Foundation of that upon the first and great Commandment Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy Heart and with all thy Soul and with all thy Strength We need not to question but where-ever there is such a Love of God as is here required there will be true Godliness in all the parts of it And where this is wanting all external shews of Devotion want the true Life and Spirit of it For it is the Love of God which makes all our weak and imperfect Services to be acceptable to him and without it all our Prayers and our Fastings and all other appearances of Devotion are empty and infipid Formalities Not but that the Acts themselves are commendable but they are like a Body without a Soul dull and heavy or like the leaves of a Tree in Autumn which make a great noise in the Wind but are dry sapless and soon fall to the Ground But where the Love of God prevails it keeps up the Life and Order and Vigour of Devotion and preserves it from being tainted by hypocrisie or choaked by the love of this World or decaying from want of Constancy and Resolution Thus I have set before you some of the most remarkable Duties of Christianity not such as depend on the Opinions and Fancies of men but such as our Blessed Saviour the great Law-giver of his Church hath made the necessary Conditions of our Salvation by him And what now can we say for our selves We do call Christ Lord Lord or else we renounce our Baptismal Vow and all hopes of Salvation by him But can we say that we love God when we love what he hates viz. Sin Can we say we love him with all our Heart and Soul when our Hearts are so much divided between him and the Vanities of this World Can we say we love him with all our Might when our Love to God is apt to grow cold and remiss upon any apprehension of Difficulties Can we say that we love our Neighbour as our Selves when we despise and scorn him or over-reach and defraud him or oppress and ruin him If it go not so far are we as tender of his Reputation as of our own as unwilling to see him injured as ready to help him in his Necessities as we should desire it from others if we were in the same Circumstances If strict Sobriety and Temperance be the Duties of Christians where are those Virtues to be generally found I do not speak of particular Persons but I am afraid there is hardly such a thing left as a Sober Party among us What profane customary Swearing is every-where to be met with What Complaints are daily made of the Abounding of all sorts of Wickedness even to an open Scorn and Contempt not barely of Christianity but of any kind of Religion For many who have long denied the Power seem to be grown weary of the very Form of Godliness unless it serves some particular End and Design So that if we look abroad in the World we find little Regard shew'd to the Precepts of Christ and yet those who commit these things call Christ Lord Lord. What is the meaning of all this gross Hypocrisie Nothing would have been thought more Absurd or Ridiculous than for one who used no kind of Abstinence to be thought a Pythagorean or one that indulged his Passions à Stoick or one who eats Flesh and drinks Wine a Brachman or Banian It is really as much for any one to break the known and particular Precepts of Christ and yet desire to be thought a Christian. For a loose profane and debauched Christian is a Contradiction in Morality it is to be a Christian against Christ to call him Lord Lord and yet to defie his Laws and Authority A Star without Light a Guide without Eyes a Man without Reason a Sun with nothing but Spots are not more absurd Suppositions than a Christian without any Grace or Vertue But let us say what we will there are and will be such who will own Christ and call him Lord Lord and yet will not part with their sins for him There were multitudes of such formerly who would lay down their Lives for the Ground he trod on and yet would not mortifie one Sin for his sake The Reason is still the same which our Saviour mentions they hope that calling him Lord Lord will make amends for all and yet it is not possible that fairer warning should be given to any than he hath given in this Case that let them pretend what they will he will say to them at â—he great Day Depart from me all ye workers of Iniquity O dreadful Sentence Not to be mention'd without Horrour not to be thought upon without Astonishment How miserable for ever miserable must their condition be whom Christ at that day shall bid to Depart from him What is this some will be apt to say but to put all Christians into utter Despair For who is there that can say that he hath done all that Christ hath said Truly we have a sufficient Ground for deep Humility and serious Repentance and timely Reformation But there is a great difference between the Failing of our Duty and the Works of Iniquity between the Infirmities of those who sincerely endeavour to do his Will and the Presumptuous Sins of those who despise it between Sins committed and heartily repented of and Sins habitually practised and continued in without any Marks of Amendment Such must go out of this World in a State of Sin and therefore can expect nothing but that dreadfull Sentence which I tremble at the very thoughts of Repeating But