which is more accommodated to Cities and publick Societies than to Cloysters and Deserts And lastly Mat. 5.16 this is to walk in a conformity to his command who hath bid us make our light so to shine before men that they may see our good works and glorifie our Father which is in Heaven But Fourthly and lastly If it be a thing so necessary that every man should do Good in his life as hath been represented then how much to be reproved are they that do no Good till their death That live scrapingly and uncharitably and uselesly to the world all their lives long and then when they come to die think to Atone for their sins and neglects of this kind by shewing some extraordinary Bounty to the poor or devoting some part of their Estates to publick or pious uses I must confess this kind of proceeding doth to me seem just like the business of putting off a man's repentance to his death-bed It is absolutely necessary that a Man should repent though it be never so late and so it is that he should do good if he have done little Good in his life he is bound as he loves his soul to shew some extraordinary uncommon instances of Charity and a Publick Spirit when he comes to die But then it is here as it is with the long delaying of Repentance the deferring it so long has robbed the man of the greatest part of the praise and the comfort he might have expected from it His Rewards in Heaven will be much less though his good deeds should be accepted but he is infinitely uncertain whether they will or no. It must be a very great act of Generosity and Charity that can obtain a pardon for a whole life of uncharitableness Let us all therefore labour and study to do Good in our lives let us be daily giving evidences to the World of our kind and charitable disposition and let not that be the first which is discovered in our last Will and Testament If God hath blessed us with worldly goods let us distribute them as we see occasion in our life time when every one may see we do it voluntarily and not stay till we must be forced to part with them whether we will or no for that will blast the credit of our good deeds both with God and man I have said enough concerning the first point recommended in the Text viz. doing Good I now come briefly to Treat of the other that is Rejoycing which is equally a part of the business of this day There is no Good saith Solomon in any earthly thing or there is nothing better for any Man than to rejoyce and to do Good The Rejoycing her recommended is capable of two senses the first more general and more concerning us as Christians the other more particular and which more immediately concerns us as we are here met upon this occasion In the first place by Rejoycing we may take to be meant a constant habit of joy and chearfulness so that we are always contented and well pleased always free from those anxieties and disquiets and uncomfortable reflexions that make the lives of mankind miserable This now is the Perfection of Rejoycing and it is the utmost degree of Happiness that we are here capable of It must be granted indeed that not many do arrive to this state but yet I doubt not but that it is a state that may be attained at least in a great measure in this world Otherwise the Holy Men in Scripture and particularly the Apostles of our Lord would never have recommended it to us so often as they have done Rejoyce evermore 1 Thess 9 16. Phil. 4.4 saith S. Paul to the Thessalonians And to the Philipians Rejoyce in the Lord always and again I say rejoyce The way to attain to this happy condition doth consist chiefly in these three things First a great innocence and vertue a behaving our selves so in the world that our Consciences shall not reproach us This St. Paul lays as the Foundation of Rejoycing This saith he is our rejoycing 2 Cor. 1.12 the Testimony of our Conscience that in simplicity and godly sincerity I have had my conversation in this world It is in vain to think of any true solid Joy or Peace or Contentment without a hearty Practice of all the duties of our Religion so that we can satisfie our selves of our own sincerity before God And then secondly To make us capable of this constant Rejoycing besides the innocence of our lives there must go a firm and hearty persuasion of God's particular Providence a belief that he not only dispenseth all events that come to pass in the World even the most inconsiderable but that the measure of the Dispensations of his Providence is infinite Wisdom and Goodness and nothing else so that nothing doth or ever can happen to us in particular or to the world in general but what is for the best Now when we firmly believe this and frequently attend to it how can we be either solicitous for the future or discontented at the present events of things let them fall out never so cross to our desires and expectations This is the best Antidote in the world and an effectual one it is against all trouble and vexation and uneasiness that can happen to us upon any occasion whatsoever to wit the consideration that all things are managed by an infinitely wise and good God and will at last prove for the best how unaccountable soever they appear to us at present And this is that which the wise man insinuates