we may do it those first and chief Disciples have enabled us by giving us large Accounts of the Actions and Life of our Saviour in the Holy Gospels Himself tell us John XV. 8. If ye bear much fruit so shall ye be my Disciples and then Ver. 10. explains their bearing much Fruit by imitating his obedience to the Divine Commands If ye keep my commandments ye shall abide in my love even as I have kept my Fathers commandments and abide in his love So that if we desire to retain the name of a Disciple and thereby preserve our Relation to Christ we must perform the Duty of a Disciple by religiously following the Example of our Lord and Master But then in the next place to imitate the Life and Actions of our Saviour is not only our Duty but our Happiness We may be sure that while the Blessed Jesus lived on Earth he pursued the true ends of Happiness and cultivated those Vertues which were most conducive to the perfection of his Nature and the Dignity of his Office What Honour then must it needs be to us mortal Men to be made like unto the Son of God in the Practice of the same Vertues in pursuing the same Methods of Happiness and in an intire Conformity of Actions It was the highest Ambition of the more generous among the Heathens to imitate the Lives of their antient Heroes and be thought like unto them And shall not we ardently desire to resemble our most Blessed Redeemer by a similitude of Holiness and Vertue Their Ambition was misplac't and therefore the occasion of their Unhappiness ours is directed to the right Object and therefore cannot be too great It must needs be an infinite Satisfaction to every pious Soul to be employed about the same Duties wherein the Blessed Jesus spent his Life to exercise the same Offices of Piety Charity and Devotion to be inspired with the same Principles of Humility Meekness and Patience This Consideration will dispel all weariness will add Vigour to our Souls and remove the fear of all temporal Evils which may attend the performance of our Duty This will support us under all outward Calamities alleviate our Sorrows and calm our Tempests to remember That our Lord endured the same Afflictions upon the same account If he was content to undergo the Malice of men and fury of Devils shall we hope to be exempted from the Attempts of the same Enemies If the world hate you ye know that it hated me before it hated you John XV. 18. And shall we refuse to undergo the same Fortunes with our Lord and Master No surely Only let us take care that the Hatred and Persecution of Men be brought upon us for no other Cause than they were on him that is not through any fault of ours but only for the sake of God and our obedience to his Commands So shall we imitate him as well in the most happy tranquility of Mind under all Afflictons as in the Afflictions themselves and the Causes of them Lastly The constant imitation of our Lords Example will be our Comfort and Satisfaction in the whole course of our Lives which will remove all Doubts and Difficulties and give us the best assurance that we have performed the whole Duty of Man If only Precepts of a good Life had been given to us we might have been daily distracted with Doubts and Scruples concerning the meaning extent and Application of them they might have been perverted by the errour and craft of Men and rendred useless by false Glosses and Interpretations whereas the Example of our Saviour hath taken away all these Scruples and placed every Precept in its full light If we truly imitate his Example we are infallibly assured That we have in all things done our Duty even as he performed the whole Will of God and more than once obtained that Testimony from Heaven This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased So much greater assurance may we have by following his Example than by respecting his Precepts only And therefore St. Paul after so many Rules and Precepts given to his Converts still adviseth them to be Followers of him but then no farther than he followed Christ. Be ye followers of me even as I also am of Christ. r Cor. XI 1. By this also we shall be inabled to give a satisfactory Reason of all our Actions and put to silence the Gainsaying of foolish Men without the assistance of any profound knowledge or deep Speculation If they deride our Christian Vertues and scoffe at the Duties of Humility Self-denial and Mortification it will be sufficient to answer That in practising them we imitate the Example of the Son of God the eternal Wisdom of the Father Let them please themselves with their Mirth and false supposal of a more refined knowledge We follow an infallible Guide and Pattern who if he hath not placed the Wisdom of his Precepts in so clear a light as the Sun in Heaven hath at least recommended them by his Practice and can assert them by his Power Such are the Obligations of all Christians to imitate the Example of their Saviour and such are the Benefits which result from it Let us by an earnest endeavour to follow this most excellent Example fullfil the Obligations and obtain the Benefits that as we have been on Earth made like unto him in Vertue and Holiness so we may hereafter in Heaven be made yet more like unto him in Glory and Immortality The Third SERMON PREACH'D October 1688. At LAMBETH CHAPEL 1 Pet. III. 15. Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear THE most Wise God hath so contrived that most Holy and excellent Religion which he intended as the most perfect and ultimate Revelation of his Will to the World that it tendeth equally to manifest his own infinite Wisdom and Goodness and to procure the Salvation of Mankind His Wisdom appeareth in the Excellency and Simplicity of those Rules which it proposeth in its immediate tendency to beget and establish due Notions and Apprehensions of the Deity in the reasonableness of its Constitution and admirable Congruity to the nature of Mankind His Goodness is conspicuous not only in those infinite Rewards which he hath affixed to the performance of it in the Free Pardon of rebellious Sinners and liberal distribution of his Graces but which more directly comes under our present Consideration in adapting that Religion which he intended for the benefit of all to the Capacity of all and thereby rendring it no less easie than advantageous And in this the Christian Religion infinitely exceeds all other Systems of Religion whether true or false Among the Heathens many great and learned Persons had imployed their Wits in refining the Superstitions of their Countrey and assigning Reasons for that way of Worship which obtained among them But their Notions were abstruse and mystical their
Conceptions dark and unaccountable above the understanding and capacity of the common People fitted only for the Contemplation of Philosophers and after all no other than the products of a volatile Fancy So little adapted to the understanding of the vulgar or indeed intended for their benefit that they were studiously concealed under the venerable Name of Mysteries and imparted only to Confidents Among the Jews all imaginable Care was taken to instruct the People in all necessary Duties relating to God Themselves and their Neighbours But even the more Learned of them knew not the Reasons of those many Ceremonies and Legal Observations imposed on them They knew in general that many of them typified the coming of a future Messias who should institute a more excellent Religion and be the Author of signal Benefits to their Nation But alas this knowledge was lame and imperfect in its own Nature and infinitely unsatisfactory to them who desired to know somewhat more certain yet still continued to wander in the dark without any certain guide This appears from the Writings of those Learned Jews who lived about the time of our Saviour's coming These employed their Labours in finding out the hidden meaning of the Mosaick Law and discovering the Reasons of all those Ceremonial Institutions but so unsuccessfully that they plainly mistook the design of their Divine Lawgiver and by turning all his Ritual Precepts into Allegories and obscure Mysteries defeated their Institution and corrupted the truth of their Religion with false Notions and Interpretations And no wonder indeed for the veil was not yet taken from them nor to be removed but by the coming of the Messias who was to be the Sun of righteousness dispersing the dark Clouds of ignorance and giving light unto the World He alone hath made a full Discovery of the Will of God rendred the knowledge of it easie to all and thereby made the Ignorance of necessary Truths to be inexcusable herein compleating the Covenant which God made with the House of Israel in the Prophet Jeremy XXXI 33 34. After those days saith the Lord I will put my Law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour and every man his brother saying know the Lord. For they shall all know me from the least of them unto the greatest of them saith the Lord. Yet must we not imagine that in proposing this plain and easie Religion God intended to supercede all Labours of Mankind and imprint the knowledge of it even violently upon our Minds He hath dealt with us as rational Creatures proposed the truth clearly to us enforced it with the most perswasive Arguments fitted it to our Capacity and afforded us easie means of obtaining a perfect knowledge of it After such abundant Provision for the free Entertainment of it in our Minds he leaves it to the Liberty of our Will whether we will embrace or reject it To deal otherwise with us were to suppose us meer Brutes and Machines not capable of entertaining any Religion and unfit to receive either Rewards or Punishments It was not only the Precept of our Saviour but the Wisdom of all Ages Not to cast holy things before Dogs nor Pearls before Swine to create a knowledge of Divine Truths in persons insensible of the Benefit conferred upon Mankind in the Revelation of them and who make no advancement towards their Reception The Divine Wisdom hath chosen to propose those eternal Truths in such a method as that a perfect Acquisition of the knowledge of them might exercise the diligence and obedience of Mankind We must bring Minds freed from all Prejudices and Passions use due attention search the Scriptures weigh the Reasons and Arguments which perswade their Divinity and being once convinced of that acquiesce in them and in a word use all means which God hath abundantly provided for our Instruction We must not satisfie our selves with an Historical knowledge but inquire into the Reasons of the Divine Oeconomy reflect upon the reasonableness of it and make it the Subject of our Meditations A Subject than which none can be more worthy the Dignity of our Nature or more necessary to the being of a Christian. By this we shall be convinced That the performance of all Christian Duties is not only enforced by the revealed Will of God but also commanded by the Law of Nature that the constant Practice of them is our greatest Perfection and would be our utmost Happiness although attended with no Rewards Every increase of knowledge will augment the force of our Obligation and bring some perswasive Argument to the Exercise of our Duty But then if we consider what the Revelation of Christianity hath added to those imperfect Discoveries made by the light of Nature the Mysteries of our Redemption the Sacrifice of the Cross the Free Pardon of our sins the hopes of eternal Life and those Foederal Rites the Sacraments by which we are intitled to these Benefits we shall be able more perfectly to comprehend the Wisdom and Goodness of God and the Greatness of our Obligation to him These advantages naturally flow from a perfect knowledge of our Faith However the Apostle in giving this Precept more immediately respects the Conviction of those Persons who spoke evil of the Christians as of evil doers as appears from the following Verse For when Christianity first appeared in the World teaching the Worship of one only God and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Commanding all men every where to repent and enjoyning them upon the severest Penalties to live godlily holily and righteously in this present world Men decried it as leading to Atheism and the Extirpation of Divine Worship because forbidding any Worship to be given to those false Gods who were the universal Objects of Adoration at that time and changing all pompous external Ceremonies into a spiritual and internal Worship They traduced it as irrational and debasing the Dignity of Mankind because not proposed with the usual Ostentation of worldly Wisdom and Philosophy and requiring men to deny their Lusts conquer their Desires and sorfake their most darling Passions Lastly they rejected it as impious and execrable as an unheâ—…rd of Superstition and a fond Credulity because they knew not those Arguments upon which it was founded nor considered the demonstrative Proofs which recommended it To convince the Folly and Ignorance of these men the Apostle requires all Christians to be ready always to give an answer to every man of the reason of the hope that is in them that so whereas they speak of them as evil doers they may be convinced that neither the Doctrine of Christians leads to Immorality nor their Practice favours it For the knowledge of Christianity was not intended to be a Speculative Science meerly to inform the Judgment and not Correct our Errours But as an operative knowledge which might visibly exert it self in all our Duties to God and Man The Divinity
we consider with how great Zeal and Vehemency both the Magistrates and Philosophers of those times opposed it and undertook the Extirpation of it They applied themselves to this design with the utmost Diligence and Fervour and left no stone unturned whereby they might either discover any Imposture in it or stop the Progress of it But the Evidence of its truth assisted with the Divine Providence bore down all opposition The blood of the Martyrs became the seed of the Church and its learned Adversaries were forced to Confess its Doctrines to be Divine and the Founder of it an extraordinary Person Lastly that the Writings of the Apostles and Evangelists were the same which we now possess under their Names and were conveyed uncorrupted through all Ages appears not only from the constant Tradition of Christians and their great care to preserve those sacred Monuments intire and uncorrupted in which their eternal welfare was so nearly concerned But also from the several Translations made of them immediately after the times of the Apostles some of which are now extant from written Copies preserved even to this day written not long after the Apostolick times and from the Citations of antient Writers in all Ages Thus I have briefly proposed to you the Proofs upon which the Christian Religion depends to which I might have added many more as the exact Completion of all our Saviours Prophesies more particularly in that remarkable Destruction of Jerusalem within the time prefixed by him the Constancy Resolution and Number of Christian Martyrs in those ancient times when they had certain means of infallibly knowing the truth of these Matters the Conquest which under so many disadvantages it made over the feircest opposition of the Roman Empire and Heathen Philosophy and those many extraordinary Interpositions of Divine Providence in favour of it which have signally appeared in all Ages of the Church but these shall at present suffice The Fourth SERMON PREACH'D November 1688. At LAMBETH CHAPEL 1 Pet. III. 15. Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear IN Discoursing on these Words I did propose to insist on these two Heads I. That the Christian Religion is agreeable to the Principles of Reason and carrieth sufficient Evidence along with it II. That it is the Duty of every Christian not wanting the means of sufficient Instruction to enable himself to give a Reason of his Faith The former of these I dispatched in the foregoing Sermon I now proceed to the Second Head of Discourse Namely II. That it is the Duty of every Christian not wanting the means of sufficient Instruction to enable himself to give a Reason of his Faith That this not the constant resolution of professing the Faith at all times without Fear or Cowardice was the Primary intent of the Apostolick Precept in my Text appeareth in that the Apostle willeth us to do this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which our Translators have not so exactly rendred by way of Apology or in Confutation of the Calumnies and Objections brought against our Religion by the Adversaries of it I will not say that such a perfect and compleat knowledge is absolutely the Duty of every private Christian so that he cannot be saved without it God requireth of no Man any thing beyond his natural strength or capacity or which he had no Opportunities nor means to attain unto We know how great a part of the Christian Church over-run with Tyranny and Oppression hath insensibly fallen into a deplorable Ignorance These we cannot in Reason condemn as wanting all means of better Instruction but rather applaud their Constancy and pray for their Delivery We know also how great a Society of Christians labours under miserable Ignorance and the consequence of its gross Erroâ—…s by the artifice and contrivance of their Guides who deny to them the use of the Seriptures and teach them to content themselves with an implieit Faith These also we will not in Charity condemn To their own Master they either stand or fall Lastly we are not insensible how many Members of our own Communion either through want of leisute or natural imbecillity of understanding through default of Education or other accidental defects un-foreseen and unprovided for are but meanly instructed in the Mysteries of the Christian Faith But to us who want neither means of Instruction nor Capacity of receiving them no excuse is left if we do not improve them to a full Comprehension of the Mysteries of our Faith whereby we may both obtain a rational Conviction of the truth of it in our selves and be enabled to vindicate the honour of our Lord and Saviour from the Contradiction of foolish and unreasonable Men. Christianity indeed iâ—… not in our Age opposed with that open and barefac't Confidence wherewith it was in the Apostles time when it was forced to wrestle with Principalities and Powers and spiritual wickedness in high places the united force of a Victorious and learned Empire Yet we want not secret impugners of our most Holy Faith who if by the natural Light of Reason and remorse of Conscience they he restrained from professing their secret Atheism and denying the Existence of a God yet stick not to oppose all revealed Religions and especially Christianity because most contrary to their beloved Lusts in defence of which only they maintain their impious Opinions It is the interest of these Men that Christianity should be false that so the licencious practice of their Lusts and Passions may not be abbridged to them and the Expectation of eternal Punishments imbitter all their Pleasures For to the Honour of Christianity be it said that in these latter Ages it hath had no Enemies but Men of profligate and debauched Lives who either denyed the Being of a God or lived as without God in the world However the Conviction of these Men is far more difficult than antiently of the Heathen Philosophers Of whom many sincerely searched after the Truth which commonly ended in the discovery of it and embracing the Christian Religion whereas these dispute only for the Love of their Lusts and sensual Pleasures are thence transported with violent Prejudices willfully shut their Eyes against the Truth cast the words of Convicton behind them and hate to be reformed To vindicate the Honour of God of Christ and our Religion against the Blasphemies of such men is the Duty of every Christian in his place and station and as opportunities are ministred to him Nor are there wanting those among us who openly and with great excess of apparent Zeal seek to withdraw us from our most Holy Religion endeavouring to impose upon us the belief of pernicious Errours and Superstitions They oppose not directly indeed the Faith of Christ but corrupt it with Errours and false Opinions rend in sunder the Unity of the Church by promoting and perswading a Schifmatical departure from it and openly impugn the
