sure Argument that God was fully reconciled and Life purchased for us Which assurance we could not have had if Christ our pledge had still remained under the power of death for as much as his continuance in his payment would ever have argued the imperfection of it The summ of all is this That our Justification was begun in Christ's Death but was perfected by his Resurrection That we have Redemption by his abasement and Application of it by his advancement 3. Again The pacification of our Consciences the confirmation of our Faith and the support of our Hope depended all upon the Exercise of his Regal Office which was mainly to triumph over his and our Enemies the last of them especially Death which he could never be said to have done while he still remained under its Dominion For then he had never ransomed Men from the power of the Grave nor redeemed them from Death but as it followeth in Hosea 13. 14. Death had been his Plague and the Grave his Destruction and so ours too So far should he then have been from swallowing it up in victory or leading captivity captive that himself should have been a slave and a captive to them so far from spoiling Principalities and Powers or making a shew of them openly triumphing over them that the gates of Hell should have prevailed against Himself and consequently against his Church contrary to his express Word and Promise Mat. 16. 18. 4. Not possible as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 implies an unsuitableness or incongruity as well as an absolute impossibility for id possumus quod jure possumus And according to this notion of the word 't was impossible that is 't was altogether unsuitable and unbecoming as I may so say God to suffer Christ to be under the power and dominion of Death It did not become his Love thus to forsake his only beloved Son nor his Justice to suffer his Holy One to see Corruption to leave his Soul in Hell i. e. the Grave who had done no violence neither was guile found in his mouth or to let him go without his reward who by his active and passive Obedience the Sufferings in his Life and Obedience at his Death had merited Heaven for himself and us It being most unfit that he should remain any longer in Death's prison who had paid his own and our debt even to the discharging of the very uttermost farthing And to conclude this point How unbeseeming the Power of God was it also even in the judgment of Reason That he that looseth the bands of Orion should not be able to break Death's cords That that Death which God never made a meer privation should fetter him who made all things and that nothing command Omnipotency its self That the Devil should be said to have the power of death and the Prince of life be under that power Such Chains of darkness suit well with that roaring Lion who goes about seeking whom he may devour but not at all with the Lion of the Tribe of Judah who was to rescue the prey out of his jaws Certainly He that had the keys of Hell and Death could open the gates of Death to himself as well as to all believers The Grave to him was no other than a Womb which soon grew weary of its load and 't was as natural for Christ to force his passage out thence as for the Child now ripe for the Birth to drop from his Mother 's Womb. If the Creature groans to be delivered from the bondage of her Corruption it is but reasonable to imagine that the Earth could not chuse but be in pain so long as she became an Instrument of her Creator's captivity and 't was as absolutely necessary for those Iron gates of death to let out the Lord of life as it was for those Everlasting ones to be lifted up to receive the King of Glory into Heaven And into that place whereinto his Resurrection has made a way for Himself we hope one day to enter that where the Head is there the Members may be also We have ground for this Hope from St. Paul 1 Cor. 6. 14. God hath both raised up the Lord and will also raise up us by his own power He can for he did raise up others before he raised himself Jairus Daughter the Widow's Son Lazarus after four days rotting in the Grave are all pregnant instances of his Power Et ab esse ad posse valet consequentia What he has done he can still doe unless we shall fancy his Arme shortned or that the Ancient of days has lost his strength And that he will we have his own Word for it Joh. 6. 40. Whosoever believeth in me may have everlasting life and I will raise him up at the last day If he can and will why should we doubt of it Who hath resisted his Will Or what can tie up his Hands Death we see could not her Cords were too weak to Manacle him and why should we think they can now hold us He that could break them off from himself can he not dissolve ours too Let me then put St. Paul's question to the most doubting Sceptick Act. 26. 8. Why should it be thought an impossible thing that God should raise the dead Since we see he has effectually done it in the Person of Christ and every day does it in Nature For what is Nature its self but a continual Resurrection We may see it every Day in a perpetual orderly Succession of Nights and Days in the Setting and Rising of the Sun in Winter and Spring The Serpent's casting off his old Skin the Eagle's renewing his strength with his Beak not to mention the Phoenix rising from her Ashes which yet some of the Fathers as Clement and Tertullian use as an argument to prove the Resurrection the Seed corrupted in the Earth and thence springing up into a full Ear our Lord's and St. Paul's instances all Emblems or rather Demonstrations of it Our very Bodies to go no farther than our selves even in our life-time are continually altered and those we now carry about us are not the same they were a few years past so that we may change the Tense and reade not that we all shall be but that we are continually changed Our sleep what is it but a shorter death and our awaking thence but a return to life What are Church-yards but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sleeping-houses from whose Graves as from so many Beds we are one day to be raised up by the sound of the last trump And as Nature so Art shadows forth a Resurrection That Art whereby a little rude piece of Earth is refin'd into pure Metal whereby a Chymist can raise a flower out of ashes at least to shape and colour And shall not God be able to change our vile Bodies and make them like unto his glorious Body And when he has
even now Heirs of a kingdom Jam. 2. 5. The wise that shall inherit Glory Prov. 3. 35. Heads destinated to a Diadem in Tertullian's expression which their Heavenly Father hath prepared for and will at last put upon them who alone too makes them fit to wear it meet to be Partakers of the Inheritance of the Saints in light III. How differently soever the Children of God may share in the same Inheritance This is certain that every one's share therein shall be the Gift of his Heavenly Father The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here imports it The Apostle alluding to the Division of the Land of Canaan a Type of Heaven which God had appointed to be done by lot wherein Himself we know had the main hand according to that of Solomon Prov. 16. 33. The lot is cast into the lap but the whole disposition thereof is of the Lord. Thus it was in the Choice of Matthias to the Apostleship Act. 1. And thus it is as to our share in the Inheritance of Glory It falls to us by lot by the disposition of God the Father we have no part here but what he gives us And if so then no merit of Condignity nor so much as of Congruity can be pleaded by us And truly one would think it were sufficient to partake of the Inheritance without making out our own Title to it That we might be content to be Heirs without coming in as Purchasers or if we will needs be so to be Purchasers on Christ's score and not our own But this is too low and mean for some men who come with Counters in their hand ready to reckon with God to shew Him how much he is in their debt and who stick not to tell Him to his face that He is an unjust Master if he pay them not their due wages But 1. Our Lord Himself hath told us That God is beforehand with us That whatsoever we can doe is due from us to Him That when we shall have done all those things which are commanded us we must say that we are unprofitable servants and have done but that which was our duty to doe Luk. 17. 10. And then what merit can there be in paying just debts And 2. St. Paul hath told us That we can doe no good thing without Him too who worketh in us both to will and to doe of his good pleasure Phil. 2. 13. So that He crowns His own gifts in us and rewards not our deservings Besides 3. Our goodness extendeth not to God says David Psal. 16. 