Lights in the Primitive Church and Reason according to the common Condition of Mankind and from which they themselves cannot produce us any Authority of Holy Scripture to exempt her And if some among us have with St. Chrysostom freely supposed That in some cases she did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet in the very Instances to which they refer they have at least probable grounds for what they say And for the most part we are contented with St. Austin to suspend our selves and for the honour of our Saviour not to enter into any question at all concerning her as to this matter whether she ever did actually sin or no Or now that God has taken her up into Glory Have we not all that high and worthy Opinion of her Exaltation that we ought to have because indeed we freely profess we cannot believe such extravagant Romances as all sober Men even of their own Church are ashamed of We doubt not but she is at this time in Heaven Do we ever the more debase her because we will not entertain a shameless Legend of her Assumption thither We are persuaded that she is adorn'd with one of the brightest Aureola's in God's Kingdom That her Crown is more Illustrious than any among the Daughters of Eve Is not this sufficient unless we will undertake to tell you what her Crown was made of how many Stars went into her Atchievement what Badges her Servants wore and what Speeches and Complements were made to her upon the occasion and to compleat all set forth in perspective all the Holy Trinity concurring in this Ceremony and all the Powers of Heaven and Earth singing Praises to Her and adoring of Her We make no question but that as she was very highly favour'd by God on Earth so is she now no less beloved by him in Heaven But should we therefore set her up as another Mediatrix that as both Sexes concurr'd to our Ruin so might both concur to our Reparation and so tye up the Hands of God as not to allow any to be saved but according to Her Will Nay make her so far the Queen of Heaven and Earth as to give her a Power of all the Grace that is to be bestowed on Mankind Of saving her Votaries if they do but sufficiently love and worship Her whatever their Affections or their Service be to God Almighty Of fetching Souls not only out of Purgatory but even from Hell it self by her Authority Of ordering all the Events of the Fortunes of Men and Kingdoms insomuch that not a Battel can be fought or a Victory obtain'd but by the favour of this Pallas to whom the Success is due and to whom the Praise and Honour therefore ought to be return'd These indeed are the Extravagancies of some of our Adversaries but God forbid they should ever be the Practice or Opinions of any among us To conclude It is impossible for any to entertain more honourable Sentiments of the Blessed Virgin than we do who will not run out into Blasphemy and Fanaticism and believe such things as neither Scripture nor Antiquity have deliver'd nor will either Piety or common Sense suffer us to receive Let us see Secondly Whether our Actions be not every way suitable to our Opinions Now for this I must observe according to my Foundation before laid down That the Holy Virgin however highly exalted by God being yet still but a meer Creature our Actions towards her must be no other than what a Creature that is at such a vast distance from us and out of all compass of Civil Communication is capable of receiving And so the summ of what may warrantably be paid to her will fall under these Three Generals First To celebrate the Memory of those Blessings and Favours which it has pleased God to bestow upon her Secondly To return Praises to God on the account of them And Thirdly To endeavour what in us lies to imitate her Excellencies This is all the Honour she is capable of receiving from us and it cannot be doubted but that we are as careful as any to fulfil the Prophecy of our Text in every one of these Particulars First We celebrate the Memory of those Blessings and Favours which it has pleased God to bestow upon her Let this day and the other Solemn Festivals we observe to the same End be our Witness how careful we are as to this particular We mark it out in our Rituals as a Day Holy unto the Lord We assemble in our Sacred places solemnly to recount what the Holy Scriptures have recorded of God's Mercies to Her And annually as at this time we encourage one another to bless and praise Him upon the account of them But here the Objection made in the beginning will rise against us 'T is true indeed we do observe some of her Festivals but yet we pass by the greater part of them And for the main thing of all we quite omit it in that we say not AVE MARIA so often and so impertinently as they do nor other Anthems of our Lady as they call her by a new and phantastical Title never given her either in Scripture or by any of the ancient Fathers This we confess is in some measure true We say no AVE MARIE'S i. e. after the manner that they do nor can we imagin what Honour is done to the Blessed Virgin by the nauseous tautologie of a Salutation pertinent in its season when the Angel spoke to her upon her Conception but now as unseasonable in the Application as it is vain and absurd in the Repetition But yet when we recite the History and celebrate the Memory of that surprising Salutation then we read it in our Assemblies that is we do say Ave Maria as often as 't is either pious or to the purpose to do it And if for not doing it as they do we are to be excluded out of the Number of those of whom our Text speaks yet God be thanked we shall run but the same Fortune that the Apostles and the primitive Ages of the Church did before it was first as they tell us revealed to St. Dominick and by him to the Church how they were to recite the Rosary But now for the other Instances objected against us viz. The Feasts and Anthems of our Lady in these we may venture to justifie our selves We celebrate the Memory of all the great Particulars that we know of her Life And if upon the meer Authority of Fables confess'd to be uncertain and disputed by many among themselves as not fit to be credited we cannot be induced to observe more yet in this we hope all sober Christians will acquit us and esteem us to be very excusable in what we do It being certainly to mock not honour both God and Her solemnly to commemorate and seriously to thank God for such Blessings as at the same time we are sure He never bestowed upon Her nor She ever receiv'd
