Christ from the dead shall quicken your mortal Bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you IF the Resurrection of Christ had been of his Person only it would have been a rare and glorious Event but an Event of no Concern to us and if we did meet only this Day to celebrate his Resurrection from the Dead and not our Own that shall be though we celebrated a Great Miracle we should not celebrate a Great Benefit But S t Paul teaches us in my Text how we may be assured to commemorate our own Resurrection as well as Christ's namely If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in us Those whom the Spirit does not inhabit in this Life when they dye they dye for ever but they on the other side in whom it dwells and inhabits now the Resurrection of Christ is not to them a History but a Precedent and such Persons shall not be only Admirers but themselves Partakers of the Miracle If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the Dead dwell in you he that raised up Christ from the Dead shall also quicken c. To look further into this Mystery and the Expedient propos'd to bring this Wonderful thing to pass I shall observe in the Words these three Particulars I. What it is for the Spirit of God or which is all one of him that raised up Jesus from the dead to dwell in us II. The Effect or Consequence of such In-dwelling of the Spirit of God viz. if it be in a Man He that raised up Christ from the Dead shall raise up his Mortal Body III. By what Means God will produce this Effect in such a Man even by that which dwelleth in him by his Spirit that dwelleth in him I. What it is for the Spirit of God to dwell in a man The Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the Dead is no other than the Eternal Spirit of God the third Person in the Trinity the Spirit which is mentioned in Genesis that in the beginning of the World gave Life to all things is the same Spirit that still gives the Palingenesia the second Genesis or Regeneration whether we understand the Word of the Change and Renovation of our Soul and Affections to the Will of God in this Life or the Resuscitation of the Body from the Grave in the next and the Reuniting it with the Soul in order to Eternal Bliss The Spirit is said here to be the Spirit Of God but not the Spirit In God as if it dwelt in God as it dwells in us it is in God Personally and Essentially as his Being but 't is in us only by way of Tenancy as an Inhabitant or Inmate to excite in us its Gifts and Graces And this may serve to refute and silence those deceived Souls who of late times through their misunderstanding of the Union of the Saints with God exprest in Scripture have run into such high-flown and horrible Blasphemies as to say They are In-Godded in God and In-Christed in Christ thus claiming Prerogative instead of Priviledge and affirming Divinity instead of a Divine Spirit to be in them supposing themselves to be inspired even Essentially with the Divine Nature But such Blasphemous Conceits as these so audacious and injurious to the Deity are so far from being Effects of God's Spirit which is the Principle of Eternal Life in those it dwells that they are Demonstrations of the Spirit of Satan an Affectation to be like the Most High and to equal their Maker and unrepented of will certainly consign them to have a Portion with him in Eternal Death for what the Jews blindly objected against our Lord as a Crime That being but a Man he made himself God may be justly charged on these that being indeed but Men and commonly but the Dreggs of Men they fansie themselves to be Gods Only the Sin of these is more unpardonable in regard that after so long a time and so much warning of the like Miscarriage in this kind they have not exploded this old worn out Stratagem of Satan's But though this Diabolical Frenzy must be abhorr'd yet when 't is said that the Spirit of God dwells in a Man we must look upon it as denoting something more Extraordinary and Excellent than the common Lodging or Abiding of an Inhabitant in a House as representing rather God's Residence in his Temple at Jerusalem which Temple as it was Splendid and Glorious with all that Art and Cost could make it a Representation of Heaven so God by wonderful Tokens and Testimonies declared his Divine Presence in it And after this manner the Heart of every Christian ought to be embellish'd with Vertue and sanctified like a Temple appear like a little Heaven upon Earth in which the Holy Spirit may be seen to dwell by shewing his Divine Operations Know ye not says S t Paul that your Bodies are the Temples of the Holy Ghost Solomon built God but one Material House but Christ by his Spirit has raised to God as many Living Temples on Earth as there are Believers But to be more particular Dwelling in a House implies three things 1. Legitimate Possession by Legal Title and Introduction 2. Command and Dominion 3. Residence or Mansion And all these Properties the In-dwelling of the Spirit of God ought to have in those whom it hereafter quickens to Everlasting Life 1. The Spirit must have Legitimate Introduction and Possession God dwelt not in his Temple at Jerusalem till it was Dedicated and consecrated to him till he was introduced into it by Supplications and Sacrifices And his Holy Spirit will not dwell in Mens Hearts till they be dedicated and consecrated to him by Baptism and he be introduced by Prayer and Vows of Faith and Repentance Ephes. 3.17 S t Paul beseeches God that he would grant to the Ephesians according to the riches of his Glory to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the Inner-Man that Christ may dwell in their Hearts by Faith They that by Faith in Christ do not unite themselves unto him and so receive of his Spirit have not yet introduced the Spirit into its Temple and they that recede again from the Faith after they have received it dislodge and thrust the Holy Spirit out of his Tenure and Occupation The Jews reckoned that God was still among them as before when they had rejected and crucified the Holy One but after such their Infidelity and Wickedness he remained no more in their Hearts than he did in their Material Temple after that Voice was heard to come out of it migremus hinc let us depart hence Wheresoever it is so That either Men believe not on the Son of God or else having believed on him through the Allurements of the World and the Flesh fall back again into Unbelief and chuse rather to dispossess his Spirit than their Sins and Lusts there no Quickening Power will be found to revive their Mortal Bodies at the
what do they signifie to us upon whom the Ends of the World are come and saw them not To answer this Objection at large would be in Effect to ingage in a Discourse of the whole Subject of the Truth of Christian Religion or the Demonstration Evangelical of which Eusebius the first Christian Historian after the Apostles now extant wrote seven Books I shall therefore content my self in the short time that remains to me to present you by way of Answer only with one Consideration but 't is a Consideration that had great force with S t Augustine and 't is this The very Conversion of the World is the highest Argument imaginable that it was converted by the Miraculous Power of the Holy Ghost For that Man says the Father that can conceive the World should relinquish their long doted on Religion received from their Ancestors with so much Veneration and a Superstitious Conceit that they had been Prosperous under it a Religion so well suited to their Carnal Affections and receive in Exchange of it a New Religion derived from so despicable and infamous an Author as a Mean Man crucified by his own Nation and the very Principles of which were so harsh to Flesh and Blood and contrary to all worldly Glory and Interest That Man says S t Augustine that can conceive this could be done without Miracle is himself a greater Miracle than those he thinks so hard to be believed There were among the Roman Fencers of old one sort that with a Net and Trident maintained Combate against their Opposers armed with a Sword and Helmet and were so dextrous as to intangle and vanquish their Adversaries with these Uncouth Weapons The Apostles of Christ those Fishers of Men may be likened to these Retiarii these Fencers with Nets who with the Metaphorical Nooses and Meaches of preaching seconded by the Power of Miracles ensnared and captivated to the Gospel the armed potent proud Idolatrous learned and vicious World And this was the Way the Spirit took at his Coming if we interpret 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to Convince the Understanding of the World of its Errors But if we take it in the other Sense redarguet Mundum he shall Reprove the World for its Sins it imports these two things That the Spirit shall shame the World And condemn it First That it shall reproach and shame the World for loving Darkness more than Light Death than Life for lying under Wickedness and Guilt when the Means of becoming Innocent was offered them for chusing things Base and Degenerate before things Noble and Praise-worthy things Vicious and