2. And being unusefull how can it be meritorious Nay our best works are so imperfect and so sinfull too that the utmost they can expect is but a Pardon and not a Reward And were they never so good and perfect yet what proportion can they bear to such a Reward as an Inheritance in light Our light affliction which is but for a moment to a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory 2 Cor. 4. 17. where we must not let pass an elegant Antithesis For Affliction there is Glory For Light affliction a Weight of glory And for Momentary affliction an Eternal weight of glory to shew the vast disproportion between these things so vast that even Martyrdom it self the highest utmost proof of our love to God is in St. Paul's account nothing in comparison of that Glory we expect For I reckon says he that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us Rom. 8. 18. IV. And lastly The very word Inheritance excludes all Purchase on our part For this were to renounce Succession to cast off all Filial Duty and Affection not to own our selves Sons but mercenary Purchasers yea and Purchasers of an Inheritance already purchased for us by Christ and for his sake freely bestowed upon us by our Heavenly Father out of His own pure Goodness and Bounty to which alone we must ascribe it For we all the best of us have sinned and come short of the glory of God Rom. 3. 23. And we are told ch 6. 23. that The wages of sin our proper wages is death but the gift of God is eternal life The Apostle might have said and indeed the Antithesis or Opposition there seem'd to require it But the wages of Righteousness is eternal life But he altered the Phrase on set-purpose and chose rather to say The gift of God is eternal life That we might from this change of the Phrase learn That although we procure Death unto our selves yet 't is God that bestows eternal life on us That as He hath called us to his kingdom and glory 1 Thess. 2. 12. so he gives that glory and that kingdom for no other reason but because He is pleased so to doe It is your Father's good pleasure for into God the Father's good pleasure Christ resolves it to give you a kingdome Luk. 12. 32. No merit nor so much as any good disposition in us for it He propares it for us Matt. 20. 23. And he prepares us for it too here in the Text by making us meet to be partakers thereof For what meetness could he find in us for such an Inheritance Title to it we have none being by nature the Children of wrath and disobedience Eph. 2. 2 3. Mere Intruders here and Usurpers The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence and we the violent take it by force Mat. 11. 12. Qualifications proper for it we have none too That An Inheritance in light we darkness That An Inheritance incorruptible undefiled and that fadeth not away 1 Pet. 1. 4. we corruptible polluted and still decaying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cries out our Apostle We are not sufficient not fit for the word signifies either as of our selves but our sufficiency or fitness call it which you will is of God 2 Cor. 3. 5. 2 Pet. 1. 4. who as He makes us Partakers of his divine Nature so meet Partakers of the divine Inheritance not by pouring out the divine Essence but by communicating to us those divine Qualities which will fit and prepare us for the Sight thereof by putting light into our Understandings and holiness into our Wills without which no man shall see the Lord Heb. 12. 14. By cleansing our hearts and washing our hands that so we may ascend into the hill of the Lord dwell and rest in his Tabernacle Psal. 15. 24. He gives us Faith and with that a Prospect of our Inheritance and He gives us Hope and with that an Interest therein And to summ up all in one He gives us his Holy Spirit the earnest of that Inheritance Eph. 1. 14. who worketh all our works in us writes his laws in our hearts and by softning makes them capable of his divine Impressions In short That divine Spirit which by Regenerating makes us new Creatures and so fit Inhabitants for the new Jerusalem calling us first to Vertue and then to Glory to that as
their sight is that of all the parcels of time regard but the present and of all things but the face and appearance men that only mind earthly things of so low and base a spirit that their Souls are but as salt to them and of so brutish a temper that such a Transmigration as Pythagoras fansied a punishment to bad men would with them pass for a happiness and with the Devils they would make it their desire that they might be suffered hereafter to enter into Hogs Such men dare not openly deny an Immortality and yet they will not believe it or if they do 't is so faintly that their lives wholly confute their judgments 'T is strange to see how many there are that having nothing but frost in their veins and earth in their face do yet so much doat on that life which they have now scarce any part in whose faith reaches no farther than their senses and yet scarce retain they those senses whose frame should lift them up above the Earth and their affections carry them wholly to it They are unwilling to leave the World though they see they cannot keep it in their weak and enfeebled bodies they carry strong desires to it being dead to every thing but to the pleasures thereof which yet they cannot now enjoy because they cannot taste and do then covet most when they are just leaving them Than which as there cannot be a greater folly so let us take heed how we imitate it learn to look off from these temporal things which are seen to those eternal which are not seen get such a perspective of faith as may draw Heaven nearer to us shew us those glories which Christ has prepared for us and already taken possession of in his own flesh that so ours may rest in hope and one day inherit His kingdom And now since Christ has given us an assurance of Immortality let us endeavour to lay the foundation of a happy one in this life to work it out even in this world this common shop of change work it out of that in which it is not out of riches by not trusting in and well using them out of the pleasures of this world by loathing and forsaking them out of the flesh by crucifying it with the lusts and affections thereof and out of the world it self by overcoming it Lastly and above all let us labour to secure this blessed Immortality which lies before us by such good works as may follow us through the huge and unconceivable tract of Eternity Else we may be so eternal as to wish we were mortal wish against our interest that in this life only we had hope make our selves who now fear death to dread immortality too hope that there were no eternal joys and tremble at the thoughts even of that everlasting bliss which our ill lives should give us no just ground to hope for But if while we enjoy this life we make lasting provisions for the next by good works then do we truly hope in Christ and then the seeds of Vertue and Piety well cultivated here shall hereafter yield us the happy fruits of a glorious Immortality which he grant us who hath brought life and immortality to light through his Gospel Jesus Christ in us the hope of Glory To whom with the Father c. Amen Soli Deo gloria in aeternum A SERMON ON ROM XII 1 I beseech you therefore Brethren by the mercies of God that ye present your bodies a living Sacrifice holy acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service SAint Paul being from a Jew converted to a Christian hath taken great pains not only to prove the reasonableness of his doing so but that Judaism it self was to be Christned the legal Washings to be at last baptized That whole Oeconomy to be done away that it might be made complete and to be destroyed that it might be perfected And it was well that it was to be so For the Law could not justifie because its performances were but low its Promises but near and its strength weak The Law then could not justifie had it been observed but being broken it could condemn so that our Saviour to upbraid the Jews refers them not only to himself but to Moses in whom they did trust And indeed 't is as visible that the Jews did break their Law as that they did boast of it They were equally zealous in observing and industrious in transgressing it Instead of Religion they had brought themselves to be a Sect humorsome and peevish arrogant and censorious All the world was to be of their way and yet themselves not of it so that they were as I may so say Idolaters of the true God whose Circumcision was uncircumcised As if that fact of Moses when he brought the Law had been the Type of the future observance of it when at the time of bringing the Tables he brake them But not to upbraid the Jews with their failings let us see what use there is to be made of them while they perform the letter let us obey the meaning while their Sabbaths are lazy let ours be holy They wrote the Law on their Garments let us write them on our Hearts They boasted of it let us doe it While they sacrifice their Beasts let us offer up to God the more precious bloud of his own Lamb