endeavors to know the Covenant of God revealed in the Gospel whether enjoining the Duty he expects from us or promising those benefits and rewards in this or the other life which we may expect from him this very Promise we have again repeated Prov. 3.32 His secret is with the righteous it had been enough if God had passed his but once but since he hath so often repeated it we cannot doubt but that good men shall be blessed with a better apprehension of the things of the Gospel than others In John 8. the like Promises are made and the like Conditions upon which they are made are annexed ver 12. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness but shall have the light of life shall know all things requisite to Life Eternal ver 32. Ye shall know the truth but 't is upon this condition ver 33. that ye continue in my word and John 14.21 I will love and manifest my self to every one that loveth me and keepeth my Commandments Upon the account of these and the like Promises as well as upon other grounds we may say with the Psalmist Psal 111. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom it is the best most auspicious entrance upon it and they that do thereafter have a good understanding having good security that they cannot fail of it To conclude this particular From all these Promises we may be most assured that every man following the rule of Christ shall not fail of so much knowledge as will secure his Eternal Life and even that is a mighty encouragement to observe this Rule If any of us were sure that some Angel attended us constantly observing all our actions insinuating good counsels and exciting good thoughts when our Passions grow wild and we are on the brink of sin it would infuse a great regard of all we did into us and we should reckon our selves happy men Certainly it is more happy to be under the guidance of the Holy Spirit of God what can be more desirable than to have him who is Wisdom it self opening our ears and sealing Instruction to us blessing our searches into holy things and accompanying our meditations with a ready and prosperous apprehension And this is that we are sure of whilst we are in the way of doing God's will because we are sure he is not slack in his Promises But this advantage will appear so much the greater if we consider that God doth sometimes deliver up wicked men to darkness of understanding and hath threatned that he will do so That he has done so St. Paul shews plainly Rom. 1. by the example of the Gentiles because they detained the truth in unrighteousness ver 19. and did not glorify God with that knowledge which he had given them they first became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkned ver 21. So they fell to Idolatry ver 22. and then we find that he gave them up to vile affections and a reprobate i. e. an undiscerning mind which knew no difference between good and evil and that God will deal so with us if we deny him by our works 't is but reasonable to expect tho' he had not said it but he hath given us sufficient warning in the threatning to the Church of Ephesus Rev. 2. Repent and do thy first works or else I will come unto thee quickly and remove thy candlestick out of its place their Candlestick is removed and now they are in Turkish darkness and so the burden of Ephesus is fulfilled But why I beseech you should that admonition be so often repeated in the second and third Chapters He that hath ears to hear let him hear what the Spirit saith to the seven Churches but to let us know that the threatnings there denounced belong to the Churches of Europe as well as of Asia and to England as well as to Ephesus And seeing every one has ears to hear and therefore ought to hear therefore every particular man is as liable to the same severity as whole Churches and therefore as by the sins of a Nation God may be provoked to deliver it up to darkness and delusion and to believe lies so for the sins of particular persons he may give them over to a Lying spirit and suffer Seducers to prevail upon them so that they shall not see the plainest truths in Religion nor discern the most gross and monstrous Errors Because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved for this cause God shall send them strong delusions that they should believe a lie that they might all be damned who believed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness 2 Thes 2.11 It is not therefore unreasonable to conclude that the contempt of all holy things that reigns amongst many wicked men is from the Judgment of God giving them up to a reprobate mind their habitual Vices have violated their natural Instincts and raised out the sense of good and evil and moreover the vengeance of God's wrath is upon them giving them over to their own vileness permitting them to run on in wickedness without the checks and restraints of his good Spirit and to defy the goodness of God and to laugh at Counsels and Admonitions and to make haste to their own perdition thereby fulfilling that Prophecy of Daniel referring to the Times of the Gospel The wicked shall do wickedly and none of the wiched shall understand Dan. 12.10 Of what hath been said the sum is this If godliness be in it self a fit means to promote the knowledge of truth if it hath moreover a sure word of promise which the unrighteous have not That the righteous shall be assisted in