as a worse evil than Scarcity God thus making his Punishments a Riddle while he confounds us no less by his Blessings than his Judgments as if he would at once confute and deride the Atheism that denies his Providence and ascribes all Events to Natural Causes letting men see their Wealth cannot enrich them their Victories advantage them their Wisdom profit them without his Blessing and concurrence But that which ought most tenderly and sensibly to affect us is the Fatality in the Royal Family so many of those Illustrious Branches having been snatcht away of late Years in their Youth or Infancy that we may compute our Annals by the Death of one or more of our Princes the Royal House Alas being only fruitful to the Grave But to proceed As the Consumption mentioned in my Text may be thus twofold so the Persons threatned to be consumed are also twofold and the threatning of the last is set down by way of Aggravation of the Evil Ye shall be consumed both ye and your King But there will not want some Sons of Belial to say here What Part have we in David or Inheritance in the Son of Iesse that this should be held a matter of so great moment so high an aggravation of our misery that not only our selves shall be destroyed but our King also The Speech of the People is When I dye all the World dyes with me not only all my thoughts perish as the Psalmist says but all my care and concern for my Relations also perish whether as of a Father for my Children or as of an Husband for my Wife or yet as of a Subject for my Prince So that to say Ye shall be consumed nay more your Prince shall be consumed aggravates the terrour but as if one should threaten Your Limbs shall be torn on the Rack nay further Your Garments shall be torn also No doubt I say but there are too many of these Sheba's in our Israel But yet where ingenuity and natural goodness honour and generosity are not quite extinguished by self-love and interest there is in many men a care of others their near Relations even beyond themselves and after their Decease And this made Lawgivers enact for a further terrour to evil Workers the destruction of Wives and Children for the offences of Fathers and Husbands ut haberent aliquid quod timerent qui mortem non timent that they that feared not Death as to their own Persons might yet fear it reaching to those for whom they had a greater tenderness than for themselves And we see those frequently among us that chuse to wear their lives out in a noysom Prison or to dye under the torture of the Press that by these means they may preserve a poor maintenance for those they leave behind them Why the Relation of a Subject to his King of a People to their Prince is in just estimation the chiefest and highest of Relations the principal in importance though not the nearest in Bloud which the men of Israel rightly understood when they called David the light of their eyes and preferr'd him before so many thousands of themselves And also the People of Rome when upon the Election of just Numa they rejoyced as Plutarch says as if they had not only obtained a new King but a new Kingdom Indeed the felicity of a Nation is bound up in the Person of the King and waxes or wains according to his Vertue Well therefore may we pray heartily and truly for our King as the Romans were wont to pray flatteringly for their Tyrant-Emperours Demas annos meos mihi addas Caesari Take O Jupiter from the number of my Years and add them to the account of Caesar's esteeming the King's life a greater Blessing to us than our own the destruction threatned to him more dreadful than the destruction threatned to our selves looking upon the Commination in my Text as the highest aggravation of Evils Ye shall dye for your Sins nay your religious your victorious or your gracious Prince shall dye also But some perhaps will say here Is it just and righteous with God to destroy a good King for the transgressions of his People Surely yes and the Scripture affirms as much For the transgressions of a People many are the Princes thereof and in the second Commandment God says He will visit the sins of the Father upon the Children and for the same reason of any Relation upon his Correlation as of a Subject upon the Prince For though the Subjects are Vassals and Homagers to the Prince both Prince and Subjects are Vassals aad Homagers to God and may be disposed of by him as he sees best for the ends of his Glory But then though it be righteous in God to cut off a good Prince for the punishment of his People because he can translate him to a better life and turn his Crown of Gold into a Crown of Glory yet wo be to those Subjects who any way contribute to their Prince's or Countries misfortune either by their wicked Plots or wicked lives by their immediate Conspiracies against them or their remoter as I may say of their sins against their Peace and prosperity For if men commit great offences and go on obstinately in them they sin not only against their own Souls but the Publick Safety Which brings me to my second general Part The Case wherein the Commination in my Text shall take place wherein both King and People are threatned to be consumed If ye shall still do wickedly The things wherein both Israel and their Forefathers continually did wickedly the Scripture tells us were Infidelity Stubbornness Ingratitude Murmuring openly upon the least want or distress against their best Governours but covertly and secretly against God himself Proneness to Idolatry Incontinence the very Sins for which the Nations were cast out before them to which the present Generation added over and above the demanding a King with the design to exclude God from ruling over them For we must note here That the greatness of the present sin of Israel consisted not in desiring a King simply in renouncing as some would have it the sweet Government of the Sanhedrim or Council of Elders for the Regal and more Tyrannical Power For not to say any thing in vindication of Monarchy that 't is the best of Governments not only by the consent of the wisest men of all Ages but by the attestation of Nature or rather the God of Nature in all Orders and Subordinations of things both in Heaven and Earth 't was God's express Purpose from the beginning to establish Israel under a Monarchical Government and Deut. 17. some hundreds of Years before a King was demanded the Laws concerning a King were set down by Moses Neither did the greatness of their Sin consist in desiring a King inordinately precipitately rebelliously not attending God's time nor consulting his Will in so important an Affair these were Aggravations of their Sin but not their
these and stand not in need to have their Understanding instructed or their Reason convinc'd in this Particular But yet I know not how though Demonstration and Experience assure this Truth on the one side there is something in Life it self on the other something in Prosperity Youth Greatness the Businesses of this World and the like which strangely contradict it and though we believe nothing more certainly than that All Men must Dye we believe nothing more hardly than that we our Selves must Dye Those that burn in a Feaver feel no Cold that are encompass'd with much Light discern no Darkness no more can those that are incircled with the Splendour of a high Fortune see through it the gloomy Shades of the Grave nor those that are within the warm embraces of Youth and Health apprehend the Cold remote Hand of Death Paracelsus was perswaded that there was a Certain Spirit of Salt that gave Vegetation to all things in the World which if he could have found out he would have preserved himself and others Immortal All men have generally a Tincture of this foolish Chymical or rather Chimerical Salt in their Fancy which though it preserves them not from Dying yet it gives them a Perswasion of long Living and though it cannot defer the Fatal Hour one Moment it can make them forget it and put the Consideration of it far from them Our Reflections upon our own Dying are much like those of Raving Lovers upon the Loss of those they Immoderately affected who at the very Instant that they embrace their Dead Bodies in their Arms cry out They cannot they must not they shall not Dye What they are not able to support they are not willing to acknowledge the Sorrow which is too Great for their Hearts to bear is too Great also for their Tongues to pronounce And after the like manner though we see and feel Death daily marching towards us we being not able to brook its Approach we endeavour to disbelieve it and hope to avoid the Evil by disowning it to delude or delay our Destiny by entertaining Fictions of a Long Life and I may say There is nothing that we at once so much Believe and so much Disbelieve as the Necessity of our Dying 'T is not therefore Superfluous to teach Men the so Known Lesson of Dying to put them in mind of that which is daily presented before their Eyes And the Wisest in all Ages as well Heathens as Christians have used studied Arts to preserve a Memory of their Frail Condition some have brought Urns and Skulls and Coffins into their Bed-Chambers and Closets that where the Scene of their Business or Pleasure lay there they might be admonish'd that they must one day bid a Farewel to those things Others have served up Skeletons at their Feasts the whole Frame of a Dead man's Bones made with Art to turn to all the Guests and with a horrid Aspect to survey the Table and to insinuate that Death was always near though forgotten in the Noise of Mirth and Wine sate President of many Feasts though invisibly through the Reek of Jollity and Meat Others upon the Days of their Coronation and Triumph have placed those among the Multitude that might mingle Admonitions of their Mortality together with the general Applauses and Acclamations that they might not forget while they conquered or commanded many People themselves were Subject to Death and that their Heads which were now crown'd with Gold or Laurel must after a short time be laid in the Dust. All these confessing that it was not enough that Men should believe they must Dye when they Considered and Reasoned of it but that they ought frequently to Consider and Reason of it And now after all is done though these Courses may seem of great Power and Efficacy to take off the Strangeness and Terrour of Death yet they have been found to fall short of the End they aimed at For though men by these Artifices have become acquainted with the Name and Images of Death they have still been miserably Strangers to Death it self neither is it possible to strip the King of Terrours of his amazing Circumstances merely by remembring him and making Pictures and Representations of him but men must fit and prepare themselves to entertain him they must lye under no Guilt of Sin nor be too much in love with this Life before they can Master this Apprehension for 't is no less than a Contradiction that those that are fond of this Life should welcome Death that are inferior to every Lust and Temptation should be Superior to the Greatest of Evils We must make Death Harmless before we can make him not to be Dreadful take away his Sting and Curse by Repentance and a holy Life before we can take away his Terrour make him Beneficial and Advantageous before we can reconcile him to our thoughts and render him Familiar to us For to retain Sin and yet to hope to free our Selves from the Punishment of Sin would not be to set our selves to conquer the Unreasonable Fears of our Nature but to conquer God to wrest the Vengeance of Iniquity out of his hands which