lives and so prepar'd themselves for Baptism on Easter Eve for that was their most solemn time as Tertullian do's assure us in the 2d Century just when that death and passion into which they were baptiz'd was celebrated Diem Baptismo solenniorem Pascha praestat cum Passio Domini in qua tinguimur odimpleta est And that they did prepare for it with watchings fastings weepings and all rigid mortifying discipline and before him Justin M. And they had in the Greek Church their forty daies for these severities and a while too in the Roman in St Hierom's time and Pope Siricius it was so but quickly sunk into this single weeks performances But in all those times they had their scrutinies their strict examinations to try whether their performances were real and sincere So nice and so severe a thing they thought it to become a Christian. The man was to be mortifi'd and die into the very name But now God knows as for the former discipline for Penitents one Church hath lost it and the other hath debaucht it into Pageantry and taught it to countenance and bolster mens continuance in Sin and minister to vice So for the other discipline too if that did import that Baptism hath such engagements in it men in every Church live now as if they either never had been Christian'd or had never known or had perfectly forgot the obligations of that Sacrament the thing which St Paul reproves here by his question Know you not c. And which therefore 't is impossible there can be a more proper time to call to your Remembrance then this is before you are to celebrate that death you were baptiz'd into Now to inform such he disputes here very closely The sum is this They that are dead to Sin cannot live any longer in it Now as Christs Death was a death to Sin for in that he died he died unto Sin once v. 10. i. e. there was an efficacy in that death of his to put an end to all the powers of Sin which being so it was impossible he could dye more then once but must be alive always afterwards to God So in like manner whoever is baptiz'd he is baptiz'd into the likeness of that death v. 5. namely into a death to Sin inasmuch as by solemn profession and express undertaking he do's die to it for he renounces it and if he answer that his undertaking do's so really and really as Christ died once so as to live always afterwards to God engaging himself to keep Gods holy will and commandments and to walk in the same all the days of his life So that the words suggest these things to be discours'd of 1. Christs death was a death to Sin 2ly They that are baptiz'd are baptiz'd into that death namely into a death to Sin 3ly They that are baptiz'd into that death are to die as Christ did i. e. to die to Sin once so as to live always afterwards to God 1. Christs death was a death to Sin i. e. there was an efficacy in Christs death to put an end to all the powers of Sin And here I mean not that extrinsic efficacy of his death as it confirm'd the Covenant of the Gospel whose rewards and punishments engage us against all those powers nor as his blood did also purchase grace whereby we are enabled to resist them but the direct influence of that death tends to destroy all the power that the Devil World or Flesh had either to command us or condemn us The Scripture tells us that by Death he destroy'd him that had the power of Death i. e. the Devil Heb. 2. 14. Christ tells us he hath overcome the world for us John 16. 23. and St Paul says by his Cross the World is crucify'd to us and assures us that God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and a Sacrifice for Sin condemned Sin in the flesh that the Righteousness of the Law might be fulfill'd in us Rom. 8. 3. Which place discovers how all was effected namely as he was a Sacrifice for Sin and that not only as that Sacrifice did consecrate him to and install him in a power to pardon Sins upon Repentance and so whomsoever by vertue of that motive he took off from serving Sin from them he took away the guilt of it but as that Sacrifice did take away the guilt of Sin from us by bearing it in his own body on the tree the direct consequence of which as to its tendency and efficacy is that we being dead to sin might live to righteousness And in both these manners by his stripes we are healed I do not mean to entertain you with the controversy that there is on the account of these two Schemes concerning the effects and uses of the death of Christ. Only I cannot choose but wonder why it should be said to be unjust in God to lay upon him the iniquity of us all so as that he bore death as the punishment due to sin by making satisfaction for us Sinners For I would gladly know to whom the wrong were don in this that makes the injustice and on whose part it was unjust not on his part that made the satisfaction sure For whether it be wrong to force an innocent person without his consent to suffer for the guilty I shall not dispute But here Christ gave himself for us Tit. 2. 14. and had power to do so John 10. 18. And having power to lay down his life and power to take it up again if he had so much love and pity for lost mankind as to lay it down for three days to prevent their everlasting death and misery no justice certainly nay no self-love forbids this Much less was there wrong don to them for whom the satisfaction was made unless eternal redemtion and eternal blessedness purchas'd at such dear rates with such infinite kindness be accounted injuries Nor yet was it unjust in him that did receive it for none charge it upon that account That death which all confess Christ did justly submit to God most justly might accept since he could so dispose it as not only by it to work the Salvation of those whom it was undertaken for but also the advancement of his humane Nature that did undergo it to the highest pitch of glory to all power in heaven and earth Phil. 2. 9. and withal thereby declare his own Righteousness Rom. 3. 26. and work the honor also of his other glorious attributes And therefore if there had bin no injustice as they say altho Sin had bin pardon'd without any Satisfaction much less could the receiving this be a wrong to him Indeed it seems as if there had bin no right don him by it because he furnisht all that makes the satisfaction and he could not receive it therefore since he gave the value to it And 't is most true in compensation of rights of real possessions and
their lusts advance but their lusts are their plague and torment them and they extremely hate and curse those things which they do passionately desire Now that habitual Sinner his sins they are his emploiment his delight too he longs as those other but he satisfies also and finds pleasure in them and then if those others be fit company for the Devils onely canst thou believe thy self fit company for Christ that he should bid thee come to him No begin to act thy Hell a little sooner account them here thy torments hate them in time perceive them to be burdens while they may be laid down and then come unto Christ and he will give thee rest And evermore O Lord give us of thy rest a rest from sin here and a rest from misery eternally Yea O Lord give us to labor and to find trouble under that intolerable burden of our guilt that we may with eager hast fly to the refreshment that we perverse obdurate Sinners whom thy mercies cannot invite our own miseries may force to be happy and tho our wickednesses are multiplied into an infinite mass and weight yet despise us not when we fall under them for thou didst invite us to come and bring all that load to thee despise us not tho heavy laden for thou thy self didst bear this weight and didst die under it And O thou who didst thy self thus suffer by reason of this load pity us that labor with it ease us of the burden of our former guilt free us from the slavery of our iniquity from bearing any longer Sathan's loads then shall we at last sit down with thee in the Land of everlasting rest deliver'd from all weights but that eternal weight of glory and resting from all labors save that of praising thee and ascribing all Honor Power Praise Might Majesty and Dominion to Father Son and holy Ghost for evermore SERMON X. OF THE CHRISTIANS VICTORY Over Death Sin and the Law 1 Cor. 15. 57. Thanks be to God which giveth us the victory thro our Lord Jesus Christ. THE words are the close of an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Song of joy and triumph for a victory Now a victory supposeth Enimies and the verse before names them and the Text shews us the means that they art conquer'd by and who they are that are partakers of the Victory I shall declare and treat of both 1. The Enimies here mention'd and we may account them three if that which gives both aid and strength to fortifies our Enimy be so as sure it is 1. Here is Death which sin arms with a sting and do's envenome it 2. Sin it self empower'd and strengthned by the Law 3. That Law also In the second place here are the means by which the Victory is gotten and for whom us the victory thro Jesus In handling all which I shall shew First that the Law gives Sin all its strength and how it do's so 2ly That Sin is the sting of Death and how it is so 3ly That by Christ both the Law which is the strength of Sin is taken away and Sin which is the sting of Death pull'd out and so both Sin and Death so weaken'd that they cannot hurt now and they shall be swallowed up in perfect victory and who they are all this is don for Of these all in this order which I crave leave to speak to directly without any least diverting from the Text or Subject First I am to speak of the first preparations that are made against us in behalf of our Enimies and that is to shew you that the Law gives all the strength to Sin which it hath and how it do's so Sin hath its very being from Law it being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the transgression of the Law 1 John 3. 4. and Sin is not imputed where there is no Law Rom. 5. 13. yea where there is no Law there is no transgression c. 4. 15. But this is not all for in the Law besides the Precepts there is also Sanction and it lays a twofold obligation first to duty secondly upon transgression to punishment 1. To duty and that perfect and unsinning strict obedience for the terms are these Cursed is he that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the Law to do them And to this the whole man is oblig'd the soul as well as body caro spiritus Dei res est saith Tertull. God made the soul as well as body one 's his creature as much as the other and the one hath as much reason then to pay him honor and obedience as the other if indeed the spirit hath not much more to obey him in its own motions and actings than in those of the body which are onely under it and guided by it So that thoughts are criminal against this Law as well as doings by them the Soul fulfils its part of the transgression more it may be than its own share while it robs the Flesh seizes its satisfactions and makes them her own against her nature And indeed whatever part the Law is broken and transgrest by 't is transgression and sin still whether by the mind for lust when it hath conceived onely sin is then begotten James 1. 15. or by the tongue for of every idle word we must give an account at the day of Judgment Matth. 12. 36. and by thy words thou shalt be condemn'd Or lastly by the works So that according to the Tenor of this strict and severe Law whatever we can do or indeed whatever we do not is Sin besides commissions that are sinful there is still defect and so transgression in our thoughts our words and deeds even in the best and in not doing also there 's omission and so failing But besides this severe obligation of the Law to duty upon this our faileur there is a severer obligation 2. To punishment for every sin is cursed as we saw Upon this account the Law saith St Paul worketh wrath Rom. 4. 15. we are children of wrath Eph. 2. 3. whose inheritance is destruction and who are of right to possess onely the sad issues of God's indignation for to this the Law condemns us all by reason of our Sins and upon that account the Law is said to be the strength of Sin Because by force and vertue of this threatning of the Law we that have sinned are therefore liable and obnoxious to the condemnation of it And this I take to be the meaning of that place Rom. 7. 7 8 9 10. I had not known sin but by the law for I had not known concupiscence except the law had said thou shalt not covet But sin taking occasion by the commandment wrought in me all manner of concupiscence for without the law sin was dead but when the commandment came sin revived and I died and the commandment which was ordain'd to life I found to be unto death The Apostle's drift here is not to evince how the
