Perverse Judgment of Christ and the other things appertaining to God He shall convince the World says he de Peccato quod dissimulat de Justitia quod non ordinat de Judicio quod usurpat of the Sin which they now cloak or dissemble of the Righteousness which they direct not aright and of the Judgment they unduly exercise But the 11 th Verse clearly opposes this Interpretation and shews that the Judgment spoken of is not meant of the World Actively which the World had made but Passively which shall be made or pass'd upon the World Now the World or Unbelieving Part of it are said to be convinc't by the Judgment that should come upon them in this That the Prince of the World is cast out For he that hath Master'd the Prince broken the Power of his Kingdom and holds him in Vassalage may be accounted to have master'd and subdu'd his People also And the Prince of the World is said to be thus Judg'd two Ways First By spoiling him of his Strength Having spoiled Principalities and Powers he made a shew of them openly triumphing over them in it Coloss. 2.15 What is a Prince when he is stript of his Power When his Counsels and Policies are defeated or detected his Officers arrested his Prisons broke open his Fortresses ruined and dismantled his Harness and Ammunition of War seised and the like And thus Satan was divested and unthroned by Christ and shewed openly to be judged and subdued after the Coming of the Holy Ghost Sin his strong Yoke by which he held Mankind in Bondage and Slavery was broken Guilt the Plea of his Dominion and Tyranny over them taken away by Satisfaction made for it Temptation his great Stratagem made weak and invalid by Grace Death his Sergeant himself mortified the Grave his Prison set open and made only a Dormitory and harmless Through-fare to Life These things were his first Judgment before the great and final Day when the Staff of his Authority was as 't were broken over his head and no Power left him but what those that love Servitude better than Freedom chose their own Destruction before the Salvation purchas'd for them voluntarily give him over themselves These things I say did evince the Fall of Satan as manifestly as the train of Light which follows that which the People call a Falling Star evinces the descent of that Meteor and which possibly our Lord alluded to when he said I beheld Satan as Lightning fall from Heaven But then Secondly Satan is judged Personally for though his Sentence of Condemnation be yet as I may say but Ambulatory in regard of the Execution yet it is Final and Peremptory in regard of the Determination He that has forfeited his Life to the Law and is reserved in Chains in expectation of the next Assize or waits only donec sternuntur Subsellia till the Judge puts on his Robes and the Court sits differs but little from him that has actually received his Doom And such is Satans Condition since the Coming of Christ and the Holy Ghost Datur mora parvula some little stay there is till the Figure of this World be changed and then he goes for ever to his Proper Place And let this suffice to be said of the Matter which the Spirit shall reprove or convince the World of namely of Sin of Righteousness and of Judgment I come in the next place to shew the Manner how the Spirit did convince the World The Manner of the Conviction The word in the Original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies as was said either to Reprove or to Convince to convince the Understanding of an Errour or to reprove the Will of a Crime And the Holy Ghost performed both these parts at his Coming First He convinced mens Understandings that they were in Sin under the Guilt contracted by the first Man and that Belief in Christ who was the Seed of the Woman that was to bruise the Serpents head and who had power to cast out the Prince of the World that he should no more abuse the Nations was the only Way to get out of that and all other Sins and to obtain Justification And this was de facto brought to pass in so great a Part of the World 's being converted after the Coming of the Holy Ghost and being content to go down into the Laver of Regeneration the Waters of Baptism to cleanse away their Sins and the Church of Christ in those days might have been compared as Solomon compared the Jewish to a Flock of Sheep newly come up from washing For all these renounced the Prince of this World and acknowledged Jesus Christ to be the only Saviour and those that made use of and improved the Grace given them in Baptism found the Devil a weak and impotent Prince that might easily be resisted and foiled that had no Power but what was meerly precarious and delusive such as might perswade or deceive men into Sin but could not compel them But then as the Holy Ghost wrought this Conviction on the Unbelieving World by what Means did he work it There are two Ways of convincing Mens Judgments The one by Argumentation and necessary Consequence on certain Premisses granted The other