the Pain and Fear of Death are And if it be objected that the antient Heathen out of a Principle only of Magnanimity and an Emulous Bravery despised Death I answer That they cannot so truly be said to have Despised Death as to have been Ignorant of it they promised themselves after their departure hence a Being of Fame and Renown they knew nothing but Fables of the Punishments of another World for 't is not Courage but Madness to despise Torments that are Intolerable and Eternal If it be urged again That many Professors of Christianity who have heard the Doctrine of Damnation and another Life frequently preached have yet after many heinous and unrepented Sins rush'd as boldly upon Death as the Heathen I reply Though they often heard the Doctrine of Damnation preach'd they never believ'd it but Infidelity wrought the same Effect in them which Ignorance did in the other No we must disarm Death as I said of the Evil that accompanies him by a Righteous Life before we can disarm him of his Terrour if we will not be dismay'd when this Grim Landlord comes to turn us out of our Mortal Tenements we must provide our Selves before-hand Everlasting Habitations Which brings me to my Second General Part the Policy which is taught us to procure Everlasting Habitations when we fail in these and that is by making to our selves Friends Of the Mammon of Vnrighteousness We may observe in the Policy here prescribed us three things 1. The Instrument of it The Vnrighteous Mammon 2. The Use of this Instrument We are to make Friends with it 3. The End of this Use That we may be received into Everlasting Habitations I begin with the Instrument the Vnrighteous Mammon in which there are two things to be explained The Name and Substance of it Mammon And the
me advise you Not to weep for what Christ suffer'd more than sixteen hundred Years ago for your sakes seeing he is now at the Right Hand of his Father in Glory but to weep for your Own Souls that you have made no more Advantage by his Sufferings Weep not therefore because he was mockt and spit on and set at nought by the Souldiers but weep because thou thy self hast despis'd him set his Gospel at nought perhaps derided it Sigh not because Christ was scourg'd and crown'd with Thorns and hung so many hours upon the Cross but sigh truly and deeply that all these things have not moved thee to forsake one Sin or to mortifie one Lust mourn sensibly and pungently that he drunk the bitter Cup of his Passion in vain as to thee or for thy greater Condemnation For if it be a Sad Reflection that he liv'd a persecuted and afflicted Life and dy'd a Calamitous Death 't is yet a much Sadder that such his Sufferings do not Expiate but aggravate thy Guilt and Damnation The second Use I shall desire you to make of the painful and ignominious Death of so Divine a Person as the Messiah is to consider the Malignant Nature of Sin which however easily and hourly regardlesly and remorslesly we commit cost our Lord his Heart bloud to expiate and after we were once infected by it nothing less than his being Accurs'd could put us into a Capacity again of being Blest nothing but his being Cut-off could restore us to Life and Felicity Let the third Use we make of the Messiah's Death be To consider how precious a Thing the Soul of a Man is that 't is such a Jewel that the Son of God came down from Heaven to save from perishing compass'd the Earth like a greedy Merchant to purchase set his Glory and Life at nought to ransome And now 't is ransom'd at so Immense a Rate is of more Value than before and he that sells it now for Gold or Pleasure or any other Worldly Consideration sells not only an Immortal Spirit but a Divine Purchace sells his Soul Redeem'd parts with his Soul and his Messiah too delivers it up together with the Ransom and Satisfaction after no more can be expected When the Devil therefore offers to barter with us his beggarly and deceitful Wares for this Divine Treasure as the Satyrist said with indignation to a Gluttonous Person that gave more for a Fish than would have bought the Fisherman Hoc pretium Squamae all this Revenue for Finns and Scales So let us say with no less Indignation Shall we give our Immortal Souls the Bloud of Christ and Eternal Glory for a little Momentary Pleasure such as the very Slaves to it set often below a contemptible Summ of Money even when they have drawn their Purse and bid for it put it up again as thinking it too dear I proceed to the Circumstance of the Time of the Cutting-off the Messiah After threescore and two Weeks From what Epocha or Computation of Time these threescore and two Weeks begin to be reckon'd or in what King 's Reign they determin'd is very difficult to pronounce by reason that the Scripture is silent in the Extent or Number of Years of the Reigns of the Kings of Persia and those Accounts we have from Heathen Writers however competently punctual and sutable to their own Chronologies yet to make them fall in and come to a Concurrence with Holy Story one reckoning by Lunary Years and the other by Solary has been found a very hard Task insomuch that some that have labour'd over-curiously in this matter while they have sought to reconcile the Times have lost much of their own and instead of giving Satisfaction have only forfeited their Discretion I shall not therefore engage in so difficult and ambitious an Undertaking but content my self to follow the Conclusion of the soberest Expositors hasting through the ragged Ways and barren Tracts of Chronology and Arithmetick as a Traveller that delights not in his Journey and not sitting down and amusing my self in them as if I took pleasure in the Passage The plain Account is this The Prophet Jeremy long before our Prophets time had foretold that the Captivity of the Jews in Babylon should continue seventy Years Now Daniel being a Captive in Babylon about the End of this time and mindful of Jeremy's Prophecy besought of God by fasting and Supplications an Accomplishment of the promis'd Deliverance whereupon an Angel was sent to him with much more Gladsome Tydings than he expected viz. to assure him that not only at the Expiration of the Seventy Years prefixt the People should certainly return but that after Seventy Weeks of Years more i. e. seventy times seven Weeks a Week of Years consisting of seven Years the righteous and glorious Prince Messiah should be sent And the more to confirm Daniel in this joyful News the Angel according to the Distribution of the Time for the bringing this Counsel and Determination of God to pass divides the Seventy Weeks of Years into three Parts assigns seven Weeks of Years for the rebuilding Jerusalem and the Temple threescore and two from that to the Birth of the Messiah and his Cutting-off or at least for the Preaching of the Gospel by his Disciples and one Week of Years remaining for the destroying of Unbelievers as these things may be collected from ver 21. to the end of the Chapter In which Distribution of Time God's singular Goodness and Wisdom in chusing the Season for sending his Son into the World is very remarkable He sent him not the first seven Weeks or forty nine Years after the Jews return from Babylon that the City and Sanctuary were building and the Nation re-establishing for that was a busie and troublesome Time but sixty two Weeks after that when they were setled and at Leisure to attend Divine things And for this Reason God also so order'd it that Christ should be born in a Calm and Serene Age of the World in the peaceful Reign of Augustus Caesar when as the Historian says universi terrarum orbis aut pax aut pactio that there was either an Universal Peace or Treaty of Peace through the Whole World God thus stilling the Noise of Wars and the Tumults of the Nations that the Voice of his Son might be heard gave men nothing to intend that they might intend Religion But though he offer'd the Jews this Opportunity for their Salvation they laid not hold of it but when they were disengaged from Civil Affairs they engaged and immers'd themselves in all manner of Sin and Wickedness when their Wars ceas'd their Lusts began to rage when the Architects and Builders had finish'd their Work the Contrivers of Iniquity set to plot and contrive theirs So that few were at leisure to compute how Daniel's Weeks for the coming of the Messiah past away and much less to prepare themselves for his Reception and accordingly when he appear'd so far they were
of thy Strange and astonishing Miseries thy low Condition and sad Wants thy perpetual Dangers and Persecutions What is the meaning of thine Agony and bloudy Sweat thy Crown of Thorns platted and crusht into thy Head thy being Mockt and Spit on What is the meaning of thy Submitting not only to the Dishonours of a Humane Birth but to those also of a Violent and Ignominious Death Being the Son of God why didst thou suffer any Evil Why didst thou not convert the Stable in which thou wert Born into a Palace and the Cross to which thou were Nail'd into a Throne Why didst thou undergo such Miseries and Indignities as made the World doubt of thy Divine Nature and not exert thy Deity and destroy thy Murderers and burn up their City as thou spak'st in one of thy Parables Thy People expected thee a mighty Prince but thou shew'd'st thy self a Destitute Forlorn Person they lookt for a Deliverer but behold one Obnoxious to Bonds and Death for a Redeemer but Alas none needed Redemption more himself Great undoubtedly and wonderful was the Mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God and that he should not only be born in a Mortal but in a Miserable Condition The Apostle might well give it the precedence to all other Mysteries of Godliness Great is the Mystery of Godliness says he God was manifested in the Flesh justify'd in the Spirit seen of Angels c. But that Christ should suffer the things he did in our Nature was no less Necessary than Wonderful And to omit all other Reasons for it I shall insist only on that One Great One Because Sin could not otherwise have been abolisht the End for which Christ came into the World attain'd which was To destroy the Works of the Devil Christ could have destroy'd the Devil with more Facility if he had come in Majesty and Glory as the Apostle says 2 Thess. 