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
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
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
worthily be executed upon Sinners in this World much lefs can the righteous receiâ—… the recompence of their just Deeds therein What Happiness can be bestowed upon Man in this mortal Life worthy either the Supernatural Gift of God or constant endeavours of Men Is it Riches or Prosperity sensual Delights and temporal Conveniences Alas that God should conferr no more noble Reward on his Servants and Followers That for such trifles only we should employ all the Faculties of our Soul and Body in a careful discharge of our Duty and universal Obedience to the Divine Laws That after our Labour and Study to procure the perfection of our Nature by Vertue Holiness and Obedience we should attain no other Reward than what even brute Beasts are capable of the Satisfaction of our Senses and ease of our Bodies Or if any voluptuous Person should be found so degenerous as to place his utmost Felicity in these carnal Enjoyments he would fall infinitely short of his designed Satisfaction although heaped with all the temporal Blessings of Heaven and Earth The constant thoughts of his approaching End which may be deferred but cannot be removed will imbitter all his Pleasures create a continual disquiet and torment him with perpetual Fears And then what an inconsiderable Happiness is that which an Ague or a Fever a Mistake or a Casualty may destroy So foolish is it for a pious Man to expect or desire the Completion of his Reward in this Life And yet much more if we consider that it would be as well impossible as unreasonable to exercise the most Noble and pleasing Acts of Vertue and Religion in such a state If Riches and Prosperity were entailed on just Men only there would be no room left for the exercise of Patience and Constancy under Affliction no occasion for Charity and Contentment in a word all the Beatitudes of the Gospel would be destroyed What greater Demonstration of Religion can there be than to conquer all the Temptations of the Flesh and despise the Pleasures of the World Yet this would then become not only indifferent but even unlawful being in that Case a Renunciation of the Supream Happiness and relinquishing the assigned Reward by God What more certain Manifestation of an ardent Love of God than to lay down our Lives for his sake or at least to forego all worldly Possessions when called to it Yet this would be then no less foolish than impracticable when God should suffer no Persecutions to arise and dispense no Rewards after Death It would then in Wisdom concern every Man to continue his Life and Possessions by all possible means and over-look all Interests standing in Competition with them Charity to miserable Persons would be unlawful for to the good who should be free from all Calamity it would be unuseful and to shew it to the bad in whom Misery were a Punishment would be to reverse and overthrow the Sentence of God Nay to proceed yet farther no Vertue or Vice Obedience or Disobedience to God would then take place For no Vertue is acceptable no Obedience deserveth any Reward from God any otherwise than as it is a free Act of our Soul strugling with the Temptations of the World the Flesh and the Devil or its own corrupt Inclinations as it includes somewhat of difficulty in it somewhat which evidenceth a mature Choice of right Reason prevailing over the opposition of Lusts and Passions Whereas if Rewards and Punishments be executed in this Life nothing will be left wherein free-will may interpose all will indifferently strive to be good and it will be no less difficult then to be Wicked than it is now to be Pious when the Commands of God and the Temptations of the World and the Flesh shall draw the same way and the means to gratify our Carnal desires will be to yield our selves up to the Obedience of God What wonder will it be if Men then serve God when it is even their Temporal Interest and believe him to be a Righteous Judge when their own Senses permit them not to disbelieve it So that while the Nature of things remain while the Notions of Good and Evil continue while a real difference between Vertue and Vice is maintained and room left for the laudable exercise of free-will We cannot judge it possible or expedient that the Final Sentence of God upon all Men should be Executed in this Life I will add but one consideration more which is that Punishments cannot be inflicted on Wicked Men in this Life without making Good Men at the same time miâ—…erable It would be highly unreasonable to expect from God the benefit of a constant Miracle in favour of Good Men which may rescue them from the common calamities of Pestilence Sword or Famine Or if so great a discrimination could be allowed Good Men would necessarily be involved in the same sufferings by their compassion by the loss and torments of their dearest Friends and nearest Relations who being tormented for their Sins in this Life would interrupt all the pleasures of Pious and Compassionate Men by their Shrieks and Clamours It is impossible to conceive what a Scence of horror theEarth would then be if God should choose to execute his Vengeance upon Sinners in this World What a Face of Cruelty and Desolation would then appear It would then bear so true a resemblance of Hell that Good Men would rather choose to be annihilated than to be present in it So that even for the sake of Good Men the Punishment of the bad is deferred to another Life And thus I hope I have at last abundantly satisfied you both of the Justice and Wisdom of God in Forming both the Decrees mentioned in my Text of appointing all Men once to Die and in exercising a Final Judgment not till after Death We may perhaps imagine that we are long since convinced of the Truth of this But if we descend into our own Souls and examin them throughly I fear we shall find too much reason to question the reality of our conviction We are inured to sensual things and sensual proofs and apt to disbelieve all that we are told of another Life because the experience of sense doth not confirm it We are too prone to call in question the Justice and Providence of God if he interposeth not in our behalf in this World we are ready to believe that the wicked escape his knowledge when they Die in peace and a seeming neglect of the Righteous in this Life betrays us into a false opinion that they are equally forgotten in the next Or if we cannot find in our Souls any traces of such incredulity and suspicions I am sure our Actions will discover them We believe that it is appointed for all Men once to die and yet put the thoughts of it far from us We are assured that we cannot escape that Fatal Sentence and yet live as if we were not concerned in it We despair of prolonging our Life