to be seduced from the right Faith he may deserve indeed to be pitied now but I fear he will hardly be hereafter excused But it is not sufficient to secure our selves against this danger He that will be constant in his Religion as he ought to be must see 2 dly That he be not too apt to entertain an ill Opinion of it For if it be Obstinacy on the one hand not to admit of any Conviction thò never so clear and reasonable it is certainly a great Weakness on the other to be affrighted at every shadow of an Argument and to put it in the power of every little Disputer to prejudice us against our Religion because one who is its professed Enemy rails against it and pretends it is a very ill One He would I believe be thought a very credulous person indeed who should begin to stagger and fall into a trembling thô he saw himself upon plain and even Ground because a bold and fanciful man is very positive that 't is a precipice And doubtless that Man is no less to be pitied that is frighted for fear he should be in the wrong thô he has the undoubted Authority of Scripture and Antiquity nay and even of Sense and Reason too on his side as often as every Common-place Trifler shall think fit to run over his division upon the Church the Antiquity Succession Infallibility of it and without either Modesty or Proof call us Hereticks If Men have Reason on their side if they have Scripture for what they say let them on God's Name produce it We are always ready to consider and to submit to such convictions But otherwise to think to perswade us that we are in utter darkness when we see the Sun shining in our faces That we must be damned for not believing that what we see and tast and know to be but a bit of Bread is not the Body of a Man That they are not Infallible who are actually involved in the grossest Errors In a word That our Church had no being before Luther every Article of whose Faith is founded upon the Authority of the Holy Scriptures and has been professed in all Ages of the Church from the Apostles to this day this is certainly one of the most unreasonable things in the whole World and what ought not by any means to stagger our stedfastness And now having secured our selves on both these sides it only remains to preserve our Constancy 3 dly That if at any time any Arguments should be offer'd to us that may deserve our regard we then be sure to give them that due and wise Examination that we ought to do It is a very great Weakness and indeed a very great fault in many persons that if at any time they begin to doubt in their belief of any part of their Faith which they have been taught to profess they presently abandon their own Guides and run for satisfaction to those who are the professed Enemies of their Religion From henceforth they hear nothing but what is ill of their Church they are taught more and more to suspect the way that they are in and then 't is odds but a very little examination suffices to make them leave it This is certainly a very great fault and will one day prove of very dangerous consequence What such persons may think of changing their Religion I cannot tell but sure I am our greatest Charity will hardly enable us to entertain any very comfortable Opinion of them Nor are they such as those that we either say or believe may be saved notwithstanding the errors and corruptions of that Church with which they Communicate He that will make a safe change from one Religion to another must not think it enough to enquire into one or two points and having received a satisfaction in them embrace all the rest at a venture for their sakes but he must pass distinctly through every Article in debate He must enquire not only whether the Church of which he is at present a Member be not mistaken in some points it may be there is no Church in the World that is absolutely free from all kind of Error But whether those mistakes be of such a consequence that he cannot communicate any longer with it on the account of them When this is done the greatest difficulty will still remain to examine with the same diligence every Article of that other Church to which he is tempted For else thô he should have reason to forsake his own Church he will yet be but little advantaged if he goes to another that is as bad or it may be worse than that If there he should find the most part well yet so that there are but any One or Two things so Erroneous as to oblige him to profess what he thinks to be false or to practice what is unlawful even this will be sufficient to hinder him from reconciling himself to it And in all this there must be a serious and diligent and impartial search There must be no prejudice in favour of the One or against the Other no desire that the Truth should be on this side rather than on that In short nothing must be omitted whereby he might reasonably have got a better Information And to all this Care there must be added fervent Prayer to God for his assistance He who falls away from his first Faith on any lesser convicton than this can never excuse himself from a criminal lightness in a matter of such concern And for him that sincerely does this I shall for my part be content that he should leave the Church of England whenever he can be thus convinced that any other but especially that the Church of Rome is a safer way to Salvation And this may suffice to have been said to the first particular What that stedfastness in Religion is to which our Text exhorts us I go on 2 dly to shew II. Upon what Motives it was that the Apostle here stirred up the Christians to whom he wrote and that I am now in like manner to exhort you to such a stedfastness Now these our Text reduces to this One General Consideration That they both understood their danger and were expresly forewarn'd by his Epistle how careful it would behove them to be to arm themselves against it Ye therefore Beloved seeing ye know these things before Beware And doubtless it is not only a great security but ought to be also a great engagement to such a vigilance to be thus expresly forewarned of our danger And he who either neglecting or despising the Admonition suffers himself to be seduced from his own stedfastness must certainly be utterly inexcusable both in the sight of God and Man for his Inconstancy But that which will aggravate this neglect yet much more is the consideration of those Motives by which the Apostle here cautions them to Beware and which therefore I must lay a little more distinctly before you Now such
This is a Cause which men do not indeed care so openly to profess but yet such a one as their Actions oftentimes do but too plainly point out to us And I wish that even this were all and that there were not some in the world whose very Principles seem to lead them into such an opinion so contrary to the very nature of Christianity and so fatally ruinous to their own Eternal Salvation For 1 st Not to say any thing now to those wise men of the world who laugh at all our discourse of another life after this and of an account to be given of all our Actions before a Divine Tribunal but to leave them to the convictions of their own Consciences which speak loudly to them this great truth and make them with Felix still fear what they pretend not to believe What shall we say to a more refined sort of Disputants who acknowledging a future Judgment and an Eternal Reward for those that do well yet extinguish in great measure all the flames of Hell-fire and allow of little or no danger for those that do ill They suppose that the worst that can happen to them if they should chance to be overtaken in their sins is but to lose their Portion in the Joys of Heaven and be for ever annihilated the only danger that if you will believe them attends the greatest Sinners in the other World But yet still methinks since they confess that there is such a place as Heaven and that there shall be an enjoyment of Honour and Glory there to all Eternity for those who at that day shall be found worthy of it even this should be enough to make them think it worth their while to endeavour to procure