commandment begets sin but how it makes sin condemning begets death and therefore I believe they are mistaken who expound sin taking occasion by the commandment wrought in me all manner of concupiscence as if it meant the Law onely prohibiting but not quelling sin in me the more it was restrain'd the more it wrought all manner of concupiscence in me especially since there was no punishment assign'd to that sin in the Law it took advantage thence more powerfully to engage me in the pursuit of all my lusts since thence I might have hop't without any fear of punishment to pursue them For this seems perfectly to thwart his aim which was to shew us how the Law wrought condemnation and inflicted death by threatning it It seems to mean I had not onely not known sin to be so dangerous but I had not known some things to be sins and by consequence condemning things but by the Law particularly I had not known concupiscence to be so had not the Law said thou shalt not covet The next words do not seem intended to declare how the Commandment work sin that being brought in by the by as it were thus but sin the corruption of my nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had wrought in me all manner of concupiscence all actual lusts and wickednesses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 got advantage over me or strength against me by the Law which he there proves for without the law sin is dead not as to stirring in us by its sinful motions sure corruption would not fail to do that and more if there were no check but dead had no strength nor power to condemn me For it follows when the commandment came sin reviv'd got strength to do that and I died was sentenc'd to death by it and the commandment which was ordain'd to life could I have obey'd it I found to be unto death by condemning me to death for my transgression of it For sin by the Commandment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 getting advantage over me slew me not onely made me liable to death but by its guilt envenoming that death for the sting of death is sin which that it is and how it is so is the second thing I am to speak to Sin is the sting of death which I could make appear two manner of ways in relation to two senses that may be given to the words both pertinent and the one but the Anticipation of the other The first is this Sin is the sting of death 't is Sin makes the thoughts of death pungent and stinging the wicked man cannot think of his last dying day without horrors the onely imagination of a sickness stings him because he is conscious to himself of sin and he knows that that after Death cometh the Judgment and he dares not think of beholding the face of his Judg with his guilt upon him To prove this to you I shall not need to fetch any heathen Testimonies that call the Conscience of Sin a whip a sting a goad a lancing knife things that gash and prick and gall and fret all words of all kinds of terrifying punishment but if there be any gross customary Sinner that now hears me I shall need no other way of proof but by appealing to his own conscience whether when he comes hot from his iniquity he dares entertain the thought of dying And why not Alas he is too deep in arrears to venture upon account with so impartial a Judg books must be laid open if he come there the closet curtain sins nay the bosom villanies must be displaied and every one receive his doom he hath heard that all the refuge of a deplored Sinner at that great and terrible Day of the Lord is but to fly unto the Mountains to cover him and to the Rocks to hide him A wretched hope for how shall the Hills hide him whose iniquities are like Mountains or how shall the rocks cover him whose rebellions are like the great deep as the Scripture words it To such a person Death and Judgment are words of too dangerous a sense and it 's easier for him as many do to resolve there is no such thing as one of them than to think of them and go merrily on in sinning For tell me what is the design of that variety of iniquities in which thou dost ingulf thy self that circle of sins wherein one relieves and succeeds another Sure by such a perpetuity of diversified delights to stave off those severer thoughts which if there were an intermission of sinning or a nauseating of one sin for want of variety would creep in the noise of our riots is not to please the ear but to drown the barking of our consciences When the Sinner's candle is put out if weariness in wickedness do not at once close up his eyes and thoughts if the dark solitary night do but suggest some melancholly thoughts into him how do's he tumble up and down as if he thought to role away from his imagination and he do's ransack his fancy and call up the memory of his past sins about him to entertain himself with all and keep out the torturing remembrance of that sad Day which the Scripture calls putting far from them the evil day for the truth is he dares not give it place least it should happen to him as to a man upon a pointed precipice as himself is indeed situated to whom the apprehension would be as mortal as the danger and he would tumble down for fear of falling So here his sin adds such sharps to the imagination of death that he dares not entertain the thought And if Sin be such a sting in the onely thought of death that the mere remembrance of it is insupportable the use is very natural by the frequent calling of death to mind to stop the current of sin For if the wicked cannot endure to think of death he that does think on it cannot well go on to be wicked Remember thy latter end and thou shalt not do amiss I would give this counsel Think thou art to die while doing it The original of the Turks Turbant which was but by continual wearing of his winding sheet by wrapping his head in his grave-cloaths to have always a shrowd and death upon his thoughts and the Philosophers defining their wisdom to be but contemplatio mortis are not such pregnant inforcers of this use as this practical apprehension of it The man that liv'd among the Tombs tho he had a legion of Devils in him yet when he saw Jesus afar off he ran and worshipped him Mark 5. 6. The sight of graves and conversation with monuments will make even Demoniacks Religious and is so far from thrusting Praiers out of the Liturgy of Burial that it brings the very Devils on their knees But there is yet another and a fuller sense of these words which St Paul repeats out of the LXX translation of Hosea 13. 14. tho not verbatim for there insteed of 〈◊〉
Miracles but to assist our Worldliness Ambitions and Lusts to be our opportunities of Vice and provocation of him And being thus affronted and refused his Enemy preferr'd not this God but Barrabas any the vilest thing for Friend rather than Christ must he not needs be more our Enemy than heretofore And if he be that question will concern us Are we stronger than God It should behove us not to fall out with him till we are See how he does prepare himself for the Encounter Wisd. v. Taking his Jealousie for Armour putting on Justice severe and vindicative Justice as a Breastplate and his Wrath sharpening as a Sword and arming all the Creatures for Auxiliaries Alas when Omnipotence does express it self as scarcely strong enough for Execution but Almightiness will be armed also for Vengeance will assume Weapons call in Aids for fury who shall stand it Will our Friends think you keep it off us and secure us did we consider how uneasie God accounts himself till he begin the Storm while he keeps off his Plagues from overrunning such a Land we would expect them every moment and they must come Ah says he I will ease me of mine Adversaries and avenge me of mine Enemies and then in what condition are we if God can have no ease but in our ruine if he does hunger and thirst after it go to his Vengeance as to a Feast And if you read the 25th Chapter of Isaiah you will find there a rich Bill of Fare which his Revenge upon his Enemies does make view the sixth Verse He that enjoys his morsels that lays out his Contrivances and studies on his Dishes so as if he meant to cram his Soul let him know what delight soever he finds when he hath spoiled the Elements of their Inhabitants to furnish his own Belly and not content with Natures Delicacies neither hath given them forc'd Fatnesses changing the very flesh into a marrow suppling the Bones almost into that Oyl that they were made to keep all â—his delight the Lord by his expressions does seem to take in his dread Executions on his Enemies a sinful People And if the vicious Friendships of the World have so much more attractive than Christ's love and favour and the happy consequences of it as to counterpoise all the danger of such enmity you may joyn hands with them But if His be the safer and more advantageous then hearken to his Propositions and beseechings for He does beg it of you As he treated this reconciliation in his Blood so he does in Petitions too For saith S. Paul We are Ambassadours for Christ as if God did beseech you by us we pray you in Christ's stead Be you reconciled and then be Generous towards your GOD and Saviour and having brought him as it were upon his knees reduc'd him to entreaties be friends and condescend to him and your own Happiness If He be for you take no care then who can be against you His Friendship will secure you not onely from your Enemies but from Hostility it self for when a man's ways please the Lord he will make even his Enemies to be at peace with him Prov. xvi 7. He will reconcile all but Vices And afterwards see what a blessed throng of Friends we shall be all initiated into Heb. xii 23. To an innumerable company of Angels to the general Assembly and Church of the First-born that are written in Heaven to God the Judg of all and to the Spirits of Just men made perfect and to Jesus the Mediatour of the new Covenant c. And of this blest Corona we our selves shall be a noble and a glorious part inflamed all with that mutual love that kindles Seraphims and that streams out into an heavenly glory filling that Region of immortal love and blessedness and being Friends that is made one with Father Son and Holy Ghost that Trinity of Love we shall enjoy what we do now desire to ascribe to them All Honour Glory Power Majesty and Dominion for evermore Amen The Fifth SERMON Preached at WHITE-HALL Third Wednesday in LENT EZECH XXXIII 11. Why will ye Dye THE Words are part of a Debate which God had with the sinful House of Israel in which there are three things offer themselves to be considered First The Sinners Fate and Choice He will Die That 's his End yea 't is his Resolution he will die Secondly Gods inquiry for the Ground of this he seems astonished at the Resolution and therefore reasons with them about this their so mad choice and questions Why will ye dye Which words are also Thirdly The debate of his Affections the reasoning of his Bowels and a most passionate Expostulation with them on account of that their Resolution Why will ye dye which as it is addrest by God directly to the House of Israel so it would fit a Nation perverse as that which mutinies against Miracles and Mercies is false to God Religion and their own Interests led by a Spirit of giddiness and frenzy unsteddy in all things but resolutions of Ruine that would tear open their old Wounds to let out Life and they will dye And though the Lord be pleased to work new prodigies of mercy for us and to say unto us in despite of all our Enemies both Forein and Domestick Live The use we make of all is onely to debauch the Miracles and make Gods Mercies help to fill the measure of our Judgments live as if we would try all the ways to Ruine and since God will thus deliver us from dangers we would call for them some other way But to prescribe to these is above the attempt of my endeavours May the blessed Spirit of Wisdom and Understanding the Spirit of Holiness and Peace and Order breath on their Counsels whom this is committed to I shall bend my Discourse to the Conviction of Sinners in particular and treat upon the words as if they had been spoke to us under the Gospel The first thing which my Text and God supposeth is the Sinners Fate and Choice He will dye Even the second Death for it is appointed for all men once to dye and then cometh the Judgment which shall sentence him to another death that is immortal in which he and his misery must live for ever that is he must die everlastingly Such is first his Fate That Sin and Death are of so near so complicated a relation as that though they were Twins the birth and Issue of one Womb and moment yet they are also one anothers Off-spring and beget each other while Sin bringeth forth Death as S. James saith and is the Parent of Perdition and yet the Man of Sin is the Son of Perdition as S. Paul saith and Iniquity is but destruction's birth onely itself derived And that this Death and Perdition is Eternal in the most sad sense of the word there are a thousand Texts that say This is the Message of God in the mouth and Blood
