able to do But in the mean time what an insufferable perversion of the Written Word is it to affix such a sence to any Text of it as this forced Exposition here does which manifestly turns a most Devout Confession to Almighty God into a piece of Courtship a Principal Truth into a meer Trope or Figure and in a word one of the highest Duties of a Christian into a false fulsome and at best an Empty Expression And so I pass to the III. Condition required to render an Action meritorious and that is That there be an Equal Proportion of Value between the Action and the Reward This being evident from the foundation already laid by us to wit That the Nature of Merit consists properly in Exchange and that we know must proceed according to a Parity of Worth on both sides Commutation being most properly between things Equivalent But now the Prize we run for in all our Religious performances is no less a thing than Life Eternal and a Beatifick Enjoyment of God Himself for ever And can any Man not quite abandoned by his Reason imagine a few weak broken Actions a competent Price for Heaven and Immortality And fit to be laid in the balance with an Exceeding and Eternal Weight of Glory Is there any thing in Dust and Ashes that can deserve to dwell with God and to converse with Angels Oâ— can we who live by sense and act by sense do any thing worthy of those joy which not only exceed our senses but also transcend our Intellectuals Can wâ— do beyond what we can Think And Deserve beyond what we can do For let us rate our best and most Exact services according to the strict Rules of Morality and what Man is able to carry so steady an hand in any Religious performance as to observe all those Conditions that are absolutely necessary to answer the full Measures of the Law No this is such a pitch of Acting as the present strengths of Nature must not pretend to And if not how can an Action short of complete Morality set up for Meritorious The Papists we know in their disputes upon this subject distinguish of merit into that which is de Condigno which merits a Reward upon Terms of Iustice and by Reason of the inherent Worth and Value of the Work done and that on the other side to be de Congruo which though it cannot claim a Reward upon those Terms and and from the Precise Worth and Value of the Work it self yet is such that God would not act sutably and congruously to the Equity and Goodness of his Nature if He should not reward it These two sorts of Merit I say they hold but are not yet agreed which of the two they should state the Merit of their good works upon For some boldly assert that they merit the former way to wit by their own inherent worth and value And some that they merit only the latter way that is by being such as the Equity and Goodness of God cannot but Reward And lastly Others as particularly Bellarmine hold that they merit both ways to wit partly by Condignity and partly by Congruity In Answer to which without disputing any thing against their Merit of Condignity since it more than sufficiently confutes it self I utterly deny the whole foundation of their Merit de Congruo as to any Obligation on God's Part to reward our Religious Services upon the score of Equity since upon that account God can be under no Obligation to do any thing For as much as therâ— is no such thing as Equity in God distinct from his Iustice and Mercy and the Exercise of his mercy must on all hands needs be granted to be free how much soever that of his Iustice may by some be thought otherwise Amongst Men I confess there is such an Obligation as that of Equity and the reason is because Men stand obliged by a Superior Law to exercise mercy as well as Iustice which God does not and therefore though there may be such a thing as a Meritum de Congruo between man and man yet between God and man since God is under no Obligation to shew mercy where His own Word has not first obliged Him no such Merit can take place But besides This is not the point Whether or no it be Congruous to the Goodness of God for Him to reward such or such Actions For there may be many Thousands of Things and Actions very Congruous for God to do which yet by his Nature He is not obliged to do nor ever will do So â—hat the bare Congruity of any Thing or Action to the Divine Nature lays no obligation upon God to do it at all But the point lies here to wit whether it be so Congruous to God to reward the Obedience and good Actions of men that it is incongruous to his Nature not to do it and this I utterly deny For if it were Incongruous to his Nature not to reward them it would be necessary for him to reward them and then indeed Merit must upon Equal necessity take Place But if God be not bound to reward every Act which it may be suitable or Congruous for him to reward as we have shewn that he is not then Meritum de Congruo is but Merit equivocally so called and the forementioned Division of Merit is not a Division of a Genus into Two several Species but only a Distribution of an Equivocal Term into its several Significations and Consequently to give the Name of Merit with respect to God to that which is so only de Congruo is a meer Trifâ—ing about Words without any regard had to the sence of them Nor let any one here Object the frequent use of the Terms mereri and meâ—â—ritum by the Fathers and other Ancient Church-Writers for they use them not in a Sence importing Claim upon the score of strict Iustice but only as they signify the Actual obtainment of any thing from God upon the Stock of Free-Promise by Coming up to the Conditions of it which by no means reaches that sence of the word which we have been hitherto disputing against In short therefore the Question stands thus Does this Meritum do Congruo from the Nature of the Thing it self oblige God to reward it or does it not If it does then I am sure that Merit of Condignity does the same and can do no more and so the Distinction between them is but Verbal and superfluous But if on the other hand it does not oblige God then I affirm that it is not so much as Merit for where there is no Obligation on one side there can be no Merit on the other To which we may add this further consideration that the asserting of such a Merit of Congruity is altogether as Arrogant as to assert that of Condignity forasmuch as it equally binds God and brings him under as great a necessity of Rewarding as the other can and that not by Reason of
his own Free-Word and Promise obliging him to it of which more anon but because of a certain Worth and Value inherent in the Work it self which makes it incongruous and consequently Impossible for God not to reward it Since it must needs be impossible for him to do any thing Incongruous to himself or to any of his Attributes From all which it follows That the Third Condition required to make an Action meritorious is here failing also Which is That the Excellency of the Work be commensurate to the Value of the Reward And so I am come at length to the Fourth and Last Condition or Ingredient of merit And that is That he who does a Work whereby he would merit of another do it solely by his own strength and not by the strength or Power of him from whom he is to merit The Reason of which is Because otherwise the Work would not be entirely a mans own And where there is no Property there can be no Exchange All Exchange being the Alienation of one Property or Title for another And I have all along shewn that the Nature of Merit is founded in Commutation But now how great an Hand or rather What a Total Influence God has in all our Actions that known Maxim jointly received both by Heathens and Christians sufficiently demonstrates namely That in him we live and move and have our Being And so intimately and inseparably does this Influence joyn it self with all the motions of the Creature that it puzzles the Deepest and most Acute Philosophers to distinguish between the Actions of second Causes and the Concurrence of the first so as to rescue them from a downright Identity Accordingly in Philip. 