there are others who in the sincerity of â—heir Hearts have endeavour'd to do his Will and whose Sincerity will be so far accepted by him that he will say to them at that Day Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the Foundation of the World To which God of his infinite Mercy bring us through the Mediation of Christ Jesus our Lord. SERMON VIII Preached before the QUEEN AT WHITE-HALL March the 13 th 1691 2 Romans VIII 6. For to be carnally minded is Death but to be spiritually minded is Life and Peace IN thâ—se Words is imply'd a Distribution of Mankind into those who are carnally and spiritually minded which Distinction is so large and comprehensive as to take in all sorts and conditions of Men and of so great Moment and Importance that their Life or Death Happiness or Misery depend upon it But considering the Mixture of Good and Evil in Mankind it is not an easie matter to set the Bounds of the carnal and spiritual Mind and considering the frequent Impunity and Security of bad Men and the Fears and Troubles which the best are not exempted from it seems next to impossible to make out at least as to this Life that to be carnally minded is Death but to be spiritually minded is Life and Peace Yet our Apostle doth
believe no Life after this be compared with the Pains and Martyrdoms of those who have suffer'd for their Religion these will appear to be far more eligible than the other because the Mind hath far greater Satisfaction under them and a certain Expectation of an infinite Reward to follow upon them Whereas the other can have no Comfort in looking back on what they have done or forward in what they are to expect For they have destroy'd their own Happiness and hasten'd that upon themselves which they account their only Misery 2. As to the common Calamities of Life which none can prevent or avoid the spiritual Mind hath very much the Advantage of the carnal for the one â—ills them with inward Peace and Satisfaction of Mind which of all things carry Men best through the Troubles of Life being joyned with Patience Humility Self-denial and Submission to the Will of God which are all the genuine Effects of a spiritual Mind but a carnal Mind is froward and impatient uneasie to it self and to all about it and this makes every Pain and Trouble to be much greater than it would have been like the Ass in the Fable Which lay down in the Water with his Burthen of Wool and so made it heavier than before There were two things the philosophical Men of Pleasure sought to comfort themselves by under the unavoidable Troubles of Life which the spiritual Mind hath far greater Advantages than any of them had as to both of them and these are Reflection and Expectation 1. Reflection When Epicurus was in his last Agonies under the Stone what a miserable way was it for him to go about to comfort himself by reflecting upon his Atoms and his Maxims his imaginary Notion of the Happiness of Life consisting in Pleasure when his Life was so near being ended by excessive Pain But a good Man that hath sincerely endeavour'd to serve God in his Generation and to do all the good he could and to promote the Interests of Religion and Vertue in the World may in the Midst of many Failings and Infirmities look back with comfort on the Course of his former Life and by the Peace of a good Conscience may injoy inward Satisfaction under such Pains and Distempers which make Life uneasie and Death more welcome as it is a Passage to a far better State And that is the next thing 2. Expectation It was a sorrowfull Expectation which Epicurus supported himself with when he was in the Prospect of Death which was no more than that the subtle Atoms which made up his Soul would soon be scatter'd and dispersed he knew not where and then he should be as if he had never been But what Comfort is there in such a Dissolution Men that have deserved it may heartily wish it but they have deserved something worse and that they must expect For the just and holy God will certainly call them to an Account for all their Vices and Follies and it is a fearfull thing to fall into the hands of the living God and what a miserable Case are those in who have nothing to look for but Judgment and fiery Indignation which shall consume the Adversaries of God and Religion But O the blessed Hope and joyfull Expectation that attends a spiritual Mind Especially when it is enliven'd and assisted by the powerfull Influences of Divine Grace For without that even good Men may be liable to some Dejections and Fears as to another World from the Vastness of the Change the Sense of their Failings the Weakness of their Minds and Mistrust of their own Fitness for Heaven but so great is the Goodness and Mercy of God towards them that sincerely love and fear him that he always makes their Passage safe though it be not so triumphant And although the Valley of the Shadow of Death may seem gloomy and uncomfortable at a Distance yet when God is pleased to conduct his Servants through it he makes it a happy Passage into a State of a glorious Immortality and everlasting Life and Peace To which God c. SERMON IX Preached before the King and Queen AT WHITE-HALL ON Christmass-Day 1693. St. John III. 17. For God sent not his Son