the search of truth and if on the other hand ungodly men are under so many natural impediments that obstruct the knowledge of the truth and moreover lye under such severe threatnings of blindness it must needs follow that supposing the Good and the Bad to be equally endued with natural Abilities of understanding and equally enjoying the external means of knowledge that the former has vast advantages yet above the latter which was the first thing to be shown The Second is That there is some knowledge of Divine things that cannot be attained by the wicked man while he so continues though in other respects he be never so much superior to the righteous and that is the experimental knowledge of Religion which does above all other things confirm the Faith of a good Christian he that doth the will of God understands the power of good Principles to fortify him against temptations to restrain him from sin to keep him to his Duty to render it pleasant and delightful to him to moderate him in his prosperity and to support him in adversity and by all this he understands the great worth and excellency of true Religion incomparably better than any man who can talk learnedly and argue dexterously about it but never felt the
seems to be the plainest yet he repeats the substance of this For if ye forgive not men their trespasses neither will your heavenly Father forgive you your trespasses But then with what face can they pretend to be Christians with what quiet can they think of a Future Judgment who take pleasure in the doing of Injuries and Wrongs who are as forward to trespass against their Brother as they are backward to forgive their Brother's Trespasses If I were to describe what a true Christian is by taking some one point of Christian duty the performance whereof does in all reasonable construction imply all the rest it should be this That he is one who would not for the world do the least injury but can forgive the greatest And God grant that this may be our practice for the rest of our lives The Ninth Sermon AN Assize Sermon MATTH 5.34 35 36 37. But I say unto you Swear not at all neither by heaven for it is God's throne nor by the earth for it is his footstool neither by Jerusalem for it is the City of the great King neither shalt thou swear by thy head because thou canst not make one hair white or black but let your communication be yea yea nay nay for whatsoever is more than this cometh of evil THat Religion and the fear of God and a sense of his Authority are Principles supposed by the Laws of God is from hence evident that in great part the process of our Courts depends upon Testimony given under the obligation of an Oath for though the use of an Oath there is required by Humane Authority yet the peculiar obligation it lays upon us to speak the Truth is antecedent to all Humane Laws being founded originally upon our Duty to God wherefore though an Oath in respect of some use and end of it may be a Civil Act yet in respect of the reason whereby it obligeth it is an Act of Religion for this reason it is highly conducible to the end of Civil Government to maintain a sense of Religion in the minds of men and particularly it must be of great use to make them observe those Laws of God which are plainly designed to secure the reverence which is due to an Oath and to keep men at a wide distance from the danger of Perjury Such is that Law of our Saviour which I have read to you which therefore doth not tend more to the Honour of God than to the Common Good of Mankind and this no man can be ignorant of who considers what a vast influence the use of an Oath hath upon all the Affairs of Humane Life This is that whereby we come to confide in one another about things of the greatest moment to our lives this is that which is so often necessary to secure our Properties to save us from wrong and to make even our Enemy to do us right it is this which all Processes in Courts of Judicature are governed by which is supposed to all Administrations of Justice and gives an end to all Controversies about matters of Fact which will be no otherways decided it is this which must either direct or misguide the wisest Magistrates and make their Sentence it self either right or wrong and by which we are either strongly guarded against Injury or almost inevitably exposed to it of how great consequence therefore must it be to the good of all men to have the reverence of an Oath secured and to make every man tremble at the thought of Perjury since the World cannot be well-governed nor the Administrations of Justice go forward without the use of Oaths and yet we had better be without them in as many cases as there are wherein Men are not afraid to be Forsworn and yet alas it is the daily complaint of our Age that the fear of an Oath is almost banished out of the World And although it be really a thousand times more dreadful to profane the Name of God by calling him to be a witness to our Lies than it would be to play before the Mouth of a Canon while it was Firing yet if we may believe the Reports which are sometimes made from Courts of Judicature there are very few Peasants so pusillanimous but they are hardy enough to Swear to any thing and with equal confidence to contradict one another in the plainest matters and when under an equal obligation to speak the Truth by the Invocation of the dreadful Name of God