2. He shall consume Anti-Christ with the Spirit or breath only of his Mouth and the Brightness of his Coming But our Lord's Business at this time was not to destroy the Person but the Power of the Devil Sin was both the Stratagem by which he conquer'd and the Chain by which he held Mankind in Captivity and Christ undertaking to rescue them from this Thraldom to bind the Strong Man and to take from him the Armour in which he trusted he was not to do this by an Omnipotent Power as he brought the World out of Nothing Light out of Darkness c. but by an Heroick Vertue such as he shew'd when he trampled upon the Temptations of the Devil in the Wilderness He therefore enter'd the Lists against Satan as a Champion or Combatant according to the fair Law of Armes as they say i. e. with a sutable Strength and Appointment to his Adversaries Man was lost by Sin and could only be restored by Righteousness he had forfeited God's Favour and his Felicity by his Transgressions and could recover them again no other way but by Obedience On this Account Christ laid by his Majesty and Glory and took our Nature that in the Infirmity of our Flesh he might foil our Strong Enemy the Second Adam redeem the Glories lost by the First Adam the Seed of the Woman bruise the Serpents head made himself subject to the Law that he might fulfil the Law obnoxious to Death that he might subdue Death and the Author of it by suffering Death as S t Paul says Heb. 2.14 That through Death he might destroy him that had the Power of Death that is the Devil So that we see here was no place for Thunder and Lightning for an O'er-bearing Irresistible Power but only for Divine Graces or Vertues and the Weapons Christ used in this Conflict were only Courage Holiness Obedience Patience Self-denial Meekness and the like such as were in the Power of Men also to make use of he so conquer'd as they might conquer after him For the Great Business was not Christ's Personal Victory that was secure but the Victory of his Followers he indeed was to break the Power of the Kingdom of Darkness but they were to compleat the Conquest every one in his own Particular to subdue Sin and Satan And thus while Christ destroy'd the Power of the Devil disarm'd him and made those that had been his Slaves Lords over him by consequence and in a Political Sense he destroy'd the Devil himself as a Prince is said to be destroy'd that is stript of his Forts and Castles his Territories and Armies his Ammunition and Harness of War though his Person still survives However then that Zipporah upbraided Moses upon the Circumcising of her Child saying factus es mihi Sponsus sanguinum thou art to me a Bloudy Husband we have no reason to quarrel that Christ was to us Salvator Sanguinum a Bloudy Saviour i. e. a Saviour drencht in his own Bloud for without the Bloud of Christ there had been no Redemption But to be more particular and distinct There are two Ways by which Christ destroy'd the Power of the Devil and delivered Mankind from his Bondage and those are Pretio Exemplo by the Price or Satisfaction he paid for Sin And by the Example of his Holy Life By the first he destroy'd the Guilt of Sin And by the second the Dominion or reigning Power of Sin 1. Therefore we may say There was a Necessity of Christ's Death and Sufferings and that he should be a Wounded Saviour that he might pay a Price make Satisfaction to God the Father for the Sins of the World For whether it be that the Vindicative Justice of God for Sin be so natural and intimate to his Essence that he cannot without renouncing his very Nature and Being pardon Sin without a Competent Satisfaction as some would have it Or whether it be only his Declared Will not to pardon Sin without a Competent Satisfaction as others more sutably to the Divine Goodness and Glory affirm I shall not need here to dispute seeing both Sides agree in one and the same Conclusion That it was necessary for Christ to Dye for the Sins of the World The Wages of Sin is Death says the Apostle and in another place Almost all things by the Law were purged by Bloud and without shedding of Bloud there was no Remission Now though the Bloud there mentioned was but the Bloud of Beasts that were sacrificed yet those Beasts were the Proxies and Representatives of Men and also Types of the Great Sacrifice which Christ was once to offer on the Cross and derived from it all their Vertue and Merit and God revealed this Way of atoning by Sacrifice early to the World and afterwards prescribed it to his People the Jews by written Laws from whom it was deriv'd to all Nations though the Mystery that Sacrifices were founded in the Death of Christ was not clearly understood till the Days of the Gospel As a Remedy for Sin was promised from the Beginning so 't was
also taught however obscurely from the very Beginning That Sin was not to be abolisht without Satisfaction made for it and that no Competent Satisfaction could be made for it but by the Bloud of the Son of God or the Eternal Destruction of the Sinner And if we will make the best Use of this Doctrine we must observe That as the Parts of the Body are framed in so excellent a manner that they serve for more Uses than one as the Nose not only to breathe but to smell the Hand not only to lay-hold with but to strike c. So likewise that the Institution of Sacrifices for expiation of Guilt had two Excellent Designs in it First to shew God's Mercy to Sinners and secondly his Irreconcileable Hatred to Sin And if we look no further in this Matter than on God's Goodness only in accepting so favourable an Exchange as the Bloud of the Sacrifice for the Bloud of the Sinner we defeat one half of his Design which was to shew the Malignant and Mortiferous Nature of Sin in that it could not be purged away by any less Means than Death than either by the Destruction of the Sinner or of some Other in his behalf And therefore though God deal with us after that Royal Manner as the Children of Princes are dealt with who have another Punishment for their Faults or as he dealt with David after his Numbering the People past by in a great measure his Offence and took Occasion from it only to send a Plague on Israel for former Transgressions thus chusing rather to punish David's Ingenuity than his Person to afflict him with beholding the Afflictions of others than by sending any immediately on himself yet if we shew not the like Ingenuity which David did suffer not Our Selves for what we see another suffer when we were the Delinquents I say if as he cry'd out upon the Destruction of the People Lo I have sinned I have done Wickedly but these Sheep what have they done So if we cry not out in Contemplation of what our Proxy suffered on our behalf We have sinned we have done Wickedly but the Lamb of God what has he done to be sacrificed for us We shall forfeit both the Indulgence and Indemnity which God intended us and while we shew our selves Insensible of so high a Benefit we shall be deprived of it and in the next place we must Dye our Selves and Dye to all Eternity And thus we see as the Death of Christ paid to God as a Ransom for Sins ought to be the highest Object of our Joy So the Consideration again on the other side that Nothing but the Death of Christ could pay that Ransom ought to create in us no less than a horrour and Detestation of Sin But yet I know not how we see men precipitately and remorslesly run into all Impiety as if there were no danger in Sin as if Christ had suffered nothing for it as if it were as easily remitted as 't is committed the Price of Iniquity no more than what it cost the Wicked Person to purchase it For certainly if Men did consider at how dear a Rate God's Justice and Wrath were satisfied they would not think the gratifying of every Lust more valuable than the Compensation made for it they would not set more by the Savage Delight of Revenge or the Swinish of Drunkenness than by the Bloud of Christ prefer the Favours of a Light Woman before their Peace with God a cheap Sin before the dearest-bought Redemption A Fool can work a Mischief which may pose a Wiseman to remedy and every Weak Person when he is tempted can commit Sin but none but the Eternal Son of God can remove the Guilt of it when 't is done And 't is the light Reckoning that men make of Sin which brings God's heavy Displeasure upon them for it their thinking so cheaply of the Greatest Offences because the Pardon of them costs them little that provokes him to make them feel what the Weight of Guilt is For 't is but just that those who refuse to understand the pernicious Nature of Sin by the Punishment laid on an Other should understand it by undergoing the Punishment of it themselves who will not learn how Odious it is to God by the Death of his Son should be taught it by their own Confusion Who is there so Ungrateful and Insensible even among the Worst of Men that if a Friend hazard his Life for his Preservation will not acknowledge so great a Benefit and yet the Son of God did not only hazard but lay down his Life to redeem us from Eternal Damnation and few there are that consider it that have so much Compassion as but to ask the Question in my Text What are these Wounds in thy hands resentingly to say Was it possible so Divine a Person should be so Abus'd for me that the Son of God should be buffetted spit on derided torn with Scourges mangled with Tortures and at last nail'd to the Cross for my Disobedience There are those I confess in the Church of Rome who spend a great Part of their Lives in gazing on a Crucifix and weeping over the Pictures of our Lord's Passion in bemoaning his Sufferings and kissing the Representations of his Wounds but alas these do but haerere in cortice stick at the Bark and Husk of the Mystery out of a simple or affected Fondness express their Gratitude to Christ a Wrong Way lament his Sufferings now they are past and he in Glory at the Right Hand of his Father they do not penetrate into the true Purpose and Meaning of his Sufferings as they declare the Malignant Nature of Sin that could not be expiated at a less Rate than the Death of so Divine a Person For this is the true Return that Men should make Christ for his Passion not so much to consider What his Wounds were as For what they were and from thence fly that which was the Cause of his Sufferings The second Reason of the Necessity of Christ's Sufferings I said was To give Men an Example of Obedience The Apostle Heb. 2.17 gives another Reason for Christ's suffering in our Nature viz. that he might be a Merciful High Priest become Compassionate of our Infirmities by the Experimental Knowledge of them in his Own Person But the Reason or Purpose I now speak of is such as is in Reference to Men and not to himself that he might give an Example to the World that God commanded nothing but what was possible to be performed by Flesh and Bloud The last Effort or Endeavour of Heaven to bring Men to Salvation was now essaying and the shortest and most Efficacious Motive was thought to be to give them an Instance of the Fulfilling the Law Precepts are but cold Inducements but an Example fires the Soul with Emulation to do what it sees done before it and Men think it a Disparagement to give out in that which another has enterpriz'd with