accompanied with Danger rather than things Vertuous though accompanied with Glory and Felicity in a word for chusing rather to perish in their Sins and Ignorance than to be Instructed reformed and saved And as the Spirit shall shame the World for so brutish and sottish a Choice so Secondly it shall Condemn it Shame and Confusion of Face is but the beginning of the Misery of Sinners the consequent of the Discovery of their Wickedness not the Punishment of it What the Wiseman says shall be the Portion of those that love Danger they shall perish in it is true also of those that love Darkness more than Light and the ways of Death than the ways of Life that they shall prove what the Riddle of Eternal Death is of a Death that never dyes and dwell in Eternal Night and Darkness And thus that Spirit which is the Spirit of Love and Gentleness which descended in the Similitude of a Creature that has no Gall nor Anger and whose Office 't is to save to comfort and support shall exercise a Part so contrary to its Name and Nature as to Condemn destroy and confound instead of shewing it self the Spirit of Lenity and Kindness shew it self the Spirit of Indignation and Fury a Froward Chiding and Reproaching Spirit O ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in Heart and Ears says the Holy Ghost by the mouth of S t Stephen which of the Prophets have not your Fathers persecuted and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One of whom ye have been now the Betrayers and Murderers Stephen who dyed the Example of Meekness the Miracle of Patience and Charity inspired by the same Divine Spirit lived a sharp Reprover and severe Condemner of their Hardness of Heart and Unbelief And now Beloved to make some Application of what has been said Are the things we have heard this day remote and unconcerning Stories Tales only of the Apostles Times and Events at the first preaching of the Gospel Or is it not still the Business of the Spirit to Convince the World of Sin of Righteousness and of Judgment To rebuke and reprove it for the little or ill Use it has made of the Unvaluable Benefits offered it by Christ To Judge and Condemn it for preferring the Ways of Death and Destruction before those of Life and Salvation even rejecting and crucifying the Lord of Glory a second time by their Sins 'T is true the Extraordinary Miraculous Operations of the Holy Ghost are ceased but his Ordinary his Inward Reproofs and Convictions by the Outward preaching of the Word his converting sanctifying and justifying of some and final Condemnation and sealing up of others in their Impenitence still remain Christ's Work of our Salvation lasted but a while and had its Period on the Cross but the Spirit of Christ which came after him had no Period no Hitherto of his working but his Operations continue to the End of the World And 't is wonderful to consider That after so many Unwearied and powerful Endeavours of the Spirit for sixteen hundred Years that so much gross Infidelity and so many scandalous Impieties are still in the World That the Unjust and Unmerciful are Unjust and Unmerciful still the Voluptuous and Incontinent are voluptuous and incontinent still the Prophane and Atheistical are prophane and atheistical still the Seditious and Disobedient to Government persist to be so still as if the World were grown too Old to blush or to learn and what was said in Praise of our Lords Constancy and Resolution in Suffering That he Despised the Shame were Commendable also in the Effrontery and Impudence of the World in its Sins That it despises all Shame S t Augustine says That in his Young Unconverted days he boasted of many Sins which he had never committed ne viderer abjectior quo innocentior lest I should have appeared Abject and poor Spirited if I had been known to be Innocent And too many there are in this Age that count the Vices of the Time the Gallantries of it and are as much abasht to come behind in any Lewdness in Vogue as to be late in the Fashion And when things stand thus that those that have given their Names to Christ in Baptism are more profligate Sinners than Turks and Infidels may not Preachers be allow'd to say The World is not yet Converted the Holy
among the Jews to repulse those that moved any thing to them unseasonably or unworthy of them to do in their Opinion and also to express their Resentment if they thought themselves hardly dealt with The Widow of Zerephath used it this last way to the Prophet Elijah when she conceiv'd the Cohabitation of so holy a Person with her and his near Inspection into her Life was the Cause of her Childs death What have I to do with thee says she O thou Man of God! art thou come unto me to call my Sins to remembrance and to slay my Son And David used it the first way 2 Sam. 19. to Abishai urging him to put Shimei to death upon the Day of his Restoration to the Kingdom because he had Curs'd him in his Flight from Jerusalem Says he What have I to do with you ye Sons of Zerviah And notwithstanding the great Dislike and Offence this Phrase exprest our Lord forbore not to use it to his Mother intermedling in his Divine Employment Woman says he What have I to do with thee I confess it was durum Dictum a harsh Speech considering the Person to whom 't was spoken but 't was also if rightly weighed frugiferum Dictum a Speech full of good Instruction and Profit For it shews Christ's equal and impartial Deportment as he is a Lord and Saviour to all Persons whatsoever without Consideration of Country Acquaintance or Kindred The very Womb that bare him in an Unadvis'd Action shall not go away without a Rebuke if his Mother does that which is Dishonourable to his Office she shall hear that which is less honourable to her Relation if she forgets her Duty he will forget her Name and Title A good Lesson for those Favourites of Christ in these our Days who call themselves his Elect and his Darling Children however they live in Disobedience to his Laws and fansie he can see nothing in them that displeases him whatever wickedness they commit Though Propinquity in Grace be more in Christ's account than Propinquity in Bloud yet if even those that are ally'd to him by Grace sin presumptuously against him they will find him but a rough Kinsman Though Coniah were as the Signet upon my Right hand says God yet would I pluck him thence And if Peter the most Zealous of the Apostles shall take upon him to tempt Christ he shall bear the Name of Adversary Get thee behind me Satan If the Provocations of the Servants of God be Great however near and close their former Relation to him was they will find him as far Estranged from them and in Case their Provocations be of a less and meaner Allay they will receive a Check as the Blessed Virgin here did And so I proceed to the Reason why Christ reprov'd her Because she unseasonably interpos'd in what she ought not to have meddled prompted him to work a Miracle before his Time was come My Time says he is not yet come These and the foregoing Words Woman what have I to do with thee utterly o'erthrow all the vain and false Glories which the Church of Rome Superstitiously Idolatrously and injuriously rather than Devoutly heap upon our Lady ascribing to her impeccability and being born without Sin the Title of Queen of Heaven and a perpetual Regency over her Son c. But as Stout and resolute Souldiers where the Works are weakest shew the greatest Valour So those of that Church shrink not for all the Assault they receive from my Text but the ruder the Shock is the more obstinately they maintain their Post. They affirm that the Action of the Blessed Virgin here was not only without Blame but full of Faith Charity Humility Prudence c. and that Christ was so far from being angry with her or having any Cause given him to be so that he took up a feigned and dissembled Dislike to have an Occasion only to teach the World and not her neither That the Power by which a Prophet works Miracles is not derived from his Parents nor to be governed by them but wholly by the Spirit of God says Cornelius à Lapide In ipsa nulla fuit culpa ergo non vera fuit Christi reprehensio reprehendere tamen illam videtur ut non ipsam sed nos doceret in operibus theandricis parentes nihil habent juris and so forth Thus the Jesuite is not asham'd to make our Lord Jesuitize i. e. falsifie and dissemble but the time would be ill spent to confute such gross Follies and Blasphemies which chuse rather to find a Miscarriage in Christ than in his Mother to make him angry without a Cause or to feign an Unjust Anger than to allow it possible for her to give him a Just Cause to be angry But the Explanation of these Words my hour is not yet come will more plainly shew wherein our Lady deserv'd a Reprehension The Hour of Christ is sometimes understood of the Hour of his Death as 't is said They could not lay hold of him because his Hour was not yet come But here it is to be understood of his Season or Opportunity to do a thing as when he answered his Brethren that ask'd him to go up to Jerusalem to the Feast Your Time says he is always but my Time is not yet come But here