and Sun and a City and a Candle things that are visible or else diffusive of their vertues and then concludes Let your light or rather So let your light as a candle gives light unto all that are in the house So do ye Let your light shine hefore men Light is set here for Christian Holiness and Purity as I shall shew you and that most fitly because nothing so pure as Light clear as shine and noon-day nor nothing so diffusive it shews it self to all so that the thing meant by it is an open visible Holiness of Conversation Or secondly more especially to represent the Purity of a Christian Life Light is so clear that it is set to express the very Holiness of God himself 1 John 1. 5. This then is the message which we have heard of him and declare unto you that God is Light and in him is no darkness at all And indeed Light was the very first emanation of God in the Creation he said first let there be light And it is the most spiritual and pure of all visible corporeal beings its motions seem instantaneous and by a kind of omnipresence it fills the medium and appears entire in every part of it yea farther it is not liable to stain or sulliage sun-shine is as bright upon a Cottage as a Palace a dung-hill as a bed of Roses you may extinguish light but not defile it No expression comes near the clearness of light and this our Holiness is to strive after But thirdly most of all to represent the open visibility of Christian virtue Nothing is so easily seen as Light for indeed nothing can be seen but by it in a moment it will scatter it self over the whole Hemisphere yea Heaven it self does not bound the Sun-shine and it passes thro the Firmament Even so diffusive should our Piety be shining before men and like the Sun 's light too spreading into Heaven shining before Angels and making them rejoice A Christian is not to suffer any man to walk in the dark either of ignorance or of sin whom his knowledg or example may recover he must instruct and enlighten the mind he must reform and enlighten the will and the affections His pious actions must be always shining in his eyes to guide and stir him up and every one must be Christ's star to lead to him They that be wise saith Daniel c. 12. 3. shine as the brightness of the firmament and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever Yea they are to shine so as they may turn many that shining being both their glory and their duty And St Paul tells how they are to shine Phil. 2. 15. Be blameless and harmless the sons of God without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation among whom ye shine as lights in the world All men look upon you and therefore you are to give them good example They are as watch-towers upon the sea that have lights placed in them to guide the Mariners into safe harbor to teach them how to shun the rocks and this they are to do both by their own practice and by reproof Eph. 5. 11 13. Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness but rather reprove them But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light When those foul acts that are don of them in secret are reproved by a man that hath this Divine Light in him then it appears how foul and wicked they are which the darkness of their souls would not let them see John 3. 20. it is set down as the property of light to reprove evil deeds by discovering to them the ugliness of their courses and shewing the fair example of a contrary life to turn them from the evil of their ways This is to let their light shine before men Another expression is of a Candle v. 15. of which the ground is the same with that of the other the Light of the world onely the Type sinks a little The Light there had a larger Sphere for the Sun gives shine to all the world but the Candle here gives light but unto all that are in the house as our Savior words it or at least that are in the room Now this Emblem was also very necessary the greatest part of men are of a lower rank and emploiment than their example should have influence upon very many or that their actions should be called Sunshine the acts of their calling are low and so are those of their Piety and Religion not considerable enough to be view'd or look'd upon by many others they are not any thing notably and how then can they be exemplary in their lives They are too much clouded both in their fortunes and their emploiments and their faculties to send forth any Raies they cannot shine Why yet for these our Savior hath a Type here in his Sermon as also a great part of his life was the very practice of this exemplariness in a very low and ordinary condition From the time that he disputed with the Doctors at twelve years old the shine and glory of which action may seem enough to have temted one to shew forth his light in an eminent manner to have presently undertaken emploiments wherein he might have bin seen yet till the time that he was thirty years old he retired himself and was subject to his Parents living with and serving them privately at Nazareth Luke 2. 51. who God knows were of a very mean condition and consequently so was he working with his hands in a mean trade Now all this while how did his light shine before men when it was immur'd in a Carpenter's work-house Why even then it did in exemplary humility great obedience pious carriage and virtuous diligence ordering his conversation in that very mean condition so as that made him gracious in the sight of God and of men v. 52. So that from his behavior in that low estate men accounted him a very good person And then whosoever thou art be thou never so low Christ hath shewed thee how to shine before men as he did tho he were the Son of Righteousness Thou canst not be too mean to be obedient to be careful in thy service to be harmless never doing or speaking ill of any body thou canst not be too low to be abased nor consequently to have occasion to shew forth patience meekness and longsuffering and gentleness those glorious however humble virtues And this is truly to make thy light shine before men Tho thy example be not big enough to be look'd upon by a whole Shire nor yet a Parish nor a Township thou canst not be accounted the light of the world yet be thou never so little thou maiest shine forth as a Candle give example to the Family in which thou art by those virtues of being harmless If thou have not so much Piety so much Light as will shine abroad and make a day