in the verse before the Text when he saith that God hath made every thing beautiful in his season Thirdly Another requisite both for the procuring and preserving this continual chearfulness and rejoycing is a frequent and fixed attention to the great rewards of the other world which God hath promised to all that truly love him and endeavour to please him This consideration will extreamly add to our comfort and contribute to our Rejoycing under all the miseries and afflictions that we can possibly fall into namely that whatsoever condition we are in here we shall certainly in a little time be in a most happy and glorious one and the worse our circumstances are in this life the greater if we be good shall be our happiness in the next 2. Cor. 4.17 for these light afflictions as S. Pual tells us which indure but for a moment do work for us a far more exceeding weight of glory This then is the joy that we are to endeavour after in the first place to be constantly well pleas'd and contented with our present condition whatever it be and these are the ways to attain to it But Secondly There is another more particular Notion of Rejoycing and which I conceive Solomon doth chiefly intend in the words of the Text and that is the free and comfortable enjoyment of the good things of this life that God hath
I never forsaken nor his seed begging their bread Lastly to conclude this point To do Good besides all these advantages that attend it is most to consult our own Peace and to make the best provision possible for our pleasure and delight Charity as Dr. Hammond used to say is really a piece of Sensuality And Epicurus himself the great Master of Voluptuousness would confess that it was not only more Brave but more Pleasant to do Kindnesses than to receive them And certainly every good man will find it so for as the exercise of Charity and Beneficence is as truly a gratification of our Natural Inclinations and Appetites as any other action or thing that causeth pleasure to us So is it also a gratification of those Appetites which are the highest and the noblest we have Now by how much the appetite that is gratifi'd is more noble and divine by so much must the delight that ariseth from that gratification be more exquisite So that it was no very great Hyperbole of our Divine Poet when he said that All joys go less Than that one joy of doing kindnesses And which is farther to be considered it is not with this pleasure as it is with most others that vanish with the enjoyment nay often leave bitterness and melancholy upon the Mind after they are gone off For to do Good is a permanent pleasure a pleasure that will last as long as our lives The memory of our good actions will always be accompanied with Delight and Satisfaction when all our other past Enjoyments prove matters of anguish and torment to us upon our reflexions on them these will be a refreshment and the nearer we approach to death still the more comfort we shall find in them Would we therefore treasure up to our selves a stock of lasting peace and joy to support us in all conditions of our life and and so make our passage easie at our death let us do all the good we can I think I have said enough to convince any one of the truth of Solomon's Proposition that there is nothing better for a man nothing that more concerns him either in point of duty or happiness than to do good in his life Much more might be said and what hath been said might have been said with more advantage and greater evidence if it had been fit to insist upon every particular but I will pursue this Argument no farther but proceed to the second general point I proposed which is to set before you the practicabieness of this great duty by shewing the several ways which every person though in the meanest Circumstances is capable of doing Good A great many there are that are as strongly convinced as may be that 't is both their Interest and duty to be doing Good in their lives but they complain that it is not in their power they have not any Means or Opportunities for it and they bemoan themselves sadly upon this account as thinking their lives useless because they have not those visible Capacities of being serviceable to the world that others have To such as these let me say this in the general There is no condition in the world so mean and despicable but yields us Opportunities of doing Good There is neither Old nor Young Man nor Woman Rich nor Poor High nor Low Learned nor Unlearned but in their Sphere by a good husbandry of those Talents that God has intrusted to their care and management they may be very useful to others and prove instruments of much good in their generations This truth St. Paul most elegantly sets forth in 1 Cor. 12. where he compares the Society of Christians to a Natural body There he shews that as in the Natural body there are many members and all those members have not the same dignity and honour nor the same use or office and yet every member even the meanest hath its particular use by which it doth real service to the body nay so useful it is that the body cannot be without it so it is with the Church of Christ and with every Body Politick There is a necessity both in the Church and in the State that