and with that bloud our selves For we Christians as well as the Jews have an Altar says St. Paul and are Priests too a royal Priesthood says St. Peter Aaron and his Successors offered up Bulls and Rams unreasonable Creatures that were first slain and then offered But we our Bodies and those such living Sacrifices as make up a reasonable Service No Calves here to be presented but those of our lips For a Lamb and a Dove meekness and innocence and for a Goat our Iusts must be sacrificed No death here but of inbred corruptions no slaughter but of the old man whose death enlivens our Sacrifice and so fits it for an Everliving God and makes it Holy and so becoming a Holy God And if we crown our Sacrifices with such flowers they must needs send forth a sweet and acceptable odour to God and pass with Him not only for a Sacrifice but which is more be heightned to a reasonable Service And this our Gratitude calls for and our Interest We owe it to God as to our Creator who made our Bodies and as to our Redeemer who hath purchased them We owe it to our selves too if we will be happy in the enjoyment of God who as He is not a God of the dead but of the living will have a living Body for a Sacrifice and not a Carkass And this in all respects is so reasonable that it may well be matter of wonder why our Apostle should spend so much passionate Rhetorick to persuade us to give up that unto God which 't is our highest advantage He should vouchsafe to accept But then
leaving it and that which He hath purchased so very glorious that some have mistaken it for his Eternal one To all this which He hath obtained for Himself let us add what He hath merited for us in that flesh He this day took upon Him and wherein He wrought out our Redemption offering up Himself to God and giving Himself for us the greatest gift He could give or we receive whereof in the next place II. Who gave Himself for us Every word here has its weight 1. He gave 2. Gave Himself and 3. For us 1. He gave A Gift this as much above Man's Desert as 't was above his Comprehension 'T was a free gift too no Attractive here but misery no Motive but his own goodness The Romanists indeed to establish their rotten Doctrine of Merit will needs persuade us that some Ancient Fathers before and under the Law did ex congruo if not ex condigno merit Christ's Incarnation or at least the hastning of its accomplishment This conceit of theirs they mainly ground on Gen. 22. 18. where 't is said to Abraham In thy seed shall all the Nations of the Earth be blessed Because thou hast obeyed my voice As if that Because denoted the meritorious Cause of Christ's Incarnation to have been Abraham's Obedience whereas Zachary ascribes it not to the Merits of any the most holy persons of old but to God's mercy and free promise to the Forefathers Luke 1. 72. St. Paul to the riches of God's mercy Ephes. 2. 4. To his benignity and loving-kindness to mankind here Tit. 3. 4. As our Lord Himself does also John 3. 16. God so loved the World that He gave his only begotten Son and so well did that his Son love it too that He gave Himself for us says the Text. 2. Himself And surely more He could not give For as the Apostle speaks in another case Because God could swear by no greater He sware by Himself So may we here because He had no greater thing to give us He gave us Himself The Almighty could go no higher than this Infinite goodness was here at its non ultra He who is All in All could bestow no more than that All. More then He could not give but could He not have given less and that less have been enough Or might not the party offended have freely remitted the Offence without any farther satisfaction or have obliged some other to make it Sent some glorious Creature some blessed Spirit of the noblest Order of created Beings to be a sufficient expiatory Sacrifice for Mankind and so have sav'd Himself the trouble of an Incarnation 'T is not for us here to be too inquisitive what God might have done let us rather admire and extoll his Goodness for not contenting Himself with less than what He did and withall dread the severity of his Justice not to be atton'd by any other Sacrifice than that of his own Son And indeed the most glorious the most innocent and perfect Creature God could make being but Finite it cannot possibly be conceived how it could satisfie an infinite Justice much less was it in the power of Man to satisfie for himself of the party guilty to expiate its own guilt This knot was too hard for any but a God to untie Nay the Godhead its self it seems could not doe it without the assistance of the Manhood For as the divine Nature could not suffer so the humane one could not merit This furnished the bloud but that made it passable and valuable None then but He who united both Natures in the Person of the word Incarnate He who was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God and Man could be a perfect Reconciler of both Parties This as his Justice and our Necessities required so his alone Goodness prompted him unto and his as infinite Wisedom found out the only way to doe it by taking our Nature upon Him and so giving Himself for us 3. For Us. This circumstance does yet very much heighten the Blessing and set off God's infinite Love to Mankind That He should give Himself for us us Sinners and Rebels and for us alone Were there no other Objects for his Mercy besides us Were there not Angels to be redeemed as well as Men Or were they not worth the Redeeming who were by Nature so much above them That God should pass by them and only vouchsafe to look upon us This is the great Mystery of his Love And that He did so is clear from Heb. 2. 16. Verily He took not on Him the Nature of Angels but He took on Him the Seed of Abraham whereupon He is called the Saviour of all Men but not of Angels 1 Tim. 4. 10. Whether it was because the sin of Angels had more of Wilfulness in it and less of Temptation or because they did not All fall as we did some of them still preserving their Station let the Schools dispute These may serve for plausible Conjectures but to find the true cause hereof we must go out of the World and seek it in the bosom of the Father and in the bowels of his own Son whose Love did even transform him into us this day whereon He was born for no other purpose but to dye for us and by his meritorious Death rescue us from the slavery of Sin the primary end of his Incarnation and the third Thing to be spoken to III. That He might redeem us For the better comprehending the benefit we reap from the Incarnation of our blessed Lord We must consider the main end and design of it which the Text says was to redeem us Now Redemption being a Relative supposes Bondage For we cannot say his Irons are struck off who never had them on or pronounce him releas'd who never was a prisoner Now such was all Mankind till Christ delivered it by taking upon Him the form of a servant and being made in the likeness of men For as Aristotle hath made some men born slaves and as others tell us of a Law whereby all the Posterity of Captives were Bondmen So in Divinity 't is a certain truth that not some but all Mankind are born under the Fork and that the Womb of our first Parent was like that in Tacitus Subjectus servitio Uterus a Womb from which issues a race of Slaves Christ then found us in Captivity and that according to the Divinity of the Schools a threefold one 1. To Sin as the Merit obliging 2. To Death as the Reward or Punishment 3. To the Devil as to the Executioner And to each of these the Scripture hath assign'd a Dominion over us and that in terms of the greatest subjection and which in the conveyance of Power give the strongest Empire For the first St. Paul hath told us That we are the servants of Sin so far 't is our Master And in another place 't is said to reign in our mortal Bodies That makes it our Prince And indeed as some