the relicks onely of Christ's Church but also all the memory of the other cruelties when in one small Province in a month he put to death one hundred and fourty four thousand Christians banish'd seven hundred thousand more and proportionably so in other places thro the Roman world with such success that he took confidence to write on his triumphal Arches Deleto nomine Christiano as he had blotted out the very name of Christians then at the last gasp of his Church it pleas'd the Lord to raise up Constantine and strait the whole face of the world was Christian and Dioclesian himself liv'd to see it I might have instanced in our own so fresh deliverance but that it would not look like an incouragement it may be to rely and cast our selves again upon him if so soon we call upon our selves the same needs by the same wretchless methods and there are some they say that apprehend so And God knows the ruin of the Reformation and our Church hath from its first beginning bin still working by her restless indefatigable Enimies and hath often bin preserv'd onely on the account I am now speaking that when things are past all humane help then is God's set time for relief I know the Churches Adversaries brag of multitudes and they come up on every side close to her yea and which is worse we seem to labor to make God himself our Enimy or at least provoke him to desert that Chutch and Reformation we pollute so put out the Worship we unhallow and profane so by ill lives make those that will have nothing of Religion but some forms it may be loose them too and let them die for want of substance and the shew go out not leave so much as the hypocrisy of piety Indeed a flood of Atheism and contemt of all Religion and virtue looks like a just dereliction of them who would not let God be in their thoughts nor Religion or Morality in their actions Nay may it not look like a kindness to remove the Gospel which proves onely the savor of death unto death put out that light which men are but resolv'd to sin against Or can there be a greater mercy than to refuse all the means of mercy to such men as onely make them work out condemnation to them O Lord to us indeed belongs confusion of face but notwithstanding to the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses tho we have rebelled against him and as he knows how to reserve the ungodly to the day of Judgment to be punish'd he knows too how many thousand knees do bow to him in secret reckons all those tears that are pour'd out in Religion's and the Churches cause and how wicked soever the Professors of Religion the Church Members may be if the constitution of Religion and the Church themselves yet be not vitiated or defective there is hope still And truly whereas many blame the Reformation that it did not keep more hold upon the Consciences of the Community did not retain some power which altho not of Divine Institution but things warily and by degrees brought in as seeming to work towards piety and most certainly in humane ways of judging serving to procure more veneration and outward security of the Church and Religion to work out which the other consequential worldly interests we see the very scheme of some Professions not their discipline onely but their faith too is contriv'd I think on the other side if our Reformation instead of doing thus as it consulted not at first with carnal Politicks but Christ's institutions as the Scripture and other primitive Records conveied them and design'd no more to themselves than those bare naked Spiritual doctrines rights and powers which Christ gave them left to Cesar whatsoever was Cesar's knowing God had promis'd Kings should be their Nursing-fathers and to be so is part of their Office trusting therefore God and Governments with their protection and defence of Church and Religion So also if thro all succeeding times whether of flourish or depression and calamity Religion it self whatever its Professors are have retain'd always the same simplicity of principles be it self untainted not new model'd to serve ends or interests then whenever men shall begin to clip it I do not say in maintenance seizing what their Father's sacriledge had left them but I mean because ours did not so as other Churches grasp some usurpt power to secure their own shall therefore cut her Spiritual powers short so that they cannot serve the ends of piety because they know her Children will not cannot by their principles resist i. e. if they endeavor to destroy them for this reason that they make men the best Subjects and of the most Christian Principles that is persecute their Christianity it self and martyr that I must profess that it will look like God's set appointed time to arise and to have mercy upon Sion when it is expos'd a naked Orphan left to his protection onely then he cannot pass it by but when he sees it in its bloud thus he will say unto it live and tho he plague her wicked and ungracious Sons and possibly take away many of the good ones from the evil to come yet the Religion will not die Let them believe it hopeless who desire a pretence to leave it who do what they can to stab their Mother and make it a reason to forsake her then because she is so desperately wounded and let them declare it who design to betray men out of it But whether is wiser to believe these or the God from whom we have these promises and these experiences and the other grounds of trust Sure we know better whom we have believed especially since the very trust to him is an engagement to him not to fail us that 's my last ground 'T is it self a means prescrib'd us by himself Isaiah 50. 