themselves a share in so much happiness And however they suppose that the Everlasting Punishment which the Holy Scriptures threaten sinners with shall be only an Eternal Annihilation yet since 't is plain that the same Scriptures speak very dreadful things of it and it cannot be denied but that the greatest part of Christians have and do believe that the wicked shall not cease to be but on the contrary for ever continue in a state of Misery which neither any tongue can express nor any thought conceive and 't is certain there are many passages in the Sacred Writ that seem very much to favour this apprehension indeed that cannot without violence be detorted to any other signification It must certainly be the wisest course not to be too secure in their own sense but whether they believe the Torments of the Damn'd to be Eternal or no yet certainly to live so as if they made not the least doubt of it 2. But secondly Another sort of men there are who by their mistaken Notions of Christianity have very much contributed to lessen their Opinion concerning the necessity of Repentance that I do not say have utterly corrupted the very nature and practice of it I mean the Casuists and Confessors of the Church of Rome It is a Point commonly disputed among these men what the precise time is in which men are bound by the Law of God to Repent There have been some of them indeed so severe as to think that a man ought to repent on all the greater Festivals of the Church Others think that 't is enough if a man do it against Easter But the common Opinion is that this is only to be understood of the external and ritual Repentance of the Church which consists in Confessing and Receiving the Holy Sacrament but that for the true inward Repentance the precise time in which the sinner is bound by the commandment of God to be contrite for his sins is the imminent Article of a Natural or Violent Death Insomuch that some of them doubt not to say That even for a man to resolve to defer his Repentance and refuse to Repent for a certain time is but a Venial Sin nay and others think no sin at all And these men to be sure in express terms take away the necessity of present Repentance But this is not yet all for when they do come to the time that they think it necessary to put it in practice even then they find out so many other Artifices to elude the sincere performance of it that they who do all which they require of them yet do not in effect truly Repent What else can we make of the allow'd practise of that Church upon Confession of Sins and an imperfect Contrition for them to admit them to Absolution and so in effect make the whole of this Duty to amount to no more than a little sorrow for sin and a resolution to forsake it though at the same time they are so far from doing it that it may be they do not themselves believe that ever they shall make good such their Resolution And that too though they have neither any love of God in their hearts nor otherwise hate their sins than they are afraid of being damn'd for them I need not say how many other Devices these Men have found out to free themselves from the trouble of a true Repentance By Pardons and Indulgences by Masses and Prayers for the dead by Consecrated Garments and Priviledg'd Fraternities and the End of all which is what I am now complaing of to make men careless and negligent in the discharge of that Piety that God requires of them and of that Repentance which alone can obtain an effectual forgiveness of their Sins But these are not yet all who by their mistaken Notions of some of the Doctrines of Christianity have been but too much encouraged to neglect the practise of a Christian life Others there are 3 dly And those of a more near concern to us than either of the foregoing whose Principles seem without great care but too naturally to tend to the same neglect Such are The Great Assertors of Salvation by Faith alone without Works of God's Eternal Predestination and in consequence thereof Mens Absolute Election or Reprobation Of the slavery of the Will and its incapacity to do any thing as to the business of our Future state without that special Grace of God which if men have then they must needs do Well and without it cannot but do Ill and which God does not afford indifferently to All those to whom the Gospel is preach'd but to such only as he intends thereby to bring to Faith and Repentance first and then to Salvation Now not to dispute with any one the Truth of all these Points when wisely and soberly stated according to the Authority of the Holy Scripture that which I say is this That all these and the like Principles are apt to mislead Ignorant and Wicked Men who are not very well instructed in the true notion and understanding of them to a neglect of their duty as if the whole work of their Justification were either so secure and setled on the one hand
Hearers For such there still are in our days as well as we read there were heretofore in the Apostles Who hold mens Persons in Admiration and esteem the Gospel of Christ more according to the Preachers Eloquence than its own Authority One is of Paul another of Apollos and a third of Cephas As if the business of our Preaching were to please their Fancies not to instruct their Minds and to reform their Manners and that simplicity which was once the Glory of the Gospel were now to be esteem'd the scandal of its Ministers Hence it is that so many of our Auditors instead of coming to our discourses as they ought to hear their Duty and confirm their Faith and encrease their Piety come rather to observe and censure The application they make is not to enter into their Closets and Meditate upon what they have Heard and consider how they may benefit their Souls by it and then to beg the assistance of God's Grace to enable them so to do But to Applaud or Despise the Preacher according as he has had the Fortune to be liked or disliked by them There is hardly any defect in the Preacher so small that is not enough to distast them against the very Doctrine that is delivered And be the Duty never so clearly and solidly established yet if the Method be not exact the Style correct the Subject such as they approve the Voice the Action nay and sometimes the very Look of him that speaks to them agreeable to their Fancies all is spoiled and they are not Edified But alas Who is Paul or who is Apollos or who is Cephas Are we not all the Ministers of Christ and your Servants for Jesus sake Do we not all Preach to you the same common Salvation Is it not the same Gospel that is delivered by every one of us What if we have not all of us the same accidental advantages If another speak to you with more Ornament and Eloquence Must therefore my Weakness render the Gospel of Christ Contemptible I would to God for your sakes we were all such as you desire That we could every one of us not only instruct but please you too to Edification that so by any means if it were possible we might gain some of you But yet in the words of St. Paul give me leave freely to say of this Curiosity That verily there is a fault among you And what wonder if you do not reap that real Advantage we could wish from our instructions when alas it is not That you look after You come with curiosity to gratify an