Rom. 3. 27. And as the whole Moral Law was published by Christ as well as Moses which any man may see who will not wink in the fifth sixth and seventh Chapters of St. Matthew so Christ as well as Moses thought fit to give it upon a Mountain Nor is it unworthy our observation That throughout the New Testament though there is many times a Precept without a Promise annexed to it yet there is not one Promise which is not clogg'd with some Precept As if our Saviour had esteemed it an easier thing to make us believing and orthodox Christians than obedient and sincere ones According to which he elsewhere tells us that they only shall enter into the Kingdom of his Father not that call upon his Name but that do his Will Nay as there he goes on in the following Verses Though a man may have Faith to the working of Miracles yet if it be built upon the Sand as most certainly it is when 't is not seconded with obedience he foretells what he will say unto men of that sort at the Day of Judgment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I never knew you Not that Christ can be ignorant of their persons or their works to whom he will say I never knew you For even that very saying imports he knew them well enough that is he knew them to be such as did deserve that such words should be spoken to them And therefore the meaning must needs be this I never knew you to be members of my Body or to be sheep of my Fold that is I know you to be Persons I cannot own For as to know in the holy Dialect does often signifie to approve so not to know does very often import no more than to disown I must confess we might think it exceeding strange but that our Oracle does assure us 't is very true That as Believers we may be able to cast out Devils and yet as Disobedient may be our selves possess 't with them We may preach to save others and yet be Castaways our selves For be we never so zealous Preachers or Professors of the Gospel and at the very same time Indulgent Transgressors of the Law our very Advocate will say when he shall come to be our Iudge 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Depart from me ye workers of Iniquity And therefore our blessed Saviour being about to leave the world and to teach his Disciples before he left them how to serve him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in such a manner as he would like did not speak in this stile If ye love me cast all your Care upon my Promises or If you love me stoutly rely upon my merits althô there is a place for each of these too But as preparatory to Both If ye love me keep my Commandments John 14. 15. which was as if he should have said shew me your Faith by your works and your Love by your obedience Plainly implying to Them and Us that our Sonship does not give us any Exemption from our Service our Service being the only thing by which we are able to prove our Sonship As Christ hath a Priestly and a Prophetical so hath he also a Kingly Office Nor may we kick at the Scepter and Throne of Christ and think it sufficient to declare we are his Majesty's most humble and loyal Subjects Some Earthly Potentates have been thus mock'd but the King of Kings will never be so We cannot honour our Lord by disobeying him or shew our selves kind by being undutiful For we see that our obedience is both the Argument and the Badge of a True Affection Our Saviour saith Matth. 10. 38. He that follows me not is unworthy of me Where to follow him is to be like him To conform our selves to him more than a Parasite to his Patron not to walk in his Path only but to tread in his very Footsteps According to that of the Pythagoreans which deserves for its worth to be Christianiz'd however writ by that Hierocles who writ a Book against Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thou shalt honour God the better the more thou studiest to be like him For him we love most whom we most imitate and he honours God best who doth best resemble him And what kind of Resemblance he most requires St. Iohn hath told us twice together in his first Epistle and third Chapter to wit our being pure as he is pure v. 3. and our being Righteous as he is Righteous v. 7. And our Saviour to the same purpose having mustred up his Precepts with the several Promises annext makes a kind of a Corollarie or rather Abridgment of the whole not at all with a command that we be happy as God is happy but with an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be ye perfect as he is perfect Thus as briefly and yet as fully as I could possibly contrive I have shew'd the chiefest end of our blessed Saviour's coming hither and his principal Business when he was here It was not only as a Saviour to propose Promises to our Faith nor only as a Teacher to fiill our heads with new knowledge but as a Soveraign and a Prince as St. Peter calls him to exact obedience to his Commands And to place it without dispute He made it part of his business when he was here to let us know why he came hither For as he tells us in one place enough to keep us from despair that he came not to destroy mens lives but to save them so he tells us in another enough to keep us from presumption that he came not to destroy the Law but to save and preserve That also and that in each sense of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not by fulfilling it only but by filling it up too For thô nothing could be completer than the Law Moral in it self yet did he fill up those vacuities which Moses left in his Delivery From all which it follows do what we can that Unless our Righteousness shall exceed the Righteousness of the Iews we shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven For can there be any thing more agreeable to the judgment of common Sense I had almost said of Carnality it self than that where God hath afforded a greater Stock he should expect a greater Increase that where he hath strengthened the Shoulders he should in proportion increase the Burden And that as he hath shrunk up the Mosaical Law so he should also extend the Moral Of Moses we know that he had a Vail upon his Promises as well as upon his Face and was as obscure upon Mount Nebo as before he had been upon Mount Sinai Whereas our Antitype of Moses hath been graciously pleas'd to uncover Both. The Iews beheld Christ as in a Glass but we in comparison face to face They walk't by Twilight but we by the Sun in his Meridian They were us'd like little Children but we like Men. They had a Sensible
with Perseverance unto the End in conjunction with it Then the Answer of Paul and Silas is the short Summary of the Gospel and they might well promise Salvation to whosoever should accomplish the purpose of it That this indeed is the Importance may appear by the words of our blessed Saviour who having been asked by a Iew as Paul and Silas by a Gentile what Course was to be taken whereby to inherit Eternal Life gave him an Answer which some may censure as too much savouring of the Law but yet it seems not unsuitable to the oeconomy of the Gospel If thou wilt enter into life keep the Commandments Now in as much as Paul and Silas did not teach another Doctrin but the same in other words with their Master Christ they must needs be understood to have given This Answer That if the Jailour should so believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as to imitate his Example and yield obedience to his Commands and continue so to do all the days of his life he should not fail in that Case of his being sav'd And though the Rule is very true That nothing is wanting in any Sentence which is of necessity understood which well might justifie Paul and Silas in the conciseness of their expression Yet not contented with this excuse they rather chose not to want it by speaking largely to the Jailour the Word of God After the very same manner § 13. That the People may not wrest the outward Letter of the Scripture to their Damnation we must carefully explain and disentangle it to their Safety If any of Us shall be consulted by either Believers or Unbelievers about the means of their being sav'd we have two ways of Answer and both exact but both are to be taken cum grano salis and with a due Interpretation We may answer with our Saviour They are to keep the Commandments or else with Paul and Silas that they are to believe in the Lord Iesus Christ. But if the former we must add This is the chief of the Commandments that we believe on the Name of the Lord Iesus Christ 1 Joh. 3. 23. And although we must have an inherent righteousness in part yet there is need that That of Christ be imputed to us if but to make up all the wants and the vacuities of our own For our own is no better than filthy Rags if impartially compar'd with our double Rule to wit The Doctrin and Life of Christ. We must negotiate indeed with the Talents of Grace that we may not be cast into outer Darkness yet so as to judge our selves at best to be unprofitable Servants weigh'd with the Greatness of our Redeemer and with the Richness of our Reward Or if we give them the second Answer we must also speak to them the Word of God We must explain what it is to believe in Christ and by the help of some Distinctions duly consider'd and apply'd teach them to see through all the Fallacies and flatten the edge of all objections which are oppos'd to the Necessity of strict obedience and good works When any Iustifying Vertue is given to Faith we must tell them it is meant of Faith unfeigned When we speak of the Sufficiency of Faith unfeigned we must shew them how Love is the Spirit of Faith Whether because in the Active it works by Love or else because in the Passive in which the Syriac and Tertullian translate the word by works of Charity and Obedience Faith is wrought and made perfect When we celebrate the force of a lively Faith we must season it with a Note that Faith is dead being alone When 't is said out of St. Paul that we are justified by Faith without the Deeds of the Law 't is fit we add out of St Iames that we are justified by Works and not by Faith only For to shew that St. Iames does not either contradict or confute St. Paul The Works excluded by St. Paul are no other than the Deeds of the Ceremonial Law And those included by St. Iames are no other than the Works of the Moral Law So we are justified by Faith as the Root of Works and we are justified by Works as the Fruit of Faith Not by Faith without Works for then St. Iames would not be Orthodox nor yet by Works without Faith for then we could not defend St. Paul but by such a Faith as worketh and by such Works as are of Faith By Both indeed improperly as being but necessary Conditions But very properly by Christ as being the sole meritorious Cause Again because 't is very natural for Carnal Professors of Christianity so to enhaunce the Price of Faith as to depretiate good Works and make obedience to pass at the cheaper Rate They must be told that when our Saviour ascribes the moving of Mountains and other Miracles to Faith He does not speak of That Faith which is a Sanctifying Grace Gal. 5. 22. but of that Faith alone which is an Edifying Gift 1 Cor. 12. 9. by which a man may do wonders and yet be damn'd Matth â— 22 23. So when he said unto the Ruler who had besought him to heal his bed-rid Daughter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Only Believe He only meant it was sufficient for the healing of her â—ody without alluding in any measure unto the saving of her Soul So far he was in that place from giving any ground of hope to a Solifidian And therefore briefly let it suffice me to say once for all That when we find men Believers without good Life we must shew them how many ways a man may be a Believer without true Faith may be justified in the Praemisses yet not sav'd in the Conclusion may get no more by his Knowledge than to be beaten with many stripes and have no more of a Saviour than to be damn'd by We must instruct them to distinguish betwixt the Act and the Habit of their Believing But above all betwixt a Speculative and a Practical Belief A Belief in the Heads and the Hearts of men A Belief which does consist with a drawing back unto Perdition and That by which a man believes unto the saving of the Soul § 14. Stand forth therefore Thou Antinomian or Thou Fiduciary or whosoever else Thou art who art a sturdy Believer without true Faith and ever namest the Name of Christ without departing from Iniquity Try thy self by this Touchstone which lyes before thee and examin whether thy Heart be not as apt to be deceiptful as 't was once said to be by the Prophet Ieremy Let the Tempter that is without make thee as credulous as he can And let the Traytor that is within make thee as confident as he will of thy Faith in Christ yet Thou wilt find when all is done there is exceeding great Truth in the Spanish Proverb That 't is a very hard Thing to believe in God And so very few there are who attain unto it
