25. 9. The Meek will God guide in Judgment and the Humble will he teach his Way But when once a Man is come to a God I thank thee that I am not as Other Men are when he is blind to his Own Failings and rips up those of Others to shelter and excuse his Own This Man's Unbelief is not through Weakness but through Perverseness and Choice He continues ignorant and wicked because he will not learn And there is no Remedy but continue so he must because he thinks himself too wise and too good to be taught and admonished His desperate Condition is well observed by Solomon * Prov. 26. 12. Seest thou a Man wise he might have said holy too in his own conceit there is more hope of a Fool or of a profligate Sinner than of him The One labours under a more raging and a more scandalous Distemper indeed but the Other is poison'd secretly and so fond of his Disease that he hates his Antidote and obstructs all the Methods of Recovery But Thirdly The Weakness of Faith and Defects in Practice are known to be consistent with Safety or otherwise by the Vse or the Neglect of proper Means to strengthen it For it is not enough that we have not wilfully contributed to our past Failings nor yet that we lament or are seriously concerned for our present unless to both these we add Vigilance and care to prevent those that we are subject to for the future He that feels himself perplexed with Doubts and Difficulties in Religion must ask Wisdom of God and labour after it with Meekness and Diligence He that finds his Faith weak in influencing his Practice must take all Opportunities of fastening good Principles on his Mind and continually quicken and rouse himself up by Holy Motions and Remembrances and drive the Impressions deeper that they may be ever present and ever vigorous to draw out into use and ward off every Temptation that besets him The Man that languishes in his Devotion must raise and inflame his Zeal by all necessary Preparations to Prayer by sequestring himself from Business and Care as much as Conveniently he may fixing his Mind with Reverent Apprehensions of the Majesty he kneels before and the infinite Importance of the Blessings he prays for He that repents and thinks his Regret for past Offences less afflicting than it ought must work himself into as deep Remorse as possibly he can And express his Sincerity and the Sense of his Soul by sorrowing in Proportion for his Sin as Nature determines him to do upon Other Occasions of Grief and Sadness And so of the Rest of the Cases mentioned heretofore For tho' God make Allowances for Nature and unavoidable Infirmities yet he expects we should not improve these into Wilful Transgressions and Habits of Vice But on the contrary that we withstand and strive against them and proceed as far as we can toward the correcting and curing of them He does not expect that every Man should be equally Knowing or equally Considerate or equally Devout or Contrite But he requires that Every one should know as much as he can and make his Belief as practical and effectual as he can and Pray as fervently and do Good as delightfully and Mourn for his Wickedness as affectionately as he is able For This is the only Mark of our Integrity and that which will take off all the Mischief of corrupt Nature not to make our Misfortunes a Pretence for real Faults nor from the necessary Imperfections to which we all are liable to take occasion of Transgressing perversely and covering our own Carelesness and wilful Neglects And to all these things we must add a Fourth Sign which is Frequent and earnest Applications for Strength and Grace to Him who is able to support and perfect us To our Lord therefore we should come And if we be Sincere we shall come like Him in the Text with strong Cries and vehement Contention of Heart and Voice We shall beg his Assistance against our Failings and his Comforts against our Sorrows and sad Misgivings of Heart that he would protect us in our Dangers and Temptations and give us a right Judgment of his Dealings with us that he would scatter our Doubts and Distractions and dispell those Clouds which intercept the joyful Light of his Countenance from us And in all these and in all other Instances of a weak Faith Lord we believe thou canst and therefore we pray that thou of thy Goodness wilt help our Vnbelief stablish strengthen settle us in thy Truth Yea We beseech thee good Lord that it may please thee to strengthen such as do stand and to comfort and help the Weak-hearted and to raise up them that fall and finally to beat down Satan under our Feet Amen SERMON XV. CHRIST's RESIGNATION TO HIS Father's Will St. LUKE XXII 42. Father If thou be Willing remove this Cup from me nevertheless not My Will but Thine be done THE several Circumstances of our Blessed Saviour's Passion are related by the Evangelists in so particular so moving a Manner as must needs argue those Men extreamly stupid and insensible upon whom they do not make a very lively and vigorous Impression Now the Purposes this Account is design'd to serve are principally these Two To excite our Thankfulness and Love to Him who submitted to undergo such bitter things for us And to work us up to an irreconcilable Aversion against Sin the wretched Cause of all his Sufferings And What can kindle our Love and enflame our Hearts with Zeal and Gratitude if the Contemplation of his Agonies and Pains the Tortures of his Body and the Amazement and exceeding Sorrows of his Soul will not to which he voluntarily exposed himself by accepting the Punishment of our Offences What can present us with a more frightful Image of the Wrath of God and the Horrors of a self-condemning Conscience than those Sweats of Blood that Heaviness
So manifest is the Advantage of applying our selves to this part of Religion in which a Christian 's proper Business lies So possible so certain that all who do so shall effectually improve by their Endeavours So unalterable that Promise of him who came to direct us in the right Way to Happiness that * John VII 17. If any man will do his will he shall not fail to know of the Doctrine whether it be of God II. Secondly My next Argument against indulging nice and curious Speculations of this kind is taken from the Vnprofitableness of them Our Lord had he so pleased could have informed St. Peter what should become of this beloved Disciple But he reproves his enquiring into it because no Benefit was to be had by such Information For so we may very reasonably interpret that Passage If I will that he tarry till I come what is that to thee How wilt thou be the better if I should tell thee what this Man shall do What Furtherance can it prove to thy Preparation for following Me to know whether he shall be required to tread in the same Steps And I cannot but think it would puzzle the wisest Man alive to give a satisfactory account what ends of Consequence to our Everlasting Happiness would be served by being let into a clear and distinct View of all those dark mysterious Truths which are now in so great a degree lockt up from us or how Religion would upon those Terms be in a better State than now it is Let us put the Case in one or two of these Instances already mentioned that the Trinity of Persons in Unity of the Divine Essence and the Incarnation of the Son of God were fully understood by us I desire to know now whether this would at all promote our Zeal in the Love and Service of God or what one Argument we should then have which at present we have not for being better Men or more thankful Christians The true ground of our Reverence and Fear our Love and Trust in God is a due Sense of his Holiness and Wisdom his Power and Justice and Goodness And what dependence I beseech you have our Notions of these Attributes upon our knowing how God is Three in One The proper Motives to a Christian Life are Gratitude and a just Regard to the adorable Mystery of Man's Redemption the Mercy of having our Sins pardoned and satisfied for the Rewards proposed to our sincere Obedience the terrible Punishments of obstinate Offenders and the little Reason we have to flatter our selves with hopes of escaping Heb. II. 3. if we neglect so great Salvation Now these Affections spring from our considering the infinite Kindness and Condescention of the Son of God who humbled himself to do so many wonderful and to suffer so many bitter things for our Sakes But the Mercy of his doing and enduring these things in Nature will not touch our hearts one whit the more tenderly for discerning how this Nature of Ours was united to his Divine Nature It is the thing 's being done and not the particular manner by which it was done that must have this Effect upon us So likewise for the rest The Influences of Divine Grace would not be more prevalent nor is Their Condemnation who stifle and resist them less deserved because we see not all the Springs by which the Holy Spirit moves and bends us It is sufficient that he acts as he does to render both our Obedience possible and our Obstinacy inexcusable The Considerations fitted to contain men in their Duty are the Greatness and the Certainty of the Punishments threatned to wicked Livers As on the other hand the powerful Incentives to doing and suffering with Constancy what God appoints us to are the Excellence and the Assurance of a future Recompence But if the being warn'd in so solemn and express a manner as we are that Torments everlasting and extream remain for the Ungodly will not restrain us from being such our selves neither would we be restrained though God had told us whether that Torment be material Fire or whether it be such as for the exquisite and insupportable Anguish of it was thought convenient to be represented to us by Everlasting Burnings If we will not be perswaded to live and die unto the Lord by these supporting Reflections that Rom. VIII 18. the Sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the Glory that shall be revealed in us and that it neither hath entred nor can enter 1 Cor. II. 9. into the heart of man to conceive the things which God hath prepared for them that love him What additional Force could these Reflections possibly receive by our being acquainted wherein each Excellence of that Glory and these Joys consists For still the same Temptations to Sin and Infidelity would continue And They who refuse to take God's Word for the Greatness and the Certainty of future Rewards and Punishments which are the only Qualifications necessary to quicken us in our Duty would not have wanted any one Objection which they now pretend to urge against whatever God should have revealed concerning the Nature and Quality of those Rewards and Punishments If men shall be Happy or Miserable for ever and as Happy or Miserable as they are capable of being it matters not much after what manner they shall be so That they shall be so at all depends upon the Will of God that they believe they shall be so is from an Assent to the Word of God declaring that Will. And if the Revelation of God find no Credit as to these things in general there is but little appearance that it would have gained more Credit had he described the whole Process and descended to every Circumstance of these things For the Truth and Declaration of God being the only Motive of Assent common to both these Cases it unavoidably follows that there would be the same reason for witholding it in the One that there can possibly be in the Other Nay shall I carry this Point a little higher I may do it and dare appeal to all that hear me whether in the Judgment of every considerate and unprejudic'd Christian it be not for the Dignity and Advantage of Religion that some Articles of it exceed the largest humane Comprehension Whether we should entertain the same awful Impressions of the Divine Majesty if the Perfections of his Nature and Operations were such only as we could see to the end of and in every respect account to our Reason for Whether it do not raise the value of Man's Redemption to have been brought about by Miracles of Mercy not only without Example but even beyond our present Understanding Had all these things been less we should have known them better but so much as you abate of them to bring them nearer to Mens Capacity so much you weaken the Power of them upon their Affections And the influencing mens Affections is
any other Science such particularly as Learned Mens differing in their Judgment about some difficult Points of it This is but too plain a Discovery that something else is cast into the Scale besides the real Merits of the Cause And that such People cavil at Religion not because they have Reason to think it is not true but because they wish it were not and apprehend it for their Ease and Interest that it should not be true 3. Lastly I cannot upon this occasion forbid my self addressing to you the Members of our established Church in particular most earnestly beseeching you to consider the Privileges you enjoy and to make a right Improvement of them You have not the Word of Truth lock'd up from you in an unknown Tongue nor are prohibited to use it freely You are permitted entreated commanded to peruse it diligently And we are very sure the more you do so the more ready you will be to give a reason of the hope that is in you and the less liable to be driven about by every blast of Doctrine Let me only beg that along with this Diligence you would bring Meekness and Modesty an honest Disposition and godly Fear That you would reflect very seriously upon the End for which God hath thus imparted his Will to Mankind which is not to entertain so much as to edify men to make them wise indeed but wise unto Salvation And consequently that keeping constantly this end in view and avoiding intricate and unseasonable Questions which the Apostle tells us do but ingender strife and perplex the minds of the unwary stick close to those plain profitable passages which may stand you in good stead at the last great Day of Account Such as may excite your Piety enflame your Devotion reform your Manners and render you useful and exemplary in your respective Stations and Capacities Such as may bring advantage to the Publick by reducing and mortifying all those unruly Passions and Affections which obstruct Peace and Order Charity and Justice For be very confident that He who lives best does in the Christian Sense know most And every one of competent Parts and Industry may know enough for these purposes * Micah VI. 8. God hath shewed thee O man what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love Mercy and to walk humbly with thy God This is a short and a plain Lesson and yet even this well learnt would not fail to bring us all to Heaven I shut up all with two memorable Passages of Moses and the Son of Sirach to this purpose The Former in the XXIXth of Deuteronomy at the last Verse Secret things belong unto the Lord our God but those things which are revealed belong unto us and unto our Children for ever that we may do all the words of this Law The Latter in Ecclus. III. 21 c. Seek not out the things that are too hard for thee neither search the things that are above thy strength But what is commanded thee think thereupon with Reverence for it is not needful for thee to see with thine Eyes the things that be in secret Be not curious in unnecessary matters for more things are shewed unto thee than Men understand For many are deceived by their own vain opinion and an evil Suspicion hath overthrown their Judgment Without Eyes thou shalt want light profess not therefore the knowledge that thou hast not This wholsome Advice God gives us all the Grace to follow that we may receive the Truth in the Spirit of Meekness and obey it in the Love thereof for Jesus Christ his Sake To whom with the Father and Holy Spirit Three Persons and One God be all Honour and Glory now and for evermore Amen SERMON II. THE HOLINESS Required in a Christian's Conversation Ephes V. 11. Have no fellowship with the unfruitful Works of Darkness GREAT part of this Epistle and particularly this Chapter is employ'd in urging the Advantages these Ephesian's had receiv'd by being converted to Christianity and the Improvements it was expected they should make of them To this purpose the Apostle advises them * Vers 8 9 10. to walk as Children of Light To prove what is the good and acceptable Will of the Lord and in order to their doing so to shake hands with their old Corruptions and have no Fellowship with the unfruitful Works of Darkness In treating of these Words I design to speak to these four following Particulars I. I will shew What those things are which the Apostle here commands us to avoid under this detestable Title The Works of Darkness II. What it is to have no fellowship with them III. I shall press the Reason for avoiding those Works which the Text hath couched by calling them unfruitful and then IV. I shall apply my self from the whole to the persuading every one of us to act like men duly convinc'd of the former Heads and the Engagements that lie upon us with regard to them I. I shall shew What those things are which the Apostle here commands us to avoid under the detestable Title The works of Darkness And here it is fit I put you in mind that all sins indeed of what nature or Quality soever are such Works and that we are absolutely forbidden any kindness for and Intimacy with them all For whether by Darkness we understand Ignorance and Error or whether those Regions of horrour inhabited by Devils and damned Spirits the Title will very properly belong to them in both respects Every Sin is owing in some measure to a defect in the mind and wrong Apprehensions of things Every one leads to those dismal Regions of Death Every one derives it self from the Prince of Darkness and is originally his Work But because even of sins there are differences to be made both as to the degree and as to the malignity of them since some do more manifestly carry the Character and Features of that old Serpent whose Spawn they are I will just mention some few which seem by way of Eminence to challenge this Title Now Of These Some were more peculiar to the Pagan World and such as St. Paul had an immediate respect to in this Chapter particularly that Idolatrous and Polluted Worship and all those vain Superstitions which even the wisest and most Learned Heathens had submitted themselves to And Others of them are such as do even now notwithstanding all the Light and Advantages of Christianity endanger mens Souls and draw them into a Resemblance of the Devil whose qualities they are Such especially are Pride and Ambition Envy and Malice Lying and Dissimulation Faction and Treachery and the Tempting others to Sin For under these Qualities the Devil is represented in Scripture and the Devilish Nature of these Vices is sufficiently manifested as soon as they are named So that without further enlarging upon so odious a Subject I shall think my self now at liberty to descend to my II. Second Particular