2.13 the Apostle tells us That it is God who worketh in us not only to do but also to will according to his good Pleasure And if in every good Inclination as well as Action God be the Worker we must needs be the Recipient Subjects of what is wrought and to be Recipient certainly is not meritorious In all the Actions of Men though we naturally fix our Eye only upon some Visible Agent yet still there is a secret Invisible Spring which is the first mover of and conveys an Activity to every Power and Faculty both of Soul and Body though it be discerned by neither Upon which account it is that St. Austin says That in all that God does for us He only Crowns His own Works in us the same Hand still enabling us to do which shall hereafter reward us for what we have done And if according to these Terms and those Words also of the Spouse to the same purpose Cantic 1.4 Draw me and I will follow Thee our Coming to God be from nothing else but from His Drawing us to Himself how can we merit of Him by our following Him or Coming to Him For can any one obligeâ— me by a Present bought with my own Money or by giving me that which I first gave Him And yet the Case here is much the same For as apt as we are to flatter our selves and to Think and speak big upon this subject yet in Truth by all that we do or can do we do but return God something of His own Much like the Rivers which come rolling with a mighty noise and poâ—â—â— themselves into the Sea and yet as High as they swell and as loud as they Roar they only restore the Sea her own Waters That which flows into her in one Place having been first Drawn from her in another In a Word can the Earth repay the Heavens for their Influences and the Clouds for that Verdure and Fertility which they bestow upon it or can Dirt and Dunghils requite the Sun and the Light for shining upon them No certainly and yet what poor shadows and faint Representations are these of that Infinitely Greater Inability even of the Noblest of God's Creatures to present Him with any Thing which they were not first Beholden to Him for It is Clear therefore That since Man in all his Duties and Services never had any Thing of his own to set up with but has Trafficked all along upon a Borrowed stock the fourth and last Condition required to make his Performances meritorious utterly fails him And thus I have distinctly gone over the several Conditions of Merit As First That the Meritorious Act be not Due Secondly That it really add to and better the Condition of Him from whom it merits Thirdly That there be a Parity of Value between the Work and the Reward And Fourthly and Lastly That it be done by the sole strength of him who merits and not by the Help and Strength of Him from Whom he merits These four I say are the Essential Ingredients and Indispensable Conditions of Merit And yet not one of them all agrees to the very best of Mans Actions with reference to Almighty God Nevertheless in despight of all these Deplorable Impotences we see what a Towring Principle of Pride works in the hearts of Men and how mightily it makes them affect to be their own Saviours and even while they live upon God to Depend upon themselves To be Poor and Proud being the truest Character of Man ever since the Pride of our first Parents threw us into this forlorn Condition And thus I have finished the second and main Particular proposed from the wordâ— and Expressed in them Namely That it is Impossible for men by their best services to merit of Godâ— or be Profitable to Him I proceed now to the Third Particular which exhibits to us something by Way of Inference from the Two former to wit That this Perswasion of Man's being able to merit of God is the source and foundation of Two of the Greatest Corruptions of Religion that have infested the Christian Church and those are Pelagianism and Popery And First For Pelagianism It chiefly springs from and is resolvable into this one Point namely That a Man contributes something of his own which he had not from God towards his own Salvation and that not a bare something only but such a something also as is the Principal and most Effectual Cause of his Salvation For as much as that which he receives from God according to Pelagius is only a Power to Will and to Do Which a man may very well have and carry to Hell with him as those who go to Hell no doubt do But that which obtains Heaven and actually saves a Man is the Right use of that Power and the free Determination of His Will which as the same Pelagius teaches a Man has Wholly from himself and accordingly may wholly thank Himself for So that in answer to that Question of the Apostle 1 Cor. 4.7 Quis te discrevit Who made Thee to differ from Another and that as to the grand Discrimination of Saint and Reprobate The Pelagian must reply if he will speak pertinently and consistently with himself Why I made my self to differ by using the Powers which God
gave me as I should do which my Neighbour did not and for that Reason I go to Heaven and he to Hell and as he can blame none but himself for the One â—o I am beholden to None but my self for the Other This I say is the main of the Pelagian Divinity though much more compendiously delivered in that known but lewd Aphorism of theirs A Deo habemus quòd sumus Homines à nobis autem ipsis quod sumus Iusti. To which we may add another of their Principlâ—â— to wit That if a man does all that Naturally he can do still understanding hereby the Present State of Nature God is bound in Iustice to supply whatsoever more shall be Necessary to his Salvation Which Premisses if they do not directly and unavoidably infer in Man a Power of meriting of God the World is yet to seek what the Nature and Notion of Merit is Accordingly both Gelasius and St. Austin in setting down the Points wherein the Catholick Church differed from the Pelagians assign this for one of the chief That the Pelagians held Gratiam Dei secundùm Hominum merita conferri And the Truth is upon their Principles a man may even merit the Incarnation of Christ For if there be no saving Grace without it and a Man may do that which â—hall oblige God in Iustice to vouchsafe him such Grace as with no small self-contradiction these Men use to speak then let them Qualify and Soften the matter with what Words they Please I affirm that upon these Terms a Man really merits his Salvation and by Consequence all that is or can be necessary thereunto In the mean time throughout all this Pelagian Scheme we have not so much as one Word of Mans Natural Impotency to Spiritual Things though inculcated and wrote in both Testaments with a Sun-beam nor consequently of the Necessity of some Powerful Divine Energy to Bend Encline and effectually Draw Mans Will to such Objects as it Naturally resists and is averse to Not a Word I say of this or any Thing like it for those Men used to explode and deny it all as their Modern Off-spring amongst us also do And yet this passed for sound and good Divinity in the Church in St. Austin's time and within less thâ—â— an hundred years since in our Church too till Pelagianism and Socâ—nianism Deism Tritheism Atheism and a Spirit of Innovation the Root of all and Worse than all broke in upon us and by false Schemes of Models countenanced and encouraged have given quite a new face to Things though a new face is certainly the worst and most unbecoming that can be set upon an old Religion But Secondly To proceed to another sort of men famous for corrupting Christianity more ways than one to wit those of the Church of Rome We shall find that this Doctrine of Mans being able to merit of God is one of the Chief Foundations of Popery also Even the Great Diana which some of the most Experienced Craftsmen in the World do with so much Zeal Sacrifice to and make shrines for and by so doing Get their living and that a very plentyful and Splendid One too As knowing full well that without it the Grandeur of their Church which is all their Religion would quickly fall to the Ground For if there be no merit of good Works then no Supererogation and if no Supererogation no Indulgences and if no Indulgences then it is to be feared that the Silversmiths Trade will run low and the Credit of the Pontifical Bank begin to fail So that the very marrow the life and Spirit of Popery lies in a stiff adherence to this Doctrine The Grand Question still insisted upon by these Merchants being Quid dabitis and the great Commodity set to sale by them being merit For can any one think that the Pope and his Cardinals and the rest of their Ecclesiastical Grandees care a Rush whether the Will of Man be free or No as the Jesuits state the Freedom of it on the one side and Dominicans and Jansenists on the other or that they at all concern themselves about Iustification and Free Grace but only as the Artificial stating of such Points may sometimes serve them in their Spiritual Traffick and now and then help them to Turn the Penny No they Value not their Schools any further than they furnish their Markets nor regard any Gospel but that of Cardinal Palaviâ—cini which professedly owns it for the main design of Christianity to make Men as Rich as Great and as Happy as they can be in this World And the Grand Instrument to compass all this by is the Doctrine of Merit For how else could it be That so many in that Communion should be able to satisfy themselves in doing so much less than they know they are required to do for the saving of their Souls but that they are taught to believe that there are some again in the World who do a great deal more than they are bound to do and so may very well keep their Neighbours lamp from going out by having oyl enough both to supply their own and a comfortable Overplus besides to lend or which is much better to Sell in such a Case In a Word take away the Foundation and the House must fall and in like manner beat down Merit and down goes Popery too And so at length that I may not trespass upon your Patience too much I descend to the Fourth and Last Particular proposed at â—â—â—st from the