10. Who is he among you that feareth the Lord that walketh in darkness hath no light Let him trust in the name of the Lord stay upon his God There is nothing in the world that more engages any man that is not profligately false than trusting to him and for God there is no other piece of piety or virtue gives such honor to him his Attributes as sincere dependance on him do's It does acknowledge his Omniscience that he knows our needs be they never so perplext intricate knows how to help them his Omnipresence that he is at hand on all occasions his Omnipotence how he is able above all our possibility of want his Mercy Goodness Benignity in that he condescended to be willing to relieve us his Faithfulness Truth and Justice in observing his good promises and never failing them and his Immutability in all these and his other Attributes of loving kindness Now truly as our miseries requir'd all these so our trust to him gives him the glory of all these and therefore 't is no wonder if
Angels met us in to Worship and God dwelt in to bless us there the place appointed for the Divinest Mysteries of our Redemption for the Celebration of Christ's Agonies for the Commemoration of the blessed Sacrifice the place for nothing but Christ's Blood then to become the place of a most odious and insolent uncleanness If I had worded this more aggravatingly it had been only to infer that then to see a consecrated person to polute himself with those black foulnesses that made hell and made fiends is sure a sadder and a more unhappy spectacle If an Apostle become wicked he is in our Saviour's Character a Devil Have I not chosen Twelve and one of you is a Devil Yea if the good Saint Peter do become a scandal tempt to that which is not good Get thee behind me Satan Christ calls his nearest Officers Stars Emblems of a great separateness those that teach them how far their Conversation should be remov'd from Earth for they are of another Orbe Heaven is the Region of Stars But they are Emblems of a greater purity there 's nothing in the World so clean as light 't is not possible so much as to fully shine it may irradiate dung-hills but they do not defile it you may Eclipse a Star but cannot spot it you may put oâ— the light you cannot stain it 'T is a word for God's purity only his light is glory and as his holiness is so separate that it is incommunicable so his Light is inaccessible Yet sure they that are stars in Christ's right hand they do come neer and mix their light with his and they of all men must be pure and holy whom the spirit calls to that place as he does all whom he calls to that separation that he did Barnabas and Saul the Persons and the next Part Separate me Barnabas and Saul I intend not to make particular reflections upon these persons although the Character of Barnabas be registred the 11. Chap. v. 24. He was a good man full of Faith and of the Holy Ghost and the good influence that that had upon the people follows And much people was added to the Church And as for Saul though he began the Christian persecution and was baptiz'd in the first Martyr-blood and breath'd out threatnings so that nothing but thunder could out-voice him and at last was born as an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as an untimely birth aborting through those wounds which his own hands had made in the Church and making himself a birth with ripping up her bowels yet this Abortive prov'd the strongest birth and 't was a Miscarriage into the chiefest Apostle As he began the after-sufferings of Christ in Stephen so he fulfill'd the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and made up all that was behind in himself being in deaths more than those he inflicted The sound of his preaching was louder than that at his Conversion out-voic'd the thunder for this went out into all lands as if himself alone meant to execute the whole Commission Preach the Gospel to every creature which he did almost not only preaching to those places where Christ was not named without the other Apostles line but even where the rest imploy'd themselves he wrought as much as they in Asia as Saint John at Antioch as Peter yea and at Rome too having as much to do in their foundation If I had said more I could have brought the Popes own Seal for evidence where not only both are but Saint Paul hath the right hand And truly if they had had the luck to think at first of founding all their pretensions on Saint Paul his care of all the Churches would have born them out as well as feed my Lambs does now But these considerations I pass though they would give a Man that hath done mischief in the Church a pattern for the measures of his future Service to the Church The thing I shall concern my self in is the solemn separation here of those who were before separated to the work of the Gospel Barnabas sent by the Church of Jerusalem to Antioch Act. 11. 22. and Paul not only separated from his Mothers womb Gal. 1. 