Spirit to continue with his Church to the end of the World to guide it into all necessary truth and to assist and govern every lively member of Christs body in the knowledge and practice of all that is indispensably required of him God himself hath a singular delight and pleasure in good men as the holy Psalmist tells us Psal cxlvij. II. The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him and in them that hope in his mercy and our Saviour assures us that God will condescend to dwell and inhabit with such persons which I conceive cannot be understood in any other sense than that there is a very near intercourse between God and good men that God is always ready to assist and succour them in whatsoever they call upon him for John xiv 23. If a man love me he will keep my words and my Father will love him and we will come unto him and make our abode with him And then surely being blest with the presence of such a Guest they cannot want any measure of knowledge in the ways of God that is necessary for them To conclude then what remains now but if we desire knowledge and satisfaction in the Religion we profess that we apply our selves to seek it in this way which our Saviour hath prescribed viz. with sincere resolutions and endeavours to do the will of God according to our knowledge This is the onely way whereby true knowledge is to be obtained he that seeks in this way shall not miscarry For if any man will do his will he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God or whether I speak of my self SERM. IV. HEB. xij 1. Wherefore seeing we also are compassed with so great a cloud of witnesses let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us and let us run with patience the race that is set before us IN the former Chapter of this Epistle the Apostle given us a large account of the afflictions and sufferings of those Patriarchs and Prophets and other holy men who lived before the coming of our Saviour and the words I have now read are an inference from their example that we also having before our eyes the glorious things which they did and suffered and calling to mind the mighty power and efficacy of their Faith in overcoming the World and enduring afflictions may from thence be excited to a like vigour and constancy in our Christian profession So that the words contain these two things worthy our consideration An Exhortation and the reason of it The Exhortation in these words Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us and let us run with patience the race which is set before us The reason of the Exhortation in these words Seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses I shall begin with the Exhortation There is nothing more usual in holy Scripture than to represent the duty of a Christian under the similitude of such other imployments as carry with them the greatest difficulties and require the most exact care and vigilance in those who undertake them Sometimes we are compared to Soldiers who must be always upon the Guard sometimes to Travellers and Pilgrims who have a long and hazardous journey to make sometimes to those who strive for Masteries in publick Games Now these several sorts of imployments do all presuppose these two things 1. That those who undertake them do propose to themselves some great and considerable end some reward of their labours 2. That there are great difficulties to be passed through great industry and care and watchfulness to be used for the attainment of it The case is not unlike in our Christian Profession We have a glorious prize of our high Calling set before us we have an exceeding great reward a Crown of Glory laid up for us which God the righteous Judge and just Rewarder of those that diligently seek him will not fail to bestow on such as overcome But then we must not expect this Reward and Crown upon any other condition than that we approve our selves as men who have fought the good fight of Faith manfully and couragiously who have strove lawfully and endured to the end The similitude used in the Text is taken from those Trials of Skill those publick Exercises which were used in the Olympick Games Now for those who run in a Race there are three things necessary to be done if they hope to gain the victory in proportion to which the whole duty of a Christian is expressed in this Exhortation 1. They must free themselves from all unnecessary burdens from all their loose garments which may clog or entangle them in their way they must lay away every weight 2. They must be active and vigorous in the course they must run the race set before them 3. They must continue their vigour and courage to the end of the race This I conceive to be meant by running with patience that is with perseverance and continuance in well-doing Now it is easie to apply these several circumstances to our Christian duty and I shall consider each of them 1. It is easie to understand that what is here metaphorically expressed by laying aside every weight is the same with what S. Paul elsewhere teaches us in plain terms and calls the denying all ungodliness and worldly lusts and what our Saviour means by denying our selves The riches honours and pleasures of the World and the love of them which S. John calls the lust of the flesh the lust of the eye and the pride of life are not unfitly compared to so many clogs and weights that press down the soul and are apt to make it dull and unactive and divert it from the ways of holiness and the laying aside these incumbrances the freeing our minds from these affections and desires and from the love of all things else whatsoever nay of our life it self when it stands in competition with our duty is so necessary a preparation for our running the race set before us that without so doing we are not capable of being Christs Disciples Mat. xvj 24. Jesus said unto his Disciples if any man will come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me S. Mat. x. 38. He that taketh not his cross and followeth after me is not worthy of me Now that the renouncing and forsaking our carnal lusts and desires is most generally to be understood by taking up the cross and denying our selves I conceive evident from hence because it is made a necessary qualification of all that will be Christs Disciples not onely those who suffer persecutions but all that will be Christians must in their proportion deny themselves and take up the Cross These and the like expressions are universal not limited to any time or place or other circumstances but equally belong to all Christians Luke xiv 26. If any man come to me