Imprimatur C. Alston R. P. D. Hen. Episc. Lond. a Sacris Domesticis October 17. 1685. THE LAW and EQUITY OF THE GOSPEL OR THE Goodness of our Lord AS A LEGISLATOR Delivered first from the Pulpit in Two plain Sermons And now Repeated from the Press with others tending to the same End To which is added The Grand Inquiry to be made in These Inquisitive Times together with The Resolution of Paul and Silas AS ALSO An Improvement of That Inquiry Containing in its Parts A Resolution unto It self AND A Scriptural Prognostick of Jesus Christ's Second Advent to Judge the World LASTLY A Proeservative against Ambition By THOMAS PIERCE D. D. Chaplain in Ordinary to his MAJESTY and Dean of Sarum London Printed by S. Roycroft for Robert Clavell at the Peacock in St. Paul's Church-yard 1686. A PREFACE TO THE READER Christian Reader THô some Disputes are made Needful by needless Questions which are raised by strife of Words and thô when Malice or Curiosity Carnal Interest or Ambition have brew'd and broached such Doctrines as are dishonourable to God and his holy Gospel or have a Tendency to the Ruin of Church and State The greatest Lovers of Peace and Silence must so dispute against the Former as by their Arguments to assert and secure the Later Thô the most peaceable Dr. Hammond the Best of Men and The Divinest as two eminent Prelats have publickly stiled him from the Press thought it his Duty to be the Author of more Disputes and Defensatives than I and my Betters have ever yet been as his Controversial Writings do make apparent his second Volume being spent like the Eighth Volume of Erasmus yet 't were heartily to be wâ—sh'd such powerful Courses could be taken as might prevent the every Cause and Occasion of them Experience tells us 't is often easier by Obstinate Silence to prevent than by Reason to confute or to shame an Error And next to such a Resolved Silence I know not any better Preventive of needless Controversies and Questions than our Meditâ—â—ing on Questions which are not needless But of great Consequence to be asked and of greater Necessity to be Answered And such as to which we ought to give our selves wholly As what we must do that we may be sav'd What is the certain Diagnostick whereby to judge without Sin of our selves and others and as well of our present as future state What is that we call The Gospel and wherein especially does It consist What is it to be able to comprehend with all Saints the Breadth and Length and Depth and Highth and so to know the Love of Christ which passeth Knowledge to know the Immensity of his Love expressed to us as by an Emblem by all the Dimensions of the Cross he was fastned to Extended upwards and downwards and on Both the sides of it a Type of the Fathomless love of Christ whereof the Knowledge is supereminent surpassing and transcending All other knowledges in the World In so much that we may fitly espouse our Apostles Resolution Not to know any thing in comparison of Jesus Christ and Him Crucified whereby is pithily represented The Law and Equity of The Gospel which is the Summ of All the Theology a Faithful Steward needs Preach towards the Saving of himself and of Them that hear him And as in the Days of our Forefathers when Christian Simplicity was at its purest A vitious Life was justly reckon'd not only the greatest but the worst Haeresie in the World So of Convictions and Confutations Religious Practices were the most Cogent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Chrysostom somewhere calls them Convincing Syllogisms and Arguments not to be answer'd by the Acutest nor ever heartily gainsaid by the worst of men And therefore as Controverted Doctrines have taken up much of my Time pass't so These I am sure are the Grand Requisites which 't will be better to advance for the Time to come I easily guess what will happen to me and others of the Old Stamp the envied Friends and Disciples of Dr. Hammond whilst we ingage in This Course of Preaching up Christ as a Legislator and of celebrating The Law as well as the Equity of The Gospel of walking evenly in our Doctrines 'twixt two Extremes to wit Socinians on the one side and Solifidians on the other Even the same that befell the Antient Fathers of the Church who for distinguishing the Persons or Subsistences of the Deity were called Tritheites and Arians by the Followers of Sabellius and yet were called Sabellians too both by the Tritheites and the Arians for not dividing the very Substance or the Deity it self So for teaching that our Saviour did consist of two Natures they were branded as Nestorians by the whole Sect of the Eutychians and yet were stiled Eutychians too by all the Gang of the Nestorians for asserting that our Saviour was no more than one Person After the very same manner We for holding the Necessity of impartial Obedience to Christ's Commands and by consequence unavoidable a Necessity of Good Works as Part of the means of our being saved do commonly pass for Socinians in the Rash Censure of Solifidians and yet are accompted Solifidians by the like Rashness of the Socinians for our disclaiming All Merit in our Obedience and Good Works as to the making Satisfaction to the Justice of God for our Transgressions and for desiring with St. Paul To be found only in Christ not having our own Righteousness But That which is of God by Faith But we must not be afraid to assert and propagate The Truth because there are who infer it from diverse Falshoods Nor may we dishonestly let it go for other mens holding it in unrighteousness For for us to deny our Obligation to Good Works because there are who do contend for the Merit of them or for us not to own the perfect Necessity of Obedience which does naturally tend to the Glory of God because Socinians own the same to his great Dishonour or for us not to infer it from the Divinity of our Saviour as well as from the Perfection both of his Covenant and his Commands because such Haereticks do infer it from their Denial of His Divinity and of his Plenary Satisfaction for the Sins of the World is just as bad as if the Christians should now begin to dogmatize That there are Three distinct Gods the Father Son and Holy Ghost because The Jews and The Mahomedans do constantly hold there is but ONE I shall therefore so order the following Parts of my Design betwixt the Enemies of Truth upon either side as to hazard the displeasure of both Extreams But yet because I am convinc'd by the best Searches I can make That the preaching up of Faith in its vulgar Notions hath been generally the Cause of such a Carnal Security as hath shrunk up those Sinews of Vertuous Living wherein the strength of Religion doth chiefly stand and that
it follows as unavoidably as that God cannot lye That we must All without exception be first well Doers we must first of all be good and Faithful Servants before the Iudge can say to us well done good and faithful Servants And yet again he must be able to say That to us before he can possibly bid us Enter into the Ioy of our Lord. He cannot say well done to an Evil Doer He cannot call him a Faithful who is an unfaithful Servant He cannot say Come ye blessed and Enter ye into the Ioy of your Lord to whom the Sentence of Go ye Cursed into everlasting Fire does of right belong § 17. And if these things are so then as we tender the greatest Interest both of our Bodies and of our Souls Let no man cozen us to Hell by making us believe we are sure of Heaven Beware of Comfortable Preachers as they that love to be flatter'd do fasly call them who either write or speak much in the Praise of Faith But in Disparagement of obedience to the Commandments of our Lord. And often quarrel at the necessity of being rich in good works as if Salvation were to be had at a cheaper Rate Let me put the case home as well to others as to myself in the fewest words Have we an earnestness of Desire to live for ever in Bliss and Glory or are we careless and indifferent what shall become of us hereafter Do we seriously believe an Immortality of our Souls a Life after Death and a Day of Iudgment Or do we but talk of these things in civility to the men amongst whom we live if we are in good earnest in the Rehearsal of the Creed of the two last Articles in particular the Resurrection of the Body and the Life everlasting Then let the Condition of the New Covenant abide forever in our Remembrance And seeing this is the Condition on which the promise of Salvation is given unto us that we receive and own Christ as our Lord and Master as our Saviour and our Prince as our Advocate and our Iudge too And that we so own him in our Lives as well as in our Beliefes as well in our practice as speculation Let us not flatter ourselves for shame as so many Traytors to our own Souls that Salvation will be found upon easier Termes For to such as cannot pretend to be Babes or Ideots or never to have liv'd within the sound of Christ's Gospel the words of the Apostle are very positive and Express That without Holiness and Peace that is to say without our Duties both to God and to our Neighbour No man living shall see the Lord Hebr. 12. 14. And this I think may suffice us to have learn't at this time from the Text in hand For thô I say not that these are All yet these Especially are the Lessons we are concern'd to draw from it and such as willingly flow to us from its most rational Importance Now to him who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we are able to ask or think according to the power that worketh in us unto him be glory in the Church by Christ Jesus throughout all Ages world without end THE Yoke of Christ Easier than That of MOSES AND HIS Burden a Refreshment to such as Labour MATTH XI 30. For my Yoke is Easy and my Burden is light A Text not unsuitable to all the Severities of the Lent which is if St. Ierome may be believ'd and other Fathers more antient of Apostolical Institution A Time sequester'd by That Autority for the Exercise and Practice of Christian Strictness expressed pithily in my Text by our bearing both the Burden and Yoke of Christ. § 1. The Affinity and Connexion is as obvious as it is close betwixt my present and former Text. For it was the last Service which I perform'd in this Place to shew how Christ is our Lord and Master Such as he was pleas'd to assert himself in the thirteenth of St. Iohn at the thirteenth verse It now remains that we Contemplate the Moderation of the Laws whereby our Lord is exceeding Gratious and our Master extreamly Good For it seems not sufficient that he is known to be a Lord in Exacting obedience to his Commandments unless he be as well known to be good and gratious in that his Commandments are not grievous Nothing neer so insupportable as they were thought by those Gnosticks St. Iohn alludes to 1 Iohn 5. 3. who fell away from Christianity and disown'd Christ himself for fear their Loyalty and obedience should cost them dear living then as they did in Times of Trial and Persecution He is our Lord and our Master in respect of the Yoke with which he binds and in regard of the Burden wherewith he loads us But this our Master is Good and our Lord Gratious in respect of the Easiness which he gives unto the one and in regard of the Lightness wherewith he qualify's the other But § 2. Our Translation however True is so far short of the Original that as before so now also the Greek must come in to assist the English or else we shall miss of its whole Importance For 't is not only my Yoke is Easy But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 my Yoke is Good My Yoke is profitable and useful My Yoke is an indearing and delectable Yoke For all this and more is imported by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Lexicographers and Glossaries do make apparent That is to express it without a Metaphor The Service of Christ is a most gratious and Desirable Service What he commands us to perform is not only very possible but facil and easy to be perform'd Nor only so but sweet and pleasant in the performance It is not only our Bounden Duty but 't is our Interest our Delight our Reward to serve him § 3. And such as the Yoke is with which he binds such is also the burden wherewith he loads us Whatsoever his Burden may here import If the Burden of his Precepts then 't is absolutely light For then the Burden and the Yoke are Terms aequivalent The lightness of the one explains the Easiness of the other and the later clause of the Text is but an Exegesis of the former Or admit that by his Burden is meant the Burden of his Cross yet even then we must confess it is comparatively light And so indeed it is in two considerable respects First in respect of the endless punishment which will fall upon Them that refuse the Burden and again in respect of that unspeakable Reward which will be given unto them that shall take it up The Cross of Christ at its heaviest is but a Burden of Afflictions which St. Paul accompts light for these two reasons First because it is but for a moment next because it works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory For as the same Apostle saith to the same Corinthians what seems at first
