You cannot as I said but see in the first place how very much such Doctrines do disparage the Love of our Saviour and lessen his Undertaking For whilst he is here supposed to have Redeemed us only from his Fathers Wrath and the Punishment consequent thereupon leaving us in the mean time to the wickedness and impurity of our own Nature which alone without the accession of any other external Evil is a misery great enough He is hereby rendred but half a Saviour One that freed us indeed froman External Evil but left us irremediably exposed to an Internal one as grievous as the other One that delivered us from the apprehensions of a Gibbet or an Executioner but could not or would not cure us of the inward Sicknesses and Maladies under which we languished But this is not all In the second place it ought to be taken notice of what an absurd inconsistent Notion this kind of Doctrine gives us of the Happiness of Mankind For whilst they suppose that a Man under the Power and Dominion of Sin is capable of that Happiness which Christ purchased for us in the other World which Happiness as both Scripture and Reason testifie doth chiefly consist in the enjoyment of God and of his Excellencies and Perfections They must at the same time suppose that a Man may berendred happy by the enjoyment of that of which he has no Sense no Perception or rather to speak properly that he is the happiest Creature alive in the enjoyment of an Object to which he has the greatest aversion and antipathy in the World Which if it be not an absurdity I know not what is When Light can have Communion with Darkness when God can have Fellowship with Belial Then and not till then can a wicked Man a Man that lives in Sin and loves it be capable of that Happiness which Jesus Christ hath purchased for us IV. The Fourth thing I should speak to from this Text is the Means by which our Saviour brought to pass the great End of his Appearance viz. The putting away of sin Which means are said to be the Sacrifice of himself Now once in the end of the World hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself Two things should be done in order to a just Discourse upon this point First To give an account how the Death of Christ was a Means for the putting away of sin in the first Sense I gave that is the procuring the Pardon of it Secondly How it was a Means of putting it away in the other Sense that is the destroying or mortifying it in us But these things being Foreign to our present Business and more proper for the Argument of a Good-Friday Sermon I shall say no more of them but proceed to my last point V. The Fifth and last thing observable from the Text is the difference of Christ's sacrifice whereby he put away sin from the Mosaical ones Which difference so far as it is here taken notice of consists in this That the Legal Sacrifices for the Expiation of Sin were daily offered But Christ offered the Sacrifice of himself but once Once in the end of the World c. The Apostle in this Chapter is discoursing of the Difference between the Law and the Gospel And as to that Point he insists much on the Difference of their Sacrifices The Christians that owned the Gospel had but one Sacrifice the Sacrifice of Christ once offered whereas those that were under the Law were forced to have many Nay even the most solemn Sacrifice that God had appointed for the Expiation of their Sins was repeated once a Year as the Apostle tells us in the Verse before my Text. But now the Sacrifice of Christ which he puts by way of opposition to theirs That was but once offered and was never to be repeated This is the point with which he concludes this Chapter two Verses after my Text Christ saith he was once offered to bear the sins of many and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time unto salvation This is the Apostle's Doctrine and I insist on it now because all those that design on this day to receive the Holy Sacrament are concerned in it Let us from hence take notice that in this Service of the Holy Communion we are not to pretend to offer Christ as a Sacrifice to his Father His Sacrifice was but once to be offered and that was done 1600 Years ago and in the Virtue of that Sacrifice once offered all faithful Christians and sincere Penitents shall receive Remission of Sins and all other Benefits of his Passion But for us to think of offering Christ again as a Sacrifice is in effect to put our selves into the same rank and condition with the unbelieving Jews that is to need the repetition of the same Sacrifices every Year nay every Day which is the very reason for which the Apostle denys the Efficacie of them We do not indeed deny but that every time we approach to the Lord's Table for the receiving of the Holy Communion we offer Sacrifices to God For we offer our Alms which we beg of God to accept as our Oblations and these in the Language of Scripture are Sacrifices with which God is well pleased We likewise offer our Sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving to God for the Death of our Saviour And all our Prayers and Supplications we put up in his Name and in the Virtue and for the Merits of that Sacrifice he offered to God in our behalf And in so doing we commemorate