of it to all Persons without Distinction the most learned as well as ignorant is no less apparent For however these Philosophers might please themselves with the false Opinion of a perfect Knowledge it is too notorious that their Pretences were vain and trifling They professed indeed a Science of Divine Matters but such as included only unuseful and oft-times absurd Notions which were as various as their several Sects and those as numerous as the Whimsies of ambitious Men and all derided by a powerful and learned Sect which denied any truth to be in things Or if any of them entertained right Notions of a Deity and Religion yet was it rather by way of Conjecture than Certainty which therefore had no influence upon their Lives nor afforded any other hopes of a future State than what were founded only on faint Wishes and uncertain Desires such as would never induce them to forego their Lives or any part of their temporal Happiness rather than renounce it or give them intire assurance of any Reward or Punishment in another Life If to pretend that Revelation is unnecessary and unuseful to them was frivolous and irrational in these Heathen Philosophers much more absurd was it to arraign the Christian Religion of its simplicity which fitted it for the Reception of all the members of Mankind not appropriating it to the Benefit of Philosophers only by proposing abstruse Contemplations and nice Subtilties beyond the ordinary reach of unlearned Persons This was the chief Reason why Christianity was by them accounted Folly as being hereby become the Portion of reputed Fools as well as the Science of those who flattered themselves with the Title of Wisdom And this is none of the least Reasons why we ought to esteem it the most excellent of all Religions and condemn the intolerable Pride and Superciliousness of such Men who either then did endeavour to engross the Knowledge of Divine Matters or now do true Belief and Salvation to themselves only Religion was intended by God to procure the Happiness of the whole Race of Mankind not of any Sect or Denomination of Men much less of a small inconsiderable Party who by appropriating to themselves the greatest Blessings of Heaven make themselves unworthy of the least of them Nothing therefore contributes so much to declare the Mercy of God or is so befitting the Holiness and Beneficence of his Nature as the generous Spirit of the Christian Religion which equally admitteth all Men and acknowledgeth no other distinction in Persons than what ariseth from their more or less perfect Obedience to the Law of God To this end it is admirably fitted by the Simplicity of it imposing no necessary Duties of Life and Conversation but what are commanded even by the Law of Nature and observing no other Sacraments or Ceremonies than what are easie and significant few and instructive And if this must be accounted a Prejudice against the Truth of Christianity to what a deplorable Condition hath the Reason of Mankind degenerated disliking Divine Truths because rational plain and obvious It hath indeed been a common mistake to despise all Doctrines recommended with these excellent Qualities and because lying level with the Capacity of the unlearned multitude and to pronounce them foolish as the Greek Philosophers in the Text accounted the Gospel to be Foolishness because of its Simplicity But this is such a Prejudice as nothing less than the most invincible Ignorance of the Nature of Truth and Religion can excuse A mistake however to which the corrupted Inclination of humaneNature is so prone that it hath not only affected the Greek Philosophers but also great numbers of Christians in all Ages who disdaining the Profession of a simple and easie Religion either added abstruse and sometimes incredible Articles to it or turned it into an artificial Science involved in the most perplex and intricate Subtilties or affected to propose and deliver it in an Enthusiastick stile in wild and undigested Conceptions It remains that I confider our Obligation notwithstanding all these Objections and the Scandals derived from them to believe and openly to profess the Faith of Christ. For however it be to the Jews a stumbling-block and to the Greeks foolishness we still preach Christ crucified and as it appears from what hath been said have Reason so to do being neither scandalized at the Contradiction and Opposition of the Jews and Gentiles nor deluded by the same Prejudices with them Which two Heads I will briefly speak to First then If the Christian Religion be to the Jews a Stumbling-block and to the Greeks Foolishness if a great part of the World continue not only in Ignorance of it but in Opposition to it if the Mysteries of it appear to some incredible and the manner proposing it ridiculous this ought not to scandalize us or induce us to believe the Truth of our Religion to be either less plain or less certain We all know Mankind to be subject to Errour and experience the weakness of humane Understanding We cannot be ignorant how prone all Men are to follow the direction of their Lusts and Passions and then if we consider that Christianity opposeth and restraineth these unruly Passions we shall cease to wonder at its Rejection and Contradiction God hath indeed set his revealed Truths in as clear a light as is sufficient for the Conviction of men but still leaveth our Will in its full Liberty to embrace or reject them that so he may leave place either for Reward of Belief or Punishment of the contrary Not that God requireth us to believe any thing incredible or extraordinary not that we merit any thing at the hands of God by being more credulous than the rest of Mankind or believing those things which other Men reject as foolish or monstrous Our Faith is no otherwise capable of a Reward than as it is just and rational as it is the result of the right Exercise of our Faculties and a Demonstration of readiness to obey the Will of God and acknowledge his Attributes of Veracity and Dominion over us It was therefore a strange Expression of an ancient Writer That the Mysteries of the Christian Faith are for that very reason certain credible and meritorious to be believed because they are foolish incredible and impossible that in this consists the merit of Christian confidence and that God therefore chose this way that he might as it were retaliate to Men the impudence of Idolatry in which they had voluntarily engaged themselves by the impudence of Faith which he imposed on them If things were so justly might Christianity be a Scandal to the Jews and Folly to the Greeks But blessed be God and blessed be that Holy Religion which we profess nothing is required of us to be believed but what is entirely Conformable to the Laws of Nature and Reason and which would be our Duty to assâ—…nt to although no Reward attended the Assent In the next place if we ought not to
to the Actions and Concerns of this Life God neither promised nor exercised any such constant visible Justice which might distinguish the Good from the Bad and sensibly teach Men the necessity of Repentance much less can it be expected that in the more spiritual Religion of Christ and more abstracted from the Interests of the World any such discrimination of Good and Bad by External Circumstances of prosperity should take place that God should constantly awaken the negligence of slothful Christians by severe and visible Judgments or if he doth not should be thought to approve their Conduct Yet is this Error almost as frequent among Christians as it was formerly among the Jews While Men enjoy the satisfactions of this Life securely and find themselves at ease they fondly imagine that Heaven also hath declared it self in Favour of them and are not willing to entertain a thought of the displeasure of God towards their vicious Courses least the thoughts of it should abridge their present Happiness They are told indeed of the pleasures and punishments of another Life but conceiving no greater pleasure than what they now enjoy nor fearing any greater punishment than the deprivation of that enjoyment because they find the possession of it continued to them they â—…magine themselves secure and think that they either have escaped the Divine Punishment or not deserved it To be convinced of the unreasonableness of this conclusion we need only reflect upon the example of our Blessed Saviour who notwithstanding he was most dear to God publickly declared to be his beloved Son in whom he was well pleased and even in respect of his Humane Nature taken separately said to increase in favour with God and Man yet in the Opinion of the World led a miserable and afflicted Life underwent all those things which the sensual appetite of Man most dreadeth as Poverty Hunger Pain and a Violent Death yet all this while continued to be the most beloved Son of God In conformity to his Example his Apostles to whom he so often professed an extraordinary Love suffered all the sensible inconveniencies of this Life and were yet the peculiar Favourites of their Lord and Master now Exalted into Heaven So that Temporal affliction is by no means any Indication of the displeasure of God nor the contrary of his Favour So then in vain do Men reject or deferr Repentance because they see not the constant execution of his displeasure upon Notorious Sinners in this World For how should that displeasure exert it self Not in Poverty Afflictions or in Temporal Calamities For these we find in our Lord himself and his dearest Servants and therefore can never be any Argument of the dis-favour of God Yet from these Characters alone Man would take his measures who fondly imagineth nothing to be more dreadful than such Disasters and knoweth no greater misery than what ariseth from them while he consulteth his Sense alone But God seeth not as Man seeth he knoweth what will be real Happiness and Misery to Man and therein placeth his Rewards and Punishments As his Rewards are not adapted to the sensual imaginations of Men so neither are his Punishments to their Fears and Passions What they suppose to be a severe Punishment may possibly be a Benefit but certainly is so small a Punishment as does not at all compensate the guilt of having offended an Infinite Majesty To revenge therefore the Wickedness of Men wholly in this Life could not but come far short of the demerit of their Actions and after all would but little contribute to manifest the Divine Justice of God or excite the Repentance of Men since what God would in that case inflict would be far different from what Men esteem the greatest misery which renders the constant execution of Divine Justice in this Life unpracticable Other considerations make it unreasonable And first the Wisdom of God hath appointed some time wherein Man should give a trial of his Obedience and live in a State of Probation during which time neither Rewards nor Punishments of his Actions should ordinarily be distributed but both reserved till that Probation should expire and the last resolutions of Man were known This time can be no other than that of Life on Earth in which Man at his first entrance hath proposed to him the Arguments of Obedience to God the Rewards of that Obedience and all other Motives to his Duty On the other side the pleasures of Sin allure him the suggestions of evil Spirits tempt him the want of consideration fits him to follow the directions of sense alone and not to trouble himself with any other Interest than that of this Life His Will and the freedom of choice is still reserved intire to him Life and Death is set before him as it was by Moses before the Jews he is at liberty to choose which he pleaseth still remembring that upon his conduct in this Life depends the Happiness or Misery of his future State In the mean time God ordinarily affrights him not into his Duty by a certain Execution of Punishment consequent in this Life to the Commission of his sins neither doth he draw him to Obedience by the sensible experience of Rewards For that would destroy all the merit of Faith or Obedience since the Actions of Men would then proceed from the dictates of their own sense not upon the principle of believing this because God hath said it or doing that because God hath Commanded it I say that ordinarily God doth not dispose Men to Obedience by the sensible experience of Justice executed in this Life although often in mercy to Mankind he doth extraordinarily in this Life Reward the eminent good Actions of his Obedient Servants and Punish the more notorious Sins of wicked Men. This he doth for the Vindication of his Justice and for the Instruction of other Men to whom beside the ordinary Light of Revelation he doth sometime indulge these extraordinary admonitions But this is not to be drawn into any Rule by us we may not hence conclude that Prosperity is an Argument of the Favour of God or the not inflicting of exemplary Revenge a sign of Reconciliation with him Rather we ought to judge that the time of this Life God hath given us for a Trial of Obedience during which he patiently awaits our Resolution All this our Lord manifests to us in the parable of the Tares which the Housholder would not suffer to be plucked up till the time of Harvest but till then be mixed securely among the Corn plainly insinuating that the ordinary providence of God should in this Life make no discrimination between the Good and Bad but suffer both alike to live secure without any denunciation of his Judgment till the time of Harvest which himself explains to be the time of the last Judgment when the Tares and the Wheat should be severed from each other This proceeding indeed doth shock the common understanding of Men but that ariseth from
wonderful Miracles should be wrought by him And some such extraordinary Actions were required to excite the Jews to a serious consideration of the Quality and Character of the Person who wrought them If the Actions of Christ had been deficient in any one point of Conformity to the precedent Prophesies it had been irrational as well as unlawful for the Jews to have admitted his Revelations altho' confirmed by the greatest Miracles imaginable Since they must have owned thereby the falsity of those Prophesies of the truth of which they were abundantly convinced as being confirm'd to them by an equal Authority of Miracles But not only doth the Reason and Nature of things demonstrate this Truth The Practice and Example of Christ and his Apostles evidently manifest it The first while yet on Earth constantly asserted his Divine Mission and Quality of Messias from the Scriptures of the Old Testament which had Testified of him And his Disciples after his Death carryed on the same Argument He perform'd indeed greater Miracles than any ever had done before him But in Disputing with the Jews he commonly waved that Argument and appealed to the Scripture As well knowing That if they would not hear Moses and the Prophets neither would they be perswaded though one rose from the Dead By which words he plainly infinuates that the greatest of his Miracles his Resurrection was a less valid proof and inferiour to the Testimony of Moses and the Prophets This he often thought alone sufficient to propose as a necessary motive of belief to the Jews And such a motive as could not be rejected without disowning and destroying the Authority of the Old Testament For thus he Disputes in the Vth. of St. John Verses 39 46 47. Search the Scriptures for in them ye think ye have eternal life and they are they which Testifie of me For had ye believed Moses ye would have believed me For he wrote of me But if ye believed not his writings how shall ye believe my words No other Method did he make use of to convince his Disciples walking to Emmaus that all those Calamities which had befallen his Person ought necessarily to be inflicted on the Messias All those Glorious Miracles of which themselves had been witnesses proved unsuccessful and could not secure their Faith from a shameful fluctuation Until Christ beginning at Moses and all the Prophets expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself and opened their understanding that they might understand the Scripture that it was thus written and that it thus behoved Christ to suffer and to rise from the Dead the Third Day If the constant Companions of our Saviours Life could be drawn to the true knowledge of him by no other Argument than a full and plain Interpretation of the Prophesies of the Old Testament In vain do we hope that any other Arguments could convince the remaining Jews who were less acquainted with the Holiness of his Life and greatness of his Miracles In the next place we may observe that the Apostles were chosen by Christ and used as the inseparable Companions of his Life Not so much to be instructed in the Mysteries of the Christian Faith or trained up in the necessary qualifications of Preachers who might propagate the Gospel after the departure of their Master As to be Witnesses and Spectactors of his Actions and Conversation which they might afterwards Testifie to the World and thereby convince Mankind that they were intirely conformable to the Antient predictions of the Prophets That the former could not be the end or intention of their accompanying Christ through the whole discharge of his Prophetick Office appears plainly from their Ignorance both of the Mysteries of Religion and their own Duty at the time of our Saviours Crucifixion Yet can we not suppose but that Christ obtain'd his chief aim which he proposed to himself in selecting certain Persons for the Companions of his Life This end therefore could indeed be no other than that which I have already assigned of witnessing and publishing to the World the Actions of Christ whose reasonableness and agreement to the predictions of the Mosaick Law was to be judged and determined by every private Man For we no where find that the Apostles from the Authority of their Miracles which were not inferiour to those of Christ himself pretended to set up themselves for infallible Judges or exercise an arbitrary command over the judgments of other Men. They might indeed much more justly have claimed such a priviledge than any ever since their times As being personally infallible and endued with the power of working Miracles Yet they never endeavoured to command the assent of their hearers before they had informed and satisfied their Understandings But proceeded in a more rational method and following the example of their Master chose rather to convince their judgment with Arguments whose attention they had before excited by Miracles These Arguments when directed to the Jews were chiefly taken from the Old Testament Whose Prophecies they demonstrated to have plainly soretold and described the Actions and Sufferings of Christ of which Actions themselves were witnesses Thus we find St. Peter in his Sermon made to the Jews upon this Day to have used no other Method And not so much to have urged the Illustrious Miracle of the gift of Tongues newly conferred on them as the conformity of that and all other Actions of Christ to the Antient Predictions of the Prophets His Sermon in the following Chapter proceeds from the same Foundation And St. Stephen in the VII Chap. St. Paul in the XIII use no other Argument when Disputing against the Jews From a clear Interpretation of the Prophecies in Scripture concerning the Messias Philip convinced the Eunuch who was a Jewish Proselyte of the Divinity of Christ Acts VIII and Acts XVIII Apollos is said to have mightily convinced the Jews and that publickly shewing by the Scriptures that Jesus was Christ. St. Paul pleading before King Agrippa endeavoured before all things to prove that he stood there to be judged for the hope of the Promise made by God unto the Fathers Acts XXVI 6. And ver 27. appealed to the Prophets and asked Agrippa whether he believed not them insinuating that if he truly believed the Prophets and understood their genuine Sense he could not but embrace the Christian Religion Lastly to say no more his Disputes with the Jews at Rome were employed in expounding and Testifying the Kingdom of God Perswading them concerning Jesus both out of the Law of Moses and out of the Prophets from Morning till Evening Acts XXVIII 23. It appears then That the chief reason of the choice of the Apostles to a familiar conversation with our Saviour before his Ascension was no other than that they might thereby be enabled to Testify and publish to the World his Actions Miracles and Sufferings which being received from them might then by every private Man be examined and compared with the