by the way we must not conceive any thing of the Hours assign'd to Christ of that nature which the Arrians and Priscillians did who said He was subject to Fate and Necessity and bound up to the Observation of Times and could not therefore be the Eternal Son of God Christ's Death was not impos'd on him by any Fatal Necessity as himself declares Chap. 10. and 18. of our Evangelist No man taketh my Life from me says he but I lay it down of my self I have Power to lay it down and I have Power to take it up But when 't is said The Hour of his Death was not yet come it means no more than this That he had not yet finish'd the Work for which he came into the World he had not fully preach'd the Gospel accomplish'd the Prophecies that were of him confirm'd his Disciples c. i. e. the Hour by his own Eternal Wisdom chosen was not yet come the Hour as S t Augustine speaks non Necessitatis sed Voluntatis the Hour not of his Necessity but his Will not of his Constraint but of his Counsel And the like may be said of the Hour of his working Miracles he attended no Critical Minute or favourable Conjuncture of the Stars to assist him as to his Power he could have wrought them when he would every Hour was the Hour of his Power but every Hour was not the Hour of his Opportunity he could have turned the Water into Wine at the time his Mother spoke to him as well as at any other but the End for which he did it would not have fallen out so Easily and Naturally at one time as at another and though
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
the enlivening us to a Life of Grace But though this meaning sutes well with S t Paul's Design in this Epistle to confute the Imagination of the Jews that they could obtain Eternal Life by Virtue of the Law of Moses without Faith in Christ Yet the Words of my Text point at the Blessed Immortality the Righteous shall hereafter be Partakers of and are only to be understood after this manner If Christians give themselves up to be led and governed by the Spirit of God in this World which is the Spirit that raised up Jesus they in like manner shall be raised up by it at the Last Day and the more they are quickned to a Life of Grace here the more they may be assured they shall be quickned to the Life of Glory hereafter Many Practical Uses and Advantages might be inferred from hence but I shall collect only this one which may be of great Encouragement to our Christian Industry and Endeavours to lead a Godly Life and that is the Expedition we shall make towards the attaining the Unspeakable Rewards of the Kingdom of Heaven There are three Lives to be attained and all to be attained by the Well-Ordering of One of our Spiritual Life alone in this World if we rise from the Death of Sin to Newness of Life we shall attain by the same Performance three Resurrections to that of perfect Grace to that of perfect Time or Duration and to that of perfect Joy and Glory This I say is so rich a Harvest and to be purchas'd with such Expedition that the Nicest and most impatient of Toil and Difficulties may be encouraged to strive for it Happy is he says S t John that has a share in the first Resurrection i. e. in the Life of Grace for the other are but Corollaries or Additional Complements of this Sanctification is as certain and assured a Way to Glorification as Childhood is the Way to Manhood 't is the Inchoation or Beginning of it and in a sense may be said to be it Those whom he Justify'd says S t Paul those he also Glorify'd as if these were done together and not in process of Time But to proceed The Author secondly of this Grace and Bounty is God And why did not the Apostle express himself so in a Word but used this Circumlocution He that raised up Jesus from the dead Because since Christ's coming in the Flesh and having performed the Work of our Salvation God has left off to govern in the Church immediately by himself and does all things by and through our Lord Jesus Christ. God Created and Drowned the World and wrought all the other wonderful things we read of in the Old Testament in his Own Name as God But now under the Gospel he dispenses all his Mercies as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and we must expect the Gift of Grace the Pardon of Sin Resurrection to Eternal Life and all his other Blessings and Favours from his Relation to his Son It is indeed by the Power of God that all men shall be raised from the Dead but then it is again for the Merits sake of Christ and their Believing in him that they shall be raised to Glory And that we should take notice of the Change of his Name in the New Testament from that he delighted to be called by in the Old is his own Will and Pleasure Says he there By my name Jehovah I will be known but now to us by the Name of his Relation to his Son as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Manichees from the Mistake of some Passages and Observations like this raised their detestable Heresie That the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New were two Different Persons the Father of Christ another God from the Creator of the World who sent his Son in the Flesh with a Design to win men from the Creator of the World But these are Wicked and Impious Dotages 't is only an Other Name that God has taken 't is not an Other God that acts among us there is but One God from and to all Eternity whose Name be Blessed for ever The meaning of the Scripture is only to teach us That 't is not God quatenus God that we expect should quicken us at the Last Day but God as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And this manifests the Perverseness of the Jews who still adhere to Moses and the Synagogue for their hopes of Salvation and the Blindness also of those who perswade themselves they can please God and attain Heaven by Natural and Moral Performances without Faith in Christ But the time permits me not to insist on these things I haste therefore to my last Particular The Means by which God will quicken our Mortal Bodies at the last Day viz. By his Spirit that dwelleth in us This Particle By in the Original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does not infer any Means that God shall use as Instrumental for the quickening our Mortal Bodies but implies here and in many other places the Motive only or Reason that invites the Agent to perform an Action God will raise us from the Dead as he does all his other Works by his Word or Omnipotent Power but though his Power does the thing yet 't is for something in Men that invites him to do it namely his Holy Spirit which he gave them to that very End and Purpose to dispose and fit them for the receiving Eternal Life David says of himself immediately and Christ typically and of all Faithful People mystically Thou wilt not suffer thy Holy One to see Corruption i. e. God will not leave or forsake the Righteous either in their Life or Death as if he had forgotten them and the Motive of this his Favour to them is Because they are Righteous or Holy Ones And the Psalmist expresses the thing with some Indignation and as if it were an injury to God to imagine that he could suffer in his very Nature that that which was Holy should be swallowed up in the Grave that which was Righteous should perish that which was Incorruptible should see Corruption And indeed there is not only an Incongruity but an Impossibility that this should be For what the Apostle says of Christ's Resurrection God raised him up having loosed the Pains or Bands of Death because it was possible he should be held of them may be said of the Resurrection of all the Faithful with this Difference only That the Impossibility of Christ's being detain'd in the Grave proceeded from his Divine Nature ours from a Divine Promise Nay we may add and with good Warrant That the Impossibility of our remaining in the Grave depends not only on an External Promise but on Something With-in our selves though not Of our selves even on the Spirit of God which dwelleth in us by which we are united to Christ and made Members of his Body he being the Head and our Resurrection must
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