good thing of this life Now he that thwarts this order or subordination that lays out his desires on the things themselves that minds them for their own sake onely and the satisfaction he himself receives from them without looking further these are his ends apparently and so his good things which he rests in which if God permit him to enjoy he therefore hath his good things and hath no great reason to expect and look for other Now how miserably does this man delude himself for this is to preferr the present moment before the following eternity it is as if the Embryo should wish for a fair spacious womb and chuse to spring and leap there for its nine months rather than to live a pleasant age in a variety of full delights and so it may but dance in the womb not care to be deliver'd into a dungeon and born a fetter'd slave it is to chuse the riot of one meal one good feast and to starve the whole remainder of a mans life yea it is worse it is to love a pleasant moment more than he fears eternal Hell or loves as eternal Heaven And this will be discern'd and is by most of them that live in jollity when they come to die when they must bethink themselves of going hence and have not consider'd to provide a place nay have all reason to beleive they have no place provided but that which God prepared for the Devil and his Angels when they shall think in sad earnest I have liv'd a pleasant life and never have deni'd my self an appetite nor thwarted a design nor yet hath God deni'd me any thing but Providence hath suffer'd every thing to serve my inclinations and to gorge my appetites but I am going now where these unruly appetites that I have so indulg'd will infinitely grow and where all satisfaction will be impossible and my desires will be my endless torment 3. This Aphorisme also by pronouncing a present blessedness to the Mourners le ts us see the advantages they have above other men in their journey to Heaven Delights for the most part they are but the baits and the sawces of sin by these the Devil and the World and our own Flesh temts us to iniquities and keeps us fast glew'd in them this is every mans experience yea the most innocent delights they are at the best avocations from Heaven and from better things they entertain and hold our thoughts upon fading objects that will never profit us if it happen that they do not utterly ruin us whereas the causes of mourning calamities yea and the passion it self they beget virtues in us a whole chain of them for tribulation worketh patience patience experience experience hope Rom. 5. 3 4. yea indeed they make us perfect and entire lacking nothing Jam. 1. 4. as if to be rob'd and spoil'd of all things were the sure way of wanting nothing not a vertue certainly these deep waters of affliction and these tears of ours that raise the stream they drive and waft us to our God when he smote them then they sought him and enquir'd after God early a storm will make a Mariner pray and when the tempest beats him down upon his knees he will lift up his hands to Heaven the Heathen Seamen fled to the true Jehovah when they were ready to suffer shipwrack Jonah 1. 14 16. yea they do not onely drive but wooe us to God they are temtations in the sense of bait also I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness saith God Hos. 2. 14. when I have made her solitary put her as in the desert brought her into the very place of dragons this shall be my allurements my inticing wooings of her and not to loose the experience of this St Chrysostom hath given it in the frequent example of men of most effeminate loose dissolute lives yet by a cause of mourning by the loss of a bosom wife of a dear onely heir they become at least for that time of greif strict and severe how do they banish all soft delights no curious provision for the flesh but more than Philosophical abstinence almost to the pining of themselves watches and silence quiet and humble prostrations of themselves unspeakable meekness huge commiseration of all that are afflicted these are their passions and their exercises for a while they so contemn the world think it so little worth their moiling for that now it is not worth a wish in that time should a fire seize on all they had or a spoiler run away with all it would scarce divert a thought or eye to it from their sad melancholly object they look upon all guilded pomps and soft pleasures as cloath'd with the same dark sable that themselves have on they are almost ready to betake themselves to the wives sepulchre running to inhabit that chamber of death and again to marry themselves in that cold bed the grave so easily will mourning wean us In this dimness of anguish and darkness as of the shadow of death we should not run to hugg and embrace gloworms but prostrate our selves in this dust and ashes and with sad serious repentance set on mourning which shall bring me to the consideration of the words as of a duty And first of the duty in general now the mourning here being oppos'd to them that laugh in St Luke the thing forbidden in the duty may be all foolish lightness in conversation and manners all vanity loosness and wantoness all uncomly behaviors or jestings all freer recreations that beget or are accompani'd with any of these and the duty be in part the same with that in the Phil. 4. 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if any things be grave think on these things saith he there gravity being the very garb of a Mourner Not that I would have this duty to exclude all recreation which also according to the persons with whom it is may be innocently light as with children serious toys are no sport for them But 1. Recreation must be such as may cherish health and strength and unbend the mind by diverting it for to weary my self by my refreshment is to contradict the very aim of it to make my recreation need another sport to refresh me after the toil of my laborious idleness and therefore also 2. It must be moderate otherwise it does exchange with my calling and my refreshment becomes my emploiment and 3. It must be innocent I must not make it my sport to offend God it is too dangerous a recreation to jest with and provoke the Almighty to play with sin and to sport away a virtue is of too ill consequence and the duty of the text saith also it should be 4. According to the condition of my person somwhat grave not so extremely light and vain and if you would by these examin the usual delights first all freer revelling which if they be in pleasures of the tast end frequently in intemperance are
in vicious customes yet for the gross foul acts which men sometimes commit those unkind stabs and wounds to our own souls those cruel self-murders these all are to be daily mourn'd for Now I shall onely name a few reasons why we should mourn and so stir us up to it 1. Because onely in this and in relation to this is greif of any use at all God and Nature they say made nothing in vain now if it were not for our sins greif would be almost in vain a certain sign that this passion must be emploi'd upon our sins ut propter hujus tantum sublationem sit concessa saith St Chrysostom For does any man loose a child why if he greive to death will his mourning raise him Is thy Estate taken from thee why thou art sad upon it but will thy tears recover it But hast thou sin'd and dost thou truly mourn and greive for it why thy tears do wash away thy sin and blot out thine offence So that mourning being every where else preposterous and unprofitable was clearly intended to be spent upon our sins 2. What ingratitude is it to thy Savior not to find in thine heart to mourn for those sins for which he did die the Son of God did sweat and pray and cry and shed a torrent of bloud and water and suffer death for those very sins of thine and mine which we think so slightly of that we will not shed a tear for them O my Brethren if there is in us any love of that our Jesus or indeed of our selves we would now transplant the Agonies and make them ours and sweat out a few drops of sorrow to cure us of those feavors of our sins 3. Yea it is a very trouble to our God that we do not greive he mourns to see that we will not mourn Hosea 13. 14. when God had complain'd before of Ephraim what a foolish child it was that it did not repent he tells them there that if they had don so I would have ransom'd them from the power of the grave not I will for the very next verse contradicts that I would have redeem'd them from death O death I had bin thy grave O grave I had bin thy destruction but comfort is hid from mine eies repentance we read but the word bears and the sense requires comfort as if the eies of the Lord were therefore full of tears because Ephraim's were not and he could not receive comfort if Ephraim did not mourn and if we do not mourn God will comfort himself some other way concerning us to our greif Isaiah 1. 24. Therefore thus saith the Lord the Lord of Hosts the Mighty one of Israel ah I will ease me of mine adversaries 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the very word before I will be comforted by reason of mine adversaries how why I will avenge me of mine enimies Ah my Brethren when God is to be comforted by his vengeance upon us when he can find no ease but in our ruin and destruction and that he calls his comfort in relation to the non-mourning impenitent where shall we find ease and comfort then And then methinks this should scare us into the use of this fright us out of that stupid lethargy in sinning which does so dull us in it makes us so senseless of it and the danger we are in by reason of it that we cannot bestow one day in weeping mourning and fasting no nor indeed an hour of serious sadness upon an age of sin a whole life of iniquity the very next step of this into which we shall be sure to fall is the greatest sin and judgment in the world it is that spoken of as a character of the foulest Heathens Ephes. 4. 18. 19. Having their understandings darkned being alienated from the life of God thro the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness that is in their heart who being past feeling have given themselves over to lasciviousness to work all uncleaness with greediness rather because of the brawny hardness of their hearts which are become callous insensible of any admonitions stings and greif but dead to all sense of sin and having put off all fear of it and who these are he tells you in the next words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such as when they do the foulest acts are not toucht with any greif for having don them but like dead members of the body that are forsaken by the vital spirits if you lash or prick or lance them they feel no pain even so these whose consciences are retir'd a sleep they do not mourn for any of their foulest actions which is the very height of impiety for such do strait give themselves over to all filthiness to work all uncleaness with greediness This is the effect of not mourning and then how do they deserve and provoke this judgment who if at any time their conscience begin to twinge them for any of their sins they presently divert their thoughts lest the mourning in the text should creep upon them and they should grow sad These men dread their virtue they are afraid of becoming pious and to avoid the way to heaven is their design and contrivance they come not so near duty as the wicked in hell have not so much repentance as the damned have for there is sorrow for their sins weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth I should 2dly encourage those that do thus mourn but the text does that sufficiently they are blessed and they shall be comforted First they are blest for this mourning it is the great effect and sign of this Spiritual life that man's sickness hath not yet kill'd him who is sensible of it who greives by reason of the anguish of it and he is not dead who feels the weight of it and mourns for it Secondly if it be true it draws such a train of virtues after it as it made St Paul rejoyce that he had made the Corinthians sad 2 Cor. 9 10 11. and then this very same verse will assure them of the comfort hereafter for all the Gospel-promises are assur'd upon the terms of repentance which this Godly sorrow is the first link of and does draw after it then if there be any comfort in the company of myriads of Saints and Angels if we dare take Christ's judgment if he had any tast who suffer'd so many mourning fits that liv'd a life of tears here that often wept but never laught yea a life of horrid suffering and yet thought those comforts a full glorious recompence to him for all those sufferings and therefore may well be to us for a few tears if there be any joy in the beatifical vision and in heaven they shall be comforted that mourn when as I told you out of Revelations all tears shall be wip'd from their eyes there shall be no more trouble nor sorrow nor crying nor pain And yet this is but the Negative part of their eternity of