to be founded by the Messias or expected from him which so long clouded the Understandings of the Apostles and hindred them from entertaining true Notions of that Mystery although having the Happiness to be brought up in a Christian and Orthodox Church we suck in true Notions of the Christian Religion in general even from our Infancy yet the prejudices which arise from our Passions and corrupt Affections are no less violent and betray us to no less fatal mistakes These not only defeat the Benefit of that assistance of the Holy Ghost in the Inquisition of truth which God hath promised to all well disposed Persons who rightly ask it of him but also directly introduce the foulest and most pernicious Errours by prompting us to form such Notions of Religion as may be most adapted and favourable to those corrupt Inclinations And this diligence in the Inquiry and Examination of our Religion will be so much the more necessary if we consider that God had indeed provided an effectual remedy for all the mistakes of the Apostles by the plentiful Effusion of the Holy Ghost upon them but hath left us to the ordinary Emanations and Assistance of the Divine Spirit which will lead us into all necessary Truths if our own Endeavours be not wanting but upon defect of those or any other due disposition of the mind will not only not produce this happy Effect but also depart from us II. The Sense of this great and inestimable Benefit conferred this day upon the Apostles and then upon the whole Church and our selves in particular ought to excite us to the utmost gratitude and engage us to endeavour not to render our selves unworthy of it at least not permit our selves to be ungrateful for it For this Benefit was not confined to the persons of the Apostles it brings down with it many great and inestimable advantages to the Church which continue till this day By this we are assured that the Christian Religion hath received the last degree of Confirmation by this we know that Christ hath really ascended into Heaven and there taken possession of his Kingdom that however he hath removed his corporeal Presence he still continues to be present with us by the Influences and Operations of the Holy Ghost that he ceased not at his Ascension to govern and take care of the Church but abundantly provided for the necessity and convenience of it by sending the third Person of the ever Blessed Trinity who might actuate and direct it and performing the Office of a Paraclet teach exhort comfort and intercede for every single Member of it By this the drooping Spirits of the Apostles were erected their Fears dispelled and their Minds enlightened by this the truth of the Christian Religion was put past all Dispute and the Church invigorated with such an assurance of Divine assistance as might secure it from all Dangers and place it beyond the rage of men or fury of Tyrants We also at this day partake of the blessed Effects of this great Benefit we share in the Joys of the Apostles and experience the Influences of that Divine Spirit By this they were inabled to convey down to us infallibly the Christian Religion and found a Church of which to be Members we esteem our greatest Happiness By this Spirit we are united to the Body of the Church to Christ our Head and to one another By this we are excited to vertue and the practice of our Duty are assisted in the search of Truth are comforted in Afflictions and upheld in Dangers This Spirit our Saviour promised ver 16. should abide with us for ever not in that measure indeed and abundance which was conferred on the Apostles but according to the proportion of our necessities and the Improvement of that present Portion which is already conferred on us Let us endeavour by an exact discharge of our Duty and daily improvement in Piety to augment our Interest in the benefits of this Day and favour of the Holy Ghost at least let us take care least by our negligence and degenerate Behaviour we forfeit our Title to them both Lastly as we are obliged to admire and celebrate the infinite Goodness of God in bestowing upon the Church the diffusive Presence of the Holy Ghost by his Mission as upon this Day so are we no less engaged to be thankful for his particular Presence in the Holy Sacrament since this not only gives us a firm assurance of the continuance of that Presence which was at first granted as so great a Blessing to the Apostles but also derives down upon all worthy Communicants as far as is necessary to them the same Gifts and Graces which the first Descent of it procured to the Apostles By this means we may not only commemorate but act anew and experience in our selves all the Glories of this day by receiving into our Souls a plentiful Effusion of the same Spirit But then as several previous Dispositions were required in the Apostles to qualifie them for the reception of so great a Benefit so must we prepare our selves for the Participation of so great a Mystery with no less diligence and caution that as they firmly believed and constantly expected the Promises of our Saviour although he had removed his Corporeal Presence from them so we should without any Fluctuation believe the certain performance of all those Graces which are promised to all worthy Communicants and that however his natural Body is absent from us yet he is really present in the Elements by the Efficacy and Operation of the Holy Spirit that as they prepared themselves for the reception of the Holy Ghost by an intire Resignation of their Wills to his influence and direction so we should fit our Souls for the Entertainment of all those Graces conferred in the Sacrament by a perfect Resignation of our selves to God and steady Resolution of performing his Commands And that as they in order to obtain the promised Mission of a Comforter met all together with one accord in one house so we in order to receive the mighty Benefits of this Sacrament should be united in perfect Charity to one another If any of these due Qualifications be wanting we shall be so far from obtaining any share in the Benefits of this Day or Commemorating as we ought the wonderful Mission of the Holy Ghost that we shall forfeit our Title to all the Benefits of the Gospel and do despight to the Spirit of Grace Now to God the Father God the Son c. The Second SERMON PREACH'D Septemb. 16th 1688. At LAMBETH CHAPEL Philip. II. 5. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus OUR blessed Saviour hath not only revealed to us the whole Will of God in relation to Mankind and thereby given to us a most excellent and truly Divine Religion but also set us a most perfect Example of Holiness and universal Righteousness in the whole Conduct of his Life therein exceeding all other Lawgivers
whether Divine or Humane who never could equal the Excellency of their Laws by the spotless Sanctity of their Lives Even Moses who had this Testimony from God that he was faithful in all his House did not always preserve inviolate that intire reliance on the Divine Power which he so earnestly and so often recommended to his People but offended at the waters of strife and was provoked to speak unadvisedly with his lips As for other Lawgivers whose Pretences to Revelation were either none or feigned they were little sollicitous to recommend the Practice of their Laws by their example thereby giving just occasion to suspect that they intended them rather for Politick than Religious ends not so much to promote vertue as to secure their own Interest It is the peculiar advantage of the Christian Religion that all the Precepts of it were exactly performed in the person of its Founder who gave us not only a Rule but an Example of perfect Piety In him all Noble and Divine Vertues eminently shone forth and yet in such a manner as might rather attract our Imitation than dazle our Contemplation Justly did he say of himself John IX 5. that while he was in the world he was the light of the world directing all Persons the way to Happiness by his illustrious Example and in the highest degree practising all those Vertues which in other Persons were singly admired Insomuch as we may justly apply to him in respect of all the parts of our Duty to God our selves and others what he said of himself in respect of Humility For I have given you an example that ye should do as I have done to you Joh. XIII 15. For it is not sufficient for us his Disciples to admire the Greatness and Excellency of his example he requires farther of us to do as he hath done that we express our obedience to him by the constant Imitation of his Life and Practice that we continue the remembrance of his incomparable Vertue and Piety by proposing them as a Pattern of perfection in all our Actions That we manifest our selves to be his Followers by the similitude of our Conduct in a word that the same mind be in us which was also in Christ Jesus In treating of these words I shall divide my Discourse into three Heads I. I will shew that the Life of our Saviour was by God intended to be the Grand Example and Pattern of our Actions II. That it was the best and most compleat Example which could be proposed to us III. I will produce some Arguments inducing us to a careful Imitation of this Example I. That the Life of our Saviour Christ was intended to be the grand Pattern and Example of our Actions This appears not only from hence that it is the Duty of all Christians to live up to the Rules of Piety Temperance and Justice which the Gospel prescribeth and our Saviour in the most perfect manner practised and consequently to conform our Lives to his Example which however indirect is yet a most evident Argument but also from many other direct Arguments Of which I shall name some few 1. It appears from the whole Sequel and design of the four Gospels One great part of which is taken up in relating those Actions of our Saviour which serve only to demonstrate his admirable Vertue and Holiness In the whole Conduct of our Saviour and the History of it contained in the Gospels we may chiefly observe four Kinds of Matters which the Holy Ghost hath thought fit to convey to us by the writing of inspired Persons his Miracles the Conformity of his Life Death and all the Circumstances of them to the antient preceding Prophesies concerning the Messias his Doctrines and his Actions Of these the two first lead us to the knowledge of Christ the two latter direct us in it By his Miracles and the Conformity of his Life to the antient Prophesies of the Messias he abundantly proved himself to be a Divine Person the Son of God and the true Messias Who was to come into the world By his Doctrines and Practice he hath taught us the way to attain the same Happiness into which he is gone before us Now if we observe how great a part of the Gospels is taken up in relating Matters of the last sort if we consider that the Evangelists have taken no less care to acquaint us with these than with his Doctrines the immediate Rule of our Belief and Practice We cannot but conclude that they also were intended for a certain and infallible Rule of our Life and Conduct and proposed as the Object of our Imitation The Holy Ghost assureth us That all Scripture was written for our Instruction and although this is undoubtedly true of all parts of the Divine Scripture yet can it not with such evidence of Truth be affirmed of any part of it as of the Holy Gospels which contain the History of our Saviours Life and Actions These the Church in all Ages esteemed the most considerable part of that sacred Rule which was committed to her Care and given for her Direction It manifestly appears to have been the design of each Evangelist apart to deliver a compleat System of all things necessary to be known and done by all Christians and yet all conspired in nothing more than in giving a full Relation of the Vertues and Graces of our Blessed Saviour a plain Argument that the Holy Ghost which directed those sacred Pen-men and whose infallible Wisdom doth nothing in vain thought nothing more necessary than it to the knowledge of all Christians It becomes us as to adore the admirable Wisdom and Goodness of God in this Matter so to take Care least by neglecting to imitate the Example so studiously and fully proposed to us we defeat his most wise Contrivance 2. It is evidently manifest from the express Testimony of Scripture Our Saviour after he had performed that stupendious Act of Humility in washing his Disciples feet John XIII tells them ver 15. For I have given you an example that ye should do as I have done to you thereby intimating that by that Ceremony he designed nothing else than to teach them Humility that they should not presume to retain high Conceptions of their own worth and merit much less Pride and Ambition when they had seen him their Lord and Master condescend to execute the meanest Office of a Servant to them who were his domestick Servants And indeed the Action could be designed for no other end It had nothing miraculous in it tended not to the Completion of any antient Prophesie served not to demonstrate the Divinity of his Person and indeed had nothing excellent or admirable in it but as it conduced to this end And what greater Argument can we desire of the Life of Christ being proposed for our Imitation than that many of his Actions aimed at no other end than to draw us to the Practice of the most noble Vertues by the
of Mankind adapted it to our Imitation and performed no Actions if we except those which plainly referred either to his Prophetick Sacerdotal or Kingly Office which might not equally be performed by all orders and conditions of Men. So admirable was his Conduct so wisely accommodated to effectuate its design that is to serve for an universal Example to all his Followers A design in which the Goodness and Wisdom of God are equally visible as might be shewed by many Considerations I shall instance but in two First To propose the Example of our Saviour as an Object of imitation to all Christians was an excellent means to allure them to the practice of their Duty and a sure method to direct them in it It hath been an old Observation confirmed by the Experience of all Ages that Men are led more powerfully by Example than precept Men are ordinarily induced to imitate the Actions of those Persons for whom they retain a mighty awe and reverence they imagine somewhat extraordinary to be in them all and believe the only method to attain the same Greatness is to practise the same Actions If this natural inclination of Mankind be directed in the right Channel nothing tends more effectually to promote the great Ends of Piety and Holiness among men On the contrary the bad Example of great and powerful Persons hath debauched whole Nations and withdrawn them from their Duty Thus we find in the History of the Old Testament that Religion constantly flourished or decayed among the Jews according to the disposition and example of their Princes Bad Princes drew the whole Nation into Apostacy with them and Good ones restored the Worship of the true God in the hearts of all their Subjects Ahab's Example introduced among the ten Tribes so universal an Idolatry that he left but Seven thousand men in Israel who bowed not their knees to Baal And the Piety of King Josiah wrought such a general Reformation in his People That from the time of the Judges which judged Israel there was not such a Passover holden to the Lord. To improve this Inclination therefore of Mankind to their own advantage and his Glory God hath given to us the Example of his only Son which carrieth greater Inducements along with it than that of any earthly Princes For if Majesty and the Greatness of Power be the chief motive of Imitation our Exemplar is no less than God incarnate and what Honour as well as Perfection must it needs be for Mankind to imitate the Vertues and Excellencies of their Creator If kindness and the Sense of extraordinary Benefits can incite us to Imitation our Saviour hath engaged us by wonders of Mercy and the most amazing Acts of endearing Love And in what better manner can we express our gratitude to our Redeemer than by a perfect Conformity to his Life and Actions If the hopes of obtaining the same Happiness can move us our Saviour hath proposed a reward of the same Nature a Mansion in the same place of Glory with himself to all who labour to attain it by the exercise of the same Vertues All these Considerations cannot fail to make the Example of Christ infinitely more efficacious than that of any mortal Creature But this is not all it is found by the same Experience and upon the same Reasons that Mankind is taught more effectually by Example than by Precept The greatest part of Men have but dark Notions of the Nature of good and evil They cannot easily discern what Actions are in themselves perfective of humane Nature and pleasing to God nor distinctly perceive the deformity of Sin Revelation indeed might justly be supposed to supply this Defect and enlighten their Understanding but neither will this give them distinct Notions of their Duty unless they see the Precepts of it applied by some illustrious Example Precepts may be obscure difficult and ambiguous but the constant Practice of them in some eminent and reverend Person gives a full and perfect Intepretation of them And which is most considerable Precepts only affect the Understanding Examples strike the Sense and thereby in most Men make far deeper Impression than the former although enforced with a thousand Reasons Hence the most numerous part of Mankind have ever drawn the measure of their Duty from the Example of some illustrious Persons who are commonly reputed and allowed to have lived up to the Dignity and the Duty of their Nature and Religion and esteemed all their Actions good or bad not as they agreed to the natural Law of reason or revealed Law of God but as they were conformable to those Patterns whose Imitation they had proposed to themselves In vain therefore did the Heathen Philosophers make glorious Descriptions of the Excellency of moral Vertues in vain did they recommend the practice of them to the World by their Writings and Discourses while they continued to represent their Gods as guilty of the most enormous Vices and Slaves to their Lusts and Passions Men chose rather to follow the vitious Examples of their supposed Gods whom they imagined to be the Fountains of all Perfection patronized their Crimes by their Examples and hoped for impunity from their Presidents How wisely therefore hath God given to us Christians the most perfect and infallible Example of our Saviour Christ which might secure our obedience to him and by proposing to us the utmost Pattern of Perfection allure us to the Practice of it By this the meanest Christians are sensibly taught their Duty and directed in it by this thâ—… wisest are enabled to understand and interpret the Divine Precepts in their right sense and meaning And not only doth this tend to direct private Christians in the Conduct of their Lives but also to preserve Purity of Religion in the Church and diffuse the true Spirit of Christianity into all the Members of it A studious Care of imitating the Actions and Graces of the Blessed Jesus would above all other Remedies have obstructed the entrance of Superstitions and corrupt Opinions which than began to creep into the Church when men receded from this best and primitive Pattern and out of a fond Veneration for reputed Saints took more Care to imitate their Example than that of their Lord and Master This debased the Doctrines and corrupted the Devotions of Christians betraying them into gross Superstitions especially in the latter Ages of the Church when many persons obtained the repute of Saints who were remarkable for nothing else than exorbitant Austerities antick Devotions and irrational Practices when the Gospels which contained the Relation of our Saviours Actions were locked up in an unknown Tongue and nothing communicated to the People in the vulgar Language but Legendary Stories of reputed Saints To these abuses our Divine Lawgiver had assigned an easie and natural Remedy in proposing the example of himself In the Authors and followers of these Corruptions it was the Crime of some to quit this Example and the unhappiness of others