that Sacrifice both to God and before Men. And this is all we are confident that the Ancient Church meant by the great Christian Sacrifice or the Sacrifice of the Altar But if we go further if we will in the Communion pretend to offer up the Body and Blood of Christ in Sacrifice to God that was once sacrificed upon the Cross It is intolerable It is a thing that was never dreamed of in the first Ages of the Church It is directly contradictory to the Foundation of all the Apostle's Argument and Discourse here in the Text and the very supposal of it brings along with it many grievous Absurdities in the Theory and something that looks like impious in the Practice And yet this is the constant and avowed Doctrine and Practice of the Church of Rome in every Sacrament they have and that is in every Mass that is said among them The main business of that Mystery they make to consist in the Priest's offering up to God the very Body and Blood of Christ the same Body and Blood that was once offered up at Jerusalem this they pretend to offer up as a Sacrifice every day And they attribute to this their Offering the same Virtue and Efficacy that the Apostles and all Christians have always attributed to the one Sacrisice of Christ upon the Cross that is that it is a true propitiatory Sacrifice for the
for spiritual matters they lie under a great disadvantage They appear to us as at a great distance We do not apprehend any present need we have of them Nor do we fancy any sweetness or relish in them Nay on the contrary we form the most frightful and dismal Images of them than can be We look upon them not only as flat and unsavoury but as things which if we trouble our heads too much about will certainly ruin all our designs in this World We think Religion good for nothing but to spoil good company to make us melancholy and mopish to distract us in our Business and Employments and to put so many restraints upon us that we can neither with that freedom nor success pursue our Temporal Concernments which we think necessary to our happiness in this World But let us suppose things to be thus with Religion as we have fancied yet cannot this be any reasonable Excuse for our carelesness about it What though there were no visible Benefit by a religious life in this World What though the rewards of our pains about it were only in reversion Yet since a time will come when it will be our greatest Interest to have been heartily Religious is it not a madness now to neglect it What tho' Religion be a course of life difficult and unpleasant a way strewed with Briers and Thorns a way which if we follow we are certainly lost as to our hopes of any thing here Yet since a Time will certainly come when we shall wish that we had been good Christians though we had lost our right eyes and our right hands upon the condition when we shall wish that we had purchased Vertue tho' at the rate of the loss of the whole World For God's sake why should we not be of the same mind now Who but Fools and Children but will look upon that which shall certainly and unavoidably be with the same regard as if it was now present But indeed this is not the Case of Religion This Business of Piety is not so formidable as we often represent it It is no such Enemy to our temporal designs It is a very innocent thing and will do us no harm though we look no farther than this present World It will hinder none of our delights or pleasures but will allow us to gratifie every Appetite that God and Nature hath put into us And if any Man doubt this let him name that natural desire which the Christian Religion doth forbid or any way hinder the innocent satisfaction of I am consident he shall be able to name none Since this is the Case then how much more Childish than Children shall we appear if we make so little reckoning of it How inexcusably Foolish shall we be if we will not be at some pains to possess our selves of that which will be no manner of Hinderance to us in our affairs in this World and will infallibly make us everlastingly happy in that which is to come But farther What if it be certain that a Life of strict Vertue is not only no Hinderance to our Temporal designs but a great Furtherance of them What if it can be proved that besides the influence it has on our Happiness in the next Life it is also the best thing in the World to serve our turns in this And that nothing can so much contribute to the bringing about our Worldly Aims no such ready way to attain to what our very Flesh and Blood most desires most delights in as to be sincerely Pious What imaginable pretence can we then have for our contempt of God and Vertue If this can be made to appear sure all our Objections will be fully answered all our scruples satisfied all our prejudices against Religion wholly removed and every one that is not abandoned of his Fortune and his Senses as well as his Reason must think himself concerned to become a Votary to it since he can have no Temptation or Motive to Vice which will not more powerfully draw him to Vertue and all the ends that the one can pretend to serve will much more effectually be served by the other and he escapes an Eternity of Misery and gets everlasting Life into the Bargain I think