only to ruine himself but to be upon his guard against all Hazards of Ruine And it was not a hard but a prudent and needful Commandment which St. Paul has left us 1 Thess V. 22. to abstain from the very appearance of Evil. They who profess to hate the thing it self and to repent of it and to forsake it and yet wou'd fain be doing what looks like it and leads to it cannot escape this Censure at least of being Lovers of pleasure more than Lovers of God This comes from a perpetual hankering after their Lusts and shews that they wou'd fain accommodate the matter between Christ and the Devil They endeavour to divide themselves as equally as may be Not to be wicked for fear of danger but yet to be as near wicked as they can too for Love of Pleasure And like treacherous and poor-spirited men who in a disputed Title act for one Prince to serve their own Ends and are secretly in the Interests of another to humour their Inclination so these men carry it between Vertue and Vice They have a secret Affection for the one and yet they must stifle this Affection because it cannot be to their advantage to own and pursue it publickly But still their hearts are ever treacherous ever bending to the wrong side and the bottom of all their pretended Quarrel with Sin is not so Much for its being a Work of Darkness as for its being an Vnfruitful Work 5. Fifthly and Lastly The thing which contains and which must perfect all the rest is what the Apostle urges in the End of this Verse Reproving those Works I mean by the constant Tenure of a pious and exemplary Conversation For that is the Reproof he means there The exposing them by this means to the World and discovering all the Horrour and Deformity of them The Shortness of our Capacities and the intricate Natures of things make it necessary for us to advance in Knowledge by the help of Comparisons And the quickest way to it is by setting Opposite Qualities before our eyes at once to contemplate both and so to discern the difference between them Now as none are more Contrary so none do more manifestly illustrate each other than Vertue and Vice which are therefore very elegantly represented by the Apostle here under the two most distant and irreconcilable Figures of Light and Darkness But all the Life and Efficacy of this Representation depends upon the Practice It is not a plausible declaiming against the One nor the most elegant Harangue in Praise of the Other that can sufficiently recommend This or condemn That Because though the Characters be never so just yet Words are but matter of form and may be employed upon any subject for private respects contrary to the inward and real Sense of the Speaker But the Esteem which comes to Religion by a good Life cannot be counterfeit These Actions of a Man prove themselves and shew the power of Godliness upon the Soul And in such a Case none is so blind but he sees the Beauties of Holiness how it shines and sheds its Rays like the Sun not only to the delight but the benefit and warmth of all that are within the Sphere of its Activity What a foil the contrary Vices are to it how black and dismal how ugly and crooked they look when brought to this Light and set against the streight and uniform the sweet and charming Excellencies of Religion This comes home to the meanest Understandings and supplies the place of all the Eloquence in the World It convinces where nothing else can enter It is a sort of mechanical Reason without the studied Methods of Rhetorick and Argument and will not fail to draw where those cannot so much as move This is therefore the peculiar advantage of a holy Life to check and discountenance Sin to shew it in its true and worst Colours and not only to receive Lustre from but to reflect it back again upon Vertue and Religion From what has been delivered in these Particulars we see the true extent of the Apostle's Command and our Duty with regard to it How false those men are to God and Religion who content themselves with avoiding the grossest and foulest Offences if in the mean while they indulge their Lusts and expose their Souls to the Snares of evil Company If they retain any secret Fondness for Sin and can so much as with ease or patience see or hear what is so If they are so tame and cold in the Cause of God and Religion as not boldly and sharply to rebuke Vice where that can be prudently and seasonably done If they still halt between Vertue and Vice and are so fond of the thing as to sport upon the very confines of it and shew that their proceeding no further is more the effect of Interest and Necessity than sincere Piety and Choice and lastly If their Example do any way countenance it and not rather display its Deformity and deceitful Disguises and by representing Godliness in all its Lustre render that more inviting and lovely and Sin more odious to the World Those who do not endeavour all this are not entirely devoted to Christ nor true Children of Light but have still a Tenderness for and hold a private Correspondence with the Works of Darkness And how destructive such double dealing will be in the End how reasonable our Aversions to those Works are and all even the most severe proofs that can be required to demonstrate the truth of our Hatred and to make good our Engagements against them I hope will soon appear to you by a brief consideration of my Third Particular viz. III. The reason of avoiding these works of Darkness which the Text hath couched here by calling them Vnfruitful It is not without great Elegance and particular good reasons that the Lusts and Practices of Sinners are so frequently in Scripture styl'd Works for This implies the Toil and Drudgery of them and intimates to us what sad experience wou'd teach too late that no man can be very wicked without much Labour and great Vexation The distracting Cares and Interests of Ambition and Covetousness the Violence and Tyranny of raging Passions and inordinate Desires which hurry men into Anger and Revenge and Injustice and Uncleanness and all manner of Excess cannot but be inconsistent with ease and pleasure For they impose more merciless Tasks upon a man and put him upon more dangerous and more extravagant Attempts than the most arbitrary Tyrant or the Cruelest Enemy cou'd invent for his Captive or his Slave And he that has once resign'd up the Government of himself to the furious and wild Suggestions of the Tempter and his own rebellious Appetites must make no more Pretensions to Freedom and Satisfaction He has bid adieu to all that can give him any and does in the highest sense of the words verify our Lord's observation * Joh. VIII 34. Whosoever committeth Sin is the Servant of
unseasonable Officiousness placed him in the way of a Danger which by his Absence might have been avoided But even after his first Denial he is said ‖ Vers 68. to have gone out and to have heard the Cock crow without any manner of Impression So far from this that he returns again and mingles with the same Company Fearing probably that withdrawing might increase their Suspicion and chusing rather to intangle himself in the same snare a second time and to gain credit by fresh and more obstinate denials than to leave any Jealousy of his having said an Untruth before And thus One Lye was added for a Confirmation to a former and Each repeated with greater eagerness and vehemence and in Terms more express and peremptory till Three distinct denials had left him past the excuse of Slips in memory or Inadvertency or the Suddeness of a Surprise which a single Denial might have received some Mitigation from Nay 4. Fourthly Which is yet a more grievous degree of Guilt St. Peter bound these denials upon himself with voluntary Oaths and Curses and used such Forms and such Solemnity to get a most notorious Falshood believed as were not lawful for him to have recourse to in Confirmation of the Truth it self And what could be more dreadful than thus to call God as a Witness and to imprecate his Judgment upon his own head in a thing so utterly false A thing which he should have been so far from delivering himself from the Suspicion of that he ought to have esteemed it his Honour and greatest Advantage and to have owned his Discipleship to Christ even at the utmost hazard even at the certain expence of his very Life Such were the sad Circumstances of this Apostle's Fall So unworthy a Person of St. Peter's Eminence Provoked by so slight an occasion in comparison of what might happened to him So obstinately false the Renouncings of his Master so impious and blasphemous his Perjuries against him All which I have thus represented before you as the Evangelists themselves have done to the whole World not with any envvious design of lessening your Esteem for this glorious Saint or any malicious Satisfaction that some People are apt to take when they show the actions of others in their worst Light but that by seeing this Action in its blackest Colours we may profit by his Sin be instructed by his Danger and stand the faster for his Fall To which purpose the Remainder of this Discourse shall be spent in such useful Reflections and Inferences as the former Particulars when rightly considered give us great ground for and plain Intimations of And They are such as follow First We read this Passage to very little Purpose if it do not convince us of the miserable Frailty even of the Best Men and effectually overthrow all those vain Confidences which are apt to rise in our hearts from our own supposed Strength and Virtue For What a lamentable instance is there now before our Eyes of one of the Greatest men that ever was falling in the most scandalous manner Who shall hereafter dare to depend upon the highest degree of Knowledge when One so wise so perfectly satisfied in the Christian Truth was yet in despight of the fullest Convictions of his own Conscience driven to deny and abjure the Lord that taught the Lord that bought him Who may presume upon his best Resolutions when He who declared so firm a purpose of adhering to Jesus notwithstanding any Terrours or Afflictions that could possibly befall him for such Perseverance did yet within a few hours so premptorily so solemnly disown that very Person for whom he so lately was ready to lay down his Life and so did that very thing which he but just before was disposed rather to die than to do I say was ready and disposed For there is no doubt but St. Peter at that time spoke the very Sense of his Soul that he had an honest and sincere mind and was stedfastly determined in his own Breast and thought