by sensible and ocular Demonstration And though the last Way of these by Aristotle and the Masters of Reason be counted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unartificial and less Noble yet in Assurance it goes beyond all manner of Reasoning And this was the Way the Holy Ghost took to Convince the Gain-saying World of the Salvation preached by Christ Our Lord himself also points at this Way Joh. 15.26 where he says to his Disciples When the Comforter is come the Spirit of Truth he shall testifie of me and ye also shall bear Witness Ye also shall bear Witness was not unnecessarily added for a Spirit has no Voice of its own no more than it has Flesh and Bones But the Apostles were the Spirit 's Agents their Sermons were its Voice and their Hands its Organs by which it wrought its Miracles the Epistles of S t Paul and of the rest of the Apostles we may say were the Rhetorick but the Acts of the Apostles were the Logick of the Holy Ghost The truth is whatever other Proofs were brought for the Confirmation of Christian Religion Miracles were the Strength of it the Unresistible Engines that bore down all Infidelity before them and S t Paul Heb. 2.3 shews the Unexcusableness of not yielding to this Conviction How shall we escape says he if we neglect so Great Salvation which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed unto us by them that heard it God also bearing them Witness with Signs and Wonders and with divers Miracles and Gifts of the Holy Ghost But then here some will say That this Conviction by the Miraculous Operations of the Holy Ghost was indeed a Powerful Conviction to those that were Witnesses of them and saw these things done but
we hear therefore any Creature whatsoever bring such a Doctrine as this Ego altissimus that himself is the Supreme God or that usurps the Power and Prerogative of the Supreme God forgives Sins not Ministerially but Absolutely grants Dispensations to commit them abrogates Divine Institutions makes New Articles of Faith assumes to himself Infallibility and other Divine Properties claims not only an Exorbitant Jurisdiction above his Commission in this World but extends it even into the other c. as the Popes of Rome do let the Miracles they or their Followers work be never so astonishing yet they are to be held accursed by us and we may safely pronounce They are not Good Men but Deceivers of the People But then Christ's Miracles tended quite to another End to ratifie and establish all holy and Divine Truths especially that Summa Veritas that Supreme Truth which was the Test not only of all other Truths but of Miracles themselves viz. That there is but One God and he alone to be worshipp'd So that his Doctrine was a Proof of his Miracles as his Miracles were a Proof of his Doctrine neither will this reciprocal Proof if well observed be found to be that Circular Way of Proof so much condemned in Logick in which the Effect is made the Cause of the same thing which is its Cause which cannot be in Nature However therefore the Grand Exception both of the Jews of old and of these days lyes in this Point That notwithstanding Christ by the Confession of their own Rulers wrought many Miracles yet he was not to be hearkened to because he destroy'd the Worship of the True God i. e. abolish'd those Rites and Ordinances which were immediately delivered from Heaven this their Exception is vain and without Reason For Christ did not as they say destroy the Worship of the True God but reformed and improved it took away only the outward Cortex or Husk of Religion to shew more plainly the Substance of it and wherein its Weightier Duties consisted removed the Shadows drew the Veil from off Moses's face altered such Inferior Alterable things in God's Service as were foretold should be altered And then he did this by the most clear and authentick Commission from Heaven that could be shewed by the Broad Seal and Patent as I may say of Miracles and the Ceremonial Law was removed by a no less Glorious Ministration than 't was at first given Now these things being so that a Prophet's Doctrine Miracles and Sanctity of Life concur especially as I said when he secured the Essentials of Religion and above all others that Great Requisite de Vnius Dei Cultu of the Non-Avocation of men from the Worship of the One and True God even by the Sentence of the Sanhedrim he ought to have been received as sent from God We may therefore conclude that the proceeding of the Elders and Rulers against our Lord was perverse and wicked and the Judgment of the People a right Judgment upon good Warrant we may justifie their Justification and say In pronouncing he did All things Well they also spake Well And so I pass to the third Circumstance I observed The Extension of their Approbation He hath done All things Well The Judgment here of the People I say was a Right Judgment but 't was only so as the Young man's in the Gospel was who came running to Christ and kneel'd