it therefore worth the while to spend the time now allotted me in making good this Point and discovering something at least of that universal Profitableness of Godliness to the purposes of Human Life that St. Paul in my Text assures us of But because the Studies of Men are so infinitely various and the Ends of Life to be served so many that it will be impossible to speak particularly of them it will be needful to pitch upon some general Heads such as if they do not comprehend all may yet take in most of those things to which the Labours and Endeavours of Men are directed and in the acquisition of which they have compassed their Designs and to shew the serviceableness of Religion above all other means for the attaining of them And I think I cannot pitch better than upon those three noted Idols of the World Wealth and Honour and Pleasure these being the Goods which have always been accounted to divide Mankind among them and into the service of some one or all of which All that set up for a happy life in this World do list themselves how different and disagreeing soever they be from one another as to their particular Employments and ways of Living I shall therefore make it appear that Godliness and Religion is a very great furtherance to the acquisition of all these and that no Man can take a more ready way either to improve his Fortune or to purchase a Name and Reputation among men or to live comfortably and pleasantly in this World than heartily to serve God and to live in the practice of every Vertue And in the First place I begin with the Conduciveness of Religion and Godliness to improve our outward Fortunes the Advantages of it for the getting or encreasing an Estate For this is the thing to which our Thoughts are commonly first directed as looking upon it as the Foundation of a happy Life in this World But here I desire not to be mistaken I would not be thought to deal with you as one of our ordinary Empiricks that promises many brave feats in his Bill which are indeed beyond the power of his Art I do not pretend that Wealth and Opulency is necessarily entailed upon Religion so that whoever is good shall presently be enabled to make Purchases and to leave Lands and Livings to his Children Riches are one of those things that are not so perfectly in our power that all Men may hope for an equal share of them The having more or less depends oftentimes not so much upon our selves as upon that condition and quality in which we were born the way and course of Life into which our Friends put us and a hundred accidental circumstances to which our selves
up the Reins to his Appetites only serves to dull and stupifie them Nor doth he reap any other Benefit from his continual hankering after Bodily Pleasures but that his Sensations of them are hereby made altogether flat and unaffecting Neither is his Meat half so savoury nor his Recreations so diverting nor his Sleep so sweet nor the Company he keeps so agreeable as Theirs are that by following the Measures of Nature and Reason come to them with truer and more unforc'd Appetites But besides this there is a certain Lightsomness and Chearfulness of mind which is in a manner peculiar to the truly Religious Soul that above all things sets off our Pleasures and makes all the Actions and Perceptions of Humane Life Sweet and Delightful True Piety is the best Cure of Melancholy in the World nothing comparable to it for dispelling that Lumpishness and Inactivity that renders the Soul of a Man uncapable of enjoying either it self or any thing else It fills the Soul with perpetual Light and Vigour infuseth a strange kind of Alacrity and Gaiety of Humour into us And this it doth not only by removing those things that Hinder our Mirth and make us languish in the midst of our Festivities such as are the Pangs of an Evil Conscience and the storms of unmortified Passions of which I shall speak in the following particular but even by a more Physical Efficiency It hath really a mighty Power to Correct and Exalt a Man's Natural Temper Those Ardent Breathings and Workings wherewith the Pious Soul is continually carried out after God and Vertue are to the Body like so much Fresh Air and Wolsom Exercise they Fan the Blood and keep it from Setling they Clanifie the Spirits and purge them from those grosser Feculencies which would otherwise Cloud our Vnderstandings and make us dull and listless And to these effects of Religion doth Solomon seem to allude when he tells us that Wisdom maketh a man's face to shine Eccl. 8.1 Where he seems to intimate that that Purity and Exaltation into which the Blood and Spirits of a Man are wrought by the Exercise of Vertue and Devotion doth diffuse it self even to his Outward Visage making the Countenance clear and serene and filling the Eyes with an unusual kind of Splendor and Vivacity But whether this be a true Comment on his words or no certain it is that Piety disposeth a Man to Mirth and Lightness of Heart above all things in the World and how admirable a Relish this doth give to all our other Pleasures and Enjoyments there is none but can easily discern Thirdly let it be farther considered that Godliness is a most Effectual Antidote against all those Inquietudes and