and purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works I Need not be very exact in repeating what I so lately delivered hence to you on these words it being so fresh in your Memories Only give me leave for the better carrying on of this Second Part of my Discourse to name the Heads I then proposed which were these 1. The Person Who gave himself Christ Jesus God and Man 2. His infinite Bounty and Goodness in the clearest highest and more endearing Expresses thereof His giving himself for us A free Gift a great one too for surely a greater thing God could not give than Himself and an undeserved Gift the parties on whom it was bestowed being Sinners and Enemies to God and so in no manner of capacity to receive or deserve it 3. The Design or End of that Gift and that twofold 1. Redemption from the slavery of Sin Death and Satan And thus far I then proceeded That which now remains to be spoken to is First What Christ chiefly design'd to redeem us from and that is said to be Iniquity and withall the extent of that Redemption All iniquity 2. The other great End of Christ's giving himself for us namely Sanctification To purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works Of these in their Order Who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from iniquity From our slavery and bondage to Sin not from our subjection to Men. This was no part of that liberty Christ came to purchase for us The Servant is still obliged to perform Obedience to his Master nor does Christianity give Him here any Manumission Servants be obedient to them that are your Masters according to the flesh with fear and trembling in singleness of your heart as unto Christ that is with all diligence and sincerity as unto Christ who sees your hearts and lays this Command on you Nor 2dly does the Law of Christ exempt Subjects from that subjection they owe to their natural and lawfull Princes A Jewish conceit which many primitive Christians were too ready to entertain especially such as having newly shaken hands with Moses thought that at the same time they cast off his Yoke they might lawfully renounce all Obedience to Heathen Governors We know the Jews expected such a glorious conquering Messiah as should give them the Necks of their Enemies and the Empire of the whole World and accordingly to strengthen this fancy they wrested all those obscure passages of the Prophets to a literal which were only meant in a spiritual Sense A conceit more excusable in a people so long enured to a Carnal Oeconomy which made their Thoughts so low that they could rise no higher than the Milk and Honey of a Temporal Canaan But our Saviour has expresly confuted this their gross error Joh. 18. 36. by telling Pilate that his kingdom was not of this World no more than it was his business to cancel any natural or civil Obligations between Men or break those bonds wherein they stood related and engag'd one to another He came to save his people indeed but as the Angel expresses it from their sins and no otherwise Mat. 1. 21. That is not only from the guilt of them and the punishment due to that guilt but also to rescue and free them from the power and dominion of their sins from that course of vitious living wherein themselves with the rest of Mankind had before been engaged A slavery which of all others being the saddest it being a kind of liberty to be given up to the lusts of Men in comparison of being delivered up to those of our own hearts nothing but the Son of God could deliver us from it and we find all his Attributes engaged in that task his infinite Wisdom to find out a way to glory between God's Justice and Man's Sin his infinite Power employed in accomplishing that way his infinite Mercy discovered in pardoning and his infinite Grace in subduing and conquering Sin And that this was the great design of God's sending his Son into the World and of his giving Himself for us we learn from the 11 and 12 Verses of this very Chapter The grace of God says our Apostle there that bringeth salvation hath appeared unto all men teaching us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts So Acts 3. 26. St. Peter tells the Jews that God having raised up his Son Jesus sent him to bless them how not in saving them from their Temporal enemies but in turning every one of them from his iniquities St. John says the very same thing too though in different words 1 Joh. 3. 8. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the Devil the word there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he might dissolve or loosen those chains of Satan wherewith he had fast bound and kept all men in captivity to Himself And ver 5. of that chapter Christ is said to be manifested to take away our sins i. e. as to free us from the guilt of them by his Bloud so from the filth and stain of them by his Spirit Thus you see 't was iniquity Christ came to redeem us from and how as much as in us lyes we frustrate the very end of his coming and of his redeeming us if we enslave our selves to those sins from which he came to free us If our own interest even that of our eternal Salvation be not enough let the kindness and infinite love of God in stooping so low as to become one of us to redeem us from those sins which make us worse than the beasts that perish oblige us to quit them By undertaking the Faith of Christ every Christian ties himself to a strict life Let every one says the Apostle that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity 2 Tim. 2. 19. and not only from some but all kinds of it from All iniquity even as Christ redeemed us from All. 2. Without which addition our Redemption had been but lame and imperfect but our Slavery had not been so since any one unmortified Sin is enough to render us its Vassal There are indeed too many Rimmonists among us that would be content to allow Christ something but not all to part with many but not every sin to defie grosser ones and utterly inconsistent with their Christian profession but not such as they are pleas'd to call their failings of Infirmity and the spots of Children These Men consider not what the Text says That Christ having redeemed us from all iniquity to retain any one known sin is to despise and make void his Redemption at least to themselves and that to allow themselves in that one be it never so small to their apprehension is still to remain in the bond of iniquity any part of Sin 's wages entitling them to its service For this at best is but partial Obedience to God and every partial Obedience does as well imply our partial