down to him saying Good Master what shall I do to inherit Eternal Life Whose Words and Behaviour though they attributed to our Lord no more than his Due yet he gave him a Check of Instruction because he ascribed Absolute Goodness to him which belonged only to God when he apprehended him to be no more than a Man So though the Peoples Approbation was Right both in the Nature and Extent of it That our Lord had done Well and that he had done All things Well yet 't was not without Exception For though our Lord had evidenced even to the most Scrupulous that he was a True Prophet yet the People not understanding him to be that Great Prophet that was to come into the World the Messias and Son of God they could not give him so Large a Testimony as they did for even those that were True Prophets sent by God did not do All things Well but all of them had their Infirmities and committed Sin So that the best that we can say here of the Universal Extent of the Peoples Approbation is That they had better Luck in it than Skill aequum licet statuerint haud aequi suerunt that though they pronounc'd a Right Sentence 't was not with a Right Knowledge but as Physicians say An Errour in the first Concoction is never corrected in the second so the People not rightly understanding Christ in the first place their following Praises of him were not right but as far as they came short in his Title when they styled him this Man they over-shot themselves in their Testimony when they said He hath done All things well Neither is this a Nice and trifling Cavil or Observation but a Point of great Importance in the Consequences of it For if from a few Instances of Goodness a Universal Goodness may be concluded if from some Specious or astonishing Actions a Divine Approbation may be allowed a Theudas or Judas Gaulonites may pass for the Messiah Abbaris for his dexterity of catching an Arrow flying in the Air may pretend to the Divine Honours decreed him by the Scythians and Simon Magus to the Godhead given him at Rome for his Skill in Magick the Heathen Demons challenge their Deities who were all Deified for some Extraordinary and Uncommon Performances But I shall chuse to insist on more known and familiar Instances Many here present may remember that in the breaking out of the late Great Troubles of this Kingdom there were Persons that pretended to stand up for the Interest of the Nation to reform Abuses to be the only Publick Spirited Men and Good Patriots and the People because they pleased them in Some things thought they might trust them in All and idoliz'd Traytors and Rebels and put it into their Power to plunder and tyrannize over themselves to ruine the State and at last murder their King Again while the same People in like manner doted on the Fansy'd Holiness and Endowments of some Teachers and Pastors because they saw them Zealous and frequent Preachers sharp Reprovers of Vice bold Opposers of those in High Place and Pretenders to suffer for Truth and Righteousness sake they concluded from these things That they were Good Men and that they did All things Well but as soon as these had gain'd their Point they threw-off their Vizors and shew'd themselves Hypocrites and Schismaticks Trumpets to Rebellion Misleaders of the People and Corrupters of their Allegiance We see therefore that to infer from some Particular Acts a Universal Goodness is no less an Unsafe than an Unsound Way of arguing He
be as Mount Sion which shall not be removed but standeth fast for ever And the truth is that which is said of Temporal Kingdoms Justitia Thronum firmat Justice supports the Throne may be affirmed of God's Spiritual Kingdom in the World his Justice and Goodness establishes his Dominion in the Hearts of Men. For if it were not so That the Lord regarded the Righteous this great Incongruity would produce another great Incongruity and Irregularity The Righteous as the Psalmist says would put their hand to Iniquity i e. they would be no longer Righteous they would make Justice and Piety no more their Business and Concern if there were no Regard in Heaven for these things and so God would lose his Obedience when he neglected Good Men. Let us therefore be careful of our Duty and we need not be solicitous for our Safety let us firmly rely upon God in well-doing and believe that our Trust in our Divine Invisible Foundation is not merely Chimerical or Imaginary and while we fail not it it will never fail us but the Business of this Day shall be the business of the Year round viz. to praise and magnifie our Foundation for protecting and preserving our Foundations and these Lauds and Thanksgivings if they be Cordial and Real will create us new Occasions of Lauds and Thanksgivings even daily Mercies and Blessings I say if they be Cordial and Real not only Verbal and Vocal not only express'd in Bells and Bonfires Noises and Excesses but in true Piety and Devotion as our Prayer of General Thanksgiving teaches us In shewing forth