Words Which was to remove an Objection naturally apt to issue â—â—om the Foregoing Particulars The Objection is obvious and the Answer to it needs not be long It proceeds thus If the Doctrine hitherto advanced be True can there be a Greater discouragement to Men in their Christian course than to consider that all their Obedience all their Duties and Choicest performances are Nothing Worth in the sight of God and that they themselves after they have done their Best their Vtmost and their very All in His service are still for all that Vseless and Vnprofitable and such as can Plead no Recompence at all at His hands This You will say is very hard but to it I Answer First That it neither ought nor uses to be any Discouragement to a Begger â—s we all are in respect of Almighty God to continue asking an Alms and doing all that he can to obtain it though he knows he can do Nothing to Claim it But Secondly I deny That our Disavoâ—â—ing this Doctrine of Merit cuts us 〈◊〉 from all Plea to a Recompence for our Châ—â—stian Obedience at the hands of God It cuts us off indeed from all Plea to it upon the score of Condignity and strict Iustice But then should we not on the other side consider whether God's Iustice be the only Thing that can oblige Him in Hiâ— transactings with Men For does not Hâ—â— Veracity and His Promise oblige Him aâ— much as His Iustice can And has Hâ—
fail of the Prize he runs for by mistaking the Way he should run in St. Paul as plainly as words can express a Thing tells us That Eternal Life is the Gift of God and Consequently to be expected by us only as such nay He asserts it to be a Gift in the very same verse in which He affirms Death to be as due to a Sinner as Wages are to a Worke man Romans 6.23 Than which Words nothing certainly can be more full and Conclusive That Salvation proceeds wholly upon Free-gift though Damnation upon strict Desert Nevertheless such is the Extreme folly or rather Sottishness of Manâ— Corrupt Nature That this does by 〈◊〉 means Satisfy Him For though indeed he would fain be Happy yet fain would He also Thank none for it but Himself And though He finds that not only His Duty but His Necessity brings him every day upon His knees to Almighty God for the very Bread he eats yet when he comes to deal with Him about Spirituals things of infinitely greater Value he appears and acts not as a Suppliant but as a Merchant not as One who comes to be Relieved but to Traffick For something he would receive of God and something he would Give Him and nothing will content this Insolent yet Impotent Creature unless he may seem to Buy the very Thing he Begs Such being the Pride and Baseness of some Spirits that where they Receive a Benefit too big for them to requite they will even Deny the Kindness and disown the Obligation Now this great self-delusion so prevalent upon most minds is the Thing here encountered in the Text. The words of which by an usual way of speech under an Interrogation couching a Positive Assertion are a Declaration of the Impossibility of man's being Profitable to God or which is all one of his meriting of God according to the true proper and strict sence of Merit Noâ— does this Interrogative way of Expression import only a bare Negation of the Thing as in it self Impossible but also a manifest Undeniable Evidence of the said Impossibility As if it had been said That nothing can be more plainly Impossible than for a man to be Profitable to God for God to receive any Advantage by man's Righteousness or to gain any Thing by his making his Ways perfect and Consequently That nothing can be more absurd and contrary to all Sense and Reason â—â—an for a man to entertain and cherish so irrational a Conceit or to affirm so gross a Paradox And that no other Thing is here meant by a man's being profitable to God but his meritiâ—â— of God will appear from a true State and Account of the Nature of Merit Which we may not improperly define A Right to receive some good upon the score of some good done together with an Equiâ—olence or Parity of Worth between the Good to be Received and the Good Done So that although according to the Common Divisâ—â—n of Iustice into Commutative and Distributive that which is called Commutative be imployed only about the strict Value of Things according to an Arithmetical Proportion as the Schools speak which admits of no Degrees and the other species of Iustice call'd Distributive as consisting in the Distribution of Rewards and Punishments admits of some Latitude and degrees in the Dispensation of it yet in Truth even this Distribution it self must so far follow the Rules of Commutation That the Good to be dispensed by way of Reward ought in Iustice to be Equivalent to the Work or Action which it is design'd as a Compensation of So as by no means to sink below it or fall short of the full Value of it From all which upon a just Estimate of the matter it follows That in true Philosophy Merit is nothing else but an Instance or Exemplification of that Noted saying or Maxim That one Benefaction or good Turn requires another and imports neither more nor less than a mans claim or Title to Receive as much Good from another as he had done for him Thus much therefore being premised as an Explication of the Drift or Design of the Words the Words themselves being too plain and Easy to need any further exposition we shall observe and draw from them these Four Particulars First Something supposed or implyed in them viz. That Men are naturally very Prone to entertain an Opinion or Perswasion That they are able to merit of God or be Profitable to Him Secondly Something expressed namely That such an Opinion or Perswasion is utterly false and absurd and that it iâ— impossible for man to merit of God or to be Profitable to Him Thirdly Something Inferred from both the former to wit That the forementioned Opinion or Perswasion is the very source or foundation of Two of the greatest Corruptions that have infested the Christian Church and Religion And Fourthly and Lastly Something objected against the Particulars discoursed of which I shall endeavour â—o answer and remove and so Conclude this Discourse Of Each of which in their order And First For the first of them The Thing supposed or Implyed in the Words namely That Men are naturally very Prone to entertain an Opinion or Perswasion That they are able to merit of God or be Profitable to Him The Truth of which will appear from these two Considerations First That it is Natural for them to place too High a Value both upon themselves and their own Performances And that this is so is evident from that Vniversal Experience which proves it no less Natural to them to bear a more than ordinary Love to themselves and all Love we know is founded in and results from a Proportionable Esteem of the Object Loved So that look in what Degree any Man loves himself in the same Degree it will follow that he must Esteem himself too Upon which account it is that every Man will be sure to set his own Price upon what he is and what he does whether the World will come up to it or no as it seldom does That speech of St. Peter to our Saviour is very remarkable in Mat. xix 27 Master says he we have forsook all and followed Thee what shall we have therefore In which words he seems to be upon Equal Terms with his Lord and to expect no more of him as he thought but strictly a Pennyworth for his Penny and all this from a Conceit that he had done an Aâ— so exceedingly Meritorious that it must even Non-plus his Master's Bouâ—â—y to quit scores with him by a just Requital Nay so far had the same proud Ferment got into the Minds of all the Disciples that neither could their own low condition nor the constant Sâ—rmons of that Great Example of Self-denial and Humility whom they daily conversed with nor lastly the Correctives of a Peculiar Grace totally clear and cure them of it And therefore no Wonder if a Principle so deeply rooted in Nature works with the whole Power of Nature and considering also â—he