we are warned by Examples to Repentance and still continue unmoved We hear the voice of our Lord calling to Repentance the Exhortations of his Apostles preaching to the World whose Message was Repent and be baptized We read the dreadful Examples of Punishments inflicted in this World upon notorious Sinners And yet reflect not that we are the Creatures of God as well as they that we are subject to the Laws of Government that the Duty is not remitted but made more severe and that the hand of God is not shortned that he cannot punish us but that his Power always continueth the same and that the Rules of Conduct given to Men are no more changed than is the Nature of them It is somewhat surprizng indeed that Men should know and confess all this and yet not attend to it that it should be possible to form an habit of Acting constantly in opposition to the clearest and no less constant Conviction of mind For can we hear with what Detestation the Scripture speaketh of the hardness of Pharaohs Heart and what a sudden Destruction followed and not reflect that in continuing deaf to so many Admonitions of Repentance we are guilty of the same Crime and that in one respect in a higher Degree inasmuch as he knew not at first that that God who commanded him to let the Captive Jews depart was the true God until he was convinced by many Miracles whereas we are convinced from the beginning of the Divine Authority of him who imposeth this Duty on us Or can we call to mind the severe Judgments which God exercised upon the Jews for sudden and rash Resolutions taken up in heat and as soon repented of such as their frequent Rebellions against Moses their refusing to march to the promised Land after having râ—…ceived a false account from the timorous Spies and many such other occasions Do we remember all this and imagine that God will pass-by unregarded our deliberate and obstinate Rebellions such as is the Continuation of every habit of Sin These things were written for our Example that by them we might receive Instruction being terrified by the knowledge of their Sufferings from following the Example of their Sins It is absurd to think that God hath remitted his Justice herein and will oversee those Sins in us which he so eminently revenged in elder times His Attributes always continue the same his Justice his Holiness and his hatred of Sin The Reasons of his Favour are eternal and unchangeable being Piety and Obedience Although he hath been pleased in ancient times to demonstrate his Justice by more visible Examples than in after Ages which was no more than was necessary at the first Delivery of any general Revelation partly to attest the Authority of those Revelations and partly to deterr Men by such severe Examples from the Prosecution of sin who ought thence to conclude That if God exercised not the same Severity toward them in this Life he reserved it for another it being impossible that God who is no respecter of persons should be so inexorable to some Sinners and unaccountably indulgent to others involved in the same Guilt To be farther convinced of the impossibility of Salvation without Repentance we may consider the Mystery of our Lords Incarnation Death and Passion who having taken upon himself the Sins of Mankind bore our Infirmities upon the Cross and became answerable to God for them Surely if ever God would Pardon the sins of Men without any Satisfaction whether of Punishment or Repentance he would have remitted his Methods of Justice to his only begotten Son and not required him to take upon himself the Shame and Bitterness of the Cross. Yet such was the Divine Hatred of Sin that although earnestly and passionately intreated by Christ in his Prayer in the Garden to remit his Decree therein and receive Mankind to Mercy without requiring so severe a Satisfaction he would not condescend to do it nor would give Pardon to Man upon any other terms than that that ever Blessed Person who had taken the Sins of Mankind upon him should suffer all the Marks of Divine Displeasure which Man in this Life can undergo and expiate it by the shedding of his own Blood Could the Justice of God permit him to Pardon the sins of Man without any satisfaction he would never have put such an hard Condition upon his own Son as that either the World whose Redemption he had undertaken must be for ever lost or himself must lay down his Life in exchange for it When therefore a Life of such inestimable value must be Sacrificed to appease the Anger of God to sinful Men how terrible must that Anger have been how vehement his Hatred of sin the occasion of it Nor did his Hatred of sin expire with the offering up of that inestimable Sacrifice that continueth yet fixed and constant Only now he may remit to men the full and just Punishment of their sins without any prejudice to his Attributes of Holiness and Justice which without that Satisfaction of the Cross he would not do least Man should conclude that he took delight in or winked at their sin which he pardoned so easily or that Sin was not of so deep a Guilt since Man with all his sins was capable of the Divine Favour without any Compensation for it whereas now Man cannot reflect upon the means of Pardon offered by God without conceiving at the same time his hatred of Sin God indeed required ne the Life of every particular Man in Punishment of his Sins which in strict Justice would