God's Praise not only with our Lips but in our Lives by giving up our selves to his Service and so forth For though 't is impossible to solemnize Publick Joy and Thanksgiving without Publick Expressions of them yet these Publick Expressions should be but the Outward Signs and Significations of the Inward Sence we have of God's Benefits and the Gratitude that dwells in our Hearts and which ought chiefly to be shew'd in the Duties of Religion in the Acts of Mercy and Charity in a Day of Mercy and Deliverance in the Reformation of whatsoever is contrary to the Divine Will in us and the like 'T is not enough therefore that our Streets resound with Festivity and Joy or yet that we celebrate God's great Mercies in Psalms and Hymns sung to the Organ by Asaph and other Chief Musicians but every Faithful Person must be a Musician and every Grateful Heart that has been delivered an Instrument of God's Praise To God the Father Son and Holy Ghost be ascribed all Honour Glory Worship and Thanksgiving this Day forth and for evermore Amen The Sixteenth Sermon JOHN xvi 23 Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my Name he will give it you THESE Words are part of our Lord's Farewel-Speech to his Disciples when he was to leave the World the unexpected News of which did so afflict them that they had not the power as himself takes notice ver 5. so much as to ask him any Question concerning it But now I go to him that sent me and none of you ask Whither goest thou but because I have said these things unto you Sorrow hath filled your heart And very deservedly for what more amazing more Ominous Tidings could they have heard than that he for whom they had forsaken all they had should after that forsake them than that he that had put Enmity between them and the World should abandon them to the World he in whom they had plac'd all their Ambition all their Hope should at last leave them in a Riddle A little while and ye shall not see me and again a little while and ye shall see me To raise therefore their drooping and disconsolate Spirits he promises them a double Advantage by his Departure and which could only arrive to them by his Departure 1. That they should receive the Holy Ghost who would establish their Faith and wonderfully rejoice their Hearts by assuring them of the truth of the Doctrines he had taught them and of their own Divine Mission 2. That they should be under the immediate Care of the Father by reason of whose Almighty Protection they would have no Cause to deplore his Absence or in the least to wish for his Corporal Presence again for they would find their Dependance on the Father much more happy than the following his Steps through the Cities of Palestine The Words of my Text relate to the latter of these two Advantages Their being under the immediate Care and Protection of the Father While our Lord abode with his Disciples he supply'd all their Wants solv'd all their Doubts stopt the mouths of all their Maligners but he let them know that his Father was Greater than he and would perform all these things in a more uncontroul'd and unlimited manner than he had done when he acted only in the Flesh by his Commission that the Using only of his Name to the Father would be more Beneficial to them than his Person had formerly been for though in many things he had been kind to them there was nothing so Precious nothing so Difficult nothing so Wonderful but if they pray'd for it in his Name the Father would bestow it on them Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my Name he will give it you In this Singular Priviledge and Prerogative promised by our Lord to his Disciples there are three things very remarkable I. The Person with whom they are to have it The Father he will give it you II. The Measure in which they were to have it it is a Measure indeed unlimited and without Measure Whatsoever ye shall ask ask what you will he will give it you III. By what Means they are to obtain it by asking in Christ's Name Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my Name I begin with the first of these The Person with whom they are to have this Singular Priviledge The Father This was a comfortable Promise of our Lord 's to his Disciples if they had then understood it as they afterwards did but when the Words were spoken they were but as a Parable or Proverb to them as 't is ver 25. These things have I spoken unto you in Proverbs the time will come that I shall speak no more unto you in Proverbs but I shall shew you Plainly of the Father How was that in what fashion did he afterwards shew them plainly of the Father By his Charismata the miraculous Gifts of the Holy Ghost which they received from him and which bore the very Character of the Father stampt upon them For every Good and perfect Gift as S t James says is from above and cometh from the Father of Light And thus he shew'd them more plainly and convincingly of the Father than he did to Philip when he said Have I been so long time with you and yet hast thou not known me Philip he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father For he