itching Ear not with true Humility to increase your Knowledge and improve your Piety But 3 dly A third sort of Hearers to be considered in this place are The Carnal and Sensual Hearers Men who in their wills and desires are utter Enemies to the Practice of Christianity however they sometimes comes to be hearers of it But as the Great Philosopher heretofore when he opened his School of Morality and began his Lectures with the same reflections I am now making excluded all vicious and even young men from his Auditory Esteeming it in vain for him to spend his time in instructing those who were either already engaged in a Course of Sin or otherwise by the bent and heat of their Age strongly inclined and tempted to it So may I certainly with much greater reason say with reference to our Gospel That to such as these all our Addresses will signify but very little Nor can we reasonably expect men should become such Proficients as we desire by our exhortations to Piety till they will begin seriously to dispose their minds to the practice of it To preach to a soft Voluptuary the severe Doctrines of Mortification and Self-denyal to an Angry and Impatient Spirit to bear Injuries not to recompence to any Evil for Evil to forgive nay to love his Enemies To the Covetous Miser to Give Alms of such things as he has and make himself friends in Heaven by the wise distribution of his unrighteous Mammon upon Earth what is this but to plow the sand to sow your seed upon the water They look upon the Doctrine to be senseless and unreasonable and the Gospel of Christ foolishness indeed if it expects they should obey such kind of Precepts as these What therefore our Blessed Saviour once said with reference to his own preaching I must here beg leave to apply to ours 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 If any man will do God's will if he will sincerely resolve to apply himself to the practice of Religion then he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God or whether we speak of our selves He shall be fit and prepared to judge of what we speak whether they are our own words or the Gospel of Christ and the Words of Eternal Salvation that we deliver unto you But till these thorns are first rooted out i. e. according to the explication which our Saviour gives us in this very Parable till men have overcome their affections to the Cares the Pleasures the Riches of this World 't is in vain to expect that any thing we can say should be able to prevail with them to bring forth fruit unto perfection and such as may carry them to everlasting Happiness in the next But 4 thly And to close this first point A fourth sort of Hearers there are who profit nothing by our preaching and those yet worse than any I have hitherto mention'd viz. the Malicious Hearers A sort of Men who come to our Churches now as the Scribes and Pharisees were wont sometimes to do to our Saviour's Discourses not to improve themselves but if they can to intangle us in our Talk I shall not need to say that such Auditors as these are not likely to be much benefited by what they Hear This is not what themselves aim at their business is only to find faults to lie in wait for any thing that they may but be able to make an ill use of and like to some venemous Creatures to suck poison out of the most wholsome Flowers If a word or an expression chance to fall from the Preacher which they think for their purpose that is sure to be turn'd and scann'd to the uttermost And though the meaning was never so innocent yet 't is great odds but by a false conjunction of things with one another by a convenient alteration and an uncharitable representation it shall be set forth to the World as some heinous Crime And were they always our Open Enemies that did this we should have the less reason to complain of them We know their Principles and what a liberty it is their Religion gives them by any means to defame and abuse those whom their Church thinks fit to put the greatest abuse of all upon in
well what is it else but to maintain a Paradox and shew a great deal of Skill only to demonstrate how much may be said for the most incredible things Heaven is a place which cannot raise his desires who has not thoughts purified enough to be in love with innocent and spiritual delights The pleasures of those happy Regions are not suited to the sensual apprehensions of such men as know no attractives but those of a Mahumetan Paradise And Hell it self tho the most formidable consideration of any yet such as for that very reason he will be sure to put as far from him as he can and either fancy that perhaps there is no such place or if there be yet hoâ—e it will be time enough hereafter to pâ—ovide for the escaping of it 3. And then lastly for that which is the great end of all religious instructions the Practice of Piety and without which all our knowledg in the Mystery of Godliness will be in vain this is what such a one is yet more indisposed to than all the rest There are many in the world who can be content to applaud the reasonableness of Piety and Virtue and will allow of all that we can say in praise of it that yet when it comes to the trial cannot endure to put it in practice Like the Ground over-run with Thorns in the Parable they receive the Word with gladness but the Cares of the world and the Pleasures of life choak the seed so that they seldom bring forth any Fruit unto perfection It is therefore absolutely necessary that he who will be a fit Disciple for the school of Christ should first dispose himself by a Probity and Integrity of mind to be willing to follow his Instructions That he labour sincerely to have a Conscience void of offence both towards God and towards man That he come to our Religious Exercises with a Pious Mind not to please his Fancy or gratifie his Curiosity but to learn true Wisdom and that in order to Practice Instead of considering how the Discourse is managed whether the Preacher performs his part as he expected he should he must employ his Thoughts on more substantial Meditations In what particular especially the Discâ—urse came up to his own condition and how he may best apply it thereunto If any Vice were reproved whether his own Sin be not concerned in it If any Duty explain'd or encouraged whether that were not directed by God to inform his Knowledg or to reprove his remissness If it set forth any of the great Mysteries of our Redemption or the Glories of Heaven and what we must do to attain to them to remember that in all these things God calls upon us to acknowledg his Power and to celebrate his Goodness who has sent so wonderful and gracious a salvation to us This is the true way whereby the Pious Christian may profit himself even by the meanest of our Discourses but without such a disposition to receive Instruction the best seed will in vain be cast away upon us 2 dly The next qualification required in a Christian Auditor as well as in all others is That he be Docile By which I do not mean Endued with quick Parts and Abilities to learn that is the Gift of God and which sometimes may do more harm than good but I mean that he be desirous of Instruction and to that end prepared with such a temper and disposition of mind as to be willing and ready to pursue the means of it