without that is utterly destitute of Feet And though I take it to be impossible for any follower of Christ to arrive at Heaven until obedience take up Faith upon her shoulders that the one may traverse the way thither and the other direct it yet because I conceive it less impossible of the two for an Honest blind Heathen to shew me his Faith by his vertuous works than for a knavish and knowing Christian to shew me his works by his naked Faith a thing esteemed by St. Iames the greatest Absurdity in the World were Iacob's option mine I should rather choose Leah with her blere Eyes than Rachel with her barrenness that is obedience without faith rather than faith without obedience And do think it by so much a safer thing to be a very strict Moralist than a very loose Christian by how a likelier thing it is for a Traveller to arrive at his Journey 's End by being a Baiard that can go than a Cripple that can but see They who know not must be instructed and they who know but are wilful must be convinc'd and we who acknowledge as well as know must be for ever put in mind That when we are said in any Scripture to be sav'd or justified by Faith it can be meant of no other Faith than what is the Mother of Obedience and evermore attended with it Which may appear as by other Arguments so particularly by this That as faith and disobedience are set as Terms of opposition I Pet. 2. 7 8. so faith and obedience are set as Terms aequipollent Rev. 14. 12. From whence 't is obvious to infer that our Lord is not an absolute but a conditional Redeemer How else can That God who is a comfortable Light be said to be in This Text a consuming Fire It is the property of Satan to be an Abaddon or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And how can an Attribute of Hell be in any sense apply'd to the God of Heaven but that it is spoken by a Metonymie of the effect for the efficient and imply's God Almighty his deportment towards us after the measure of ours to Him A fire to purifie and preserve if we are Gold but a fire to consume if we are stubble A case to be easily illustrated by the waters of Iealousy which if a woman were chast would make her fruitful but if adulterous they made her thigh to rot and her belly to swell Just so said Simeon of the holy Child Iesus that he is set for the fall and for the rising again of many in Israel For the fall of the rebellious and for the rising again of his loyal Subjects for the fall of such Persons as will not serve him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but for the rising again of such as will serve him with Reverence and Godly fear Which proves by a consequence unavoidable That as he is not an absolute but a conditional Saviour so the Condition on which he saves us is our being true Subjects and Servants to him 'T is our repentance from dead works and our bringing forth fruits meet for Repentance It is an heart sprinkled from an evil conscience and a conscience void of offence towards God and towards men It is our having no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness and the keeping of our Selves unspotted from the World Lastly the condition on which he saves us is the Denying of our selves and the taking up of his Cross not to put it out of the way but to follow Him with it whithersoever he shall lead us nor to lay it upon other mens shoulders but meekly to bear it upon our own This is the acceptable Service pointed at in my Text. Less than this is too little because it is less than will be accepted And if we come short of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Text will be nothing worth Of this I must labour so much the rather to convince my self and such as hear me because the best of us all is apt to have something of the Fiduciarie and without a continual watch will have a smack of the Antinomian For let us examin our selves throughly and sift our selves unto the Bran and then speak freely as honest men unto our selves Do we not flatter our selves often that we are good enough to serve turn and that we must not be Righteous overmuch that 't is improper for us to live as in the Common-wealth of Plato whilst we are in the Dregs of Romulus and that we need not be better than other men of whose Salvation we suppose it is not Charity for us to doubt Have we not often sinn'd the more if not that Grace may abound yet because it hath already so much abounded and the rather adventur'd to be evil because of our knowledge that God is good Do we not generally conceive like Him in Zosimus that we may sin the more safely for being Christians And have a priviledge to be wicked above the rest of mankind because we are Worshippers of a God who is a God ready to pardon Are we not much the more careless of falling headlong into Sin and much the less careful of getting out because we read that if we sin we have an Advocate with the Father who is the propitiation for all our Sins Compare the lives of most Christians I mean Professors of Christianity with what we read of Unbelievers whether ignorant Gentiles or stubborn Iews And you will say they have need to be all instructed or atleast to be put in mind that Believers being the men with whom the best of God's Talents have been entrusted are by consequence the men too of whom the best Service will be requir'd This I shall briefly make appear from two general Topicks or Heads of Arguing From the principal end or final cause of our Saviour's coming hither and from his Principal business which took him up when he was here First for the end of his coming hither it was rather to redeem us from Sin than Hell Rather to sanctifie our Nature than meerly to justifie our Persons rather to make us truly Righteous than only to reckon or count us Iust. And this may appear as by other Reasons so more especially by These First that Sin is by nature far worse than Hell Because our sins can serve for nothing but to Injure and Incense the Righteous Iudge of all the World whereas Hell is good for something even to satisfie the Iustice which Sin hath Injur'd and to glorifie the Iudge whom it hath Incens'd From whence it follows that 't is much more conformable to the Holiness of God and more advanceth his Glory too To have sent his Son into the world rather to purifie than to forgive it To forgive it indeed by a secondary intention but to purifie it by the first for purity by nature being better than Pardon by a very good sequel was sooner meant To reduce us to our obedience as
good propos'd but we an Intellectual They as 't were an Apple but we an Inheritance They a transitory Kingdom but we a Kingdom not to be moved They were promis'd a Redemption indeed from Egypt but we from Hell They to be fed with milk and hony but we never to hunger or thirst They a long life but we an Eternal one They a Canaan but we a Heaven And that God will exact the most strict accompt of our wanderings to whom he hath held the greatest light for the better clearing of our ways we may infer from our Saviour's words in the eleventh Chapter of St. Matthew where Tyre and Sidon are more excusable than Corazin and Bethsaida because the later had been obliged with greater Means of Conviction but all in vain This affords a Lesson for our Humiliation That however our Reward is extremely Great even a Kingdom which cannot be moved a Kingdom of Grace and of Glory too yet God hath placed it very high and the way to it is very steep We must not flatter our selves therefore that we are able to fall upwards that with a yawning Relyance we can ever climb up the Hill of Sion and drop as 't were into Heaven with a drowzy Confidence We have no incouragement from our Apostle to believe we shall go thither by meerly believing we are Regenerate and cannot fail of our being there He does not here press on his Hebrew Christians to receive their Salvation with Faith but to serve for it with Reverence Not to expect it only with confidence but strictly to endeavour it with godly Fear For our God is a Consuming Fire To Him be Glory for ever and ever HOW A Man is to work out HIS OWN SALVATION PHILIP II. 12. Work out your own Salvation with Fear and Trembling THe words in general are a Command delivered by St. Paul in the Name of God the Great Master to the Servants of God in the Church at Philippi In which there are chiefly four things to be consider'd First the quality of the Servants Next the wages which they expected Thirdly the work with which the wages was to be earn'd And lastly the manner or qualification with which the working was to be cloath'd First for the Quality of the Servants They were such as had been diligent in the performance of their Duty They had not only been sometimes dutiful they had not only been good by fits but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they had always obeyed They had evermore liv'd in the fear of God Next for the Wages which they expected That is expressed by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be Salvation both as it signifies a deliverance from the tremendous Pains of Hell and as importing an Advancement to the ravishing Ioys of Heaven Then Thirdly for the Work with which the Wages was to be earn'd That is evidently obedience to the Lord Iesus Christ Very significantly implyed in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as that looks back upon the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As ye have always obey'd so now much more obey the Gospel Continue the Course of your obedience Go on to finish the work which ye have begun 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 work and work out your own Salvation Last of all for the Manner or Qualification of the working whereby to make it become effectual for the receiving of the Reward There must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our Salvation is to be wrought for with Fear and Trembling And that according to the threefold Signification of this expression First with Meekness and Humility We must not put the least Trust in the greatest Performances of our own nor must we be puff't or lifted up with the Gifts and Graces which God hath given us Next with Diligence and Solicitude That we may not for want of Perseverance finally miss of the Prize that is set before us and for which we have hitherto as it were contended by our obedience Thirdly with Awefulness and Horror or holy Dread Because as God is in one Cafe a quickning Light so he is in another a consuming Fire He who purposely created us to do him service is He who will turn us to Destruction unless we serve him as he Requires And now to anticipate an Inquiry how Humility and Solicitude as well as Awefulness and Dread are comprehended under the notion of Fear and Trembling I think it is easy to make it clear from the consideration of the Context without recourse to those other Scriptures wherein we meet with the same expression For First in vain should we indeavour the working out of our Salvation but that it is God who worketh in us both to will and to do And therefore we must do it with all Humility of Mind because in our selves as of our selves there dwelleth no good thing no not so much as Inclination to any thing that is good no not so much as Aversation from any thing that is evil But every good and perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the Father of Lights If we can triumph over the Law as the strength of Sin by treading Sin under our Feet as the sting of Death All the Thanks must be to God who hath given us the Victory through our Lord Iesus Christ. And yet Secondly Although it is God that worketh in us both to will and to do yet the Apostle makes it a Reason why we our selves are to work out our own Salvation And therefore we must do it with Care and Diligence lest whilst God by his Grace is not wanting unto us we finally miss of his Glory by having been wanting unto our selves Thus we see there is pregnant Reason for the Double Importance of the Phrase as 't is meerly rational And of the literal Signification I suppose there cannot be any Doubt For We must work out our Salvation with Fear and Trembling in as much as that signifies the greatest Awefulness and Dread because of the Dreadfulness of our Doom in case we work not at all or not at all to that purpose that God requires And thus I hope I have so divided as withal to have explained and clear'd the Text. The first three Parts of the whole Division may well be thrust up together into this Doctrinal Proposition That our Salvation is not attainable by a meer Orthodoxy of Iudgment in point of Faith or a bare Rectitude of Opinions concerning God But by obedience to the Gospel or Law of Christ. For what is expressed by obedience in the former part of this Verse is also expressed in the later by the working out of our own Salvation And as Salvation is a Thing which requires our working So 't is not any kind of working will serve our Turn For The last Particular of the four affords us a second Proposition which is as apt to defend us from Carnal Security as the First To wit That however Unavoidable our State of Bliss may seem to us by our having with the Philippians obeyed
do they are afraid it would be answer'd That they must cease to do evil and learn to do good That they must seek Iudgment relieve the Oppressed help the Fatherless and plead for the Widow That they must mortifie the Flesh with the Affections and Lusts. That they must crucifie the world unto themselves and themselves unto the world That if an Eye or a Hand or a Foot offend them they must pluck out the one and cut off the other That they must not take any thought for the morrow but sell all they have and give it to the Poor deny themselves take up Christ's Cross and follow him They will be sav'd with all their hearts provided it may be gratis either upon none or on easy Terms But dare not ask what they must do with a serious purpose to be doing whatsoever shall be answer'd to be a Requisite to Salvation for fear the answer should be harder than they are able to indure As That they must hate their own Lives and Love their Enemies That they must fast as well as pray but feed their Enemies when they hunger That they must turn the right Cheek to him that strikes them on the left That when they are persecuted and rail'd at they must not only rejoyce but leap for Ioy. That they must pray without ceasing rejoyce evermore and in every thing give Thanks Make a Covenant with their Eyes not to look upon a Maid and abstain from all appearance of Evil. But now the Iailour in my Text although he had hardly yet the knowledge had the true Courage of a Christian. Upon Condition he might be sav'd he did not care on what Terms 'T is true Salvation was the End but the Means of its Attainment did make the Object of his Inquiry For he did not simply beg that he might be sav'd as if he thought he might be sav'd without the least cooperation or any endeavour of his own But as if he had concluded within himself as St. Augustin did some Ages after That God who made us without our selves will never save us without our selves He ask't how much he was to contribute towards the Means of his Salvation And This he ask'd in such a manner as to imply his being ready to contribute whatsoever could be exacted For he did not thus ask What must I say or what must I believe what Opinions must I hold or what Sect must I be of what must I give or whither must I go but in a manner which implyed all This and more 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what must I Do that I may be sav'd But though this is praise-worthy 't is very far from being enough For 't is one thing to ask what things are to be done that we may be sav'd and effectually to do them is quite another The wealthy Quaerist in the Gospel could easily ask what he should do that he might inherit eternal Life and as easily learn the Things ask't after But when he was answer'd that he must sell all he had and give it to the poor he could not so easily fall to practise what he had learnt by putting the Precept in execution So the Multitude of Jews could easily ask our Blessed Saviour what they must do that they might work the work of God Joh. 6. 