seem agreeable but he required the Life of his own Son more valuable than the Lives of all sinful Men put together He receiveth to Mercy the most enormous Sinners but condemned to Punishment that Divine Person who took the Sins of them all upon him And even after so much done and suffered by Christ for the Expiation of the sins of Men God distributeth not the Benefits of that Sacrifice indifferently to all who lay any Claim to it Hereby the sins of Men are not actually pardoned nor Man immediately acquitted of the Guilt of them but only made capable of Pardon and the grant of Pardon in God made possible without any Diminution to his Justice This Pardon he distributeth to Men upon those Conditions which himself hath pleased to appoint and those such which farther declare his Hatred of sin being Repentance and Reformation a Confession of the guilt of sin and a forsaking of it such means as may produce in the Soul of Man a like Detestation of Sin Upon no other account can Man claim any Benefit from the Merits of that Sacrifice the sum of the Conditions required being included in that comprehensive form of Speech so often mentioned in the New Testament Repent and be baptized Acknowledge the Guilt of your former sins conceive a Sorrow for them and form a Hatred of them Renounce any farther Exercise of them testifie your Resolutions
â—…elicity God may bestow or deny to any one for the fake of another without any â—…minution of his Justice and Impartiality which requireth no more than that â—…f â—…e punisheth Man for neglecting to oâ—…tain his Supream Happiness he should â—…ut it into his power to obtain it This 〈◊〉 be done either with or without â—…nporal Benefits or Calamities which â—…ly contribute nothing to that suâ—… end and are purely accidental to 〈◊〉 God may dispose them in this World either for the vindication of his Providence the encouragement or trial of the Faithful the punishment or correction of the Wicked But while they impose not on any a necessity of doing Well or Ill nor render any Man truly Happy or Miserable they may not be always Rewards or Punishments and so do not necessarily attend the Obedience or Disobedience of Men. Upon these unalterable principles the Divine Justice doth proceed and although we cannot deny any of these without denying God at the same time to be Just and Impartial yet Men have still continued to frame different Notions to themselves and to Act upon them It is so pleasing a delusion to fancy themselves dear to God in an extraordinary manner and for unaccountable Reasons that no wonder many have been always tempted to entertain such a charming Errour which flatters their Ambition gratifies their Self-love sets them above the ordinary Rank of Men and even exempts them from the obligation of pursuing the Ordinary means of Salvation Righteousness and Holiness Purity and Obedience This seduced the Jews to grow secure and confident and to found their Title to the Favour of God not in the diligent performance of his Commands but in their Relation to their Father Abraham for whose sake they imagined themselves so dear to God that he would certainly conferr Happiness upon them without any further consideration This prejudice hath also corrupted great numbers of Christians especially in this last Age of the Church who place their hopes of Salvation not upon the general grounds of Piety and Obedience but upon secret Decrees of Election and Predestination which may set them above the Rank of their Fellow-Servants and exempt them from the Obligation which is common to all Sober Christians of a diligent pursuit of Salvation by its proper means observation of the Divine Precepts and performance of the Conditions prescribed by God Hence also the fond pretensions of Men have proceeded so far as to perswade themselves that all of such an Order shall be saved or that whosoever are of this or that Confraternity or Congregation shall not be Damned and then the natural Consequence will be to change the ordinary Methods of Salvation and either to reject all care of it or place that care upon trifling and fond Observations Thus Men have forsaken the Well of Life and hewed Cisterns to themselves Cisterns which will hold no water not considering that if things were so all Religion would be vain and foolish but above all that God would be in a most gross manner unjust and a partial respecter of Persons against the express Declaration of the Apostle in my Text. I need not now confute the Erroneous pretensions of these deluded Christians but it may not be unseasonable to clear the Divine Impartiality in relation to the Jews For it may be imagined that can not consist with his Conduct to them Could God interpose by Miracles so often in their behalf feed them with Bread from Heaven and destroy whole Nations to make room for them and not be partial Could he choose them out of all the Families of the Earth declare himself to be in a particular manner their God and them to be his People who far from excelling other Men in Holiness and Obedience continued always to be a stifnecked and stubborn Generation a Generation that set not their hearts aright Could he profess all this Favour to be shewed to them as he often doth not for their own Righteousness but for personal respects for the sake of their Father Abraham and their Descent from him Could God perform all these apparent signs of partiality and yet not be partial Yes surely Justice and Impartiality are eternal Attributes in God which began not with the Revelation of the Christian Religion but are Essential Properties in him and inseparable from his Nature which however St. Peter discovered not till now as being blinded with preconceived Prejudices taken up in his Education among the Jews a little reflection will clearly shew it unto us First then This Favour of God to the Jews for the sake of their Father Abraham consisted not in bestowing on them Eternal Happiness but only Temporal Blessings which we before shewed to be consistent with the strictest Rules of Justice and even those he dispensed to them not merely for the sake of their Fore-father