not fully to know it and it will be our Happiness if we both know and do it Secondly the imitation of our Saviours Example was most wisely proposed to all his Followers for this end that it might convince them that Christianity was not a meerly Speculative but a practical Religion Men would have been willing to have taken up with the bare Contemplation of those Divine Truths which were by Christ revealed to the world and imagined the bare knowledge of them to be sufficient had not our Saviour by his own Example confuted that Opinion and taught them that the most exalted knowledge was not sufficient without a correspondent Vertue If we view the state of the World at that time in which Christ published his Revelation we shall find nothing to have been more necessary to his design than this method All Mankind at that time seemed to conspire in this common Error that the knowledge of revealed Religions drew no Obligation of practice with them The Heathens indeed pretended to sacred Mysteries and imagined themselves to know the secrets of Heaven But this knowledge was so far from having any influence upon their Lives that they believed not it ought to have any The Jews possessed truly a Divine Religion yet in a great measure defeated the ends of it by the same false Opinion They contented themselves with the satisfaction of having Abraham to their Father and thought nothing else was required of them than to know the Prerogative of their Nation Even the Pharisees who sate in Moses's Chair and pretended to a more strict and perfect Holiness laboured indeed to know the Precepts and Punctilios of the Law but believed not themselves obliged to a Conscientious performance of it fondly imagining that the defect of that would be abundantly supplied by the merits of their Descent from Abraham So prone is Mankind to this fatal Error which flatters their ease and indulgeth them in the Exercise of their Lusts and Passions This our Saviour therefore unanswerably confuted by his own Practice giving us thereby to understand that his Religion was designed no less to reform the Wills than instruct the Understandings of his Followers And how necessary this Conduct was appears not only from the prevailing Errors of those times but also from the depraved Inclination of Mankind in all Ages Even in our Age there are not wanting unreasonable men who pretend that Christians are not obliged by the Law of Nature nor bound to the Practice of it An Error than which none can be more directly contrary to the Spirit of Christianity and the whole design of the Gospel Our Saviour more than once assureth us That he came not to destroy but to fulfil the Law which since it cannot be understood of the Mosaick must necessarily of the Moral Law This makes the chief Subject of all his Precepts and Exhortations and in urging this his famous Sermon upon the Mount consisting of three whole Chapters is almost intirely taken up Lastly That no Argument might be wanting to enforce the Practice of it he hath recommended it by his own Example He prescribed no Duty to us which he practised not invariably in his own Person and as his Religion includeth the whole Duty of Man so himself exercised it in the most eminent and perfect manner which bringeth me to the second Head proposed Namely II. That the Life of Christ was the best and most compleat Example which could be proposed to Mankind as the Object of their Imitation All other men were never able to live up exactly to the Rules of their Religion but in many things we offend all It was Christ alone who performed a constant and universal Righteousness Who did no sin neither was guile found in his mouth But to represent this Matter more fully to you I will consider the Exemplary Holiness of our Saviour in some of the more illustrious Branches of our Duty to God our Selves and the rest of Mankind First then in relation to God to whom as partaking of the humane Nature he owed the same Subjection that we do his Piety and Devotion was remarkable He often withdrew himself from his Disciples and retired into Solitary places that he might calmly enjoy the Contemplation of God and pour out his Soul in Prayers unto him Sometimes departing late in the Evening alone into a Mountain to pray Matth. XIV 23. John VI. 16. Other times rising up early in the Morning and withdrawing into a Solitary place to perform the same Office Mark I. 35. And more than once spending whole Nights in Prayer thereby teaching us that we ought to Dedicate sometime daily to the private Devotions of the Closet where we may converse with our God by Prayer and Meditation He oftimes denied to his Body its natural Rest and Sleep to enjoy his Father in private Contemplation and offer up his Petitions to him And shall not we set apart some of our vacant hours to the Exercise of the same Piety Our Subjection to the Divine Majesty surely is not less and our wants infinitely greater The subject of his Prayers could be no other than to offer up to God the Tribute of praise and thanksgiving and to intercede for others whereas we besides all this have many sins to bewail and to implore the Pardon of them Then as for the publick Acts of Religion which tend most directly to increase the Honour of God and procure to him due Adoration amongst men our Saviour manifested by his constant performance of them how dear the Glory of God was to him He frequented all the publick and solemn Festivals of the Jewish Religion and that whether of Divine as the Passover or humane Institution as the Feast of Dedication omitting no ocsion whereby he might advance the Divine Honour by joyning in all the usual Solemnities of Divine Worship Even in his private State before he entred upon the Execution of his Ministerial Office however silent the sacred History be as to his other Actions yet this we are assured That he used to attend the publick Worship of God in the Synagogues every Sabbath day For so St. Luke relateth Chap. IV. 16. where describing his entrance upon his Ministerial Office he tells us And he came to Nazareth where he had been brought up and as his Custom was he went into the Synagogue on the Sabbath day What can be now wanting to render this Example of Piety most compleat and worthy our Imitation He frequented the publick Acts of Worship lest we should imagine private Devotion to be sufficient and intermitted not the pious Exercises of the Closet least we should rest content with having joyned in the publick Prayers and proceed no farther If we view the other Characters of Piety and Religion we shall find them all to have been eminently united in this illustrious Example With what profound Humility did he profess himself to come into the world to perform his Fathers Will How constantly did he ascribe the
Glory of all his Works and Miracles to his Almighty Power With what admirable Resignation did he yield up himself to the Divine Will and disposal He deprecated indeed the pains of Death and the terrible Torments of an ignominious Crucifixion yet all with intire Submission to his Fathers pleasure Nevertheless not my Will but thy Will be done A temper of mind than which none more lively representeth our absolute Subjection to God or tends more directly to secure real Happiness to us both in this Life and that which is to come Hereby we own our selves to be the Workmanship of God his Creatures and his Vassals bound to submit to his Will and receive the severest Dispensations of his Hand with reverence Hereby we acknowledge the infinite Perfection of his Wisdom who best knows what is most convenient for us and the admirable Contrivances of his Providence whereby he maketh all things work together for good to them that fear him This Disposition will alleviate all the Afflictions and allay all the Tempests of this Life and even place us beyond the reach of all assaults on this side Heaven and by rendring our Wills conformable to the Will of God sit us for the eternal Fruition of him This blessed Temper our Saviour possessed in the highest degree in this consisted the Merits of his obedience this exalted him to the right hand of God and will infallibly Conduct us to the same Glory if his most excellent Example can invite us to the practice of the same Duty Secondly the Life and Conduct of Christ was exemplar in an ardent Zeal for the Divine Glory This indeed is a necessary Consequence of true Piety For this being founded in a just Conception of the Greatness and Excellency of the Divine Attributes and a due Sense of our Obligation arising from it cannot subsist without an earnest Concern for the maintenance and increase of the Divine Glory amongst men Can we be said to love our Creator and yet patiently endure to hear his Name blasphemed and his Attributes perhaps also his Existence called in question Can we truly reverence his adorable Name and yet securely see it vilified by prophane Persons without asserting the Honour of it or at least testifying our Displeasure at such bare-face't impiety Surely this is the least which the profession of our Religion requireth of us Nor can we justly deny that to God which we afford to the meanest Friend whofe injured Names we are wont to vindicate and not hear them reviled without impatience Our Saviour hath set us a most excellent Pattern in this kind With what Indignation did he receive the Proposals of the Devil disadvantagious to the Honour of his Father He contented himself barely to reject it but with a Get thee behind me Satan manifested how much the very proposing of it was displeasing to him But in no occasion did his Zeal more signally appear than in driving the Money-Changers Buyers and Sellers out of the Temple An Action very remarkable if we consider all the Circumstances of it and which as appears from the History of the Gospel was performed by him at two several times For St. John Chap. II. relates it as being done in the beginning of his Ministerial Office and the other three Evangelists as performed immediately before his Passion Therein he had to encounter with a numerous multitude of People who could plead Prescription and the Authority of a long Permission for their Traffick in the Temple Persons of that profession are not wont to be moved by Reason and Argument when interest lies at stake A powerful Garrison was at hand in the Tower of Antonias to repress all Seditions in the Temple and himself a single Person armed with no apparent Authority nor any other weapon than a simple Whip Yet all these Difficulties the Blessed Jesus overlooked that he might vindicate the injured Honour of his Father disdaining that his Fathers house should be made an house of Merchandise and that the Temple built for the Honour of his Name should be turned into a den of Thieves This Holy transport of Zeal drew even his Disciples into Admiration who could not imagine the reason of it till they remembred that it was written The Zeal of thine house hath eaten me up Joh. II. 17. This vigorous Zeal obtained ever in the Church while the true Spirit of Christianity was kept up among the Professors of it and if it be visibly decayed in our Age we are certain thaâ—… Piety and true Devotion hath decayed with it Among the antient Christians nothing was esteemed so dear as the Honour of their God and Saviour This they feared not to vindicate with their dearest Lives and thought the expence of their Blood a just Tribute to it They contented not themselves to make an open profession of their Faith and belief in God when urged to it but voluntarily and unprovoked performed it when the performance of it was adjudged and punished as a Capital Crime by their Persecutors They thronged to the Tribunals of the Heathen Judges and openly professed themselves to be Christians when Racks and Gibbets and the most exquisite Torments attended the Profession This was in an eminent manner Not to be ashamed of the Cross of Christ and the highest Evidence of a most fervent Zeal for the Divine Glory I will not say that this voluntary Profession and thereby the exposing of themselves to the rage of their Enemies was their Duty I will not exhort you to the like Zeal which is neither necessary nor practicable in these peaceable times of the Church But certainly this abundantly condemns the Luke-warmness of many Christians who are content to hear the Honour and Majesty of their Creator defamed by prophane Discourses when the Vindication of it would cost them no more than a gentle reproof or some small Testimony of displeasure Thus our Saviour gave us an excellent Example of our Duty towards God If we consider his Life in relation to all those Duties which every Man oweth to himself we shall find it an admirable Pattern of every one of them His Temperance Sobriety and Chaftity were remarkable neither giving way to Luxurious Pleasures nor aiming at great Austerities The Pharifees indeed his professed Enemies taxed him as a glutton and wine-bibber a friend of publicans and sinners But this Calumny proceeded as well from their inveterate Rancour and Malice as from a fond Opinion that the Vertues of Temperance and Sobriety were inconsistent with a free Deportment and obliging Conversation To them it seemed that the perfection of Temperance consisted in austere Macerations of the Body and an utter Renunciation of all the Conveniences of Life not a sober in and rational use of them Hence they imagined John the Baptist only Who came neither eating nor drinking to come in the way of righteousness and accused the Conduct of our Saviour who came eating and drinking that is without any unusual Abstinence and Macerations of Looseness and
Intemperance But as Christ truly replyed to them herein also Wisdom was justified of her Children It became not the Wisdom and Holiness of the Son of God to gratifie their false Notions of Temperance and Sobriety by conforming his Practice to them He chose rather to exercise those Vertues in their genuine Purity and thereby not only rectifie the mistakes of Mankind in this Matter but also render his Example convenient to the imitation of all Orders and Ranks of men How far himself was above the Temptations of Pleasure how little he indulged the ease of his Body or sought the satisfaction of his Senses and Passions appears from the whole Conduct of his Life Humility of Mind and a generous Contentment under the severest Adversities are the most genuine Characters of Christianity which teacheth us that a mean esteem of our own Perfections as it is most just in it self so also most acceptable to the Divine Will that Riches and Honours add nothing to our real Happiness that the Reward of our Duty is not to be expected in this Life and that the Afflictions which may accompany the performance of it are not comparable to the glory which shall be revealed Of all the Vertues of the Soul and Precepts of Christianity Mankind is most averse to these The natural Man is unwilling to believe that to depress his outward Dignity is the readiest way to improve his inward worth and will hardly be perswaded that Riches and worldly Honour do not in the least conduce to true Felicity The Heathens had all along adored these more than their great Diana and by describing the Happiness of their Gods to consist in the uninterrupted Fruition of sensual Pleasures had introduced an universal Opinion among the vulgar that unhappiness consisted in the want of the same Pleasures Even the Jews God's own People were not free from the same Errour They measured their well being and even the favour of God by their outward Prosperity Being induced thereto by the very nature and conditions of their Covenant which openly contained no more than the Promises of this Life To wean Mankind therefore of this fond Opinion and induce Men to the Reception of a better Covenant it was necessary that our Lord should by his Example as well as Precepts promote a just Contempt of all sublunary Enjoyments and reduce Men to a true Sense of their own unworthiness This he hath abundantly done by giving to us an incomparable Example of Humility Self-denial voluntary Poverty and Contentment in his own Person His Descent from Heaven and taking humane Flesh upon him was in it self a most astonishing Condescension That being in the form of God he thought it no robbery to be equal with God but made himself of no Reputation and took upon him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men Philip. II. 6 7. That is that being from all Ages no less than God Blessed for evermore the Second Person of the Eternal Trinity and equally partaking of the Divine Nature with his Father he made no pompous Ostentation of that Equality nor affected to preserve his Majesty inviolate and undiminished but condescended to divest himself in appearance of that Divine Character