there should be variety of functions and callings and degrees and conditions There must be some to govern and some to be governed there must be some more conspicuous some more obscure some whose gifts and endowments lie this way and some whose Talents lie in another way and yet there is not one of these but in his degree and station either is or may be as useful as any that belong to the Society So that the eye cannot say to the hand as our Apostle there expresseth it I have no need of thee Nor again the head to the feet I have no need of you nay more those members of the body as he continues that seem to be most feeble are yet very necessary To reduce the Apostle's notion to its particulars or to shew in how many respects every individual person that is a Member of a Society is necessary to the publick and either doth or may serve the Weal of it and so do Good in his life is a task too great for me to undertake at this time let it suffice at the present to propose to you these general heads First of all None can want opportunities of doing Good that is in a capacity of performing any acts of Mercy or Charity stristly so called whether that Charity be shew'd to the Bodies or Souls of men Now the instances and expressions of this way of doing good are infinite as infinite as are the wants and necessities of mankind To the Bodies of men we do good whenever we contribute to the relieving and easing them of the outward pressures and wants and necessities they lie under Such as Sickness Pain Poverty Hunger Nakedness Debts Imprisonment or any other outward affliction that falls upon them whether that ease and relief be effected by our purse or by our counsel and advice or by our labour and pains And sure some one of these three things there is none so mean or inconsiderable in the World but it is in his power to benefit his poor Neighbour with To the Souls of men we do good whenever by our discourses or other endeavours we make men better or wiser when we instruct the ignorant when we satisfie the doubtful when we reduce those that are misled by errour when we establish the weak when we reprove those that do amiss in a word all our attempts and endeavours in what way soever to reclaim men from vice and to bring them to wisdom and sobriety is a Charity to their Souls and whether our designs succeed or not we shall be rewarded as those that have done good in the world Secondly All the acts of Beneficence and kindness nay even of Civility and good Nature are to be accounted among the instances of doing good A man doth Good not only by acts of Charity properly so called
the beginning to the end thereof So that now every one hath free Access to God and a Right to his Favour through the Blood of Jesus Christ And though we have been never so bad never so unworthy yet if we have but the Hearts to forsake our Sins and come to Jesus Christ we shall as certainly obtain the Acceptance and the Love of our Heavenly Father as if we had been Innocent and never sinned at all Nay God is not only willing to receive us but he earnestly begs and sollicits us to take his Mercy And so pleased he is at the Return of a Sinner that our Saviour has told us there is joy in Heaven over such a one Nay more joy among the Angels over a sinner that repenteth than over ninety nine just persons that need no Repentance O how welcome ought this News to be to us How transported should we be at the infinite Kindness of God manifested to us by our Saviour O! praised be God for his astonishing Love For ever adored be our Lord Jesus that has made a Propitiation for us by his Blood O let us for ever kiss and hug the pretious unvaluable Scriptures of the New Testament if there was nothing else in them but that faithful Saying that Saying worthy of all Men to be received That Jesus Christ came into the World to save Sinners to save you and me and all Sinners even the greatest of Sinners O! who is there that is in his Wits would chuse to be out of the Christian Dispensation or be left to the Methods of Nature and Philosophy for the attaining their Happiness as some loose People among us do sometimes talk Were the natural Talents of Mankind exalted far above what they either are or ever have been yet I would value that one Saying That Jesus Christ came into the World to save Sinners more than all the Notions and Speculations of Reason and Philosophy I would desire to know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified I would with the Apostle count all things as loss nay as Dung in comparison of the Excellency of the Knowledge of Christ Jesus my Saviour and that I may be found in him not having my own Righteousness which is by Nature but that Righteousness which is by the Faith of Jesus Christ who gave himself for me And thus much of Christ's appearing to put away Sin in the first Notion of that Expression But Secondly Christ appeared to put away Sin in another sense That is to say To destroy the Power and Dominion of it from among Men to abolish it so as that it should not henceforth reign in our mortal Bodies To free us from Sin as the Apostle speaks that is to enable us to lead holy and virtuous Lives So that whereas Mankind heretofore yielded their Members Servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity so they should now yield their Members Servants to righteousness unto holiness Thus to put away Sin was as principal an End of Christ's coming as the other before mentioned nay perhaps more principal For the other in true reasoning may be said to be wholly in order to this Certain it is unless this End be attained the other will signifie nothing to us For we are not capable of any Benefit from that Remission of Sin which was purchased for us by Christ until our Sins be put away by Repentance and and we become holy Persons by the change and renewal of our Natures Never therefore let us deceive our selves Though Christ hath actually put away all the Sins of the World in the former sense by his satisfaction that is to say hath procured the Pardon of them hath taken away the Sting of them so as that they shall not be deadly to any Yet all this is upon supposition that the Strength of them be taken away in us that they have no Dominion over us that we mortifie them in all our Members that we daily die to them and live a Life of Righteousness All that Christ merited or purchased for the World will not do us the least good unless we be made conformable to him in his Death and Resurrection by our dying to Sin and living to Righteousness And in truth if we will mind it the putting away Sin in this sense of it hath as great weight laid upon it in Scripture and is as often assigned for the great End and Business of Christ's appearance as the other St. John tells us plainly that for this purpose was the Son of God manifested that he might destroy the works of the Devil And St. Paul likewise tells us that he therefore gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works And lastly St. Peter gives the same account of his coming Acts 3.26 where he tells us that therefore God raised up his Son Jesus that is sent him into the World for his raising up there spoken of as any one will see that looks into the Context was not his being raised from the dead but his being manifested to Mankind For here the Apostle's business is to apply that Promise or Prophesie of Moses unto our Saviour viz. That God would in due time raise up to his People a Prophet like unto him whom they should all be obliged to hearken to I say therefore God raised up his Son Jesus i. e. sent him into the World that he might bless his People in turning every one of them from their Iniquities This turning every one from their Iniquities was the great End for which our Lord Jesus Christ was manifested unto Mankind And indeed Reason will teach us all this as well as Revelation For in the nature of the thing none can be truly Happy but those that are truly Pious And in the same degree and proportion that any one is wicked or is under the power of his Lusts in the same degree he must needs be miserable So that if Christ came to be our Saviour and in that meant either to make us happy or to keep us from being miserable there was an absolute necessity that his first and principal Design must be to root out of our Nature all Sin and Wickedness and to restore the Image of God in our Minds which consists in unchangeable Purity and Holiness and Goodness Away therefore with all those Hypotheses that give such an account of Christ's coming into the World as to make the ultimate End of it to be the freeing us from Hell and Damnation and purchasing Heaven and Eternal Life for us but without any respect had to the renewing our Natures or the making us sincerely Holy and Virtuous All such accounts of Christ's Undertaking are monstrously unreasonable and absurd For not to insist upon the manifest Affront they put upon God's Justice and Holiness in making Him the great Patron of Sin whilst they assert Him to be the Justifier of wicked Men even whilst they continue wicked
that the Souls Immortality is demonstrable by the light of Nature yet there are generally these two Inconveniences in the Arguments they make use of for the Proof of this matter which render them in a great measure ineffectual for the reforming mens lives First They are generally of so great Subtilty so Nice so Metaphysical so much above the reach of ordinary Capacities that they are useless to the greatest part of Mankind who have not understandings fitted for them And Secondly They have this inconvenience likewise that a Man doth not see the Evidence of them without actual attention to a long Train of Propositions which attention it may be when a Man most stands in need of their Support he shall neither have the leisure nor the humour to give But now the Christian Method of proving another Life is quite of another strain and wholly free from these inconveniences That Demonstration which Christ hath given us of a glorious Immortality by his Resurrection from the dead as it is infinitely certain and conclusive so it is plain and easy short and compendious powerful and operative No Man that believes the matter of Fact can deny the Cogency of it Men of the meanest Capacities may apprehend it Persons in a crowd of business and in the midst of temptations may attend to it And it hath this Vertue besides that it leaves a lasting impression upon the Spirits of those that do believe and