but in conjunction with their own Obedience whom he required to distinguish themselves from the rest of Mankind by a careful observation of their Duty and extraordinary Precepts not incumbent upon other Men nor enjoyned by the Law of Nature When these Conditions were neglected or violated he inflicted punishments upon them no less extraordinary than his Benefits and severely revenged in them what he oversaw in others He admitteth them indeed to the hopes of Eternal Felicity but that was no part of their particular Covenant nor in consequence of any private Promise The hopes of this were common to them with all Mankind and not to be obtained but upon Conditions common to all In that no respect is had to their descent from Abraham they are therein Judged by such Universal Rules as admit no exceptions And then even those Temporal Blessings were not appropriated to them but equally laid open to all the Members of Mankind who if they obliged themselves to the observation of the Mosaick Law and confirmed their engagement by the Seal of Circumcision were no less Heirs of the Promises made unto Abraham than were his immediate Descendents Lastly These Temporal Benefits were at first conferred as a Reward to extraordinary and wonderful Acts of Obedience and Piety in Abraham and entailed with Conditions of the same Obedience to his Posterity as well to encourage him to continue his Obedience by the prospect of the Happiness of his whole Posterity depending on it as to excite them to the same practice by the visible example of his Reward Thus the Divine Justice in relation to the Jews alone is unexceptionable but then what shall we say if we consider boâ—…h Jews and Christians as partakers of the Promises of Eternal Salvation and compare them with the Gentiles who are Strangers to the Covenant of Grace and never knew either the promises or conditions of Salvation Is God the God of the Jews and the Christians only Is he not God of the Gentiles also Are not his Attributes always unalterable and the influences of them equally derived down to all his Creatures We believe that the Jews under the
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
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
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
tendeth no less effectually to the Honour and Glory of God than a due Command of our Will For God is no less dishonoured by mean and unworthy Apprehensions of him by Idolatry and Superstition by denying his Existence or debasing his Attributes which are the effects of misguided Reason than by an open Violation of his known Precepts which proceeds from the Corruption of the Will And thus it appears that a full Enquiry into the Reasons and Arguments of the Christian Religion and a perfect knowledge of the truth of them not only contributes exceedingly but in Persons having means to attain it is absolutely necessary to beget a true and perfect Faith and secure to us the reward of it III. A distinct and clear knowledge of the Mysteries of our Faith and Rules of our Religion will afford to us many and great Motives to the practice of our Duty and direct us in the performance of it It is the peculiar Prerogative of the Christian Religion that the more we search into the Reasons and Constitution of it the more fully the Divinity of it will appear Every new Discovery will give us fresh occasions to admire the Wisdom Goodness and Justice of God eminently conspiring in the Revelation of it This will excite in us if we be not insensible a profound Veneration of the Divine Majesty an ardent Love of his Excellencies and the most intense degree of Gratitude It will manifest to us the Misery of Man and his lost Condition without the Sacrifice of the Cross which might expiate for his Sins and mediate his Pardon and hereby will increase our Sense of the Divine Mercy will enhance the value of that inestimable Sacrifice teach us to adore love and devote our selves to our Saviour to resign up our belief to his Revelations as to our Prophet to depend wholly upon the Expiation of our sins once made and Intercession for us always continued by him as of our High Priest to yield an intire Obedience to his Commands and Precepts as to our King Can we view the Love and Mercy of God manifested in our Redemption the wonderful Contrivances of Providence both to secure the Divine Justice and Honour and yet give Pardon to sinful Man and not be wound up into an Extasie of Love and Admiration Can we consider the most wise Methods whereby God brought this wonderful design to perfection and trace the footsteps of it through all Ages can we think upon the Majesty of him who condescended to suffer for us and the unworthiness of Man to receive so great a Favour without filling our Understandings with awful and reverent Conceptions of him our Wills with a passionate desire of Union with him and enlarging all the Faculties of our Souls to approach his Presence and receive his influence Or can we hope to raise our Souls to a worthy Sense of the Divine Favours and Benefits and carry up our Affections to a gratitude not inferiour to the Greatness of them without a perfect knowledge of their Design and Excellency Surely the Admonitions of the Prophets Apostles and even our Blessed Saviour were not in vain which so earnestly press us to the study of Divine Truths command us to search the Scriptures assure us That they were written for our instruction and which is to be observed commend those who were conversant in them above all other Persons Yet how small a part of the Holy Scripture are those things which are absolutely necessary to be believed The infinitely greater part of it serveth only to declare the extraordinary Acts of his Providence to the Church and Testimonies of his Love to Mankind to celebrate his Mercy and Goodness and induce us by manifold Arguments to our Duty Yet these also hath the Divine Wisdom thought necessary to the knowledge and instruction of Men and surely not without Reason For what can be more worthy of Man more perfective of his Nature or conducing to enstate him in the greatest Happiness