the Way to this as the End 2 Pet. 1. 3. 2. But besides this divine Operation we need divine Acceptation also whereby we may be accounted worthy of the Kingdom of God our Inheritance 2 Thess. 1. 5. For all our works and graces here being imperfect can never capacitate us for it without God's gratious Acceptance And therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith St. Chrysost. here 'T is God's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his dignifying of us not our own dignity that renders us worthy And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He makes us accepted in the Beloved Eph. 1. 6. And when the Saints of God are said to be worthy to walk with Christ in white Rev. 3. 4. 't is because He casts his garment of Righteousness about them and if their good Works which yet are but God's own gifts weigh down 't is because He puts his grains of Allowance into the Scale But what need all this either Divine Operation or Acceptation to make us meet partakers of the Inheritance in light may the Enemies of God's Grace here say What need we go farther than our selves and our own Nature for it For Pelagius will tell us That we are in as good a condition now as Adam himself was before his Fall Our Faculties the same as strong and as able as ever Our Understandings as clear to discern and our Wills as free to chuse good and evil That all the harm our first Parent did us was but to give us a bad Example which 't is our fault if we will follow and since our Happiness depends on our selves that we are to blame our selves if we miss of it And although some have thought this too gross to make Man the sole Author of his own Fate yet they have very little mended the matter by so parting stakes between God and him that they still allow the latter the better share in the work of his Salvation For they deny all preventing Grace the proper mark of a Semi-Pelagian although they are pleased to grant a concurrent and subsequent one on God's part to enable him to doe his work with more ease and sureness which otherwise would cost him more pains and hazard However they so far agree with Pelagius as to place this meetness for the Inheritance in Man himself putting it into his own power to dispose himself to his Conversion by an Act of his own Free-will antecedent to God's Grace A piece of Heathen Divinity borrowed from Seneca and Tully For Seneca in a Stoical brag could say That we live is from God but that we live well is from our selves And This is the Judgment of all Mankind says Tully That Prosperity is to be sought of God but Wisdom to be taken up from our selves On which Saying of his St. Augustine passes this Judgment That by making Men free he made them sacrilegious For what greater Sacriledge than to rob God of his Power to convert us or at least to let him go but as a sharer with as therein When as to the first Act of our Conversion we are as purely passive as to that of our Creation or Resurrection We cannot create our selves and being dead in trespasses and sins no more raise up our selves to a spiritual than to a natural life No God must convert us that we may be converted Turn thou us unto thee O Lord and we shall be turned says the Prophet Jeremy Lament 5. 21. Jer. 31. 18. Nay The very preparations of the heart in Man are from the Lord says Solomon Prov. 16. 1. And It is God who worketh in us both to will and to doe says St. Paul Phil. 2. 13. We cannot come to Christ except the Father draw us Joh. 6. 44. Nor when we are drawn to Him doe any thing without Him Himself plainly telling us so Joh. 15. 5. Without me ye can doe nothing He does not say a little but nothing God must prevent and follow us with his Grace plant good inclinations in us and nurse them up too He hath chosen us in Christ before the Foundation of the World that we should be Holy Ephes. 1. 4. not that we were so before he chose us He chose us first too Ye have not chosen me but I have chosen you Joh. 16. 15. 1 Joh. 4. 10. He chose us also out of his own love and then loved us for his choice and made us Holy by his very chusing us No Prevision of our Faith or Good Works but his own free Goodness and Mercy determined his choice He found us not meet to partake of the Inheritance but made us so says the Text Could we make our selves meet we might thank our selves and not the Father as the Apostle here exhorts the Corinthians and us to do in the last place Giving thanks to the Father or as some Translations have it To God the Father God is content we should have the Benefit upon this easie and pleasant condition that we give Him the glory of his Blessings And surely he that grudgeth Him so little for so much deserves not the continuance much less the increase of any of them Still to partake of the streams of the divine Bounty and never to bless not so much as to mind the Fountain still to be receiving and never returning argues an ingratitude as void of all Ingenuity as of Piety Rivers pay their Tribute to that Ocean from whence they flow unto the place from whence they come thither they return Eccles. 1. 7. Nature teaching us to make our Returns thither from whence we derive our Benefits Praise and Thanksgivings are the Reflection of God's glory upon Himself the constant employment of Saints in Heaven and most becoming those on Earth who hope to share with them in their Inheritance so that of all others it becometh most the Just to be thankfull Psal. 33. 1. And indeed it is not only a becoming thing a piece of Decency this but of Justice For Thanks are a Debt we must always be paying to God A Rent our great Landlord requires and indents for the omission whereof will forfeit our Tenure Offer unto God thanksgiving and call upon me in the time of trouble so will I hear thee and thou shalt praise me Psal. 50. 14 15. But then let us be sure to be thankfull to Him and to none besides Him since He is the only Author of all our Good For to misplace our Thanks here would be as bad as to deny them Nay to pay this our Rent to a wrong Landlord worse than not to pay it at all to the right one God will by no means give this his Glory to another nor suffer any to share with Him in our Thanks since from Him alone we receive All those Thanks are due for We must then give them to God alone and to God the Father as some Translations have it not excluding the other Persons in the Trinity but chiefly directing our Thanks to Him