Now if we would enquire how the sacredness of an Oath is grown into such contempt I do not question but the common and frequent use of Swearing in our ordinary Conversation would be found at least accessary to that dishonour which is done to God and that mischief to men by the so frequent Perjuries of our Age. Oaths are grown so familiar with us that men have forgotten the nature and true use of them and are not sensible that they call the Divine Vengeance upon themselves if their Testimonies be not exactly true they have been prostituted to the meanest Services and profan'd by common use and then no wonder if the Sacred Obligation peculiar to them be forgotten when they are used in those special cases for which they ought to be reserved therefore if we would do any thing to recover the fear of an Oath amongst our Countrey-men we must endeavour to do it by means contrary to those whereby it hath been so generally lost that is by abstaining our selves and not only so but by disswading and restraining others as much as in us lies from that familiar and fashionable Swearing which is one of the great reproaches of our Age to which end I shall endeavour to explain the meaning and reason of these words of our Saviour And in them I shall consider 1. The Law it self Swear not at all but let your communication be yea yea nay nay 2. The sanction and reason of this Law viz. 1. The Authority of our Saviour But I say unto you 2. The nature of the thing it self For whatsoever is more than this cometh of evil In the Law it self we are to consider the Prohibition and the Precept 1. The Prohibition which contains 1. A general Rule Swear not at all 2. Some particular instances whereto the Rule extends Neither by Heaven nor by Earth nor by Hierusalem nor by thy head 3. The Reason why the Rule extends to these Instances not by Heaven for it is God's Throne not by the Earth for it is his Footstool not by Hierusalem for it is the City of the great King not by thy Head for thou canst not make one hair white or black Let us begin with the general Rule Swear not at all from which words the Anabaptists and Quakers have contended that an Oath or an Appeal to God that what we say is true is in no case lawful I shall here shew the contrary and prove that the meaning of the Rule is this That we are not to Swear
third Principle of Revealed Religion the belief whereof is necessary to Godliness and Virtue is That God is ready to assist our endeavours of doing his will Lastly it is possible to be alledged by the natural man That though all these things be true yet he hath no sufficient inducement to Religion and Virtue unless he were assured that all his self-denial his resolution and overcoming his evil Appetites his foregoing the present pleasures of Sin his diligence and constancy in well-doing would be recompenced by obtaining of better things in the room of those advantages he foregoes to please God in the doing of his duty To take away this Plea Almighty God hath moreover revealed unto us that he will bestow a Crown of life immortal of endless glory and happiness upon every one that perseveres in well-doing And the last Principle of revealed Religion the belief whereof is necessary to the doing of those things whereby God is pleased is this That God is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him Which is the Proposition or Doctrine of Revealed Religion instanced in by the Apostle and that as I told you in behalf of all other Doctrines of Revealed Religion of like necessity to be believed And thus I have shewn you how all those other fundamental Doctrines of Faith without which we cannot do those things that please God are comprehended in and lie between those which are mentioned in the Text viz. the lowest of them That God is and the highest and last of them That he is a rewarder c. Having thus shewn you what Doctrines of Revealed Religion are fundamentally necessary to be believed to encourage men to the practice of Piety and Virtue I shall speak more distinctly and yet briefly to each of them shewing how they are to be understood what grounds we have to believe them and what force and efficacy the belief of them hath to persuade us to Godliness and Virtue And 1. That God will pardon the sins of those that repent Without Revelation we cannot have assurance thereof because it cannot be concluded from mere natural light that God will actually pardon a Sinner The reason is because a Sinner is obnoxious and liable to just punishment and to inflict a just punishment is consistent with Goodness So that we cannot argue merely from the goodness of the Divine Nature which is otherways abundantly expressed to us that God will remit that punishment because 't is not inconsistent with his Goodness not to remit it That God therefore would pardon the sins of men and remit his right to punish them as they deserv'd depended merely upon his own pleasure whether he would or not and consequently it must be a secret to us till he was pleased to manifest it to us by Revelation And we that do believe that God will pardon the sins of those that repent do believe it upon this ground That the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is the true Revelation of God's Will to Mankind in which Gospel it is plainly declared that God will pardon those that repent The great and evident design of the whole