have found out a platform of Government among the fallen Angels who though their Principles be crooked yet being obey'd by Wills as crooked observe an irregular Rule and a perverse Order even in Hell so Sin rules in us too by Principles For there is saith St. Paul a Law of Sin But then 't is such a Law as if it should be Treason for any Subject not to Murther his Natural Prince or Adultery not to Ravish or Blasphemy not to take God's Name in vain 'T is such a Law as if two Anti-Tables should be written which should make it Sin not to break the Commandments Lastly Let the Apostle tell you what Law it is 'T is a Law of the Members warring against the Law of the Mind and not only warring but bringing it into Captivity Rom. 7. 23. Sin herein far exceeding the Author of it For he only aspir'd to be like the Highest but Sin hath made an inversion in the Soul advancing Sense into the Chair of Reason and placing the Beast above the Man And though it may leave us to a natural liberty in moral actions for 't is harsh to think that Justice and Temperance are but guilded Sins yet for actions of Grace it has so glewed and settered the Soul that it cannot possibly mount up to Heaven 2. Next for Death Men have made a Covenant with that saith the Scripture and if Contract be not enough we reade Wisd. 1. v. 14. of a Kingdom of Death so that Christ did not only find us Captives but Captives slain Teneo à primordio homicidam culpam says Tertullian Adam's Throat was our open Sepulchre who in that fatal Apple did not only murther his Children like Saturn but like Thyestes in the Tragedy did eat them After that Transgression there pass'd an Act upon us It is appointed for all Men once to dye Nay it were a degree of happiness to dye but once if nothing remained for punishment for nothing can suffer nothing But we were to be raised to another Death and like drowsie Malefactors that had lain down with their Sentence were to be awakened out of sleep to be put upon the Rack 3. The Scripture almost every-where styles the Devil the Prince of this World His Kingdom had enlarg'd its self from that place about which the Schools dispute to every rebellion and disorder of the Soul where as in a conquer'd Province per cupiditates regnavit saith St. Augustine He reigned by his Proconsul Sins There also making himself the Prince of Darkness by our ignorance and the Prince of the Air by raising Tempests through all the Regions of Man and exercising an universal and absolute Power over him For such was his power in the World when the Saviour of it came into it There was then a general defection from God Satan's Synagogue had in a manner swallowed up God's Church who had but one corner of the World left him and therein for a long time but a moving Tabernacle and when a fix'd habitation but one house wherein a very few to serve him while the Devil's Temples were every-where crowded with Priests and Sacrifices and his Altars smoak'd in all places with Incense so that the Earth and the fulness thereof seem'd now his and he though cast out of Heaven to have reveng'd himself in some sort of God by thus dispossessing him as it were of the Earth Nor was the Devil's power more Universal than 't was Absolute over men's Bodies and over their Souls too Their Bodies he possest and tormented at pleasure insomuch that his very Priests might have receiv'd Death with as much ease as they did his Oracles entring into Men as he did into the Hoggs hurrying them violently into perdition commanding Parents to make their Sons and Daughters pass through the fire to him tearing and bruising those he had got into and casting them sometimes into the water and sometimes into the fire Nor did he tyrannize less over Men's souls than bodies blinding their understanding putting out the light of natural reason in them first corrupting their Judgments and then their Manners from Error in judgment the passage being natural and easie to Error in practice and accordingly St. Paul tells us how vain men became in their imaginations even to worship the Creature instead of the Creator to change the glory of the uncorruptible God into Images made like to corruptible Men and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things which made God give them up to all manner of uncleanness as you may reade at large Rom. 1. 21 c. In such slavery had the Devil not only Heathens his own people as I may call them but even the Jews themselves God's chosen people who after so many Miracles of Power and Mercies so many excellent Statutes and Ordinances to direct them in the true manner of his Worship as had not been delivered to any Nation besides did not for all this fall short of the worst of Heathens either in matter of erroneous judgment or vitious practices The profane Sadducee had corrupted all good Manners and the hypocritical Pharisee perverted the Law by his false Glosses and Comments on it so that when our Saviour appeared on Earth an universal deluge of Wickedness had over-spread the face of it And thus all Mankind being the Devil 's by right of Conquest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 taken by him as it were in War the true import of that word and bound fast to him with his Chains of darkness of gross error and vitiousness 't was high time for the Son of God to come down to rescue miserable Men from these several Captivities which he did three manner of ways 1. By Commutation 2. By Conquest and 3. By way of Ransome or Purchase 1. By Commutation For when we were prisoners to Death by sin God made an exchange delivered his Son over to it for us became our Scape-goat like the Ram substituted in the place of Isaac and as the Apostle speaks tasted death for every man that we might not be devoured and swallowed up by it 2. By Conquest as it referrs to Power and thus our Lord offered violence to Hell snatcht us as brands out of its fire and rescued us as so many preys out of the teeth of the roaring Lion delivering us from the power of darkness and translating us into his kingdom vanquishing death and him that had the power of death the Devil and treading him under our feet And not content with that he spoiled principalities and powers making a shew or as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 imports an example of them openly and triumph'd over them in himself or in his Cross. 3. By way of Purchase or Ransome as it referrs to Justice Thus Christ made a perfect satisfaction to God by laying down a price for us and paying the very utmost farthing of our debt and so came not only to give us an Example as Socinians
fondly dream which the Prophets of old might nay every good and vertuous Man may still doe and in this sense become our Saviour as well as He And therefore St. Peter plainly distinguishes these things between Christ's suffering for us and his leaving us an example 1 Pet. 2. 21. And the Scripture every-where is express to this purpose That Christ came to give himself a ransome for all so says St. Paul 1 Tim. 2. 6. Nay so says Christ Himself Mat. 20. 28. He came to satisfie for us the clear import of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the like words so frequently occurring in Scripture and of those expressions of St. Paul of Christ's being made sin and a curse for us his blotting out the hand-writing of Ordinances that was against us and the like These were the several ways whereby Christ freed us and this was the main design and end of his coming in the flesh this day and we can never truly value the Blessing of it but by reflecting on the Misery of our former slavery whereby we became Servants to Corruption and so beneath and viler than Corruption its self as the Servant is below his Master the Condition of every one that committeth sin and is at the mercy and under the power thereof its eternal drudge forc'd to go and come as it bids him and consequently lay under the guilt of Sin and so obnoxious to God's Judgment and under the sentence and condemnation of Death all our life-time subject to this bondage too and at the mercy of our most cruel and implacable enemy the Devil who could have no power over us but what our Sin gave him And now that we are restored to this glorious Liberty of the Sons of God let us stand fast in this our Liberty The Son of God has done his part He has made us free indeed if we will be so for nothing can re-enslave us but our own wills and 't is strange we should desire to be slaves when we may be free nay a strange choice this rather to be Sin and Satan's slaves than God's free-men To be not so much conquered by Hell as willingly subject to it not so much Press'd men as Volunteers in its Service To be led by Satan at his will and with our own too in love with his chains of darkness and desirous to have our Ears bored through with his Awl in token of our Eternal vassalage Doubtless Christ by coming down from Heaven never design'd Redemption for such willing Slaves never intended to buy them who sell him and that for naught as every Sinner doth nay who sell themselves with Ahab to doe wickedly He did not put such a price into fools hands that will not sue out their freedom with it nor give men this liberty only to be licentious and so no otherwise free than as St. Paul expresseth it from righteousness Did He therefore break off Sin and Satan's yoke from our necks that we should cast off his or make us the Sons of God that we should make our selves the Sons of Belial impatient of any yoke though it be of his own most easie and light one Did He therefore cancel our old debts that we should study to make new ones as if the end of his coming in the flesh had not been to redeem us from our old Conversation but to it No sure He came to buy us Ye are bought with a price says our Apostle and therefore ought we to glorifie God in our bodies and in our spirits which are Gods God's as well by right of Redemption as of Creation