in the most General and Universal comprehension both of Prince and People not of the Prince alone as some are willing to reckon the Benefits his Majesty has receiv'd not to revere him the more for being so much in God's Favour but to make him more indebted to God than themselves as if because this is call'd the King's Day all the Mercies of it and all the Thanks for them were to be put upon his account Undoubtedly the Kings Obligations to Heaven are infinite but was he only restor'd this Day to his Crown and Country Or were not all we likewise re-call'd from the same Banishment or from Prisons and Sequestrations Dungeons and Gibbets at home to enjoy our Lives and Liberties our Religion and Estates Has all the delicious Fare of the Land been serv'd to the Kings Table All the Gold Lace been worn upon his Back Nay but I behold many at this instant standing like Kings in the presence of the King and 't is to be complain'd of that the Enjoyments of many Out vie his in their proportion Is there then no Thanks of our Own due to God We have this Obligation even more than the King has that we have him that we enjoy this Principle of Union this Bond of Peace this Foundation of Security and Prosperity O let us not forget in the loud Joys and Gaiety and Festivity of this Day the days of Sadness and Silence of Scarcity and Doubtfulness of Soul when we had no King when a Villain sat on the Throne when our Hatred and Aversion rul'd over us the Scourge of Loyalty and the Oppressor of Religion and Justice Let us not forget the Time when to be Noble was to be Guilty and to be Loyal an Enemy to the State Again when to be a Mechanick made room for the Person in the Places of Honour and a Fanatick qualify'd him for the highest Charges and Honours and our Great Ones bow'd down to these or bow'd under the saddest Misery The remembrance of these things will make us readily acknowledge the Mercies of this Day to have been General to us all and not only heighten but sanctifie our Joy make the Feast resound with Thanksgiving and Praises of God and not wholly to be spent in loose and confus'd Mirth Riot and Excess it will preserve us from falling into that Fatal Ingratitude which accompanies Prosperity and which God in the People of Israel warns all Nations of and yet which all more or less fall into The forgetfulness of the Arm that deliver'd them and the Goodness that made them Great And in the midst of our Felicity we shall remember our Duty and our Ease shall not corrupt our Manners nor our Prosperity and Affluence be snares to us And God will repeat and iterate his glorying we have heard this Day not only in the Person of our King but of his Posterity to all Ages even till all Kingdoms are swallow'd up in the Kingdom of Heaven Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Sion Which God of the riches of his Mercy grant to whom be ascribed all Honour Glory and Thanksgiving this day forth and for evermore Amen The Eighth Sermon JOHN xvi 8 And when he is come he will reprove the World of Sin of Righteousness and of Judgment GOD who at sundry times and in divers manners says the Apostle spake in times past unto the Fathers by the Prophets hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son c. as if this were his ultimus conatus the last and utmost Effort or Endeavour of his Power and Goodness to reduce the Sinful and Unbelieving World But by miserable Event it appear'd that this Means prov'd as uneffectual as the former that the World did unto Christ as they had done unto the Prophets before him slew the Son as they had slain the Servants Yet notwithstanding the unfathomable Depths and Riches of the Divine Goodness gave not over here where Reason would have given over but shew'd it self still Infinite where Humane Imagination was Finite bow'd the Heavens again and sent down the third Person in the Trinity the Holy Ghost Pertinacia nostra exhausit Coelum the Obstinacy of Men even drain'd and exhausted Heaven Verbum Caro the Word made Flesh was not sufficient to master this Obstinacy but it must be Verbum Spiritus too the Spirit must become a Word i. e. be sent from Heaven to be a Word in the Mouth of the Apostles to reprove or as the Margent has it to convince the World of Sin And when he is come he will reprove or convince the World of Sin of Righteousness and of Judgment To convince is to force the Understanding of the Opposer by strength of Argument to acknowledge the Truth that is contended for And to reprove or rebuke is again but a Moral Conviction of Sin in a person In the Words I shall consider these two things I. The Matter of the Conviction which the Spirit shall bring the World to an Acknowledgment of namely of Sin of Righteousness and of Judgment II. The Manner how he shall bring the World to this Acknowledgment viz. by convincing it by