exhibits himself to the Sons of Men is that he is King of Kings and that the Governours of the Earth are his Subjects Princes and Emperours his Vassals and Thrones his Footstools and Consequently that there is no Absolute Monarch in the World but One. And from the same also it follows that there is nothing which Subjects can justly expect from their Prince but Princes may expect from God And nothing which Princes Demand from their Subjects but God in a higher manner and by a better Claim requires from them Now the Relation between Prince and Subject essentially involves in it these two things First Obedience from the subject to all the Laws and just Commands of his Prince And accordingly as Kings themselves have a Soveraign over them so they have Laws over them too Laws which lay the same obligation upon Crowned heads that they do upon the meanest Peasant For no Prerogative can bar Piety No Man is too Great to be bound to be good He who weilds the Scepter and shines in the Throne has a great Account to make and a great Master to make it to And there is no Man sent into the World to Rule who is not sent also to Obey Secondly The other thing imported in this Relation is Protection Vouchsafed from the Soveraign to the subject Upon which account it is that as God with one hand gives a Law so with the other he Defends the Obedient And this is the highest Prerogative of Worldly Empire and the brightest Jewel in the Diadems of Princes that by being Gods immediate Subjects they are His immediate Care and intituled to his more Especial Protection that they have both an Omniscience in a peculiar manner to wake over them and an Omnipotence to support them And that they are not the Legions which they Command but the God whom they Obey who must both guard their Persons and secure their Regalia For it is He and He only who giveth Salvation unto Kings The Words of the Text with a little Variation run naturally into this one Proposition which containing in it the full sence of them shall be the subject of our following Discourse viz. That God in the Government of the World exercises a peculiar and extraordinary Providence over the Persons and Lives of Princes The Prosecution of which Proposition shall lie in these four things First To shew upon what account any Act of God's Providence may be said to be peculiar and extraordinary Secondly To shew how and by what means God does after such an extraordinary manner save and deliver Princes Thirdly To shew the Reasons why He does so And Fourthly And Lastly To draw something by way of Inference and Conclusion from the whole Of all which in their Order And First For the first of these which is to shew upon what account any Act of God's Providence may be said to be Peculiar and Extraordinary Providence in the Government of the World acts for the most part by the mediation of second Causes which though they proceed according to a Principle of Nature and a settled Course and Tenour of Acting supposing still the same Circumstances yet Providence acting by them may in several Instances of it be said to be extraordinary upon a threefold account As First When a thing falls out besides the Common and Usual Operation of its proper Cause As for instance it is usual and natural for a Man meeting his Enemy upon full advantage to prosecute that advantage against him and by no means to let him escape Yet sometimes it falls out quite otherwise Esau had conceived a mortal Grudge and Enmity against his Brother Iacob yet as soon as he meets Him he falls upon him in a very different way from that of Enemies and embraces him Ahab having upon Conquest got Benhadad his Inveterate Enemy into his hands not only spares his Life but treats him kindly and lets him go That a Brother unprovoked should hate and a stranger not obliged should love is against the usual Actings of the Heart of Man Yet thus it was with Ioseph and no doubt with many others in which and the like cases I conceive things so falling out may be said to come to pass by an Extraordinary Act of Providence it being manifest that the Persons concerned in them do not act as Men of the same Principles and Interests under the same Circumstances use to do For Interest we say will not lye nor make a Man false to Himself whatsoever it may make him to Others Secondly Providence may be said to Act Extraordinarily when a thing falls out beside or Contrary to the Design of expert politick and shrewd Persons contriving or Acting in it As when a Man by the utmost of his Wit and Skill projects the Compassing of such or such a thing fits means to his End lays Antecedents and Consequents directly and appositely for the bringing about his Purpose but in the Issue and Result finds all broken and baffled and the Event contrary to his Intention and the order of Causes and Counsels so studiously framed by him to produce an effect opposite to and destructive of the Design driven at by those Means and Arts. In this case also I say we may rationally acknowledge an Extraordinary Act of Providence For as