than to comprehend the Riches of the Divine Goodness to entertain noble Conceptions of his Creator and by a constant Meditation and exalted Knowledge raise his Affections to a vehement Love of him By this we anticipate the Joys of Heaven and begin to possess them even before we are received into them For both Reason and Revelation assureth us that the Fruition of Celestial Happiness consists in a constant and unwearied Contemplation and Love of the Divine Perfections The study of these sacred Matters was esteemed the best indication of a pious Mind and the most certain method of attaining the utmost degree of Happiness upon Earth even under the Old Law when God had not yet made a full Manifestation of himself and the Reasons of the Divine Oeconomy were obscure and hid under a veil of Ceremonies and Ritual Observations For proof of this to go no farther than the CXIX Psalm wherein such inimitable strains of Piety Devotion and an ardent Love of God appear The Holy Psalmist every where ascribes his Proficiency in Vertue and the inward satisfaction and Happiness of his mind to the assiduous study of the Divine Laws I will thank thee with an unfeigned heart when I shall have learned the judgments of thy righteousness Open thou mine eyes that I may see the wondrous things of thy law For I remembred thine everlasting judgments O Lord and received comfort Lord what love have I unto thy law all the day long is my study in it O how sweet are thy words unto my throâ—… yea sweeter than honey unto my mouth Thy word is a lantern unto my feet and a light unto my paths For thy testimonies are my delight and my Counsellours See all the Marks of a Soul big with Devotion and filled with transports of Joy from the Consideration of the Divine Goodness and Excellency manifested under the Mosaick Law But alas how inconsiderable is this if compared to that greater Light which Christianity hath brought into the world What satisfaction and advantage may not we now hope for from the study and Contemplation of the more perfect Law of Christ that hath revealed to us the Mystery which hath been hid from Ages and represents to us the Divine Goodness not under a veil and shadow but in its full Dimensions The antient Christians were truly sensible of this who placed their Happiness on this side Heaven in this Holy study chose rather to part with their Lives than Bibles and branded those who delivered them up to their Persecutors although in exchange for their dearest Blood with the name of Traditores or Traitors And in the last Age our Forefathers gave eminent Instances of the same perswasion and resolution when great numbers of them ventured their Lives to enjoy the advantage of reading the Scriptures in their Mother tongue and rather than forego that Benefit chose to forfeit their Lives to the Persecution of a Church whose interest it was that those Divine Truths should not be known It is our
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
any Rewards or Punishments We had been obliged by the Laws of Creation to embrace and practice it to obey the Dictates of Reason that by obeying them we might have procured the perfection of our Nature Many Duties do arise from the Consideration of our Nature and that Relation which we bear to God and the whole world which would not have ceased to oblige us although no Revelation had been made unto us Or if it had pleased God to re-inforce these Duties by a particular Revelation yet was it not necessary that he should entail any rewards on the performance of them as being parts of our Duty antecedently to any such Revelation If he had required of us more than was naturally suggested to us by the light of Reason even the most difficult and laborious Duties He might justly have done it by the right of Creation as being the Author of our Being It had been a sufficient Reward to Mankind to have received from God the benefit of Existence and the Continuation of it and to enjoy the ordinary effects of his Providence If to these he had added Threats and Punishments he might reasonably be supposed to have abundantly secured Mankind from the neglect of his Commands since none but the most stupid and brutal Persons would for the Fruition of a few not only irrational but trifling Vanities incurr the displeasure of an Almighty Being and draw upon themselves the effects of his Vengeance Or if to Actions in themselves indifferent and not in the least contributing to the perfection of our Nature Actions having nothing extraordinary in them beside the greatness of their Difficulty he had adjoyned a Promise of infinite Rewards yet could we not have omitted them without the highest degree of Folly when the performance of them might procure so vast a Reward the sole hopes of which might induce us to force our Inclinations and do violence to our Nature But when to the common Benefits of Creation and Preservation he hath added the Revelation of Divine Truths and adapted those Revelations to the capacity and imperfection of our Nature when he hath urged the practice of these revealed Truths by the Promise of Reward on the one side and the Threats of Punishment on the other And as if all this were not sufficient proceeds to heap new Favours on us intreats us as a Friend bears with us as a Father and by Prodigies of Mercy leads us to our own Happiness we must profess our selves astonished and confounded at so stupendious a Goodness and acknowledge our selves unable to celebrate as we ought the Mercy of God who when he might have satisfied both the Justice and Holiness of his Nature by requiring of us the performance of the greatest Duties without any Reward or proportioned his Reward to the imperfection of our Service or proposed both Rewards and Duties without adding continued Acts of Mercy and Forgiveness yet contributed all to the Happiness of Mankind and thereby made the Emanation of his Goodness to be no less infinite than his Nature the Fountain of them Who when it was sufficient alone to manifest the Justice of his proceeding to appeal even to the Judgment of Mankind as he did sometime in the Prophet Are not my ways