unquenchable brimstone and denounc'd that dire thunder of Go ye cursed into everlasting fire which is the sentence of the Law in its own rigour Yea and besides that blackness and darkness too so that notwithstanding all those lightnings and those revelations God was still in the thick cloud and in the dark and Christ might well say in the verse before the Text No man knoweth the Father save the Son and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him and when he comes to do that he does it in another strain with words of another nature all invitation Come unto me all ye that labor The strain of Gospel is not to thunder us into obedience but I beseech you Brethren by the tender mercies of God and tho there be laboring and burden in the words yet those are the effects of Law and there is ease and rest for that labor and those burdens in the words too and to them it is the Gospel that invites us and it is Christ that gives them for it is he that saith Come unto me These words the Church makes use of for her call unto the Sacrament of the Lords body and certainly it is impossible that they should signify with greater Emphasis than upon that occasion when he does bid you come to him that is to the communication of his body and his bloud for the bread which we break is the communion of the body of Christ. You come to him not onely for the emty kindness of a visit there but to partake of his body and his bloud all the redemtions graces mercies which he purchased on the cross If ever Christ do call with passion it is sure when he pours out that bloud for us and saith every one that thirsteth come Come unto me all ye that labor The words are an invitation of Christ in which we may observe 1. The Persons invited All ye that labor and are heavy laden 2. The invitation it self Come unto me 3. The entertainment at this invitation Rest I will give you rest In the handling of these I shall shew first who those persons invited are who they are that are said here to labor and to be heavy laden 2. What is meant by their invitation Come unto me 3. How those persons come to be qualified for this invitation so as to be invited and none other how the laboring heavy laden persons are the onely fit persons to come to Christ. 4. I shall touch the advantages those persons shall gain by coming Of these and 1. Who they are that are said to labor and be heavy laden The words express extremity of burden and labor under it and weariness by reason of that labor they are translated fessi estis bajulantes onera Syr. labore attriti gravati onere by the Arab. And indeed they signify pains such as to make us pant and blow 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yea thro weakness not be able to stand 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so as that the joints are loosed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the very soul fails and faints and we become as it were in the shadow of death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies Now this excess of pains may denote two things 1. Either the sinner under that notion as a sinner sins themselves being in Scripture exprest by words that signify labor trouble and weight and therefore the word in the Text translates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which means all those especially iniquity Mich. 2. 1. Wo to them that devise iniquity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that devise labors and the very next words will warrant it and work evil it being a most familiar expression with the Prophet David the Workers of Iniquity not onely because it is some mens emploiment and trade here lies their skill their managery they are not Artists in any thing besides but the secrets of sin the mysteries of filthiness the Magisteries of Iniquity these they are Professors of in these chair-men but also Workers of iniquity because it is their toil they sweat under it it is the vanity and vexation of their lives which are rackt in designing contriving and acting the sins of their complexions and ambitions Will you see our Saviors sense of the vexing painfulness of sin he calls your sins of the least size peccata levia as they are esteem'd motes in the eye Matth. 7. 3. Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brothers eye that is why dost thou look so severely on the light faults of others Our escapes that we make slight of they are of such a nature in themselves as to cause the anguish and fretting that dust and splinters do in the tenderest part the eye And if our souls were not all corneous our consciences sear'd and dead we should with the same impatience bear them as our eye does dust with restlesness work against it never quiet till it force out tears to wash away the dust Yea worse than that for the word which we translate mote 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies a spill of wood a little shiver or splinter a thing absolutely insuppportable to that part which if suffered does not onely threaten it with intolerable pains but with absolute extinction And truly every one of our slighter sins is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a shiver in the eye and then the grosser iniquities will bear both the words of the text of labor and burden and are in the same verse by our Savior entituled to an expression that hath enough of both even a beam in the eye And considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye that is thine own vaster crimes Every design'd and gross wickedness is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a thing whose agony is as much beyond imagination as endurance For how shall the eye bear that which the shoulders must sink under which onely pillars can support Yet such is that burden and therefore the expression is frequent of bearing iniquities St Peter says it of Christ He himself bears our sins and the Prophet Isaiah said it before him c. 53. 11. For he shall bear their iniquities 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bear them as a great burden as the word expresses and as event did more express a burden indeed which made the Son of God to sweat bloud and roar and sink and die 'T is true there are of those that do delight in life onely because it is the opportunity of sin it hath no more pleasure in it than is spent in vanity or iniquity without that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 life would be a burden they would labor under it all their other time is wearisom and perisheth and notwithstanding in our Saviors character they are the onely drudges yet in their own opinions they are the onely light hearted creatures the onely persons whose life is but various ease and diversified pleasure Yea and the onely great prejudice they have against Religion is
iniquities The sweats of soul under the sense of the burden of sin the labors of mortifying the flesh and crucifying the affections of putting the body of sin to death will justify this sense The new Birth also hath its pangs and the Child of God as he is not engendred by weak purposes faint resolutions so neither is he brought forth in a sigh or wish of mercy there is a labor in it In this expression you may see the nature of repentance the dawnings and first flashes of that Catholic Duty 't is not that easy thing to change my mind onely and begin to believe That that is not the best course I have hitherto trod in the way of Sinners not the safest and most pleasant path tho few of us will believe that neither is it that easy wish I would I had not don this act for when the pleasure 's gon and dead the memory of it is so unsatisfying if not loathsom that a man can hardly not wish it Nor yet is it that easy desire of mercy that saying Lord Lord. The Penitent they are the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here they are such as even faint under a sense of the horror of their sins whose hearts are broken and wounded with that heavy galling weight of them If I should gather up the racks and tortures the Occultum quatiente animo tortore flagellum that self whip in the dark rooms and recesses of our thoughts conscience dealing with us by the discipline of mad men as knowing the sinner is not onely Solomons fool and Davids man without understanding but even St Pauls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mad-man the tacita sudant praecordia culpa which a Heathen can reckon up to us And add to these the Scripture expressions the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the pains of travel the labor of a woman in child-birth the agony of the Cross and the pangs of death the word repentance would bear them all and they would let us see that the Penitent is truly one that labors under a very heavy burden and so is invited here by our Savior Come Thirdly those that labor and are heavy laden may signify such as groan under a burden of afflictions and look upon them not as chastisements onely but inflictions and are even wearied and affrighted by them Thus those judgments which God did by his Prophets threaten to the Nations are in those Prophets called the burden of those Nations and the cross and calamities are often called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the labor in the Text 1 Tim. 4. 10. and generally all the troubles and difficulties of this life Rev. 14. 13. of which death is there made the rescue And I need make no application of this interpretation the words labor and heavy laden do in these daies sufficiently apply themselves I shall onely tell you that the whole sense of those words sum'd up make thus much Those that are heavy burdened with sins and the punishment of those sins afflictions and groan under the sense of both of them laboring earnestly to be rid and be delivered from both these are bid to come to Christ which is the invitation and what it means I am secondly to shew Come unto me And first in general the word used 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Come is not onely a word of exhortation but of great encouragement also in the doing so often used Come and let us kill him and then the inheritance shall be ours and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Come ye unto the wedding And indeed such is needful to the persons here spoken to the laboring heavy laden for them to take a journey if there be not the encouragement of some great advantage it will not sound like an invitation but an infliction and therefore our Savior besides the rest he promises used animating words even in the very call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Therefore the whole invitation come unto me tho it be used in the Gospel and may very well signify come to me as to a Teacher and Instructer so Nicodemus is said to come to Christ and they are said to come to the light as that which was to reveal yea and that place in Isaiah 55. 3. whither our Savior do's much reflect when he useth this expression seems to import but so Encline your ear and come unto me hear c. yea and may so signify in this place the words going before being all things are given me of my father and no man knoweth the father but the son and he to whom the son will reveal him it then follows come to me as if he should say therefore if you desire to be instructed in the way to life come to me and tho you do labor under the load of many sins yet I will shew you a way how you shall find ease and rest and that way follows in the next verse take my yoke upon you and learn of me and ye shall be sure to find rest this is very natural yet because to give you rest is more than to shew you a way to it and so may seem a promise and a reward very apportioned to the duty rest to coming therefore it is most probable that come doth not onely signify come to me to learn your duty but that the come should be it self a duty and so I shall consider it and the expression come to me does in the Gospel signify a twofold duty 1. It signifies to obey and serve Thus very often most expresly in the Epistle to the Hebrews to come to God is to serve and worship him c. 11. 6. For he that cometh to God must believe that God is and that he is a rewarder of them that seek him and c. 7. 25. He is able to save them that come to God by him that serve God as he commandeth and enableth c. 10. 1. The sacrifices which they offered year by year could not make the comers thereunto perfect could not perfectly cleanse them that served God by them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 22d verse there Let us come with a true heart worship him with unfeigned piety and obedience And the sense will be fully clear from the expressions that relate to it Seek the Lord draw near to him and then come to him To seek him is to enter upon such a course of life by which his favor is to be obtain'd and what it is you will see Isaiah 55. where when he had bid them come to him that they may do that he bids them seek him v. 6 7. Seek the Lord while he may be found let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let them return unto the Lord. Deut. 4. 29 30. But if from thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God thou shalt find him if thou seek him with all thine heart and with all thy soul if thou turn to the Lord thy God and shalt be obedient