and assume the Nature Conditions and Infirmities of one of his own Creatures and to be made like unto mortal Man See a degree of Humility of which none but the Blessed Jesus was capable which exceeds even our apprehension as well as Imitation which may be admired but never can be attained by us Yet this was not all For as it Follows in the next Verse Being found in fashion as a man he humbled himself and became obedient unto death even the death of the Cross. He contented not himself to have forsaken the Glories of Heaven and assumed the mean Condition of a Man but to carry his Condescension to the utmost pitch he placed himself in the lowest Rank of Men bore the greatest Affictions incident to Mankind underwent Poverty Nakedness and Contempt and at last submitted to a violent Death even the Ignominious and painful Death of the Cross. If he had thought an external shew of Greatness any ways conducive to promote the great Ends for which he came into the world or had intended to procure to himself those Pleasures which Men so greedily seek after he might have engrossed to himself all the Riches of the world and in Royal Magnificence exceeded even the Carnal Expectations of the Jews Heaven and Earth were intirely at his Devotion and whole Legions of Angels ready to minister to him But he waved all these advantages spent his private years in a Laborious and Mechanick Life and when he entred on his publick Office increased both his Labour and his Poverty He willingly wanted all the Conveniences of Life and even the common benefits of Nature For as himself tells The Foxes bave holes and the Birds of the air have â—…ests but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head Thus he gave us a most perfect Pattern of Self-denial generous Contempt of the world and Renunciation of all carnal Pleasures And shall we imagine our selves not in the least concerned in all this Himself hath prevented any such mistakes by telling us That if any one will come after him or be his Disciple He must deny himself and take up his Cross and follow him Matth. XVI 24. And if your Lord and Master have washed your feet ye ought also to wash one anothers feet John XIII 14. And surely most reasonably If the Son of God vouchsafed to undergo all the Calamities incident to Mankind shall we presume to expect an undisturbed course of outward Happiness and murmur at any Afflictions which befall us If he forsook the Glories of Heaven to redeem us shall not we willingly quit all the Vanities of the Earth to obey him If he thought it not incongruous to the Majesty of his Divine Nature to perform such stupendious Acts of Humility shall the greatest of Men think it unsuitable to their Dignity to be humble with their God and gentle with their fellow Creatures Surely if the Divine Precepts cannot engage us to Humility the Divine Example should shame us to it Lastly in Relation to our Duty to other Men his Justice Meekness and Charity which are the great Branches of it were most Exemplary His Justice was so undeniable in paying to every Man fear to whom fear was due honour to whom honour in injuring no Man nor justly offending any one that even Pilate whose Interest it then was that he should be found guilty after a strict Examination and violent Accusation of his numerous and potent Enemies was by the Clearness of his Innocence forced thrice to declare That he could find no fault in him Luk. XXIII 14 22. Confirming also his own Sentence with the concurrent Opinion of Herod a jealous and suspicious Tyrant to whom he had been sent but was fully cleared by him Ver. 15. So far
of Heathen Philosophers tended to no other End than to foment their Pride and create in them a vain Opinion of their own Wisdom and Merits They referred it not to God nor employed it as a Principle of obedience to him It abated not their Passions reformed not their Lusts and had no visible influence upon their Lives save in making them haughty and supercilious the constant Character of those Philosophers In opposition to this the Apostle Wills that we express the Divinity of our Reâ—…igion in the Holiness of our Lives that we be not puft up with Pride nor imagine it to be the product either of our own merit or understanding that we acknowledge to have received it from God and profess that we expect either to be saved or damned by our obedience to the Rules of it that we perpetually maintain an awful regard of the Commands of our Almighty Lawgiver and set our selves to the performance of them with the most profound Humility and Submission that we be not affrighted from the profession of our Faith by the greatest threats or Terrours nor be betrayed to the Omission of our Duty by supine Negligence and want of Consideration But this in a word That we be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh us a reason of the hope that is in us with meekness and fear In Discoursing of these words I shall insist upon these two Heads which naturally offer themselves to our Consideration I. That the Christian Religion is agreeable to the Principles of Reason and carrieth sufficient Evidence along with it II. That it is the Duty of every Christian not wanting the means of sufficient Instruction to enable himself to give a Reason of his Faith I. That the Christian Religion c. For the Apostle commanding us To be always ready to give a reason of the hope that is in us plainly intimates that a Reason may be given of it For that by this term of the hope that is in us is to be understood the whole System of our Faith appears as well from the Context as from the frequent Acceptation of those words in the same Sense in divers places of the New Testament This Religion as it carrieth eminent Marks of its Divinity on many other Accounts so chiefly in the reasonableness and evidence of it and that either 1. In respect of the Nature of it and the Rules prescribed by it Or 2. In respect of the undoubted certainty of its having been revealed by God I. If we respect the Nature and Constitution of the Christian Religion and the Rules of Life and Worship proposed by it we shall find it exactly rational and attended with the greatest Evidence This might be proved by many Considerations But at present I shall insist on no more than two As I. Christianity proposeth a Divine Worship most consentaneous to the Nature of God and tendeth most effectually to secure his Honour among men The Brimary end of all Religion is the Worship of God and is intended cither to pay to God that tribute of Adoration and Thanks which his infinite Majesty and right of Creation Redemption and other benefits require or to implore his Favour in pardoning our sins supplying our Necessities or conferring his Graces on us All these Actions ought to be directed in that way which is most sutable to his Nature and may best express the perfection of it God is a Spirit and therefore requireth to be worshipped in spirit and truth Our Soul alone is truly capable of Religon can alone entertain the Idea of God and form an Act of Worship All outward Ceremonies and corporeal Modes of Worship are no otherwise Holy or to be accounted of than as they tend to shew the inward Devotion of the Soul which is wont to declare its Thoughts and Motions when vehement and intense by external Indications All other voluntary external Acts of Worship which are not the natural Effects and Signs of an inward Zeal and warmth of Devotion serve only to gratifie a foolish Superstition and relate no more to the Worship of God than any other irregular Motions of the Body If we really imploy the Faculties of our Soul as we ought to do in admiring the perfections of the Divine Nature in adoring his Majesty loving his Goodness and fearing his Justice these affections of the Mind will naturally discover themselves in outward Acts and Gestures and cannot be suppressed These external Actions declare to others the inward Sense of our Minds and thereby tend to manifest the Honour of God and publish his Glory but deserve no otherwise to be regarded either by God or Man than as they are the Signs and Effects of an inward Piety And hence we may judge of the Excellency of our Religion without considering the Evidence of its Revelation If it be chiefly employed in external Shews and Ceremonies and makes the performance of them without any inward Motion of the Soul an Act of Worship if it represents the Divine Attributes and Perfections by corporeal Symbols rather than noble Conceptions of the Soul and desires God to accept of that mean and imperfect Service instead of a near Conformity to himself by the Exercise of Holiness and Vertue Such a Religion may perhaps be true but neither agrceable to the Excellency of God nor answering to the Dignity of our own Nature God may accept it or even Command it for a time in Compassion to the Blindness and infirmity of Mankind not capable under some Circumstances of a more noble and spiritual Religion but could never intend to continue it any longer than till he should please to make a more full and open Revelation of himself And this was the Case of the Jewish Religion For the Heathens deserve not here to be considered among whom religious Worship consisted wholly in external Rites and Actions and those oft-times such as were in their own Nature unlawful The Religion of the Jews however instituted by God was chiefly employed in outward Rites and Observances in Washings and Abstinence from certain Meats in Observation of times and tedious Ceremonies which although they served to typefie the coming of the Messias and with him the Revelation of a more perfect Religion Yet did not directly signifie any inward Acts of Reverence Piety or Devotion nor were necessarily accompanied by them The perpetual offering of carnal Sacrifices alone argued the imperfection of their Worship Since therein the Sacrificers desired of God to accept the Lives of Beasts instead of a more holy and reasonable Sacrifice the devoting their own Wills and Affections to his Service 'T is the peculiar Honour of the Christian Religion to worship God in a manner agreeable to the simplicity of his Nature in Spirit and Truth In this the Affections of the Soul are alone respected no Ceremonial Observances imposed on us nor indeed any external Acts of Worship save only those Foederal Rites I mean the two Sacraments of Baptism and the
most Holy Reform'd Religion of our Church which is indeed no other than the pure and genuine Christianity by decrying it as Heretical and Damnable To obviate the Designs of these men nothing can be more effectual than to apply our selves diligently to the study of Christianity to enquire in the Holy Scriptures what Christ hath revealed to us and to search the Design and Mysteries of his Religion This is become the Duty of every private Christian at this time that so his Ignorance may not lay him open to the Attempts of designing Men who lay in wait to deceive and betray him to be a prey to Errour and Superstition To this pursuance and encrease of knowledge our Church encourageth and earnestly intreats us She taketh no refuge in the Ignorance of her Communicants nor discourageth them from examining her Doctrines and Opinions as well knowing that this Examination will end in a full Conviction of the truth of them and that the Improvement of our knowledge in Divine Matters and an impartial study of them will infallibly secure us from the delusions of her Enemies And this is the first Reason why every private Christian ought to be fully instructed concerning the Reasons of his Faith that so he may answer the Objections and escape the Assaults of those who endeavour to withdraw us from the truth or seduceus to the belief of any Enrour II. It is a strict Enquiry into the Reasons and Arguments of our Religion and full Comprehension of them which properly maketh Faith to be praise worthy in it self acceptable to God and capable of reward An assent to Christianity without respect to the Arguments of its truth may be a Happiness to ignorant Persons in as much as they enjoy those opportunities which lead to such an assent such as are Education in a Christian Countrey or under Christian Parents or Masters whereby through custom or respect to the Authority of those Persons they embrace Christianity and are led thereby to the knowledge of God the Practice of their Duty and dependence upon the Merits of a Crucified Saviour But surely we cannot imagine this to be an Act deserving the Favour of God or even comparable to the meanest of moral Vertues Before all which a true Divine Faith is so frequently and so eminently preferred in Scripture For since such a Disposition of Mind I mean an inclination to follow the Example and Authority of our Countrey Parents or Masters in assenting to the Religion received by them may and doth equally dispose Men to the embracing of Errour as of Truth it is to be accounted a thing wholly indifferent and if it proceeds from a a willful Negligence of examining the Grounds of any Religion when means and ability are not wanting to us is extremely vicious but no otherwise laudable than in the happy consequences of it and opportunities it may possibly minister of coming to the Truth Indeed Christianity is so admirably fitted to the perfection and Salvation of Mankind that it cannot be assented to upon any Grounds whatsoever even by the most ignorant Persons without a precedent habit of Mind which is truly vertuous and excellent and in an extraordinary manner testifying a profound obedience to the Commands of God in the Person assenting may not unfitly be thought to qualifie him for the Divine Favour For Christianity proposing such Rules as restrain the corrupt Lusts and Passions of men teaching a strict Sobriety and Abstinence from unlawful Pleasures forbiding the satisfaction of the most darling Lusts and commanding men to deny to themselves what they are apt to imagine an extreme Happiness the unlimited Fruition of all sensual Pleasures and even upon occasion to forforsake the Conveniences of Life it self Choosing rather to suffer affliction than enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season None can assent to a Religion of this Nature without first overcoming his Lusts and Passions and being thoroughly convinced that all these ought to give place to the Command and Will of God which he believes to be proposed to him in the Christian Religion Such a Disposition is truly excellent and in them who want means of attaining a more perfect knowledge is rewarded by God as a true and perfect Act of Faith who condescends to the imperfection of Mankind and requiring of none more than he hath given to him supplyeth by his Mercy what is wanting to the perfection of our Faith But then such a Disposition of Mind is so far from being a true and proper Faith that it may consist without it and be joyned with Errour Neither can we imagine that Faith which hath all those glorious and particular Pro rises of Reward annexed to it in the Holy Scripture consists only in assenting to and firmly believing what we are assured God hath revealed to us For that we cannot but do None ever that believed the Existence of a God dis-believed what he was perswaded to have been revealed by him To do that were to suppose that God could err or lye and consequently were not God Such an assent therefore being necessary and unavoidable is not capable of a Reward and hath nothing excellent in it No Man can be an Infidel in this Sense And therefore none can be esteemed faithful from it And hence it appears that to have only moral and not demonstrative Proofs is so far from prejudicing the truth of Christianity that it is both necessary and advantageous to it For if the Truths of Christianity had been self evident or placed in as clear a Light as the Sun in Heaven Assent to them had been necessary and no Act of Choice and therefore incapable of reward Whereas now God hath so wisely contrived it that a rational Afsent to it and perfect Comprehension of it will exercise the diligence obedience and reason of Mankind in enquiring into whatsoever carrieth the stamp of Divine Authority in submitting to whatsoever justly appears to bear that sacred Character in using aright our Faculties of Reason and Understanding and employing them to the Glory of God All these Acts and Habits are in themselves praise worthy and rewarded by God with the Reward of Faith that is with infinite and eternal Happiness For 't is in a rational and just Assent to the Christian Religion for the sake of those Arguments which perswade it to have proceeded from the Divine Authority and a due use of our Reason in discovering its Divine Original that a true and perfect Faith consists For upon Conviction of its having been revealed by God we cannot but yield to the truth of it and if we desire or expect to attain the Rewards proposed by it betake our selves to a serious obedience to the Precepts of it For as a due use of our Understanding is no less difficult in it self and advantageous to us than of our Will so we ought to suppose that God will no less favourably accept it and no less highly reward it Certainly a right use of our Reason