into the World to condemn the World but that the World through him might be saved THese words are part of the Gospel written by St. John wherein he doth not only fill up the History of our Saviour with many particular Discourses omitted by the other Evangelists but the whole seems to be penned in another Strain and with some different Purpose and Design It 's true that they all agree in the same general End of Writing which St. John mentions viz. That we might believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God and that believing we might have life through his Name but they make use of several Methods as most agreeable to the Circumstances of the Time and Place and Occasion of their Writing St. Matthew wrote his Gospel for the sake of the Jews and therefore he begins with the Genealogy of Jesus Christ from Abraham and shews that the Prophecies were accomplished in him and how he came not to destroy the Law but to fulfill it and that his Miracles and Doctrine were sufficient to convince them that he was the promised Messias St. Mark wrote only a summary Account of the most material Passages relating to the Person and Doctrine of Christ for the sake of the Gentiles St. Luke takes a larger Compass and puts things into an exacter Order of Time as himself tells us and adds many Circumstances relating to the Birth of Christ and the general Advantage to Mankind by his coming that he was to be a Light to lighten the Gentiles as well as the Glory of his People Israel St. John succeeding the rest found two great things which gave him occasion of writing his Gospel 1. The perverting the Doctrine of Christ by the Ebionites and Cerinthians who pretended to give great Honour to Christ as an excellent Person both for Wisdom and Holiness but yet so that he was but a meer Man to whom God upon his Baptism had given extraordinary Gifts and Assistances of his Holy Spirit 2. The other was that the Gospel which was designed for the Universal good of the World met with such cold Reception and Entertainment from it He was in the World and the World was made by him and the World knew him not He came unto his own and his own received him not What could be more uneasie to so true a lover of Christ as St. John was than that he lived to see his Doctrine perverted and his Design in so great a Measure rendred ineffectual And therefore in the writing of this Gospel 1. He begins after another manner and in a very short significant and lofty Style he sets forth his Eternal Being and Godhead In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word
the least Reflection or Consideration would make them see how bad their condition is For they have no true Sense of God or Religion at all they have no serious thoughts or apprehensions of Divine and Spiritual things this World they pretend to know something of and have too great an Esteem of the Vanities and Pleasures of it for these wholly take up their Hearts and Time and they have a savour and relish for any thing that tends to their Greatness or Honour or Entertainment of their Appetites or Fancies here buâ— if we speak to them of another World of God and Heaven and a Spiritual Disposition of Soul either they look on us with Amazement as if they were insensible of such things or else with Scorn and Contempt as if we went about to deceive them Alas They are too wise to be imposed upon by us and they have other things to mind I am sure not greater or weightier which take up all their Time and so what through the Business and the Impertinencies of this World their Time passeth away as a Table that is told and as though it were a pleasant Tale they are troubled only to think it will be so soon at an End But these are not the Persons who require any such Care to pass a right Judgment upon them for they can pretend to nothing that is spiritual as to the Tempers and Dispositions of their Minds and therefore such as these must be set aside for it is too apparent that they are only sensual and carnally minded But as the Papists distinguish of the Body of Christ so may we of the carnal Mind there is a gross and Capernaitical Sense and there is a more refined and if I may use the Expression a more Spiritual Sense of it For altho' it be a great Absurdity in them to suppose that a meer Body can be after the Manner of a Spirit yet it is not so to suppose a Carnal Mind to have a Mixture of some Spiritual Qualities and Dispositions in it And this makes the difference so much harder to be perceived between the carnally and spiritually minded since there are the same Faculties of Perception Reasoning and Application in both and the same common Principles of Religion may be owned by both which may in Reason be supposed to make some Impression on the Minds of the more ingenuous Part of Mankind who are not given over to such a Reprobate Sense as the former were Now how to distinguish between frequent good Impressions on the Mind and an habitual Temper and Disposition is not so easie to all who are concerned to distinguish them And yet a Person may be throughly convinced of his Sins and tremble at the Apprehension of the Justice and Severity of God against them he may have many Checks and Reluctancies of Conscience while he goes