15. but chosen by express Revelation and by the laying on of Ananias's hands that so he might receive the Holy Ghost qualified to Preach the Gospel to the Gentiles and to Kings In which work both of them had for some years â—ercised themselves Yet here is a new consecration and they are taken up to a condition more separate and distinct from what they were before And all those vast advantages in which these persons did excell the one of Faith and fulness of the Holy Ghost the other besides those of express and immediate mission from Heaven and the most strange success their labours had been blest with all these I say did not qualifie them to assume these powers which the Holy Ghost commands another separation to enstall them in And 't was this 〈◊〉 that call'd Paul to be an Apostle Rom. 1. 1. as from this time he is always call'd Paul not sooner Nor do we find any least footsteps of their being Apostles before though Barnabas were sent to Antioch yet he does not undertake what Peter and John did at Samaria in the very same case for they confirm and give the Holy Ghost Act. 8. 15 37. but Barnabas does nothing but Exhort Act. 11. 23. and he and Paul together Preacht the Word abroad but we find nothing else they enterpriz'd but from this time they exercise Jurisdiction settle Churches and ordain them Elders in the Churches Ch. 14. 22 23. and as it does appear singly deriv'd these powers to others to be exercised by them singly To Titus most expresly Tit. 1. 5. the like also to Timothy with all the other Acts of Jurisdiction of which their Epistles are the Records particularly that of Censures which Paul himself had inflicted on offenders in the Churches he had planted Powers these which by such steps and by degrees of separation an Apostle himself receives and does not execute 'till he ascend the highest that which they have a new solemnity ordain'd from Heaven to enstate them in by a new laying on of hands and the holy Ghost himself commanding separate The separateness of this highest order in the Church is a doctrine handed down to us both by the writings of all Ages and the practices two things which as they scarcely do concur in such a visible degree in any other things in our Religion so also when they do concur they make and secure tradition beyond all contradiction give it sufficient infallibility and truly he that does refuse the evidence which such tradition gives to all the motives of believing Christianity if he be not a Socinian he must be an Enthusiast and can receive his Religion only from Revelation Now the matter of fact of this tradition is a subject for Volumes not for
of it but should burst choakt with his greif because he had betray'd innocent blood This if he knew it had all bin imposture must be most stupendous But yet we will give them this too that vainglorious hopes of drawing in the world to follow them might make all of them obstinate in secresy against all attemts of cruelty or if some weak brethren did perchance discover we may not have heard of it But For them 3dly to begin their preaching at Jerusalem is yet more strange To hope to draw men into a perswasion and to bottom that perswasion upon Miracles and a Resurrection don amongst them there where if discovery were made it must be made and where it could not but be made if there were fraud For to relate and write those works with every circumstance of persons place and time where they not only could examin every circumstance but where they rather then their lives would find them false if nothing else would this must needs discover it They preach them to the face of the whole multitude and of the Pharisees and tell them they were don before their eyes somtimes 500 and somtimes 5000 being by and the cheif Preists and Pharisees and Doctors so that 't was most impossible they should not know if they were true or false as sure as there was never a Jew in all the Land but knew whether there were a darkness over all the land when Christ was crucified Now if these were forg'd to hope to draw Jews out of their Religion with apparent forgeries which they knew such speaks these Apostles men so far from art to manage a design of changing the Religion of the world that they were mad beyond recovery and president But let us give them that too Yet 't is certain 4thly that the Jews if any such were wrought on by them must be much more stupid to believe them upon the account of such things don in all the country in their Cities and the Temple before all the Nation when they could not choose but know they were not don if they were not don but were fain'd all For what ever might be motive to Christs Followers and his Apostles with the certain danger of their lives to forge the cheat what possible temtation could there be so great to incline Jews the most stiffnecked people the most stubborn in Religion in the world to embrace a faith which nothing but the Cross and shame and misery attended and which they must know false too Had they so great lust to dye as for that to bid farewel to their Moses their Religion and their Law It is impossible had they not known the truth of those things that in waters of affliction in Jerusalem ipsis persecutionum fontibus in that Fountain that spring-head of persecutions as the Fathers call it they would ever have bin baptiz'd into Christ. Yet suddenly in one day at one sermon of St Peter we read near 3000 were baptiz'd Acts 2. at another strait 5000 Acts 4. and such beginnings such sums are requir'd to make good what the Governor of Palestine Tiberianus tells the Emperor that he was not sufficient to put to death all those that confest themselves Christians All which must needs have either bin convinc't those things were true or else as well against their conscience as against the powers thus embrac't that faith and death together Neither was this a first surprize