them I know not but I am sure it is so far from teaching them to Love their Enemies that they found their bitterest Enmities and most Inveterate hatreds only upon Religion which has taught them first to call their Malice Zeal and then to think it their Duty to be Malicious and Implacable 3. An Enemy may be the proper Object of our Love because though perhaps he is not capable of being changed and made a Friend by it which for any thing I know is next to Impossible yet he is capable of being shamed and rendred Inexcusable And shame may smooth over his Behaviour though no kindness can change his Disposition Upon which account it is that so far as a Man shames his Enemy so far he also disarms him For he leaves him stript of the Assistance and good Opinion of the World round about him without which it is impossible for any Man living to be Considerable either in his Friendships or his Enmities Love is the Fire that must both heap and kindle those Coals upon our Enemies Heads that shall either Melt or Consume Him For that Man I account as good as consumed and ruined whom all People even upon the common concern of Mankind abhor for his Ingratitude as a Pest and a Publick Enemy So that if my Enemy is resolved to treat me Spightfully notwithstanding all my endeavours to befriend and oblige Him and if he will still revile and rail at me after I have employed both Tongue and Hand to serve and promote Him surely I shall by this means at least make his Virulent words Recoil upon his Bold Face and his Foul Mouth and so turn that stream of publick Hatred and Detestation justly upon Himself which he was endeâ—vouring to bring upon me And if I do no more it is yet worth while even upon a Temporal Account to obey this Precept of Christ of Loving my Enemy And thus much for the first general Argument to enforce this Duty grounded upon the Condition of my Enemies Person 2. A Second Motive or Argument to the same shall be taken from the excellency of the Duty it self It is the highest Perfection that Humane Nature can reach unto It is an Imitation of the Divine Goodness which shines upon the heâ—ds and rains upon the fields of the Sinful and Unjust and heaps Blessings upon those who are busy only to heap up wrath to themselves To Love â—n Enemy is to stretch Humanity as far as it will go It is an Heroick Action and such an one as grows not upon an ordinary Plebiean Spirit The Excellency of the Duty is sufficiently proclaimed by the difficulty of its Practice For how hard is it when the Passions are high and the sense of an Injury quick and Power ready for a Man to deny himself in that luscious morsel of Revenge To do Violence to himself instead of doing it to his Enemy and to command down the strongest Principles and the greatest heats that usually act the Soul when it exerts it self upon such objects And the difficulty of such a behaviour is no less declared by its being so rarely and seldom observed in Men. For who almost can we see who opens his Arms to his Enemies or puts any other bounds to his hatred of him but satiety or disability either because it is even glutted with having done so much against him already or wants Power to do more Indeed where such a Pitch of Love is found it appears glorious and glistering in the Eyes of all and much admired and commended it is but yet for the most part no otherwise than as we see Men Admiring and Commending some rare piece of Art which they never intend to Imitate nor so much as to attempt an Imitation of Nothing certainly but an Excellent Disposition improved by a mighty grace can bear a Man up to this perfection 3. The third Motive or Argument shall be drawn from the great Examples which recommend this Duty to us And first of all from that of our Blessed Saviour whose Footsteps in the Paths of Love we may trace out and follow by his own Blood He gave his Life for Sinners That is for Enemies yea and Enemies with the highest aggravation for nothing can make one Man so much an Enemy to another as Sin makes him an Enemy to God I say unto you Love your Enemies says Christ That is I emphatically I who say it by my Example as much as by my Precept For Christ went about doing good Acts 10.38 Yea and he did it still in a Miracle Every work that he did was Equally Beneficial and Miraculous And the place where he did such Wonders of Charity was Ierusalem a City red with the blood God's Messengers and Paved with the Sculls of Prophets A City which He knew would shortly compleat all its Cruelty and impiety in His own Murder though He was the promised and long expected Messias And in the Prologue to this Murder his Violent Attachment when one of his Enemies was wounded he bestowed a Miracle upon his Cure So tender was he of his Mortal Enemies Like a Lamb that affords wherewithal both to feed and cloath its very Butcher Nay and while he was actually hanging upon the Cross he uttered a passionate prayer for the forgiveness of his Murderers So desirous was he that though they had the sole Acting yet that He himself should have the whole feeling of their Sin In fine now that He sits at the Right hand of his Father Triumphant and governing the World from whence he could with much more ease confound his most dareing Enemies than the most Potent Grandee can crush his meanest and most servile dependants yet he treats them with all the methods of Patience and Arts of Reconcilement and in a word endures with much long suffering those Vessels of Wrath who seem even Resolved to Perish and obstinately set to fit themselves for destruction And now though after such an Example this sort of Argument for the Loving our Enemies can be carryed no higher yet blessed be God that is not so wholly Exhausted by any one Example but that it may be carried further and that by several Instances which though they do by no meanâ— come up to a just Comparison with it yet ought to be owned for noble Imitations of it And such an one this happy Day affords us a day Consecrated to the solemn Commemoration of the Nativity and Return of a Prince who having been most barbarously driven out of his Kingdoms and afterwards as miraculously restored to them brought with him the greatest the brightest and most stupendious Instance of this Vertue that next to what has been observed of our Saviour himself was ever yet shewn by Man Providence seeming to have raised up this Prince as â—t had done his Father before Him to give the World a Glorious Demonstration that the most injured of Men might be the most merciful of Men too For after the highest of wrongs and Contumelies
that a Soveraign could suffer from his Subjects Scorning all Revenge as more below him than the very Persons whom he might have been revenged upon he gloried in nothing so much as in giving Mercy the upper hand of Majesty it self making Amnesty his Symbol or Motto and Forgiveness the peculiar signalizing Character of his Reign herein Resembling the Almighty Himself as far as mortality can who seems to claim a greater Glory for Sparing and Redeeming Man than for Creating Him So that in a word as our Saviour has made Love to our Enemies one of the Chiefest badges of our Religion so our King has almost made it the very mark of our Allegiance Thus even to a Prodigy Merciful has he shewn Himself Merciful by Inclination and merciful by Extraction merciful in his Example and merciful in hiâ— Laws and thereby expressing the utmost dutifulness of a Son as well as the highest Magnanimity and Clemency of a Prince while He is still making that good upon the Throne which the Royal Martyr his Father had enjoined upon the Scaffold where He dyed pardoning and praying for those whose malice he was then falling a Victim to And this with a Charity so unparallell'd and a devotion so â—ervent that the Voice of his Prayers 't is to be hoped drowned the very Cry of his Blood But I Love not to dwell upon such Tragedies save only to illustrate the height of one Contrary by the height of another and therefore as an humble follower of the Princely Pattern here set before us I shall draw a Veil of silence over all especially since it surpasses the Power of Words sufficiently to set forth either the greatness of the Crimes forgiven or of the mercy that forgave them But to draw to a close We have here had the highest and the hardest Duty perhaps belonging to a Christian both recommended to our Judgment by Argument and to our Practice by Example and what remains but that we submit our Iudgment to the one and govern our Practice by the other And for that Purpose that we beg of God an Assistance equal to the Difficulty of the Duty enjoyned for certainly it is not an ordinary measure of Grace that can conquer the opposition that Flesh and Blood and corrupt Reason it self after all its convictions will be sure to make to it The greatest miseries that befall us in this World are from Enemies and so long as Men naturally desire to be happy it will be naturally as hard to them to Love those who they know are the grand Obstacles to their being so The Light of Nature will convince a Man of many Duties which it will never enable him to perform And if we should look no further than bare Nature this seems to be one cut out rather for our Admiration than our Practice It being not more difficult where Grace does not Interpose to cut off a Right Hand than to reach it heartily to the Relief of an inveterate Implacable Adversary And yet God expects this from us and that so peremptorily that he has made the Pardon of our Enemies the Indispensable Condition of our own And therefore that Wretch whosoever he was who being pressed hard upon his Death-Bed to Pardon a notable Enemy which he had answered That if He died indeed he Pardoned Him but if He lived He would be Revenged on Him That Wretch I say and every other such Image of the Devil no doubt went out of the World so that he had better never have come into it In fine after we have said the utmost upon this Subject that we can I believe we shall find this the Result of all That He is an happy Man who has no Enemies and he a much happier who has never so many and can Pardon them God preserve us from the one or enable us to do the other To whom be rendred and ascribed as is most due all Praise Might Majesty and Dominion both now and for evermore Amen False Foundations removed AND True ones laid for such Wise Builders as design to build for Eternity IN A SERMON Preached at St. Mary's Oxon before the University Decem. 