himself sufficient to make good to the uttermost what he with so much Piety and Affection intended and professed But here was the Errour Here the Misfortune that St. Peter over-lookt the infirmities of humane Nature and in the warmth of his Zeal promised more than he was able to perform He relyed upon his own Integrity and thought that good resolutions were an impregnable defence against the most violent Temptations But when the Assault was made and that danger drew up close to him which he at a distance despised then the Event proved that how willing and well resolved soever the Spirit might be yet the Flesh alas is but weak at the best exceeding frail and weak And if this Great Champion so soon gave ground How shall We be able to stand in the Battel We who are Men as well as He nay who are Men not near so well appointed as He for this Spiritual Combat For We have all the same Principle of Corruption to betray us the same Passions to bear us down but very Few of Us it is to be feared have the same Knowledge and Wisdom the same Courage and Resolution the same Zeal and entire Love for our Master that He had to oppose against the Tryals which make head against us But Few of Us I doubt have the Grace even in cold blood to resolve that we would die with Christ rather than deny him in any wise And yet even those that are never so serious and sincere in such purposes know not what will become of them when they are brought to the proof We are it may be apt to blame or to pity this Apostle and may fancy how much more valiantly we should have acquitted our selves under the like Difficulties But how extreamly vain all such Despisings of Others or the Preferring our own Virtue before Theirs are this sad Experiment instructs us For He who declared that though all should be offended yet would not He fell more shamefully than any of the rest whose Constancy he suspected and engaged so far to excel That very Argument he went upon proved his ruine and the Opinion of his own Strength was the true Reason why he was so scandalously weak So very dangerous it is to think our selves Something when in truth we are Nothing So fatal to lean to our own Understanding and be Wise and Good and Safe in our own conceits when in reallity all our Sufficiency all our Safety is entirely of God So much do even our Excellencies expose us and such cruel Advantages does the Tempter take from our best Dispositions and Actions if we grow too sensible of them too well pleased with them proud or careless upon their account If we impute them to our selves if we ascribe the Success and Improvements we have formerly attained to our own Virtue and rely upon the Stedfastness of our own minds for a Security against future Tryals So different a thing it is to defy Difficulties
any Circumstances of humane Life Or so far to presume upon our former Virtues as to think our selves incapable even of the blackest Vices if God should withdraw his Grace from us and leave us to our own poor Powers and unwary Measures They awaken our Care mortify our Vanity and remind us of our Dependance upon a Higher Power and to give Him the Acknowledgments due for all the Good we do and for all the Evil we do not And as they admonish so do they comfort us too by shewing that God does not utterly cast off his Servants no not when they offend very grievously and scandalously That we need not ought not to despair though our Transgressions be very many very heinous since there is still Room left for second and better Thoughts And provided Men return and endeavour to make amends for their past Offences they shall be kindly received and freely pardoned And therefore when we read This and the like Passages we must be sure not to stop in the midst but take in the whole Relation and observe the Character throughout For St. Peter's Fall will minister just ground of Comfort to None but such as are careful to rise with him again His Sin indeed is a Warning to us but his Repentance is no less a Pattern They that blame his Sin will do well to observe his Sorrow and if they abhor the One they will not perhaps find it so easy to imitate the Other Let us remember that there are several ways of denying God and Christ and St. Paul expresly says They do it in works and in effect who do not live according to what they believe This I am afraid Few if Any of us can purge our selves wholly of and therefore since our guilt is not far from St. Peter's but only doing the same thing after another fashion it will be necessary that our Concern and Reformation should come up as near to His as the nature of the Fault does In order whereunto My second Head proposes to treat of St. Peter's Repentance And that God willing shall be the Business of my next Discourse SERMON VI. St. Peter's Repentance St. Mark XIV 72. And Peter called to mind the Word that Jesus said unto him Before the Cock crow twice thou shalt deny me thrice And when he thought thereon he wept FROM these Words I proposed to treat of Two General Heads I. First St. Peter 's Fall which is implyed and referred to in the Text and II. Secondly His Repentance which is expresly contained in it Concerning the Former of these I have already spoken at large And shall now proceed to the Latter St. Peter's Repentance And here I shall observe the same method as before Considering carefully the several Steps and Parts of this Repentance in the first place and then drawing from this Example such Reflections as are proper to the Occasion and may be useful to all Christians in general More especially to Such whose unhappy Engagements in a sinful Course have rendred a very deep and solemn Repentance necessary for restoring them to the Favour of an offended God 1. First then Let us consider this Repentance so far as St. Peter himself was concerned in it And here it may be convenient to take notice of the Four following Particulars Which though not all expressed in the words before us yet are to be gathered plainly from the Relations which the other Evangelists have left us concerning this Matter 1. Now the First thing observable here is That which gave the occasion to this Change And This we are told by all the Evangelists was the Crowing of the Cock But St. Mark hath informed us * Vers 68. particularly that St. Peter had heard him Crow once before without any manner of Impression And therefore St. Luke gives us a very good Intimation how the Repeating it a Second time came to be more effectual than the First For this Evangelist is singular in one Circumstance mentioned Ch. XXII 61. The Lord turned and looked upon Peter And Peter then remembred the word of the Lord c. So that this Glance of our Lord upon St. Peter falling in so seasonably with that Crowing of the Cock awakened his mind and made him attend to that Signal of his Duty that Remembrancer of the fault our Lord had foretold and He had so sadly fulfilled This then so backed so sent home to his Conscience put him upon the Second thing remarkable 2. Which is His own Recollection He remembred the word that Jesus had said and found by comparing his own Behaviour with it how shamefully he had fallen from his boasted Courage and Constancy How frail and unstable his strongest Resolutions had proved How much better our Lord understood him than he understood himself How very quickly and easily he had been betrayed into a Crime of which he could not believe himself capable How base he had been to so kind a Master How false to his own purposes How regardless of Truth How peremptory in a most notorious Falshood How profane in the Oaths and Curses by which he had bound it upon his Conscience For by this Remembrance and Thought no doubt is intended a Representing to himsslf the Offence he had committed in its blackest Colours and loading it with all the dreadful Aggravations which of right belonged to it All which when set before him proved so frightful a Spectacle that he could no longer refrain from Tears for that is the 3. Third Circumstance observable in his Behaviour When he thought thereon he wept or as some understand it he burst out into Tears immediately Intimating hereby both the Suddenness and the Extremity of his Grief Such as sought a convenient place to give it self free vent in and therefore he went 〈◊〉 and wept bitterly Without entring into the Dispute what may be the properest Interpretation of those words by which St. Mark * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath described this Action it is sufficiently manifest that St. Peter's Reflection upon what he had done produced in him this Sorrow and that his Sorrow was very serious and hearty The inward Horrours of his mind expressing themselves by the abundance of his Tears and all other Marks of bitter Remorse which we can suppose his Condition to require or be capable of And This must needs have been more than can be easy for us to conceive For the Anguish of a wounded Spirit is no more to be described than it is to be born And in St. Peter every thing conspired to increase this Confusion For besides the many particular Circumstances that heightned his Guilt and embittered the Remembrance of so foul an Offence the very Kindness of his Master who in the midst of Contumelies and Sufferings seem'd to forget himself a while and had a Compassionate Look in reserve to reclaim Him must needs have added a great deal to his Astonishment and Concern There being nothing more apt to soften and melt a Man's heart down