28. But being told they must believe that He was the Bread that came down from Heaven Then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they murmur'd v. 41. nay they despised him for his Parentage v. 42. It was an hard saying v. 60. Nay so far they were from doing the work of God who had so lately and so readily ask't him what they must do that they might work it that from thence they drew back and would no longer walk with him v. 66. Such a peevishness there is in the minds of men that though they love to be asking the Will of God they cannot indure to be told it much less to be employ'd in the Doing of it no not though they are also told that This alone is the Price at which Salvation is to be had Men may come to be baptiz'd as the Multitude did to Iohn the Baptist And yet may be at That Instant a generation of Vipers Luke 3. 7. A Generation of Vipers and yet have Abraham for their Father v. 8. that is their Father after the Flesh In which respect God is able out of arrant Stocks and Stones to raise up Children unto Abraham But when 't is ask't what we must do to be his Children after the Spirit The Answer is we must inherit at once the Faith and the Works of Abraham And accordingly the Baptist did proportion his Directions to such as ask't them He did not tell them what they must Teach whereby to be Orthodox Professors or what they must hold whereby to be Orthodox Believers But as they ask'd what they must do so he told them those Things that were of necessity to be done Begin not to say within your selves we have Abraham to our Father for so have They who are Sons of Belial But bring forth fruits worthy of Repentance v. 8. If ye are Publicans exact no more than is appointed you v. 13. If ye are Soldiers do violence to no man neither accuse any one falsly and be content with your wages v. 14. If ye are Christians of any Calling Let him that hath two Coats impart to Him that hath none And He that hath Meat let Him do likewise v. 11. Still 't is our Doing the things ask'd after not our Asking what we must do which is effectually the way to our being sav'd And accordingly when 't is said by the Apostle St. Iames That Faith without Works is dead and nothing worth It is intimated to us by that expression That a Rectitude of Iudgment is nothing worth but as it stands in conjunction with a like Rectitude of Life As if our Faith and our Knowledge and good Professions could amount unto no more than the meer Body of Religion whilst the Soul that enlivens it is still the sanctity of our Actions Thence a Good man is called not an Hearer or a Believer But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Doer of the Word Jam. 1. 22 23. And when it pleas'd our blessed Saviour to give a general Description in the fifth Chapter of St. Iohn as well of the Few that belong to Heaven as of the Many that go to Hell He did not give them their Characters from their being of this or that Country of this or that Calling of this or that Church or Congregation of this or that Faith not to say Faction in Religion But only from their being qualified with such and such Practice with such and such Works with such and such Habits of Conversation Our Saviours words are very plain but in my apprehension of great Remarque And such as being well consider'd would teach us how to pass a Iudgment without any prejudice
to our Charity touching the Safety or the Danger the unworthiness or the worth of our selves or others For when All that are in the Graves shall hear the voice of the Son of Man and shall come forth our Saviour adds both their Qualities and the Ends of their coming forth They that have done good shall infallibly come forth unto the Resurrection of Life And They that have done evil unto the Resurrection of Damnation John 5. 29. Now certainly He who is the Saviour can best of all tell us what belongs to Salvation and to whom it does belong who they are that must be saved and what we must do that we may be sav'd It is not meerly the priviledge of being received into the Church and of being admitted to all her Publick Dispensations but especially the Abstaining from so much evil as would denominate Evil-Doers and the Doing so much Good as does denominate a Good and a Faithful Servant by which a man hath just Ground to think himself in God's Favour and that he is doing what he must do that he may be sav'd And if this is the Exegesis of what is said by Paul and Silas and that by way of Answer to the Inquiry of the Iailour Believe in the Lord Iesus Christ and thou shalt be sav'd so as it cannot be understood concerning Faith without Works but of such a Faith only as worketh by Love and so fulfilleth the Law of Christ The proof and evidence of which we have in part seen already and shall see more at large upon the next opportunity Then let us not so mistake the words in the next Verse after my Text or take them so by the wrong handle as to imply that Paul and Silas were but a Couple of Antinomians Or that nothing is to be done as of necessity to Salvation but barely to believe in the Lord Iesus Christ which being abstracted from obedience is nothing better than Presumption But rather let us work out our own Salvation and let us do it with fear and trembling Let us give all diligence by adding to Faith Vertue and one Vertue unto another to make our Calling and Election sure Let us not look upon our selves as having already apprehended or as being already made perfect but forgetting those things that are behind let us reach forth to those things that are before ever pressing towards the Mark for the Prize of the high Calling of God in Christ Iesus And leading a life of Self-denials by frequent watchings and fastings and other warrantable Austerities which are found in holy Scripture to be fit Instances of Attrition let us beat down our Bodies and bring our Flesh into Subjection if by any means we may attain to the Resurrection of the Dead if by any means we may apprehend That for which we are also apprehended of Christ Iesus That so when Time it self shall be lost into Eternity and all days shall be ended in that one great Sabbath which never Ends we may also lose our hopes and our endeavours of being sav'd into the ravishing experience and presence of it There with Angels and Arch-Angels and with all the Company of Heaven singing Hosannahs and Halleluiahs to Him that sitteth upon the Throne and unto the Lamb for ever more A SHORT and EASY RESOLUTION Of the fore-mentioned ENQUIRY Borrowed from the Mouths of the Two Free-Pris'ners Paul and Silas A RESOLUTION OF THE INQUIRY FROM A Practical Belief c. ACTS XVI 31. Believe in the Lord Iesus Christ and thou shalt be saved § 1. THere are such shallownesses and depths too in this little short passage of the Waters of Life as I am prompted out of Scripture to call the Gospel that I may say of this Rivulet what St. Austin once spake of the whole Ocean of holy Writ The tenderest Lamb may here wade and the tallest Elephant may swim It is a small Current of words But such as opens and will ingage us in a full Sea of matter A Sea as hospitable and easy as That which is now call'd The Euxine But yet as hazardous and as difficult if not as proverbial as The Aegaean and so as famous for danger as 't is for safety A Sea we all are to sail in if bound for Heaven And yet for want of good steerage How many Adventurers unaware have been imbark'd in it for Hell and been even split upon the Rock of their own Salvation The Antinomians Fiduciaries and Solifidians betwixt whom there is a nice but a real Difference do not more differ in the ground and the occasion of their Error than they agree in the danger and issue of it For making use of the literal against the rational Importance of many Scriptures and blending many great Truths with the greatest Falshoods so as the latter do pass for currant by their vicinity with the former they commonly reason within themselves in this following manner § 2. Sure we need not live so rigidly by Rules and Praecepts as some Arminian and Legal Divines would have us For we are not under the Law but under Grace And we are justified by Faith without the Deeds of the Law Nor are we justified from some things whilst we are answerable for others but as St. Paul taught at Antioch where he is written to have preached Forgiveness of Sins All that believe are justified from all Things from which they could not be justified by the Law of Moses Then why should we busie our selves with Martha about many Things of little moment when 't is so easy for us with Mary to choose the One that is needful for can any Thing be easier than to believe without doubting that Iesus is the Christ yet whosoever so believeth is born of God And whosoever is born of God overcometh the world Nor indeed is it a wonder considering the Vertue of such Belief For our Saviour tells us expresly That all Things are possible to Him that believeth From whence it follows that to believe is The unum Necessarium which a Christian is to provide in his way to Heaven And accordingly said our Saviour unto the Ruler of the Synagogue not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 believe but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Only believe Nor can this be thought the Priviledge of but here and there one for 't is indefinitely extended to all in general He that believeth in me hath eternal life Where the word He being indefinite is tantamount to whosoever and every one And so indeed it is express't in other passages of Scripture As when 't is said to Cornelius and others with him whosoever believeth in Him shall receive remission of sins And in the Epistle to the Romans we find it said of the Gospel That ' t is the Power of God unto Salvation to every One that believeth Where the Gospel cannot be meant as being inclusive of the Law because 't is said of our Lord in the same Epistle
consequence be inferr'd to be but the Daughter of Praesumption § 8. No the saving Faith is That which comprehends Both the former and more than Both. It is indeed the very Pandect of all that is requisite to Salvation by being the Substance and the Epitome even of all other Duties required of us In so much that we must learn how to expound it when alone by what we find spoken of it when it stands in conjunction with other Duties For when our Saviour gave Commission for the preaching of the Gospel to every Creature he did not only say He that believeth shall be sav'd But he that believeth and is Baptèzed He 's the man that shall be sav'd Mark 16. 16. And so when He preached first in Galilee He did not only say Believe But Repent and Believe the Gospel Mark 1. 15. And still by Repentance is meant amendment as St. Peter hath explain'd it by his Preaching at Ierusalem in Solomon's Porch Where he did not only say Repent and Believe Nor only Repent and be Baptized as he had said a while before but Repent and be Converted that your sins may be blotted out Acts 3. 19. Again in other places of Scripture we find it coupl'd with Confession without the company of which it is nothing worth And of this I gave examples in the Division of the Text. Nay we read in other Scriptures touching the work and the Law and the Obedience of Faith Nay in one place especially I observe the two phrases To Believe and To Obey are clearly us'd as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the very same breath importing both the same Thing and promiscuously expressing the one the other The Place I speak of is Rom. 10. 16. But they have not obey'd the Gospel For Esaias saith who hath Believed our Report now if obeying in the first clause did not signify Believing it must have been in the second who hath obeyed our report because it is in the first But they have not obeyed the Gospel And if Believing in the second clause did not signify obeying it must have been in the first But they have not Believ'd the Gospel because it is in the second who hath Believed our report else what means the Causal For by which the second Clause is proved to give a reason of the first for this is evidently the Logick which our Apostle there useth To Believe the report of the Evangelical Prophet Isaiah is to Obey the holy Gospel which he prophetically preached But they have not Believ'd the former Therefore they have not obey'd the latter But neither have we yet the utmost of saving Faith For as it signifies an obedience to all the Commandments of the Law in that it worketh by Love which is indeed the fulfilling of it so it does many times imply a Perseverance in Love and in Obedience unto the end As when 't is said by the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews We are not of Them that draw back unto Perdition But of Them that Believe to the saving of the Soul We read of some who had a Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ but such as was utterly overthrown by Hymenaeus and Philetus whose words did eat into their Faith as doth a Canker and so however for a time it might have justified yet for want of perseverance it could not save them For let the Nature of our Faith be what it can still 't is a Requisite to Salvation That we indure unto the End Matth. 