of his Wrath as they have been of Disobedience I should think my Hour well bestowed to remove this one Practical Dangerous Errour to open mens eyes that they may be convinced That Sin is a Serpent that does insidiare calcaneo lye in the Path and mortally bite the Heel of the Sinner and that he runs not on faster in the Ways of Disobedience than he does in those of Destruction but it is not my Business at this time the Proposition which I am to prove concerns not the Punishment of Sin Absolutely considered but Comparatively viz. That Sin in some Persons or People is more heinous and more severely punished than in others that where God has conferr'd more Signal and Illustrious Favours there he punishes Sin with more Signal and Exemplary Vengeance and his foregoing Bounty despised adds Weight to his future Severity And this Truth is written in so Great Characters and so legible through the Whole Series of the Chronicle of Scripture even from the Creation that I shall not need so much to prove the Proposition as to refresh your Memories by setting before you things already known The first Man of our Race was the first miserable Example of this Truth and he that first brought Sin into the World first also left the Confirmation to us of the Fatal Consequence of it when committed against an Extraordinary Grace Adam was created after God's own Likeness in perfect Righteousness and Holiness and not only with the Knowledge of his Laws but with a Power and Ability to keep them he was made to Excel all Sublunary Creatures and had Dominion given him over them he was plac'd in a furnish'd World fruitful without Labour delightful without Satiety and the Continuance of this his Felicity was put into his own hands he was not Subject to Death Infirmities or Misfortunes like his Posterity nay 't was in his power not only to have Prolong'd his Felicity to all Eternity but to have Improv'd it Greater Favours God could not conferr on Flesh and Bloud on a Creature lower than the Angels But whither tended the Collation of all these Benefits when Adam rebelled against God Only to his greater Misery the Punishment of his Transgression was as Eminent as his Priviledges and Graces had been his ensuing Calamity as his foregoing Prosperity The day thou eatest of the forbidden Tree says God thou shalt dye the Death What Death All manner of Deaths Death Temporal Death Spiritual Death Eternal Death to Nature Death to Grace Death to Glory The Sin was but Single but the Punishment inflicted was Three-fold like a Stroke with a Trident which makes a Triple Wound and the Blow fell not only on himself but on all his Posterity Never any Sin since his had the like Recompence of Reward because none since Adam could sin against so much Bounty I shall give you but one Instance more We know by how Strange and Unexpected a Favour Saul was promoted to the Throne of Israel who being sent in quest of his Father's Asses found a Kingdom God advancing him above all his People in Honour more than he Excelled them in Stature But he proving after this Ungrateful and disobedient to the Commandment of God falling no less than thrice into that Common Fatal Errour of Faithless Princes to relye on Humane Policy more than on the Divine Support on the Favour of the People than on the Favour of God and seeking to establish his Kingdom by Bloud and Sacriledge rather than by Innocence and Justice as if the Power that gave him a Throne could not uphold him in it God's Indignation against him was as Great as his Prevarications had been And then what did all his antecedent Favours profit him but to enhance his following Punishment Which was such as when we read it we cannot chuse but pity though it were the Lord 's doing For he rejected Saul as he was rejected by him he withdrew his Holy Spirit from him and sent an Evil Spirit to vex him in the room of it a Spirit of Jealousie and Frenzy which periodically possest him and clouded all his Felicity and Glory disinherited his Posterity dethroned in a manner himself while he was yet alive by causing another to be anointed King in his days And after he had suffered him thus to survive a few Years a dreadful Spectacle of the Divine Wrath he stirr'd-up the Philistines against him and when their Host appeared and he most needed it bereaved him of his Kingly Courage and Magnanimity refused to direct or answer him by his Oracles In which distressed and disconsolate State all Heavenly Comfort being silent and Saul's guilty Conscience only loud and clamorous over-whelmed with Sorrow and Despair under a Disguise and the Covert of the Night with two Attendants only he repaired to a poor Witches Cell to enquire the Fortune of his Life and Kingdom and where God met him as I may say also in Disguise made use of the Witches delusive Arts to give him a Real Prediction of his near-approaching Overthrow and inglorious Death So that partly broken with Sorrow and partly weakned through Hunger he fell into a Swoun and was sustained by the Bread and Counsel of the Silly Woman the next day putting a Period to his Life and Miseries What Invention of Romance or Fiction of Poetry can parallel the Calamity of this once so Glorious and Heroick King And if any ask Why was all this how came the patient Spirit of the God of Mercy to turn into Fury like that of the Person he punish'd Because the Sin of Saul was not only a Sin against God but against a Benefactor and the wonderful Bounty God had shewed in bringing him to the Throne pull'd upon his Ingratitude and Infidelity this wonderful Severity and Displeasure And as this is God's Dealing with Particular Persons so 't is the same with Whole Nations Of which we shall not need a further Example than that before us of Israel In the foregoing Chapter the Prophet denounces God's Judgments against the Neighbouring Kingdoms for their Sins For three Transgressions and for four says he God will punish Damascus and chiefly for their Cruelty For three Transgressions and for four God will punish Gaza and again for their Cruelty For three Transgressions and for four God will punish Tyre because they kept not their Brotherly Love And so on against the rest But when he comes in the last place to Israel and to Judah their Transgressions being not inferior to those of the Gentiles he intimates that heavier Judgments were laid up in Store for them and that they should not escape so easily as the others he casts their Ingratitude for their former Benefits into the burden of their Guilt their forgetfulness of God's bringing them out of Egypt wich a high hand and destroying the Nations before them his raising up their Sons and Daughters to be Prophets and their Young men to be Nazarites Shall the People that have not known God be
into the hearts of Believers to quicken them and to raise them from the Death of Sin to a Life of Righteousness i. e. to sanctifie and enable them to master Sin in themselves They that saw Christ in the Flesh knew not at first That the principal Intention of his Flesh was his Spirit viz. that his Incarnation was to produce their Sanctification to conform them to his likeness in the Inner-man as he was conformed to their likeness in the Outward-Man and those that are not thus conformed that have not their Sins taken away In them by Vertue of his Nativity shall never have them taken away From them by Vertue and Merit of his Passion Secondly By his Word he takes away our sin from within us Now ye are clean says our Lord John 15.3 through the Word which I have spoken unto you i. e. you have put away your former wickedness upon believing what I have preached To believe and to be clean in a Scripture sense is the same thing For 't is not possible rightly to believe and to continue in the Pollution of Sin The Word of God is quick and powerful sharper than any two edged Sword piercing even to the dividing asunder of Soul and Spirit The efficacy of it was seen in the reprobate hearts of Herod and Felix How did it ruffle and discompose the incestuous security of the first and put an Earthquake into the stupid Conscience of the last But yet 't is then only to use Solomon's expression that wise Words are as Apples of Gold in Pictures of Silver when they meet with docile ears and honest hearts when the disposition of the Hearers concurs with the faithful intention of the Preacher and they comply to destroy Sin in themselves as he endeavours to destroy it in his Sermon Otherwise this most powerful and effectual Engine to batter and beat down Sin the Word preached profits not as 't is in the Chapter now mentioned in the Hebrews But the Word preached did not profit them not being mixt with Faith in them that heard it Thirdly Christ takes away Sin from within us by his Example i. e. by his holy Life as well as by his Word and by his Spirit his Meekness Holiness Self-denial Obedience c. were designed by him to excite his Followers to practise the same Vertues equally or above his Precepts And though we condemn the Errour of those who affirm That the Pattern of Christ's life the perfect Exemplar of Piety and Holiness which he exhibited to the World was the only means besides his Word which he used to take away our Sins We may yet more condemn the sloth and hypocrisie of those who set his Life above our Imitation who put his Vertues into the same Classis with his Miracles and think it as impossible for us to practise his Humility Patience and the like as to open the Eyes of the Blind or to raise the dead affirm that his Obedience and Righteousness were not set for our Example to direct and encourage us to do the like but to upbraid and reproach our weakness and infirmities In the mean time our Lord himself Joh. 17.19 declares That the holiness he practised was not only for the love of holiness but that his Disciples should follow him even in the roughest Paths he trod those of his Suffering to which his Words more particularly relate For their sakes says he I sanctifie my self or offer up my self a Sacrifice that they also might be sanctified through the Truth And S t Peter says expresly Christ suffered for us leaving us an Example that we should follow his steps And this brings me to the second Motive the Apostle alledges to disswade men from Sin the sanctity and sinlesness of Christ's Person and ye know that in him is no sin But because this in a great part has fallen-in with the former Motive and to accumulate Reasons of the same Nature rather nauseates than perswades I shall wave this Point and proceed to my last The Inference which the Argumentation of the Apostle implies from the foregoing Motives viz. That 't is the Duty of all Christ's Followers to endeavour as far as 't is possible to be also without sin and which shall serve me also for an Application The Son of God we have heard was manifested in the Flesh to take away our sins and in him is no sin Now certainly we cannot think that we comply either with the Example of Righteousness which he has set us or yet with the gracious Purpose that brought him into the World if we reflect on his Nativity only after an Historical manner as that he was born in such an Olympiad or when such an one was Emperour that such rare Events attended his coming into the World as are recorded by the Evangelists namely that he was conceived by a Virgin of the Holy Ghost welcom'd by Angels signaliz'd and reveal'd to the Gentiles by a Star c. as if we were Chronologers rather than Christian Believers But that principally we are to consider these things Doctrinally and Morally to regard the Obligations they lay upon us and the final intendment of God in them For Example to say to our selves If God came so far as from the highest Heavens to take our Flesh that he might destroy sin how much more are we concerned to destroy sin in whom it dwells whose Flesh is its Domestick Organ and which will certainly destroy us both Body and Soul unless we destroy it Again if God vouchsafe so highly to dignifie our Flesh as to assume it to his Divine Nature and to carry it up to Heaven with him and that by way of Pledge and assurance to carry up all that live holy lives thither also how ought we to respect and even to revere these our mortal Bodies and not to pollute them with sin which are designed to such sublime Honour as to reign with God in Glory Once more If the Son of God came into the World not only to teach us his Father's Will but to demonstrate to us by his own performance the feasibleness of accomplishing it and did not only discourse of the probability of mortal mens ascending to Heaven but gave an instance of it in our Flesh how are we without excuse if either upon pretence of the difficulty of the Duties enjoined or the arduous ascent to the heavenly Kingdom promised us we supersede our endeavours to attain it When the Israelites were travelling to the Land of Canaan they said to Aaron Make us Gods that may go before us i. e. visible Gods that we may behold they were not satisfied with the conduct of an invisible Deity of a God that afforded not his personal presence Christ manifested in the Flesh is such a visible palpable God as they required who marches as a Captain at the Head of us and guides us not only by his Counsel but leads us by his Bodily Presence But yet notwithstanding this compliance with our infirmities