of Christianity as it had seiz'd mens minds at unawares for it went on conquering till the world came into it receiving the Religion with the loss of all that was dear to them in this world For in one age from Christs death what with the Apostles sermons miracles and writings also to confirm and keep men in the truth and to conveigh it better to posterity and their Disciples after them who went forth delivering those writings preaching on and doing wonders also very many Nations are recorded by Historians as converted almost wholly And the truth of it is evident since nothing but almost whole Nations nor yet they but as buoy'd up by the wonders and the graces of Gods spirit ever could be able to endure or be sufficient to employ the Swords the Flames the Lions and the other numberless tortures which the Jews and Nero and Domitian and above all Trajan in that first age rag'd with till they made their Cities villages and provinces so desolate that the Proconsul Pliny being frighted with the multitude of murder'd Christians did advise with him about relaxing his edicts as he himself assures us It was the same the next age when the power of Miracles yet liv'd and those which Christ himself wrought were scarce all dead some liv'd till near that time who rose up with him at his resurrection when these books writ by the will of God to be the pillar and foundation of mens faith in after ages as saith Irenaeus in that age were also read in the assemblies weekly when not only those that did assemble were by Hadrian martyr'd but they put men to their oaths to find out whether they were Christians that they might massacre them And in the third it was the like when Miracles they say were not yet ceast yet sure the greatest was the constancy of Christians in adhering to this book and patience in suffering for it For they report the sands on the sea shore almost as easy to be numbred as the Martyrs of that age what by Valerian Decius Maximinus and Severus but especially by Dioclesian who put so many men to death for not delivering up their Bibles to be burnt and refusing to Sacrifice to his Gods as if he meant to have depopulated the whole earth And this is as notorious as that men do now profess that they are Christians and that these are holy Scriptures Therefore I shall need to go no further Now among so many myriads who on the account of all these Miracles whate're they were suffer'd themselves to be converted to the faith of Christ and then as if they car'd for nothing but Religion and their Bibles for them bore the loss of goods and life it self and engag'd their posterity to do so also that not one of these should know whether indeed any such miracles were wrought if any were restor'd to life or no for if they knew then they were true and that among so numberless a crowd of teachers who by assuming to speak languages raise the dead work signs drew in those Myriads to Religion and the stake and went before them gave them an example both in faith and death that not one of all those should believe either the Miracles or himself that did them for if any one that did them did believe them since he knew who did them they must needs be certain but not one of them to know it sure is such a thing as neither could be don nor be imagin'd He therefore
other side if my ends be never so pious if I intend to compass them by unlawful means and do evil tho that good may come thereof what do's the justice of my ends do for me but only make damnation just to me Alas then in one word what is their doom who do by evil means intend to compass evil ends whose intentions are intirely singly wicked that design only the plesures or the profits of iniquity that level directly at sin both all the way and at the mark too whose aimes and whose contrivances are wickedness thy purpose such an evil action and care not by what means they compass it so they acquire their ends Our Savior had no way to express the condition fo these but that of an admiring question If the light that is in thee be darkness how great is that darkness The Sinner notwithstanding all his pomp of shine and splendor that he thinks himself cloth'd with drest up with guilded profits or with a glory of pleasures yet he is still in the dark his life is all night and that condition which three days made intolerable to Egypt is always on the Sinners soul he is envelop't in thick darkness like theirs that may be felt by any thing but by a soul of such stupidity as the sinners is a darkness such as Christ had not a fit word for nor did know how to phrase but by being astonish't at it How great is that darkness a state indeed that is most proper for his deeds and intentions of darkness that need a night to cover them a darkness that do's border on the regions of utter darkness that shall never have any dawne but such as flaming brimstone strikes into it and O How great is that darkness O blessed Savior who art the day spring from on high that came to visit us deliver us from those dark regions O thou Eternal Sun of righteousness that camest to enlighten the darknesses of the world by thy example and by thy doctrine and the illuminations of thy Holy Spirit let these thy methods shine powerfully upon our souls to scatter all the clouds and mists that dwell upon our hearts that we may have no misapprehensions of our duty that our intentions may be clear our affections pure and all our actions regular and holy Wee know O Lord we were created for thy glory and our own eternal happiness We beseech thee direct all the purposes of our minds the inclinations of our hearts and actions of our lives unto these blessed ends Teach us to mind thee in every thing we do that so whatever we shall do