Evil Accidents that do either wholly destroy or very much embitter the Pleasures of this Life For whilst it teacheth us to place all our Happiness in God Almighty and our selves only whilst we have learn'd to bring all our Affections and Passions our Desires and Aversions our Hopes and Fears under the command of our Reason and endeavour not so much to suit Things to our Wills as our Wills to Things being Indifferent to all Events that can happen save only that we always judge those Best which God in his Providence sends us Being I say thus disposed as certainly Religion if it be suffered to have its perfect work upon us will thus dispose us what is it that shall be able to disturb or interrupt our Pleasures or create any trouble or Vexation to us Our Present Enjoyments will not be embittered with the fear of losing them or lessened by our Impatient Longing after Greater Our Brains will not be upon the Rack for Compassing things that are perhaps Impossible nor our Bodies under the Scourge of Rage and Anger for every Disappointment We shall not look pale with Envy that our Neighbours have that which we have not nor pine away with Grief if we should happen to lose that which we have But the Vicious Man is exposed to all these Miseries and a thousand more he carries that within him which will perpetually fret and torment him for he is a Slave to his Passions and the least of them when it is let loose upon him is the Worst of Tyrants He is like the Troubled Sea restless and ever working ruffled and discomposed with every thing He is not capable of being rendred so much as Tolerably Happy by the best condition this World affords For having such a World of Impetuous Desires and Appetites which must be all satisfied or else he is miserable and there being such an infinite number of Circumstances that must concur to the giving them that Satisfaction And all these depending upon Things without him which are perfectly out of his Power it cannot be avoided but he will continually find matter to disquiet him and render his condition troublesome and uneasie a thousand unforeseen Accidents will ever be crossing his Designs Nor will there be wanting some little Thing or other almost hourly to put him out of Humour And if this be the Case of the Vicious Man in the Best Circumstances of this World where the causes of Vexation are in a manner undiscernable in what a miserable Condition must he needs be under those more Real Afflictions unto which Humane Life is obnoxious what is there that shall be able to support his Spirit under the Tediousness of a Lingering Sickness or the Anguish of an Acute Pain What is become of all his Mirth and Jollity if there should happen a Turn in His Fortune if he should fall into Disgrace or his Friends forsake him or the Means of maintaining his Pleasures fail him and the miserable Man become Poor and Despised Not to mention a great many more Evils which will make him uncapable of any Consolation eat into the Heart of his best Enjoyments and become Gall and Wormwood to his Choicest Delicacies And has he not now think you made admirable Provisions for his Pleasures Has he not done himself a wonderful Piece of Service by freeing himself from the Drudgery as he calls it of Vertue and Religion Alas Poor Man this is the only Thing that would now have secured him from all these sad Accidents and Displeasures The Good Man sits above the Reach of Fortune and in spite of all the Vicissitudes and Uncertainties of this Lower World with which other Men are continually Alarm'd enjoys a Constant and Undisturbed Peace Those Evils that may be Avoided and really a great many which afflict mortal Men are such he by his Prudent Conduct and Government of himself wholly prevents And those that are Vnavoidable he takes by such a Handle that they have no power to do him any Harm For he is indeed possessed of that which the Alchymists in vain seek for Such a Sovereign Art he has that he can turn the Basest Metals into Gold make such an use of the worst Accidents that can befal him that they shall not be accounted his Miseries but
all worldly respects when I once came to the knowledge of the Christian Religion I dispised them all For in truth I found that they were so far from being real Advantages to me that they were rather hindrances in the way of Vertue and Piety Yea doubtless as he goes on in the 8th verse I account all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do count them but dung that I may win Christ That is to say Not only the above-named priviledges but all other things whatsoever Wealth Greatness Fame Friends and Life it self I account them all very pitiful things if they be compared with the inestimable advantages of being a Christian As I have once so I will again readily forsake all part with all things that the World holds most dear and valuable nay I will trample them under my feet like dirt and dung provided I may obtain the Favour of Christ And as he goes on in the 9th verse that I might be found in him not having my own Righteousness which is of the Law but that which is by the Faith of Jesus Christ the Righteousness which is of God by Faith This passage hath been frequently misunderstood and interpreted to a