10. 1661. MATT. VII 26 27. And every one that heareth these sayings of Mine and doth them not shall be likened unto a foolish Man which built his House upon the Sand. And the Rain descended and the Floods came and the Winds blew and beat upon that House and it fell and great was the fall of it IT seems to have been all along the Prime Art and method of the great Enemy of Souls not being able to root the Sense of Religion out of Mens hearts yet by his Sophistries and Delusions to defeat the Design of it upon their Lives and either by empty Notions or false perswasions to take them off from the main business of Religion which is Duty and Obedience by bribing the Conscience to rest satisfyed with something less A project extremely sutable to the corrupt Nature of Man whose chief or rather sole quarrel to Religion is the severity of its Precepts and the Difficulty of their Practice So that although it is as Natural for him to desire to be happy as to breath yet he had rather lose and miss of happiness than seek it in the way of Holiness Upon which Account nothing speaks so full and home to the very inmost Desires of his Soul as those Doctrines and Opinions which would perswade him that it may and shall be well with him hereafter without any Necessity of his living well here Which great Mystery of Iniquity being carefully managed by the utmost skill of the Tempter and greedily embraced by a Man 's own Treacherous affections lies at the bottom of all false Religions and eats out the very Heart and Vitals of the True For in the strength of this some hope to be saved by Believing well some by Meaning well some by Paying well and some by shedding a few insipid Tears and uttering a few hard words against those Sins which they have no other Controversy with but that they were so unkind as to leave the Sinner before he was willing to leave them For all this Men can well enough submit to as not forceing them to abandon any one of their Beloved Lusts. And therefore they will not think themselves hardly dealt with though you require Faith of them if you will but dispense with Good Works They will abound and even overflow with good Intentions if you will allow them in quite contrary Actions And you shall not want for Sacrifice if that may Compound for Obedience nor Lastly will they grudge to find Money if some body else will find Merit But to Live well and to Do well are Things of too hard a Digestion Accordingly our Saviour who well knew all these false hopes and Fallacious Reasonings of the Heart of Man which is never so subtle as when it would deceive it self tells his hearers that all these little trifling Inventions will avail them
but not its Channel The Water arises in one Place but it streams in another and Fountains would not be so much valued if they did not produce Rivers One great End of Religion is to proclaim and publish God's Sovereignty and there is no such way to Cause Men to Glorify our Heavenly Father as by Causing our Light to shine before them Which I am sure it cannot do but as it beams through our good Works When a Man leads a Pious and Good Life every hour he Lives is virtually an Act of Worship But if inward Grace is not exerted and drawn forth into outward Practice Men have no Inspection into our Hearts to discern it there And let this be fixed upon as a standing Principle That it is not possible for us to Honour God before men but only by those Acts of Worship that are observeable by men It is our Faith indeed that recognizes Him for our God but it is our Obedience only that declares Him to be our Lord. Secondly The other End of Religion in this World is the good and mutual advantage of Mankind in the Way of Society And herein did the admirable Wisdom and Goodness of God appear that He was pleased to calculate and contrive such an Instrument to govern as might also benefit the World God planted Religion amongst Men as a Tree of Life which though it was to spring upwards directly to Himself yet it was to spread its Branches to the Benefit of all below There is hardly any Necessity or Convenience of Mankind but what is in a large measure serv'd and provided for by this great blessing as well as Business of the World Religion And he who is a Christian is not only a better Man but also a better Neighbour a better Subject and a truer Friend than he that is not so For was ever any thing more for the good of Mankind than to forgive Injuries to love and caress our mortal adversaries and instead of our Enemy to hate only our Revenge Of such a double yet benign Aspect is Christianity both to God and Man like Incense while it ascends to Heaven it perfumes all about it at the same time both Instrumental to God's Worship and the worshippers Refreshment As it holds up one hand in Supplication so it reaches forth the other in Benefaction But now if it be one great End of Religion thus to contribute to the support and Benefit of Society surely it must needs consist in the Active Piety of our Lives not in Empty Thoughts and Fruitless perswasions For what can one Man be the better for what Another Thinks or Believes When a Poor Man begs an Alms of me can I believe my Bread into his Mouth or my Money into his Hand Believing without Doing is a very Cheap and Easy but withal a very Worthless way of being Religious And thus having given the Reasons why the Active part of Religion is the only sure Bottom for us to build upon I now proceed to the second Thing Proposed namely to shew Those false and Sandy Foundations which many venture to build upon and are aâ—â—ordingly deceived by Which though they are exceedingly Various and according to the multiplicity of Mens tempers businesses and occasions almost Infinite and like the Sand mentioned in my Text not only infirm but Numberless also yet according to the best of my poor Judgment and Observation I shall reduce them to these three heads The First of which is a Naked Unoperative Faith ask but some upon what Grounds they look to be saved and they will answer because they firmly believe that through the Merits of Christ their Sins are forgiven them But since it is hard for a Man in his right wits to be confident of a Thing which he does not at all know such as are more Cautious will tell you further That to desire to Believe is to Believe and to desire to Repent is to Repent But as this is absurd and impossible since no Act can be its own Object without being not it self for as much as the Act and the Object are distinct things and consequently a desire to believe can no more be Belief than a desire to be saved can be Salvation so it is further intolerable upon this Account that it quite dispirits Religion by placing it in Languid Abortive Velleities and so cuts the Nerves of all Endeavour by rating Glory at a bare Desire and Eternity at a Wish But because the Poyson of this Opinion does so easily enter and so strangely intoxicate I shall presume to give an Antidote against it in this one observation namely That all along the Scripture Where Justification is ascribed to Faith alone There the word Faith is still used by a Metonymy of the Antecedent for the Consequent and does not signify abstractedly a meer Perswasion but the Obedience of an Holy Life performed in the strength and vertue of such a Perswasion Not that this Justifies meritoriously by any inherent Worth or Value in it self but instrumentally as a Condition appointed by God upon the performance of which He freely imputes to us Christ's Righteousness which is the sole proper and formal Cause of our Justification So that That Instrumentality which some in the Business of Justification attribute to one single Act of Credence is by this ascribed to the whole aggregate Series of Gospel Obedience as being that which gives us a Title to a perfect Righteousness without us by which alone we stand justified before God And this seems with full accord both to Scripture and Reason to state the Business of Justification by an equal poize both against the Arrogant Assertions of Self-Iusticiaries on the one hand and the wild Opinions of the Antinomians on the other But whether the Obedience of a Pious Life performed out of a Belief or Perswasion of the Truth of the Gospel ought to pass for that Faith which Justifies or only for the Effect or Consequent of it yet certainly it is such an Effect as issues by a kind of con-natural constant Efficiency and Result from it So that how much soever they are distinguishable by their Respective Actions from one another they are absolutely Inseparable by a mutual and a necessary Connexion it belonging no less to the Faith which Justifies to be Operative than to Justify Indeed upon an Essential Account more For as much as it is Operative by its Nature but Justifies only by Institution Secondly The second false Ground which some build upon is a fond Reliance upon the goodness of their Heart and the Honesty of their Intention A profitable and therefore a very prevailing fallacy And such an one as the Devil seldom uses but with success It being one of his old and long experimented Fetches by the Pretences of a Good Heart to supplant the Necessity of a Good Life But to alledge the Honesty of the Mind against the Charge of an Evil Course is a Protestation against the Fact which does not Excuse but