And to this end more particularly 1 st That he be Humble i. e. neither vainly conceited of himself as if he had no need of instruction nor esteeming himself to be too great to receive it even from the meanest Preacher There is nothing in the world so great an Enemy to our Proficiency in any thing as Pride When men look upon themselves as too great to learn and as such neglect and despise the means of Instruction Indeed I am not so vain as to think that we are not many times called to speak to those who are much fitter to become our Teachers But yet neither can I so far undervalue the Gospel of Christ which we deliver unto you as to believe there is ordinarily any Sermon so mean and despicable but that an humble mind might have profited by it and have found somewhat at least to exercise his Charity and his Patience if not to excite his Zeal and improve his Knowledg 2. A second thing required to this Docility is That a man be free from Passion This disturbs the mind and blinds the reason and hinders many times the best Doctrine from producing any suitable effects upon us Those who are subject to the command of their own affections judg more according to the inclinations of them than to the dictates of right reason He that espouses a Party or Interest that loves an Opinion and desires it should be true easily approves of whatsoever does but seem to make for it and rejects almost at all adventures whatsoever appears against it How does the Hope and Desire of Honour or Favour or Fortune in the World carry men away to the vilest things for the prosecution of it And so all the other Passions of the mind whether it be fear or pleasure or whatever else be the affection that rules us they hinder the reason from judging aright and weighing impartially what is delivered to us and 't is great odds but such an Auditor receives or condemns the Doctrine of Christ not according as the Authority of Holy Sripture and the Evidence of right reason require he should but as his own Passions and Inclinations prompt him to do 3. A Third thing required to Docility is That a man be free from Prejudice He that will advance any thing in the finding out of Truth must bring to it that Travellers indifference which the Heathen so long since recommended to the World He must not desire it should lie on the one side rather than the other lest his desire that it should prompt him without just reason to believe that it does And so in Religion too He that will make a right judgment what to believe or what to Practice must first throw off all prejudice in favour of his own Opinion or against any others And resolve never to be so tied up to any Point or Party as not to be at all times ready impartially to examine whatsoever can reasonably be objected against either How far the want of this does at this day divide the Church of Christ I would to God we had not too great reason on all sides to complain There are many among us so strangely engaged by false principles to an ill cause that 't is in vain to offer them the clearest Arguments to convince them If you bring them Scripture 't is true that must be heard but then be it never so plain they are not competent Judges of the Meaning of it and they durst
of life and it is not without some violence that they break through the restraints of Shame and Modesty to pursue it Sometimes it sets before them the obligations which their duty lays upon them to fulfil it How worthy and honourable a thing it is to live Virtuously what a Credit and Respect it gains a man here and what a glorious Reward shall be the consequence of it hereafter Sometimes it calls to mind the terrors of the Lord and forces them whether they will or no to think of that Time when for all these things God will bring them to Judgment and how they shall then be able to endure an Eternity of Torments in that wretched place where the Worm dieth not and where the fire never shall be quenched Now all these and many other hindrances of the like kind which the Sinner meets with in the first beginnings of his Evil Course are not only so many Barriers which it has pleased God to set in our way to keep us from ruine but so many helps too to assist us if we should at any time be enticed to do wickedly to recover our selves again out of it But by a longer Continuance in Sin all these are overcome and we are not only thereby more deeply engaged in the ways of wickedness but having lost all these Assistances our retreat is also rendred infinitely more difficult than whilst we lay under the restraints of Shame and Fear and Conscience to reclaim us But this is not yet all for by continuing in Sin and putting off the time of our Repentance we do not only diminish our own Natural strength and thereby render our selves still less able to encounter with it but what is yet more to be consider'd we deprive our selves of the Assistance of God's Grace too without which it will be impossible for us ever to overcome it It is laid down by Isaiah as the reason why God forsook his ancient People the Jews Chap. lxiii vers 10. That they rebelled and vexed his Holy Spirit therefore was he turn'd to be their Enemy and He fought against them And our Blessed Saviour in his Gospel every-where proceeds upon this measure in the dispensations of his Grace that to Him who has i. e. who makes use of and improves what God has already bestow'd upon him shall be given and he shall have more abundantly But from him that has not i. e. that does not make use of and improve what he has even that which he once had shall be taken away And however it may sometimes please God in an extraordinary manner to raise up Sinners at the last and though they continue long in their Wickedness yet nevertheless still continue his Divine Assistance to them to bring them to Repentance yet cannot this be any Ground for any one to rely upon in this matter seeing it is plain both from the Authority of Holy Scripture and the Common Experience of Mankind that in the ordinary Methods of God's Providence his Grace is withdrawn in proportion to Men's neglect of it till at last they are utterly deprived of it and given up to be led Captive by the Devil at his Will Hence it is that we sometimes read in Holy Scripture of Persons deliver'd up to a Hardness and Impenitence of heart Not that I think God ordains any man to destruction or denies him such a measure of his Grace as may be sufficient to preserve him from it But when Men neglect his Offer and despise and grieve his Holy Spirit and go on in their Sins notwithstanding all the methods of his Providence to bring them to repentance When the measure of their Iniquities is now fill'd up and they are become ripe for Vengeance then God is pleased sometimes to withdraw his Grace from them and seal them up unto destruction And tho he may sometimes permit them for other ends of his Providence to continue still in this World yet he no longer continues the Power and Assistance of his Holy Spirit to them to bring them to repentance This I take to have been the Case of Pharaoh after the Sixth Judgment Till then the Scripture tells us that He hardned his Heard or that His Heart was hardned But when his own Magicians confess'd that the finger of God plainly shew'd it self in the Miracles of Moses and