conclusion and could such an Argumentation deceive we could have little encouragement to believe any thing upon the testimony of our Faculties Again If this were the effect of some early revelation made to men when they were yet few in number and retained in the dispersion of Nations and still preserved notwithstanding the gross ignorance they fell into as to other matters This must be a great evidence of the clearness and evidence of that revelation at first and must consequently much confirm us in the belief of it And indeed it is not improbable that the rational Evidences of this Truth of a Judgment to come might have been confirmed to the first Ages of the World by some divine revelations which were communicated to all and thence derived and propagated through all the several Religions and Superstitions which afterward were entertained by the Heathen World It is not to be doubted but that Noah understood this Truth and would not fail to instruct his Family which were all humane souls that were left alive in so necessary a matter which might have so great influence upon them to keep them in obedience to God who had so lately delivered them from so universal a destruction Nay there is still extant the remainder of a Prophecy concerning a Judgment to come much ancienter than the Flood This we find cited by Saint Jude 14. And Enoch also the seventh from Adam prophesied saying Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his Saints to execute judgment upon all and to convince all that are ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him And this leads me to the last and most undeniable evidence of this truth 4. The particular revelation of it in holy Scripture but the testimonies of this Truth that there is a Judgment to come are so frequent in the Writings of the Evangelists and Apostles that it were altogether needless to recite them to you Every one that hath heard of the Gospel must understand that is one chief Article of our Christian Profession Nothing more plainly revealed nothing more frequently inculcated than that we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ I proceed therefore to the second thing proposed The Method of proceeding at that day Every one shall receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad That the good or evil of mens actions in this life is the rule and measure according to which they shall be judged at the great day that they who have done good shall receive the good they have done and they who have done evil shall receive according to that likewise is a Truth so fully and plainly taught in holy Scripture that one would think men could not easily mistake or deceive themselves in this matter For 1. It is very plain that no other way of proceeding can be agreeable to the Purity and Justice of the Divine Nature The righteous God loveth righteousness and his countenance will behold the the thing that is just and he is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity The righteous therefore and they onely can be capable of reward from him when he cometh to judge the Earth and the wicked and unrighteous and they only must be the objects of his wrath and vengeance To do otherwise than so and to invert this method would be a contradiction to all the divine Attributes and to all the Methods whereby God hath made himself known to the Sons of men And therefore the Author of the Book of Wisdom saith thus to the Almighty Wisd xij 15. For as much as thou art righteous thy self thou orderest all things righteously thinking it not agreeable to thy power to condemn him who hath not deserved to be punished To which we may also add That it is not agreeable to his Purity and Justice to reward the unrighteous and disobedient And therefore we may observe That in all the methods of Gods dealings with the Sons of men he hath all along declared the greatest abhorrence of sin and wickedness and the greatest severity against those that continued in the commission of it It was Sin onely that brought Misery and Death into the World For by one mans disobedience sin entered into the World and death by sin and so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned And when God was pleased out of his infinite mercy and compassion to contrive the way of our recovery and to send his Son into the World for our Redemption he would not admit us to terms of Peace and Reconciliation without the greatest demonstration of his justice and severity against sin and that in the Sufferings of his onely begotten Son For he was made sin for us who know no sin he bore our griefs and carried our sorrows he was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities by his stripes we are healed Now we are not to persuade our selves that our Saviours sufferings in our stead can be available to us or free us from the punishment of our sins while we continue in them For he bare our sins in his own body on the tree for no other end but that we being dead to sin might live unto righteousness that so being saved from our sins here we might be saved from the Wages of them hereafter And therefore Saint Paul tells us that the grace of God hath appeared to all men to bring salvation no otherwise than by teaching us to deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live righteously soberly and godly in this present World Thus if we consider the nature of God and his dealings with Mankind we cannot but expect that when he cometh to judge the World he will judge according to righteousness They who have done good shall be rewarded by him and they who have done evil shall receive a due recompence of their evil deeds 2. This is further evident from the several promises and threatnings in Scripture which are all along made use of as Arguments to persuade us to the practice of righteousness and true holiness and to discourage and dissuade us from sin and wickedness which it were in vain to do if the promises of the Gospel can be due to any but upon condition of their obedience or if the Wrath to come could be avoided any otherwise than by forsaking those sins to which it is threatned Thus Saint Paul argues from the promises of the Gospel 2 Cor. vij 1. Having therefore these promises dearly beloved let us cleanse our selves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit perfecting holiness in the fear of God Thus again S. Peter i. 4. tells That by the Gospel there are given unto us great and pretious promises that by these ye may be partakers of the Divine Nature having escaped the corruption that is in the world through Lust and besides this giving all
diligence add to your Faith Vertue and to Vertue Knowledge and to Knowledge Temperance and to Temperance Patience and to Patience Godliness and to Godliness Brotherly Kindness and to Brotherly Kindness Charity For so an entrance shall be ministred unto you effectually into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Now these and the like Exhortations would be of no force at all to persuade us if these promises could be attained without the performance of these conditions In a word in all the descriptions of a Judgment to come there is nothing plainer than this that I now plead for that God will reward every one according to what he hath done I shall mention but two places more Rom. ij 6. God will render to every man according to his deeds to them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honour and immortality eternal life But unto them that are contentious and do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness indignation and wrath tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doth evil of the Jew first and also of the Gentiles For there is no respect of persons with God The other place is Mat. xxv where our Saviour having given us a large description of those good Works which shall then be rewarded and having there represented the vanity of those mens excuses who had not wrought them he concludes with this sentence these shall go away into everlasting punishment and the righteous into life eternal There remains onely to draw some inferences from what hath been said that may be of use to us for the government of our lives 1. If there be a Judgment to come wherein men shall receive rewards and punishments according to their actions whether good or bad it is easie then to understand how much those men deceive themselves who hope to be saved by vertue of any absolute and inconditionate decree For if God have from eternity fore-ordained such and such particular persons to eternal life and others to eternal damnation without any consideration of their actions whether good or bad then certainly God cannot proceed in judgment according to the method before described nor could the promises and threatnings of the Gospel have any force of persuasion to engage men in the practice of Vertue or to discourage them from Sin and Wickedness In vain would the Apostle here make use of the terrours of the Lord to persuade men if God have before determined that such a certain number of them shall not escape the wrath to come whatsoever diligence they use on their parts On the contrary the promises of the Gospel cannot have any reasonable force to engage men to obedience if once they knew and believed that their future state was from everlasting unalterably fixed so that they could not fall short of it by any neglect Nay upon this supposition all the various methods of persuasion which God uses in Scripture to bring men to repentance and a better life prove nothing else but illusion and hypocrisie For that God should so often by his holy Prophets and Apostles invite and exhort and beseech all men that they would turn from their evil ways and live when in the mean time he hath excluded many myriads of men from any possibility of salvation by an absolute and irresistible decree which no endeavour of theirs can revoke or cancel this way of proceeding cannot by any means consist with that truth and sincerity and goodness which is inseparable from the divine nature We must therefore conclude that if there be a Judgment to come when all men shall receive rewards and punishments according to what they have done then certainly no man shall ever be excluded from those rewards but by his own fault nor yet any man obtain the same but by a due diligence in working out his salvation and performing those conditions upon which they are promised 2. From what hath been said concerning the method of Gods proceeding at the Judgment of the last Day we may also observe that those men do extreamly mistake the conditions of salvation who talk of being saved by Faith as it is distinguished from good works and obedience who take so much pains to cry down the value of our good works as though they had little or no influence in the justification or salvation of a Christian For surely if we shall be judged according to what we have done Faith alone cannot be the whole condition required on our parts in order to our salvation It is true indeed glorious things are spoken of Faith in holy Scripture but these things must not be understood of a bare assent to the truth of the Gospel which is the