if it teacheth Doctrines contrary to Reason and refuseth to give any account of them we may infallibly conclude it to be erroneous and to have departed from the true Faith Yet we know a Church that hath wholly evacuated the Apostles Precépt by inhibiting to private Christians the use of Reason in Divine Matters and setting up an infallible Judge to whom all ought blindly to submit that useth her utmost endeavours to disable private Christians from giving a Reason of their Faith by forbidding them to read the Scripture that hath made Christianity irrational by adding to it absurd and contradictive Doctrines For what reason can be given that men should not use their Reason What Reason can be assigned for Transubstantiation which is directly contrary both to Sense and Reason What reason for a blind Submission to a pretended infallible Judge which defeats all use of Reason But these things are too apparent I omit them and pass to the second and last Branch of Application That 2. We ought to adorn this most rational and Holy Religion of our Saviour with a correspondent Holiness and Purity of Life The Apostle draws this inference in the words immediately preceding and following my Text But sanctifie the Lord God in your hearts and having a good conscience and indeed most naturally For if it be the highest Perverseness to reject the Gospel after so clear a Demonstration of the Divinity of it what a degree of Folly and Impiety must it be in those who are perswaded of the truth of it to contradict the Evidence and Design of it by the wickedness of their Lives and live as if they believed it to be most false The Apostle urgeth it as the utmost Aggravation of the sin of the wiser Heathens that they held the truth in unrighteousness and surely with much more force will the Argument fall upon immoral Christians For the Heathen Sages dissembled their Opinions from the world and so no wonder that they directed not their Actions by them whereas these publickly profess their belief of Christianity and yet live in open Contradiction to it And indeed it is a most astonishing Consideration that rational Creatures should deliberately violate those Laws upon which they acknowledge the hopes of Eternity to depend Do we really believe the Christian Religion to be Divine and yet go on without remorse to trample under foot its Laws and Precepts Are we perswaded that infinite Rewards in another world attend the performance of our Duty in this and yet preferr the Temptations and Pleasures of the World to the Attainment of them Do we profess our Belief of eternal Punishments and yet are not affrighted from the Commission of any pleasing sin by the terror of them However we may pretend a firm Assent to all these Articles yet certainly it will be impossible to perswade a considering Man that the belief of them can be reconciled with the Practice of the contrary And after all if we should be allowed to be what we pretend Believers in Christ Can faith save us No Shew me thy faith by thy works If a sober Heathen should come among us and compare the Rules of Christ with the Lives of Christians the exercise of Piety Temperance and Chastity and all moral Vertues commanded by the one in the higest degree and upon the severest Penalties and Impiety Intemperance Lust and all enormous Vices openly and greedily practised by the other he would be tempted to believe that the Religion of Christ were no more than a pleasing Fable wherewith Christians sometimes entertained themselves An ancient Father who lived in the declining times of Christianity tells us how the Heathens in his Age formed dishonourable thoughts of Christ from the scandalous Lives of his Disciples Quomodo bonus est Magister cujus tam malos videmus Discipulos How can he be a good Lawgiver that hath no better Followers how can his Laws be excellent that do not reform the Lives of their Professours And then proceeds to deplore this Scandal In nobis Christus opprobrium patitur Thus we defame our most excellent Religion dishonour our Saviour and blaspheme him in our Lives Let us live up to the Rules of our Religion and by a Conscientious practice of them manifest that we are perswaded of the truth of it otherwise it will be in vain to be ready always to give an answer to every one that asketh us a reason of the hope that is in us This were unanswerably to refute our Arguments by our Practice and add to our own Condemnation Let us demonstrate the Divinity of our Religion by the influence it hath upon our Lives and profess an intire Belief of it by a constant Obedience to it that so we may not fall short of the Promises annexed to it and others seeing our good works may glorifie our Father which is in heaven The Fifth SERMON PREACH'D December 2d 1688. At LAMBETH CHAPEL Rom. II. 4. Not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance THE infinite and wonderful Love of God towards Mankind is in nothing more visible and conspicuous than in the various methods which he makes use of to draw us to himself The Faculties and Passions of our Soul are not more numerous and different than are the means which he hath employed to render us happy and oblige us to the performance of our Duty inducing us by all those Motives and Arguments which in other moral Actions are wont to make impression on us He hath engaged our Understandings by proposing to our belief and practice a reasonable and holy Religion attended with the greatest Evidence and in all things highly agreeable to the Nature of Mankind and first Principles of Reason He hath assured our Wills by presenting such Objects to it as employ every single Passion of it If the desire of obtaining the greatest good can move us he hath allured us by the Promise of an infinite and eternal Happiness If fear of Misery hath any influence upon our minds he hath deterred us from the Violation of his Laws by affixing to it the most severe and terrible Punishments If hope can excite us he hath given to us an infallible assurance of more than we can conceive If Love can affect us he hath obliged us by the greatest Benefits Lastly If reason and the sense of our Duty if Rewards and Punishments if Favours and Benefits can together engage us he hath united all in one most holy and excellent Religion And in this appears the wonderful Goodness of God that whereas any one of these methods were alone sufficient to oblige Mankind to the practice of our Duty he hath chose to employ them all that so that Attribute of Mercy wherein he most delights might be more conspicuous and the impemtence of Mankind in opposition to it might not only become irrational but even monstrous It had been sufficient as to the Obligation of it to have proposed a reasonable Religion without annexing to it
be scandalized at the Dissent and Opposition of the Jews and Greeks Much less ought we to suffer our selves to be led away by the same Prejudices with them Men perhaps professing Christianity may imagine this to be impossible while they continue in the open Profession of it and so take no Care to prevent it But if we examine our selves I fear we shall find our selves obnoxious to the same Prejudices and to have been often seduced by them if not to a Desertion of our Religion yet to a Violation of it Was the Christian Faith a Stumling-block to the Jews because defeating their hopes of a temporal Messias and worldly Happiness And are not we often tempted by the Pleasures of this World to withdraw our Obedience from the Laws of God and thereby in effect to deny him As often as Men preferr their worldly Interest to the least Duty of Religion as often as by too anxious a Diligence about the Affairs of this Life they neglect the care of another they give just Reason to others to suspect them Guilty of the same Errour of placing all their Happiness on this side Heaven and dis-believing the Joys of Paradise Did the Jews often unseasonably and importunately require a Sign And are not we often induced to distrust Providence and murmur against the Divine Goodness as often as God deferrs to rescue us from imminent Dangers and Calamities and immediately ingageth not his miraculous Power in our Assistance Do not Men call in question the Justice of the Divine Dispensation because God refuseth to violate the established Laws of his Government and sometimes permitteth the good to pass unrewarded and the wicked to escape unpunished in this life Was the Christian Religion Foolishness to the Greeks because proposed by mean and unlearned Persons And have not the Effects of spiritual Pride been deplored in all Ages of the Church and continue to this day while Men puffed up with a vain Opinion of their own extraordinary Knowledge in Divine Matters refuse to hear the Voice of their ordinary Pastor Scorn to be instructed by him and rudely turn their backs upon him Did the Greek Philosophers despise Christianity because plain and simple easie to be understood and not difficult to be performed And are not we often betrayed by a like Pre judice to neglect our Duty and lay aside the Study of Divine Things How many Christians are at this day displeased with a sober and rational Form of Worship either because it is not fraught with pompous and unuseful Ceremonies or because it is devoid of Enthusiastick Raptures and unintelligible Impertinencies So that we must acknowledge our selves to be no less concerned in the words and meaning of my Text than were formerly either Jews or Greeks To conclude if the most certain Truths and most Holy Religion be notwithstanding liable to the contradiction of foolish and unreasonable Men if the Prejudices against Christianity be found to be unjust and false let us neither be offended at the Opposition of her Enemies nor drawn into like Mistakes with them either by Passion or Inadvertency Let us give most humble and hearty Thanks to God for sending his Son as at this time into the World to redeem us and reveal to us his Will and Pleasure Let us adore his Wisdom and Goodness who hath contrived such excellent Methods whereby the knowledge of this Mystery and Revelation may with sufficient certainty be transmitted to all Ages improving the Happiness of our Knowledge by securing to our selves the Rewards of it in a careful Practice of our Duty that so we may here with Comfort hold fast and hereafter with Glory obtain the Promises of everlasting Life To which God of his infinite Mercy bring us all for the sake of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The Seventh SERMON PREACH'D January 20th 1689. At LAMBETH CHAPEL Hebr. IX 27. It is appointed unto Men once to die but after this the Judgment I Intend not from these words to prove the Mortality of Mankind or shew that all the Members of it are subject to that fatal Doom The experience of almost Six Thousand Years may abundantly convince us of this And least we should imagin our selves to be particularly exempted from the common calamity of Mankind that decay which we find in our Bodies and those frequent Infirmities to which we are all subject permits us not to entertain any hopes of such an extraordinary priviledge The necessity of ending this Life is so apparent that it would be trifling to endeavour to demonstrate it however the consideration of that necessity is a matter of the greatest Moment and which may justly require the most serious reflections of our Mind But that is not my present purpose nor the design of the Apostle in these words wherein is expressed the divine Determination in relation to the Mortality and future Judgment of Men and the Order of them namely that God hath decreed that all Men shall once Die and that after Death they shall receive either the reward or punishment of their Actions Now however the secret Decrees of God be unsearchable and his ways past finding out however a curious desire of knowing the Nature and Reasons of them may be rash and fruitless yet in these which so immediately and universally concern Mankind and are in effect the great object of our Religion no enquiry can be unnecessary or unuseful the reasons of them are obvious and satisfactory such as may not only be discovered by us but even ought not to be unknown to us and surely not without reason For nothing tends more effectually to secure the Honour of God and induce us to acquiesce in his Decrees than an intire satisfaction of the Justice and Wisdom of them And if this be necessary in relation to all the divine Decrees which respect us how much more will it concern us to have a perfect knowledge of the reasons of those grand Decrees of Death and Judgment which the Apostle hath comprehended in the words of my Text And from whence I shall take occasion to Discourse upon these two Heads I. The Justice of the Divine Decreâ—… of Death to all Men. It is appointed unto Men once to die II. The Justice and Wisdom of the Divine Decree of Judgment to be executed after Death and not in this Life But after this the Judgment First then if we consider only the light of Reason nothing can appear more just than the Divine Decree which imposeth a necessity of Dying upon all Men. God being the Author of our existence and the Lord of Life and Death might justly dispose of or dispense either according to his Good Pleasure It was a sufficient obligation to Man to have received the benefit of Existence without expecting a perpetual and invariable conservation of that Existence The very Nature and Constitution of Man declares him to be Mortal and then surely it could neither be unjust or unreasonable in God to permit
all imaginable Perfections Only in this Mankind hath miserably erred in Forming wrong Notions of perfection and attributing that to God which however they admired in themselves or others would indeed not only debase but destroy the Nature of God Such are believing an unlimited and Perpetual enjoyment of sensual pleasures to be a real Happiness and Perfection and then ascribing it to God which was the brutish Error of Ancient Heathens and Idolaters Or imagining a perfect indolence and unconcernedness for external matters to be none of his least Perfections the mistake of the Ancient Epicureans and Modern Deists Or the exercise of an Arbitrary Government without respect to Justice the Merits or Demerits of Men as many wicked Hercticks of Old contended Such false representations of the Divine Nature are intirely destructive of the perfection of it and therefore although simple Reason might easily and certainly discover the Knowledge of the Divine Attributes yet in compassion to the Ignorance and failures of Mankind it pleased God to confirm secure and advance this Knowledge by extraordinary Revelation The Apostle enumerates the chief and most comprehensive of these Attributes in the words of my Text which I will in order consider God therefore is our King This impliâ—…th Dominion over us and that belongs to God either by the right of Nature or the right of Redemption By the right of Nature he hath a double Title to Dominion over us both as our Creator and as the Supreme Governour of the World He Created us Formed us out of nothing we are the Work of his Hands and dependants of his Power This is the most absolute Degree of Vassalage which can be imagined Among Men propriety is claimed and preserved upon many Titles and common reason would arraign us of Injustice if we should deny that subjection which is due to it yet are the highest of these Titles inconsiderable in respect of Creation and subordinate to it Justly therefore may God expect that as often as we consider the Cause of our Being we should adore the Hand that gave it and in a grateful acknowledgment of it say Thou O God art the Author of my being thou formedst me out of nothing I am thy Creature and thy Vassal I acknowledge my self to be wholly thine and resign my self intirely to thy disposal Such an Act of Adoration would have been due although God had wholly left us to our own disposal when once Created and not interposed in the Goverment of the World and we might even in that case be deservedly accounted the worst of wretches if we either omitted or denyed to pay it But then far from abandoning us to the inclinations of our own Will and giving up the World to the fortuitous Motions of unruly Matter he continueth to exercise a constant Government of the Creation He hath fixed Laws and Bounds and a particular Sphere of Action to every part of it Even inanimate Beings are subject to the Rules prescribed by his Infinite Wisdom and observe them without Variation as is excellently and at length described in the 104th Psalm He laid the Foundations of the Earth that it never should move at any time Thou coveredst it with the deep like as with a Garment the Waters stand in the Hills At thy rebuke they flee at the voice of thy Thunder they are afraid He appointed the Moon for certain Seasons and the Sun knoweth his going down Even brute Beasts attend his disposal and rely upon his Providence as it follows in the same Psalm These wait all upon thee that thou mayst give them meat in due season When thou givest it them they gather it and when thou openest thy Hand they are filled with Good when thou hidest thy Face they are troubled and so on Thus all parts of the Creation conspire in acknowledging the Supreme Dominion of God and according to their several Natures do Homage to him And then surely we cannot imagin the Rational and Intellectual part of the Creation to be excused from this Universal Duty We may rather conclude that Reason demands and God expects a more particular Obedience and Adoration from them for whose sake only God framed the rest of Created Beings and endued them with Noble Faculties whereby they are fitted to Adore and Praise him As for the more noble part of the Intellectual Created World I mean Angels they immediately attend the Service and Praise of God and are wholly employed in it as we are assured in the 4th Verse of the same Psalm Who maketh his Angels Spirits and his Ministers a Flaming Fire And then with what Justice can a Man plead an exemption from the performance of the same Duty God gave us a Being and sent us into the World to perform certain conditions such as are Obedience to his Laws Submission to his Government and Adoration of his Majesty If then we own Life and the Consequences of it to be a benefit surely we cannot without extream Injustice refuse to fulfil the conditions of it Shall Man alone of all the Creation become a Rebel to God his King reject his Government and violate his Laws and defeat the very end for which he was Created by neglecting it or perhaps acting directly contrary to it Surely we cannot imagin that the Supreme Governour of the World who possesseth Justice as well as Mercy in the highest perfection will for ever omit to vindicate his Government by a severe punishment of such unnatural Malefactors and if the Queen of Sheba and the Men of Ninive will rise up against the Jews and Condemn them at the last Day all parts of the Creation Heaven and Earth Beasts and Birds will unanswerably condemn us in the Day of Judgment who have refused to pay that Tribute of Obedience to our common Governour which they did Thus God is our King by the Right of Nature and as such deserveth Adoration from us although he had entailed no Rewards upon it nor obliged us with any particular Benefits But then to us who own our selves Christians who are Redeemed with the Blood of Christ who are bought with a price he is upon that account in a more particular manner our King and Governour We put our selves under his Government and listed our selves under his Banner at our Baptism and continue to profess our obligation to it in every Act of our Christian Worship We believe that Christ is our King as well as our High-Priest that he hath a particular Right to Govern us acquired by his own most precious Blood and our voluntary submission to him In vertue of this Right therefore he justly demands an intire renunciation of our selves and resignation to his disposal to adore his Goodness and celebrate his Mercy to own him to be our God and testifie the sincerity of that acknowledgment by an exact Obedience God was formerly in a more especial manner a King to the People of the Jews and therefore required an especial and particular Obedience of