Text but the People of whom he was King For though a wicked King shall certainly bear the burden of his Sins and though the Judgment here denounced by Samuel was after a King was anointed in Israel yet 't was denounced against the Sin of the People committed before there was a King Neither had Saul as yet displeased God he affected not the Kingdom though Israel affected to have a King They are the Israelites therefore that are threatned in the Person and misfortune of their King whom God declares he will involve in their destruction even when he is not involved in their sins and a good King is sooner cut off for the provocation of a Land than a bad but then though he falls 't is the Land that is punished though he be untimely snatcht away 't is the Nation that is judged and condemned But if ye shall still do wickedly ye shall be consumed both ye and your King The Words consist of a Commination or Threat Ye shall be consumed both ye and your King And the Case wherein the Commination or Threat shall take place If ye shall still do wickedly I begin with the Commination or Threat Ye shall be consumed both ye and your King The Commination runs high a greater cannot well be denounced 't is only to be fear'd it may suffer the fate of the vain menaces and Rhodomantadoes of men which are most despised when they sound loudest and affect to carry most terrour Ye shall be consumed both ye and your King Why certainly men will say This is some Figurative Hyperbolical Speech which carries not so much danger in it to be feared as difficulty to be understood and sends us to an Interpreter and not an Asylum or Sanctuary Was it ever known that a whole Nation was destroyed as one man Dathan and his Complices 't is true went down into the Bowels of the Earth and it clos'd its mouth upon them but they were not a whole Nation but a seditious Party only Pharaoh and the Egyptians were overwhelmed in the Sea and not one of them escaped but they again were not a King and his People but a King and his Host. The seven Nations of the Canaanites were adjudged to utter extirpation but by reason of the Sins of God's own People the Sentence was not executed with that rigour it was denounced and they were not utterly destroyed Let us see therefore how we are to understand the Commination in my Text How a King and People may be said to be totally consumed A thing may be totally consumed or destroyed two ways simul semel altogether and in a moment as Fire consumes Flax or Gunpowder so that nothing remains but the Place of them Or gradually and by degrees when 't is wasted by little and little as Liquor consumes over the Fire or as a Body is extenuated by Sickness Now though God perhaps through the greatness of his Mercy has never consumed a whole Nation in the fullest and strictest sense of either of these two Ways yet so dreadful have been his Judgments and so universal the Destruction he has wrought that there will be no cause to say There is an Hyperbole in the Commination in my Text. The first way God practised when he caused the ten Tribes and their King to be carried away captive by Shalmanezer into Assyria with a swift destruction and the other two Tribes and their King by Nebuchadnezzar into Babylon This way also God practised when he gave this Nation up to the Conquest of the Normans Or as the Tragedy on this Day should rather prompt us to remember when he permitted the Bloud of our righteous Sovereign after the slaughter of many thousands of his Loyal Subjects to be spilled by the hands of execrable Villains and together with that sacred Sluce broke-up all the Floud-Gates of Impiety and suffered it to overwhelm the Land with wickedness and ruine as the World was once overwhelmed with a Deluge of Water At which time we may affirm Death or a change like Death past upon all the Rich became poor and the Poor rich the Nobles were debased and the Scum of the People exalted the Loyal were accounted Traytors and Traytors Loyal Oppression and Cruelty sat in the Seats of Justice Hypocrisie and Blasphemy in the Chair of Religion and an abject Villain in the Throne of Majesty And when the Kingdom was reduced to this State may we not say it was destroyed simul semel altogether and at once both King and People and that nothing remained of what had been but the Place and Memory The Scripture says Adam dyed on the Day he eat of the forbidden Fruit though he survived nine hundred and thirty Years after because he fell then into an evil condition and forfeited all his happiness Again the Scripture calls Damnation Eternal Death not because the Bodies and Souls of Sinners shall be extinguish'd but eternally tormented Life consisting not so much in duration as in felicity And in this sense when a Kingdom has lost its Felicity and Glory its Laws and Liberty its King and Religion though a Remnant of the People be left it may deservedly be said To be totally and utterly destroyed God practised the second way of destroying a whole Nation when he consumed the Israelites in the Wilderness by such slow and lingring paces that a new Generation was grown up by the time that the old was expired and the Children were ready to enter into the Land of Canaan as soon as their Fathers Graves were made in the Wilderness God thus punishing them after the manner they had transgressed as they had grieved him forty Years he consumed them for forty Years together And when ever a Nation is seen to decline in Piety Vertue Policy Wealth Reputation the Number of its People and the like when private interest takes place in mens hearts before the Publick when Trade Vigour and Industry languish then this lingering Curse works and ferments I may seem both ill-affected and also to intrude into a Secret that cannot be known if I should pronounce that this Kingdom lay at this present under this slow and lingering destruction as it has been more than once a miserable Instance of the other quick and total destruction But it may become me and all that hear me this day to fear and endeavour to prevent so dreadful a Judgment especially when so many and sad Symptoms of it seem to appear For not to name our Consumptions of late Years by War by Pestilence and by Fire we see the Moral and Spiritual Consumptions of Piety and Vertue and as fearful an encrease of Riot Prophaneness and Irreligion Popery gains upon the true Religion on one side and Fanaticism on the other and Atheism the Vorago of all other Sects and Schisms daily swallows up Popery and Fanaticism Again we hear plentiful Years complain'd of that the People are impoverished by the great encrease of the Land Abundance cry'd out against
and Erroneous Conceits in Religion I say are more pernicious to it and hateful to God than direct Opposition and Blasphemy against it and Turks Jews and Infidels have not hindred the Progress and Propagation of the Gospel so much as the Scandalous Dissensions and the Unsutable Lives of the Professors of it And all this while the Ways and Modes of serving God are not the Service of God it self but Holiness Righteousness Charity Obedience Meeknees Peaceableness and the like All Manners and Forms of Worship are good that are consonant to Scripture conduce to Edification and establisht by Just Authority I say and establisht by Just Authority for 't is not allow'd to Private Men to be the Fashioners or Chusers of the Publick Way of Worship if this were permitted the Issue would be only Confusion and the Dissensions about the Circumstances of Religion would destroy the Substance and Essentials of it Christ laid not down his Life to establish these or those Rites or Forms of Worship but as himself professes To destroy the Works of the Devil And this is that which ought to be the Business and Concern of his Followers that about which all their Care and Sollicitude should be employ'd against which their Anger and Animosity should be directed I say to abolish Sin and to make Vertue and Piety flourish in the Earth And they that lay not the Weight and Stress of Religion in this are Impertinent and Trifling in the Faith and Impious in their Zeal they understand not the most Material and weighty Part of their Profession and instead of receiving an Euge or Well-done from Christ at the last Day they will receive a Check or Increpation as the Blessed Virgin did in my Text and not only so but a Renunciation and a Condemnation God give us Grace to be Wise in a Wise Religion and Holy in a Holy Faith and to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost be ascribed all Honour Glory and Thanksgiving now and for evermore Amen The Fourth Sermon DAN ix 26 And after threescore and two Weeks Messiah shall be cut off but not for himself THIS is one of the most clear and most Illustrious Predictions of the Passion of our Lord which is contain'd in Scripture it comprehending not only the several Stages of his drawing near to the World for its Redemption his Advances and Pauses but unfolding also the wonderful Mystery and seeming Contradiction in it viz. That the Salvation of the World should be wrought by the Cutting-Off or Destruction of its Saviour the Son of God made subject to the Violence and Out-rages of the Sons of Men. I call'd the Words a Prediction but I might have styl'd them a Description or Register of all the Passages in that strange and astonishing Transaction they declaring the Design and Circumstances the How and for Whose behalf and the precise Time however obscurely of the Death of the Messiah However therefore at this Day every Child is catechiz'd and perfect in this Point of Chronology imperante Augusto natus est Christus imperante Tiberio crucifixus est Christus in the Reign of Augustus Caesar Christ was born in that of Tiberius he was crucifi'd and none needs to have recourse to the dark Calculations of remote Ages for this matter yet with good Reason we may look back to Prophecies when they are fulfill'd and scan Aenigmatical Speeches even after they are expounded For though this seems to be seeking of Light in Shades and Darkness the retiring back again into Night and Obscurity after the Day-spring from on high hath visited us yet not only much Confirmation but much Illustration of things Believ'd may be fetcht from the remote Springs of Antiquity for not only the Evangelists write the History of Christ but also the Law and the Prophets in many things Evangelize as the Prophet Daniel does in my Text And after threescore and two Weeks Messiah shall be cut off but not for himself We may observe in the Words these two General Parts I. The Angels Prediction to Daniel of the Death of the Messiah or Christ After threescore and two Weeks Messiah shall be cut off II. His Correction of what he had said or rather Direction for the right understanding of his Prediction and to prevent misappreheâ—â—â—on He shall be cut off but not for himself In the first of these two General Parts the Angels Prediction I shall observe more particularly two things The Substance of it the Excision of the Messiah he shall be cut off And the Circumstance of the Time of it when it should come to pass After threescore and two Weeks I begin first with the Substance of the Prediction He shall be cut off This Term of cutting-off does usually imply in Scripture three things 1. The untimely destroying a Person from the Land of the Living 2. The destroying him as a Criminal or Malefactor 3. The destroying him by God himself and if not always immediately yet by his Appointment I shall give but one Proof of this of the many that might be brought