Gospel being this to call sinners to repentance upon this motive That they shall obtain remission of sins if they obey that call to repentance which God hath given them by his Son Jesus That which is promised is Pardon the condition upon which it is promised is Repentance both which afford a powerful motive to the practice of those things which please God For that God will pardon a Sinner what doth it signify but this That he will not reckon his former sins to him and that all his future acts of obedience shall be reckon'd to him as if he had never been guilty of any sin Now plain it is that hereby all those Jealousies of the power and severity of God which can dishearten the Sinner from seeking to be reconciled unto him by submission and repentance are utterly removed Hereby he is assured that God is neither inxorable nor implacable his prayers will be heard his repentance will be accepted and there is a certain way opened by which he may return into the favour of God Now he that believes this is under the power of a strong motive to live so as to please God for the future For as nothing doth more deeply ingage men in an obstinate and unreclaimable course of wickedness than the apprehension that they have sinned beyond hope of pardon so nothing is more apt to soften them into dispositions of repentance than the kind and merciful offers of forgiveness which he makes who hath it both in his right and in his power to destroy them This we are sensible of in the carriage of men towards one another and why should we not suffer as kindly impressions from the Gentleness and Charity of God as we do from the good nature of men Certain it is that no one man hath been so rude and ungrateful to another as every Sinner hath been to his Maker and as true it is that no misery can equal that which would befal him from the unappeasedness of God's anger and therefore no Gentleness and Mercy no tenderness and Charity is comparable to that which God hath expressed towards him in proclaiming himself ready to pardon upon repentance 'T is true we see there are such inflexible Natures in the World as are not to be mended by forgiveness and the kindest usage there are men of such incorrigible Tempers that are not at all the better for God's pardon or the Kings but then these are veary hateful persons and deserve not to be pitied But if men are reclaimable by kindness as all men should be what can sooner melt them into thoughts and purposes of amendment than that their great and bountiful Creator against whom no man can sin without being guilty of the greatest baseness because he sins against the greatest goodness against whom no man can sin without exposing himself to the greatest miseries because he sins against the greatest Power that he I say should bear so tender a regard to his lost and undone Creatures as to forbear his right to punish them and allure them to amendment by declaring that he will do so because he delighteth not in the death of a sinner but had rather he should turn and live This if any thing must needs work upon our hearts and humble our wills and dissolve our affections into a disposition of the most ready and dutiful obedience to him for the future Again if we consider the condition upon which this pardon is offered to Sinners in the Gospel the belief thereof must needs be a strong foundation of Godliness and Virtue For that repentance upon the condition whereof pardon is promised is neither more nor less than a real conversion from the love and practice of Sin and Unrighteousness to the love and practice of Virtue and Holiness It is neither made up of confession of sin and sorrow for sin
or wishing and proposing to be better nor of external Penances fruitless Ceremonies vain Commutations purchasing Dispensations and buying Indulgencies not one or all of these put together is repentance Any man that hath his eyes in his head may plainly perceive that the Repentance to which pardon is promised in the Gospel is altogether as broad and as long as to deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly righteously and godly in this present world So that God Almighty hath not issued out his pardon to any one Sinner in absolute and irrespective terms and then left it to his good nature whether he will thank him for it or no whether he will be kind and leave his sins or ungrateful and continue in them And they are very foolish who fancy themselves such Darlings of Heaven that for their sakes God had no respect to the holiness of his own Nature the honour of his Laws and the wisdom of his Government in determining to pardon them and receive them into his grace and favour Now to prevent all such presumtion and fond conceit it is as plainly revealed to us in the Gospel that God will not lose his right to our obedience as that he will forbear to use his right to punish us and that he will forbear that no longer when he sees his goodness doth not lead us to repentance The same Divine Revelation which assureth us God is so good that he will pardon a Sinner doth likewise assure us he is so just and wise as to pardon him only upon his repentance And indeed to pardon the incorrigible is not mercy but weakness he only is in a compassionable condition that is sorry for his sins and sins no more Seeing then Repentance consisteth in the practice of Religion and Virtue and that is the indispensable