irrefragable Arguments I begin with the Matter of the Conviction Sin Râ—ghteousness and Judgment And First He shall convince the World of Sin What Sin it is which is meant here that the Spirit shall convince the World of is doubtful It may well be thought to be the Sin of Cruelty the perverse and barbarous Inhumanity the Jews shew'd when they demanded a Murderer to be releas'd unto them and kill'd the Just One. And we read in Effect Acts 2.36 that it was one of the first Works of the Spirit after his coming to bring three thousand Souls to confess this Sin and shew their Compunction for it for after S t Peter had laid before them how by wicked hands they had crucified and slain the Lord of Life they were prick'd to the heart and said Men and Brethren what shall we do i. e. to be deliver'd from the Sin of Murder or Cruelty But though this Interpretation be plausible it agrees not with the Reason Christ himself gives in the Verse immediately following my Text why the Holy Ghost should convince the World of Sin Of Sin says he because they believe not on me It should seem then it was the Sin of Unbelief that he came to reprove or convince the World of And this is the Opinion of many on the place The truth is Infidelity is a Sin highly injurious to the Deity it makes God a Lyar as S t John says He that believeth not God hath made him a Lyar. It makes him impotent and ignorant How should God perceive says the Wicked Psal. 73.11 is there knowledge in the most High And the faithless Israelites Can God prepare a Table in the Wilderness He smote the stony Rock indeed that the Water gushed out but can he give Bread also and provide Flesh for his People Nay it
his House were prophan'd his Worship would be extinguish'd in the World made them disbelieve their Prophets And the like latent Incredulity possest the Disciples here They knew their Lord had the Words of Truth but the Strangeness and Dreadfulness of the things spoken of by him made their Faith fluctuate and they could not believe even what they could not disbelieve And when we see the holiest Men thus to have Doubts and Scruples to with-hold them from receiving a harsh and displeasing though never so plainly a reveal'd Truth to have a Where or a When Lord a How or by What Means Some Question or other of the Time the Place the Possibility and the like What marvel is it if Wicked and profligate Persons who are wholly Strangers to the Power and Wonderful Ways of God shew a greater Infidelity when they hear a Doctrine wholly contrary to their Temper repugnant to their Pleasures destructive of their Interests and withal difficult to be conceiv'd I say if when such as these to restrain them from their Lusts or gainful Oppressions are told that they will certainly be call'd to a strict Account in another Life for what they do amiss in this smile or laugh out and conceive they shall do well enough after their Sins notwithstanding all that 's threatned against them We see Malefactors against the Laws of Men even after the Sentence of Death is past upon them and their Execution as certain to ensue as the revolution of the short time appointed for it yet flatter themselves they shall find means to escape by a Bribe by a Rope at a Window by a Reprieve by a Rescue by an Accident by any thing they know not what And after the like manner Offenders against God though their Condemnation be recorded in his Word and their Condition more desperate promise themselves they shall never feel the Evils denounc'd against them that the Report of Dooms-Day is false the Doctrine of a Resurrection and another Life foolish and impossible When therefore they hear such passages in Scripture as these Some mens Sins are open before-hand going before to Judgment and some mens follow after and again The Good Works of some are manifest before-hand and they that are otherwise cannot escape they reason in their hearts and say Ay but why the Parties are dead Ay but When and Where the Parties are escap'd into a far Country Ay but How or which way the Parties are drown'd and devour'd by Fishes and their Bodies turn'd into Nourishment or else burnt to Ashes and that scatter'd True but where-ever the Carcase is or the least Remains of it thither will the Eagles be gathered together i. e. though the Body of a Sinner seem to all humane Appearance annihilated yet God by his Power will restore it and by the Office of his Angels bring it before the Tribunal of Christ. And this is the importance of our Lord 's Emblematical Words in my Text for 't is observed that Eagles and other Birds of Prey Ravens Vulturs c. have a great Perspicacity in discovering their Food a kind of divining or Prophetick Conjecture where to seek it insomuch that they will follow Armies and know the unsuccessful Troops and expect their Banquets from their Overthrow Says Job The Eagle abideth on the rock from thence she seeth her Prey her Eyes behold afar off and where the slain are there is she And then the