in our whole lives may work towards our future happy life Let no unholy aims mixe with any of our actions no forbidden contrivances or purposes creep into and make sinful our performancs Let not self-ends of pride vain-glory gain revenge or any vice make our Religion hypocrisy of sin nor any poor low ends of little pleasure or of profit rob the actions of our callings or recreations of that Religion which a good intention may put into them but make all our actions so orderly and temperate and so subordinate to holy ends that they may all turn into duty make us heartily intent on our Religious performances in their seasons and submitting all our other works to the occasions of Religion and making them serve and assist towards it and thereby become Religion that so our whole lives may be consecrated unto thee and our whole conversation become holy And do thou prevent us in all our doings with thy most gracious favor and further them with thy continual help that in all our works begun continued and ended in thee we may glorify thy holy name and after an age of doing so may be glorisied with thee in thy Kingdom thy power and thy glory for ever c. SERMON XIX THE LIGHT OF THE BODY is the Eye Matt. 6. 22 23. The light of the body is the eye if therefore thy eye be single thy whole body shall be full of light But if thine eye be evill thy whole body shall be full of darkness If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness how great is that darkness WHat is observ'd of the lights of our daies that they still abound in their senses will appear true of the light in the Text and indeed 't is but proper that it should have that most excellent quality of light still to communicate it self without decay to pour out fresh streams every moment and yet be still the same one of the rivulets we have exhausted in the last daies discourse and we shall also find that in another sense The light of the body is the eye Amongst the divers things to which the Eye in the Text may have Analogy and which may make Christs Aphorism here true in the spiritual sense as well as in the outward literal the second and indeed in my apprehension much more proper then that I have already given tho not so general is Conscience that Eye of the mind in order to practice from which alone and nothing else in matters of Religion the actions have all their direction and guidance and which so far as it is clear and well informed the actions that are regulated by it are all full of light and Piety and on the other side so far as the Conscience is amiss so far the mans deeds must of necessity be dark and evil And that I may now for all say without discussing every minute particular Analogy 't is for this that the expressions of blindness of mind understanding darkened and sins being call'd darkness and on the contrary holiness light and the Eye of the understanding enlightened are so frequent in the Scripture to let us see the whole comparison is good For to declare to you that the Conscience may be properly set out by the Analogy of an eye I need but tell you this eye of the mind is in the little world the frame of man the true deputy and Vicegerent of that universal and all seeing eye of Providence and inspection for as that eye of inspection spies all our waies watches over all a mans motions inclinations and thoughts and as the eye of Providence guides and directs every thing to its ends all this the Conscience do's in man 't is privy to every little rising of the appetite it knows each bending of the will There is not any closet no recess in the whole heart where the soul can retire to think of wish or design any thing but this same Eye of Conscience looks in beholds it all and lays it up And Conscience also is the under-Eye of Providence in man it prescribes to all our actions it leads the will that potentia caeca and gives directions to all that man attemts or do's in matter of Religion Thy word saith David is a lanthorn to my feet and light to my paths and it is certain Gods Commandments are the light we are to walk
is such nor rob the Altar to give it excesses take Consecrated things to make a cursed Carcass gay and proud strip Christ's Body starve their Saviour so He does interpret to deny a portion to the naked and hungry to make Pomps and Riots for an Executed World In any of these cases he is far from being overcome And if so the Second Proposition will apply it self to such and must conclude they have no Faith for if they had that were a Victory and however goodly they pretend they are but Infidels But it may be they will boldly own the Consequence for now adays it is not gentile to believe any thing of Christ's Religion And sure 't is for the Reputation of the gallantry and courage of our love unto this World that when the covetousness of the Gadarenes would not suffer Christ in their Coasts and for their Swines sake drove him out when that of Judas would not let him be upon the Earth but for thirty Silver pieces did betray him up to Death that of this Age proceeds and will not let him be in Heaven neither but it scoffs him thence and his Faith from the Earth And because they like this VVorld so well they will not suffer there should be any other It is not my part to Combat these I undertook only to shew a way to overcome the World if they will not use it let them enjoy their Bondage And yet without all doubt these candidates of Infidelity and Atheism have faith enough to do the work in good degree for certainly there 's none of them but does believe but he shall die and it is easie for his Faith to look through that thin vapour which our life is stiled by to the end of that small span and there see a Bed though gay now and soft as