much as the Man himself is made instrumental to the effecting of something perfectly against his own Will and Iudgment and that by those very ways and methods which in themselves were the most proper to prevent and the most unlikely to bring to pass such an Event The World all the while standing amazed at it and the Credit of the Politician sinking for that nothing seems to cast so just a Reproach even upon Reason it self as for Persons Noted for it to act as Notably against it Thirdly and Lastly Providence may be said to act in an Extraordinary way when a thing comes to pass visibly and apparently beyond the Power of the Cause immediately imployed in it As that a Man dumb all his Life before should on the suddain speak as it is said that the Son of Craesus did upon the fight of a Murther ready to have been Committed upon the Person of his Prince and Father That a small Company should rout and scatter an Army or in the Language of Scripture that one should chase an hundred and an hundred put Ten Thousand to flight That Persons of mean parts and little or no Experience should frustrate and over-reach the Counsels of old beaten through-paced Politicians These effects I say are manifestly above the Ability and stated way of working belonging the Causes from whence they flow Nevertheless such things are sometimes seen upon the great Stage of the World to the Wonder and Astonishment of the Beholders who are wholly unable by the Common method and discourses of Reason to give a Satisfactory Account of these strange Phaenomena by resolving them into any thing Visible in their immediate Agents In which case therefore I conceive
Stronger and flame out Brighter and Brighter till at length having lead us through this Vale of Darkness and Mortality it shall bring us to those happy Mansions where there is Light and Life for evermore Which God the great Author of Both of his Infinite Mercy vouchsafe to us all To whom be rendred and ascribed as is most due all Praise Might Majesty and Dominion both now and for ever more Amen A SERMON Preached at Westminster-Abbey May 29. 1670. MATT. V. 44 But I say unto you Love your Enemies BEfore we descend to the Prosecution of the Duty Enjoined in these words It is requisite that we Consider the Scheme and Form of them as they stand in Relation to the Context They are ushered in with the Adversative Particle But which stands as a note of Opposition to something going before and that we have in the immediately preceeding Vers. Ye have heard that it hath been said Thou shalt Love thy Neighbour and hate thy Enemy But I say unto you Love your Enemies Which way of speaking has given Occasion to an Enquiry whether the Duty here Enjoined by Christ be opposed to the Mosaick Law or onely to the Doctrine of the Scribes and Pharisees and their Corrupt Glosses thereupon some having made this and the next Chapter not only a fuller Explication and Vindication of the Mosaick Law but an Addition of higher and perfecter Rules of Piety and Morality to it For the better clearing of which Point I conceive that the matter of all the Commandments the fourth only as it determines the time of Gods solemn Worship to the seventh day excepted is of Natural Moral Right and by Consequence carries with it a necessary and eternal obligation as riseing from the unalterable Relation that a Rational Creature bears either to God His Neighbour or Himself For there are certain Rules of Deportment Suggested by Nature to each of these which to deviate from or not come up to would be irrational and Consequently Sinful So that such Duties can by no means owe their first obligation to any New Precept given by Christ but springing from an Earlier stock obliged Men in all Ages and Places since the World began Forasmuch as that General Habitude or Relation upon which all particular Instances of Duty are founded which Men bore to God their Neighbour and themselves upon account of their being Rational Creatures was Universally and Equally the same in all So that for a Man to hate his Enemy or to be revengeful or to be angry without a Cause or to swear Rashly or by Looks Words or Actions to behave himself Lasciviously were without question always Aberrations from the Dictates of Rightly Improved Reason And consequently in the very Nature of the Things themselves Unlawful For if there were not a Natural Evil and Immorality in the aforesaid Acts nor a goodness in the contrary But that all this Issued from a positive Injunction of the one and Prohibition of the other what Reason can be assigned but that God might have Commanded the said Acts and made them Duties instead of forbidding them which yet certainly would be a very strange or rather monstrous Assertion but nevertheless by a necessity of sequel unavoidable From whence I conceive it to be very clear that if the several particulars commanded or forbidden by Christ in that his great Sermon upon the Mount had a Natural Good or Evil respectively belonging to them Christ thereby added no New Precept to the Moral Law which