24. 13. § 9. Now when the Faith of a Believer is arriv'd at such a pitch as hath been describ'd by Repentance and Conversion and Perseverance unto the end or to use St. Paul's words 1. Thess. 1. 3. by his work of Faith his labour of Love and his Patience of Hope that is to say in terms yet plainer by the obedience which his Faith and by the Industry which his Love and by the Constancy which his Hope in the Lord Jesus Christ hath effected in him so that the Righteousness of God hath been successfully revealed from Faith to Faith as St. Paul expresseth a Perseverance in Faith Rom. 1. 17. It is then indeed the Substance of things hoped for and the Evidence of things not seen and virtually the Praesence of things yet future A steady Dependance upon God for the Performance of his Promise and a confident expectation of the Glory to be reveal'd A being convinc'd that That is true by a mental Demonstration which does not fall under an ocular And as in other respects Faith is said to be the Hand so in This is it the Eye of a pious Soul wherewith looking up to Iesus the Author and Finisher of our Faith we may easily see our way through any Night of Tribulation that can befall us Thus we see how saving Faith does carry Hope in its Importance as well as Charity as may appear by the Duplicity of the Apostle's Definition which seems to have a twofold Genus and a twofold Differentia For first he saith it is the Substance and then the Evidence In as much as 't is an evidence it is objected on Things invisible But in as much as 't is a Substance so it is of Things which are hoped for A Definition very fitly against the Method and the Rules of Art and Nature because it is of such a Quality as is exceedingly above them And yet it is a Definition whereof I think it will be easy to give a rational Accompt For this Faith being an Act or rather an Habit of the Intellect And yet determin'd to its object by the Empire of the Will which is at last its Subject too That as expressed by the word Fides and This as well by the word Fiducia 't is plain its object must be consider'd both as True and as Good As the object of the Intellect the Injoyments of Heaven are still consider'd by us as True and so are properly contemplated as Things not seen whereof there is yet no other Evidence than that of Faith But as the object of the Will they are consider'd by us as Good and so are properly here expressed by Things hoped for and Faith of such may be call'd the Substance Though not in a logical or physical or metaphysical Sense yet in a moral and metaphorical as that which is first in every kind and either radically or vertually contains the rest in it is said to be the Substance of all the rest as the Contents are the substance of the following Chapter or as Adam was the Substance of all Mankind or as there is said to be a Substance and Body of Sin which very Body is also said to have a strength and a sting And then with a greater force of reason may Faith be said to be the Substance of things hoped for because it hath an amazing power of presentiating the things which are wrapt up in Futurity and represents them all at once as
the New Ierusalem And what shall we do to be walking in it Which is the way to escape a Hell And what must we do to obtain a Heaven For this is certainly the Scope of the young man's Inquiry we have in hand What shall I do that I may Inherit Aeternal Life § 3. All the Kingdoms of the Earth can neither satisfie nor justifie all our Appetites and Desires But the Kingdom of Heaven expressed here by eternal life will be sure to do Both. For if we are Covetous Here are Riches to make it lawful If we are Amorous Here is Beauty to make it Vertuous If we are Ambitious Here is Glory to make it Good For we must know that our Affections receive their Guilt or Vitiosity not from their strength but from their blindness when they are either double-sighted and look asquint or else are short-sighted and cannot see a far off they embrace those things for fair or pleasant which like Ixion's watery Iuno do only mock them with their Injoyment Whereas were our Affections so Eagle-sighted as to see through the Creatures discerning Happiness in its Hypostasis and flying at it where it is our only fault would then be This That our Ambition is too low and our Avarice too little and that we are not Amorous enough For they are poor-spirited persons of thick Heads and narrow Hearts whose thoughts are groveling upon the Creature and aspiring to nothing but what is Finite It is an impotent Ambition a feeble Avarice and a very flat Love which makes a stoop at such low Trifles as Crowns and Kingdoms here on Earth He alone is of a Noble and erected mind who can say and say heartily with Christ to Pilate his Kingdom is not of this World Alas the Kingdoms here Below are less than Grass-Hoppers to the very least Mansion in the Kingdom of Heaven Nor are they genuine but degenerate and bastard Eagles which will greedily catch at such little Flies The Soul of man was created for the highest Purposes and Ends. And therefore we may not only be lawfully but even dutifully ambitious provided our Ambitions are great enough and every whit as high as our Soul's Extraction we are not only permitted but even obliged to be Covetous upon condition that it be but of solid Riches which are not liable to Plunder or to impairment We ought in Conscience to be inamour'd if it be of real Beauty and not of that which depends upon human Fansie not of handsome Dirt or well-complexion'd Clay not of Beauty so call'd whose Foundation is in the Dirt which saith to Corruption Thou art my Father and to the Worm Thou art my Mother But if we choose a right object like the Spouse in the Canticles we shall never be so well as when with that Spouse sick of Love For our Bowels ought to yern after the Bridegroom of our Souls we ought to pant after Goodness and in the phrase of Espensaeus to languish after him who is the Fountain of that Goodness and so to thirst after that Fountain as never to be satisfied 'till swallow'd up In this one sense the Italian Proverb is to be verified Bello fin fà chi ben amando muore He makes a good end that dyes a Lover to wit a Lover of Him who is the great Lover of Souls We should not vouchsafe to love our selves unless because we love Him or because he loves us the only measure of loving whom is to love him without measure § 4. Seeing therefore we have met with an easy way whereby to bridle a Passion and at the same time to let it loose how at once we may abjure and yet injoy our Sensuality or to speak more exactly how 't is the Duty of a Christian not to evacuate not to invalidate not to extenuate his Affections but only to regulate and to direct them to place them there where true Injoyment is to be found let no man say within himself what shall I do to get a Fortune to raise a Family to erect a Temple unto Fame what shall I do to be a man of this World of some Authority and Power able to mischief or to oblige to beat down mine Enemies and raise my Friends what shall I do to be a man of great Knowledge a famous Chymist an exact Mathematician a remarkable Lawyer or an eminent Divine for the best of These Inquiries has something in it of Carnality But let every man say within Himself what shall I do to get an Interest in Jesus Christ and to be sure I am a Member not only of his Visible but of his Mystical Body what shall I do for a Demonstration that my Faith is truly such as does work by Love and that it does work by such a Love as does bring forth obedience to the Commandments of Christ And such a kind of obedience as Christ will graciously accept what shall I do that I may repent and repent in such a manner as to bring forth fruits meet for Repentance what shall I do to see the secrets of my Heart and to know by some Token which will not fail me whether the Good which I do is well enough done I mean well enough to deserve Acceptance What shall I do whereby to work out mine own Salvation and yet for all that to serve my God without fear all the days of my life what shall I do whereby to make my Election sure and to make my self sure of my Election so as to be able to say in Truth with St. Paul Henceforth is laid up for me a Crown of Righteousness what shall I do or what shall I not do or what shall I suffer either for doing or not doing that by distress or persecution by nakedness or famin by peril or sword by banishment or bonds by sickness or death by any means whatsoever however troublesom or costly or any way terrible to the Flesh I may but finally inherit eternal Life § 5. But now how little there is to be found of real and solid Christianity even in that part of Christendom where Christ and his Gospel are always preach't least of all amongst Them who are the great Monopolizers of Life Aeternal 't will not be difficult to guess by the solemn Theme of their Inquiries what shall we eat and what shall we drink and wherewithal shall we be cloath'd which shews the Zeal and the Devotion wherewith they Sacrifice to the Flesh. And therefore well said our Saviour to shew the Religion such men are of After all these things do the Gentiles seek Matth. 6. 25 Thereby intimating unto us That Christians must seek for diviner things than such as perish in the using for in the seeking of such as these they do not differ from the Gentiles who know not God And yet if we look upon those Professors who do pretend to an Inclosure of all the good things in Heaven we may observe them still inclosing as many good things as they can
Mouths to confess him our Heads to believe him our Hands and Feet to serve him our Wills to be ruled and our Wits to be captivated by him our Hearts to love him and our Lives to dye for him All which though it is All is still too little if we impartially consider the Disproportion of our Reward that blessed Parallel drawn out for us by God's own Compass Life and Aeternity A man you know would do any thing whereby to find Life though in our Saviour's Oxymôron it is by losing it Matth. 10. 39. And as a man will part with any thing to save his life so with life too to eternize it If therefore our Saviour does bid us follow him let us not venture to choose our way And if we can but arrive at Heaven it matters not much though we go by Hell For comparing his Goodness with his Mastership his Promises with his Precepts and the Scantling of our Obedience with the Immenfity of our Reward we shall find that our work hath no proportion with our wages but that we may inquire when all is done Good Master what shall we do And this does prompt me to proceed to my last Doctrinal Proposition That when all is done that can be we are unprofitable Servants Our Obedience is not the Cause but the meer Condition of our Reward And we arrive at Eternal Life not by way of Purchase as we are Servants but of Inheritance as we are Sons It is not here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not to deserve but to inherit Eternal Life As Christianity like Manhood hath its several steps and degrees of growth so the Soul as well as the Body doth stand in need of Food and Raiment And agreable to the Complexion of immaterial Beings she is not only bedeck't but sustain'd with Righteousness Now as none can inherit Eternal Life but He that is born of the Spirit And as he that is born of the Spirit must also be nourished with the Spirit before he can possibly live an holy and spiritual Life so it is only God the Spirit that gives us Birth God the Son that gives us Breeding and God the Father that gives us the privilege of Adoption The Spirit feedeth us as his Babes the Son instructs us as his Disciples the Father indows us as his Heirs It is the Spirit that fits us for our Inheritance the Son that gives us a Title to it And 't is especially the Father who doth invest us with the Possession But now of all God's External and Temporal Blessings which have any Resemblance unto his Spiritual methinks the Manna that fell from Heaven is the liveliest Embleme of his Grace Of which though some did gather more and some less yet they that gather'd most had nothing over and they that gather'd least had no lack Thus as Manna like Grace is the Bread of Heaven so Grace like Manna is also measur'd out by Omers For even they that have least of the Grace of God have enough if well us'd to inherit Heaven and even they that have most have not enough to deserve it But still the Parallel goes on For the reason why the Manna which God sent down to the People Israel would not indure above a Day was saith Philo upon the Place lest considering the Care by which their Manna was preserv'd more than the Bounty by which 't was given they might be tempted to applaud not God's Providence but their own Thus if God had bestow'd so full a measure of his Grace as to have left us altogether without our Frailties perhaps our very Innocence might have been our Temptation We might have found it an Inconvenience to have been dangerously Good Like those once happy but ever-since unhappy Angels whose very excellency of Nature did prove a kind of Snare to them even the purity of their Essence did give occasion to their defilement Their very Height and Eminence was that that helpt to pull them down and one reason of their falling was that they stood so firmly For though they were free from that Lust which is the Pollution of the Flesh yet they were lyable to Ambition which is the Filthiness of the Spirit As if their Plethory of Goodness had made them Wantons or the Unweildiness of their Glory had made them Proud 't was from a likeness to their Creator that they aspir'd to an Equality and so they were the first of all the Creatures as well in their Fall as their Perfections Now adding to this