Neighbour as thy Self And this Commandment makes our Love to our own Selves the Pattern or Standard of that which we ought to bear to other Men Not that we are obliged to love other men every way Equal to our selves that is not the meaning of the Rule it implies not an Equality but a Similitude not a Parity but a Resemblance of it in Truth and Reality Our Love must be as Sincere and Cordial to our Brethren as to our Selves we must heat our Affections in the same Forge have the like Zeal the like Promptness to snatch all Occasions to advance their temporal and spiritual Good as we would to advance our own but yet still other mens Concerns ought to be but our second Care before we preach to others before we labour for their Salvation we must take heed with S t Paul that we our selves be not Cast-aways I shall not need in these days in which Self-Love so much abounds and Christian Love so little to give Cautions against Supererogating and overflowing Charity but though little will need to be said against any Excess in this Grace yet much may be behoof-ful to prevent the Mistakes of it For many think that for Friendship-sake they are obliged to engage in all manner of Wickedness to drink Drunk and fight Duels to spend the main of their Life in Gaming and other dissolute Courses nay to enter into treasonable Practices against their Prince and Country And there are those again that will debauch as highly in matters of Religion out of their Kindness to a Sect dip their hands in Bloud and put a Nation into a Flame and Combustion for their Love to an ill-taken up Opinion and a Party they have long adhered to renounce the Church and Truth which in effect is God himself chuse rather to live and dye in Disobedience and a damnable Schism than seem to be inconstant and to carry their Flocks along with them in the way of Perdition than undeceive and grieve them with an Unwelcome though Necessary Truth Such as these are not tender of their Brethrens Peace but guilty of their Destruction and set not so high a Price on their Contentment as a cheap on their own Consciences 't is not possible to be Wicked and Charitable to love men and sooth them in their Sins What S t Paul says of the false Teachers among the Galatians is true of these They zealously affect you but not well yea they would exclude you that you might affect them i. e. they had rather their Congregations should miss of Salvation than they lose the Interest they have in them There may be some Extraordinary Cases in which we ought to prefer our Neighbours Good before our own as their greater Good before our lesser their Spiritual before our Temporal c. But the Rule holds in General I am not to destroy my self out of Courtesie I am not to contract Guilt to preserve another Innocent I must love my Neighbour As my self not Above not Before my self But this Doctrine seems to be oppos'd by the Practice of the two greatest Guides of the Jewish and Christian Church Moses and S t Paul The one Exod 32.31 when the Israelites had so heinously transgress'd in the Golden Calf interceded for them in this manner This people have sinn'd a great Sin they have made them Gods of Gold yet now if thou wilt forgive their Sin if not blot me I pray thee out of the Book which thou hast written And the other Rom. 9.7 out of his heat of Zeal for the Salvation of the same Seed of Abraham utters these words I could wish my self Accursed from Christ for my Brethren And both these seem to prefer not only the Temporal but Spiritual Good of others before their own insomuch as to salve their Excess of Charity some have thought nothing less sufficient than to say There are many things done in Scripture by Persons acted by an Extraordinary and Heroick Spirit which are not to be brought into Practice by us who are mov'd by lower Degrees of the Spirit and though we may admire them we must not imitate them Others again on the other side have as much depress'd the transcendent Charity of these Great Persons by parallelling what they did with like Usages and Customs common among the Jews For first they resemble Moses's Intercession for the people to a friendly Complement or Expression of Good-Will familiarly used by those of the Circumcision and possibly first taken up in imitation of Moses's intercession May I be thy Propitiation or Expiation my Brother i. e. may I undergo the Penalty of the Law in thy Stead to rescue thee from the Divine Displeasure bear thy temporal Punishment And after the like manner they parallel S t Paul's words I could wish my self Accursed from Christ to a like Passage found in Ignatius who was an Auditor of the Apostles Let the Punishment of the Devil come upon me only let me obtain Christ. Where the Punishment of the Devil cannot possibly import the Eternal Torments of Hell for from thence there is no Redemption or returning to enjoy Christ and therefore it must point at Excommunication to the giving up to Satan and the Punishments he had power to inflict on the Excommunicated so frequently mentioned in Scripture but I shall need to give only one instance of Deliver such an one unto Satan for the Destruction of the Flesh that the Spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus 1 Cor. 5.5 But there seems here to be no need of these Extraordinary Salvo's these however ingenious and learned Accommodations For put the Case we should take the Words of Moses in the strictest literal Sense they can bear and we must take them so if we will take them as God's Answer shews he took them Whosoever has sinn'd against me says he him will I blot out of my Book what would be the Danger or Inconvenience What did his Intercession import more than may be thus fairly paraphrased Lord let me prevail with thee to revoke thy Sentence of totally destroying this People thou hast done such wonderful things for or involve me in their Destruction which is easier for me to bear than to survive so great a Calamity and to hear the Heathen insult and blaspheme thy Name on this Occasion But Moses's words relate to an Eternal blotting out Not necessarily no nor probably for whatever knowledge he might have of another Life the less 't is to be supposed that he should be willing to undergo an Eternal Death to save the People only from a Temporal And as fair an account may be given of S t Paul's words who does not say I do but I could wish my self accursed from Christ for my Brethren So that his words are not an anathematizing or devoting himself but only a Meditation as if he had said I could in my Imagination be contented upon the Condition or Contemplation of an Event so much to God's Glory
for Sin if Christ had not come in the Flesh no Redemption no Salvation of the World if the God of the World had not vouchsafed to have been born of a Woman Yes some perhaps will say God of his free Grace might have pardoned mens sins without the Incarnation of his Son or any Sacrifice or Atonement for them What belongs to this will fall-in in the next Place the handling the Purpose of the Manifestation of Christ in the â—â—â—sh which was To take away our Sins It is no Wisdom barely to understand things but this is Wisdom To understand the Purpose of things Generally the greatest Naturalists among us admire the World this stupendous Workmanship of the Almighty and Eternal Agent and think they have studied and observed fairly if they have arrived to the Knowledge of the Qualities and Properties of some particular Natural Bodies but rarely do they deduce them from their first Original the Creator and rarelier discern the chief End for which they were created they see a continual corruption and generation of Sublunary Beings and that by this means the succession of the Universe is maintained but pierce not so deep as to see that this is done not so much for the continuance of the World as for the continuance of God's Glory in the World and that many Ages may see and acknowledge his Power and partake of his Bounty and Goodness And so it is with many Believers under the Gospel they read what 's written of Christ they magnifie his Miracles admire his holy Life and Doctrine commemorate his Sufferings celebrate his Festivals But what was the main Design of these things what they were to bring to pass in the World they reflect not on as they ought to do but stand in need to be put in mind of it as the first Christians our Apostle here wrote to All men are ready to assent to this Saying of St. Paul Great is the mystery God was manifest in the Flesh justify'd in the Spirit seen of Angels preached to the Gentiles c. But then that all these Mysteries are Mysteries of Godliness i. e. such as should produce Godliness Vertue and Piety in all those to whom they are preached and revealed make them renounce their wicked ways and fulfil the Law of righteousness this they neither penetrate into nor care to be convinc'd of We cannot be therefore too solicitous and assiduous in making known the End and awakening men to the consideration of the Design and Purpose of the Transactions of their Salvation as necessary to be understood as the Transactions themselves As our Apostle does not only teach That Christ was manifested in the Flesh but adds also the Reason of it that 't was to take away our sins And this being his chief design in my Text I shall endeavour to explain How Christ assuming our Flesh did take away our sins For the contrary may be imagined that by taking our Flesh he should have taken likewise our sins but not have taken them away But Christ by his Incarnation took away our sins two ways He took them away From us And took them away out of us or From within us First He took away our sins from us And this he did by taking them upon himself and paying to God the forfeiture for them undergoing the punishment of their guilt in our behalf so that they were no longer our sins but his own the Original sin of Adam after this manner and all the Actual sins since of the whole World he made his own To speak strictly indeed the Guilt of sin can never be taken away for sin after 't is once committed remains for ever sinful but