Eternally was and will be the same as being the Unalterable Standard or Measure of the Behaviour of a Rational Creature in all its Relations and Capacities For we must not Think that when the Law either by Precept or Prohibition takes notice only of the outward Act and the Gospel afterwards directs it self to the thoughts and desires the Motives and Causes of the said Act or again when the Law gives only a General Precept and the Gospel assigns several particular Instances reducible to the same General Iâ—junction that therefore the Gospel gives so many New Precepts Corrective or Perfective of the aforesaid Precepts of the Law No by no means for it is a Rule which ever was and ever ought to be allowed in Interpreting the Divine Precepts That every such Precept does Vertually and Implicitly and by a Parity of Reason contain in it more than it expresly declares which is so true that those Persons who impugn the Perfection of the old Moral Precepts and upon that Account oppose the Precepts of Christ to them do yet find it necessary to maintain that even the Precepts of our Saviour Himself ought to extend their obligation to many more particulars than are mentioned in them and yet are not to be looked upon as at all the less perfect upon that Account Which Rule of Interpreting being admitted and made use of as to the Precepts of the New Testament why ought it not to take place in those of the old also And if it ought as there can be no shadow of Reason to the contrary I dare undertake that there will be no need of multiplying of New Precepts in the Gospel as often as the Papists and Socinians have a Tuâ—â— to serve by them For surely every New Instance of Obedience does not of necessity inferr a New Precept and for that Reason we may and do admit of several of the former without any need of asserting the latter The Unity of a Precept is founded in the General Unity of its object and every such General Comprehends many Particulars The very Institution of the Two Christian Sacraments is rather the Assignation of two new Instances of Obedience than of two new Precepts For Christ having once Authentically declared that God would be Worshipped by those two solemn Acts the Antecedent General Precept of Worshipping God according to his own Will was sufficient to oblige us to these two particular Branches of it being thus declared and indeed to as many more as should from time to time be suggested to our Practise For otherwise if the multiplication of new particular Iâ—stâ—â—ces of Duty should multiply Preceptâ— too it would render them innumerable which would be extreamly absurd and ridiculous And now all that has been here alledged by us against the Necessity of holding any new Precepts added to the Old Moral Law as it obliged all Mankind whether notified to them by the Light of Natureâ— only or by Revelation too I reckon may as truely be affirmed of the Law of Moses also still supposing it a True and Perfect Transcript of the said Moral Law as we have all the Reason in the World to believe it was for were it otherwise it would be hard to shew what Advantage it could be to the Iewish Church to have that Law delivered to them but on the Contrary it must needs have been rather a Snare than a Privilege or Help to them as Naturally giving them Occasion to look upon that as the most perfect
the Concurrence of Both no less a Power was imployed to raise Christ out of the Grave than that which first raised the World it self out of Nothing 2. Let us consider God's immutability in respect of his Word and Promise for these also were engaged in this affair In what a clear Prophecy was this foretold and dictated by that Spirit which could not lye Psalm 16.10 Thou shalt not suffer Thy Holy One to see corruption And Christ also had frequently foretold the same of himself Now when God says a thing he gives his Veracity in pawn to see it fully performed Heaven and Earth may pass away sooner than one Iota of a Divine Promise fall to the ground Few things are recorded of Christ but the rear of the Narrative is still brought up with this That such a thing was done That it might be fullfilled what was spoken by such or such a Prophet Such a firm unshaken adamantine connexion is there between a Prophecy and its accomplishment All things that are written in the Prophets concerning Me says Christ must come to pass And surely then the most Illustrious Passage that concerned him could not remain under an uncertainty and contingency of event So that What is most Emphatically said concerning the persevering obstinacy and Infidelity of the Jews John 12.39 40. That they could not believe because that Esaias had said that God blinded their Eyes and hardened their Hearts that they should not see with their Eyes nor understand with their Hearts and so be converted and He should heal them The same I affirm may with as great an Emphasis and a much greater clearness to our Reason be affirmed of Christ that therefore Death could not hold him because the Kingly Prophet had long before sung the