as ever we had done formerly to that of our Lusts By stemming the Torrent of Profaneness and Impiety and endeavouring with all our might to promote Goodness in the World Particularly by being eminently conspicuous in those Virtues which are most directly contrary to the Vices we formerly indulged and by our active indefatigable Charity to the Souls of our Brethren giving Testimony how just a value we set upon the deliverance of our Own in our mighty care to rescue Theirs Thus far St. Peter's Example leads us But even when we have followed it thus far we may not suppose that our Pardon and good Acceptance are due to any Desert of our own Good Works Or that our deepest Sorrow can properly speaking have in it any thing of Satisfaction For as * Luke XXII 32. St. Peter's Faith did therefore not fail because Christ prayed that it might not so our Restoration and the Essicacy of our Repentance is entirely the Effect of the Merits and Intercession of the same kind Saviour He only could take up this quarrel between offended God and sinful Man and therefore when we find God most easy of Access and are suffered to draw so near as even to be mystically united to him and fed by him let us not forget to beg that the intolerable Burden of our Sins may be removed not in Presumption of our own Righteousness but in confidence of his manifold and great Mercies humbly beseeching him That for his Son our Lord Jesus Christ's Sake he would forgive us all that is past and grant that we may ever heareafter serve and please Him In newness of Life To the honour and glory of his holy Name through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen SERMON VII THE CERTAINTY AND Nature of Regeneration St. John III. 8. The Wind bloweth where it lifteth and thou hearest the Sound thereof but canst not tell whence it cometh nor whither it goeth So is every one that is born of the Spirit WHEN we read of Nicodemus adventuring to Visit Jesus and acknowledging the Conviction his Miracles had wrought upon some of the Beholders that they concluded from hence his Mission and Authority to be Divine it is plain somewhat more than mere Curiosity drew him to this Conference Desires he had though as yet but imperfect of better Instruction but such as they were our Saviour did not disdain to gratify them in entring upon a Discourse concerning the Kingdom of God That Kingdom which it was his design to bring men to the Kingdom of that God from whom he came a Teacher Whether Nicodemus had enquired into the Qualifications requisite to prepare Men for and admit them into this Kingdom we know not or whether Christ of his own accord fell upon This as a Point the most improving the most necessary to be first understood and most pertinent to the purpose of stealing this Visit Nor was it material for St. John to acquaint us That which is of much greater Consequence is that he makes a Man's being born again the indispensable Condition of seeing that Kingdom V. 3. And This deserves the Greater Attention because a Master in Israel mistook it As if God had intended the Impossibility or at least our Saviour were so absurd to propose it of going through the Course of a Natural Birth the second time V. 4. From that wild Misconstruction our Lord delivers himself and explains the Nature of Regeneration That Water and the Spirit the Washing of Baptism outwardly and the inward Sanctifications of the Holy Ghost are the Principles by which it is effected V. 5. That Could it be compassed in that gross way Nicodemus misapprehended yet that would be of no Efficacy no Advantage at all in this Case For since in all Productions the thing born receives the Nature and Resemblance of That whence it s Being was derived Flesh could only produce Flesh But the new Creature which God requires consists in the Mind and therefore to bring forth a new Spirit it is necessary that the Vital Principle should be a Spirit V. 6. And however he might find some difficulty in assenting to this because neither the Cause nor the manner of its Operation fall under the notice of the Bodily Senses yet is not that any just Exception against the Reality of the Fact A very familiar Instance whereof he alledges in the Words of my Text which are thus introduced by the seventh Verse Marvel not that I said unto thee Ye must be born again The Wind bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the Sound thereof but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth so is every one that is born of the Spirit The Words plainly consist of two parts A Similitude and The Application and my Discourse upon them shall accordingly distribute it self into these Two Heads First From the Similitude I shall draw some general Conclusions which may direct us in our Contemplation of Divine Truths and especially That of Regeneration which is the Subject Matter of our Lord's Argument with Nicodemus Secondly From the Application I shall consider how far the properties of the Wind mentioned here will give us any just ground to judge of the Holy Spirit 's workings upon the Souls of Men. I. I begin with some General Conclusions drawn from the Similitude it self such as may direct us in our Contemplation of Divine Truths and more especially in That of Regeneration which is the subject Matter of our Lord's Argument with Nicodemus And these Conclusions are as follow 1. First A man may have sufficient Reason to assure himself that a Thing really is without being able to give an account how it came to be For the Cause of a Thing is indeed one and a very satisfactory way of coming to the distinct Knowledge of its Nature But this is but One way of Many and Some things which we cannot come at this way may be so certain to us that it would be the Extremity of an Obstinate Singularity to deny them For as things have Causes so have they likewise Effects and Properties and other Characters by which they may be distinguished And it is enough in all Conscience if any of these give Evidence of their existing For we are every whit as sure that what hath no Being of its own cannot have Properties and Effects as we are that it could never have been without a Cause And therefore when we are able to assign any such Properties or Effects that is a Demonstration of the Reality of the Thing For instance Very Few if Any of the most Learned have been able to give a satisfactory Account of the Original of Winds but the Hypothesis of one Philosopher is disliked and exploded by another Now though these Curious Searchers into Nature cannot agree whence they come and whither they go yet herein they all agree that come and go they do This they know without any search And the unlettered part of the World who have neither Capacity
with regard to the Sacrifice of Expiation He tells the Hebrews ‖ Heb. II. 9. that Jesus was made a little lower than the Angels that He by the Grace of God should tast death for every man The Design is not less universal because the Effect is not so For St. Peter * 2 Pet. II 1. upbraids the men who brought in damnable Heresies with denying the Lord that bought them and so bringing upon themselves destruction And the Apostle to the Romans enlarges most admirably to shew the Wisdom and Goodness of Providence in converting the Obstinacy of the Jews into an occasion of bringing in the fullness of the Gentiles that so the Conversion of the Gentiles might be also an occasion of softening the Jews by working them up to a holy Emulation of that Happiness and Obedience which those despised Nations had so surprisingly outstripped them in Some Persons indeed there are who deny the force of this Reason and pretend that God never intended that those who stood out should ever have come in that he hardned their hearts and made it impossible for them to hearken to or comply with his Calls But I add notwithstanding Fourthly That God was very serious in these Invitations and that the Parable gives us ground sufficient to believe so It is true Among Men many things are done merely out of Ceremony and Form Many proffers made in hopes of being refused Many Civilities shewn where nothing less is intended And what the World calls Complaisance and good Breeding is frequently not so much the Language as the Disguise of the mind And hard it is to know whether it proceed from real Friendship or be the Effect of Formality or Flattery or Dissimulation or Fear But This cannot possibly be the Case here For to suppose Almighty God guilty of such mean Arts is to think most unworthily and most inconsistently of him With Him is no Deceivableness no Deceit A thing so vile and confessedly base that They who practice it most are always ashamed to own it and therefore use their utmost industry to mask it well Though Few in comparison are sincere yet every Man is ambitious and labours to be thought sincere And what the very Worst of sinful Mortals detests is sure a Character not to be ascribed to the Best and Holiest Being Again As the Nature of God is not capable of any indirect or double Dealing or false and flattering Pretences so is there no imaginable Reason from without that should incline him to make use of them He cannot contract an Obligation from his own Creatures nor can he stand in Awe of their Displeasure What then should move him to profess Kindness where none is due What where he cannot suffer by with-holding it What indeed but his own Infinite and Essential Goodness Can the Great God of Heaven and Earth gain any advantage by insinuating himself into the Affections and courting the good Opinion of poor Worms who can never profit him by the best of their polluted and imperfect Services He stands not in need of any Returns our Gratitude can make Nor is his Happiness defective without them And Common Sense tells us that were Our State independent upon the Favour or Friendship of one another there would not be such a thing as a Flatterer or Dissembler in the World If then this King in the Parable did not design his Invitations should be accepted why did he ever make them at all But at least when men refused them why did he not take them at their word A Complement that is merely such is easily dropp'd And when men are well enough pleased to be deny'd they are usually content to spare