sense that I believe St. Paul did not think of St. Paul doth not here oppose an inherent Righteousness to an imputed one but an outward natural legal Righteousness to that which is inward and spiritual and wrought in a Man by the Spirit of God The Righteousness which the Apostle here desires to be found in is not the Righteousness of Christ made his or imputed to him but a real Righteousness produced in his Soul by the Faith of Jesus Christ The plain Sense of the Verse seems to be this That which above all things I desire is to be found in Christ i. e. to be found a Disciple of his ingrafted into him by being a Member of his Church not having my own Righteousness which is of the Law i. e. not being content with those outward Priviledges and that outward Obedience which by my own natural Strength I am able to yield to the Precepts of the Law which is that Righteousness in which the Jews place their Confidence and by which they expect to be justified before God But that which is by the Faith of Jesus Christ the Righteousness which is of God by Faith i. e. that Righteousness which I desire and in which only I shall have the Confidence to appear before God is an inward Principle of Holiness that Spiritual renewed Obedience to God's I aws which he doth require as the condition of his Favour and Acceptance and which I can never attain to but by the Faith of Christ by becoming a Christian This is none of my own Righteousness but God's it being wrought in me by his Spirit accompanying the preaching of the Gospel and as it is his Gift so he will own it and reward it at the last â—ay This is the full importance of that Verse and then it follows by way of Explication of what he now said That I may know him and 〈…〉 Resurrection c. This is the 〈…〉 that I aspire after that I may know Christ nor only by a nâ—â—ional belief of his Doctrines 〈…〉 of his Religion but by a spirituâ—â— experimental Knowledge of him such a Knowledge as â—â—ansformâ—â—â— Spirit and Temper and that 〈…〉 the power of his 〈◊〉 i. e. then 〈◊〉 experience in my self all the good 〈…〉 that his Resurrection 〈◊〉 a power to work in me that I may see the Vertue and Efficacy of it in my daily dying to Sin and rising again to a 〈◊〉 holy and heavenly Life This is that Righteousness I long for and in comparison of which I account all things in the World but as less and as duâ—â— Thus have I given you a full account of the Text and all the Apostle's Discourse that it depends upon I now come to treat more particularly of it with reserence to the solemnity of this Day We all here present do profess to believe the Article of our Saviour's Resurrection and our business at this time is to celebrate the memory of it But we must not rest here We are not to look upon our Lord's Resurrection meerly as a thing to be believed or professed or commemorated or as a matter of Fact that only concerned himself But there is a great deal in it which doth nearly concern us The Apostle tells us there is a great Power in it even a Power of raising us from Sin to a Holy and Vertuous Life It is so ordered as to be capable of being and it ought to be a Principle of now Life in us as it was the beginning of a now Life in our Saviour Now this Vertue this Power this Efficacy of it as it is that which with the Apostle we ought all most earnestly to endeavour the experiencing in our selves so it is that which will be fittest for us at this time to apply our Meditations to My Work therefore at this time shall be to give some Account of the Power of Christ's Resurrection in order to the making Men good which the Apostle here speaks of to shew how or in what respects it doth instuence upon the Lives of Christians Now if we look into the Holy Scriptures we shall find that there is a four-fold Power attributed to it or that it hath an insluence upon our Lives in these four respects That is to say I. As it lays an Obligation upon Christians to Holiness and Vertue II. As it is the Principal Evidence of the Truth of our Religion the Design of which is to make Men Holy and Vertuous III. As it is the great Support of our future Hopes or our Hopes of another Life which indeed is the main Encouragement we have to apply our selves seriously to the business of Holiness and Vertue IV. And Fourthly as to it we do principally owe all that supernatural Grace and Strength by which we are inabled to live Holily and Vertuously Of these four Points I shall Discourse very briesly I. And First of all our Saviour's Resurrection hath an influence upon our Practice as it lays an Obligation upon Christians to lead Holy and Vertuous Lives As it is in it self an incitement to Piety and heavenly-Mindedness This is indeed the lowest instance of its Power but yet we ought not to pass it by because the Writers of the New Testament do frequently insist on it For thus they argue If Christ was crucified for our Sins then ought we to crucifie them in our members And if Christ rose again the third day then are we ingaged in conformity to him to rise again to newness of Life to lead a Spiritual Divine Heavenly Life such a lise as he now lives with God And this in the ancient times was taught every Christian in and by his Baptism Whenever a person was baptized