in a Legal and Political sence Sin may be said to be taken away from us when the Guilt of it is transferr'd and the Punishment undergone by another and the Word in the Original for taking away our Sins is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies the lifting them up and is in importance the same with St. Peter's expression he bare or as the Margent of our Bible has it he bare away our sins in his Body on the Tree What our Lord said of his Exaltation on the Cross When I am lifted up from the Earth I will draw all men unto me may be affirmed of their Sins as well as of themselves of the Guilt as well as of the Persons of them that believe in him viz. that by his lifting up on the Cross the Sins of all men should be taken up from them as Exhalations are drawn up from the Earth by the heat of the Sun and after dispers'd into Air. But now if we consider seriously this great and wonderful Dispensation of God's in manifesting his Son in the Flesh to take away the Sins of the World we must certainly conceive that he had a further and more excellent aim and end in it than merely to pardon the Guilt of Sin and to cancel past Transgressions For if this had been all as 't was objected this might have been done freely and with less ado without Sacrifice or Atonement for Sin without God's sending his Son from Heaven to live so many Years upon Earth in a poor and persecuted Condition and at last to suffer a painful and ignominious Death Besides in all reason the Pardon of Sin would have been pronounced more authoritatively and satisfactorily by God in his Glory than in the Disguise of Humane Nature as the Great Lord of Heaven and Earth than as a poor Delinquent standing himself before the Tribunal of Justice Again what had all the other Mutations in the Church of the Jews the removing of the Law of Moses and the introducing a more perfect that of the Gospel to do with the bare Remission of Sin the giving so many excellent Precepts and Christ himself for an Example of a holy Life the clear discovery of a Heaven for the Reward of Well-doers and of a Hell for evil the confirming these things with so many Miracles and the Bloud of so many Divine Persons the instituting an Order of men to preach and inculcate these things to the end of the World If I say the absolving men from their past Transgressions had been all the business and nothing had been aimed at further or required of them to qualifie them to receive this Grace but barely to believe that such a Grace was offered them as too many flatter and delude themselves all these operose toilsome mysterious and astonishing Performances of Christ and the Holy Ghost might have been spar'd and any one of the least of the Sons of the Prophets would have serv'd to have proclaim'd the Remission of Sins and coming on this Errand would have found credence and welcome But alas the Case was otherwise Men were not only to be pardoned but reformed to be absolved from their Guilt but as 't is in the Benedict ' being delivered out of the hands of their Enemies they were to serve God without fear in holiness
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
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
from paying him Obedience that they knew him not from acknowledging him their King that they crucifi'd him They dreamt of a second Joshua for their Messiah not of a Melchizedeck of a fighting not a preaching King when therefore he rebuk'd their Vices they conspir'd his Death and cut him off instead of cutting off their Sins 'T was no wonder therefore that God allow'd but one Week of Years for the destroying so Carnal so wicked so ungrateful a People 'T is an Ominous and Fatal Sign when God has given Eminent Deliverance to a Nation and allow'd it time for the Re-establishing it self if at least in the second place it makes not Religion and his Worship its Business but falls from Secular Employments to Sensual and Sinful never reflecting either why he did so severely punish them or why again so Graciously Restore them We of this Nation attend not the fulfilling of the Weeks foretold by Daniel for the Coming of the Messiah in the Flesh his Cutting off and the Destruction of Jerusalem these things are already past But there are other Weeks in which we are concern'd which are not yet fulfill'd viz. the few Weeks before God may possibly call us to account for the ill Use we have made of his Glorious Restoration of our King and Nation and his other Illustrious Mercies Or if in his Wisdom he shall think fit to adjourn this Account to the General Audit at the Last Day then the very few Weeks before we that are here present shall be seal'd up for that Dreadful Day by our Departure out of this Life And in the mean time we have daily an Image or representation of that Great Assize of the Whole World in the Absolution which the Church pronounces to Penitent Sinners and consequently in binding over to Judgment the Impenitent For though the Righteous are not juridically and finally absolv'd in this World nor the Wicked condemn'd yet the Issue that both are to expect is foreshew'd and however there seems for a time a Forgetfulness of the one and the other that the Just appear to go away without their Reward and the Unjust to be Tenants to an Easie Lord that will never call them to account yet they will receive their Recompence according to what they have done in this Life and find though Christ suffered for Sin he never suffered or tolerated Sin but that his Death will prove Effectual for their Condemnatition for whom it prov'd not Effectual for their Salvation The Reason that Men put off the Fear of the Lord 's Coming to Judgment or think his Coming but a Fable is because they consider not how far he is already advanc'd on his Way towards them how many Stages he has past and how very near he is come He is advanc'd long since to the Destruction of Jerusalem there 's the first prophesy'd Stage of his Coming and so many Weeks of Years past Secondly His Gospel is preach'd through the World Christ is arriv'd so much Nearer on his Journey towards us Thirdly Anti-Christ is come the Apostle speaks of him as entred into the World though as 't were incognito or conceal'd in his time but now for many Years he has shew'd himself openly and raged in the Church and there 's the Third Sett of Weeks foretold for Christ's coming past So that there remains but one Parcel of Weeks more before we shall see him at our very Doors i. e. coming in the Clouds of Heaven to judge the Quick and the Dead We have seen three Predictions of his Coming actually fulfill'd and is it possible our Sins should perswade us that he will tire by the Way and that the fourth shall not come to pass The Night succeeds not the Day Winter the Summer so certainly as Christ's Second Coming shall succeed in the time appointed And seeing these things shall be so what manner of Persons as S t Peter says ought we to be in all holy Conversation and Godliness My Text says Christ was not cut off for Himself let us take care to be of the Number of those he was cut off For and not of those he shall be cut off From. And so I pass to my Second General Part the Angel's Direction for the right Understanding of his Prediction He shall be cut off but not for himself The Words in the Original ve en lo which our Translators render but not for himself and in the Margent and shall have nothing are so concise and abrupt that they leave place to several Apprehensions to add what they think will best fill up their Sense But all that is offered being merely conjectural and also less edifying than what we read in our own Bibles I shall not decline what I there find And it may be understood in two Respects That Christ was cut off and not for Himself 1. In Respect of any Demerit or Fault of his There were many that pretended to be the Messiah that were Thieves and Murderers and were cut off but 't was justly for their Offences But the Angel prevents here the least Suspicion that the True Messiah should be a Guilty Person cut off for his own Crimes He did no Sin as S t Peter says neither was Guile found in his mouth But he could make that bold Challenge to all the Nations of the Jews Which of you convinceth me of Sin It fared indeed with him as it did with David a good King and his Type who Psal. the 59 th and the 3 d complains of his Enemies after this manner They lye in wait for my Soul the Mighty are gathered against me not for My Transgressions nor for my Sin O Lord they run and prepare themselves without my Fault No if any man could take away our Messiah by justly alledging Impiety against him we would readily deliver him up our selves But when he was Holy in his Life and Doctrine when his Righteousness was attested from Heaven before and in and after his being in the World by Prophecies Miracles by the Voice to use S t Peter's expression which came to him from the Excellent Glory saying This is my Beloved Son in whom I am well-pleased by his Resurrection Ascension and sending the Holy Ghost we may well adhere to such a Saviour and excuse the seeming Shame of his Cutting off for those real Glories which none beside himself ever pretended to 2. Not for himself in respect of any Benefit he received If the Angel had told the Prophet That the Cutting off of the Messiah had been for any Personal Advantage of his own though he had taken Death in the Way to that Advantage his Suffering had not been Relative to Others it had been for Himself But the Scripture disclaims this and affirms 'T was for our Redemption our Salvation our being Reconcil'd to God and instated in Glory that Messiah suffered For he being enthron'd already in Heaven what could he gain to himself by taking our wretched Flesh and undergoing all the Miseries and