equal are not your ways unequal O house of Israel chose rather to conquer us by kindness and by the greatness of his Goodness lead us to Repentance By the Goodness of God in this place we are not so much to understand that incommunicable Attribute of perfect Holiness upon account of which our Saviour said Matth. XIX 17. There is none good but one that is God As his kindness and benignity which inclines him to exercise Acts of Beneficence Love and Mercy which is frequently in Scripture called by the name of Goodness as Psalm LXXIII 1. Truly God is good unto Israel even unto such as are of a clean heart And again Psalm CXLV 9. The Lord is good to all and his tender mercies are over all his works Where his Goodness is aptly expressed by the Tenderness of his Mercy The former Attribute indeed representeth God to Mankind as a fit object of Worship and Adoration and inciteth brave and generous Souls to the exercise of Vertue that so they may attain a nearer Similitude and Conformity to their Creator the imitation of whom is their ùtmost perfection But the latter chiefly creates in us that Love of God which is the best and most efficacious Principle of all religious Actions by representing to us his infinite affection to Mankind his benefactive Nature and proneness to Acts of Mercy and Compassion which even although we forget our Duty and neglect our Interest cannot but excite a lively Senfe of gratitude in us and a profound Veneration of the Divine Mercy This Beneficence and indulgence of God is designed in the Text by the term Goodness or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an eminent instance of which the Apostle had laid down in the former part of this Verse in that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Forbearance and Long-suffering whereby God does not immediately inflict the deserved Punishments upon Sinners but with-holds his anger and patiently awaits their Repentance whereby he does not presently revenge the Injuries and Affronts done to his Laws and Person by the sins of Mankind but compassionates our Nature and at all times reserveth Mercy for penitent Sinners An Attribute than which nothing can render God more amiable and dear unto us or more effectually secure our Obedience to him were not the Perverseness of Mankind no less infinite than his Goodness Yet did many in that Age and as I fear more in our Times make a contrary use of this Goodness by thence taking Encouragement to continue in their sins because they see not Vengeance to be speedily executed and experience in themselves and others the Forbearance and Long-suffering of God The Apostle complains of these Men in the former part of the Verse That they despised the riches of the goodness forbearance and long-suffering of God and from these Attributes inferrs a contrary Conclusion to what they had formed namely That this ought rather to dispose us to repentance and reformation of Life by enforcing all other Arguments of our Duty with a powerful Obligation of gratitude which is violated in a most enormous manner by those who abused the Divine Mercy to a contrary intent Not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth us to repentance In handling these words I shall endeavour to illustrate and improve the Apostles Argument by considering it as well in Relation to that influence which it ought to have upon all our Actions in general as in disposing us to this Duty of Repentance in particular In Discoursing of the first Head I will lay down these two Propositions I. That gratitude or a right Sense of our Obligation arising from the consideration of the infinite Benefits and Mercies of God towards us was intended by God
God in the day when I chose Israel and lifted up my hand unto the seed of the house of Jacob and made my self known unto them in the land of Egypt when I lifted up my hand unto them saying I am the Lord your God In the day that I lifted up my hand unto them to bring them forth of the land of Egypt into a land that I had espied for them flowing with milk and honey which is the glory of all lands Then I said unto them Cast ye away every man the abomination of his eyes and defile not your selves with the Idols of Egypt I am the Lord your God To say no more this appears evidently from the name of JEHOVAH under which God was constantly worshipped from the giving of the Law till the coming of Christ. For this name imported no more than the Immutability of the Divine Nature and Constancy in effecting his Promise the Completion of which should necessarily as often return into their Minds as that most Holy Name was taken into their mouths And therefore at that moment in which the Promises were compleated God made himself known unto the Jews by this name Jehovah saying unto Moses Exod. VI. 3. And I appeared unto Abraham unto Isaac and unto Jacob by the name of El Shaddai or God Almighty but by my name Jehovah was not I known unto them As if he should say I was known indeed unto your Forefathers by my Attributes of Greatness and Omnipotence whereby they were intirely satisfied that I was able in due time to conferr upon them all those Benefits which I had promised to them but my Attributes of Veracity and Immutability were not sensibly made known to them by the Completion of those Promises These now you see performed and consequently are convinced that I am a God true to my Promise and invariable to my Resolutions By this Name or under this Notion will I be henceforward worshipped by you The exceeding Care which God took to perpetuate the Memory of these Benefits among the Jews does manifest it to have been the best means of preserving Religion and the true Worship of himself among them To this all the Rites and Ceremonies of the Law in some mea sure tended but especially the grand Festival of the Passover was instituted for no other Purpose than to continue the remembrance of their Deliverance out of Egypt Annual repetitions of the History of those Benefits were enjoyned and Parents commanded to teach them to their Children on the severest Penalties The greatest part of the Book of Deuteronomy which was