yet he still continued obstinate then God declares that He hardned him Exod. ix 12 and caused him to stand i. e. kept him alive when he had deserved to be punish'd with a quick destruction for this very end that he might shew in him his power Exod. ix 16 Many are the Declarations of the Holy Scripture that confirm this to us If we look into the state of the Old World before the Flood God himself declares Gen. vi 3 That his Spirit should not always strive with Man Yet a hundred and twenty years and if they repented not in that time then He would bring an utter Destruction upon them And in the same manner we find Holy David speaking in the person of God concerning the Rebellious Israelites and which I the rather remark because Saint Paul applies it Hebr. iii. 12 to the very purpose of what I am now speaking That because they hardned their hearts and tempted and grieved God forty years therefore he at last sware to them in his wrath that they should not enter into his rest And the application which the Apostle makes is this plain Conclusion Take heed Brethren lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God But exhort one another daily while it is called to day lest any of you be hardned through the deceitfulness of Sin And lastly to mention no more The same is the Declaration which Solomon makes in the Name of God concerning the Destruction of hardned and impenitent Sinners Prov. i. where having first set forth the Grace of God ready to assist them if they would repent verses 22 23. How long ye simple ones will ye love simplicity And ye scorners delight in their scorning and fools hate knowledge Turn you at my reproof Behold I will pour out my Spirit upon you I will make known my words unto you He afterwards declares the just indignation of God against them if they should still continue obstinate and impenitent verses 24 25 26. Because I have called and ye refused I have stretched out my hand and no man regarded But ye have set at nought all my Counsel and would have none of my Reproof I also will laugh at your Calamity and mock when your fear cometh And again Verses 28 29 30. Then shall they call upon me but I will not answer they shall seek me early but they shall not find me For they hated knowledge and did not chuse the fear of the Lord They would none of my Counsel they despised all my Reproof Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own
the Morning and our righteousness as the Noon-day God shall come and shall not keep silence He shall save us from our Enemies and put them to shame that hate us He shall arise and all our Adversaries shall be scatter'd they also that hate us shall flee before us Like as the smoak vanisheth so shall we drive them away terror and dread shall fall upon them Thus shall all our Mourning be turned into Laughter and our Heaviness into Joy and we shall yet sing the Song of Moses and of the Lamb when he shall have given us rest from all our Enemies round about us Salvation and Glory and Power and Praise and Thanksgiving be to him that sitteth upon the Throne and to the Lamb for Ever and Ever Amen OF Contending Earnestly for the Faith Which was once delivered to The SAINTS A SERMON Preached at MERCERS-CHAPEL January 8. 1687 8. JUDE iii. Beloved when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the Common Salvation it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the Faith which was once deliver'd to the Saints IT is generally agreed by Learned Men that this Epistle was written by St. Jude upon the same Occasion and to the same Persons to whom St. Peter had not long before address'd his Second whose Thoughts he pursues and whose very Words he seems in some places to have transcribed And the Subject and Design of both we have here express'd to us in the words of my Text viz. to exhort the Christians dispersed abroad among the Jews neither to sink under those Persecutions that were brought upon them for their Faith nor to suffer that holy Doctrine which had been so fully and purely deliver'd to them by the Apostles to be corrupted by the Errors of those pernicious Hereticks who even already began to creep in among them Great was the danger of these Christians and great the concern of our Apostle for them To persevere constantly in the Faith at a time when the severest Tryals were made use of to affright them from it and to preserve it in its Purity when so many subtile Hereticks made it their whole business by any means to corrupt the Truth of it And no wonder if St. Jude thought it not only becoming that Character our Blessed Lord had honour'd him with in his Church to write unto them but even necessary for him so to do and to exhort them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to strive with all their might and as our Translation has very well rendred it To contend earnestly for the Faith which was once deliver'd to the Saints For the due prosecution of which words as they lye before us in the Context I shall consider these Four things I. What that Faith is which the Apostle exhorted them to contend for II. How they were to contend for it III. The great reason they had at that time more especially so to do IV. By what means he advised them to contend for it that so they might secure their Faith in those dangerous times I. What that Faith is which the Apostle here exhorted them to contend for Now this the Character here given of it in our Text will clearly shew 'T is the Faith which was once deliver'd to the Saints That Faith which the Holy Apostles had once for all instructed them in and which therefore both they and all succeeding Ages in the Church were both faithfully to retain and earnestly to contend for for ever So that here then we have a plain account what the true Christian Faith we are to profess is and where we are to seek it 'T is not the Faith of this or that Church or Party 'T is not the Faith of this or that Country or Century Let Men and Times make what Changes and Alterations they please in it The Faith that was once delivered to the Saints is what we are to contend for not for any Inventions or Additions of Men that have since been brought into it I shall not need to tell you whither you are to go for this Faith The Spirit of God by providing us a rule of it and assisting and directing those holy Men who first preach'd the Gospel to the Saints that then lived to send it down in writing to all the other Disciples that were to follow after to the end of the World has sufficiently directed us both whither we are to go for it and indeed where it is that we can alone be sure to find it And however Interest has made some of late the better to defend their Errors and to maintain an usurped Authority over Mens Consciences to pretend to some other Directions Yet since it is confess'd that the Holy Scriptures were written for that very purpose that they might be the Rule of our Faith and St. Paul has expresly told us That they are able to make the Man of God wise unto Salvation and throughly furnished to every good work we shall have little reason to seek to any other Rule till some good Account can be given why this is not sufficient or by what Authority it is that they pretend to impose any other of their own inventing upon us and who gave them this Authority