of this Pretended Messiah this bold Reprover of our Vices and Confuter of our Traditions no less by Miracles than by Reason and then we shall continue to sit in Moses's Chair lead the People as we please and none will dare to contradict us If we will not shew our selves such Friends to Christ as my Text speaks of who stain'd their hands in his Bloud let us with all Submission of Soul and Singleness of Heart embrace his Doctrines and pay Obedience to his Precepts whether they relate to Faith or to Manners and suffer neither Pleasure nor Profit Reputation among Men or any By-Respect whatsoever to disaffect us to him For the things of this World are at Enmity with Christ and if we set our Affections upon them they will lead us from the Worship of the True God as the Canaanitish Wives did the Israelites to worship Idols and the worst of Idols even themselves Christ himself will appear to us a Deceiver and we shall sooner rescue Barabbas from the Cross than him And let none in these days who have received the Knowledge of the Truth and after extinguisht the Grace of God in their Hearts by fulfilling the Lusts of the Flesh flatter themselves as the Jews did who said If we had lived in the Days of Old we would not have been Partakers of the Bloud of the Prophets So if we had liv'd in Christ's days we would not have used him as the Jews did for this is but a Pharisaical Deception those that hate Christ's Gospel would have shew'd but little Kindness to his Person who crucifie him now by their Wicked Lives would not have spared his very Life if they had liv'd in his days Idem qua idem semper efficit idem the same thing dispos'd in the same Manner will produce the same Effect the same Corruption in the Heart will always bring forth the same Wickedness in the Hands The second Reflection I shall make upon Christ's being wounded in the House of his Friends Is the Part which God performed after the Jews added this Great Wickedness of murdering the Messiah to all their former Impieties For if we look on the Reverse of the Coin as I may say the Vengeance God sent upon them we shall find it stampt in as deep and legible Characters as their Wickedness was engraved on the other Side it being no less than the utter Rejection and Ruine of their Nation and with such Tragical Circumstances as are in no Story to be parallell'd but they are so generally known that I shall spend no time to dilate on them but rather exhort all such who after the manifold Admonitions and frequent Warnings of God still persist in their Sins and are deaf and incorrigible to all his Invitations to Repentance to consider How for the like Refractoriness and Hardness of Heart God suffered his Own People to proceed from Wickedness to Wickedness till they arriv'd at last in profundum malorum into such a Gulph of Perdition that if the most Desperate among them had seen the End of their Rebellious Ways at their first setting-out in the Course of them they would have started back with Horrour at the Prospect The 2 d Kings 5. we read that when the Prophet Elisha foretold to Hazael yet a Private Person and unacquainted with his own Temper what Immanities and Cruelties he would commit when he came to be King of Assyria that he would butcher Men rip up Women with Child dash Infants against the Stones c. He answer'd But what is thy Servant a Dog that I should do these things And the very Scribes and Pharisees who were the Chief Actors in this Days Tragedy when our Lord insinuated to them in the Parable I late mentioned of the Husbandmen consulting to kill the Heir that they would be his Murderers and by it pull certain Destruction on their Nation they reply'd God forbid Not only deprecating the Punishment but detesting the Crime The raw Novice-Sinner knows not at first to what a Villain to what a Devil he will grow Men ought therefore to fear the first Motions of Sin and to suppress the Beginnings of Wickedness if for no other Reason but this Lest they become Worse than they could have imagined it possible for them to have been Who allows himself at first only to Over-reach his Brother by degrees will take from him by Violence or Open Robbery who makes no Scruple to be Factious and Seditious will hardly stop till he arrives at Rebellion and Treason who indulges himself at first in a Negligent Irreverent Performance of God's Service and makes the Church the Scene of his Vanity and not of his Devotion is in the ready Path to proceed from Prophaneness to Atheism But as Sin encreases we have heard that Vengeance also ripens and Encreases says our Lord Whoever falls on this Stone shall be broken but on whomsoever it shall fall it will grind him to Powder The first Sins a man commits dangerously wound his Soul they dash against Christ as an Earthen Vessel does against a Rock but Presumption and Obstinacy in Sinning causes Christ to fall upon the Sinner as a Rock upon an Earthen Vessel which is sure to crush it to Dust. To conclude Though we that are here present are not of the House of Christ's Friends i. e. of his Kindred and Nation yet we have a Nearer and more Excellent Relation to him in that we are of the Houshold of Faith and of the Family of his Church as himself declared when he stretcht forth his Hand to his Disciple saying Behold my Mother and my Brethren for whoever shall do the Will of my Father which is in Heaven the same is my Mother my Sister and my Brother Now if we in our Spiritual Relation shall by our Sins crucifie Christ in his Glory as his Kindred according to the Flesh nail'd him to the Cross when he liv'd on Earth our Wickedness will far exceed theirs as the Wickedness of a Disciple far exceeds that of an Unbeliever the Wickedness of Judas did that of Pontius Pilate and Caiaphas It is our Unspeakable Happiness that Christ was Wounded for us but it will be our Unexcusable Impiety if he be wounded by us 't is again our Strange Felicity that when Others slew him we reap the Benefit of his Death when the Husbandmen Kill'd the Heir that we inherit the Vineyard And if we make that faithful Use of Christ's Death which we ought while the Jews bear the Guilt of his Bloud we shall be purged by it from all our Transgressions and while Eternal Infamy and Wrath cleaves to them Eternal Glory and Felicity shall be our Portion which God of his Infinite Mercy through our Lord Jesus Christ grant to us And to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost be ascribed all Honour Glory c. Amen The Sixth Sermon ROMANS viii 11 But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the Dead dwell in you he that raised up
prays well he preaches well he is ever arraigning Sin and the like but caetera sint paria do all things correspond does his private Practice comport with his publick Demeanour his inward Goodness with his outward Austerity as he is Severe against Sin is he merciful to Sinners as he is assiduous in his Calling is he Obedient to his Governours and faithful to his Prince as he exhorts the People to Church does he not debauch them with Factious Doctrines when they come there as he is not Scandalous in his Conversation so is he not Morose Proud or Covetous In a Word does he conform his Whole Life to the Tenor of the Gospel does he indeed do All things well All things that is in a Moral Sense and according to the Measure of a Sincere Honest Man If he does let him carry away our Euge's and our Sophos our Approbations and Applauses But if he does only two or three of these things and those hypocritically and upon Design to give credit to a Cause and to carry on an Interest the Pharisees made long Prayers that they might devour Widows houses and Herod heard John the Baptist gladly and did many things upon his preaching but continued still to live incestuously with his Brother Philip's Wife and at last gratify'd her Malice with the Baptist's head If a few Good Actions may set such a Colour and Varnish upon mens Lives that they ought to be accounted holy Persons the Scenes in our Theatres may pass for the Glorious Heavens and solid Edifices they represent when they are nothing but patcht Clouts and pasted Papers painted and shewed to an artificial Light Lucian's Image of Jupiter in Gold outwardly of a Majestick Form grasping a Thunder-bolt may be allowed to be the Deity that rules the World though it be nothing within but Dust and Cobwebs Soder and Cramps of Iron which hold the miserable Machine from falling asunder I say if we thus make Saints from Shews and Seemings we may fill the Kalendar with Red Letters but we shall adde but few Names to the Book of Life I shall therefore conclude this last Particular with our Lord's advice John 7. 