for it by such a precedent exercise of Repentance did not presume to take upon himself the Name of a Christian While this excellent Discipline prevailed an Universal Piety could not but be produced among the Professors of Christianity when all those Arguments which now chiefly hinder the practice of Repentance did then promote it I mean a general example and the fear of Shame It was then no more than fashionable to put on at least the pretence of Repentance in this Holy Season and then to indulge to the Body its wonted Pleasures and Gayeties was no less absurd than to rejoyce at a Funeral when all compose themselves with a seeming Gravity Again to confess the guilt of Sin when all joyned in the same Confession was no matter of shame Whereas now the example of Impenitence prevails and to put on a more severe Deportment to restrain the usual method of Life would be accounted and derided as a Singularity Now the Order of things is inverted and through disuse of Confession whether publick or private shame is affixed not to the Commission but to the Confession of any Sin So that if the former excellent Discipline could be retreived the same shame which now diverts us from Confession would then deterr us from Commission It can scarce be hoped indeed that a Discipline so far surpassing the degenerate spirit of latter times will ever be restored yet this we think our selves obliged to remind you of that ye might understand for what end this Holy Season was at first Instituted and might be moved by this Noble Example to make at least some use of so excellent an Institution if not to confess your sins in publick yet at least to confess them to God in secret if not to put your selves to an open Shame yet at least to conceive inwardly both a shame and hatred of your Sin to examine your Consciences strictly to purg them from all corruptions to remove all vicious habits to reconcile your selves to God by an earnest Repentance of past Sins and a well grounded beginning of future Obedience To this end the Church since she can do no more is wont during this solemnity to inculcate by frequent exhortations the Duty of Repentance and to this purpose I have chosen this Text. Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish These words of our Lord were occasioned by a pernicious error of the Jews that the not execution of exemplary vengeance upon them in this Life was an Argument that they were no great sinners and that signal Calamities were an Indication of an extraordinary Impiety whereas those who escaped any such Calamities might presume themselves to be Innocent and thereupon deferr or wholly omit repentance Thus Pilate having lately slain several Galiteans at Jerusalem in the Act of Sacrificing and the Tower in Siloam having slain Eighteen Men by a sudden Fall as we read in the Second and Fourth Verses the Jews presently concluded that this Calamity which they supposed to have been inflicted by the extraordinary direction of God was preceded with an extraordinary guilt of the Sufferers and not finding such Calamities to fall upon themselves thence raised a false perswasion that they were more Righteous than those unhappy Men and more beloved by God To correct this false perswasion our Lord assureth them that it was no other than a vain delusion to think that those Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans or that those upon whom the Tower fell were sinners above all the Inhabitants of Jerusalem or that themselves were more Righteous than either and tells them that unless they repent they shall all likewise perish In which words he I. Insinuates the error of their perswasion that the not execution of Divine Vengeance in this Life is an Argument of the Innocence of Men and little necessity of Repentance And II. Pronounceth the certainty of their Destruction without repentance At this time I will confine my self to the former only and shew the unreasonableness of deferring repentance for this cause that God doth not revenge the Sins of Men in this Life a reason which hath more hindred the practice of Repentance than any other It was long since a complaint of the Wise Man that the Sinner goes on securely because he seeth not Vengeance to be speedily executed and because he feels it not in this Life believeth there is none prepared for him in the other He hath wholly busied himself in matters of sense and takes his measures formeth his Judgments from the perceptions of it believeth not any thing which that doth not ascertain to him or if he doth believe the being and the Providence of God the dispensation of Rewards to Good and infliction of Punishment upon bad Men consequent to it yet through a corrupted Judgment cannot conceive himself capable of any greater Happiness than worldly Prosperity nor of any more grievous Punishment than Poverty and secular Distress So that if the Rewards and Punishments of God be not consonant to these Conceptions he cannot conceive wherein they should consist and while he may be secured of the continuance of Happiness in this Life he hath gained his end and resteth secure as to what may befall him hereafter he cannot believethat God can be angry with him to whom he permitteth the uninterrupted enjoyment of worldly Happiness which while he possesseth he seeth no reason to believe himself to be in a State of Enmity with God If such visible Punishments did attend his sin as in the case of Ananias and Sapphira even fear would force him to be Pious but the want of such terrible examples continually to awaken him betrays him to a false belief either of the remissness and negligence of God or of his own Innocence not deserving any such Punishment and in both cases draweth him into a false opinion that Repentance is not necessary But what a miserable corruption must the judgment of Man have suffered which can be cheated into a false perswasion that himself is capable of none but sensible Rewards or Punishments That Man should carry about him an immaterial Soul and yet not conceive any spiritual Benefits or Miseries Either not know or not value any perfections or improvements but what the Body may receive Yet this delusion is too frequent in Mankind even that part of it which believe there is within them a Spiritual and an Immortal Being which actuates their Bodies which giveth them their thoughts by which alone they conceive themselves Happy or Miserable They acknowledge all this and yet will not believe any Happiness or Misery peculiar to the Soul alone they confess the Soul must endure for ever and yet continue wilfully Ignorant that it cannot continue in a Neutral State but must be the Subject either of Happiness or Misery So true is that observation of the Psalmist XLIX ult Man being in Honour hath no understanding but is compared to the Beasts that perish While he abounds in sensual pleasures he acts
hope by mortifying and changing our former vicious Course of Life into a new and Heavenly Life or by conceiving firm hopes and assurance of the Divine Promises concerning our own Resurrection by the Example of our Lords Resurrection The former manner indeed is purely Allegorical but an Allegory as well most natural in its self as most familiar to the Apostle who treats of it often and largely and inculcates it in almost all his Epistles As in the Chapter preceding my Text he tells the Colossians Col. II. 12 20. Ye are buried with him in Baptism wherein also ye are risen with him and ye are dead with Christ from the Rudiments of the world Galat. II. 20. I am Crucified with Christ. Philip. III. 10. That I may know him and the power of his Resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his Death 2 Cor. IV. 10. Alwayâ—… bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body But more especially in the III. and IVth Chapters of 1 Pet. and Rom. VI. this Conformity between our Lord and us in dying and rising again is at large explained We were baptized into his death therefore we are buried with him by Baptism into death that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the Glory of the Father even so we also should walk in newness of life c. These Allegorical Conclusions were not the mere products of Fancy but the designs of the Divine Wisdom which so admirably contrived the Christian Religion that all the Actions of our Saviours Life tend no less to our Instruction than his Precepts and could not but have exceeding influence upon the Minds of Christians whose thoughts were then and ought now to be chiefly employed about our Saviours Resurrection They were excellently fitted to the Genius of the World at that time when both Heathen Philosophers and Jewish Doctors employed themselves almost wholly in Allegorical Explications of Natural or Divine Truths and were more particularly adapted to the Religion of the Jews and the Writings of the Old Testament concerning the Messias consisting in Types shadows and symbolical Representations of things to come And lastly least we should conceive any unreasonable prejudice against these Allegorical inferences besides that they are recommended by the Authority of the Divine Pen-man the present Allegory drawn from our Saviours Resurrection doth most excellently describe to us the Nature and Duties of our spiritual Regeneration as it will appear if we consider it more fully The design of the Christian Religion was to recover Mankind from his lost Condition free him from the Subjection of the Devil reform his Life and fit him for the Reception of those infinite Benefits which God had designed for him in another Life To this end a total Desertion of that corrupted state of Life wherein he was before engaged was absolutely necessary As well in the Nature of the thing it being wholly impossible that a vicious Soul should receive that Reward as by the Appointment of God who had determined not to grant the Reward on any other Condition And therefore our Saviour had assured his Followers That unless a man be born again he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven It was required that every one should relinquish all those temporal Enjoyments and Satisfactions which were contrary either to right Reason or the express Command of God and because the greatest part of Mankind placed the whole Satisfaction of their Life in these unlawful Enjoyments whoever renounced the use of them might well be said to die unto the world And this was it which all Christians were obliged to Promise at their Baptism solemnly to renounce the World the Flesh and the Devil and give themselves wholly to a new Life instituted by God which was excellently represented in the antient Form of Baptism to which the Apostle in all the places before mentioned referrs wherein the Person baptized was wholly immerged in the water so that the Immersion represented his Resolution of dying to the World and imitation of our Lord who was by Death taken from the World and then his Emersion presently following signified his entrance into a new state of Life and the Resurrection of our Saviour reviving and appearing after Death It is not sufficient therefore to mortifie one single Lust or to give up this or that sinful Affection in exchange for eternal Rewards and retain the rest This is not to die in imitation of our Saviour whose Soul was fully separated from his Body and continued in a separate state till the Resurrection He satisfied not himself to have endured Scourgings Reproaches and Buffettings he descended not from the Cross after he had endured most bitter Torments till he had completed his Sufferings by Death and laid down his Life as a Sacrifice to God which it could not be till it were destroyed It being the necessary Condition of all Sacrifices to be annihilated If then we be really baptized into his Death if we resolve to offer up our selves a Sacrifice to God we must yield up all our Pretences to the Pleasures of this World and enjoy no more of them than God permitteth to us we must absolutely free our selves from the Slavery of Sin and Satan and devote our selves intirely to the Divine Pleasure To die unto the World supposeth a full Conviction that the true Interest of a Christian is not placed on Earth and that his great Concern here is only to improve his short term of Life to the Acquisition of a more excellent and more durable Happiness hereafter From this perswasion it will easily follow that different Interests from this are not to be pursued in this Life which ought to be no other than a Preparation for a better And herein a Christian truly imitates the Death of his Lord and Saviour who best of all manifested that his Kingdom was not of this world by laying down his Life willingly that his Designs were far from founding an Empire and procuring to himself worldly Advantages when he submitted to undergo the Pains of Death Thereby teaching us that we are not truly Crucified with him until we as absolutely forsake all Desires and Inclinaons to our former sinful Life as if we were deprived of Life it self that we retain not the least Claim or Title to our former vicious Satisfactions but by a total relinquishing of them even put it out of our Power to recal and re-establish them In the next place if we view the dreadful Horrour and Anxiety under which our Saviour laboured while he bore the Sins of Mankind upon the Cross if we reflect on the Melancholy state of the Church his ignominious Condition and the Triumphs of the infernal Powers while he was detained in the Grave we may perceive the desperate and deplorable State of Man while yet detained in Sin labouring under the just Displeasure of an angry God
and what more natural than for the Members to follow their Head He is the Captain of their Salvation and what more consistent than for Soldiers to follow their Captain He is their forerunner and what more usual than for Travellers to follow their Leader a Forerunner who is for us entred Hebr. VI. 20. that is to take Possession in our Names and for our behalf agreeably to what himself had promised to his faithful Disciples that he departed from them into Heaven only to prepare Mansions for them and that where he was there they should be also How blessed and desireable then shall the state of the Faithful be after the Resurrection when they shall be made Companions with the Son of God and even share with him in his present Happiness A Happiness which however inconceivable in this Life is excellently deseribed by the Apostle in the latter words of my Text where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God He sitteth to denote the Permanence and Eternity of his Happiness and at the right hand of God to shew the Power Majesty and Glory wherewith he is invested Such were the glorious consequences of our Saviour's Resurrection and such will be the blessed Effects of our's also if we diligently observe the Apostle's Precept which he inferrs from our rising with Christ That we seek those things which are above If ye then be risen with Châ—…ist seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God Our Lord after his Resurrection settled not his abode upon Earth he stayed no longer than to instruct his Disciples in the necessary Duties of their Mission and convince them that he was really risen Even while he remained upon Earth he was farr more reserved than before his Resurrection abstained from a publick and ordinary Conversation and resumed not the common Offices of mortal Life such as eating and drinking but only to convince his Followers of the reality of his Resurrection Not but that he might if he had pleased continued all these Actions untill his Ascension with the same Innocency and Freedom from sin which was inseparable from his whole Life but he chose rather to teach us thereby that after our new Birth and spiritual Resurrection we are not to imploy our Care and Affections in the things of this World but living here as if we lived not carry our thoughts much higher even whither he is gone before us and fix them upon the Interests of Eternity Not but that we may and even ought to take a prudent Care for the Concerns of this world while we are engaged in it but that we ought not to rest here or make this our ultimate end but make it the great business of our Lives to secure those more noble Ends which are proposed to us the Fruition of God and Society of Christ in Heaven This all will acknowledge to be our farr greatest Concern and then surely our utmost Care ought to be employed in the Acquisition of it What we earnestly Love we cannot but diligently seek it being most true That where our treasure is there will our hearts be also Desire is the Spring of all Actions in us and whatsoever we perform even the most trifling Action ariseth from the desire of some end to be obtained by it so that we cannot be said so much as to desire the Joys of Heaven if we diligently seek not to obtain them by all those means which are possible to us and proposed by God If we retain an unlawful Love of the Pleasures of this Life it is manifest we preferr the Satisfaction proceeding from them before the Concerns of the next and however we be said abstractedly to desire these yet certainly in that Case we desire them not in Comparison of the other nay we even quit our desire of them which we may truly be said to reject when we espouse an Interest which we know to be utterly inconsistent with it But farr be this from any Christian to admire and celebrate the Glories of his Lord's Resurrection and yet refuse the offers of sharing with him in it We have all already by our Baptism and by assuming the Name of Christians professed to die with Christ and to rise with him and if we falsifie not these Resolutions we cannot but set our selves wholly to seek those things which are above To die is to suspend or to cease the ordinary Actions of Life and if yet the Lusts of the world and the Flesh be retained if the same Care be employed on the Concerns of it which were before any hopes of a future better Life were given if the same Love the same desire of earthly Satisfactions continue such a Person can no more be said to have died to the World than a Body to be naturally dead which yet continueth to eat and drink and walk and perform all the ordinary Actions of Life After those things do the Gentiles seek who are without God in the world who have hope only in this Life who expect no Satisfaction but what they reap here below From these a Christian separates himself by his Baptism professeth himself a Member of a different Society which proceeds upon contrary Principles and foundeth his Interests in another Life He abandons his Pretensions to the unlimited Pleasures of this Life Crucifies his Affections and dieth to the world that he may rise with Christ rise with him here to a new Life that he may rise with him to Glory hereafter In Confirmation of this blessed Hope he often considers of his Lord's Resurrection he celebrates the Mercy and Faithfulness of God in comforting his afflicted Church as upon this day by restoring to her the Presence of her Beloved Saviour He thence conceiveth assured Hopes that himself shall in like manner be raised up at the last day And now that the bodily Presence of his Lord is after his Ascension taken from him he strengthens his Faith and confirms his Hope by the frequent Participation of the Holy Eucharist instituted in remembrance of him He esteemeth these sacred Symbols received and eaten by him as an infallible Pledge of his own Resurrection agreeably to the Belief of the ancient Christians who accounted the Body and Blood of Christ delivered to the Faithful to be a most certain earnest of their future Resurrection as being perswaded that as God permitted not the natural Body of Christ to see Corruption so neither will he suffer his Symbolical Body to be imprisoned in the Grave for ever By the Reception of these sacred Elements we are incorporated with Christ and become Members of his Mystical Body and thereby obtain the highest assurance that we can desire that as he raised up his own Body on the Third day so he will raise up us who are thereby Members of his Body in his due time Only let us by dying to the World and living to him by renouncing the inordinate Affections of the Flesh seeking those things which