the consideration that Ingratitude does gather Increase of Guilt from a greater abundance of Obligations so as the Angels falling from Heaven could not fall less than as low as Hell we may perhaps find a reason for which to congratulate to our selves that Dimensum or Pittance of God's free Grace which hath left us our Infirmities as fit Remembrancers to Humility That being placed in a condition rather of Trembling than of Security every Instance of our defect may send us to God for a Supply God hath given us our Proportion that we may not grumble or despair but not such a Perfection as once to Adam and the Angels before their Fall that we may not like Them be either careless or presume So that making a due comparison of that faint measure of Goodness which now we possibly may have by the Grace of God with that full measure of Glory which now at least we hope for we must be fain to acknowledge when all is done that the greatest measure of our obedience is far from deserving the least of Bliss For as the Sun appears to us a most glorious Body and yet is look't upon by God as a spot of Ink so though the Righteousness of men doth seem to men to be truly such yet compar'd with our Reward it is no more than as filthy Rags That other promise of our Lord Never to see or to taste of Death had been sufficiently above our merits But to inherit Eternal Life too though I cannot affirm it above our wishes yet sure it is often above our Faith Had we no more than we deserv'd we should not have so great Blessings as Rain and Sunshine and God had still been Iust to us had he made our best wages to be as negative as our work For as the best of us all can boast no more than of being less guilty than other men so we can claim no other Reward than to be somewat less punish't that is to be beaten with fewer stripes As the Ox amongst the Iews being unmuzzl'd upon the Mowe by the special appointment of God himself at once did eat and tread the Corn whereby he received his Reward at the very same Instant in which he earn'd it so the Protection of such a Soveraign is Reward enough for our Allegiance and the present Maintenance of a Servant is the usual Recompence of his labour Whatsoever God
affords us besides our Being is to be reckon'd supra Computum Life at least is our stipend and Aeternity but our Donative Nay if we seriously consider that we are properly the Authors of all that is evil in our selves and nothing more than the Instruments of what is good that when we pray very devoutly 't is God that sets our lips a going and whensoever we give Alms 't is God that mollifies our hearts and that stretcheth out our hands too He abundantly requites us for our obedience by his enabling us to obey For that the Goodness of a mans life is neither infus'd by Nature nor acquir'd by Industry but a special Benefaction of God's free Grace Plato himself though an Heathen had yet Discretion enough to say Why then do the Hebrew or Roman Pharisees take a pride in the doing of this or that Duty or boast the giving of this or that Alms as if they had any thing to give which they themselves had not receiv'd Why do they glory in their Widowhood or Single life when 't is only from God that they have their Continence or why do they think to merit Heaven by being Rich in Good works when even the Goodness of their works does but increase their obligation Can they expect to be rewarded for their Acceptance or think that ought is due to them for their having been already so much oblig'd If from the liberty of their Wills they argue the merit of their Obedience they must know they do impose a double fallacy on themselves For neither can the Wills of men incline to good without Grace nor is the Liberty of their Wills any whit less of God's giving than all the rest 'T is God that makes us not only able but willing too to be obedient So that the privilege of our choice does not only not lessen but greatly heighten our Obligation And since to perform our whole Duty is but to pay our whole Debt our Lord might legally have awarded us not a Recompence but a Discharge Nay let me say a little farther That had our Master proposed to us neither an Heaven to incourage nor an Hell to fright us to our Obedience it had been yet Reward sufficient to have but our Labour for our Pains And Christ were still a Good Master in crowning our Foreheads with their own Sweat in making it the Reward of our Christian Race to injoy the Satisfaction of having run it For the Commandments of God are so extremely for our Interest and so conformable to our Reason that even in keeping them saith the Psalmist there is great Reward Psal. 19. 9 10 11. This I endeavour'd to make appear in the last days Subject of my Discourse shewing the Goodness of our Master from the Work about which he employs his Servants As I shall also make it appear upon some other opportunity And indeed 't is so impossible that any Arrears of Bliss and Glory should be due to us in Heaven for our having been obedient that is happy here on Earth that in the Nineteenth Chapter of St. Matthew at the Nine and twentieth Verse Whosoever hath forsaken either Father or Mother or Brethren or Sisters or Wife or Children or Houses or Lands for the Name of Christ and his Gospel although he shall receive an hundred fold and that perhaps in this present World yet 't is only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He shall not purchase but inherit Eternal Life 'T is true indeed that our Obedience is the Causa-sine-quâ-non that is the Necessary Condition which is required by God to our being there But it follows not thence that 't is the Causa Energetica the effectual Cause of our coming thither For we cannot duly say A man does walk with his Hands or eat with his Ears because he neither eats nor walks without them And 't is as illogical to affirm that we can climb Heaven by our Good works because without them we fall to Hell They keep us company indeed but they do not carry us Thus if a Patron gives me a Mannor and only covenants for the payment of some small Quit-Rent or else bestows upon me an ample Field upon condition that once a year I shall present him with a Turf I cannot say that that Turf is a Recompence for the Field but an acknowledgment of the Favour Not the paying him for a Bargain but the thanking him for a Benevolence And such is the infinite Disproportion betwixt the best of our Obedience and our least Degree of Bliss that 't is but a Token of our Homage not an earning of our Reward And therefore 't is aptly observ'd by Grotius that the word in the Hebrew Text which answers to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Sixth Chapter of St. Matthew v. 1. doth promiscuously signifie both a Gift and a Reward Thus Life Eternal is a Reward because 't is given upon Condition but withal it is a Gift because 't is given us Say we therefore with holy Iob If we are wicked wo unto us And if we are righteous we will not lift up our Heads Job 10. 15. Or let us say rather with St. Paul 2 Cor. 3. 5. Not that we are sufficient of our selves to think any thing as of our selves but that our sufficiency is of God That though indeed we can work out our own Salvation yet it is upon this accompt that God Himself worketh in us both to will and to do of his good Pleasure That though perhaps we can do all things yet it is only through Christ that strengthens us That neither our Duty nor our Happiness are any way Necessary to God who as he needeth not the sinful so neither hath he need of the righteous man And therefore to pass out of this Point at the same Door where I came in let us confess that at our best we are but Unprofitable Servants that our Obedience is not the Cause but meerly the Condition of our Reward And that if ever we arrive at Eternal Life it will not be by way of Purchase as we are Servants but by way of Inheritance as we are Sons Which God of his Mercy prepare us for not for our Faith or for our Works but for the worthiness of his Son To him be Glory for ever and ever Amen A SCRIPTURAL PROGNOSTICK OF JESUS CHRIST's Second Advent TO Iudge the World A PROGNOSTICK OF THE Coming of Christ TO JUDGMENT LUKE XVIII 8. But when The Son of Man cometh shall he find Faith upon the Earth That is to say He shall not According to the Rule of all Grammarians and Rhetoricians that an Affirmative Interrogation is the most forcible way of expressing a flat and positive Denial § 1. THE Cohaerence 'twixt These and the words foregoing is so hard to be discerned at first appearance that some have thought there is none at all For if God will come speedily to the Avenging of his Elect as our Saviour saith he will in the two
next Verses before my Text who were not Elected without a Praescience as well of their Faithfulness as of their Faith How can it be that when He comes He shall not find Faith upon the Earth But if we attentively consider the Text before us as it stands in relation to all the Verses going before and more especially to the first This Objection will quickly vanish and we shall find a good Connexion between the praecedent and praesent words For our Lord having exhorted The Neophyte-Disciples to whom he spake Not to faint in their Prayers but to pray-on with Perseverance v. 1. excites them to it with an Assurance that their Prayers shall not be fruitless And that their Prayers shall not be fruitless He convinceth them by an Argument à minori ad majus This appears by his whole Parable touching the Widows Importunity praevailing over the Heart of an hardned Iudge From whence the Argument is as natural as it is logical and convincing For if the Prayer of the distressed and importunate Widow returned at last into her Bosom with good Success thô from a most corrupt Iudge who had no fear of God nor regard of Man v. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with how much a greater force of reason shall all the Prayers of The Faithful receive an acceptable Return from the Father of Mercies and God of all Consolation who is not only no unjust or obdurate Judge but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Rewarder by way of Eminence of them that diligently seek him either sooner or later as he sees fit Yes the time is now coming when They shall be freed from their Afflictions and when the Vengeance due from God shall speedily fall on the Authors of them To which He adds by way of complaint and by a Compassionate Erotésis or Expostulation cohaering with what he said before by a Conjunction Adversative that when He shall come in the later Days to be an Avenger of his Elect The Apostasie will be so general He will find but Few of them Of the many who are Called He will find but few Chosen Amongst a Multitude of Flatterers he will find but few Friends In a world of Praetenders He will find but Few Faithful and with very much Profession very little True Faith They alone being Elect who persevere unto the End in The Faith of Christ and whose Faith is efficacious as well as sufficient to make them Faithful § 2. We see The Cohaerence of the Text which will help us not to err in the Meaning of it For in that our Lord asks When the Son of Man cometh shall He find Faith upon the Earth It is as if he should have said in plain and peremptory Terms That at his second Coming from Heaven to judge the Inhabitants of the Earth He shall not find Many Christians who will pray with that Faith which alone can inable them to pray without ceasing and not to faint When He shall come to save Believers He will find but few such in the Gospel-sense Not none simpliciter but none secundum quid Comparatively none or none to speak of The greatest part of men will perish even for want of That Faith whereby men's Prayers become effectual 'T is not through any defect of Goodness and longanimity in God that so few will be safe in the Day of Judgment But through a miserable defect of Christian Faithfulness and Faith The great Condition of the Covenant which God in Christ the only true Shechinah was pleas'd to make with the Sons of Men. Historical Faith there is in many such as is common to men with Devils who are said by St. Iames to believe and tremble A sturdy Praesumption there is in Many which they mistake for the perfection and strength of Faith A Carnal Security is in Many which they take to be the Product and Fruit of Faith There is in many such a Carnal and Human Faith concerning the Being of Heaven and Hell a Life after Death and a Day of Judgment as that there is such a Place as Constantinople or Eutopia whereof thô This is as fictitious as That is real yet by Ignaroes in Geography they are believed Both alike Thus in one sense or other Faith is as common as Infidelity a Weed which grows in most mens Gardens But very few have That Faith of which our Lord does here speak to wit a Faith which is attended with Hope and Charity a Faith coupl'd with Fear to offend our Maker a Faith productive of obedience unto That which is called The Law of Faith a Faith importing all faithfulness in the discharge of that Service we owe our Master a Faith expressed by a submission first to God rather than Man and then to Man for God's sake lastly a Faith joyned with Patience and Perseverance unto the End in the work of Prayer to which our Saviour had exhorted in the first Verse of This Chapter and which indeed is the Scope of this whole Paragraph § 3. Thus we have clearly a Praediction that the last Times will be the worst or that the World towards its End will be most dissolute and debauch't that 't will not be only an Iron-age but that the Iron will be corrupted with Rust and Canker This is the Doctrine of the Text and this must be divided into two distinct Branches as the word Faith may here be taken in two distinct Considerations For in which sense soever we understand the word Faith in the Text before us whether for a firm Adhaerence unto the Truth of Christ's Gospel in all its Doctrines or for a faithful punctuality in All Commerce and Transaction 'twixt Man and Man whether in That as the Cause of This or in This as the Fruit of That for 't is not pertinent now to mention all the other acceptions of Faith in Scripture we shall have reason to suspect The World is drawing towards its End in that the Praediction of our Saviour is drawing so near its Completion Before I come to prove or apply the Doctrine it will perhaps be worth while to take a view of the Description of the last and worst Days as St. Peter and St. Paul have drawn it up for us in their Epistles the one in Gross and the other in the Retail First St. Peter tells us in general There shall come in the last days Scoffers walking after their own own Lusts. St. Paul acquaints us in particular what the several Lusts are This know also saith he to Timothy that in the last days perilous times shall come For men shall be Lovers of their own selves covetous boasters proud blasphemers disobedient to Parents unthankful unholy without natural affection truce-breakers make-bates otherwise called false Accusers incontinent fierce despisers of those that are good Traitors heady high-minded Lovers of Pleasures more than Lovers of God having a form of Godliness but denying the Power thereof From These saith He turn away And presently after he gives