24. Judge not according to Appearance but judge righteous Judgment And now what Use shall we make in general of the Peoples Testimony and Approbation of our Lord shall we likewise justifie his Actions assert his Divine Mission and say He hath done all things well To praise Christ to speak Honourably of him to vindicate him from the Aspersions of Jews and Gentiles and the like is our bounden Duty but all of us here present are his Disciples and Followers all of us Christianissimi Pretenders to be the Chiefest and most Eminent of his Worshippers and we acknowledge not only that he spake the Truth but that he is the Truth even the Eternal Logos and to take upon us to pass a humane Judgment on him and to censure him as one Man censures another to say He is no Seducer or the like were so far from honouring him that it were to be Irreverent and Insolent towards him and to set our selves above him for the Justifier is Greater than the Justified How then must we celebrate his Eternal Generation and Descent from his Father's Bosom for our Redemption in Magnificats sing his Victory over Death and Hell Yes this we must do but not this only for these are still but Empty Words we must adde Deeds to our Praises Obedience to our Magnificats Duty and Service to our Psalms and Hymns the Praises of a holy Life to the Acknowledgments of a thankful Tongue To praise God only with the Voice is to praise him like the Trumpets of the Sanctuary or the Organs of our Churches Or as the Psalmist calls upon the Sun and Moon Fire and Hail Beasts and feather'd Fowls to praise him which all do in a Figure and after a manner in that they are the Works of his hands and proclaim his Wisdom and Power thus also the Devils and Damned Spirits praise him while their Sufferings and Torments declare his Justice But we are to praise God not only passively occasionally and instrumentally like Inanimate Brute or accursed Creatures but intentionally primarily and affectionately as becomes Rational and Intellectual Beings Obliged and illuminated Persons and Believers And as the Faithful do best evidence their Faith by their Works so they best evidence also their Good Opinion of Christ by their Works viz. by following his Precepts then we give our true Approbation of him when we transcribe his Actions and tread in his Steps 't is the Life of a man that expresses his Thoughts of Christ if that be righteous and conformable to his Gospel he has set to his Seal that he is the Messiah and Son of God that was to come into the World proclaims indeed That he has done All things Well But if his Ways are Wicked and repugnant to his Gospel let him praise him never so industriously never so ambitiously with never so loud Vociferations he does but in Effect say He was an Impostor and deceived the People For as S t Paul says of False Teachers Tit. 1.17 They profess that they know Christ but in Works they deny him being abominable disobedient and to every Good Work reprobate So we may say of these false and counterfeit Extollers of Christ that in Words they Approve him but in their Works they Condemn him being abominable disobedient and to every Good Work reprobate How can a Strumpet praise Chastity Or the Sot that is fill'd with Drink like a Spunge say any thing in the Commendation of Sobriety Vertue is praised of her Followers and the best Verdict we can pass on Christ is to imitate him in all holy Conversation to live after his Example is the highest Encomium we can give him To God the Father Son and Holy Ghost be ascribed all Honour Glory Worship and Thanksgiving this Day forth and for evermore Amen The Eleventh Sermon AMOS iii. 2 You only have I known of all the Families of the Earth therefore will I punish you for all your iniquities THIS Expression of God's knowing a Thing or Person is taken in Scripture in several Senses Sometimes it is meant literally and in propriety of Speech of the Knowledge of mere Perception and Discerning as when David says Thou knowest my thoughts long before and S t John God is greater than our hearts and Knoweth all things i. e. perceiveth and discerneth all things Sometimes again it is taken Figuratively not for mere Perceiving or Understanding a thing but for the Owning Approving Favouring Blessing of it or the like because these follow upon God's perceiving a Good thing Thou hast Known my Soul in adversity says the Psalmist i. e. Own'd protected and delivered it Again the Lord Knoweth the way of the Righteous and the way of the Ungodly shall perish Knoweth their way i. e. prospereth blesseth and will not suffer it to miscarry like that of the Ungodly
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
severe Discipline Danger and Persecutions will make them stagger and recoil The Seed that fell upon Stony Ground sprung up faster for a season than that which fell on the Good Ground but when the Sun arose and smote it it presently withered wanting root The Children of Israel went cheerfully and lustily with Moses out of Egypt but when their Food grew scarce and they saw the Host of Pharaoh pursue them they boggled in their Enterprize and in their hearts returned again into Egypt preferring Bondage with Safety and Plenty before Freedom with Hardship and Danger But their Posterity voluntarily follow'd Christ three days without Sustenance and never lookt back to their houses or yet to their beloved City If I forget thee O Jerusalem says the Psalmist let my right Hand forget its Cunning. But these Israelites when they heard Tidings of the Heavenly Jerusalem the Jerusalem above they cast behind them all thoughts of Jerusalem below it appeared to them no better than a second Babylon or house of Bondage As our Lord therefore made others of the People his Scholars he made these of his Family as he taught them he fed these revealed not only the Word but the Power and Glory of God to them To conclude I shall raise from all that I have said but this One acceptable and comfortable Doctrine Whosoever follows Christ faithfully affectionately and constantly in these days will find him as Compassionate in their Wants and Distresses as the Multitude here did For he has the same Bowels and Tenderness now at the Right Hand of God which he had when he conversed with men on Earth he is ascended Intire into the Heavens he did not carry up his Body thither and leave his Affections in the Grave If we therefore seek the Kingdom of Heaven in the first place and its Righteousness we may rest assured of our Lord's Promise That all the Necessaries of this Life shall be added to us that if we perform the Principal he will take care to make good the Accessory What is said of the Productions of Nature That she brings forth nothing but what she provides for is much more true of the Productions or Children of Grace For when the Earth with-holds its Fatness and the Clouds their Dew when the Creatures that should nourish Men starve themselves for want of Nourishment when the Breasts of Nature seem wholly dryed up venit Coelum in partes Heaven it self will come in to succour and take Part with the Faithful and if Sterility abounds Grace on this occasion also will much more abound if the Soil afford no Corn Bread shall be rained from the Sky if the Springs fail the Stony Rock shall send forth Water and Rivers shall run in dry places the Ravens shall feed the Righteous or their little Stock shall encrease as fast as 't is spent the Courses of Nature shall be inverted rather than Christ's Truth fail Heaven and Earth shall pass away but not one Tittle of his Word shall fall to the ground And if any say How comes it then to pass that the Servants of God do suffer Want Nay that commonly they are more destitute and persecuted than other Men I answer to this as our Lord did to his Disciples urging him on a time to eat I have Meat to eat says he which you know not of So the Faithful have Meat to eat which the World knows not of they have Peace Plenty and Prosperity though not seen by every Eye They have the Grace of God which is as a hidden Manna in their Hearts and as a Well of Living Water which suffers them neither to hunger nor thirst And is it not much more Eligible and Glorious to fast with Moses and Elias forty days than to feast even at the Table of Princes To be in the State of Angels who need neither Food nor Raiment than to be clothed and served with all the Sumptuousness and Magnificence of Solomon The Righteous have Content in Poverty which is more than Riches Joy in Bonds which is better than Freedom Satiety in a little which is not always found in Abundance And what is this but to receive Bread from Heaven when the Earth affords none Water from the Rock when the Springs are dryed up To be fed even by a more Wonderful Way than by the Ministry of Ravens Neither is the Favour of God this Way shew'd to the Followers of Christ less than that which he shew'd to his Own Servants of old but much greater for it speaks yet a higher Grace