Enhance its Guilt As it would look like a very strange and odd Commendation of a Tree to Apologize for the Sourness of its Fruit by pleading that all its goodness lay in the Root But in the discourses of Reason such is the weakness and shortness of its Reach that it seldom suggests Arguments à Priore for any Thing but by a low and humble Gradation creeps from the Effects up to the Cause because these first strike and Alarm the Senses and therefore St. James speaks as good Philosophy as Divinity when He says Iam. 2.18 Shew me thy Faith by thy Works Every Action being the most lively Pourtraicture and impartial Expression of its Efficient Principle as the Complexion is the best Comment upon the Constitution For in natural Productions â—here is no Hypocrisy Only we must observe here that Good and Evil Actions bear a very different Relation to their Respective Principles As it is between Truth and Falshood in Argumentation So it is between Good and Evil in matters of Practice For though from an Artificial contrivance of false Principles or Premises may emerge a True Conclusion yet from True Premises cannot ensue a False So though an Evil Heart may frame it self to the doing of an Action in its kind or Nature Good yet a Renewed Sanctified Principle cannot of its self design Actions really Vitious The reason of which is Because the former in such a Case acts upon a Principle of Dissimulation and no Man by dissembling affects to appear worse than he is but better But all this while I speak not of a single Action but of a Conversation or Course of Acting For a Pious Man may do an Evil action upon Temptation or Surprize but not by the Tenour of his standing Principles and Resolutions But when a Mans Sin is his Business and the formed Purpose of his Life and his Piety shrinks only into Meaning and Intention When he tells me His heart is right with God while his hand is in my Pocket he upbraids my Reason and outfaces the Common Principle of natural discourse with an Impudence equal to the Absurdity This therefore I affirm That he who places his Christianity only in his Heart and his Religion in his Meaning has fairly secured himself against a discovery in case he should have none but yet for all that shall at the last find his Portion with those who indeed have none And the Truth is those who are thus intentionally Pious do in a very ill and untoward sence verify that Philosophical Maxim That what they so much pretend to be Chief and First in their Intention is always Last if at all in the Execution Thirdly The third and last false ground that I shall mention upon which some Men build to their Confusion is Party and Singularity If an implicite Faith be as some say the Property of a Roman Catholick then I am sure Popery may be found where the name of Papist is adhorred For what account can some give of their Religion or of that Assurance of their Salvation which they so much boast of but that they have wholly resigned themselves up to the Guidance and Dictates of those who have the Front and Boldness to usurp the Title of the Godly To be of such a Party of such a Name nay of such a sneaking look is to some the very Spirit and Characteristick mark of Christianity See what St. Paul himself built upon before His Conversion to Christ Acts 26.5 I was says He after the strictest Sect of our Religion a Pharisee So that it was the Reputation of the Sect upon which St. Paul then embarked His Salvation Now the Nature of this Fraternity or Sect we may Learn from the Origination of their Name Pharisee it being derived from Parasch separavit discrevit whence in Greek they were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 separati So that the Words amount to this That St. Paul before He was a Christian was a Rigid Separatist But Singularity is not Sincerity tho' too often and mischievously mistaken for it And as an House built upon the Sand is likely to be ruined by Storms so an House built out of the Road is exposed to the Invasion of Robbers and wants both the Convenience and Assistance of Society Christ is not therefore called the Corner stone in the Spiritual building as if He intended that His Church should consist only of Corners or be driven into them There is a By-path as well as a Broad-way to Destruction And it both argues the Nature and portends the Doom of Chaff upon Agitation to separate and Divide from the Wheat But to such as Venture their Eternal Interest upon such a Bottom I shall only suggest these two Words First That admitting but not granting that the Party which they adhere to may be truly Pious yet the Piety of the Party cannot sanctify its Proselytes A Church may be properly called Holy when yet that Holiness does not diffuse it self to each particular Member the Reason of which is Because the whole may receive Denomination from a Quality inherent only in some of its Parts Company may occasion but it cannot transfuse Holyness No Mans Righteousness but Christs alone can be imputed to another To rate a Man by the Nature of his Companions is a Rule frequent indeed but not Infallible Iudas was as much a Wretch amongst the Apostles as amongst the Priests And therefore it is but a poor Argument for a Man to derive his Saintship from the Vertues of the Society he belongs to and to conclude himself no Weed only because he grows amongst the Corn. Secondly Such an adhesion to a Party carries in it a strong suspicion and Tang of the rankest of all ill Qualities Spiritual Pride There are Two Things natural almost to all Men. First A desire of Preheminence in any Perfection but especially Religious Secondly A Spirit of Opposition or Contradiction to such as are not of their own Mind or Way Now both these are eminently gratifyed by a Man's listing himself of a Party in Religion And I doubt not but some are more really proud of the affected sordidness of a pretended Mortification than others are of the greatest affluence and splendor of Life And that many who call the Execution of Law and Justice Persecution do yet suffer it with an Higher and more pleasing Relish of Pride than others can inflict it For it is not true Zeal rising from an Hearty concernment for Religion but an ill restless cross humour which is imped with Smart and quickned with Opposition The Godly Party is little better than a Contradiction in the Adjunct for he who is truly Godly is humble and peaceable and will neither make nor be of a Party according to the Common sence of that word Let such Pretenders therefore suspect the Sandiness and Hollowness of their Foundation and know that such Imitators of Corah Dathan and Abiram build upon the same Ground upon which they stood and into which
a Iargon of empty senseless Metaphors and though many venture their Souls upon them despising good works and strict living as meer Morality and perhaps as Popery yet being throughly look'd into and examined after all their Noise they are really nothing but Words and Wind. Another flatters himself that he has lived in full Assurance of his Salvation for Ten or Twenty or perhaps Thirty years that is in other Words The Man has been Ignorant and Confident very long Ay but saies another I am a great Hearer and Lover of Sermons especially of Lectures And it is this which is the very delight of my Righteous Soul and the main business of my Life and though indeed according to the good old Puritan Custom I use to walk and talk out the Prayers before the Church Door or without the Choire yet I am sure to be always in at Sermon Nay I have so entirely devoted my whole Time to the hearing of Sermons that I must Confess I have hardly any left to Practise them And will not all this set me right for Heaven Yes no doubt if a Man were to be pulled up to Heaven by the Ears or the Gospel would but reverse its Rule and declare That not the Doers of the Word but the Hearers only should be justify'd But then in comes a fourth and tells us That He is a Saint of yet an higher Class as having got far above all their Mean Beggerly Steeple-house Dispensations by an happy Exchange of them for the Purer and more Refined Ordinances of the Conventicle where he is sure to meet with Powerful Teaching indeed and to hear Will-worship and Superstition runn'd down And the Priests of Baal paid off and the Follies and Fopperies of their great Idol the Common-Prayer laid open with a Witness not without some Edifying Flings at the