the sleep and sins it entertains then with the Curtains close the gayety all clouded in a darkness such as does begin the desolateness of the Grave if you draw the Curtain to his Faith it sees a languishing sad Corps which nothing in the VVorld can help or ease forethrowded in his own dead hue himself preluding to his winding-sheet in which within a little while he shall be cast from the society and sight of men and shall have nothing else of all his VVealth and Pomp To see all this is no great monstrous difficulty for his Faith Now though while he is in his prosperity and health and the VVorld serves every of his desires and if I should tell him all his superfluities all that is beyond a meer convenience are but empty things meer shadows of delight that onely mock his fancy should I tell him that the silver furnitures of his Tables and those more wealthy shining ones those in his Cabinet and the Silken ones of his Rooms and the more exquisite pieces of rich Art which people must have skill to understand the pomp of must have been the Disciples of the Pensil to discern how they do serve Pride tell him these are phantasms onely dreams of Pomp advantages no where but in imagination I shall not persuade him but he will despise me But then if he will ask his Faith how all these will look to him in the state which is now before his thoughts what his opinion of them will be then he knows he may as well go to his Pictures now and entertain his Mirth and Luxuries with them and hearken to their painted sounds and dine upon the images of Feasts as hope in that sad hour from all his Wealth to find coment or ease though his hand sweat under the weight of Winter Jewels they will not heal one aking joint His Plate the greatest Riot of his Table will not make one morsel tast savory yea more he knows that then all the worldly uses of these superfluities such as satisfying curiosity and emulation and the estimation of the World to be the talk of people and the like these will appear most evidently to be insipid things meer conceits of delights things of which there can be no real enjoyment or advantage any time And if it then appear evidently that in themselves they are so then they are so always and a constant Contemplation of that time will make them always seem so So that a Faith that cannot see into another VVorld that will but look through this must needs take off our hearts from the entanglements of those advantages when it appears how small a thing can dash them all so as that we cannot enjoy them while we have them and that the enjoyment of them while we do is but imaginary And really when we consider how unquiet and disturb'd a thing Man is except he raise himself above the Power of all these how till the Mind escape out of the whirl and circuit of the Worlds allurements it cannot but be in perpetual agitations at every ebb or flow of things without there is a tide within of swelling or sinking affections every change abroad does make a change of thoughts and of designs cross Accidents have cross Passions and I am as much an Universe of various thwarting contradictious affections as the World is of motions How the Beasts are free serene and quiet Creatures in comparison for they not understanding many Objects consequently have few inclinations and their satisfactions very obvious whereas the Comprehensive mind of Man that looks into a world of things and out of them creates a world of temptations finds out varieties of Pleasures or of Profits and then starts as many eager affections in himself to pursue them his copious understanding does but procure him various Lusts and his Reason does but make him sagacious in searching out occasions of disquiet Nor is it possible it should be otherwise for while my inclinations are chain'd to those external movements and my slavish mind attends upon those inclinations I must needs suffer as many servitudes as the world hath changes of temptation And then putting these two Considerations together how unsatisfying and how uneasie too it is to be engaged in the Advantages of this World which are meerly Dreams of good things that disturb our rest and make our sleep unquiet with the working of Imagination yet do but delude the Appetite and we find we have had nothing when we awake sure if I thought there were no other World yet would I not be greedy after the great things of this when 't is more easie far to want them here would I indulge my self the sensuality of a Contented mind the luxury of an Ataraxy of an indifference as to all these things of being quiet and untroubled by not having them free from the hurry and disorder of them The Moralists did so account it certainly when they call'd this living according to our Nature as if all the other were a Violence upon us and upon the same ground they accounted it not hard to overcome the Allurements of this World it was onely not to