If we be delivered by Him from the hand of our Ghostly Enemies 't is that we should serve Him without fear indeed but not cast off his fear And surely the obligation is very strong and binding and the Consequence unavoidable He hath saved us and therefore we must serve Him promote the honour of our Deliverer and advance the interest of this our great Lord and Master Servants says the Philosopher are but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 living Tools or Instruments to be used or employed at the discretion of their Masters They are not sui juris not their own Men and all that they acquire is for him they serve Nay by the Civil Law ingratitude to their deliverer did make Men forfeit the benefit of their freedom And surely if we abuse Ours and Him that bestows it Our Lord may justly return us to our former slavery make us Satan's slaves once more who refuse to be God's freemen and his slaves we are while bound unto him by any one of his Chains and since the least of them will be strong enough to tie us fast to him let us break all his bonds asunder and cast away all his cords from us An Obligation which lyes upon us as at all times so now especially when we are to partake of the benefit of that Redemption Christ has wrought out for us His Bloud was the price of it In whom we have Redemption through his bloud the Remission of sins Ephes. 1. 7. and the Cross the Altar where that price was paid or else there could have been no perfect reconciliation for us So the same Apostle Col. 1. 20. Having made peace through the bloud of his Cross by him to reconcile all things So that remission of sins peace with God and with our selves freedom from the slavery of Sin Death and Satan all this is the purchase of Christ's bloud shed upon his Cross and apply'd to us in his blessed Sacrament to which we are now invited Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will refresh you says Christ Mat. 11. 28. In like manner does he bespeak us here too Come unto me all ye that are in bondage to Sin and Satan and I will release you Subdue the power of them by my grace and restore you at last to the glorious Liberty of the Sons of God Let the door-posts of your Hearts be sprinkled with my bloud and the destroying Angel shall pass and not hurt you O let us then hearken to His most gratious invitation and having such encouragement draw near to his Holy Table with a true heart in full assurance of faith and for the time to come wholly give up our selves to Him who gave Himself for us this day of his Birth by taking our Flesh and now offers up Himself again for us at his Passion whereof this Sacrament is so lively a representation and seal of our Redemption In a word as Christ has redeemed us so let us for the time to come walk as the redeemed of the Lord and his peculiar people that so we may obtain those Blessings which belong to such both here and hereafter Which God of his infinite Mercy grant c. Amen A SERMON PREACHED The Sunday after Christmas TITUS II. 14. Who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity
that pull'd out by thy powerfull Redeemer how can it now hurt thee It may possibly hiss at but it cannot bite thee Look upon the Serpent lifted up for thee on the Cross and this Serpent's sting if it has any to wound it can have none to kill thee If thy Saviour has not quite destroy'd this thine enemy at least he has brought it under and made it subject like the Gibeonites if not banished 't is enslaved and made now instrumental to Christ's Kingdom Loose thou then the bands of thine iniquity and those of death which Christ has broken shall no more be able to hold thee than they could doe him Death in its most affrighting shapes to thee is but a scare-crow 't is but the shadow of death while God is with thee Nay 't is but an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a going out a departing in peace to a Holy Simeon 'T was no more between God and Moses but go up and dye as 't was said to another Prophet up and eat Ever since our Lord has swallow'd death up in victory our Tombs become Death's Graves more than ours Sepulchrum non jam mortuum sed mortem devorat says a Father Our Bodies are not lost in the Earth but laid up to be improved like Porcellane-dishes which the ground does not consume but refine In the Transfiguration that body of Moses which was hid in the valley of Moab appeared glorious in the Mount of Tabor And though we appear now like Aaron's dry rod yet that dry rod shall at last bud and bring forth fruit unto glory The Israelites garments indeed in the Wilderness waxed not worse for wearing but though our Bodies which are the garments of our Souls doe so and are rent and torn by afflictions and death yet God can and will mend them Nay when these Temples of the Holy Ghost we carry about us are dissolved he will so build them up that as it was said of the first and second Jewish Temples Haggai 2. 9. the glory of our latter houses shall be greater than that of the former Diruta stante Major Troja fuit God will bless us as he did Job more at our latter end than at our beginning and Exalt us as he did Christ by our Sufferings If with him we drink of the brook in the way tast of his Cup he will lift up our heads too We shall be like him as now He is A golden Head and Members of Clay suit not well together This is our great comfort that Christ is risen for if the Head be above water the Body is safe Joseph is alive said Jacob and that news revived the drooping Patriarch So when we hear that Christ our elder Brother the first-begotten from the dead is alive too let us take courage go and find him out seek him not in the Grave He is not there he is risen and why should we seek the living among the dead but in Heaven where he now is and set our affections on things above and not on things below It befits us not to lye in our Beds of ease and pleasure to lye sleeping there when Christ is up such a spiritual Lethargy does not suit with a Resurrection How are we conformable to Him if when He is risen up we remain still in the Grave of our Corruptions How are we Limbs of his Body if while He hath perfect dominion over death death hath dominion over us if while he is alive and glorious we lye rotting in the dust of death O let us then rouse our selves up this day with the Lion of the Tribe of Judah Let this be our Resurrection-day too and that it may be so let it be our Passion-day also as it is our Lord's For as he rose this day for us so does he now this day dye for us too And although St. Paul tells us Rom. 6. 9. That Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more and that death hath no more dominion over him or to speak in the Language of the Text that he be not holden of it yet in regard of the constant vertue and benefit of his Death and Passion he may be said to dye daily for us who receive him worthily in the Blessed Sacrament Let me then bespeak you in the words of St. Thomas utter'd upon another occasion Joh. 11. 16. Let us also go and dye with him Dye with him unto sin that we may live unto God through him Rom. 6. 9 10. Let us feed on him by Faith flock like true Eagles to his Holy Carcass and eat thereof that we may live This is the way to be raised to glory Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my bloud hath Eternal life is even now in possession of it and I will raise him up at the last day says Christ himself Joh. 6. 54. The very touch of the Prophet Elias's bones Ecclesiasticus 48. 5. could raise up a dead Man to a Temporal and shall not the sense and application of Christ crucified be able to quicken us who are dead in trespasses and sins to a spiritual and immortal Life O let us then be planted with him in the likeness of his Death that we may be also in the likeness of his Resurrection Rom. 6. 5. Now the God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus that great Shepherd of the Sheep through the bloud of the Everlasting Covenant make you perfect in every good work to doe his Will working in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ To whom with the Father c. Amen Soli Deo gloria in aeternum A SERMON Preached on Whit-sunday JOHN XVI 7. Nevertheless I tell you the truth it is expedient for you that I go away for if I go not away the Comforter will not come unto you but if I depart I will send him unto you WE find the Disciples here in a very sad and disconsolate Condition Christ had told them that He was going his way to Him that sent Him V. 5. and thereupon Sorrow had filled their hearts V. 6. And no marvel for they were to be separated from one who hitherto had been their only comfort and support Had we been under the same circumstances we should no doubt have equally resented that loss They had had the happy advantage of beholding his glorious Miracles wrought by his All-powerfull Voice in the cure of Diseases in the confusion of Devils and the raising of the Dead They had heard those his ravishing Discourses which forc'd his most implacable Enemies in spight of all their prejudice against Him to confess That never Man spake as He did They had been Eye-witnesses of that Eminent Holiness that pure and unspotted Innocence which gave beauty and lustre to all his actions and of that glory too which discovered Him to be the only Son of God full of Grace and Truth And now unless we can suppose them void of all natural affection and