to be content to perish under Hunger Poverty and Bonds than to be snatch'd out of these Evils after a Miraculous Manner Saint Peter rejoiced more when he was scourged for bearing Testimony to Christ than when he was delivered by an Angel from the Death design'd him by Herod And Saint Paul gloried more in his Persecutions and Sufferings than he did even in his Charismata his Miraculous Gifts of the Holy Ghost And thus our Gracious Lord relieves the Necessities of his Servants from the Store-houses of the World or from the Riches of his Grace rescues them out of their Afflictions or makes them delight in them supplies their Wants or sets them above the Wants of other Men takes away their Wants or takes them up to that Place where no Wants are and where all Tears shall be wip'd from their Eyes To which blessed Place God of his infinite Mercy through our Lord Jesus Christ bring us all And To God the Father Son and Holy Ghost be ascribed all Honour Glory Worship and Thanksgiving this Day forth and for evermore Amen The Fourteenth Sermon LUKE xvi 9 Make to your selves Friends of the Mammon of unrighteousness that when ye fail they may receive you into everlasting habitations THESE Words may be call'd a Lecture of holy Usury they teaching us the highest Advantages that are to be made of Riches beyond what is to be learned from the Books of Eastern Merchants or the Trade to both the Indies from the Mysterious Rules of the antient Publicans or our modern Bankers 1. They teach men by a Divine Alchymy how to convert Earthly Treasure into Heavenly to make Money the ordinary Salary and hire of Sin to be the Price of Salvation and the Purchace of the Holy Ghost without the Danger of Simony 2. Men are instructed by them how to cure the Vanity and Instability of Riches call'd for their inconstant and short Abode mendacium phantasmata praestigiae scenica persona c. a Lye a Dream a Delusion the quick shifting of a Scene or Vizor in the Theatre and notwithstanding that 't is said We can carry nothing out of this World with us we are shew'd which way to confer them to Heaven and to erect Banks in those Eternal Mansions 3. Whereas Folly is ordinarily imputed to Rich men insanus dives stultus dives the Mad man and the Rich the Fool and the Rich being seldom in Scripture out of conjunction
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
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
our Lord for his Violent and Untimely Death I say there was nothing strange or hard to be digested by either of them in this thing For 't was the Practice of them both to sacrifice the Innocent for the Guilty the Unoffending Victimes for Offending Men Nay 't was usual among the Gentiles for the Noblest and most Sacrosanct Persons their Kings and Generals and holy Virgins to devote themselves to Death for the Preservation of their Country Why then should the Devoting of Christ for the Salvation of the Whole World be held irrational and foolish by them Why did they despise in another Religion what they held Honourable in their own And the Jews had yet less reason to be scandaliz'd especially the most Learned among them who were yet only offended who saw their Messiah daily slain before their Eyes in so many Rites and Mysteries the Paschal Lamb the Scape-Goat the Goat for the Sin-Offering in a word all their Expiatory Sacrifices were Prefigurations of Christ's Passion Beside those that were Learned were sensible That the Way of propitiating God by the Bloud of Beasts was of it self Irrational and had no Efficacy in it but as it related to the Bloud of Christ. The Jews therefore with less reason than the Gentiles disclaimed the Messiah coming in the Guise of a Sacrifice and drencht in his own Bloud when 't was his Bloud alone that sanctify'd all their Forefathers and their own Offerings and distinguisht their Temple from a common Shambles or Slaughter-house The reason that the Cross of Christ has given such Scandal in all Times and that so great a Part of the World have thought it Monstrous That a Divine Person should undergo an Ignominious Death arises from the Slight Apprehension Men generally have of Sin and their ignorance of the Malignity of its Nature they look upon it as a mere Transient Act and think that the Guilt of it passes away as soon as the Fact they have no Unkindness to their own Wicked Ways and fansie God has none neither that any Trifle will make Compensation for them or that God will pass them by without any Compensation at all But if they would weigh the Odiousness of Sin to God by its Contrariety to his Holy Nature and the fearful Judgments he has denounc'd against it and that it cannot go unpunisht if God be just and true i. e. if God be God Again if they would consider that the Greatness of an Offence arises in proportion to the Greatness of the Person Offended and then compute what would be a Competent Satisfaction for offending an Infinite and Eternal Deity they would not think it monstrous ut medela responderet morbo that a Divine Person should be found only worthy to do Right to a Divine Person Men may well be astonisht at the Goodness of God and adore his Mercy that he vouchsaf'd to give his Son to be a Ransom for Sinners but none can justly wonder that he requir'd so Honourable an Amends for the Violation of his Majesty or that a less Sanctity than Christ's was sufficient either to intercede for or to Counterpoise the Guilt of the Whole World But as there are those that despise the Cross of Christ and count the Bloud of the Covenant as the Apostle speaks an unholy thing so there are those again on the other side who are no less Enemies to it by ascribing to it what was never the Will or Meaning of our Lord that they should and these are of two Sorts Those of the Church of Rome who Superstitiously and Idolatrously Worship the Cross ascribe to it the Power of driving away Devils conferring Divine Graces and the like The others are those among us who teach That since Christ has Suffer'd all Guilt and Condemnation for Sin is taken away in respect of Believers like those in the Apostles time who affirm'd That after the Faith of Christ was once entertain'd all that was necessary for Salvation was perform'd and men need not be sollicitous for their future Behaviour whether 't were Righteous or Unrighteous But S t Paul Heb. 10.26 stops the mouths of all such as thus pervert the Grace purchas'd by Christ's Death If we sin wilfully says he after we have received the Knowledge of the Truth there remains no more Sacrifice for Sin but a certain fearful looking for of Judgment and fiery Indignation As if he would have said Although Christ cannot be Cut-off any more in his Person yet he may and will be Cut-off again in the Fruits and Benefits of his first Cutting-off from those that abuse them Which Words though spoken of Apostates to the Faith will hold true also of Subverters of the Faith And there is a Passage in this Chapter of Daniel before us well worthy the observation of all those who sin now presumptuously under the Gospel which is this When the Angel had reveal'd to Daniel the Time when the Captivity in Babylon should expire and that the People should return and rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple and not only so but that the long-promis'd and much-desir'd Messiah should be given them and the Prophet thought all was now well and nothing could be added to the Felicity of the Nation immediately it follows that after so many Weeks again for the succeeding Transgressions of the People the so-long'd-for Prince and Saviour the Messiah should be cut-off as if he had never been So that he should be given in a manner and not given unto the Nation but be the Cause of a Second and Greater Destruction than the foregoing Captivity even the final Rejection of the House of Israel And 't is dreadful to consider that the giving of a Saviour to many Christians shall have the like Success that by reason of their Presumption of I know not what Favour and Election of God's and their Continuance in their Unreform'd Lives this Blessing shall be turn'd into a Curse and He that was cut-off For them shall be again cut off From them and the Private State of their Souls like the Publick State of the Jews shall be much more Calamitous after their Redemption than before And now what Use shall we make of this first Branch the Substance of the Angels Prediction the Excision of the Messiah He shall be cut off Shall I exhort you after the manner of the Church of Rome to set before you Pictures of our Lord's Passion representing his macerated and dilacerated Body hanging on the Cross between two Thieves and attended by his Virgin Mother fallen into a Swoun and expect that the like Effects of an o'r-whelming Sorrow may be seen in you No I shall rather desire that all such Pageantry and Ostentation of misplaced Grief may be remov'd far from you and as our Lord directed the Women who wept for him when he bore his Cross to Mount Calvary to spend their Tears on the right Object Daughters of Jerusalem weep not for me but weep for your selves and your approaching misery So let