on to commit them he may sigh and groan and lament under the wretchedness of his Condition by his Love of Sin and yet may love his Sins all the while more than God or Heaven or any thing in Competition with them The difference doth not lie in the Nature or Number of the Impressions from without but in the inward Principle of Action A Cistern may be full of Water falling down from Heaven which may run as long as that holds which fell into it but a Spring hath it rising up within and so continues running when the other is spent A carnal Mind may have many Spiritual Convictions and good Motions and Inclinations but after a time they wear off and leave no lasting Effect behind them but where there is a Spring in the Soul there is a fresh and continual Supply of such Inclinations as keep up a constant Course of a Spiritual Life which our Saviour calls Rivers of living Water I confess it is hard to determine what a Habit or Principle abiding in our Minds is yet the Scripture doth evidently suppose such a thing when it speaks of the New Birth and the New Life and the New Creature and the Children of God all which are very insignificant Terms if there be not under them something answerable to the First Principles of Life and if there be not a Divine Spirit dwelling and acting in the Souls of good Men and raising them up above carnal and sensual Objects to things Divine and Spiritual and carrying them through the Passage of this World so as to prepare them for a better But yet there may be many things which carry some Resemblance to this Principle within which come not up to it There may be such Principles of Education and good Manners such Awakenings of Conscience such a Strength of Natural Reason and common Ingenuity as may carry one on to do some very good things and yet he may fall short of having a true Principle of Spiritual Life in him But then there must be another Principle within which contradicts this and prevails over it and carries him on to the Love of Sin which proves too strong for the Love of God and the due Regard to Spiritual things The Result of this Discourse is since the Carnal Mind is not to be taken meerly for such a one which stands out in opposition to the Gospel nor for such a one which is insensible of Spiritual things but such as may consist with a common Profession of Religion and have the same Convictions and good Impressions which others have it doth require a more than ordinary Acquaintance with our selves to be able to judge aright whether the Temper of our Minds be Carnal or Spiritual 2. But this is not all for since there is so great a Mixture of Good and Evil in the better sort of Mankind there is required not barely Knowledge of our selves but a good Judgment too to adjust the Proportions of Good and Evil in particular Persons so as to be able to judge whether we are carnally or spiritually minded For as those who are Carnal while they follow their carnal Inclinations may have many inward Strugglings by spiritual Convictions so those who are spiritually minded may meet with many Combats from the Flesh which may be troublesome where it cannot prevail But there is a great difference between the Spirit struggling against the Flesh in the carnally minded and the Flesh struggling against the Spirit in those who are spiritually minded For where there is no perfect Victory there will be some Opposition and the best have so many Failings to complain of in this World so many Infirmities and Defects in their good Actions so many Passions not brought into their due Order so many Omissions of Personal and Relative Duties such Variety of Tempers and Weakness of Resolution such Coldness in Devotion and unreasonable Dejections of Mind so many unaccountable Fears and such dreadfull Apprehensions of Death and the Consequences of it that these things must make great Abatements as to such as are truly spiritually minded But by all these things the
far before it for if they do not they have no Reason to expect any Happiness in it Why then should it be thought more unreasonable for God to bestow the Happiness of another Life on those who esteem and choose it than to give the good things of this Life to those who love and admire it I do not say the Wisdom is equal in the Choice but the Goodness of God is wonderfull in both Aâ—d there can be no imaginable Grounâ— to suspect that God should be really less kind to those who love him best It is a vain thing to talk of those being saved by Christ's coming into the World who do not heartily love God and keep his Commandments for the whole Design of the Gospel is to perswade us to one in order to the other and therefore it is not a well-grounded Hope but a fond Imagination for any to expect Salvation by Christ on any other Terms If we then take in the whole Hypothesis or true Scheme of Christianity together it is no other than that God sent his Son into the World that the World through him might be saved not by continuing in the sinfull Practices of this World which St. John calls the Lust of the Flesh the Lust of the Eye and the Pride of Life but by subduing and mortifying all disorderly Passions do prepare themselves for a better State Now if there be in our Minds a firm Perswasion