But however be the Rule of this Faith what it will that is not my business at present to dispute Let it only be resolved that the Faith it self must be no other than what was once delivered to the Saints and then I am sure it will be our duty not only readily to receive it but earnestly to contend for it be the means of its conveyance what they will This is the next thing to be considered by us II. How we are to contend for this Faith And here if the Question be concerning the manner of the Contention I have already observed that the Original Expression is very emphatical and implies a great vigour and earnestness in the doing of it To teach us with what zeal we ought to adhere to the Truth and defend it against all such as would endeavour either to affright or to seduce us from it Indeed whosoever shall consider the great value of that Faith which was once delivered to the Saints and what our concern is in the preserving of it will be forced to confess that we can never be too earnest in our contending for it Truth is in all things so worthy and desirable that a generous Spirit will think he can never prize it enough We see the greatest Men have made it the whole business of their Lives to pursue it even in the smallest instances and have thought their labours worthily rewarded if with the greatest Application and it may be with some danger and loss too they have but been able to find it out at the last Much more certainly ought that Truth which the Son of God himself came down from Heaven to discover and which had he not revealed it to us
he comes to this Holy Table But now what or how great those Sufferings were which the Blessed Jesus underwent for us it is not for me to pretend to declare unto you Great and terrible are the Accounts which the Scriptures every where give us of them How doth Isaiah set forth to us in his Prophecy the Type and Shadow of them He tells us That he should be a Man of sorrow and acquainted with grief without form or comeliness or beauty that we should desire him He represents him as labouring under all the Miseries and Afflictions that were due to the Sins of a wicked and incorrigible world Surely says he he hath born our griefs and carried our sorrows We esteemed him stricken smitten of God and afflicted But he was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities the chastisement of our peace was upon him and by his stripes we are healed All we like Sheep have gone astray and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquities of us all Thus did Isaiah speak of the Sufferings of Christ when he foresaw his Death and prophesied of his Passion And if we look into the Accounts which the Holy Evangelists give us of the Accomplishment of it we shall find those exceeding whatever we are able to comprehend of it 1. If we consider the Circumstances of his Suffering it was accompanied with all the bitter Aggravations of Misery that can well be imagined For indeed what else can we say of the Mockeries and the Insults of the Scorns and Reproaches that appeared in all the parts of his Passion Of the Baseness and Treachery of his Disciples and of the barbarous Malice and Cruelty of his Enemies How was he betray'd by one of his own Apostles deny'd by another forsaken by all condemn'd at one of those Feasts that brought together all the Nation of the Jews to Jerusalem And that for two of the most grievous Crimes that could be laid to the Charge of an innocent Soul Blasphemy against God and Sedition among the People Set at nought by the Soldiers Execrated and Abjured by his own Countrymen Adorn'd as a mock King that he might be the more derided by them and then finally to compleat the Tragedy Executed by a Death not only the most scandalous but the most painful of any in the World 2. Which therefore brings us to a Second Consideration of his Passion namely of the Pains and Torments of it And here I shall not enter upon any long Account of the Cruelty of that Death which has been thought sufficient by those whose kind of Punishment it was to give a general Name to the greatest Torments by derivation from this one as the highest and chiefest of all The Wounds of the Hands and Feet which the Nails made when he was fastned to the Cross the Agonies and Convulsions of his whole Body when he hung upon it the slowness of dying not to say any thing of those Furrows which in the Psalmist's Speech they had before made with their Scourges upon his Back All these sufficiently declare to us an extraordinary Suffering and may warrant us to cry out with the Prophet in the Reflection on it Is it nothing to you all ye that pass by behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto this sorrow wherewith the Lord afflicted his own Son in that day of his fierce anger 3. And yet still all this was but the least part of his Passion and the anguish of his Soul those unknown Sufferings he underwent within far exceed whatever Torments his Enemies were able to put him to They were these that made him sweat great drops of blood in the Garden before ever the Officers had seiz'd him or begun to inflict the least Punishment upon him They were these that made him not only declare to his Disciples That his Soul was exceeding sorrowful even unto death but carried him farther in the bitterness of his Grief to pray three several times to his Father with the greatest importunity That if it were possible this Cup might pass from him And when at last it could not be but that he must drink off the very dregs of it forced that vehement Expostulation from him My God My God why hast thou forsaken me It has been the rashness of some from all these Expressions of his Grief but especially from the last to conclude That our Saviour in his Passion underwent all the Punishment that all the Elect of God should have suffered for all their Sins and in short That he bore in his mind the very pains and torments of the Damn'd But it is not necessary nor indeed agreeable to a right Belief to run to any such Extremity His Sufferings were indeed great but they were not such as either excluded him from the love and favour of God in the midst of them nor accompanied with any despair which is always one and that not the least part of the Sinner's torment in another World He died and went down into the Grave but his Soul was not left in the regions of the dead nor did his flesh see corruption His Punishment was short in the duration and the intenseness of it though very grievous yet no more than was agreeable to the Nature of a Man to bear And we must not so speak of the Sufferings of Christ as to forget that though he was God when he underwent them yet that he died and suffered as he was Man Thus therefore must we call to mind the Passion of our Blessed Lord We must go through all the stages of it with care and exactness and neither diminish the Horrour of what he endured by an imperfect Memorial of it nor do violence at once both to the Nature and Innocence of Christ by straining it up to a greater heighth than either the Authority of Holy Scripture or the Honour of our Saviour or his Humane Nature in which he suffered will permit us to do This is the Second thing we are to remember when we come to the Holy Table The Third and last thing here required of us is Having called to mind the Sufferings of Christ and the Evils from whence we are delivered by them to consider finally what the Benefits are that accrue to us thereby It is not to be doubted but that there must be somewhat very extraordinary for which the Son of God should Himself come down from Heaven and not only humble himself so far as to take upon him the form of a Servant but being made in the similitude of a Man expose himself to all those vile and cruel Sufferings I but just now recounted And indeed the Benefits which he purchased for us by his Death were not at all inferior to the Punishment he underwent for the obtaining of them And to speak them all in one general Conclusion he purchased the Redemption of a lost miserable sinful World we were all before dead