Oaths have so taught them by That Example to dispense easily with their own that if the Iews are ask't the Reason why the Mahomedans are permitted by God Almighty to prevail against Christendom for more than a Thousand years together without Controul and to boast of their Prosperity as a notable mark of the True Religion an Argument ad homines I mean to the Romanists and the Fanaticks not easily to be Answer'd They will ascribe it to the Blasphemies Execrations and Violations of Oaths Those of Allegiance more especially which have abounded and do abound more amongst Christians than amongst Them For the End of Temporal Blessings are Spiritual If God gave the Lands of the Heathen to the Israelites to this end he gave them that they might observe his Statutes Psal. 105. 44. And therefore when we forfeit our Spiritual Blessings we cannot rationally expect to injoy our Temporal Should we pass through all Orders and Ranks of men which might be done with ease enough but that the Time will not permit it Lord for how little Christian Faith how much faithlesness and falsness and praevarication should we discover Excepting only These Nations wherein we live Soveraigns mind nothing more than the exhausting of their Subjects and not excepting These Nations wherein we live Subjects mind little less than the enfeebling of their Soveraigns If the People here in England would either All travel a broad or at least take the pains to be taught at home how like Princes rather than Subjects in point of Liberty and Propriety they live at home being compared with other Subjects throughout the habitable World They would be certainly more contented than now they are with their Condition They would be certainly so far from being given to change and such passionate Abhorrers of All Sedition as not to suffer themselves for ever to be undone by their Foelicities Men of all Ranks and Qualities would acquiesce in their great happiness and learn to know when they are well Men of Trade would be contented to part with the paring of their Nails to secure their Fingers Men of Land would be contented to pay little Taxes and Men of Mony would not grumble to pay None at all Dissenting Clergymen would not study to please the People for their own profit more than to profit them for their own pleasure Nor would the People on the other side be so addicted as they are commonly both to envy and defraud and defame the Clergy Men of Law would be contented to raise up great Fortunes to Them and Theirs out of the Ruins of other mens and to injoy in full Peace All the Profits and Effects of Dire Contention Physicians would be contented to dispose of mens Lives not only at a safe but at a profitable rate and with Tentimes greater Fees than were ever yet heard of in Foreign Parts All sorts of People in a word would most thankfully acquiesce in their several Stations Whereas for want of due knowledge or of an ingenuous Consideration how much better even Artificers and common Mechanicks do live in England than men of the noblest blood and breeding under All foreign Governments without Exception I say for want of due Reflection on This great Truth All the Foundations of our Earth do seem to be utterly out of Course Men are so drunk with their Prosperities so tired out with Tranquillity grown so restive with sitting still in the Scorner's Chair In contradiction to The Apostle and His Advice They do so study to be unquiet and not to do their own business but the business of other men they are so sharp and quick-sighted in ordering other mens Affairs though most commonly blind as Beetles in all the Managements of their own are so perplext and dissatisfied with they-cannot-tell-what are so restless in their Indeavours to prevent things unavoidable to bring about things impossible and to provide against things which never are likely to ensue they do so mutiny and repine at the good Providences of God and are so unwilling to permit him to rule the World his own way being bewitch't with an Opinion that They are able to do it better by quaint Contrivances of their own are so unwilling that their Governours may be enabled to Protect for fear they should be tempted by such an Ability to oppress them I say by All these Infelicities which too much Felicity hath occasion'd The World is now grown to so ill a pass that we may take up the words of the Prophet Ieremy and apply them to the Places and Times we live in Run to and fro through the Streets and seek into all the broad Places thereof if ye can find a man if there be any that executeth Iudgment that seeketh the Truth and I will pardon it § 8. I know it may easily be objected against the Argument I have us'd That no wants of Faith in the second Notion of the word can prove 't is wanted in the first For let the Practice of men amongst us be what it will yet their Principles they will say may be as Orthodox as their Professions and they have still a firm Assent unto the Truth of Christ's Gospel in All its Doctrines But to This Objection it may as easily be Answer'd that as a Practical Infidel or Atheist is a worse Monster than a Speculative so there is no better way to prove the first than by the second Men may believe the Word of God with an Human Faith when yet 't is easy to demonstrate They do not believe it with a Divine one Nor is there any greater Instance of the Deceitfulness of a man's Heart than is his Treacherous Belief that he does Believe and that with a truly-Christian Faith when yet he proves by All his Practice that he is either no Believer or such a Believer of the Gospel as he is of Iulius Caesar's or Cicero's Works and no whit better For why should men be more forcibly and more effectually restrain'd as we see they are from committing a lesser Evil which is forbidden under the Poenalty of a meerly human Law and where the Poenalty is no greater than the loss of a man's Ears or the forfeiture of his Estate than from committing a greater Evil which is forbidden by God himself under the Poenalty of their missing the Ioys of Heaven and also of abiding the Pains of Hell but that they do more believe the one than they do the other It cannot be for This reason that men do think it a greater Misery to suffer a little for a short Time than all imaginable Torments to all Eternity It cannot be that they had rather fry in Hell without ceasing than indure the short loss of Life and Fortune But the true Reason must needs be This that men are as Confident of the one as they are Diffident of the other They have a manifold Experience of Temporal Punishments But the Tempter makes them hope there are none Eternal They are strong in
the faith of what concerns the praesent world but they stagger in the faith of a world to come They have an ordinary relish of sensual Pleasure But ghostly Pleasure is a Iargon they know not how to make sense of They think it meerly a piece of gibbrish of Ecclesiastical Investigation They make no doubt but they shall dye and that their Bodies being buried shall all be moulder'd into Dust. But they secretly suspect they shall never Rise they are Infidels in the point of a Resurrection They either doubt and make a Quaestion or else they utterly disbelieve both a Life after Death and a Day of Judgment This is the only reason assignable why men are more afraid of Them who can kill the Body only but are not able to hurt the Soul than of Him who can cast both Soul and Body into Hell No other reason can I imagin why men do commonly run counter to that known Maxim 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 why when 't is every man's wisdom to choose the least of two Evils men in avoidance of the least do choose the greatest even to dwell with Eternal Burnings And therefore well may it be said as here it is in my Text that when the Son of Man cometh he shall not find Faith upon the Earth He shall not find Evangelical and Saving Faith He shall not find it at least in many nay he shall find it in few or none in comparatively None or None to speak of Let men pretend what they will and let them will what they please ye shall know them by their Fruits saith our Blessed Saviour And the Fruits of True Faith whereof the Professors are True Believers are no where better to be seen than in the Eleventh Chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews wherein we have Faith commended to us in four principal Respects and all within the narrow compass of the Six first Verses First in respect of its Definition which is to be the Substance of Things hoped for and the Evidence of Things not seen Secondly in respect of its great and wonderful Effects whereof we have there Two choice Examples the one in Abel the other in Enoch Thirdly in respect of its greatest Benefit as being That Qualification by which we please God Lastly in respect of its indispensable Necessity as being That without which it is impossible to please him How could so many in the old Testament of whom we have an accompt in the later parts of That Chapter have chosen Poverty rather than Wealth and Disgrace rather than Glory and Pain it self rather than Pleasure if they had not had Respect and that a strange respect too unto the Recompence of Reward if by the Telescope of Faith as 't is the Evidence of Things not seen they had not seen Him who is Invisible if they had not been enabl'd to spy Reward afar off and to look clearly through the Veil which interposed as a Skreen 'twixt It and Them if they had not had a Prospect of the several blessed Mansions prepared for them in the City of God whereof they had been made Denisons and in the House of That Father of whom they were the adopted Sons if they had not had an Eye upon their particular Resurrections and such an Eye too so full so clear so more than Lyncean or Eagle-sighted that even Then when they were tortur'd they would not accept of a Deliverance to the end they might injoy by so much a better Resurrection § 9. This is a truly Salvisick Faith and such as necessarily signifies amongst other Vertues a firmer Adhaerence and Assent unto the Truth of Christ's Gospel in all its Doctrines than any man can ever have by any human means possible either to Seneca's or Cicero's or Caesar's Works This is That for want of which men will do and suffer more to save their Bodies or Estates and that for a little space of Time than they will either do or suffer to save their more pretious Souls and that for ever It was for want of This Faith that the Iews were broken off and by This only we Gentiles stand This is That Faith the Iust shall live by This is That on which depends our Bliss or Misery for ever according to the words of our Blessed Saviour whereof it is an Explication Mark 16. 16. He that believeth shall be saved but He that believeth not shall be damned Here is short work indeed and such as might have sav'd the labour of many Controversial Volumes which have been written and made publick between the Molinists and the Iansenians the Franciscans and the Dominicans or the Scotists and the Thomists between the Lutherans and the Calvinists the Arminians and the Gomarists the Remonstrants and Antiremonstrants concerning the Nature of God's Decrees and Quaestions depending thereupon Our Saviour tells us very succinctly in words most plain and most univocal who are Vessels of Election and who of Wrath Who were decreed from All Aeternity to Heaven and Hell even Believers and Unbelievers No more but so He that believeth shall be saved and He that believeth not shall be damn'd Which cannot possibly be meant concerning every human Faith whereof the World is too full It cannot be meant of such a Faith as makes a man abhor Idols but not abstain from committing Sacrilege Nor can it be meant of such a Faith as is strong enough to remove Mountains to wit The Laws and the Land-Marks of Church and State to pull down Kings and unsettle Kingdoms But not strong enough to bring forth Obedience to Christ's Commands and by a consequence unavoidable to God's Vicegerents upon Earth It cannot be meant of the Antinomian or the Fiduciarie's Faith which sets it self into a kind of opposition unto Good works and so by consequence is the Parent of nothing but practical Infidelity But 't is meant of That sanctifying and saving Faith which whosoever hath overcometh the world 1 John 5. 5. 'T is meant of Iustifying Faith not only in the mystical but literal notion of the word a Faith which so justifies that in a competent degree It does evermore make its Possessor Iust. It makes him an upright and honest man Saving Faith being a Grace which as it is the most commonly talk't of so it is I am afraid the least commonly understood of any one thing in the Christian Code We could not else so much abound with Knaves and Hypocrites as we do in the Christian World That which we call Divine Faith which is a justifying and sanctifying and saving Faith and upon which The Word of God does every where lay so great a stress must be an Habit of the Will as well as of the Understanding not only flourishing in the Head but deeply rooted in the Heart It must be such as does contain a full and generous Belief he dares to dye for a full and Practical Belief that Iesus Christ is the Messias a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a full