Celerity strength and rapacity of these Creatures to seize is as great as their Sagacity to find out And God has more abundantly endowed the Angels with requisite Qualities to execute his Will and Commands however therefore Vertue and Piety went out of this World without any seeming Regard yet they are the Objects of God's Love and the particular Care and Charge of the Angels and they shall not pass in the next without a Glorious Reward Again though Wickedness dy'd in Prosperity yet it is the Object of God's Wrath and Justice and the Quarry of the Angels and it will be found out by them in all the Ruines of Mortality and brought to receive its just Punishment And that these things are so incredible to Sinners is without all reason For they are the only men that believe this World to be immoveable and eternal and yet 't is supported only by the Word or Will of God as Job says He hangs the Earth upon nothing and we may say the Heavens upon as little But God's rewarding the Righteous and punishing the Wicked are founded on his Justice i. e. on his very Essence or Being and can fail no more than the Deity it self However therefore this Doctrine is disbelieved and slighted by sensual and carnal Men it ought continually to ring and sound in the Ears of the Faithful as S t Jerome fansy'd the last Trump did in his the Parable of the Eagles and the Carcase should frequently occur to our thoughts to make us break off our Sins and to keep us close to our Duty For if any One to encourage himself in his Sins shall say When I leave this World I shall creep again into the Cells of Darkness and Obscurity where I lay before I was born I shall be reduc'd again to the State of Nothing as when I was in my first Causes Let him consider that God can call him out of that Nothing which he speaks of as he did when he first made him a living Man and that Restoration is not so hard a Work as Creation that what the Psalmist says of the Nocturnal Darkness caus'd by the absence of the Sun The Darkness is no Darkness to thee may be affirmed of the Philosophical Darkness of his Dissolution That Darkness is also no Darkness to him the Night and the Day of his Being or Not-being are alike in his all-seeing Eyes The fat and grown Deer seems Subtil to himself in retiring into the Coverts and Thickets and leaving the Younger and smaller to feed abroad in danger of the Huntsmen but alas 't is for him alone that all the Quest and Search is made and while the lean and Rascal-Herd are past by the Keeper only marks and lodges him for the Chace The Policies of Wicked Men are as Simple as the Craft of these Silly Creatures who when they are grown fat with the Oppressions and Spoils of their Brethren swollen and ready to burst with Excess and Luxury flatter themselves if they can but escape the Penalty of the Laws and get into their Graves in Peace no Vengeance can afterwards overtake them But alas it is to rouse them chiefly that Dooms-Day is appointed Aquila non capit Muscas the heavenly Eagles the Angels stoop not at Flies they are not Small Sinners but these Monsters and Prodigies of Impiety which are their principal Game or Quarry As therefore the bloudy Tyrant Sylla found it a foolish Meditation after his butchering so many of the Roman Nobility to lay down his Power and to hope for Safety in a Retirement from
miscarry'd in their Journey We may therefore say of those that affect to be Proselytes to this Mountain what S t Paul says of the Corinthians That they more gladly submitted to those that took of them that brought them into bondage than to those that were Sincere towards them and abounded in labour for them Or else we may upbraid them as the Prophet Hosea did Ephraim Ephraim is like a silly Dove without heart they call to Egypt they go to Assyria i. e. to the places of their Captivity and Oppression So these delight in those that plume them and tyrannize over them that seal up their Eyes in Darkness and make them believe they towre towards Heaven and the Regions of Glory till they find themselves in the Precincts of Eternal Night And as Ephraim was not only made a Prey but a Scorn for their Folly This shall be their Derision says the Prophet in the Land of Egypt so those among us that call to go to the Spiritual Egypt shall be mock'd in the Day of Great Accounts as well as Condemned For what remains for those that would not be warned but to be laugh'd at for those that chuse Destruction but to be derided when they are fallen into it In the mean time let our Adversaries triumph in the Victories they obtain by their threefold Machinations Parley Violence and Stratagem for though they sometimes prevail upon Unstable Souls prepar'd by their own Vanity for Ruine yet they cannot prevail against our Cause they may deceive some particular Persons but they cannot overthrow our Foundations no more than the Enemies of David could his Which brings me to my second General Part The Absurdity or Impossibility of the Design