the trouble of pressing But is This at all agreeable to the Methods used here for bringing in Guests to the Marriage If the First Bidding would bear so vile an Interpretation yet sure the Importunities of a Second and Third Call will by no means endure it And yet least of all will that Indignation for being so unworthily rejected The New Commissions issued out to his Servants The mighty Care of picking up other Guests And the severe Revenge upon Those who received his gracious Offers with Disdain In all appearance the doing what God all along intended men should do nay what he made it necessary for them to do ought not to have bred so irreconcilable a Quarrel We acknowledge indeed that the Counsels of Almighty God are a vast and dark Depth and think it very unbecoming poor feeble Mortals too busily to intrude into or peremptorily to pronounce concerning them But there are some plain Principles so obvious that all contending Parties cannot but agree in them That the Judge of all the Earth cannot but do right is a Truth universally confess'd And though Justice in God may proceed upon Measures not understood by Us and be perfect above what we are able to comprehend yet since Just and Unjust Good and Evil are not arbitrary and unalterable things we have no reason to suppose that Justice and Goodness in God are contrary to what we esteem Just and Good among Men. And therefore Men may be excused if they think that all the Caution and Jealousy due to the Honour of God's Justice and Goodness have not been observed by Some who out of honest Zeal perhaps have set up a secret Will in the Divine Decrees which seems plainly repugnant to the Known Will of his Precepts and Revelations For if God will that Any should hear and receive and obey his Gospel and enjoyns this upon pain of Damnation and hath in most solemn manner declared this to be his Will and yet at the same time hath another Will to us unknown which controuls and over-rules all this and will not suffer such to receive and obey his Word though they would never so fain and then punishes and damns them eternally for not doing so Let Them who maintain this Doctrine tell us how we shall deliver it from such Reflections upon the Honour the Justice the Goodness the Truth and if I may be allowed so to speak the Sincerity and Common Honesty of the Divine Nature as Reverence to so Great a Majesty will not suffer me to name In Matters of so high a Nature great Allowances may be made for unaffected Mistakes and Difference in Opinion But it can be no just matter of blame to dissent from those Doctrines the Consequences of which even They that advance them profess to abhor and yet have not shewn us how they can be avoided For so far as yet appears if This be the case our Preaching is vain and your Faith is also vain And therefore we have great Reason to conclude that God does not obstruct mens honest Endeavours in the use of Outward Means but leaves them in their full Power and that his Decrees are such as consist very well with the Temper of his Covenants his Exhortations his Promises his Threatnings his vehement and affectionate Expostulations his laying
consider That Other of such as do entertain and profess but yet are not saved by it For This answers to the Person who did come and yet was afterwards thrust out for want of a Wedding-Garment What this Garment signifies seems not very hard to be understood Most Interpreters agree it to be Good Works in general to which I would only beg leave to add such works done out of a Principle of sincere Obedience For since the want of this Garment does not appear to have been discovered till the Master came in to see and examine the Guests though the Circumstances in Parables are not to be too curiously insisted upon yet I presume it is not amiss to take in Inward Holiness here in opposition to a dissembled formal Shew of Religion Now This is what may be so nicely wrought that no humane Eye shall be able to distinguish it But God will be sure to unmask the Hypocrite He sees through all our Disguises and will one day sever not only between the openly Righteous and the Wicked but between Him that is Righteous in reality and Him that is so in Affectation and Appearance only This then is a seasonable warning to all of us Phil. I. 27. Ephes IV. 23 24. 1 Pet. III. 15. Ephes VI. 6. that our Conversation be such as becomes the Gospel of Christ that we take care to be renewed in the Spirit of our Mind and to put on the Inward Man which after God is formed according to Righteousness and true Holiness that we sanctifie the Lord God in and Do his will from our Hearts This proves that our being received into the Number and Congregation of the Faithful partaking in the same Proviledges and the same Instructions joyning in the same Prayers and the same Sacraments doing some outward acts of Piety and Charity that All this I say will avail us nothing if our hearts be rotten at the bottom if we be not sincere and stedfast and uniform in our Duty Such Men may impose upon the World and by degrees upon Themselves too but Be not deceived there is a stricter Search to come and God is not cannot be â—ocked A Man may lie within Christ's fold and yet be no better than a Wolf in Sheeps Clothing But the Shepberd will be sure to find him out and to deal with him accordingly In a word it is not the Form but the Power of Godliness that must save us This unworthy Comer did no more eat of the Feast than They who came not at all And at the Last day the matter will come much to one whether we be reckoned among Hypocrites or Vnbelievers since the Great Judge hath already declared that the Portion of both shall be in a Matth. XXIV 51. place of darkness and weeping and gnashing of Teeth Luk. XII 46. Now that this walking unworthy our Christian Profession as well as not professing Christ at all is from our own fault I need not after what hath been said already take any pains to prove It may suffice to refer my Reader back to the former Considerstions since the very same Advantages and Assistances afforded Meâ— for disposing them to believe the Truth are at least as plentifully afforded 〈◊〉 disposing them to practise it whâ—… they do believe it And the very saâ—… Indispositions and vicious Qualitiâ—… which hinder men from entertaining the Christian Doctrine do likewise obstruct the conforming their lives in good earnest to the Doctrines they entertain The same is farther manifest from this Person 's punishment here and from his being Speechless struck dumb with Guilt and Confusion Which fairly intimates to us what is most certainly true That of all Men living They who pretend to be Christians will have least to say in their own excuse if they lead wicked lives since This is in effect to profess one Rule and act by another and to live not only in opposition to God and his Laws but under a perpetual upbraiding of their own Breasts and in a perfect and constant contradiction to themselves Now All this tends directly to the End I chiefly aimed at in the Choice of this Subject Which is to remove mose discouragements to Repentance and a Good Life which some weak Minds may labour under from a mistaken Notion that these things will either be done without us or not effectually attain'd even by our most laborious and conscientious Endeavours And though may be objected that Parables afford but little matter for solid Argument yet the Cause I have undertaken will not be much weakned by that pretence if it be remembred thaat we may and ought to argue from Parables so far as the Reason and plain Design of them leads us And that nothing here hath been advanced beyond that which is not I hope sufficiently evinced by other express Texts of Scripture Let us not then flatter our selves with little Shifts and take Sanctuary in the dark excuses of absolute Reprobation and Election For be assured that at the General Day of Account a new and different Scene of things shall open And what Cloaks soever Men may contrive to cover their shame in the mean while every mouth shall then be laid in the dust All flesh shall not only be but acknowledge it self to be guilty before God And He be justified in all his Doings and clear when he is judged The Sum then of what hath been said upon the matter is This That God calls freely whom and when and how he pleases that every body is Called to whom the Word of Salvation is sent and Called in such a manner that if They who live under the dispensation of the Gospel do not hear and receive and profit by it the Fault and the Punishment will be Theirs That this hearing and receiving or which is the same thing coming when Called implies not only a Belief of what our Saviour hath taught but living in agreement to the Principles Christians profess to believe That They who wilfully fail in either of these Points cannot be of the Number of God's Chosen They may be Called and not Come they may Come and yet be thrust out as unworthy And none are the Chosen but such as partake of the Feast From whence we may infer that the Election of God proceeds upon certain Terms and Qualifications And although Men are Called by an Act of Mercy purely arbitrary and without any respect to their Behaviour yet they are not Chosen so Freely indeed they are because not for any desert or real worth of their Best Works but conditionally still because not without Good Works So that these Works though incapable of being the Meritorious are yet the Instrumental Cause of our Election and Salvation Hence Theophylect says Theoph. in loc That we are Called is entirely Gids act but whether we be Chosen or no will depend upon our Selves Hence a much more incontestable Authority than His warns Christians 2 Pet. I. 10. that they give diligence