in more frequent use among the Jews than any other Book of the Old Testament is employed in repeating the Favours of God and urging the Duty of gratitude arising from them And as if the whole Duty of that People consisted in retaining the Memory of those Favours Moses in one place seems to require nothing else of them Who after he had described the Excellency of that Law and Religion which God had revealed to them subjoyns Only take heed to thy self and keep thy soul diligently least thou forget the things that thine eyes have seen and least they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life but teach them thy sons and thy sons sons Deut. IV. 9. He was sufficiently assured That if this grateful remembrance were preserved among them it would draw along with it an universal Obedience to the whole Law And therefore as our Savioâ—…r summed up the whole Duty of Man in the Love o God and our Neighbour so he comprized all in a thankful remembrance of the Divine Benefits Afterwards when the deplorable Idolatry of the Jews for which God caused them to be led into Captivity had almost effaced the Memory of their miraculous Deliverance out of Egypt and by a new Prodigy of Mercy God had brought them out of Captivity and replaced them in their ancient Possessions he tells them he would not any longer be worshipped by them as the Author of that almost forgotten Benefit of their Deliverance out of Egypt the Memory of which was grown faint among them but as the Author of the late Restitution the remembrance of which was yet fresh in their Minds and might therefore be supposed to produce a greater Sense of gratitude in them For thus he bespeaks them Jerem. XVI 14 15. Therefore behold the days come saith the Lord that it shall no more be said the Lord liveth that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt But the Lord liveth that brought up the children of Israel from the land of the North and from all the lands whither he had driven them and I will bring them again into their Land that I gave unto their fathers The same words he repeats in the XXIII 7th and 8th Verses So studiously did God indeavour to oblige the Jews to pursue their own Happiness in the true Worship of him by heaping new Benefits upon them and inculcating the Memory of them in all solemn Acts of Worship Under the Gospel also God continues to be worshipt as the Author of some signal Benefits as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ by whom we obtained Redemption from our sins and Deliverance out of the spiritual Egypt the bondage of Sin and the Devil In every Act of our Christian Worship the Memory of this Benefit is presented to us while we are taught to direct our Prayers to him and to worship him in the Notion of the Father which cannot be without recalling to mind his infinite Mercy manifested in our Redemption which was designed by him and effected by his only begotten Son All the Sacraments and external Worship of the Christian Religion tend no less to preserve the Memory of this Benefit than did the Rites of the Jewish Law to Commemorate their Deliverance out of Egypt particularly the Holy Eucharist which was intended for the constant and most solemn Act of the Christian Worship was instituted to this very Purpose to preserve a lively Memory of that great and final Act of our Redemption to represent to us the Death of our Saviour and continue the Memory of those stripesby which we were healed and of that blood by which we were cleansed If by the degeneracy of latter Ages it hath in great measure failed to produce that Effect for which it was at first intended that is to be ascribed to that deplorable disuse of the Celebration of it which crept into latter Ages and is continued in our times That universal decay of Religion and Piety which we all acknowledge and lament cannot with so much Reason be attributed to any other cause as to this the Memory of our Saviours Passion and with that of our Redemption sensibly decayed in the minds of Men when that venerable Mystery began to be discontinued which was instituted on purpose to continue for ever a lively Representation of it in the Church Men perhaps may retain an Historical remembrance of
reverent Conceptions of him as the perfection of his Wisdom and Holiness but none of all these would naturally lead Men to the worship of him without the addition of his Goodness and Liberality Without these men would esteem his Worship both unprofitable and unnecessary and think themselves little concerned in the Adoration ofhim from whom they neither received nor expected any Good The Benefits indeed of Creation and Conservation if Men would duly consider the Greatness of them were sufficient to introduce and secure the constant Worship of the Author of them But such is the Nature of Mankind that they little consider those Benefits which are common to them with inanimate Beings and require to be distinguished from the rest of the Creation by a greater proportion of the Divine Favour as who alone can render Worship and Honour to their Creator and conserve a Grateful esteem of their Benesactor To this we may add that as it is the Sense of our own Wants which chiefly induceth us to look up to God and make our Addresses to him so it is the sensible experience of the supply of those Wants which moveth us to return thanks to God and continueth the remembrance of him in our Minds Without this it may be justly feared the Worship of God would be lost among Men and Religion vanish into unaccountable Superstitions If we view the several Religions of the World we shall find that they all worshipped God on the account of his supposed Benefits Insomuch as the Heathens enjoying no peculiar Benefits of God worshipped with Divine Honour those men whom they fancied when alive to have been their greatest Benefactors They did equally partake of the common Benefits of Creation and Conservation and as St. Paul assureth us Acts XVII 28. acknowledged that in God they did live and move and have their being But the want of peculiar Favours conferred on them occasioned the loss of all true Notions and