King and Court too sometimes by all which his Faith is now grown so Strong that he can no more doubt of his going to Heaven than that there is such a Place as Heaven to go to So that if the Conscience of such an One should at any time offer to grumble at Him He would presently stop its Mouth with this That he is of such an Ones Congregation And then Conscience say thy worst Or if the guilt of some old Perjuries or Extortions should begin to look stern upon Him Why then all those old scores shall be cleared off with a Comfortable Perswasion That such as he cannot fall from Grace though it is shrewdly to be feared That his only way of proving this must be That there can be no losing or falling from that which a Man never had But ah Thou Poor Blind Self-deluding and Deluded Soul are these the best Evidences thou hast for Heaven These the Grounds upon which thou hopest for Salvation Assure thy self that God will deal with thee upon very different Terms For he absolutely enjoins thee to do whatsoever Christ has Commanded and to avoid whatsoever He has forbidden And Christ has commanded thee to be poor in Spirit and to be pure in Heart To subdue thy unruly Appetites to curb thy Lust to restrain thy Anger and to suppress thy Revenge And if any thing proves an hindrance to thee in thy Duty though it be as dear to thee as thy Right Eye to pluck it out and as useful to thee as thy Right Hand to cut it off and cast it from thee He will have thee ready to endure Persecutions Revilings and all manner of Slanders not only patiently but also chearfully for the Truths sake He calls upon thee to Love thine Enemies and to do Good for Evil To bless those that Curse thee and to pray for those that Despitefully use thee He Commands thee in all Things strictly to do as thou wouldest be done by and not to cheat lye or over-reach thy Neighbour and then call it a fetching over the Wicked the better to enable thee to relieve the Godly He will not allow thee to resist Evil and much less to resist thy Governour He commands thee to be Charitable without Vain-Glory and Devout without Ostentation In short He requires thee to be meek and lowly chast and temperate just and merciful and in a word so far as the poor measures of Humanity will reach Perfect as thy Heavenly Father is Perfect This is the summ of those Divine Sayings of our Saviour which he himself refers to in my Text and which if a Man Hears and Does all the Powers of Hell shall never shake him And nothing but a constant impartial universal Practice of these will or can speak Peace to thy Conscience here and stand between Thee and the Wrath of God hereafter As for all other Pretences they are nothing but Death and Damnation dressed up in Fair Words and False Shews nothing but Ginns and Snares and Trepans for Souls Contrived by the Devil and Managed by such as the Devil sets on Work But I have done and the Result of all that I have said or can say is That every Spiritual Builder would be perswaded to Translate his Foundation from the Sand to the Rock and not presume upon Christ as his Saviour till by a full Obedience to His Laws he has owned Him for his Sovereign And this is properly to Believe in Him This is truly to Build upon a Rock even that Rock of Ages upon which every one that wears the Name of Christ must by an inevitable Dilemma either Build or Split Now to God who is able to Build us up in our most Holy Faith to Establish us here and to Save us hereafter be rendred and ascribed as is most Due all Praise Might Majesty and Dominion both now and for evermore Amen A True State and Account OF THE Plea of a Tender Conscience IN A SERMON Preached at Christ-Church Oxon. before the University IN Michaelmass Term 1672. 1 COR. VIII 12 But when ye Sin so against the Brethren and Wound their Weak Conscience ye Sin against Christ. I Shall by God's Assistance from these words debate the Case of a Weak or as some improperly enough call it a Tender Conscience And with what Evidence I can shew both what it is and what Privileges it may justly claim from this and such other places of Scripture One great one we have here set down and that indeed so great that it looks more like a Prerogative than a Privilege Namely that to Wound or Sin against it is no less a Crime than to Sin against Christ Himself Our Apostle in two places of his Epistles treats professedly of this Argument To wit in the 14 th of the Rom. and in this 8 th of the 1 Cor. For the better understanding of his design and meaning in both which places it â—ill be requisite to give some brief account of the Subject Matter and Occasion of them In the 14 th Chapter of the Rom. he speaks of such as had been Converted from Judaism to Christianity some of which being but new
concerning a Truth meerly upon the stress of this way of Expression yet till the Reasoning grounded upon it be disproved I suppose it is not therefore to be despised though it may be seconded with much better But the Men whom we contend with seem hugely injurious to Him Whom they call their Saviour while they even crucify Him in His Divinity which the Jews could never do making His very kindness an Argument against His Prerogative For His condescending to be a Man makes them infer that He is no more and Faith must stop here because Sight can go no further But if a Prince shall deign to be familiar and to converse with those upon whom he might trample shall His condescension therefore Unking Him And His familiarity rob Him of His Royalty The case is the same with Christ. Men cannot perswade themselves that a Deity and Infinity should lye within so narrow a compass as the contemptible dimensions of an Humane body That Omnipotence Omniscience and Omnipresence should be ever wrapt in swadling cloths and abased to the homely usages of a Stable and a manger That the glorious Artificer of the whole Universe Who spread out the Heavens like a curtain and laid the foundations of the Earth could ever turn Carpenter and exercise an inglorious trade in a little Cell They cannot imagine that He who commands the Cattel upon a thousand hills and takes up the Ocean in the hollow of His hand could be subject to the meanesses of hunger and thirst and be afflicted in all His appetites That He who once created and at present governs and shall hereafter Iudge the World should be abused in all His concerns and relations be scourged spit upon mock'd and at last crucified All which are passages which lie extreamly cross to the Notions and conceptions that Reason has framed to it self of that high and impassible perfection that resides in the Divine Nature For it is natural to Men to be very hardly brought to judge things to be any more than what they appear and it is also as natural to them to measure all appearances by sense or at the furthest by Reason though neither of them is a competent Judge of the Things which we are here discoursing of 2. The second thing to be considered is the State or Condition from which Christ came and that was from the bosom of His Father from the Incomprehensible surpassing Glories of the Godhead from an Eternal enjoyment of an absolute uninterrupted Bliss and Pleasure in the mutual ineffable intercourses between Him and His Father The Heaven of Heavens was his habitation and Legions of Cherubims and Seraphims his humble and constant attendants Yet he was pleased to disrobe himself of all this Magnificence to lay aside his Scepters and his Glories and in a Word to empty Himself as far as the Essential fulness of the Deity could be capable of such a dispensation And now if by the poor measures and proportions of a Man we may take an estimate of this Great Action we shall quickly find how irksom it is to Flesh and Bloud to have been happy to descend some steps lower to exchange the estate of a Prince for that of a Peasant and to view our happiness only by the help of memory and long reflections For how hard a task must obedience needs be to a Spirit accustomed to Rule and to Dominion how uneasy must the leather and the frieze â—it upon the shoulder that used to shine with the purple and the Ermin All change must be grievous to an estate of absolute entire unmingled happiness But then to change to the lowest pitch and that at first without inuring the mind to the burden by gradual intermediate lessenings and declensions this is the sharpest and most afflicting calamity that humane Nature can be capable of And yet what is all this to Christ's humiliation He who tumbles from a Tower surely has a greater blow than he who slides from a Mole-Hill And we may as well compare the falling of a Crumb from the Table to the falling of a Star from the Firmament as think the abasement of an Alexander from his Imperial Throne and from the Head of all the Persian and Macedonian greatness to the condition of the meanest Scullion that followed his Camp any ways comparable to the descension of him who was the brightness of His Father's Glory and the express Image of His Person to the Condition of a Man much less of a Servant and