which are wont to rise from the Failings we feel or fancy in our selves Those that proceed from the expectation of such easy and peaceful Resentments of Mind as are imagined always to attend Piety and true Faith shall be considered God willing in another Discourse SERMON XIII THE CASE OF A Weak and Imperfect FAITH The Scruples about it consider'd St. Mark IX 24. Latter part Lord I believe help thou my Vnbelief MY design from these Words was to treat of a Weak and Imperfect Faith and in pursuance of that Design I have already assigned some Reasons for the weakness of Faith such and so general that all People will find themselves more or less concerned in them which was my First Head My Second proposed to satisfy the Scruples of many well-meaning Persons upon this occasion by shewing that those things which are frequently suspected as signs of their having no True Faith are really not so Now These being of Two sorts Some that proceed from a sight or an imagination of some Failings in Men's own selves and Others from the want of such easiness and peace of mind as are supposed constantly to attend true Piety and Faith The Former of these Kinds have been already consider'd particularly and the Latter come now under our Examination viz. Those Dissatisfactions which are apt to arise from the want of such easy and peaceful Resentments of Mind as true Faith and that Piety which God accepts are always supposed to produce Now of These I commonly meet with Two which seem most to deserve our Consideration And they are First Mens doubting of their particular Election and Salvation and Secondly The want of those inward Joys and that present constant peace of heart which Religion is so often said in Scripture to cheer our Spirits with and to recommend it self to us by First then I shall endeavour to satisfy you that for Men to doubt of their own particular Election and Salvation as that Phrase is commonly used is not any Argument that they want true Faith Nor indeed could it ever have been thought one if a sort of Vain Men had not led their Followers away with a strange deluding imagination that it was One necessary part and Character of a true Belief in Christ to perswade themselves of their own personal Election and that it was impossible they should ever miscarry So that not to rest asselves of their own Eternal Salvation is as they represent the matter a Distrust of Christ's mercy and of the Faithfulness of God to his promises since his gifts and his calling are without Repentance and whom he once loveth he loveth them unto the end Now when people are told in so very confident and peremptory terms that This is the Faith by which they must be saved and that to question their own Eternal Happiness is an undeniable proof that no such thing belongs to them And when at the same time upon examination of their own breasts and an humble sight of their many Failings and Infirmities they cannot rest in all that fulness of assurance but find some little Misgivings and Fears mixed with their Hopes We are not to wonder if they lye under sad anxieties and dissatisfactions so long as they believe themselves wanting in a Condition absolutely necessary to Salvation But Such is not this positive Assurance whatever is pretended nor in truth can it be as I hope to convince you in few words and by so doing most offectually to put and End to all those Scruples and Disquiets that are owing merely to this false presumption of its being so and that there can be no true Faith without it To believe that God out of a gracious design to save Mankind from Hell and everlasting Destruction sent his Son into the World to dye for them And that All such as Believe and obey the Gospel shall most certainly by His merits have their Obedience accepted and their Souls made eternally happy This indeed is a true and a necessary Belief And to question This is to distrust and dishonour God It is to contradict his word and to blaspheme his Truth But for You or Me in particular to believe that We are of this happy number This can never be required of us as a positive Duty Nor hath the Gospel enjoin'd it any farther than by the Testimony of our own Consciences and the word of God we find our selves within those General terms by which the Gospel promises Salvation to Mankind at large And you will I think agree that even in very Good men it cannot be expected This should amount to a positive assurance when you have considered the following Arguments As First It is not possible I conceive to reconcile such an absolute assurance with Fear And yet the Gospel plainly propounds this as a proper and very powerful motive to a Christian's Obedience For however that may have been run down as a Spirit contrary to the Genius of the New Covenant and the New Creature * Ps cxi 10. yet it is not plainer that the Old Testament places the * Phil. II. 12 13. beginning of Religious Wisdom in the Fear of the Lord than it is that the New attributes the very finishing and Excellence of it to the same Affection of mind and makes the very Mercies of God in Christ a foundation for it For so St. Paul advises the Corinthians 2 Ep. Chap. VII v. 1. Having therefore these promises dearly beloved let us cleanse our selves from all filthiness both of flesh and spirit perfecting holiness in the fear of God Where it is plain he spoke not to Novices or to such as were to make their first feeble Essays by the help of this and then pass on to some Nobler Motive but he expects that they should complete their Duty and become perfect by That A Vertue so far from being inconsistent with Gospel-mercies that they are exhorted to fear for that reason because they had such gracious promises to depend upon The same Apostle commands his Philippians * Phil. II. 12 13. to work out their Salvation with fear and trembling that is in an awe of God's Justice constantly upon their minds a constant Dread of his Vengeance and from thence an Anxious Care to please him And yet all this is not a Spirit of Bondage for That could not stand with having received the Spirit of Adoption as these Philippians had who are accordingly encouraged to this diligence in the next verse from the consideration of God's Grace whereby he works in men both to will and to do of his good pleasure Nor may we say as some fondly do that the Love of God is cooled by such a principle since our Blessed Saviour himself hath recommended the highest Act of Love that men are capable of no less than suffering Martyrdom it self and laying down our lives for his sake from the same motive Thus he hath chosen to do to his beloved ones Luke XII 4. 5. I say unto you
our selves all that Protection and Tender Care all that Compassion and kind Concern all that Indulgence and favourable Allowance for our failings all that ready Relief in our necessities all that ample Provision for our prosperity and well being which Nature inspires affectionate Fathers with and gives dutiful Children a right to expect How much this is I pretend not to describe for Words cannot do it I refer my self to Parents for Parents only know and what they know in this respect is much easier felt than exprest But give me leave to say that when the best good-natured man hath summoned all the softest Resentments together that either the Bowels of a Father or the most winning Endearments of a Child can engage him to This and much more is derived down upon every Christian by being the Son of God Of God whose Love is infinite and incomprehensible grounded upon better and more substantial Motives Who as he is not moved by the same springs of Passion with mortal Men so he is not subject to their Inconstancies and Picques and unaccountable Disgusts His Affection is steady and permanent He always loves when we deserve it and always pities and is easy to be reconciled when we do not Of God whose Power is as immense as his Love So that This does not spend it self in sad Complaints and melancholy Reflections and unprofitable Wishes as that of Earthly Parents often does who see with aking and with bleeding hearts their Children's wants and even die under those Miseries they cannot help But This Father understands all our occasions can supply all our necessities can redress all our wrongs remove all our misfortunes and is not more willing than he is able to assist us Of God I say whose Provision is not like what we are so immoderately sollicitous to procure for our Children here upon Earth The Prey of usurping Greatness or treacherous Falshood or crafty Forgery the Booty of Invasion and Violence and Theft the Sport of Fire and Water and Winds and every Element Nay even the Food of Rust and Moths Or if spared by all these yet at the best such as must wast and perish in the using But an Inheritance large and Eternal as the Bounteous Giver above the reach of Casualties and outlasting even Time it self Of God lastly the King of Kings and Lord of all Lords One who exalts us to a Dignity infinitely above what any Earthly Prince or Potentate can pretend to The place of Honour in the Court of Heaven and without the melancholy Ceremonies of Death and Succession gives to each Son a Crown A Crown of Life a Crown of Glory a Crown of Righteousness incorruptible and that fadeth not away for ever These are but faint and feeble Representations of the Honours and Happinesses that accrue to us by being thus related But Who can hear even These without breaking out again into St. John's rapturous Reflection Behold what manner of Love the Father hath bestowed on us that we should be called the Sons of God! 2. But I observed Secondly that This manner of the Evangelist's expressing himself as it spoke the Greatness so did it also imply the Freedom of the Gift The very Nature of a Privilege seems to carry something of Indulgence and Grace in it Something which though granted upon good Considerations yet could not in strict right have been challenged And This is the Case of