condition of our pardon and that out Pardon is infallibly secure upon that Condition From the belief of all this there ariseth a most pregnant and forcible engagement to the greatest care we can exert of living in the love and fear of God and keeping his Commandments 2. The second Principle of Revealed Religion the belief whereof is necessary to excite us to the practice of Godliness and Virtue is this That God is ready to accept of sincere obedience This likewise is only to be known by Revelation seeing if God had pleased he might have left us to the rigour of that original Law of Righteousness which required unsinning duty and according to which no Sinner can be justified i.e. he might have measured our Repentance the Condition of our Pardon by our amendment according to the strictness of that Law without making any abatements for Human Frailty for invincible Ignorance for surprize and those unduenesses of passion and those inadvertencies which are things of daily incursion But had it been thus little comfort could we have had from the belief that God will pardon us upon our repentance and obedience for the future if he would accept of nothing for that repentance and obedience which was short of that absolute perfection which 'tis morally impossible for any man in this state of imperfection to arrive unto For he that proffers a benefit upon terms impossible to the Receiver does but disquiet him the more taking away with the one hand what he giveth with the other Therefore Almighty God further to encourage us to repentance and the practice of Religion and Virtue hath not only promised to pardon our former sins upon that condition but he hath so described to us in the Gospel what that life is which for the future he will accept and be pleased withal that we have no reason to be deterred from attempting his Service by any jealousies of his austerity and rigour towards us That which he requires of us is to love him with all our hearts from whence it follows That the service and duty he expects from us is no other than what is a natural emanation from and a real expression of such a love to him which is to do what we are able that we may serve him in holiness and righteousness all the days of our life Now to love God with all our hearts i. e. to love him above all things is a very possible and the most reasonable thing in the World That obedience therefore must be so too which is the natural effect of such a love to God That obedience which is the effect of due love to God is consistent with sins of mere frailty of unaffected ignorance of unavoidable surprise because these sins neither proceed from an evil will nor are wholly vincible in our present state but that obedience which is the effect of due love to God cannot consist with deliberate much less with presumptuous sins It cannot consist with wilful much less with customary transgressions of known and open Laws it cannot consist with sins proceeding from affected ignorance much less with sins against knowledge which 't is in a man's power to avoid It cannot consist with these kind of sins because 't is clear that the reason why men commit them is not because they cannot but because they will not forbear them But he that loves God with all his heart will do what he can to please him and he that doth so is accepted by Almighty God i. e. he is reckon'd by him a righteous man and according to the moderation and gentleness of the Christian Law not accounted a Sinner in which sense we are to understand those words of the Apostle St. John He that is born of God sinneth not So that as for sins of infirmity which do indeed stand as much condemned and will as as certainly exclude us from the favour of God according to the terms of the Original Law or the first Covenant if God should deal with us by those measures for those sins I say they are consistent with the favour of God to us according to the terms of the Christian Law or the Second Covenant because we have an advocate with the father Jesus Christ the righteous who is our High-Priest and is touched with the feeling of our infirmities through whose intercession they are remitted upon our keeping from all wilful sins and our endeavour after perfection But if we sin wilfully there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin i. e. the Sacrifice offered for us will not avail to make such sins consistent with a justifiable state No they must be actually repented of and forsaken 't is only upon those terms that our Sacrifice remaineth in force and power to obtain our reconciliation to God Here I confess I have just occasion to proceed upon a Discourse concerning the difference between sins of weakness and sins of wilfulness to shew as exactly as the case will bear wherein lies that sincerity of obedience which God is ready to accept and which he will be pleased with us for But this would be to slide into an Argument that belongs not to the general