Exod. 31.14 God gives this Charge by the mouth of Moses Every one that defileth my Sabbath shall surely be put to Death that Soul shall be Cut-off from among his people In which Words are exprest the Person 's untimely Death that he dyes as a Criminal and that God is the Author that dooms him to it Now Death is call'd a Cutting-off for two Reasons First Because a Cutting-off is the discontinuation of a thing from that to which it was before united or Secondly A shortning of it from the Measure it had or would have arriv'd to Thus the Untimely Death of a Person is the shortning of the Days he might have liv'd to and the separating him from the Society of the Living of which he was a Member And however strange and wonderful it is such was the End of the Messiah after all the glorious Prophecies and magnificent Elogies relating to his Person and his Kingdom as that he should be call'd The Wonderful the Mighty God the Everlasting Father the Prince of Peace that his Dominion should reach to the Ends of the Earth and to the End of Time he was Cut-off and Extinguisht like a Mortal Man after the fashion as the Psalmist speaks of common Princes Ye are styled Gods but ye shall dye like Men. Like Men nay he dy'd like a Malefactor and by God's Sentence and Decree And it was upon the account of his Tragical End and the misunderstanding of other Predictions of him especially that one Christ shall live for ever that both the Jews of old despised him and those of these Days blaspheme him calling him from the manner of his Death and the Structure of his Cross The Warp and the Woof It was by reason also of his Ignominious Death that the Heathen derided and reproach'd our Holy Faith saying We believ'd in a hang'd Man But neither Jew nor Gentile had any just Cause of Exception against
last Day for where the Spirit it self is not its Operations cannot be expected 'T is true indeed that Sinners and Infidels shall rise again as S t Paul says Acts 24.15 There shall be a Resurrection of the Dead both of the Just and Vnjust Those that crucified Christ in the days of his Flesh and those that crucifie him by their Wicked Lives now in his Glory shall rise no less than True Believers than his holy Apostles and Martyrs But how and to what Resurrection shall they rise Even to such a Resurrection as is no other than a Second and Worse Death a Death not of Extinction or annihilation but a Death of Eternal Duration in Torment Non-Existence being not the State of the Second Death but Endless and Insupportable Misery insomuch that they shall wish that the Grave had for ever swallowed them up that as they liv'd like the Beasts that perish so they had also dyed like them without the Expectation of any After-Being So that the Resurrection of the Wicked is but an Aequivocal Resurrection as the lifting up of the Head of Pharaoh's Baker on the Gallows and the hanging Haman fifty Cubits high were but Aequivocal Advancements The Bodies of the Saints that rose after the Passion dy'd again the same Death but those that shall rise at the Last Day not having the Spirit shall dye again not the same Death that would be a Happiness but a Death that shall have no End and the Miseries of which we can no more describe than we can the Joys of Eternal Life but we must suffer a Change and be endued with new Powers and Faculties before we can support the Bliss of the one or the Torments of the other The second Property of an Inhabitant or Dweller in a House is to Command and Rule 'T is the Saying of every man to those that withstand the Exercise of their just Authority or but their Civility Give me leave to Command in my own House The Spirit of God must Rule and Command where it dwells we must not only give it House-room but Dominion look upon him as a Tenant but revere as our Land-Lord resign our Actions Wills Affections the Whole Man to his Dispose and Guidance Faith invites the Holy Ghost but Obedience and Submission to his Gracious Motions perfumes his Habitation and makes him delight to stay in it The Spirit of Love Meekness Purity and Holiness will not reside but where these and the like Vertues bear the Sway. Let the Word of Christ says S t Paul dwell in you Richly in all Wisdom So let the Spirit of God dwell in you Richly in all Wisdom it will not Cohabit with the Sons of Men unless it be Richly i. e. in the Abundance of its own Divine Graces and Operations If we will have the Spirit of God quicken our Mortal Bodies hereafter we must suffer him to quicken our Souls in this Life if we hope to reign by his Power in the World to come we must submit to his Dominion in this present World The third Property is Residence and Mansion our Houses are called our Manours and Places i. e. the Places where we ordinarily abide and where the Law presumes we are to be found so that if a Writ be delivered to any of the Houshold or but fastned to the Ring of the Door 't is counted the same thing as if given into our hands Thus our Hearts must be the Holy Spirit 's Manour or Place for what David says of God's constant Abode in his Temple on Mount Sion This is the Hill which God delights to dwell in yea the Lord will dwell in it for ever the like must be said of the constant Abode of the Holy Spirit in our Hearts This is the Habitation of the Holy Spirit and if we grieve him not nor drive him away by our Sins he will delight to dwell in us for ever When we were devoted to God in Baptism we devolved and made-over to his Holy Spirit an Estate in our Hearts even the Whole Term we had to live in this World and if we make good this Grant or Demise he will never abandon his Tenements till he has raised them up to Eternal Glory The Reason that a Great Schole-Man gives Why God punishes the Sins of Men which were but Temporal with an Eternity of Torments is Quia peccaverunt in suo aeterno because they sinn'd out all the Eternity they had i. e. all the Time God allowed them in this World and had he continued their Lives to the End of all Ages they would have continued still the same Wicked Persons The like Reason may be given for God's rewarding the Temporal Obedience of the Righteous with Eternal Glory Quia obedientes fuerunt in suo aeterno because they were Obedient all that little Eternity he allowed them in this World and would have persever'd in their Obedience if he had drawn out their Lives to the last Period of Time Abiding and Persevering in Righteousness is that which will give us Immortality if we give up the Possession of our Souls to the Dispose and Conduct of the Blessed Spirit the Whole Little Aeternum we have in this World we shall certainly obtain an Eternity that shall have no end in the next And thus I have shew'd the Manner of the Spirit 's Dwelling in every Christian and they that pretend to his In-dwelling without these Properties boast of an In-mate which they have not and as they want this Divine Guest so they will want the Blessed Effects and Consequence of his inhabiting in them the quickning of their Mortal Bodies at the last Day to Glory Which is the second thing I propos'd to explain The Effect or Consequence of the Spirit 's dwelling in us If the Spirit dwell in you He that raised up Jesus from the Dead shall quicken your Mortal Bodies The Words suggest two things to our Consideration 1. What shall be done to such Persons in whom the Spirit dwells He shall quicken their Mortal Bodies 2. Who shall be the Author to effect or bring this to pass He that raised up Jesus from the Dead 1. What shall be done to such Persons in whom the Spirit dwells 'T is said He shall quicken their Mortal Bodies Our Bodies are Mortal three Ways by Natural Death the Dissolution of the Substance of them by Eternal Death which succeeds the Natural that Riddle of a Death which by its Existence is in truth a Life but by the Torments belonging to it may deservedly be called a Death and by Spiritual Death which is the Cause of the other two Now our Mortal Bodies may be quicken'd or reviv'd again to three Lives To a Life of Eternal Duration to a Life of Eternal Joy and to a Spiritual Life or a Life of Grace which is the Cause in us of the other two Lives Some understand these Words shall quicken our mortal bodies only of Spiritual Proselytism of the raising us from the Death of Sin and
necessarily be a Consequence of his by the very Law as I may say of the Body or the Inseparable Conjunction of the Limbs to one another for it is not possible that the Head should be quickened and the Body mortified that the Head should be raised to Life and crowned with Glory and the Members remain in Death and Dishonour And 't is on this account that Christ is said To be the First-fruit of those that Sleep and not only in regard that none went before him but the First-fruit in relation to them that were to follow after him The First-fruits in the Law were Part of the Fruits of the Season one Sheaf of the Harvest which being lift-up and consecrated to God in the Name of the rest sanctified the Whole Crop So Christ being lift up as the First-fruit of the Dead consecrated and sanctified the Whole Harvest of the Dead And as Saint John says of every true Believer in point of Impeccability He cannot Sin because the Seed of God abideth in him i. e. none can be a Child of God's and a customary Sinner for these are irreconcileable So we may affirm with unspeakable Comfort in the point of our Immortality A true Believer cannot be held in Death because God's Seed abideth in him i. e. Death and a Seed or Principle of Immortality are inconsistent with one another And thus we see we have not only Matter of Congratulation for Christ's Victory over Death and the Grave but the highest Cause of Jubilee and Rejoycing for our own Deliverance from this heavy Curse and Punishment of Sin As Sin subjected us to the Dominion of Death the Spirit of Sanctification breaks the Bonds of the Tyrant asunder and enables us to conquer this Conquerour of Mankind as Disobedience shut the Gates of Heaven against us Obedience sets them open again Holiness of Life in the Faith of Christ in this World is the Ticket whereby we receive Happiness and Immortality in that to come The Young Phoenix is said to spring out of the perfum'd Ashes and Reliques of the Old but though this be never so fabulous I am sure we shall be renewed and quickned to Eternal Life from the perfum'd Reliques of a Holy Life the remaining Good Works and Graces the Spirit of God wrought in us which as S t John says can never dye but will follow us into the other World If therefore we give our selves up to be led and governed by the Spirit of Christ in this Life conform our selves in all things to his Divine Will if the Spirit of Christ conducts us safely to use the Psalmist's Expression through Fire and Water i. e. through the Sharper Tryals of Afflictions and the Softer Allurements and Temptations of the Flesh and the World he will carry us also safe through the Regions of Death and the Grave pass us indemnified by the Gates of Hell and neither the Malice of Devils the Weight of our Tomb-Stone the Load of our Flesh or the yet greater Load of our Infirmities shall hinder but our Bodies shall be raised and so winged that they shall overtake their Souls and be joined to them that took their Flight so long a time before them and both of them together shall be transported in Triumph to Heaven and crown'd with Immortality and Glory the Assurance and Pledge of which Christ has given us this Day in his own Resurrection To God the Father Son and Holy Ghost be ascribed all Honour Glory Worship and Thanksgiving this Day forth and for evermore Amen