to us all the Blessings and Advantages which the others can hope for from their ungrounded and unwarrantable Opinion of a natural and corporal participation of Him 2. From this Account of the Design and End of this Institution it follows in the next Place What an Abuse they have made of it who from a Remembrance of a Sacrifice turn it into a Sacrifice it self and instead of esteeming this Sacrament a Memorial of that offering Christ once for all made for us suppose Him to be again as truly and properly offered in it as ever he was tho' not in the same manner that he was once upon the Cross. I shall not now insist so long upon this Point as to shew not only how contrary such an Opinion is to the express Authority of Holy Scripture which declares That Christ was to be offered once for all that by his once offering himself for us he has perfected for ever them that are sanctified and much more to the same purpose in the ixth and xth Chapters to the Hebrews but how derogatory to the Honour of our Saviour whether we consider his former Sufferings or his present Glory This is plain that if the Design of this blessed Sacrament were as our Text declares it to be a Remembrance of our Saviour's dying for us then it is not a new offering of Him there being nothing more absurd than to say of the same thing that it is both the Memorial of what was done many Ages ago and the very same thing again done in Memorial of its self 3. From the same Principles it will follow That if this Holy Sacrament be no more than a Remembrance of our Saviour Christ that then certainly those must have very desperately abused it who pay to it that Honour and Worship that they would do to our Saviour himself were his true and natural Body there present I need not say any thing to prove what the Superstition of the Church of Rome is as to this Matter They here freely own it themselves and censure us for not joyning with them in the same Service They elevate their Host in the Mass for the People to adore it They have instituted a solemn Feast every Year to be observed in Honour of it They dedicate religious Societies thereunto they set it forth upon their Altars to bless the People there assembled to its Worship If they carry it abroad whether to the Sick or upon the occasion of any solemn Processions they put it under a Canopy born all the while over it Candles and Tapers are carried before it and a Bell is rung all the Way that it passes to admonish all that are in sight of it to fall down and adore it And by all these and many other of their Actions they oblige all Persons to pay the supreme Honour that they give to God to this Holy Sacrament It were easie to shew how dangerous this Adoration is even upon their own Principles whether we consider the Impossibility of their being ever sure that their Host is indeed consecrated as it ought to be or that if it were yet at least the Accidents of the Bread and Wine which are Creatures and yet make up a Part of the Sacrament are by consequence joynt partakers of all their Worship But alas what I have now been speaking shews a great deal more Not only that the Accidents of the Bread and Wine have their Part in being Objects of this Worship but that our Saviour Christ indeed is not at all concerned in it They pay their Adoration to the inanimate Creatures of Bread and Wine and commit an Idolatry not much less gross in the Opinion of some of their own Writers if we are indeed in the Right than those who fall down before a Piece of red Cloth and pay their Adoration to a Tile or a Potsherd But 4. If our Saviour Christ in our Text plainly commanded his Apostles and in them all of us To do that in Remembrance of Him which he had there done before their Eyes if what he required in order to this Commemoration was That we should take Bread and Wine and bless and give and receive these in Memory of his Body which was given and of his Blood which was shed for us it will then follow in the Fourth place That those who do not do this have plainly departed from our Saviour's Institution and do not remember him as they are commanded to do And this alone is sufficient to confute that great Corruption of the same Church in Communicating the People only in One Kind And whatever Pretences they may offer for their so doing had they as just reason otherwise for altering the order of this Sacrament as God knows 't is plain they have not any at all yet this would still remain a perpetual Exception against it That our Saviour here expresly commands them to Do this i. e. that which himself then did in Remembrance of Him Who gave the Wine as well as Bread to his Apostles and repeated the Command after the one as well as the other and not what they should at any time after think fitting to do And these are such consequences as concern others rather than our selves who God be thanked are again delivered from all these Corruptions and have no otherwise any cause to remember them than as they serve to confirm us in our Pure and Holy Doctrine and Practice in this matter and ought to raise up our Souls to a grateful acknowledgment of God's Mercy to us who has freed us from such great and dangerous Errors and in which he still permits so many others to continue But there are yet some other Conclusions to be drawn from the foregoing Reflections and in which we may perhaps find somewhat that will be of a more near and direct concern to us For 5. If our Saviour Christ has here commanded us to Do this in Remembrance of Him that is to come to the Holy Table and receive this blessed Sacrament and make our publick and solemn Acknowledgments to him for his great Mercy in dying for us What then shall we say of those who despising this sacred Ordinance do either totally absent themselves from this Memorial or come but very seldom and negligently to it This certainly must needs be a great fault as it is evidently contrary to the express Command of our Saviour in the Text before us And if we may make any Judgment of Christ's resentment of it either from the Nature of the thing it self or from the severe Punishment God threatned unto those in the Old Testament who should neglect the like Memorial of the Paschal Feast one of the greatest Provocations any Christian can almost be guilty of If we consider the thing it self what does he who despises this Holy Sacrament and neglects to partake of it but in effect despise Christ himself and tread under foot the Blood of the Covenant by which we must be saved And how