proper importance of that word Faith but of such a Faith as is a principle of life and action such a Faith as hath influence upon the whole course of our lives and is not contradicted by our practice and conversation a Faith that worketh by love and is fruitful of good works and obedience Thus it is not to be considered as a single Vertue and separate from the rest but as being the fruitful parent of all other Christian Vertues and including them in it For if we understand Faith in a more strict sense as distinct from an holy conversation it is no more than the Devils themselves may pretend to and yet this is so far from being any relief to them that it is the great aggravation of their misery To know and be assured of the glorious things revealed in the Gospel and to know withal that they themselves are finally excluded from the benefit of them this doubtless is a mighty aggravation of their horrour and we may well conclude as S. James doth that they believe and tremble nay that this belief doth make them tremble 3. If we shall be judged according to what we have done in the body it then follows that all that is to be done by us in the great work of our Salvation must be performed in our life time whilest we are in the body Now must we give all diligence to make our calling and election sure and not leave any thing to be done after our death either by our selves or others This I observe in opposition to that Doctrine of the Church of Rome which supposes that some sins are expiated after death and purged away by the fire of Purgatory and by the Prayers and Sacrifices of those that are left alive But this is not onely a vain and groundless opinion but certainly doth much tend to the hindrance of Piety and lessening mens care of their future state As the Tree falleth so it lieth As a man goeth out of this World such will be his future state and he will be judged according to what he was when he left the body according to what he had done in the body 4. If it be thus certain that we must all appear before the Judgment seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body this certainly ought to awaken our diligence in the business of our Salvation that to day while it is called to day we break off our sins by a sincere and hearty repentance that knowing the terrours of the Lord we pass the time of our so journing here in fear For surely did men seriously consider that there is a day coming when all the hidden works of darkness shall be made manifest when the secrets of all mens hearts shall be revealed when all the close impieties which had passed here undiscerned should be laid open before God and all the World they would not now so fondly flatter themselves with hopes of secresie or impunity Did men seriously reflect upon the terribleness of that great day when God shall appear with ten thousand of his Saints to take vengeance on them that have not feared his name did they often think upon that dreadful sentence which will then be pronounced against all impenitent sinners Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels this certainly if any thing would put a check to the bold impiety of this Age. Men would not then dare so openly to defie Heaven and blaspheme the Majesty of the great God who will at that day appear so terrible nor would they continue by their hardness and impenitent hearts to treasure up to themselves wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous Judgment of God On the contrary as the terrours of that day ought to make us sensible of our danger if we continue in disobedience so the glorious reward which shall at that day be given to those that have lived obediently to the will of God ought to be a most effectual motive to persuade us thereunto For what greater encouragement to our duty than the consideration of those great and glorious things which God hath prepared for them that love him Who would not willingly forsake all the flattering joys and transitory pleasures of this life that he may secure to himself such an inheritance incorruptible undefiled that fadeth not away which God the righteous Judge shall give him at that day Or who would not despise all the sufferings of this life which may possibly attend him in the practice of his duty when he remembers that these light afflictions which endure but for a moment work out for him a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory Now the great God grant us all his grace that we may have the judgment of the last day always present to our minds that denying all ungodliness and worldly lusts we may live soberly righteously and godly in this present world looking for that blessed hope and glorious appearance of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ that when we come to stand before that great Tribunal we may be presented pure and unblamable in his sight and that not for any merits of our own but through the mediation of our blessed Saviour To whom with the Father and Eternal Spirit be ascribed as is most due all power praise thanksgiving and obedience for evermore FINIS