The Seventh Sermon PSALM ii 6 Yet have I set my King upon my holy Hill of Sion WIsdome does not only do her Works well but perceives that she does so delights in their Beauty exults in remembrance of the master'd difficulty and triumphs over the conquer'd Opposition Thus God stood-off as 't were from his great work of the Creation when he had finish'd it applauded and bless'd it prided himself as I may say in his noble performance in that he had brought Light out of Darkness Order out of Chaos a World out of nothing In the like manner when he had here compos'd the Distractions and Confusions both in the Church and State of Israel by establishing David literally and Christ mystically on the Throne of the Kingdom he glories in having brought about his great Design laughs at the fruitless Opposition of his Adversaries at home and abroad of the Philistines the Moabites the Ammonites the Damascens the Amalekites of the King of Zoba and of all the turbulent and ambitious Spirits of the House of Saul delights to recount their Might and their Machinations the more to signalize their Overthrow and to make his Victory illustrious For after all their rage their malice their Counsels their Combinations their seeming successes against him the Issue was this Yet have I set my King upon my holy Hill of Sion We may observe in the Words these three things I. The Person establisht My King i. e. David Literally so called and Christ Mystically II. His Establishment I have set my King upon my holy Hill of Sion III. God's Glorying in the Fact that he had done it with such a Non obstante notwithstanding such Opposition and Contradiction Yet have I set my King I. The Person establisht My King God's King Not only holy Scripture but the Writings of Heathens declare Kings to be Sacred Persons descended more immediately from the Gods and more particularly depending on them Kings are from Jupiter says Callimachus and nothing ever descended more sacred from him And Theocritus Kings are the special Care of the Gods And this Epithet's affected by Homer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God lov'd Kings Indeed all Kings in general are God's derive their Authority from him govern by his Permission and Providence as himself testifies By me Kings Reign But then he delights in a more especial manner to style Good Kings his to appropriate their Persons and owne their Causes to interpret all things done to them as done to himself as at Verse 2. Why do the Rulers take Counsel together against the Lord and against his Anointed Conspiracies against the King are reckoned Conspiracies against God the resisting his Anointed the resisting himself And thus if it be a Glorious thing to be a King 't is a Blessed to be a Good King for as splendour attends Majesty and Greatness protection and safety and felicity and the love of Heaven attend Righteousness But let us see why David is here more particularly call'd God's King than others The First Reason we may say was Because he was a King of God's Making because he brought him to the Throne having no Title by Birth to it à Caulis Ovium tuli te I called him from the Sheep-hook to the Sceptre And as those Persons which are of our Election preferring or favouring we call Ours this is my Scholar my Souldier my Officer because he was of my nomination my chusing my advancing so David was called God's King
it being rarely seen that a Good Understanding goes along with a Great Estate that the same Person should be born both to much Wealth and to much Wit my Text informs men how to reconcile these together how the Rich having the advantage of Wealth may have also the advantage of Wisdom how with their Transitory things they may purchase things Eternal nay and which is yet a higher Strain of Wisdom how being but Stewards of the Riches they possess they may make after the example of one of the craftiest Dealers in this World and best practis'd in the Double ways of Cozenage the gainful Purchace of Heaven at anothers Cost and do this Innocently as he did it Fraudulently Lastly Men are taught how to remove the Difficulty and almost Impossibility of a Rich man's entering into the Kingdom of Heaven how to make its Narrow Passage which is as the Eye of a Needle to a Camel as wide as the Gate of a City or the Royal Way leading to it A Lecture which undoubtedly must be very acceptable to Great and Rich men instructing them how to possess the Good Things of this World without forfeiting those of the next how to join Celestial Joys to Earthly Felicity immortal Glory to Secular Prosperity Again which can be no less grateful to the Penurious and Covetous who love to enjoy their Wealth after they have parted with it to have it their Friend when they can hold it no longer their Servant who desire to dwell for ever if it were possible with their beloved Gold to cohabit with it in the next Life as they brooded over it in this my Text comports and complies with all these Desires Make to your selves Friends of the Mammon of Vnrighteousness that when ye fail they may receive you into Everlasting Habitations The Words offer these two things in general to our Consideration I. The Necessity of our Faâ—ling in these Habitations When ye fail II. The Policy taught us how to procure Admission into Everlasting Habitations when we fail in these and that is By making Friends of the Mammon of Vnrighteousness And without troubling you with any further Division at present I begin with the first of these The Necessity of our failing in these Habitation These Words when ye fail are by some understood two ways by our failing in Duty and our failing in our Being or Dying As the Steward in the Parable fail'd two Ways 1. In his Honesty as at ver 1. he had wasted his Master's Goods And 2 dly In his Office as at ver 2. where his Master says to him Thou may'st be no longer Steward And after the like manner all Men fail more or less in their Fidelity and Justice But all equally and necessarily in their Mortal Being But whether we fail in the one of these Ways or the other whether we come short in our Duty or are cut short in our Lives in both these Failings the Unrighteous Mammon will stand us in stead 1. If we fail in our Justice Eleemosynae sunt instar Justitiae Alms are a kind of Justice and not only to Forgive but also to Give will cover a multitude of Sins So that if we fail viz. in our Integrity we may again be restored by our Charity and when we have wasted and consumed our Graces we may recruite them by exhausting our Purses and in this Shipwrack also casting our Goods overboard may be a Means of our Preservation But though this Sense of the Words has nothing in it contrary to sound Doctrine yet it cannot be that which our Lord points at in them For the Failing here spoken of is supposed to be Inevitable Necessary and Universal when ye fail indefinitely when ye All fail neither can the Words be supposed to allude to the Common Pardonable Failing or Miscarriage of an honest Servant but to the Purloining and Cheating of a Thief which the Steward was and for that cause was turned out of his Office If therefore we say the Failing here is meant of our Duty it must be of our General Total Duty which is Apostasie or else it holds no proportion to the Steward's failing in the Parable and if we do it holds no proportion with the Truth for we must affirm our Lord supposes it Necessary and Inevitable for all Men Universally to be Apostates We must take the Words therefore in the other Sense For Failing in our Being or Mortal Bodies which are often resembled in Scripture to Houses and Tabernacles but I shall instance only in 2. Cor. 5.1 For we know if the Earthly Houses of this Tabernacle were dissolved we have a Building of God a House not made with Hands Eternal in the Heavens There is in the Words the Figure Euphemismus which terms things by more gentle and Favourable Names than properly belong to them Death sounds harsh to those 't is denounced to alleviate therefore the ungratefulness of it 't is render'd Failing But the plain Importance of these Words when ye fail is no other than this When ye Die But now though this be the true Meaning of the Words it may seem to be a Theme less necessary to be insisted on than any other To tell men they must Die Not that the Admonition is not weighty and of the highest Concern but because it is so well known by all and none needs this Information Linquenda domus tellus pavens uxor that our Houses Lands and tender Relations must be left by us that nothing which is either dear to us or we dear unto can exempt us from the Law of Death is News to no man all men of what Sort and Condition soever can assume Saint Paul's scio We Know that this Earthly Tabernacle shall be dissolved The Ignorant see it daily demonstrated in the Mortality of other men and the Infirmities they find in themselves the Learned yet further by Philosophy and Reason which tell them That their Bodies being made up of a Mass of contrary Humours continually jarring and fighting with one another the Victory on either side must certainly be the Destruction of the Subject in which they are contained Divinity adds to these a third Demonstration teaching men that there is a Law of Death in their Members not that which I but now spoke of a Natural Law of Mortality but a Spiritual Law of Sin and consequently of Death which Law had its Sanction from God 's own Mouth Gen. 2. In the hour thou eatest thou shalt dye This present World is but a Nursery or Seminary to another in which nothing is to be seen more common than the transplanting of Men from this to that Or it may be likened to a Tree that has at the same time upon it some Fruit decaying some ripe and some blooming the one continually succeeding and thrusting off the other till the Tree it self at last fails as not being design'd to stand for ever All Men I say are of sufficient Learning to preach such Lectures as