advantage 3. Besides to make our Estate good is required Investiture so that although Christ hath made a purchase and paid a price for us yet what would this advantage us without Livery and Seizin which the same Apostle calls The Earnest of the Spirit 2 Cor. 5. 5. Lastly What are we at all the better for what Christ did for us if we be not joined to Him as He was to us and 't is by his Spirit that we are joined unto Him For he that hath not Christ's Spirit is none of his Rom. 8. 9. and then Christ will profit him nothing From whence it plainly appears That what the Father and the Son did for us could not be compleat or available without the concurrence of the Holy Ghost They could doe nothing for us without Him nor we any thing for our selves in order to our Salvation For first without Holiness we cannot see God who is therefore called Holy because he is the cause of Holiness in us his Office consisting in the sanctifying of us We are by Nature void of all saving Truth 1 Cor. 2. 10 11. None knoweth the things of God but the Spirit of God And 't is the Spirit that searcheth all things and revealeth them unto the Sons of Men That dispells their Darkness enlightens their Understandings with the knowledge of God and works in them an assent unto that which by the Word is propounded unto them Again 2dly Unless they be regenerate and renewed they are still in a state of natural Corruption Now 't is the Holy Spirit that regenerates and renews us According to his mercy he saveth us by the washing of Regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost Tit. 3. 5. And Except a man be born again of Water and the Holy Ghost he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God Joh. 3. 5. We are all at first defiled by the corruption of our Nature and the pollution of our Sins but we are washed but we are sanctified but we are justified in the Name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God 1 Cor. 6. 11. Thirdly We are not able to guide our selves and 't is the Spirit that leads directs and governs us in our Actions and Conversations that we may perform what is acceptable in the sight of God 'T is He that giveth both to will and to doe and As many as are thus led by the Spirit of God they are the Sons of God Rom. 8. 14. Fourthly If we be separate from Christ we are as branches cut off from the Tree which presently wither away for want of sap to nourish them Now 't is the Spirit that joins us to Christ and makes us Members of that Body whereof he is the Head For by one Spirit we are all baptized into that one Body 1 Cor. 12. 13. And hereby we know that God abideth in us by the Spirit which he hath given us 1 Joh. 3. 24. Fifthly Till we be assured of the Adoption of Sons we have no comfort no hope for 't is that which creates in us a sense of the Paternal love of God towards us The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us Rom. 5. 5. And the Spirit it self beareth witness with our Spirit that we are the Children of God Rom. 8. 16. who is therefore said to be the Pledge and the Earnest of our Inheritance In a word had not the Holy Ghost been sent to us we could have done nothing to any purpose no means on our part would have availed us Not Baptism which might wash spots from our Skins nor stains from our Souls No laver of Regeneration without renewing of the Holy Ghost Tit. 3. 5. Not the Word which without the Spirit would have proved but a killing letter Not the Sacrament The Flesh profiteth nothing 't is the Spirit that quickneth Joh. 6. 63. Lastly Not Prayer which without the Spirit is but lip-labour For unless he help our infirmities and make intercession for and with us we know not what we should pray for as we ought Rom. 8. 26. To summ up all It was expedient nay absolutely necessary that the Spirit should have his Advent as well as Christ. Christ's Advent was necessary for the fulfilling of the Law and the Spirit 's for the compleating of the Gospel Christ's to redeem the Church and the Spirit 's to teach it Christ's to shed his bloud for it and the Spirit 's to wash and purge it in that bloud Christ's to preach the acceptable year of the Lord and the Spirit 's to interpret it The one without the other is imperfect Christ's Birth Death Passion Resurrection are good news but sealed up a Gospel hid till the Spirit come and open it Of such importance was his coming and so expedient yea and necessary for us it was that our Lord should go away to send Him to us And as he did send Him to the Apostles in an extraordinary manner in cloven tongues like as of fire as at this time so all Christians have a promise of the Comforter though not of the firey tongues The promise is to you and to your Children and to all that are a-far off even as many as the Lord our God shall call Act. 2. 39. That is To all that wait for and are in such a fit posture and condition to receive Him as the Apostles themselves were To all that are like Him Holy Pure Charitable Peaceable That have those fruits of the Spirit mentioned Gal. 5. 22 23. That are void of carnal sensual Affections than which nothing will more obstruct his entrance He being a Spirit and having therefore no commerce with the Flesh. Christ carnally apprehended we see could not avail any thing and so long as our Thoughts and Desires run after things here below his Spirit from above will not fill or inflame them Therefore sur sum corda let us lift up our hearts towards Him He will meet us and Christ will send Him to us if we meet Him in his way Send Him if we send for Him too if we send up our Prayers to fetch Him down For being a Spirit of supplication Zach. 12. 10. the proper means to obtain Him is Prayer And surely He is worth the asking for being the greatest gift God can give us or we receive In giving whereof He is said to give us all things Mat. 7. 11. In whom we have a Teacher to instruct The Spirit of Truth to lead us into all Truth necessary for us An Advocate to plead for and defend us A Comforter in all our outward and inward distresses so that Direction Protection Consolation and all that is beneficial to us or we can desire we have in Him But then when we have got let us be sure to retain and to cherish Him not chase Him away for then we had better never to have had Him Be sure not to resist Him by our Pride quench Him by our Carnality and so grieve Him
who as He is the Fountain of the Deity and of all operations in the Divine Nature so of all our gifts and graces too Every good and every perfect gift whether of Nature Grace or Glory coming down to us from the Father of lights Jam. 1. 17. especially the Inheritance in light which is so peculiarly his gift that our Saviour appropriates it to Him telling his Apostles Mat. 20. 23. That it is not his to give but the Father's Hence that Blessing of St. Paul Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Christ Ephes. 1. 3. directing his Thanks to Him as the Original of all our Blessings whether Temporal or Spiritual Now of these two sorts the latter being far the greatest our Thanks for them ought to be so too We are to thank God then 1. That He hath made us partakers and 2. meet partakers of the Inheritance in light First I say That He hath made us partakers of so glorious an Inheritance as that in light it being nothing less than his very self who is Essential light and who dwelleth in that light which no Man can approach unto 1 Tim. 6. 