of David's Enemies To destroy his Foundations for then the Righteous would not know what to do If the Foundations be destroyed what can the Righteous do What shall I do is the Expression of a Person driven to the greatest Exigence and knows not which way to turn himself in the Difficulties he is in they are the Words of the Unjust Steward in the Gospel when he was turn'd out of his Stewardship What shall I do says he Dig I cannot and to beg I am ashamed The only two Means of Livelihood left to those that are reduced to the Extreamest Poverty Labour and Begging were taken from him the one by Shame and the other by a Soft Education Such an Utter Distress as this the Words of my Text imply they being a Negative by way of Question which is the strongest kind of Negative What can the Righteous do i. e. They can do nothing And if any say Yes the Unjust Steward had still recourse unto his old Arts of Cheating and False reckoning and so David and other Righteous men in case their Foundations be destroyed may make some shift they may fly as a Bird to the Mountain of their Enemies I answer That this is not to be admitted Unlawful Remedies come not so much as into the Consultation of the Righteous be their Distress never so great what is Wicked is to them Impossible and what they cannot do justly they cannot do at all How can I do this great Wickedness and sin against God said Joseph when his wanton Mistress tempted him i. e. I cannot possibly do it He could have done it actually but he could not do it honestly and what was impossible to his Vertue he resolv'd to be impossible to his Practice But the Supposition here it self is vain That the Foundations of the Righteous can be destroyed But how some will say not possible to destroy their Foundations Why Commanders will affirm that no Place is impregnable and consequently that there are no Foundations but may be destroyed When Philip of Macedon was told of a strong Place which by reason of the steepness rockiness and narrowness of the Ascent to it was Inaccessible he ask'd in derision If an Ass laden with Gold could not get up to it Intimating that no place was impregnable to Force and Fraud both But the Distinction I gave before of a Visible and Invisible Foundation answers all such Objections David beside his Rock as ye have heard had the Rock of his Rock namely his God 'T is the Invisible Divine Foundation that is the Security of the Visible No City or Fortress is safe by its natural or artificial Strength for as the Psalmist says A horse is but a vain thing to save a man so Rocks and Bulwarks are but vain things to save a City Except the Lord keepeth it the Watchman waketh but in vain But on the other side if he be the Rock and Defence if he be the Sion himself unto Jerusalem no Force no Stratagem whatsoever can prevail against it but Jerusalem on Earth shall be as invincible as Jerusalem in Heaven whose Builder and Maker is God And if any say What is this to us who are not to promise our selves the Priviledges of Israel I answer If we be Faithful like them we may promise our selves God's protection no less than they For as Saint Peter says God is no Respecter of Persons but in every Nation they that fearh im and work Righteousness are accepted by him We have a Kingdom thanks be to Providence more strongly fortify'd by Nature than Israel was founded as the Psalmist says the World is upon the Waters He laid it in the Waters and founded it upon the Flouds And though our Foundations be moveable and fluctuating yet their Mobility and Mutability being only Local and not Substantial they are not less permanent We may compare our Political Foundations also with Israels But be our Material or Moral Foundations what they will our Invisible is the same with theirs For God is not only our Founder but our Foundation too he has not only founded us By but On himself He brought us one of the first of the Nations out of the Darkness of Paganism to the Light of the Gospel and again one of the first of the Nations out of the Bondage of Spiritual Babylon to the Liberty of the Truth and free Use of his Word and he has not only given us more Excellent Ordinances than he did to his people Israel but many Advantages even above our Fellow-Christians and no Church can boast more truly than ours That 't is built upon the Foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Christ himself being the Chief Corner-Stone and what is this but to be Founded on God himself And 't is our Reliance on this our Invisible Foundation which makes us with David not to fear the Designs of our Enemies upon our Material and Visible For though God has made us no particular Promise concerning our Temporal Prosperity in case we keep his Commandments as he did to Israel yet we may rest assured on his Holy and Divine Nature and Promises in general which are to Love and Protect the Righteous and not only Israel as the Psalmist says but all that put their Trust in the Lord shall