after sin there were no hope of pardon upon new obedience it would indeed be very grievous to be obliged to obey so perfect a Law under so bad a Penalty For then if a temptation should once prevail we were irrecoverably lost I say if we have violated the Law of Christ heretofore we are in a desperate case though we should never do the like again But blessed be God it is not thus with us Though we have heinously fail'd of our duty yet we may with good comfort repair our past neglects by future diligence being assured that if we do God will not impute to us our former sins so that the Law of Christ was not intended for a snare nor made perfect that occasion might be taken against us but that we at length might be perfect too And for ever blessed be his Name for the Grace of accepting Repentance that Grace which gives the worst of men some good hope if they will lay hold upon it in time and without which the best of men could have no hope at all 2. The utmost perfection which the Gospel requires is not expected but upon a gradual improvement and such improvement is by no means grievous It were intolerably hard indeed if we were obliged under penalty of Damnation to perfect holiness all at once which burthen they bring upon themselves who leave all to a Death-bed Repentance if it would not turn to good account to grow better to press forward toward the mark of our high calling to die unto Sin daily and live unto Righteousness But why is God patient and long-suffering toward us Why does he allow us one year after another but that we might recover our selves by degrees he in the mean time being ready to pardon us as we repent and to accept us in the way of growing better And this is great Grace to every man but most of all to him who is accustomed to do evil and cannot presently learn to do well i. e. to do well universally For he may now begin his Repentance well though he cannot yet compleat it He may forbear the outward sin though he cannot yet repress the inordinacy of his Desires he may avoid the temptation which he cannot resist he may pray for the Grace of God and read the Holy Scriptures he may attend to good Exhortations and make good Resolutions and think of them afterwards and desire the Counsels and Prayers of good men He may do many things in Religion when 't is not in his power to do all and by doing those which at present are in his power he is in the way of enabling himself to do those which at present are not Now that is no grievous task which will easily go off by degrees and which we may therefore make easy by an early beginning and allowing our selves time for it 3. As we grow more exact in obedience to Christ so our uneasiness under it wears away and at length it ends in the most pure and perfect delight that the Soul of man is capable of Self-denial and the resisting of Temptations will at first be painful especially to those that have been used to live without rule and restraint And there might be some colour for complaint if this would always last But the more earnestly we apply our minds to the duties of Repentance and a Holy Life the first discouragements will vanish the faster But more particulary 1. It is not so hard to begin well as our Prejudice and want of experience represent it For we begin with the help of mighty Arguments such as cannot be equalled by the Temptations of the World Should not the hope of Heaven have a strong influence upon a man endued with free-will especially when join'd with the fear of Hell Is there any difficulty in being concerned for Everlasting Salvation in being afraid of Everlasting Burnings And yet where this concern is it cannot be hard to lay a good foundation of a new life It is not grievous to love him above all things who is our Creator and Saviour and therefore why should it be thought a grievous thing for his sake especially when 't is for our own too to break off our sins by repentance Besides God hath not left us to grapple with our unruly Affections by the mere force of our own reasoning upon motives and the use of our natural liberty but has moreover promised the assistance of Supernatural Grace and Blessing to those that ask him And is it hard to have recourse to the Fountain of our Beings the God of Grace and Mercy and with earnest Prayers at least twice a day to beseech him that he would endue us with wisdom and patience and safely guide us through all the discouragements of this World the importunities of fleshly desire and the Temptations of the Devil till we find every good work habitual and delightful And this one thing viz. fervent Prayer makes a wonderful alteration in the mind and brings a kind of new Soul into a man Again No sooner is Repentance well begun but a man begins to look up to Heaven without his wonted consternation he is no longer in a strait between the dread of God's Justice on the one hand and a prevailing love of his Sins on the other nor constrained to put God out of all his thoughts or to be in pain under them Finally now that he has conquered his first Aversions he is sure of a compleat Victory if he pursues his end which is a comfort that the wise of this World have not in their way How many are they that covet wealth and greatness with the same greediness labour for it with the same industry contrive for it with the same wit and wait for it with the same patience but this with very different success one of them thrives and another decays as fast and for one that comes to riches and honour perhaps ten find the greatest part of their care rewarded with nothing but experience of this world's uncertainty Nay in these things Chance is often seen to do more than Wisdom and the wary and diligent man is disappointed while the lazy and foolish prosper But whoever made it his design and business to be saved and in order to that to be good who found it too hard for him These and many other Arguments and invitations a man shall meet with at his first setting out to run the race of a Christian Life which wonderfully break the difficulty of his undertaking But 2. When he has arrived to a spirit and habit of Obedience then is the Promise of Christ perfectly made good to him that he shall find rest to his Soul Then he can with full advantage compare that sweet freedom he enjoys from the tyranny of lust and passion with that servitude in which he once was to inordinate desire to foolish hope and to those sower affections of malice envy and revengefulness which are to the Soul what the Stone and Strangury