OF THE CHRISTIAN'S BLESSEDNES In beholding God's Face Psalm 17. 15. As for me I will behold thy face in righteousness I shall beâ—â—atisfied when I awake with thy likeness Or as the other Rendring reads it very little different from that But as for me I will behold thy presence in righteousness and when I awake up after thy likeness I shall be satisfied with it THE words import an express opposition between the satisfactions of the person in the Text and those of them that are describ'd before here in the context â—â—amely of the men of the world which have their portion in this life and whose belly thou O God fillest with thy hid treasure v. 14. of whom he had also said v. 10. they are inclosed in their own fat their mouth speaketh proud things i. e. the satisfaction of these wordlings lies in this that they are great and rich abound with all things that they and their children have their fill of their desires they leave plentiful remains to their posterity these advantages of this life are the onely good things which they value and seek after they receive them as their portion and the having them so plentifully makes them proud of the possession insolent in the use but as for my part I will serve thee faithfully truly and justly and with all sincerity and diligence in the performance of my duty I will seek thy face mercy and favor and so doing wait till thou lift up the light of thy countenance upon me and then whatsoever my condition be on this earth where I would not have my good things I expect other sort of portion from my Heavenly Father yet when I awake out of the dust at thy appearance in thy glory since we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him then at my rising it will be impossible that any thing which is to satisfy me can be wanting to me for my satisfactions cannot but be Glorious Divine Infinite and Immortal as thine are if I awake up in thy likeness So that we have here 1. The nature of that state and the certain satisfactions of it which King David did propose to and assure himself of to awake up after God's likeness and he knows he shall be satisfied with it 2. The sure means of arriving at this state beholding of God's face in righteousness 3. His peremtory resolution as to the use of these means I will behold 4. With the courage of resolution which is taken up against the almost universal practice and the as great contradiction of the World that generally minds far different satisfactions I declare publickly and confess But as for me I will 1. The nature and the certain satisfactions of that state which holy David in the Spirit did propose to and assure himself of The state the Psalmist do's suppose expresly here a state to which he shall awake out of the sleep of death For however some expound his words another way yet from his opposition of himself as to his own expectations to the men of this world as to their enjoiments and declaring of them that they have their portion in this life 't is plain he sets his not in this life in that therefore which he says he shall awake to That state also which St Paul assure us Heb. 11. all the Patriarchs did look for which all the Nation of the Jews had such a faith of that the Sadduces were always from their first appearance counted Heretics for their denying it That I say there is such a state now after so much signal revelation after so much miracle of Resurrections from death is not to be made the argument of a discourse to Christians who can be such no otherwise nor further than as they believe and are assur'd of it And it seems altogether as absurd to undertake to treat upon the nature of that state which St Paul after he had a tast of it says is unspeakable and not possible to be utter'd which he was so far from knowing after he had bin in it that he knew not himself in it knew not whether he were in the body or out of it when he did enjoy that state which St Peter when he had a glimps in our Saviors Transfiguration in the astonishment by reason of the light attemted but to speak of it it is said he knew not what he said it put him so beside out of himself And 't is no wonder if we cannot pertinently discourse of it if as Scripture says it cannot enter into the heart of man to comprehend it while he is in this animal and mortal state And indeed it were the same thing as to comprehend what is the Incomprehensible God himself for 't is the nature of that state that we awake into his likeness the Text says and St John hath said the same more expressly 1 John 3. 2. Beloved now we are the sons of God and it doth not yet appear what we shall be but we know that when he or it shall appear we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is I do not find it said in Scripture of the Angels in what ever rank of Principality they stand that they are like God rather to be like the most High is believ'd that very ambition that destroy'd all those that fell But as when man was made out of the dust he was the onely creature that was said to be made after God's own image and similitude so after he is fallen again into that dust when he awakes out of it he is that onely thing that is sayd to bear the image of the Lord from Heaven to be like God And 't is not strange if that nature which God did assume to himself come at last to be glorified with some endowments which transcend all those of Angels yet 't is said of them they always see the face of our heavenly Father Matt. 18. 10. To see God therefore as he is do's seem more than to see his face continually and is such a sight as if it do not causally produce a likeness to God in us which yet possibly it may and the Schools think it do's yet 't is certain that it consequentially proves 't is absolutely necessary that we shall be like him otherwise it were impossible that we should see him as he is Which evidently follows from the Argument of our Apostle we know we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is so that such a sight of him is that which either makes us or concludes us like God yea and that to such a degree that in St Peter's words we are made partakers of the Divine nature 2 Pet. 1. 4. I shall not undertake to be interpreter to the Apostles as to this expression or to give the meaning of those words but whatsoever more it may imply surely it signifies that those Attributes that are essentially natural to the Divinity
it does require is very obvious Lord is a word of power and autority it requires service and obedience Nothing more frequent in the Prophets than when they have from God severely worded their commands to add this sanction I am the Lord and as applied to Christ St Paul does say I serve the Lord Christ. A servant is the necessary relative to a Lord and truly doing what he doth command was the use he assigned of all that power he had given him teaching them to observe whatever I have commanded And truly if those Scriptures be remembred which secure his Autority thus let us know that Power was the reward of his sufferings and he endured them partly for the Title 's sake therefore says as much and Heb. 12. 2. For the joy that was set before him he endured the cross despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of God did all this that he might gain that place or if that be not plain enough then this is most express Rom. 14. 9. For to this end Christ both died and rose and revived that he might be Lord both of the dead and the living Verse 8. That whether we live we live unto the Lord and whether we die we die unto the Lord that is that both our life might be consecrated to him our lives spent on his service and our deaths be at his command and this was part of the end of his death And then I appeal to your own hearts for what end think you he did so desire and obtain this power Do you think when he was set at the right hand of God he was exalted onely to a name that by all those sufferings he did acquire but a bare title to be call'd Lord of Lords as he is call'd Rev. 19. 16. but neither to look after our obedience nor indeed to set us any law to obey as some would have it Was this power so dear to him as that he would suffer all those torments to compass it and yet when he hath it that it should be so little regarded by him as to suffer us to neglect contemn it to go on in a continued course of disobedience to all his precepts to rebel against his Power never submit our appetites to it but let every lording passion fly in his face every lust defy his Autority let us be proud against that Lord be higher than our duties and all the temper of virtues and let every ebullition of our proud wrath trample on a statute back'd with hell-fire yea and so believe that his death should procure us an impunity in doing this What a wretched mistake is this to think his bloud which purchased him a power to command us should purchase us a leave to disobey him This is to make Christ's bloud divided against it self and to make it spill and dash it self That we should go on in a course of iniquity or allow our selves some peevish vices and stop our own consciences and a Preacher's mouth with saying Christ died for us when as 't is clear he died that he might be Lord that is that we might live and dy to him do both at his command and canst thou think that that death will excuse thee for not obeying which was undertaken for that very end that thou mightest obey him Christ died to be thy Lord and thou wilt have that death a plea for thee when thou obeyest sin and the Devil his greatest Enimies His Cross was his very Ensign and Standard against these Enimies his Passion was his grappling with them and his death his Victory And yet thou dost again submit to their authority becomest a subject to their power and settest them Lord over thee and fetchest the justification of this thy defection from that death and victory and that is the same thing as to make them of no autority nor power yea the captivity and ruin of those Enimies to be the reason of thy obeying them to excuse thy disservice to Christ by saying he is thy Lord and for thy rebellion and waging war with him pretend thou dost it under his own standard No certainly his Title claims Obedience and does assure thee thou must serve This is the first thing what thou must do The second what thou maist expect from it is easily discover'd that is wages For he will recompence every man according to his deeds Rom. 2. 6. To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honor and immortality eternal life v. 7. And glory honor and peace to every man that doth good v. 10. For he is the Lord of glory the Prince of peace and Lord of life the Scripture saith in a word to sum up both what his Title doth require and what we may expect from it it saith Service and it saith Wages and both are set down in that to the Heb. 5. 9. He is the Author of eternal salvation to all them that obey him and both here are applied to him who does in earnest owne the relation to this Title and can say in truth My Lord the next part and first of the applying what it does require Service as it is the assuring of performance My Lord. And truly had we not entred any voluntary obligation and had we not contracted formally to take him for our Lord and not onely owned all that the relation does import to be due from us but engaged also to render it yet he is to us both 1. By an Original right he made us and there is not a workman in the world hath so much right to require the uses of his own handy-work to dispose of that same utensil which himself shap'd or fram'd as the Lord hath to require our service Did I perchance furnish the Lord with some materials for my self or did I find any piece towards my making contribute any least thing to my being then let me claim somthing for my share in my self and by the rule of fellowship with God have some use of my self to my self and as to that let him not be my Lord. But there is no such thing he called me into being out of the infinite resistance of vacuity and nothing He gave me body soul and every power and faculty and he upholds every motion and inclination of those faculties and gives me opportunities and objects for them There is no considerability of any thing within me is from my self but entirely owes its being from his store and comes from the Almighty and then what least imaginable pretence or plea can I have why every motion and inclination both of soul and body should not be bound to look towards his service and every action and thought acknowledge him My Lord. And 2. By purchased Title He did redeem us from the service of those cruel Lords Sin and the Devil whose service is unreasonable and unmanly slavery and whose wages is eternal ruin and he bought the right and title to our service