great distance and the Sinner has leave to execute his Wickedness so that the Terrours of Religion work only upon the Good and Faithful while the Worst and most of men despise them But even the boldest and most daring in their Impiety who count Heaven and Hell only the Parables of Scripture and the Fictions of Preachers will boggle in the Cariere of their Sins at the remembrance of a severe Judge and an unrelenting Humane Law and consider whether they can escape if they commit them and will not run on madly to transgress when they see nothing is to be had but Vengeance the Attempt and their Miscarriage their Sin and their certain Death Thus we see Severity is not contrary to the Rules of Charity the Sword in the hand of Justice less instrumental to mens Good than the Scales that the fear of Punishment is a kind of Grace and Principle of Obedience in the Hearts of Wicked men which restrains them from Vice even when it wins them not to the Part of Vertue But then though Severity and Punishment are Noble and necessary Branches of Charity they are not the Natural and Genuine they relate to it but as the Prophet Isaiah says they do to God They are his Works his strange Works his Acts his strange Acts. The Works which Charity delights most in are those that are mild and gentle which not only produce Good but which in themselves are Good which shew Mercy by the Ways of Mercy and are no less beneficial in their Progress than their End And these are the Operations of Charity which our Apostle chiefly recommends here to us and that we may not erre in so Divine a Grace or come short in so important a Duty our best way will be to set before us the Perfectest Exemplar of it that ever was our Lord and Saviour and himself commands us John 15.12 to do this As I have lov'd you says he so love one another thus making his Love to us the Rule or Pattern of our Affection to those of our own Kind And the first Instance of Christ's Love which I shall propose for Imitation is this That as he lov'd us Before we lov'd him lov'd us without any Merit or Invitation on our part lov'd us when we could not love him when we were wholly benumm'd and dead to all heavenly Affections So likewise that we love one another expect not Obligations and Invitations from our Brethren to quicken our Charity towards them but rather delight to begin and be before-hand in our Expressions of Kindness and to have it seen that they come from our selves A natural Spring flows of its own Impulse unbid unprovoked and makes its Way through all Oppositions if it meets a hollow in its Course it fills it up if a light Obstacle it bears it away with its Stream if a great one it swells and passes over it at least pours out still its free Source till it finds or makes a Passage And thus our Charity must take its Rise and flow from its self shew it depends on nought beside that it cannot be obstructed by the want of any Qualifications or yet by any Disobligations of our Brethren Atticus the charitable Bishop of Constantinople when he sent Money to relieve the Poor in the City of Nice commanded that no enquiry should be made in the Distribution of it of what Sect in Religion the Poor were but what their Wants were He that confers his Benefits upon Consideration only of mens agreeing with him in Opinion of their Merit Neighbourhood former Obligations or the like may be just prudent or Grateful but he cannot be said to be Charitable for this is a free unbiass'd disinterested Vertue and if it regards ought in the Good it does beside the Opportunity and Power it has to do it it changes its Nature becomes another thing and assumes a New Name Let no man therefore think he has absolved the Duty of Charity if he be Kind only where his Honour is courted and comply'd with ready to entertain Friendship when he is sought to to be reconcil'd when full Amends is made him But if he will shew this Grace he must first break the Ice and lead the way to Concord Kindness and Beneficence And none think this so hard a Saying as those who would hugely stomach and disdain in case their Neighbour should precede or take place of them upon any Meeting or Encounter as if it were Disparagement to them to sit lower than another at the Table and not to be below him in Vertue to go after him at a Door and not to come behind him in all Goodness If we cannot part with our Passions and Evil Affections for the sake of our Brethren as well as our Money for go our Pride and Animosities as well as our Goods we are Charitable but in part Merciful but in a Case and possibly the Vertue may not be only Imperfect and lame in us but we may be wholly destitute of it for S t Paul says We may bestow all our Goods to feed the Poor give our Bodies to be burnt and yet not have the Grace of Charity Because these things may be done out of Ostentation and not only so but without any Profit or Benefit For put the Case our Brother be not low in Fortune but weak of Undestanding not indigent of outward things but of Instruction and Advice stands in need to be born with not to be reliev'd what Good will our Money do him in these his Infirmities It were as seasonable to apply it to a broken Arm or fester'd Wound to give it to one starving in a Desart where no Food is to be bought If we will be Charitable we must compassionate our Brothers Necessities of what Nature soever they be supply his Wants not gratifie our own Temper The second Instance of Christ's Love which I recommend to our Imitation is this That as he lov'd us not only first and before we lov'd him but lov'd us when we were Enemies to him when we were not only Strangers but Rebels to Heaven when we exercised all the acts of hatred and hostility against it So that we love one another and not think the Obliging and Good Natur'd only worthy of our Kindness but the Discourteous and Injurious Some men are contentious with their Neighbours outrageous to their Children tyrannical to their Inferiors insupportable to their Equals irreconcileable to their Enemies implacable upon every Colour of a Wrong But the Charitable on the other side can Excuse and pardon the most design'd and study'd Injuries see something to commiserate and pity even in mens Injustice can look upon their Malice as their Mistake or Misfortune pray for their Enemies as our Lord did in the very Article of the Death which they have brought upon them Father forgive them for they know not what they do And if we consider rightly Sinners are Ignorant and Mistaken in what they do Fools as the Scripture
and the salvation of so many Millions as the bringing in the body of the Jewish Nation to the Faith of Christ to whom the Promise was principally made to be separated or excluded my self from him as Vatablus excellently expounds Vnus pro tam multis optarim perire si liceat I could wish as far as 't is lawful for me that One rather than so many might perish And there is nothing in either of these Passages of Moses or S t Paul which every faithful Pastor may not safely imitate let their Zeal be as much in Earnest and as right plac'd as theirs and it will not only be pardonable but rewardable Neither is there any thing in their Practice if rightly weighed contrary to this Rule I must love my Neighbour As my self not Above not Before my self I should proceed to the Object of our Charity but what remains will be sufficient for another Task The Nineteenth Sermon 1 PETER iv 8 And above all things have fervent Charity among your selves for Charity covereth the multitude of Sins The Object of Charity All Men in General GOD taught the Church of the Jews in the beginning by easie and natural Notices and Instructions by a kind of hieroglyphical or symbolical Divinity the Scene of their Religion lay in Garments Diet Washes and the like the Commandment was conversant in the Objects of the Senses touch not taste not handle not And thus men were inur'd to the Ways of Vertue and held at a Distance from Vice by allowing or disallowing them the Use of such Creatures and Customs as shew'd the Beauty of the one and the Deformity of the other God endeavouring to render Sensuality and Prophaneness odious by rendring Dogs and Swine so Hypocrisie and Corruption of Doctrine by forbidding Garments of mixt matters and sowing the Field with Seeds of several kinds Exorbitant Lust by amputation of the Fore-skin Idolatry and Unnatural Mixtures by commanding a perpetual War with the seven Nations of Palestine deeply ingulph'd in these Sins Again he endeavoured to train them in Purity and Innocence of Life by enjoining frequent Washings of themselves their Garments and their Vessels But the Jews perverted and defeated the Counsel of God in this method of instructing them they lookt not as 't is said of them to the bottom of their Lavatories to the Design and Signification of their Types they cleans'd their Pots and Skins and polluted their Lives they entertain'd the forbidden Sin and terminated their Hatred in the innocent Sign wallow'd in the Sensuality of Beasts and detested the harmless Creatures practis'd all the Abominations of the Heathen and when they were as guilty as they lookt upon them as their Enemies As if God had taught them not to hate Idolatry but Men not to be at Variance with Sin but to keep up a Feud with the greatest part of the Creation When they were enjoined utterly to root out the Canaanites that their Corruptions might not spread among them they made Marriages with them and incorporated them into one People with themselves and again when in after Ages the reason of such Enmity was worn out and the Danger of their Community Out-dated when their Aversion to the Gentiles did not Secure their Religion but render it Odious and preserved not the Truth but hindred the Propagation of it then most preposterously and unreasonably they shew'd an irreconcileable Hatred to the Heathen and extended their Malice not only to the seven Nations but to all Nations beside themselves and were detestable to all the Inhabitants of the Earth for their Churlishness and Inhumanity In this Condition of hating and being hated our Lord found them when he came into the World and when he set himself to reform their Mistakes to remove the Outward Ordinances they had so little profited by and to reveal the Duties that were shadowed under them they abhorred the Sanctity of their Meaning preferr'd the Burden of them before the Vertue they signified embraced closer and more strictly their beggarly Elements like degenerate Children that fly from their Book to the Bables of their Infancy from their Tutors to their Nurses chusing rather to counterfeit still an imperfect clipt Speech than to form their Tongue to pronounce Words of Instruction and Knowledge And it cost our Saviour the Cross and his Disciples Persecutions and cruel Deaths while they laboured to wean them from their first Childish Rudiments to redeem the Creatures from those Prejudices which for a time were thrown upon them for Religion and Instruction sake to bring the anathematiz'd and excommunicated World into the Pale of the Church to have all men seen to be of one Kindred as they were at the Creation to revive the Consanguinity of Nature by the Alliance of Grace which acknowledges its scattered and remotest Relations though situate in the furthest Climes and made not only Strangers but Enemies by distant Countries and more distant Religions and Interests However therefore the Jews were born to Animosities and Hatreds had Quarrels intail'd on them like their Lands had so many Nations made over to them their hereditary legal and commanded Enemies yet Christians are allow'd to account no Sort of People their Enemies but are enjoined to bear an Amicable friendly Disposition to all men or taught that their Brethren are not those only of the same Kindred or Nation but those of the same Kind and the same Nature as Tertullian says Lex vetus amorem docet in proximos nova in extraneos the Old Law taught us to love our Neighbours but the New teaches us that all the World are our Neighbours not only those that live near us but those that do any way stand in need of our Assistance not those alone that we know but those whose Distresses we are acquainted with though their Persons are Strangers to us And this Doctrine our Lord revealed or explained in the Parable of the wounded Samaritan and according to the Tenour of it we ought to say with Gregory Nazianzen All the Earth is my Country and no Part of the Earth is my Country 't is Heaven alone that can claim that Title and no man ought to be excluded my Kindness till I know him to be excluded Heaven and no man but may challenge my Love of whom I can say Behold an Other Man And this Point of Christianity is so grounded on the Principles of Nature that the better Heathens discerned and practised it As I am Antoninus says that excellent Emperour my Country and City are Rome and Italy but as I am a Man the whole World And like again to this is that Speech in the Comoedian Homo sum humani nihil à me alienum puto I am a Man and I esteem nothing humane strange to me or not to be my Concern Be then my Brother an Arabian or Indian though he has travelled far and planted himself in a remote Clime though he be fed with Fruits of the Earth I never saw and speaks a Language