crucifyed Malefactor For so was Christ treated this was the strange leap that he made from the greatest height to the lowest bottom concerning which it might be well pronounced the greatest wonder in the World that he should be able so far to humble himself were it not yet a greater that he could be willing And thus much for the second Circumstance 3. The Third is The Persons to Whom He came expressed by that endearing Term His Own and this in a more peculiar advanced sence of Propriety For all the Nations of the World were His own by Creation and what is consequent to it by the Right of Possession and absolute Dominion but the Jews were his Own by a Fraternal Right of Consanguinity He was pleased to derive his humanity from the same stock to give them the Honour of being able to call the God of Heaven and the Saviour of the World their Brother They were His Own also by the Right of Churchship as selected and enclosed by God from amidst all other Nations to be the Seat of his Worship and the great Conservatory of all the Sacred Oracles and means of Salvation The Gentiles might be called God's own as a Man calls his Hall or his Parlour his own which yet others pass through and make use of but the Jews were so as a Man accounts his closet or his Cabinet his own that is by a peculiar uncommunicable destination of it to his own use Those who have that hardy curiosity as to examine the Reason of God's Actions which Men of Reason should still suppose wonder that since the Design of Christ's coming was Universal and extending to all Mankind he should address himself to so inconsiderable a spot of the World as that of Palestine confining the scene of all his Life and Actions to such a small handful of Men whereas it would have seemed much more sutable to the purposes of his coming to have made Rome at that time the Metropolis of the Western World and holding an intercourse with all Nations the Place of his Nativity and abode As when a Prince would promulge a Law because he cannot with any convenience do it in all places therefore he does it in the most eminent and conspicuous To which Argument frequently urged by the Enemies of Christianity he who would seek for a satisfactory answer from any thing but the absoluteness of God's Soveraignty will find himself defeated in his attempt It was the meer result of the Divine Good
Pleasure that the Fountain of Life should derive a Blessing to all Nations from so narrow and contemptible an Head And here I cannot but think it observeable that all the passages of the whole Work of Man's Redemption carry in them the marks not only of Mercy but of Mercy acting by an unaccountable Soveraignty And that for this very Reason as may be supposed to convince the World that it was purely Mercy on God's part without any thing of Merit on Man's that did all For when God reveals a Saviour to some few but denies Him to more sends Him to a People despised but passes over Nations Victorious Honourable and Renowned He thereby gives the World to know that his own Will is the Reason of His Proceedings For it is worth remarking that there is nothing that befalls Men equally and alike but they are prone to ascribe it either to Nature or Merit But where the Plea of the Receivers is equal and yet the Dispensation of the Benefits vastly unequal there Men are taught that the thing received is Grace and that they have no claim to it but the courtesy of the Dispenser and the largess of Heaven which cannot be question'd because it Waters my Field while it Scorches and dries up my Neighbour's If the Sun is pleased to Shine upon a Turf and to Gild a Dunghil when perhaps he never looks into the Bed-Chamber of a Prince we cannot yet accuse him for Partiality That short but most significant saying in the Evangelist May I not do what I will with my own Matt. 20.15 being a full and solid Answer to all such Objections 4. The fourth and last Circumstance of Christ's coming related to the time of it He came to the Jews when they were in their lowest and worst Condition and that in a double respect National and Ecclesiastical 1. And first upon a Civil or National account It was not then with them as in those Triumphant days of Solomon when for Plenty Riches and Grandeur they had little cause either to make Friends or to fear Enemies but shone as the Envy and Terrour of all the surrounding Neighbourhood At the best now they were but a remnant and a piece of an often scattered conquered and captivated Nation But two Tribes of twelve and those under the Roman Yoak tributary and oppress'd and void of any other Privilege but only to obey and to be fleeced quietly by whosoever was appointed their Governour This was their Condition And could there 〈◊〉 any inducement upon the common principles and methods of kindness to visit them in that Estate Which could be nothing else but only to share with them in servitude and to bear a part in their Oppression The measure of Men's kindness and visits bestowed upon one another is usually the Prosperity the Greatness and the Interest of the Persons whom they visit that is because their favour is profitable and their ill will formidable in a word Men visit others because they are kind to themselves But who ever saw Coaches and Liveries thronging at the Door of the Orphan or the Widdow unless peradventure a Rich One or before the House or Prison of an afflicted decayed Friend No at such a time we account them not so much as our own that unfriends and unbrothers and dissolves all Relations and 't is seldom the Dialect of My Good Friend any longer than it is My Great Friend But it was another sort of Love that warmed the Breast of our Saviour He visits his kindred nay He makes them so in the lowest ebb of all their outward Enjoyments When to be a Iew was a name of Disgrace and to be circumcised a mark of Infamy So that they might very well be a peculiar People not only because God separated them from all other Nations but because all other Nations separated Themselves from Them Secondly Consider them upon an Ecclesiastical account and so we shall find them as corrupted for a Church as they were despised for a Nation Even in the days of the Prophet Isaiah 1. c. 21. v. it was his Complaint That the faithful City was become an Harlot that is notable for two things as Harlots usually are Paint and Impurity Which growing corruption in all the intervening time from thence to the Coming of Christ received a proportionable improvement So that their Teachers and most Seraphick adored Doctors of the Law were still ranckt with Hypocrites For the Text of Moses was used only to Authorize a false Comment and to warrant the Impiety of a perverse Interpretation Still for all their Villanies and Hypocrisies they borrowed a Veil from Moses and his Name was quoted and pretended as a glorious Expedient to countenance and Varnish over well contrived Corruptions Nay and they proceeded so high that those who vouched the Authority of Moses most denyed the being of Immaterial Substances and the Immortality of the Soul in which is wrapt up the very Spirit and Vital breath of all Religions and these Men had formed themselves into a standing and considerable Sect called the Sadducees so considerable that one of them once step'd into the High-Priesthood So that whether you look upon the Sadducees or the Pharisees they had brought the Jewish Church to that pass that they established iniquity by a Law or which is worse turned the Law it self into Iniquity Now the State of things being thus amongst the Jews at the time of Christ's coming it eminently offers to us the consideration of these two things First The invincible strength of Christ's Love that it should come leaping over such mountains of opposition that it should Triumph over so much Jewish baseness and villany and be gracious even in spight of Malice it self It did not knock at but even break open their doors Blessing and Happiness was in a manner thrust upon them Heaven would have took them by force as they should have took Heaven So that they were fain to take pains to rid themselves of their happiness and it cost them Labour and Violence to become Miserable Secondly It declares to us the Immoveable Veracity of God's promise For surely if any thing could reverse a Promise and Unty the bands of a Decree it would have been that uncontrolled impiety which then reigned in the Jewish Church and that to such a Degree that the Temple it self was prophaned into a Den of Thieves a Rendevous of Haglers and Drovers and a Place not for the Sacrificing but for the selling of sheep and oxen So that God might well have forgot his Promise to his People when they had alter'd the very subject of the Promise and as much as in them lay had ceased to be his People We have here finish'd the first part of the Text and took an account of Christ's coming to His own and his coming through so many obstacles may we not therefore now expect to see him find a Magnificent Reception and a Welcome as extraordinary as his kindness For where should any