16. A rich and a glorious Inheritance indeed fit for the Majesty and Mercy of an Almighty God to bestow the unvaluable Bloud of his Son to purchase and the dearly beloved of his Soul to enjoy How thankfull ought we then to be for being made partakers of such an Inheritance as is as far above those here below as Heaven is above the Earth or God above All things But this is not All. We are in the second place to thank God the Father for making us meet partakers thereof which is a greater Blessing than we are aware of We would fain have the Inheritance at any rate but we consider not whether we be fit for it or no and if we be not Heaven it self will be no place of Happiness to us nor shall we take pleasure therein For Pleasure being nothing else but the suitableness of the Object to the Faculty because things agreeable alone can agree together then what satisfaction should we find in Heaven while our selves were altogether Earthly Light is a pleasant thing to an Eye prepared for and that can bear it not to that of a Bat or of an Owl nor to that of a Man that should suddenly be brought into it out of a dark Dungeon it would rather blind his Eyes than delight them And what would the Inheritance in light be to a Child of Darkness but as the pleasure of a rational Man is to a Beast or of an Intelligence to a bruitish Man He who is wholly taken up with Sensual Objects and so unacquainted with Intellectual rests there and seeks no farther Tell a Mahumetan of such a Heaven as the Gospel describes and you may then make him fall in love with that place when you can persuade a Hog to leave his Stye for a Palace or that to lye in perfumes were better for him than to wallow in the mire What a Transcendent blessing then is it and how thankfull ought we to be to God for it that He makes us meet for the Inheritance above in order to our better partaking of it that He gives us his Grace here as a preparative to Glory hereafter makes us Holy in this life that we may be capable of being Happy in the next his Goodness being not more conspicuous in the reward He designs us than in the manner of bestowing it in giving us a Crown of Glory than in fitting our Heads for it 'T is a greater honour to be accounted worthy of it than to wear it As Vertue is beyond a Title and a Man more than a Place And now since our lot is fallen unto us in so fair a ground and that we have so goodly a Heritage let us highly value it make it our chief Treasure that our Hearts may still be there where we have such a glorious Inheritance laid up for us and such an indefeisible Estate as shall never be either in another's power to defeat us of or in our own to lose when once possest of How do we value our Earthly Inheritances How dear are they to us How loth are we to part with them The Lord forbid it me that I should give the Inheritance of my Fathers unto thee said Naboth to Ahab when he would have wrested it from him 1 King 21. 3. And yet this being but an Earthly Inheritance whereas ours is an Heavenly He chose rather to part with his Life than with the Inheritance of his Fathers and we are willing to part with the Inheritance of the Saints in light for nothing to sell our spiritual Birthright with profane Esau for a mess of Pottage while every trifling Argument shall make us disbelieve and every trifling Lust make us forfeit it Is the price of Christ's bloud the purchase he has made for us of an Eternal Inheritance become so cheap unto us in comparison of those uncertain perishing ones which the malice of Men can and death in a very short time will be sure to strip us of so subject to alteration and decay so polluted and defiled The Inheritance of the Saints in light is by St. Peter described by three such properties so peculiar to it that they are not to be found in worldly ones He tells us 1 Pet. 1. 4. That 't is an Inheritance incorruptible undefiled and that fadeth not away Now 1. Worldly Inheritances even Kingdoms are Transitory whereas that of Heaven cannot be moved Heb. 12. 28. Estates here shift their Landlords what is one Man 's to day is another's to morrow nay all the evidence Men have of their Estates here shall one day be burnt with the World and be made void at the Day of Judgment And yet how do they call their Lands after their own names when those names and those very lands that are called after them shall perish together when they who are Owners of them shall one day become part of their own lands retain nothing of all their Possessions but Graves and in a short time scarce be distinguished from that Earth wherein they were buried 2. Again Should Inheritances here be continued to their Owners never so long yet are they fading still losing their beauty verdure and lustre there is some moth or canker that continually frets and at last eats them up But in Heaven as we shall have an Incorruptible so an Immarcessible Crown Not like Olympick ones of Bays or Herbs which immediately withered even on the heads of those that wore them but always fresh and green 3. Lastly Worldly Inheritances are so far from being undefiled that their Owners may well blush when they consider how many times they come by them with how much sin Themselves enjoy and Others to whom they must leave shall spend them Yet as pitifull things as they are how thankfull
brought forth with Garlands on their heads in manner of Sacrifices and offered up to Neptune being termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Suidas tells us that for the removal of the Pestilence they sacrificed certain Men to their Gods whom they styled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Filth loading them with revilings and curses Such were all Christians accounted among Heathens who lookt upon them as the vilest sort of men upon Earth fit to be offered in Sacrifice to their Gods For 1. They thought them guilty of the highest immoralities and debaucheries adultery incestuous copulations murthering and eating their own Children in their nocturnal private Assemblies and then no marvel if they thought their utmost severity towards them to be an act of Justice and of Religion too as being in their apprehension the Causes of all those publick Calamities that befell the World 2. They look'd upon them as profane atheistical men and so worthy to die because they did not worship the heathen Deities nor had any Altars or Temples For so the Charge runs against them in Tertullian Deos non colitis and in Minutius Felix Nullas aras habent Christiani nulla templa Nay They look'd upon Christians as Affronters of the Gods and of Religion That laugh'd at their Sacrifices despised their Temples and threw down their Altars and Images And hence they passed for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Atheists as Socrates did who was thought to believe that there was no God because he had a very mean opion of those the World then worshipped The very same crime objected to Christians of being of no Religion because they would not embrace the heathenish Superstition So the Pagans in Arnobius Christus ex orbe religiones expulit Their Master Christ had driven all Religions out of the World He had indeed destroyed all those false worships the besotted World ran after together with their ridiculous abominable Deities having silenced their Oracles and forc'd those Gods they worshipped to confess themselves to be no other than Devils As his Disciples and primitive Christians could and did frequently drive them out of those bodies they possessed which was such an affront to their Gods as Heathens were not able to endure and thought themselves concern'd to vindicate by the utmost severity that either wit or malice helpt on by the Devil himself could find out And then 3ly What Cruelties think we were left unexercised upon Men who besides the ruine of their Religion had in their apprehension designs against the State too and where-ever they were were thought still to endeavour the undermining of their Empire Which though it was a pure groundless calumny yet the Apostles finding this apprehension so deeply rooted in their minds thought it necessary earnestly to press subjection to heathenish Princes and Governours to take off this foul aspersion And the rather because the malicious Jews did still labour strongly to possess all in Authority with such an opinion of them as if they were Enemies as well to their State as to their Religion Thus Christ himself was accused of perverting the Nation of forbidding to give Tribute to Cesar and of saying that He Himself was a King Luk. 23. 2. St. Paul of being a pestilent fellow and a mover of sedition among all the Jews throughout the world Act. 24. 