Church when they cannot make them of their Religion I doe not think that those Christianos nuevos those new Christians as they call them in Spain That is such as the Inquisition has made Christians of Mahumetans doe much love the Religion they turn to and much less those who turn them to it by employing Fire and Faggor These indeed are undeniable Evidences of cruelty in them that use them but slender Motives of credibility to beget belief in them that suffer by them And this way will not fail to multiply enemies instead of procuring friends to any Cause though never so good For as Persecution to the true Church is but as the Pruning to the Vine which gains in its bulk and fruit what it loseth in a few luxuriant branches lopt off so even Heresies themselves thrive by being prun'd too the cropping of these Weeds does but serve to thicken them the bloud of the Devil's Martyrs proves as much the Seed of his Synagogue as that of Gods Saints does of his Church and the destroying of the Persons of Hereticks supposing them such does but add life to their Cause And indeed what encouragement have Men to receive a Religion from their Oppressors or how can they think that they who torture and kill their Bodies are really concern'd to save their Souls And while the felicities of another World are recommended to them only by such as doe deprive them of all in this we cannot wonder at their little appetite to embrace them or to find the oppress'd Indians protest against that Heaven where the Spaniards are to be their Cohabitants Add we to all this That such Motives as these can never demonstrate Truth For how successfull soever their force proves yet it cannot prove the Doctrines true For by that argument it proves the Religion it goes about to settle true It proves that that which it destroys was true before while it prevailed and had the power And then such a testimony is given to the truth of Christianity which Heathenism had before and Turcism hath since And thus you see how all violent ways to propagate the Faith cannot be acceptable to God the Father as being directly contrary to his Nature and Will nor yet to his Son since they cross the very end and design of his coming into the World his Doctrine and Practice Fly in the very face of Religion it self and can never serve their turn who make use of it From all which it follows That they who pursue such ways neither know God the Father nor his Son Jesus Christ. I know what is commonly said by some who practice this way of compulsion in excuse and defence of it That many who serve God at first by compulsion may come after to serve him freely That these sorts of Conversions doe not augment the number of Saints but they diminish that of Hereticks That although some among them may prove bad Converts themselves yet they have Families to be saved that their Children may make good Christians and though the stock be naught yet the branches may be sanctified But the answer hereunto is easie That neither good Intents nor casual Events can justifie unreasonable Violence which instead of rendering Men orthodox Christians makes them rather Atheists Hypocrites and Formalists For being constrained to practice against Conscience they soon come at last to lose all Conscience Nor are Men to owe the Salvation of Souls to any unwarrantable proceedings because they must not doe any present evil in prospect of any future good This was another gross error of these persons in the Text as I am now to show you in the next place 2. The Jews here thought their Zeal to the Temple and their Ritual Observances so invincibly meritorious that no crime could defeat it And we see how apt many Christians are to ascribe so much to the force of a good meaning as if it were able to bear the stress and load of any sins that can be laid upon it A good purpose shall hallow all they doe and make them boldly rush into the most unchristian practices in prosecution of what some call The good old Cause others The Catholick Faith For how doe Men swallow down the deadliest Poyson Perjury Sacriledge Murther Regicide and the like in confidence of this their preservative and say grace over the foulest sins How many have made themselves Saints upon that account that would never have been such upon any other And how much Religion groans under the Reproach of all those Evils which zeal and good meanings have consecrated is notorious to all the World Men call the over-flowing of their gall Religion and value their Opinions so high and their eagerness in abetting them that they think the propagating of them so important a service to God as will justifie all they doe in order to this end Now not to speak of their Error in the choice of their Opinions That of many opposite one only can be the Right my present business shall be to shew you 1. The Impiety and 2. The Danger of this strong delusion in respect of that Malignant influence it has on Practice For the clearing of which two things we are to observe That to the making an Action good and warrantable these three things are requisite 1. A good Intention in the Doer 2. That the Matter of the Action be in it self good and 3. That it be rightly circumstantiated For a failure in either of these three things quite vitiates the whole Action 1. The first thing necessary to a good Action is a good Intention in the Doer This we learn from Matth. 6. 22. If thine Eye that is thy Intention for so Interpreters generally understand it be single thy whole Body shall be full of light Be the matter of an Action never so good yet if a Man's aim and intention in the doing of it be not so all is stark naught For Actus moralis specificatur ex fine And Finis dat speciem in moralibus And as the End is the first thing that sets an Agent a working so is it the last that perfects its work Nay so valuable in the sight of God is a good Intention where-ever it be found That as He sometimes prevents an evil Act in him in whom He discovers a good Intention as in Abimilech so does He sometimes reward a good Purpose tho' it proceeds not to act as in David T is true that a good End alone does not justifie any action but it is as true that there can be nothing good or tolerable without it And although a good meaning doth not wholly excuse yet an evil one wholly condemns it But then 2dly Besides a good Intention two things more are requisite to the making an Action good 1. That the Matter of it be such 2. That it be rightly circumstantiated 1. That the Matter thereof be good For our Intention as our zeal must be always in a good thing And a thing is then