we would preserve our innocency and integrity amidst so many and dangerous temptations We have need of patience if we would deny our selves all those irregular gratifications to which the Devil the World and our own hearts Lust are apt to entice and invite us and therefore the consideration of our Saviours example of Patience under Sufferings may still be very useful to us though we be not called to suffer Persecution for his names sake And then for Persecution it self though it be a case very seldom happens yet such is the condition of Christianity that every one that undertakes the profession of it must at least in preparation of soul be ready to lay down his life rather than renounce it Now in order to confirm our constancy and resolution in our Holy Calling notwithstanding any temptations we meet with in the World notwithstanding any afflictions or calamities that may befal us the Apostle recommends this as a most effectual means to look unto Jesus the author and finisher of our Faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the Cross despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God In which words the blessed JESUS is represented unto us under a two-fold Character each of which affords very proper and suitable Arguments to ingage us in imitation of him 1. We are to look unto him as the Author of our Faith This is in Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is a Military term signifying a Captain and Leader one who hath gone before us with bravery and resolution and hath commanded us to follow his steps This is further explained in the following part of the Verse who for the joy set before him endured the Cross despising the shame If we look unto Jesus under this Character the Apostles Argument is very piain and convincing that since the Author and Captain of our Salvation did not refuse himself to undergo the most unsupportable calamities of this life and to suffer a painful and most ignominious death in prospect of that exceeding great reward which he saw prepared for him neither ought we who pretend to be his Disciples and Souldiers refuse to follow him in the same track that we may partake with him in the same joy Especially if we consider 2. That he is not onely the Captain of our Faith but the finisher and perfecter of it This is in Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is the Rewarder of our Faith This is further exprest in the latter clause of the Verse where the Apostle declaring the issue and event of our Saviours sufferings tells us he is set down on the right hand of the throne of God Which words express these two things 1. That our Saviour hath himself received the full Reward of his humiliation and sufferings being set down at the right hand of God 2. And which is consequent from that that he is now endued with sufficient authority and power abundantly to reward those who suffer with him and after his example I shall begin with the first of these Characters and shall consider our Saviour as Author and Captain of our Faith the great Pattern and Example of Patience who for the joy set before him endured the Cross despising the shame And to shew the force of the Apostles Argument 1. I shall first consider the sufferings themselves which our Saviour underwent expressed here by two comprehensive words the CROSS and the SHAME 2. The manner of his enduring them 3. I shall endeavour to shew the influence of his Example to engage us to follow and imitate him To begin with his Sufferings themselves Though the Cross and the Shame here spoken of do principally refer to the great and unparallel'd instance of our Saviours Sufferings which was the consummation of all the rest even his painful and ignominious Death yet I conceive they may not unfitly be extended to the whole History of them from his Birth unto that very time If therefore we take a short view of our Saviours whole life and actions we shall easily discern that the prophecy was throughly fulfilled wherein he is represented as a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief Not to mention the meanness of his Birth the poverty of his condition the early Persecution raised against him by Herod nor those other accidents that befel him in his younger years Not to mention these things I shall confine my discourse to those instances of Suffering which befel him after he began to shew himself to Israel and by signs and wonders to declare himself to be the Son of God the true Messias that according to the Prophets was to come into the World And I shall represent them under these two heads answerable to those in the Text the great ignominy and reproach which was cast upon his person through the whole course of his Ministry and then the bitter and painful circumstances that went before and accompanied his Death and Passion And first if we consider the quality of our Saviours person that he was the true Messias so long foretold by the Prophets and at that very time expected by the Jews if we consider the great and undeniable proof that he gave of these things viz. the fulfilling all the prophecies that spake of him so punctually and so particularly his delivering such a doctrine to them that carried with it all the evidence of a divine authority his doing such mighty works among them which by their own confession no man could do unless God were with him his healing the sick and curing diseases and casting out Devils giving eyes to the blind restoring the lame raising the dead all which could be the effect of no lesser cause than the Almighty power of God attesting the truth of what he spake and the authority of his mission He that considers these things might reasonably expect that so divine a person at his first appearance should have been entertained with the greatest demonstration of joy and triumph and doubtless had the Jews themselves been demanded before-hand what honour was fit to be given to their long looked for Messias when he came they could not have contrived any ways of respect suitable to their great apprehensions of him they would have thought no kind of homage too great to be paid to the person whom God had sent to them so immediately and upon so advantageous a message But behold on the contrary when this Prince and Saviour did at length appear in the fulness of time though there was no testimony wanting to confirm him to be the very CHRIST yet because he came not with outward pomp and splendor had none of the gilded Pageantries of the World to attend him in his appearance this prejudice alone was sufficient with them to over-ballance the strongest demonstration that could possibly be given Is not this the Carpenters Son they thought sufficient confutation of all the mighty things he spake and did So that in stead