life and power of it in his heart for this reason it is that the Faith of good Christians who are not so well verst in subtle reasonings as in religious practice cannot be shaken by the objections of a Sophister because they have that inward sense of the power and excellency of Divine Truths which is above all other argument They know by experience that in the keeping of God's Commandments there is great reward and cannot therefore be entangled by any artificial objections against it but that I may not be mistaken I do not pretend that the pleasure which a man finds in believing any Doctrine is always an argument that the Doctrine is true There are some Doctrines in the World that tend to licentiousness that weaken the obligations to an holy life and therefore are sweet to the carnal man because they can put him in possession of great joy in himself before he has that good title to it which can only be founded upon repentance and holiness therefore it is neither false nor allowable always to argue from the experience a man hath of the sweetness and pleasure of his perswasions to the truth of them as many misguided Souls have done but for all that it is most certain that Religion consisting in the belief of truth and the practice of goodness a man shall understand the power of the one and the excellency of the other by experience better than he can by meer speculation for the nature of things that are to be done is never so fully understood as by doing them and the force of Truth is never so thoroughly felt as when it makes the Will and Affections as well as the Understanding submit to it now the best way to avoid arguing to our selves fallaciously from our own experience and being imposed upon by the joy and pleasure which those perswasions yield that tend to carnal security the best way I say to avoid this is to follow our Saviour's rule by laying the foundation even of experimental knowledge in doing the will of God and applying our selves with all sincerity to the keeping of his Commandments because then we shall never argue from experience but in favour of the truth i. e. of true Virtue and Holiness and of those Principles which lead to the practice of it And most certainly there is that comfort and satisfaction in believing Divine Truth there are those Joys in living according to it which can never be thoroughly understood but by the practice of Religion and Virtue which no man can have a just conception of till he hath tasted and seen how gracious God is Solomon says That the ways of wisdom are pleasantness and all her paths are peace but then we shall never thoroughly understand this till we walk in them in the keeping of God's Commandments there is great reward but how shall we find this reward but in keeping of them It may be described to us by others but as imperfectly as the Pencil doth Life and Motion the best descriptions will fall short of the subject and if we be alienated from the life of God we cannot fully conceive it Nay most commonly the delights of the righteous are things flat and insipid and the representation of them is nauseous and irksom to the carnal worldling and he is hardly in a better condition to understand it than one that is born Blind can apprehend that saying of Solomon Truly light is sweet and a pleasant thing it is to behold the Sun The sum of all is this That if sincerity towards God in doing his will is a great advantage towards the obtaining of that knowledge which is possible to the wicked man the knowledge of speculation if also that knowledge is gained by it which the insincere have nothing at all of if the righteous do not only better apprehend the weight of arguments but understand more by having their senses exercised to discern between good and evil then have we great reason to follow our Saviour's method If any man will do his will he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God Only let us remember that this knowledge is not to be gained this blessing is not to be procured to our selves either by my discourse or by your hearing what hath been said concerning our Saviour's words no nor by granting the truth and reasonableness of what hath been offered in illustration of them but only by putting our selves seriously upon the trial of this way by doing the will of God for what hath been said of Divine Truths in the general holds good of this in particular That the excellency of our Lord's method for the gaining of good knowledge in the things of God cannot be thoroughly judged till we have applied our selves to the use of it and I doubt not but those that have made trial do acknowledge the truth of what hath been said FINIS