of a Reprobate sense In fine because I dare not prosecute the Character Men sink so fast as if they were resolv'd to fall as far below Humanity as this Child did below his Divinity O do not you thus break Decrees frustrate and overthrow the everlasting Counsel of Gods Will for good to you He set ordain'd this Child for your rising again Do not throw you selves down into Ruin in despite of his Predestinations He hath carried up your nature into Heaven plac'd Flesh in an union with Divinity set it there at the Right hand of God in Glory Do not you debase and drag it down again to Earth and Hell by Worldliness and Carnal sensuality Make appear this Child hath rais'd you up already made a Resurrection of your Souls and your affections they converse and trade in Heaven And that you do not degenerate from that nature of yours that is there Then this Child who is Himself the Resurrection and the Life will raise up your Bodies too and make them like his glorious Body by the working of his mighty Power by which he is able to subdue all things to himself To whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be all Blessing Power and Praise Dominion and Glory for evermore The Thirteenth SERMON Preached at WHITE-HALL Novemb. 17. 1667. St. JAMES IV. 7. Resist the Devil and he will flee from you THese Words are easily resolved into two parts The first a Duty and the second to encourage the performance an assurance of an happy issue in the doing it The First the Duty in these words Resist the Devil the happy issue in those other he will flee from you For the more practical and useful handling of these parts I shall endeavour to do these three things 1. View the Enemy we are to resist the Devil see his Strengths and what are his chief Engines his main Instruments of Battery whereby he shakes and does endeavour to demolish the whole frame of Vertue in mens lives shatters and throws down all Religious holy Resolutions and subjects men to himself and Sin 2. See what we are to do in opposition to all this and how and by what means we must resist 3. Prove to them that do resist the happy issue which the Text here promiseth First of the first Though no man can be tempted so as to be foil'd by the temptation but he that is drawn away by his own Lust an enticed James i. 14. and all the blandishments of this World all the wiles and artifices of the Prince and God of it the Devil are not able to betray one into sin till his own Lust conceive that sin and bring it forth Man must be taken first in his own Nets and fall into that pit himself hath digged before he can become the Devil's prey Yet Satan hath so great an hand in this affair that the Tempter is his Name and Office Matth. iv 3. And the War which is now before us is so purely his that we are said to fight not against flesh and blood those nests and fortresses of our own Lusts but against Principalities and Powers against the Rulers of the darkness of this World against spiritual wickednesses in high places that is against the Enemy here in the Text the Devil Now to bring about his ends upon us he hath several means The first that I shall name is Infidelity With this he began in Paradise and succeeded by it for he had no sooner told the Woman that she should non surely die and so made her doubt of not believe and consequently nor fear that which God had threatned but she took of the forbidden fruit and she did eat and gave it to her Husband too and he did eat Now if a Serpent siding with her inclination could so quickly stagger and quite overthrow her Faith if she because she sees and likes a pleasing Object can in meer defiance of her own assured Conviction when the Revelation look'd her in the face and God himself was scarce gone out of sight straight give credit to a Snake that comes and confidently gives the lye to God her Maker offers her no proof at all of what he says but onely flatters her desires with promises and expectations of the knows not what Ye shall not die but ye shall be as Gods if in spite of Knowledg she turn Infidel so soon and easily 'T is no great wonder if that Serpent do at this distance from Revelation prevail on men whose conversation being most with Sense their satisfactions also consequently gratifying of their Sense they do not willingly assent to any thing but that which brings immediate evidence and attestation of the Senses which the Objects of our Faith do not especially if it give check to and restrain those satisfactions as those do on such men I say that do not care noâ— use in things that are against their mind to apply the Understanding close and strongly to reflect on those considerations which should move assent and work belief Considerations which I dare affirm if with sincerity adverted to if there be no improbity within to trash their efficacy no sensual inclination cherish'd that must hinder their admittance as not being able to endure to lodg in the same breast with those persuasions would make disbelief appear not onely most imprudent but a thing next to impossible But in those that give themselves no leisure have no will thus to advert 't is not strange if through Satans arts in things of this remote kind they have onely languid opinions which sink quickly into doubts and by degrees into flat Infidelity S. Paul does fetch the rise of unbelief of Charistianity from hence 2 Cor. iv 3 4. If our Gospel be hid it is hid to them that are lost In whom the God of this World hath blinded their minds That is if the Christian Doctrine do not appear to be the truth of God to any 't is to obstinate persons onely whom the Devil hath besotted so with the advantages and pleasures of this World that their affections to these will not let the other be admitted For The Carnal prejudice can cast a mist before the mind or that a bright an glittering Temptation of this World may dazle it so as that it cannot see that which is most illustriously visible we have this demonstration Those Works which Christ and his Apostles wrought which made the whole World that was Heathen then so many Millions of such distant Nations as could never meet together to conspire an universal change in their Religions made them yet agree to lay aside their dear gods and their dearer vices and do that to embrace a Crucified Deity a God put to a vile ignominious death as one worse than the worst of men and a Religion that was as much hated counted as accursed as that God of it He and Doctrine crucified alike and a Religion too that had as great severities in its Commands