5. And the Charge was general against all the Apostles That they had turned the world upside down Chap. 17. v. 6. Calumnies invented and fostered by the Jews It being expresly said Chap. 14. vers 2. That the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and made their minds evil affected against the brethren envenoming them with hatred and prejudice against them as People hating their Government as well as their Worship though in effect none did it more than the very Jews themselves There is no doubt but that Interest as well as Religion set Heathens so much against Christians and the latter not the least For besides that they had been in a long and uninterrupted Possession of their idolatrous way of worship and so thought themselves to have the advantage of time over Christians who were in their account but Upstarts They could not digest such an absurd Religion as did teach that a crucified Man could be a God And so morose and strict a one as not to allow them their old luxury hatred pride envy and all those abominations whereof their very Religion was made up nor suffer them to be as wicked as they desired and the Devil would have them to be And therefore by the insinuations of his chief Instruments the Priests who were undone if this new way should prevail did he labour to root them out from off the face of the Earth as a most pestilent sort of people A work in their opinion very meritorious as no doubt it was to their Gods And therefore Suetonius in the Life of Nero amongst other good things done by him reckons Persecutiones contra Christianos factas And that bloudy Tyrant and Persecutor Dioclesian in an Inscription engraven on a Monument he had set up makes his brags that he had purged the Earth of the Christian Nation abolished the Christian Name in all parts of his Empire and propagated the worship of the Gods Superstitione Christianorum ubique deletâ cultu Deorum propagato Wherein he reckoned without his host having to his great grief and sorrow liv'd to see the ruine of Heathenism and the establishment of Christianity by Constantine which did so enrage Julian the Apostate that finding all his Arts to destroy the Faith ineffectual he vowed that if he sped in his Expedition against the Persians he would at his return offer up the bloud of all Christians to his Gods And thus you see our Saviour's prediction verified in respect of Jews and Heathens and what were the grounds and motives of their hatred and rage against Christians blind zeal blended with worldly Interest which made them think that by persecuting them to death they did God service 3. But we are not to confine our Lord's prediction wholly to the Jews and Gentiles but to extend it even to Christians themselves who have verified it in its most rigorous and worst sense And truly 't is a sad thing to consider how no sooner Jews and Heathens had laid down the quarrel but that Christians took it up carrying it on against themselves with as much heat and fury as ever the former had done The mutual Contests between them even in the earlier times of the Gospel were so bitter and intemperate so fierce and bloudy too that they have been objected to them by Pagans and derided in their open Theatres Clemens Alexandrinus bringeth in Heathens upbraiding them with their quarrels And Ammianus Marcellinus a heathen Author hath observ'd long since That no Beasts were so cruel to one another as Christians in his time were And there was but too much ground for his observation when he could see them not only reviling and libelling as
sure it will be a much greater wonder if we shall refuse to hearken to his so pathetical and earnest Entreaty conjuring us by the mercies of God with such humble condescention and submissive insinuation calling us His Brethren whom he might have commanded as our spiritual Pastour and Father in Christ And all this but to make us more our selves by being God's The Text then consists of two Parts a Preface and a Duty I. The Preface in the former part of the Verse I beseech you where we may observe 1. The Apostle's method of proceeding here not by way of Command but Entreaty I beseech you and that too back'd with a double Argument The former couch't in his affectionate Compellation Brethren The latter drawn from the Bounty and Goodness of God appearing in his Mercies which the Illative Particle Therefore points to implying a former experience and taste of II. The Duty comprehended in the latter part of the Text That ye present c. Where we have 1. What we are to present Our Bodies 2. How we are to present them by way of Sacrifice 3. The Properties of that Sacrifice which must be 1. A living 2. A holy one And which is rather an effect or consequence than a property as such it will be acceptable 4. And lastly Here is the Conclusion of all by way of an Exegesis or farther Explanation what such a Sacrifice imports viz. A reasonable Service Of these in their order And first of the Preface and that very briefly for I must not detain you long in the Porch I beseech you The Apostle might have said I command you But such a smooth way best became a Preacher of the Gospel The Prophets indeed take another Course suitable to the Preaching of the Law which is usually delivered as it was first promulged in thunder and lightning every sentence in the Law carrying death in it and every letter thereof being a killing one But Christ's Embassadors are to use a different dialect We pray you in Christ's stead be ye reconciled unto God is our Apostle's language 2 Cor. 5. 20. And such Court-ship as this commonly prevails more on men than severe and sullen arguments and gentle insinuations do better persuade them than the peremptoriness of strict reason commands It being an easier matter to surprize than force to lead than to drag them to duty But then secondly I beseech you Brethren A word of humble condescension in so great an Apostle especially to inferior Christians A more charming word than Cesar's Commilitones whereby St. Paul like a skilfull Orator labours to beget a good opinion of his Person the better to make way for his Advice which is seldom ineffectual where the Party to be persuaded has a good opinion of its Author The affection of a Brother disposing him to a more ready entertainment of his Counsel And yet thirdly As if the Apostle suspected the weakness and insufficiency of this motive He adds a stronger The Mercies of God That if they would not hearken to him for his own they would doe it for God's sake A God whose mercies were more infinite than their sins or their necessities could be Now mercy as it is an endearing so is it withall an engaging word It doth cover sin and present it It makes disobedience to be unkindness and ill manners to be ill nature If an enemy had done me this dishonour I would have born it says the Psalmist Psal. 55. 12. When Caesar shall receive death from the hand of Brutus the hand is more grievous than the death it brings to behold that was more insupportable than endure it Our blessed Lord who had greater Agonies of love than sorrow is now capable of finds no greater sorrow than to see his love neglected Our Intemperance fills his Cup with a more bitter Gall our Ambition wreathes him a sharper Crown our ranking Religion among other stratagems places him again among worser Thieves and that we own Him in words for our Lord is but the civility or rather mockery of Pilate who when he nail'd Him to the Cross cry'd out This is Jesus the King of the Jews If he be a King and his Subjects not obey Him if a Father and his Sons abuse him if a Lord controll'd by his Servants or a Saviour and condemn'd by those he saves The Sufferings are enhansed by the Authors of them Nay what he suffers from us receives weight from what He deserves of us so that He bears the burthen of his own Merits is afflicted with his Love and grieved with his own Compassion That very kindness which doth endure makes it not to be endured His tenderness becomes to Him a burthen so insupportable that nothing but love could bear it from us and yet that very love doth make it more insupportable I beseech you therefore by the Mercies of God c. Of all those things which have a black character Ingratitude is the most confessed so The Vice this not of a Man but of a Fiend Kindness is Obligation and the cords of a Man stronger than those of Iron The consideration of the Mercies of God should not only make us doe our Duty but love it not only submit to God's Commands but be glad of them It should make us rejoyce when we have an occasion to deny our selves for his sake for then indeed we can only discover whether we are gratefull in earnest Who the most profligate wretch would not serve God if it were to be done only by gratifying of his own pleasure if God were to be pleased only by doing what his own lust would prompt him to But this consideration chiefly should make us enamoured with our hardest duties that they are opportunities of discovering our thankfulness for past blessings And is any so stupid as to reflect on the Mercies of God and not be refresht with the very thought of them Doubtless they are as it were once more received by being considered nor can we thank God for them without enjoying them over again we recall past Favours by remembring them and double our present Mercies by taking notice of them But for the most part so unworthy are we as not to value Enjoyment till Want teacheth us to doe so God is to be angry with us to make us love Him to remove his Mercies to make us tast them and he has little reason to continue these Mercies to us which are only valued when He takes them from us And yet methinks St. Paul is as high in Rhetorick as he is in Devotion when he beseeches us by the Mercies of God If his Love cannot prevail his Empire surely should not His Commands one would think should be of less force than his Promises for They indeed lay hold upon us but These within us St. Paul then hath here used his strongest argument when he beseecheth he doth most effectually command and the most sweet but withall the most powerfull Motive is the Mercies of God The word here