at a price he became our Lord Ye are bought with a price 1 Cor. 7. 23. They that do not acknowledge this are in the number of those men of whom St Peter speaks Epist. 2. c. 2. v. 1. denying the Lord that bought them and bring upon themselves swift destruction and you may judge what kind of Lord he ought to be by the price he paid for the Title what service he expected by the rates at which he purchased them even at the bloud of God Acts 20. 28. He died I told you that he might be Lord. And now Lord what is thy servant that thou shouldst thus value him or what are his performances that thou shouldst buy them at these rates And shall I give to Sin or Sathan those services which he thus values and thus buys No if thou art content to purchase that so dear which was thy own just due before surely now by all rights thou art My Lord. But 3. He is so also by my own most solemn contract and engagement And to pass by all the rest and to stick to that of this day onely we did contract so in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper and in receiving that we did most solemnly assume to do him faithful service and took him for our Lord. And this would easily appear from hence if Christ's bloud be the price with which he bought the right to be thy Lord and this day thou didst come and here didst take that bloud to all those ends and uses it was given for then in so doing thou didst ratify the contract and take possession of the relation but to do it more solemnly and here I will not stand upon that proof which I have formerly made to you from the account that Pliny gave to Trajan the persecuting Emperor tho truly it be strange that a Heathen should discern this was the meaning of their Sacrament and Christians will not believe it He when he was emploied to persecute the Christians tells him what he had found of them by racking some and by confessions of others at their death Soliti stato die convenire seque Sacramento obstringere ne furta ne latrocinia ne adulteria committerent c. to take an oath they knew no other sense of the word Sacrament to do what their Lord had commanded them What have you don this day Why Christ was sworn your Lord this day and you have taken an oath of service entred into a bond of duty and obedience and if you wilfully shall fail of doing this your Worships will be brought against you your Communions will come in as so many evidences that you have forfeited so many oaths that you have broken No sure I will henceforwards tie my self to better performance for I have hamper'd my self with obligations entangled my self with one other engagement I have again sworn at the Altar Thou art my Lord. But I have a more solemn proof of this that he who comes to the renewing of a Covenant with God now Christ we know saith that that cup is the new Covenant in his bloud he does enter into an oath of God Deut. 29. from verse 10. to 15. Ye stand this day all of you before the Lord your God your captains of your tribes your elders and your officers with all the men of Israel your little ones your wives and thy stranger that is in thy camp from the hewer of thy wood unto the drawer of thy water that thou shouldest enter into covenant with the Lord thy God and into his oath which the Lord thy God maketh with thee this day that he may establish thee to day for a people unto himself and that he may be unto thee a God as he hath said unto thee and as he hath sworn unto thy fathers to Abraham to Isaac and to Jacob neither with you onely do I make this covenant and this oath but with him that standeth here with us this day before the Lord our God and also with him that is not here with us this day Now out of this they who are not convinc'd that our first entring Covenant with God by Baptism is a vow altho the Church require that we should look upon it under that Solemnity and tho St Peter call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a stipulation or if they think it something like it yet 't is a vow but in the childrens name and so it does not strike those apprehensions of so sacred an engagement into them themselves may see here at an entring Covenant little ones entring into an oath and this was not the first giving of the Covenant that so any thing might be thought peculiar to that but onely a repeting of the Covenant in their presence verse 1. and least that we should think their standing there in solemn manner might imply something more than ordinary verse 14. 15. take us that stand here this day before the Lord our God but also with him that shall be born hereafter Many expositors and the Jerusalem Exposition says with all the generations of you that are to come 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if they stood with us this day And the Targum of Jon. Vziel says they do stand that is as to this intent and purpose that as soon as they are admitted into Covenant by Circumcision they are within this oath Littles ones therefore that can be admitted into a Covenant by receiving of the sign of it they then enter an oath of keeping it And then my Brethren we have entred an oath to continue Christ's faithful Soldiers and Servants unto our lives end and that is thou and I and every one have sworn he is my Lord. O my Savior I was baptized and at that time did swear service and then if I should fail thee now I renounce my Allegiance I go from my fealty and I throw of my Covenant Every evil action I deliberately commit brands me with the dishonorable base stile of one that slights his oaths there is no hold of his vows not his most sacred ones those that he makes to God Every vain or passionate oath how true soever speaks me perjured the draughts of intemperance would wash off the water of my Christendom every unclean lust every impurity of Flesh or Spirit does as it were bemire and wipe out my contract with my Lord. For I covenanted to be pure and clean for I was wash'd into the very name of his retainer I could not have that title of that relation without being cleansed There I did swear defiance against all his Enimies the Devil World and Flesh and all worldly and carnal lusts that I would neither follow not be led by them and if I should serve them now I should be a Rebel and a Traitor to my Lord against my bond and covenant and oath No my Lord I will not serve these where death must be my wages the Fiends my Comrades and my Conquest Hell I 'le not do homage to destruction
the rest delivered up to Satan alas what part would Christ have left of his own Body Sed illos defendit numerus junctaeque umbone phalanges and that I fear too in more senses than the Poet means Therefore I shall not urge the Churches Wish but onely see whether the Statute in the Text says any thing to this and whether the for ever do reach us Which is my Third and last Enquiry Thirdly Divers of the Jews Rites are said to be and be prescribed for ever although those very Rites and the whole oeconomy of their Covenant were to be chang'd and cease among other Reasons as the Fathers say because they foresignifie and point at things in the new Covenant which were to last till Covenants and Rites shall be no more and so their meaning and signification was to be for ever Now truly that their Expiation Performances those which I am upon did so the whole Epistle to the Hebrews is employ'd to prove the Margin of your Bibles in this Chapter so refer you to the places that I shall not need to make it out Christ did fulfill the Temple and the Altar part yea and the refuse outcast part of the Atonement satisfied the Religion and the contempt of that days Offices He was the whole true Expiation Now does this Expiation as theirs did require afflicting of the Soul in its attendance or was that but a Ceremony of their Rite and though a Jew must mourn and Fast to see his sin killing a Beast and when he does behold his wickedness eating up a Goat for a Sin-offering he must deny himself his daily bread and suffer thirst if his Iniquities drink but the blood of Bullocks yet when we behold ours embrew themselves in the Blood of the Son of God not onely lay hands and Confessions on his Head but drive Thorns into it make him cry out almost despair and Die we need not be concern'd so much as to do ought of that either in order to the better Celebration of that Expiation or on the very day of it Indeed if we consider most mens practices it would appear most probable that if we were to expiate our sins as the Jews did by sacrificing of our Flocks not of our Jesus those satisfactions would more afflict our Souls and more restrain our Vices than that which was made for us by the Death of Christ and how can this be rectified unless by some severities upon our selves we give our selves a piercing sense of what our sin deserves and grateful apprehensions of what our Surety suffer'd for us When in sad private earnest I have thought fit to Afflict my Soul with some austere mortifications and when my fainting Spirits are scarce able to sustain my Body that sinks under the load of it self then I may have some tender apprehensions of that weight that sunk the Son of God and 't was my weight that he fell under But he that cannot think fit to revenge a year of follies and of Vices with a few weeks severer life sure thinks his Saviour suffered much in vain quorsum perditio haec why must the Blood of God be paid for sin when I cannot afford a little self-denial for it Why such great Agonies of the Holy Jesus when I cannot find in my heart to bear a little strictness for it But I could easily deduce were I not to suppose it done before that sure as if the Church had thought a Statute had annext these two for ever they have been joyn'd from the beginnings of our Christianity it was the Fast that did attend our Saviours sufferings that in part caused the Contest about Easter which Polycarpe S. John's Disciple manag'd and then there was a Fast so soon and he that tells us this Irenaeus Scholar to that Polycarpe says some observ'd it many days some forty days also if we can take the Antient Ruffinus's authority but for a Comma And if the Antient Fathers do expound aright Christ himself thought that men were interested so much in his Death that they would Fast by reason of it When the Bridegroom is taken from them then shall they Fast in those days Upon which words they say the Season was determin'd to this Duty by the Gospel But they may say so who knew how to persuade men to take up restraints of strictest discipline and of severest Piety But we cannot engage them into Order or from Scandal they made them fast we cannot make them temperate Blessed Saviour what kind of Christians didst thou hope for thy Disciples of whom thou wer't so confident they would so concern themselves in thy Passion as to Fast because of it when in our times Christians will not be kept from their Excesses by it not in those days of Fasting which thy Primitive followers did Celebrate with abstinencies that did almost mortifie indeed and slay the Body of Flesh as well as Sin and we in imitation of them in answer of thy confidences will not abate a Meal nor an intemperance will eat and Riot too and make a Lent of Bacchanals Thus we prepare load for thy Day of Passion sin on to add weight to thy Cross and yet we our selves will not be humbled under them It is in vain to tell men thou expectest they should mortifie that it will spirit their Repentance for they will have no kind of Penitence for sin but such as will let them return to sin again suffer no discipline with which their Vices too cannot consist for they can scarce live if they make not themselves chearful with them even in this time of Sadness and in sight of the Memorial of thy sufferings for them Indeed when I consider how this Season is hodg'd in from Vice by all Gods Indignation threatned at first suffered at last pronounc'd in Commination executed in Passion Ashwednesday gave us all Gods Curses against Sinners all which Good Friday shews inflicted on our Saviour Thus we began Cursed are the Vnmerciful the Fornicators and Adulterers the Covetous persons Worshippers of Images Slanderers Drunkards and Extortioners and we shall see the Son of God made this Curse for them yea we our selves said Amen to all as testifying that that Curse is due to all When I consider this I say I cannot choose but be astonish'd to behold how men can break through all Gods Curses and their own to get at Vice first seal Gods Maledictions then provoke and incur them instantly as if they lov'd and would commit a Rape upon Perdition as if because men have so long in Oaths beg'd God to damn them and he hath not done it yet they would now do it in their Prayers too make their Devotions as well as Imprecations consign them to the wrath of God He that does love cursing thus in the Passive sense surely as David says it shall come unto him it shall be unto him as the Garment that covereth him it shall enter into his bowels like Water and like Oyl into his