of the infinite Goodness of God of which we are convinced by meer Natural Reason why should it be thought hard to believe that God should take care of so great and good an End as the Eternal Salvation of those who truly love and obey him II. The next Principle agreeable to Natural Reason and Religion is That no such thing as Salvation or Happiness in a future State can be expected without the particular Favour of God For all who do own Natural Religion must agree that the Soul of Man is an immortal thinking Being and therefore its Happiness must consist in such a sort of thinking as carries the greatest Pleasure and Satisfaction along with it Let us think with our selves what a Soul separate from the Body can do to make it self happy Here it was intangled corrupted and therefore apt to be deceived by the false Appearances of things which glide through the Senses and leave too lasting Impressions on the Mind and thereby it comes to mistake Shews for Substance and meer Colours for Realities But this is a Mistake so common and so fatal to Mankind that very few are throughly undeceived in this World for one way or other they are apt to flatter themselves with some pleasing Mistakes and delightfull Errors of Life But assoon as the Soul is dislodged from this cloudy Mansion in the Body all things will then appear not as by an uncertain Sky light in a dark Room but in an open and distinct View and then it will be impossible to be any longer deceived by false Representations of things What then can be conceived sufficient to entertain and please the Mind Will it be the Reflection on the past Pleasures of the Body No certainly for those cannot bear a severe Reflection now and the very thoughts of them make Men's minds very uneasie for the most tempting Pleasures of Sin leave no gratefull Relish behind them How then should the Mind bear up it self in another State when its Reflections must be far more constant and severe What then Can the Mind lay it self asleep and put it self into a State of unthinking That were all one as a kind of Self-annihilation if it be of a thinking Nature There is a State of unthinking in this World which is too common when the Mind is as it were overwhelmed and stifled with Feathers I mean is so taken up with trifling and vain Imaginations as hardly give way to one serious Thought But this is impossible in another State and therefore nothing but what will bear a most strict and severe Scrutiny can give any Support or Comfort to the Mind then It must be true and real good to create any Satisfaction it must be durable and lasting to keep it up it must be complete and perfect to answer all the just and reasonable Desires of an immortal Soul And what can this be less than God himself And therefore the Christian Religion speaks most agreeably to Natural Reason when it still supposes the Happiness of another World to consist in the Presence and Enjoyment of God For those must have all that is desirable who enjoy the Favour of him who commands all things and knows how to suit them to the greatest Advantage to those to whom he designs to shew his Favour And this Prospect of another State or of the Salvation of Mankind by Christ s coming into the World is that which lets us into another View of all that relates to the Son of God's coming into the World For if our Minds be possessed with great Apprehensions of the Power and Greatness of the World all that the Gospel represents as to the manner of God's sending his Son into the World his being born of an obscure Virgin being laid in the common Manger being bred up in a private Place having so mean Followers meeting with so cold a Reception from his own People and at last being exposed to an ignominious Death by them looks very reproachfull and contemptible But on the other side if we could raise our Minds to such Idea's of things here as the glorious Spirits above have and see how all things are esteemed by them according to the Ends and Purposes they are designed for we should then perceive how admirably all these things were fitted for his great End which was to wean Men's hearts from the Pomp and Vanities of this World and to prepare them for a better and we should then have quite another Opinion of these things For as there is a certain Greatness which is above all the formal Shews and affected Appearances of it so when a great and noble Design is to be carried on the true Measure of Decorum in that Case is that which is most serviceable to the principal End If a great Person had a Design to rescue some near Relations out of Slavery he would never go with a splendid Equipage and a long Train of Attendance which would but make his Person more gazed at and his Design less effectual If he had intended to have rescued them by force out of Captivity it had been necessary to have had Power and Strength proportionable to his Design but if it were only by Perswasion then he must accommodate himself to such Methods as were most likely to prevail The great End of the coming of Christ was to deliver the Souls of Men from a much worse Captivity viz. of their own sinfull Passions and the Devil's Tyranny by their means but he did not come in a way of Violence to break open the Prison-doors