Triumphs of His glorious Resurrection in the forementioned Prediction In a Word whatsoever God purposes or promises passes from Contingent and meerly Possible into Certain and Necessary and whatsoever is Necessary the contrary of it is so far Impossible But when I say that the Divine decree or promise imprints a Necessity upon things it may to prevent misapprehension be needful to Explain what kind of Necessity this is that so the liberty of second Causes be not thereby wholly cashiered and took away For this therefore we are to observe that the Schools distinguish of a Two-fold necessity Physical and Logical or Causal and Consequential which Terms are Commonly thus explained viz. That Physical or Causal Necessity is when a thing by an Efficient Productive Influence certainly and naturally causes such an Effect and in this sence neither the Divine Decree nor Promise makes things necessary for neither the decree nor promise by it self produces or effects the Thing decreed or promised nor exerts any active influence upon Second Causes so as to impell them to do any thing but in point of Action are wholly ineffective Secondly Logical or Consequential Necessity is when a thing does not efficiently cause an Event but yet by certain infallible Consequence does infer it Thus the fore-knowledge of any Event if it be true and certain does certainly and necessarily infer that there must be such an event for as much as the certainty of knowledge depends upon the certainty of the thing known And in this sence it is that God's decree and promise give a necessary Existence to the thing decreed or promised that is to say they infer it by a necessary infallible consequence So that it was as impossible for Christ not to rise from the Dead as it was for God absolutely to decree and promise a thing and yet for that thing not to come to pass The Third Reason of the Impossibility of Christs detention under a State of Death was from the Iustice of God God in the whole procedure of Christ's sufferings must be considered as a Judge exacting and Christ as a Person paying down a recompence or satisfaction for Sin For though Christ was as pure and undefiled with the least spot of Sin as purity and innocence it self yet he was pleased to make himself the greatest Sinner in the World by Imputation and rendring himself a surety responsible for our debts For as it is said 2 Cor. 5.21 He who knew no Sin was made Sin for us When the Justice of God was lifting up the Sword of Vengeance over our Heads Christ snatch'd us away from the blow and substituted his Own Body in our Room to receive the whole stroke of that dreadful Retribution inflicted by the Hand of an Angry Omnipotence But now as God was pleased so to comport with his Justice as not to put up the injury done it by Sin without an Equivalent compensation so this being once paid down that proceeding was to cease The Punishment due to Sin was Death which being paid by Christ Divine Justice could not any longer detain him in his Grave For what had this been else but to keep him in Prison after the debt was paid Satisfaction disarms Justice and payment cancells the Bond. And that which Christ exhibited was full measure pressed down and runing over even adequate to the nicest proportions and the most exact demands of that severe and unrelenting Attribute of God So that his Release proceeded not upon Terms of Courtesy but of Claim The gates of Death flew open before him out of duty and even that Justice which was Infinite was yet circumscribed within the inviolable limits of what was due Otherwise guilt would even grow out of expiation the reckoning be enflamed by being paid and punishment it self not appease but exasperate Justice Revenge indeed in the hand of a sinful mortal Man is for the most part vast unlimited and unreasonable but Revenge in the Hands of an Infinite Justice is not so Infinite as to be also Indefinite but in all its actings proceeds by Rule and Determination and cannot possibly surpass the bounds put to it by the Merits of the Cause and the Measure of the Offence It is not the effect of meer choice and will but springs out of the unalterable relation of Equality between Things and Actions In a word The same Justice of God which required him to deliver Christ to Death did afterwards as much engage him to deliver him from it 4. The Fourth Ground of the Impossibility of Christ's perpetual continuance under Death was the Necessity of his being Believed in as a Saviour and the impossibility of his being so without rising from the dead As Christ by his Death paid down a Satisfaction for Sin so it was necessary that it should be declared to the World by such Arguments as might found a Rational Belief of it So that Men's Unbelief should be rendred inexcusable But how could the World believe that he fully had satisfyed for Sin so long as they saw Death the known wages of Sin maintain its full force and power over him holding him like an obnoxious Person in Durance and Captivity When a Man is once imprison'd for debt