that day appear against their Friends and Masters and prove their Adversaries to eternal Death Let others joy in Friends that Wine does get them such as have no qualification to endear them but this that they will not refuse to sin and to be sick with their Companions Men that do onely drink in their affections as full of friendship as of liquor and probably they do unload themselves of both at once part with their dearness and their drink together and alike I know not whether in be heats of mutual kindness that inflame these draughts and the desires of them so as if they did drink thirst but sure I am that these hot draughts begin the Lake of fire Let others please themselves in an affection that Carnality cements These are warm friendships I confess but Solomon will tell us whence they have their heat Her house saith he doth open into Hell and Brimstone kindles those libidinous flames There are strait bands fetters in those affections indeed for the same Wiseman says The Closets of that sinner are the Chambers of Death That none that go unto her return again or take hold of the paths of life it seems she is a friend that takes most irreversible dead hold she is not onely as insatiate but as inexotable as the Grave and the Eternal Chains of Fate are in those her Embraces But God keep us from making such strict Covenants with Death from being at friendship with Hell or in a word that I say all at once with any that are good Companions onely in sinâ—ing Such men having no virtue in themselves must needs hate it in others as being a reproach to them and therefore they are still besieging it using all arts and stratagems to undermine it and having nothing else to recommend them in mens affections but their managery of Vice no way to Merit but by serving iniquity they not onely comply with our own evil Inclinations that so they may be grateful and insinuate into us but they provoke too and inflame those tendencies that they may be more useful to us having no other means to work their ends And then such friends by the same reason must be false and treacherous and all that we declaim at and abhor in Enemies when that shall be the way to serve their ends because they have no Virtue to engage them to be otherwise And to be such is to be constant to their own designs their dispositions and usances These are the Pests of all Societies they speak and live infection and friendship with them is to couple with the Plague These do compleat and perfect what the Devil but began in Eden Nurse up Original sin chase inclination into appetite and habit suggest and raise desires and then feed them into Constitution and Nature In a word are a brood of those Serpents one of which was enough to destroy Paradise and Innocence 'T is true a man would think these were our Friends indeed that venture to Gehenna for us Alas they are but more familiar Devils work under Sathan to bring us to Torments and differ nothing from him but that they draw us into them and he inflicts them And when sinful contents come home in Ruine and pleasures die into Damnation then men will understand these treacherous loves and find such Friends are but projectours for the Devil then they will hate them as they do their own Damnation discerning these are but the kindnesses of Hell Nay it is possible I may slander that place in speaking so ill of it Dives will let us see there are affections of a kinder and more blessed strain in Hell Luke xvi from the twenty seventh Verse you find he did make truce with Torments that he might contrive and beg onely a message of Repentance for his Brethren he did not mind at all his own dire Agonies he minded so the reformation of his Friends Good God! when I reflect upon these pieties of the Damn'd together with the practices of those who have given their names in to Religion when I see Fiends in Hell do study how to make Men virtuous and Christians upon Earth with all their art debauch them into vice and ruine I cannot choose but pray Grant me such Friends as are in Hell Rather grant us all the Friendship in the Text. But then we must have none with any Vice Friendship with that engageth into Enmity with God and Christ I shew'd you And to pass over all those after-retributions of Vengeance Christ hath studied for his Enemies when he that now courts us to be our Friend and we will make our Adversary must be our Judg For were there none of this and should we look no further than this life yet sure we of this Nation know what it is to have God our Enemy who for so many years lay under such inflictions as had much of the character of his last execution they had the Blasphemies and the Confusion the dire Guilts and the black Calamities and almost the Despair and Irrecoverableness of those in Hell And though He be at Peace with us at present at least there is a Truce yet I beseech you in the presence and the fear of God to think in earnest whether the present provocations of this Nation do not equal those that twenty years ago engaged him into Arms against us and made him dash us so in pieces Whether those Actions of the Clergy be reformed that made the People to abhor their Function and their Service the Offerings and Ministers of the Lord and made God himself spew them out 'T were endless to go on the prophaneness to the loose impieties and the bold Atheisms of the Laity especially of the better sort in short what one degree or state or Sex is better Sure I am if we are not better we are worse beyond expression or recovery who have resisted every method and conquer'd all God's Arts of doing good upon us been too hard for his Judgments and his Mercies both 'T is true when we lay gasping under his severe Revenges we then pretended to be humbled begg'd to be reconciled and be at peace with him and vow'd to his Conditions promising obedience and aliened our selves from our old sins his Foes But then when Christ came to confirm this Amity came drest with all his Courtship brought all the invitations of Love along our Prince and our Religion our Church and State Righteousness and Peace and the Beauty of Holiness every thing that might make us be an Happy and a Pious Nation thus he did tempt and labour to engage that Friendship which we offered him and vowed to him And we no sooner seiz'd all this but we break resolutions as well as duty to get loose from him and laden with the spoyls of our defeated Saviour's goodness we joyn hands with his Enemies resume our old acquaintant-sins enrich and serve them with his Bounties make appear that we onely drew him in to work such
and deprecates and when he durst not meet the apprehensions wilt thou stand the storm see what a sting death hath when it makes out-lets for such clots and globes of Blood and stings the Soul so too that it pours out it self in Sweat And then he sinks again under the deprecation of it and prays that that Cup may pass from him Blessed Saviour when thou hadst just now made thy Death thy Legacy thy Sacrament dost thou intreat to scape this death if this Cup pass from thee what will the Cup of Blessing profit us thou hadst but now bequeathed a Cup to us which was the New Testament in thy Blood and now wilt thou not shed that Blood But dost thou refuse thy Cup Oh 't was a Cup of deadly Wine red with God Indignation poison'd with Sin And can the Sinner thirst for the Abyss of this the Lake that hath no bottom and when he goes again and prays the same words the third time be yet not onely so supine as not ask to scape it seldom and very sleight in any Prayer or wish against it but also so resolv'd to have it as to gape that he may swill it down to everlastingness Follow him from that Garden and you see him even dying under his Cross he cannot bear that when it is laden with sin who yet upholdeth all things by the word of his Power 'T is said the time will come when the Sinner will cry out to the Hills to fall on him any weight but that of iniquity the burden of that is intolerable 't is easier for him to bear a Mountain than a Vice and yet Christ saith he hath a beam in his Eye and can he shrink at any weight whose part that is most sensible tender to an expression can bear that which shoulders must fall under onely Pillars can sustain Oh yes that which did sink the shoulders of Omnipotence Then the Mountains rather and the Rocks to cover but in vain they will not cover for thy very Groans will rent them Christ's were so sad that his did they tore the Rocks and that which is much more inflexible the Monuments Death started at them and the bonds of the Grave loosened and the Dust was frighted into Resurrection and more the Hypostatick Union seem'd rent by them the God to have forsaken his own Person And can the Sinner hope to stand this shock will the courage of his Iniquity make his heart harder than those Rocks more insensible than the Grave and better able to endure than he that was a God and will you die into this state eternally which it was necessary for him to have the assistance of Divinity in his Person that he might be able to endure one day and which yet notwithstanding made one day intolerable The sum is this a Person so desiring Death and yet so dreading it and sinking under the essays of it and this Person the Son of God and that dread meerly because there was sin in the Death for if this were not in the cause no Martyr but had born death with more courage but that Son of God all this as it does leave no Reason for the Sinners choice of death Eternal so neither doth it leave a possibility of bearing it And if so give me leave in God's Name to Expostulate the last imployment of these words Why will ye die After this killing Prospect while the damp of it is on you let my Bowels debate with you which yearn more over you than they did over my Beloved Son in whom I was well pleased when I have sent my only Son God one with my own Self to be made Man that he might suffer what was necessary to be suffer'd to preserve you from eternal sufferings when I have laid on him that was brought up with me from everlasting and that was daily my Delight all your Iniquities and my own Indignation that so you might be freed from both When I have found out made an Expiation with which I am more pleased than ever your transgressions offended me which hath quite blotted out your sins and my Displeasure when your Redemption from death is made the Ransom paid the Price is in my hand why do you then refuse your selves your own Eternal Blessedness which was thus dearly purchas'd and is ready for you Why will you seize that Indignation which you are redeemed from and force those sufferings on your selves which have been laid already and inflicted on another 'T is a small thing that you refuse me the return of my Expence that which I gave my Son for but do you renounce Happiness because my Love and Blood is in it and will you die because you may and I desire you should live when my Son went from the essential felicities of my Bosom to embrace Agonies and dy'd for you why will you also die as you have slain his Person will you Crucifie his Kindness too and crucifie your selves rather than have it and having us'd him most despightfully will you therefore use his favours so and not let his Death and Passion do you any good contemn his methods of Salvation his divine Acts of making you for ever Blessed is your Saviour and Life it self so hateful to you and after such Redemption of your persons is there no redemption of your Will from perishing nothing of value that can bribe your choice against it nothing that can betroth you into a desire of Life and take you off from your resolves to die had I set no advantage on the other side if sin had sweetned misery to your Palate it had been no such great despite and contradiction to Appetite but when Heaven and the Joys of God are in the Scale against it to prefer Misery is Wretchless beyond aggravation Oh why will you rather die Those very things that tempt your Wills were they abstracted from the death they do inveigle you into were they sincere and innocent if they were set against that Life that blessed life immortal Life would vanish quite in the comparison when you should see they are but frolicks of delight that never take you but when you are turn'd up to them in moods and fits and the complacencies you take in them are but starts of Appetite that swells and breaks out to them and then falls again and so the pleasures die even in the birth and therefore cannot satisfie indeed do but disquiet an immortal appetite such as man's is so that it were impossible to choose a life these rather although there were no misery annex'd to them if you consider'd For it were to resolve that a few drops were more than an immence Ocean of Delight a Moment longer than Eternity a Part were bigger than the Whole an Atome greater than an Infinite Now there is nothing then that can prefer these to your choice but the Death only and Oh will ye without and against all Temptation Will ye die O thou my Soul take