consider it Thanks therefore to our Lord Jesus Christ for this excellent Instrument of Piety that he hath given us by his Resurrection Everlasting Praises to his name that he hath thus brought Life and Immortality to light by his Gospel This very thing alone was there nothing else to be said for the Christian Revelation would sufficiently justify both the Gospel it self and our Lord Jesus the Author of it to all Mankind nay and effectually recommend his Religion above all others that ever were taught to all Persons in all Nations of the World IV. Fourthly and Lastly There is still a further Blessing coming to us by our Saviour's Resurrection from the dead and in which indeed is chiefly seen and expressed the great Power of it for the making us Holy and Vertuous That is to say Unto it we do principally owe all that supernatural Grace and Assistance by which we are enabled to vanquish our Corruptions and to live up to the Precepts of our Religion As Christ by his Resurrection did oblige us to lead new lives As Christ by his Resurrection did demonstrate the truth of the Christian Religion which is wholly in order to our leading new lives As by his Resurrection he cleared up to us the certainty of our future State and thereby gave us the greatest Motive and Encouragement to lead new lives So in the last place by the same Resurrection he acquired a Power of conferring Grace and Strength and Influence upon us by the Virtue of which we are in fact inabled to lead new lives Tho' Christ by his death reconciled us to God and procured a Pardon of Sin for us yet the actual benefit of this Reconciliation the actual application of this Pardon did depend upon our performance of certain Conditions Which conditions were that we should mortify all our evil affections and frame our Lives suitable to the Laws of the Gospel But now the Grace and Power by which we are inabled to do this was not the effect of Christ's Death but of his Resurrection It was when he ascended up on high and led Captivity Captive that is when he had vanquished Death which had vanquished all the World before It was then as the Scripture assures us and not till then that he was in a capacity of giving gifts unto men It was not till he was glorified as St. John observes that the holy spirit was given Hence it is that we every where find the Apostles attributing the business of Man's Justification and Salvation as much or more to Christ's Resurrection than to his Passion If Christ be not risen saith St. Paul 1 Cor. xv your Faith is in vain ye are yet in your Sins Indeed if Christ had perished in the Grave we had still had all the load of our sins upon us because we had no assurance that God had accepted the Atonement and Propitiation which he had made for them And much less could we have promised to our selves that we should have been assisted by any Divine Power for the subduing of them Again the same St. Paul tells us Rom. iv that Christ was delivered for our sins and raised again for our justification Christ's Death was the Sacrifice the Satisfaction for our Sins But it was by the means of his Resurrection that that Sacrifice and Satisfaction is applied to us and we for the merits of it become justified before God Lastly To name no more Texts Who saith the same Apostle Rom. viii shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods elect It is God that justifyeth Who is he that condemneth It is Christ that died yea rather that is risen again who is even at the right hand of God who also maketh intercession for us Here then is the great Power of our Saviour's Resurrection to make us good Christ being risen from the dead hath all Power given him both in Heaven and in Earth God as St. Paul expresseth it hath put all things under his feet and hath given him to be head over all things to the Church Eph. 1.22 Now in the fullness of that Power that he is invested with as he doth on one hand with never-failing efficacy make continual Intercession for his Church and every Member of it So he doth on the other hand out of the fulness of that Power derive and communicate so much Strength and Grace and Assistance of the Divine Spirit to all Christians that if they make a good use of it they shall not fail to perform all those Conditions of Faith and Repentance and a Holy Life that are required of them in order to their being made actual partakers of all those unspeakable Benefits which he purchased for Mankind by his Death and Sufferings Christ by his Resurrection is become both our High-Priest and our King both our Advocate and our Lord. By that Power which he then obtained as our Priest and Advocate he doth with Authority recommend us and all our concernments to his Father As our King and Lord he rules and governs us he takes care of us he provides for us he represses the insults of his and our Enemies and defeats all their attempts against us And lastly he supplies us from time to time with such a measure of Grace and Strength and influence of his Divine Spirit as he sees is needful or proper for our Condition If all this now that I have said be the effect of our Saviour's Resurrection as it certainly is Must we not needs own that there is a mighty Power in it for the making us good