are above so fit our selves for the Reception of his Representative Body in the Holy Sacrament that we be not unworthy after Death to be received unto the Society of his Natural and now glorious Body in Heaven Where he sitteth on the right hand of God To him with the Father and the Holy Spirit be ascribed all Honour Power and Glory henceforth and for evermore The Fourteenth SERMON PREACH'D May 4th 1689. At LAMBETH CHAPEL Joh. XIV 1. Let not your heart be troubled ye believe in God believe also in me OUR Lord and Saviour being now ready to leave the World and return to his Father endeavoured by many Preparatory Discourses to confirm the Minds and dispel the Anxiety of his Disciples who began to despond at the News of his approaching Departure This to them not yet fully understanding the design of Christ's Coming seemed a total Dereliction of them and abandoning them to the World They had forsaken all the present Conveniences of Life when they entred into the number of his Disciples and had all along shared in the Miseries and Hardships that their Master was content to endure on Earth in hopes of partaking at last in the Glories of that temporal Kingdom which they fondly imagined he would found on Earth With these Hopes they supported themselves under all their Calamities and busied themselves in proposing imaginary Methods of enjoying what they so long and so earnestly expected We find them disputing who should be the greatest Officer or the principal Favourite in this Kingdom who should sit on his right hand and on his left And now that after their Lord had entred into Jerusalem in a triumphal manner their Hopes were enhanced and Expectations grew higher as believing the Completion of them to be at hand and that this glorious Kingdom of the Messias would immediately commence When on a sudden all their Hopes were dashed and their imaginary Happiness overthrown by a free and open Declaration of their Lord concerning his Sufferings and ignominous Death which now drew near and were immediately to be accomplished In what Confusion and Anxiety must we then conceive them to have been when not only their Hopes and therein in their own Opinion the Fruits and Reward of so many Labours so much Hardship undertaken and endured in prospect of their Preferment in a temporal Kingdom to be founded by their Master were in an instant overthrown and cancelled When not only themselves were to be dispersed as sheep having no Shepheard exposed to the Derision Insults and Persecution of the Jews who as our Lord foretold should even force them to deny their Master and thereby renounce all Title to any share in the Glories of his Kingdom When they were to be left alone without any Head to direct comfort and protect them When not only all these Calamities were to come upon themselves but also their dearest Lord and Master was to be delivered up to the Rage of wicked Men to be treated with the utmost Indignities and at last Crucified as a Malefactor What Distraction must they then have suffered when so many contrary Passions Love of their Master and fear of their own Misery Deprivation of past hopes and Despair of future Happiness wrought together in their Minds They retained still indeed some faint Hopes of the Resurrection of their Lord after three days Imprisonment in the Grave who should then enter upon his Kingdom and satisfie all their Expectations but alas even these remaining Hopes are dissipated by our Saviour's acquainting them in this Chapter that immediately after his Resurrection he was to leave the World and go unto the Father In this disconsolate Condition of the Church our Lord seeks to chear up the Spirits and remove the Despair of his Followers by representing to them the necessity of his Suffering That thus it was written and that thus it behoved Christ to suffer by giving them the Promise of the Holy Ghost who should both Comfort Instruct and Guide them by assuring them this Comforter could not be sent untill himself first returned to the Father and by his Intercession should obtain the Mission of him that although his Bodily Presence should be taken from them yet that it was for their good and that he would ever continue to be present with them by the influences of his Government and Blessed Spirit by interceding for them continually with the Father by promoting their Requests in the Court of Heaven by pouring down his Gifts and Graces on them and watching over them with a constant Eye of Providence but above all in preparing Mansions for them in Heaven to receive them after Death and the Final Completion of their Labours upon Earth Upon all these Accounts he bids them not be troubled in their Hearts for his Departure and the temporal Calamities which they fancied would ensue upon it and for an Argument of Consolation says to them Ye believe in God believe also in me As if he should say You cannoâ—… deny that it is both your Duty and Safety also to trust in God considered only as the Creator and Governour of the World to resign up your Wills to his difposal and upon firm assurance that he both knoweth and willeth what is best for you rest contented in all the various Conditions of Life If you consider him as the Author of your Religion in which ye have been brought up ye have yet much greater reason to rely upon his Care and Providence in all doubtful Cases and Distresses as having often experienced his peculiar Kindness to your Church and Nation in many and wonderful Instances which were therefore at first recorded that ye might from thence conceive assured hope of the Divine Goodness and Providence interposing in your behalf in all Calamities as it is in the LXXVIII Psalm He gave Israel a law which he commanded our forefathers to teach their children To the intent that when they came up they might shew their children the same That they might put their trust in God and not to forget the works of God If for these Reasons you are content to trust in God and depend on him for relief in your Afflictions for much greater Reasons ye ought to confide and relye upon my Promises of Assistance to you and constant Care of you even after I shall be removed from you inasmuch as ye have received from me more manifest Assurances of the peculiar Favour of God to you than ever were indulged to any part of Mankind to the Patriarchs or the Jews My Ability to do all this you cannot doubt As knowing who I am and what place I bear in Heaven or if ye should not believe this merely for the Consideration of the Divinity of my Person yet believe me for the very works sake Ver. 11. being convinced by so many Miracles as I have wrought for your Satisfaction that I am able to perform whatsoever I Promise to you And then for my willingness to do it you have
of singular instances of Providence in reward of the good and Punishment of the bad And related not only particular Examples of this kind but also from the frequency of them formed and delivered general Rules that Wickedness never escapeth unpunished or Innocence unrewarded In short it is the indispensable Duty of Man to Act cheerfully and submissively in that Station on in those Circumstances wherein the supreme Author of Life hath placed him to receive not only without murmuring but also with Reverence all Dispensations proceeding from him He hath just ground to believe that God will not forsake him if sincerely putting his Trust in him nor suffer his Innocence to pass unregarded which is a sufficient Motive of relying on his Providence and a necessary one of submitting to it But the certain and infallible assurance of these Hopes the exact knowledge of the methods of Providence in this matter and the unerring experience of the Divine Justice and Goodness herein is to be found only in the Christian Religion And that it is abundantly found there I come next to shew by considering in the second place II. What force and weight the Christian Religion hath superadded to the natural or precedent Reasons and ' grounds of Trust and reliance in God and therein of Consolation in Dangers and Afflictions In the Natural or under the Mosaick Law the apparent hopes of Mankind were terminated in this Life and although the common Notions of the perfection of the Divine Justice and the visible experience of the great Disproportion in the distribution of Rewards and Punishments in this Life induced many to believe that a more equal and impartial Survey of the Actions of Men would be taken after Death and the Soul of Man which is not capable of Dissolution receive then the merits or demerits of its Actions as considering Men could not but esteem this as most rational in it self so not unlikely yet the perswasions of it were in the Gentiles little more than some faint Hopes and Wishes and in the Jews wrapt up in obscure Prophecies or uncertain Interpretations But in the Christian Religion these Conjectures being advanced into certainty these Hopes into assurance the reliance and trust in God consequent to them which in the former could not but be faint and weak became now lively and vigorous To a Christian who professeth himself a stranger and Pilgrim in the earth who disowns the placing of his hopes on this side Heaven it seems not strange that God should suffer him to labour under Difficulties and Calamities since these affect not his grand Concern hinder not his real Happiness and many times tend highly to promote it In taking that Profession on him he renounced the immoderate Love of the World the gratifying his Lusts and the ease of his Body professed himself a Citizen of another Countrey and listed himself under the Banner of a Crucified Saviour and in Vertue of these Resolutions proceeds in a steady course of Vertue and Holiness to attain his end is not amazed at any Terrours or Disasters which may meet him in the way declines them indeed as farr as Prudence will permit but will not forsake the right way to avoid them A natural consequence to a firm Belief in God and Christ and that Opinion which is rooted in all true Christians that the real Happiness and perfection of Man is to be expected in another Life that Crosses and Afflictions in this world hinder not the Acquifition of this supreme Good and oft-times promote it If publick Calamities invade the Church if private Miseries affect himself a sincere Christian is neither scandalized at the one nor Despairs through the other He considers that if he suffers for the name of Christ he is happy if upon any other account without his own fault his Affliction may be of use to him may correct his wandring thoughts and fix his hope upon God alone but that in no Case it tends to deprive him of his chief and ultimate End the Fruition of God in another Life The exceeding Happiness of that Fruition so infinitely surpasseth all the Petty satisfactions of this World and the Duration of it the continuance of this Life that no Affliction no Calamity so grievous can happen to any one which will not seem light under the apprehension of those Blessed Hopes Men may lessen our Enjoyments here below but yet notwithstanding the Rage or Envy of Men it is in our Power to augment and improve them above For so the Fathers do generally expound the Promise of our Saviour following the Text In my Fathers house are many Mansions that is in Heaven are many and different Degrees of Glory prepared for you to be distributed according to your greater or less perfection in Holiness This is the only Ambition worthy of a Christian to aim at an eminent Station in that Blessed place where Preference will be no Injury to another nor diminish another's Happiness contrary to the proceedings of this World where the greatness or estate of one Man can be raised no otherwise than upon the Ruins or Decay of another It can scarce be hoped indeed nor is it expected by God that Man should free himself absolutely from all concern for things here below Such impassibility will be one of our chief Perfections when our Nature shall be raised above this corruptible Condition and become spiritualized but to aim at it in this Life may perhaps be an impossible Design but certainly not our Duty We are here Citizens of the whole World and as such bound to seek the good of Mankind in general Members of a Civil Society and as such obliged to promote the Peace and Welfare of our Countrey Members of a Christian Church and as such commanded to Labour for the external Peace and Prosperity of Jerusalem Lastly in our own private Capacities God designed at least some sort of Happiness even in this Life for Man when he placed him in the World and this we may lawfully pursue and improve as far as the Rules of Justice Sobriety and Religion will permit To be unconcerned in all these is so far from being a Duty or required by God that in most Cases it may become a Crime But the Exhortation of our Saviour in this place and the Precepts of the Christian Religion in general require us not to be anxious and sollicitous about any Contingencies on this side Heaven Not to suffer our selves to be so transported with Passions arising from either the Sense or the prospect of unhappy Accidents in this World as may embroil our minds disturb our thoughts and hinder the performance of more noble and Divine Duties much less to conclude our selves unhappy to despond and murmur to repine at the publick Government of the World and distract the Soul with Melancholy thoughts of private mis-fortunes Such a Perturbation of mind would be most unworthy a rational Man much moâ—…e a knowing Christian who cannot but be convinced that it
is in his own Power to render himself truly happy notwithstanding all the opposition of Men or Devils and amidst all the Disasters of Fortune the Injuries of Men and Calamities of this Life to press forward toward the Mark of his high calling and attain the Reward of his Labours But the chief design of our Lord in these words was to warn his Disciples to avoid that common Errour to which Mankind is so prone of concluding from private Mis-fortunes or publick â—…alamities that God hath forsaken them and withdrawn his Protection and delivered them up to the Will of their Enemies to Despair and Misery Men are so much inured to pass Judgments from the report of their Senses that they are apt falsly to perswade themselves that God hath disowned them and withdrawn the influences of his Favour as often as he interposeth not his Power in a visible manner to rescue them from Injuries and Oppressions from Miseries and Mis-fortunes Thus the Apostles receiving the News of their Lord's intentions to leave the Earth and return to Heaven could hardly be induced to believe that when he had removed his Bodily Preâ—…ence from them he would continuâ—… his Care of them or Favour to them They abandoned themselves to Grief and Despair gave up themselves for lost and began to question the sincerity of his Love and reality of his Promises It was indeed so great an Affliction to the Apostles to be deprived of the Blessed Presence of their beloved Master that no Christian since those days can pretend to have endured such a Loss but in a Christian assured of the Promises of another Life knowing the Nature of true Happiness and the method directed by Christ to attain it it is inexcusable to form an Opinion of the dis-favour of God from temporal Afflictions According to the ordinary Course of the World it cannot but happen that Misfortunes will attend the best of Men and whole Societies be involved in general Calamities But then none will presume to say that it is convenient that the fixed and constant Course of the World should be violated to satisfie these particular Cases The Preservation of the publick Order of the World and general Laws of Providence is a matter of greater Concern than the relief of particular Irregularities It is sufficient to manifest both the Justice and the Wisdom of God that he hath settled such Laws of Government in the World that all Men may if they please make themselves truly Happy none become truely miserable but through their own default We believe indeed that God doth often even in this World interpose in an extraordinary manner in behalf of his Church or faithful Servants but the Motives and Causes of the Divine Conduct herein may be so various and different that no certain Argument of favour or dis-favour can be drawn from them He may bring Mis-fortunes upon pious Men to Correct them to restrain their Passions or afford them opportunity of improving particular Vertues and Duties He may conferr temporal Felilicity on wicked Men to oblige them by Benefits to Repentance or to serve and promote some wonderful Ends in the Government of the World or the Church which they little think of and contribute to it without their knowledge He may punish the good in this Life for their sins of Omission Passion or Inadvertency that so he may Reward them in the next for their more constant and regular Course of Piety He may reward bad Men in this Life for those few good Actions which they do that so he may leave them without excuse when he shall punish them in another World for their habitual Wickedness and Disobedience He may continue their present Condition whether of Riches or Poverty to either because he who knoweth the Constitutions and Hearts of all Men foresees that the one would not be able to continue his Innocenâ—…e and the other grow much worse in a different state of Life He may punish with general Calamities the Sins and Corruptions of publick Societies which cannot be punished as such in another Life and then it is not reasonable that any good Men who share in the Society should require to be exempted by so many private Miracles from the universal Calamity The Church of Christ hath received indeed many and greatPromises of particular Favour and Assistance But then it is not necessary that this Divine Favour should exert it self in bestowing of temporal Prosperity Affliction and Persecution may be sometimes farr more convenient to the Church to restore her decayed Diâ—…cipline to revive her languishing Zeal to awaken the negligent to separate the false to reform all the Members of it The Church hath indeed experienced in all Ages manifest interpositions of Divine Providence in favour of her She hath been often freed in an extraordinary manner from the Rage of her Persecutors the designs of Apostates and infection of Hereticks Kings have been her nursing Fathers and Queens her nursing Mothers She hath surmounted the opposition of all her Enemies and through an uninterrupted Course of many Ages enjoyed both the Blessings of the Earth and the Hopes of Heaven The Apostles reduced at the Crucifixion and Departure of our Lord to that miserable Condition which we before represented were comforted and re-animated by the Mission of the Holy Ghost at the approaching Feast of Pentecost Heaven then declared for them by conferring extraordinary Gifts of knowledge on them and afterward by confirming their Preaching with no less wonderful Miracles which removed their Anxiety convinced them that the Love of their Master now in Heaven was both continued and increased to them and enabled them to subdue the victorious Roman Empire to the Laws and the Name of Christ. And least we should imagine the Arm of God to be shortned to us we of this Church and Nation have been more than once even in this Age delivered in an extraordinary manner from Danger of Popery on the one hand and Fanaticism on the other But from hence we are not to raise confident assurances that God will always continue the same Prosperity to his Church He hath promised indeed that the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it that the Faith shall never be wholly destroyed nor a Succession of Pastors wanting to preach the Word and administer the Sacraments but has no where engaged that she shall always enjoy the Protection of the Civil Power and the Blessings of outward Peace External Grandeur and Happiness is not necessary to the being of a Church which may be found in the Wilderness as well as in the Land of Rest in an upper Chamber as well as in a stately Temple After all we must acknowledge our selves not to be merely Passive in receiving the influences of the Divine Care and Providence Our Lord bids us not be troubled nor torment our selves with over-much Anxiety in Confidence of his Protection and assurance of his designed Rewards but then at the same time he requires as a