Boy seeing all this and drown'd in Tears would not be comforted by them who promised him all friendly usage but he desired rather to go Die with his Father than live with such wicked people Being reprehended for that Speech Would you know said he why I said it Because I saw you when you had fill'd your Bellies praise your God with hands lift up and yet for all that like Hypocrites never care for making restitution of what you have stollen but be you sure that after Death you shall feel the rigorous Chastisement of the Lord Almighty The Captain admiring would needs persuade him to be a Christian Whereunto earnestly beholding him he answered I understand not what you mean declare it first and you shall know my mind And being told by them of the blessed Authour and the purity of our Religion what God did to Redeem us from our sins and what holy Laws he hath left us With Eyes and Hands lift up he weeping said Blessed be thy Power O Lord that permits such people to live on the Earth that speak so well of Thee and yet so ill observe thy Law as these blinded Miscreants do who think that Robbing and Preaching are things that can be acceptable to thee And so return'd to his Tears and obstinacy To see the strictness of the Christians Obligations and the loosness of their Lives to see their Practices dash against their Professions 'T is such a thing as makes them be the Scorn of honest Heathen Children And is this all that men are required to prepare the way of the Lord for Is this all he can do after so many Centuries of the abode of him and his Religion among us While there is no more of his influence appears I must suspect he is not here the Lord is not among us but is gone And certainly if it be possible to drive him out if there be any Art of doing that we have Professors of that Mystery and the Drolls are they That men should sin against him by transgressing of his Laws is no wonder for there is invitation to it in the Blood That some did count him an Impostor is not strange they had not met it may be with means of Conviction or were prepossest with prejudice but while men own his Person and Religion to have a God onely to make them sport as it hath no temptation so it hath no measures of its guilt Atheism is an honest refuge from this Vice it being much more sober and rational to think there is no God than 't is to make a mock of him whom they profess to be so This is indeed to prepare his way to his Cross for so the Jews and Soldiers did they put a Scepter in his hand onely to take it out and smite him with his Scepter they bowed the knee and cry'd Hail King and so humbly spit in his Face and they put a Crown but 't was of Thorns on his Head thus they Worship'd him in scorn and Crucify'd him with his Dignities And so we serve Religion When we would have a Scene of Mirth that must be put in a ridiculous disguise to laugh at the Son of God must enter Travesty and our Discourse is nothing but the Gospel in Burlesque And is it not time for him to retire But O prepare not this path for him to go away in The Heathens thought it much more possible to Chain their Deity than to be safe if he were gone Any the strangest contradiction is more easie than Security without him Now if you but make up S. Peter's Chain that will hold your God sure Add to Faith that 's the first Link that unites us to him Vertue and to Vertue Temperance and the other Graces nam'd there If he were going yet Return unto me and I will return unto you saith the Lord If you do but prepare to meet him in the Duties of this Season you are sure to find him at his Cross and if we do but lay hold on him there and by the mortifications of a true Repentance partake in his Death He that is the Way and the Life will through that dust and ashes from that Death make a way for us to his Eternal Life To which c. The Eighth SERMON Preached at WHITE-HALL October 9. 1664. 1 JOHN V. 4. This is the Victory which overcometh the World even our Faith THese Words though they explicitly make onely one single Proposition yet they imply several First That the State of Christianity is a state of Warfare He that is born of God must fight we see for he must overcome which is the Second In this War he must not satisfie himself with being on his Guard defensive looking to secure himself but he must Assault and Conquer nothing else will serve his turn but Victory Thirdly The Enemy which he must have no Peace with but must vanquish is the World Fourthly Faith is sufficient forces to assist him in his Conquest Fifthly Faith where it is rightly made use of is a certain Victory But I shall not handle these in Thefi thus but for the more practical treating of them shall make and answer three Enquiries First What the way is that the World does wage War in where its Strength lies and how it manages that force so as to get advantage over men and how it does improve each such advantage till it gets a perfect Conquest Secondly What the strengths of Faith are how it charges breaks the forces of the World and does enable the Believer to overcome Thirdly How far the Believer must pursue his Conquest what must be the measures of his Victory that he may know how to vanquish it so as that the World may not rebel again not do like Joash smite three times then leave but Smite until he make an end of danger Having answered these I shall endeavour to apply all to our selves Now for the better handling of the first of these I must shew you how the Will of Man may be attaqued and taken To which purpose I observe that whatsoever liberty there is in humane choice yet every appetite seems in some sense determin'd in its tendencies to fix on that which appears simply best for it for that instant which it chooseth in I do not say that whensoever Reason peremptorily concludes a thing is best that the Will is determined instantly to that for by a too unhappy evidence we know that if the lower Soul does but becken the Will another way she can suspend and stop her prosecutions and too oft finds cause to go along with that against the dictates of the Mind But this I say that in her last Executive Determinations she always tends to that which hath the fairest and most vigorous appearances of being best for her at that present time If it seem strange how since the Understanding can account the certain expectations of an happy everlastingness much better for the present than a momentany worldly
interpose to hinder it and hide the possibilities of mercy from their eyes that they may never see them nor recover What can then become of those for whom God does contrive that they shall not escape when instead of those bowels that did make him swear he would not have the sinner die but would have him return and live he puts on so much indignation at such Sinners as to take an order they shall not repent and take an order that they shall be damn'd And yet all this is onely to those men who being dull of hearing the suggestions of the Spirit and not willing to give entertainment to his holy motions grieve him so that they repell and drive him quite away and so by consequence onely make way for the Devil Whereas there are others that directly call him force him to them ravish and invade occasions to serve him Some there are that study how to disbelieve and with great labour and contrivance work out arguments and motives to persuade themselves to Atheism Others practise discipline and exercise themselves to be engag'd in Vice Some dress so as to lay baiâ—s snares to entrap Temptation that they may be sure it may not pass them Others feed high to invite and entertain the Tempter do all that is possible to make him come and to assure him that he must prevail when they have made it most impossible for themselves to stand and to resist Some there are indeed whom he does not overcome so easily but is put to compound with them takes them upon Articles for when he would ingage them to a sin to which he sees they have great inclinations with some fears he is fain to persuade them to repent when they have done to lay hold upon the present opportunity and not let the satisfaction escape them but be sorry after and amend For where these resolutions of Repentance usher in transgression there we may be sure it is the Devil that suggests those resolutions But if he can get admittance once thus by prevailing with a person to receive him upon purposes of after-Penitence he is sure to prosper still in his attempts upon the same condition For Repentance will wash out another sin if he commit it and so on And it is evident that by this very train he does draw most men on through the whole course of sin and life For never do they till they see themselves at the last stage begin repenting When they are to grapple with Death's forces then they are to set upon resisting of the Devil And when they are grown so weak that their whole Soul must be imployed to muster all its spirits all their strength but to beat off one little spot of phlegm that does besiege the avenues of breath the ports of life and sally at it and assault it once again and a third many times and yet with all the sury of its might cannot break through nor beat off that little clot of spittle when it is thus yet then are they to wrestle with and Conquer Principalities and Powers all the Rulers of the utter darkness pull down the strong holds of sin within cast down imaginations and every high thing that did exalt it self against the knowledg of God and bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ and with those feeble hands that they are scarcely able to lift up in a short wish or prayer they must do all this resist the Devil and take Heaven by force Now sure to put it off to such a fatal season is a purpose of a desperate concern In God's Name let us set upon the doing it while there is something left of Principle and vigor in us ere we have so griev'd Gods Spirit that he do resolve to leave us utterly and before the Devil have so broke us to his yoke that we become content and pleas'd to do his drudgery We deceive our selves if we think to do it with more ease when Constitution is grown weaker as if then Temptations would not be so â—rong For the Habits will be then confirm'd Vice grown Heroical and we wholly in the power of Satan dead and sensless under it not so much as stirring to get out But if we strive before he have us in his clutches we have an Enemy that can vanquish none but those who consent to and comply and confederate with him those that will be overcome So that if we resist he must be Conquer'd and Temptation must be conquer'd too for he will flie and then by consequence must cease to trouble and molest us This is the sure way to be rid of Temptations to put to flight the great Artificer and Prince of them subdue and overcome him and our selves And to him that overcometh thus Christ will grant to sit with him on his Throne as He also overcame and sate down with his Father on his Throne To which c. The Fourteenth SERMON Preached at WHITE-HALL Last Wednesday in LENT 1667 8. PHILIPP III. 18. For many walk of whom I have told you often and now tell you even weeping that they are the Enemies of the Cross of Christ. THough many by the Cross of Christ here understand any sort of Suffering for the sake of Christ or Religion it being usual with the Scripture to entitle Christ to every evil that befals a man for doing of his duty yet others looking on it properly as that on which Christ himself suffered by the Enemies of the Cross understand those that set themselves against the whole design and influence of Christ's death upon it Now to name that in few words the Cross of Christ not onely is one of the greatest Props on which our Faith of the whole Gospel leans which it establisheth the truth of as Christs Bloud shed upon it was the sanction of the Covenant on Gods part who by that federal Rite of shedding Bloud engag'd himself and we may certainly assure our selves he cannot fail to make good whatsoever he hath promised in that Covenant who would give the Bloud of his own only Son who was so holy and who was himself to Seal that Covenant and his Bloud is therefore called the Bloud of the Everlasting Covenant But besides this extrinsick influence of it all the blessed Mercies also of the Gospel are the Purchase of this Cross and all the main essential duties of the Gospel are not onely Doctrines of the Cross such as it directs and does inforce but the Cross also hath an immediate efficacy in the working of them in us For S. Paul saith by the Cross of Christ the World is Crucified to me and I unto the World On it the Flesh is also crucified with the Affections and Lusts And to say all that comprehensive Duty of the Gospel Self-denial is but another word for taking up the Cross And then as for the Mercies of the Gospel on the Cross the satisfaction for our sins was made the Price of