and absolute Belief both in his words and in his works both in his Counsels and his Commands both in his Promises and his Threats For He who Thus is believing is ipso facto and eo ipso at once an Obedient and Loving Christian. A Christian so loving that the longer he lives the more he lives the Life of Faith the more he is weaned and sequestred from the things here below the more he is wedded and betrothed unto those things that are above His Affections are taken off from the beggarly Elements of the World and fix't entirely upon God as his soveraign Good I mean they are set upon God in Christ reconciling the World unto Himself And overcome The world he does as St. Iohn must needs mean by overcoming its Temptations its Pomps and Vanities its Smiles and Flatteries nor only the Pleasures but Terrors of it He overcometh That world which St. Iohn has comprized under three general Heads to wit the lust of the Flesh the lust of the Eye and the pride of Life For a sincere Faith in Christ in his Death and Resurrection and in the Consequences of Both gives us a much greater Byass a stronger Bent and Inclination to all good Things than the whole World can to the contrary by all its flatteries or its frights It possesseth us immediately with Inward Ioy in the Holy Ghost and praepossesseth us with an Antepast of The Glory to be reveal'd It praesentiates unto us such Joys to come as do exceedingly over-weigh the frowns and favours of the world It is expressed by St. Iohn in the place before-cited not only as the means whereby we grow Victors But as the Victory it self This saith he is The Victory which overcometh the world even our Faith As if it were not only the Instrument but Essence of it § 10. It follows then that we must distinguish with exceeding great Care and every minute of our Lives between two things which do extremely much differ like Heaven and Hell and yet are commonly confounded to admiration I say we must carefully distinguish not only between an Idle and an Operative Faith a Faith which works and a Faith which works not But withal between a working and working Faith between a Faith which only works by the Love of a man's self and a Faith which duly works by the Love of others For when the Son of Man shall come with his holy Angels in flaming Fire taking Vengeance of them that know not God and obey not the Gospel of Iesus Christ He will find enough idle unactive Faith which either works not at all or not at all by Love or else by none but Self-love which is the worst and greatest Evil that can possibly come to pass in the last and worst Times St. Paul sets it down in his long Catalogue of Impieties which shall be in the last Days as The Ring-leader and Head of All the Villanies which ensue as the first and greatest Link of that Chain of Darkness which draws the other Links after it and reacheth as far as from Hence to Hell In the last days says he to Timothy perilous Times shall come For men shall be Lovers of their own selves and in consequence of That All the Devilish Things that follow from the First Verse unto the Ninth of that Third Chapter of the Second Epistle to Timothy A Chain of Darkness almost as long as That the Devils themselves are held in and reserved saith St. Iude until the Iudgment of the Great Day Nor is it my opinion only But that of Estius Simplicius and Strigelius that the Sin of Self-love is set down First in The Black List as The Head-spring and Fountain of all the Rest. For I think I may challenge any man living without immodesty to Name any one Actual and Damning Sin which has not the Sin of Self-love for its most execrable Original It was meerly Self-love which turned Luciser into a Devil and made the Son of the Morning The Prince of Darkness It was the Sin of Self-love which turned those Protoplasts Adam and Eve out of their Innocence and by consequence out of their Paradise which they held and possessed by That one Tenure It was at first the Love of Self and of Self-preservation which moved Peter to renounce and abjure his Master And it was first a Self-love which produced in Iudas a love of Mony wherewith he was tempted to betray and to slay his Master Thence it was that Self-denial or Self-abnegation was the very first Lesson our Saviour taught his first Disciples And 't is the first we are to learn in the School of our Master Iesus Christ. It being the Causa-sine-qua-non of all other Duties in a Christian. For whosoever has once attain'd a good Degree of Self-denial or of Self-hatred for Sins committed can fast from eating when he is hungry and even from drinking when he is dry from stealing when he is Poor and from coveting when he is Rich from repining when he is low and from oppressing when he is lofty and so from every thing else which either is sinful in it self or so much as a Temptation inducing to it How did St. Peter when he repented revenge himself upon himself for his having so basely out of Self-love not only disown'd but forsworn his Lord He did not only deny Himself in opposition to his Denial of Jesus Christ But abhorr'd himself too in opposition to his Self-love which betray'd him to it How triumphant was his Faith and his Self-denial how triumphant over Himself and his former Cowardize how did he preach up Christ Crucified for which he was Crucified with his Head downwards and in All he did or suffer'd how did he bear down all before him not only all the World but the Flesh and the Devil too as mighty Cataracts and Torrents do sticks and straws So did Peter as well as Paul courageously sight the good sight of Faith Such in Him was That Faith which overcometh the World And when the Son of Man cometh to be the Judge of Quick and Dead Lord how much or rather how little shall he find of such fighting and conquering Faith upon the Earth § 11. This is infinitely far from That Carnal Faith which only works by Self-love All the Degrees of Disobedience to Christ's Commands No The Faith which He shall find in comparatively None that is to say in very few at his second Coming is such a Faith as strongly works by a Love of others which is said with great reason to be The fulfilling of the Law in Both the Tables of The Decalogue which our Blessed Lord came to fulfil and perfect not to abrogate or to destroy because 't is hard if not impossible for us to name any one Duty incumbent on us as Men or Christians which is not the Necessary Production of such a Love as Faith works by For as immoderate Self-love which consists with an human and worthless Faith is the Root
of All Evil without Exception so a truly Christian Faith which is operative and works by a due love of others a love of God with all our hearts and of our Neighbour as our selves cannot choose but be the Root of all the Good fruits to be imagin'd For how can any man indure to be rebelling against his God whom he does love with all his Soul and above Himself And how can any man knowingly suffer himself to be induced to wrong his Neighbour whom he does love without hypocrisie and As Himself that is as sincerely thô not as well or as well if you please thô not as much With a sicut similitudinis thô not aequalitatis In which sense 't is said by our Lord Himself Be ye perfect As your Father in Heaven is perfect He does not there say Be ye as perfect as he is perfect But be ye perfect as sincerely as he is perfect consummately Be ye That in your measure which He is without measure Be ye perfect comparatively as He is absolutely perfect For as God is said in Scripture to have made Man in his own Likeness so we may say by the same reason that he makes a Man's perfection thô at a vast and humble distance in the Similitude of his own Now if what I have said of a True Christian Faith as it works by Love and as it is the Substance of Things hoped for and as it is the Evidence of Things not seen and as 't is that whereby a Believer overcometh the world be duly compared with all before it touching the faithlesness and malignity the wants of love and common honesty wherewith the world is overcome 'T will not be difficult to conclude That when the Son of Man cometh let his coming be when it will He will find his own Prophecy fulfill'd amongst us § 12. Perhaps 't is too little a thing to mention either Cotterus or Dabricius or Christina Poniatovia however their Praedictions touching Christendom in general and particularly touching the whole House of Austria and That of Bourbon long and long ago printed are coming to pass in These our Days Nor will I apply That of David touching Absolom's Rebellion and the general Revolt occasion'd by it stigmatized in the Fourteenth and in the Three and fiftieth Psalm The Fool hath said in his Heart There is no God Where by the Fool he means a Multitude as appears by his next words The Lord looked down from Heaven upon the Children of Men to see if there were any that would understand and seek after God But they are all gone out of the way they are altogether become Abominable There is none that doth good no not one Nor will I descant upon That of the Prophet Micah The Good man is perished out of the Earth There is none upright among men They all lye in wait for Blood They hunt every man his Brother with a Net They do evil earnestly and that with Both hands The Iudge asketh for Reward The Great man uttereth his Mischievous Desire The Best of them is a Briar and the most Upright of them is sharper than any Thorn Hedge I do not speak of These things in this unlimited universality unless it be by a Paralipsis But This I think I may say with every man's suffrage and consent There is so eminent a Defection from God and Goodness throughout the World that Most do seem to have renounced and to have utterly cast off All Fear and Care if not Acknowledgment of the most High The Tongues of men are their own their Thoughts are free their Wills invisible and the secrets of their Hearts are known to God only The Searcher of them But yet as far as mens Actions are the Interpreters of their Hearts and as far as they discover an Epidemical Decay of Christian strictness a Decay of That Seriousness in Reality and Substance which some poor Quakers retain in Shew a Decay of all Duties to God and Man a Decay of Moral Honesty and Humanity it self and which is the Top of all Impiety a devilish blending and confounding the very Natures of Right and Wrong a turning Religion Topsy Turvy calling Evil Good and Good Evil putting Bitter for Sweet and Sweet for Bitter Light for Darkness and Darkness for Light holding Perjury and Parricide Killing of Kings and Subverting of Kingdoms not only Innocent but Pious not only Laudable and Vertuous but the most highly Meritorious and Supererogating Works of the purest Christians nor only of the purest but of the only true Christians in all the World the Only Members of the true Church and Only Heirs of Salvation whilst they who dare not break Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy dare not rail at and libel the Laws in force dare not rebel against their Governours dare not fall down and worship the Jesuites Idol even for This very Reason are Damn'd for ever I say as far as men's Actions are Thus the Indices of their Hearts we may conclude there is a Principle of downright Atheism within them at least an Heathenish Belief that their Souls are not Immortal and that for what they do in This they shall not be brought to give Accompt in Another World § 13. I am far from undertaking what yet some have done to name the last Days of the Son of Man or the Time of his coming to the avenging of His Elect and to judge the World But of This I am certain because I have it from his own Mouth as well as from the Mouths of Three at least of his Apostles that we must not infer the Day of Doom is far off because there are few prepare for it and even the wisest do not expect it No It 's seeming very far off is rather a Sign of its Approach For The Scriptures tell us expresly That Christ at his Coming will surprize us as a Thief in the Night His Coming for Quickness will be like lightning It shall be as suddain saith our Lord as Noah's Deluge was to All Noah himself being excepted They did eat they drank they married wives even until the very day of Noah's entring into the Ark when behold the Flood came and destroy'd them All. It shall at least be as surprising as was the shooting of Hell from Heaven in the Days of Lot And how surprising That was our Saviour tells us in the next words They did eat they drank they bought they sold they planted they builded unto which it may be added they play'd they sported they were indulging all their Lusts when behold the same day wherein Lot went out of Sodom The Fire and Brimstone rained down and destroy'd them All. So swift so suddain so surprising shall be The Day of The Son of Man's Coming to judge the World Watch therefore says our Saviour for ye know not what hour your Lord will come Heaven and Earth shall pass away But of That day and hour knoweth no man says he again no not the