Christians They were in no Condition of meriting this mighty Favour Much otherwise indeed Their Circumstances were poor and low and miserable For what can possibly be more so than Man corrupted by Sin A most lost most polluted Object the Servant the Slave the Child of the Devil bewildred in Darkness and Ignorance captivated and bound up in Chains of Sin and Folly and past the extent of any natural Powers to enlighten or to release him Omnipotence only could do it nay even Omnipotence without Love had not done it to Perfection But by a happy Conjunction of these Two we are set free Set free the noblest way not so much as the Spirit of bondage and fear remaining but are so made the Servants as at the same time to attain the glorious Liberty of the Sons of God Not such by Nature 't is true but adopted for the sake of Him who is so by Nature and who in wonderful Condescension is not ashamed to call us Brethren My Former Particular took notice that Some things are required of Us in order to make good this Adoption But These are appointed only as Instruments as Signs and Seals and do not so much pass as record and testify the Act and insure the Benefit of it to us As the Writing of Indenture does not convey an Estate for the Person 's Sealing and Delivering does that but is only called a Deed because it testifies the Deed of the Party and as such Testimony secures the Possession to him for whose use it was done So The Sacraments of the Gospel when received with Faith and all necessary Qualifications are only the Means and Methods of deriving this Sonship upon us Seals and Evidences of what God does there But still it is not the Sacrament but God in and by the Sacrament that makes us Children There is no such Merit in the Virtues and Dispositions of the Mind that partakes of them No such inherent Power in the Matter or the Form the Words or the Elements as can by any Efficacy of their own work this mighty Change All is the Act the free Gift the peculiar Blessing of the most High exalting these things into Effects Mysterious and above their natural faculties And as the Water though of all Elements most fruitful had produced nothing in the first Creation if the Spirit of God had not brooded upon it so in the Second Birth it is that Spirit alone that sanctifies water to the washing away of Sin and enables it to bring forth a Child of God But though such Similitudes as these are of great use to give us some Apprehension of things that fall not directly under Senses yet we are not to suppose this should hold in every Circumstance For between This and Common Births there is a wide difference as St. John plainly declares and it is the design of my Third Particular to observe which takes notice III. Of The Manner how this Sonship is conferred from those Words of my Text Who were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God The meaning whereof seems in short to be thus much That we are not conceive of This as of Usual and Natural Births as if it were produced out of Material Principles or promoted by Sensual Inclinations but All here is Spiritual and Sublime It is God that beget us of his own will and this is done by the word of truth as St. James observes Ch. I. v. 18. Or if you please to take these Expressions as Some have done in a Metaphorical
Sense so they import that no Faculties of our own no Desires of Sense no Principles of Reason and Morality can rise so high there must be Divine Grace or there can be no Child of God The thing is true in both Interpretations and all the Enlargement I shall make upon it is only to set before you the Reasonableness of this being represented to us under the notion of Regeneration or a Second Birth and then to describe the Manner of it's being brought about as the Scripture hath instructed us in it By Natural Birth and Generation it is plain we come to have a Life which we had not before We have a Principle of Motion imparted to us and from dead senseless Matter are enabled to perform all the Functions that are proper to Humane Nature Another Creature is produced of the same kind with those from whence it sprung and grows up by degrees to the same use of Sense the same Reason the same Understanding the same Desires of what is not convenient and the same Aversions and Fears of what is hurtful and destructive to it And in all these Circumstances men are very properly said to be born again upon their Conversion to and believing in Christ The Condition they were in before is a State of utter Inactivity and for this reason we find them styled * Ephes II. 1. dead in trespasses and sins and said to be quickned by the Grace and Spirit of God They were imprisoned and confined and the utmost Efforts they were capable of making are but like the faint Struggles of an Embryo in the Womb. But this coming to the Birth gives them liberty to exert themselves and lets them into a new and different Scene of Action It produces a New Creature as the Scripture terms it that is Such a Newness as a Soul is capable of New Notions and Dispositions and consequent to these a New Conversation proceeding from them So that every such Person is quite another Man from what he was before And this Alteration conforms us to the Image of him that begot us Every thing is pure and Godlike and expresses a Resemblance to his Essential Holiness It gives a fresh turn to our Thoughts and Affections so that we are not acted as before by the same carnal Apprehensions nor the same sensual Inclinations It imprints a new Character upon our Understandings and gives us a true Sense of Good and Evil and it puts a quite different Bent upon our Will such as disposes us to love what is truly Good and Spiritual and Heavenly and to despise and detest what is Worldly and Wicked This is that Likeness of Species which justifies the Metaphor The greatest that can possibly happen to a Soul the greatest that a Moral Principle is capable of and so great as to render it very significant and proper to say of every such Person that he is born again But we know that by being born men become part of a Family and have a Right to a Child's Share in the Division of the Estate And This is another good Reason for mens being said to be born of God because by that means they are let into New Relations and acquire New Titles Thus St. Paul tells Christians that * Gal. IV. they receive the Spirit of Adoption and by it have a right to call God Father that they are Sons and not only Sons but heirs heirs of God and coheirs with Christ That they are from thenceforth allied to the whole Family that is named of God both in Heaven and Earth And from Aliens and Strangers and Enemies come not only to be admitted into a strict Alliance with but to obtain the most honourable and most advantagious Post in the Houshold And since these Prerogatives among Men are the Effect of Birth and Blood the same conferred with regard to our Spiritual Kindred and Divine Inheritance is very fitly represented by being born of God For as Foreigners though the dearest Friends are not legally qualified for them in Settlements of this World except in default of Issue and where the Race is extinct So here none who is not of the Family can inherit and they who are most worthy of it are first made capable of it by becoming Children And for this reason it is that this Title is so often made use of and so highly extolled in Scripture because whatever Privileges the Rest may imply yet None can minister that Comfort and Confidence None can assure our Inheritance or give us A Pretence to the Glory and Kingdom of Heaven but this of Sons only Now for the Manner of working this Change in us which was the Other Consideration propounded under this Head That also carries so great a Similitude to a natural Birth that no Figure in the World could give us a clearer Idea of the thing The Act of Generation and Birth gives Being once for all and at the instant of coming into the World the Child the Heir is born to all the Rights of his Quality and Family So likewise in the Sacrament of Baptism we have the Spirit of God conferred upon us which as it is a Spirit of Grace is a Principle of new Life to us and as it is a Spirit of Adoption it instates us in all the Privileges that can belong to Children of such a Father And for this reason our Church immediately after the Covenant is struck gives thanks to Almighty God and acknowledges him a most merciful Father for that it hath pleased him to regenerate the Persons then newly baptized with his holy Spirit to receive them for his own Children by Adoption and to incorporate them into his holy Church As also she most wisely and truly declares at the beginning of her excellent Catechism that in Baptism we are made Members of Christ Children of God and Inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven But a Member must be cut off if it be mortified Children may provoke their Parents to put them by their Birth-right and an Heir under Age is such in Reversion and Hope only The Natural Parent gives a Principle of Life but it is such a one as will soon perish and go out again if due care be not taken to preserve it And so it is here The Spirit of God quickens us upon his first Infusions but we are to cherish the kindly warmth God is our Father in the sustaining and nourishing as well as in the Enlivening part He knows the Life that is in us is subject to perpetual decays and therefore the same natural Affection that occasioned our being born His does likewise engage and assure us of all necessary Supplies to continue His provided we use what he gives and employ that Principle of Spiritual Self-preservation Grace therefore though it be given at first yet is not given all at first There is that proportion given which makes us Children but we are commanded * 1 Pet. II. 2. to feed upon the sincere milk of the