worship of the Deity not necessarily indeed for then they had not been inexcusable but in Conjunction with the depraved Nature of Mankind which is led more by the Impressions of Sense than mature Judgment of the Understanding whence being more affected with the visible Benefits of mortal Men than the common Benefits of God which however infinitely surpassing the others yet were not perceived by Sense they forgot their Creator and imagining Beneficence to be the best Indication of a Deity ranked among the Gods their sellow Creatures from whom they had received some extraordinary Benefit These they worshipped with the utmost Efforts of Piety and Devotion which however being in them directed to false Objects tended to their Condemnation yet may justly make us ashamed who incited by infinite Benefits and allured by subsequent Rewards render not those Duties of Gratitude to an Object in its own Nature worthy of Adoration which they returned to mortal Men for petty inconsiderable Favours They were content even to debase their Natures and stoop to the Worship of their fellow Creatures that they might not seem to be wanting in returning thanks for slight and temporal Obligations and we can scarce be induced by infinite Benefits to pay that Tribute of Adoration to our Creator which is due to him on many other accounts also For it is our Happiness that our Gratitude is directed to the right Object that it cannot be excessive or degenerate into Idolatry or Superstition while paid to the true God who deserves the most profound Subjection and highest Adoration from us Even this is none of the least Benefits for which we owe unto him the utmost transport of Gratitude that he hath been pleased to awaken us and draw us to himself by wonderful Acts of bounty and lay new Obligations upon us least we should forget the old that he should condescend to conquer the Ingratitude of Mankind by heaping new Benefits upon us and prepare our Minds to the reception of true Knowledge by striking our Senses with amazing Acts of Mercy For if we consider the several Revelations made by God unto the world we shall find them all to have been preceded by extraordinary Arguments of peculiar Favour to that People unto whom those Revelations were made which might raise their Apprehensions and induce them to consider themselves obliged in Gratitude to pay an intire Obedience to the Dictates of so great a Benefactor Thus God had newly created Adam given him Dominion over all Creatures and seated him in Paradise when he made known to him the Mystery of the promised Seed He had assured Abraham to himself by a continued Train of stupendious Blessings before he entred into Covenant with him or required him to manifest his Obedience in his Circumcision But the Revelation of the Mosaick Law upon Mount Sina was the most express Instance of this kind which was not delivered until God had abundantly convinced the Jews of that peculiar Favour which he bore unto them by working Signs and Miracles in their behalf in Egypt bringing them out thence with a mighty hand and a stretched out arm drowning their enemies in the Red Sea and miraculousty nourishing themselves in the wilderness Such amazing Prodigies of particular kindness could not but unite them to God their Benefactor in a firm resolution of Obedience to his Commands and convince them of their Obligation to worship him and amidst all their most gross Idolatries force them to acknowledge that God was chiefly to be adored Who had brought them out of Egypt although their ignorance and proneness to Superstition often betrayed them to worship him in a manner unbecoming his Nature and displeasing to him Insomuch that it may be observed that when they committed that foul Apostacy related in the XXXII Chapter of Exodus and worshipped God under the Representation of a molten Calf they still forgat not that Benefit but directed their Worship to him chiefly upon that account saying These be thy Gods O Israel which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt Ver. 4. And when the last and most perfect Revelation was made unto the world by our Saviour the same method of Divine Providence was retained and made use of by him who in his triennial Preaching preceding his Crucifixion and final Completion of his Office upon Earth went about doing good healing the Sick raising the Dead curing Demoniacks and restoring the use of their Limbs and Senses to unhappy Persons who before wanted them These Miracles indeed were likewise intended to demonstrate the Divine Mission of our Saviour who performed them But since the Conformity of the ancient Prophecies concerning the Messias to his Person was to the Jews the far greatest Argument of his Divinity and to the Gentiles not the Relation of his Miracles but the performance of other Miracles by the Apostles in Attestation of it the Primary intention of his own Miracles feems to have been no other than to raise the attention of the World by the Greatness of them and excite their
Greatness of the Divine Favours conferred on him he cries out in Admiration Lord what is man that thou art mindful of him and the son of man that thou so regardest him The Apostle useth the same Argument Rom. V. 8. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die But God commendeth his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us That is scarce would any other conferr so great a Benefit as to lay down his Life for his sake upon any one however punctually performing all the Duties of Juftice and deficient in none of those Offices which are necessarily required of him Yet perhaps for one who out of the abundance of his Zeal and Charity for the good of his Neighbour doth more than was in common Justice required some men induced by a powerful Sense of gratitude would not fear to lay down their Lives And in this appeareth the incomparable Greatness of the Divine Goodness that while we far from performing those Duties which in the strictest manner we are obliged to pay to God much less from doing more than is necessarily required of us had by our sins provoked the Divine Displeasure and proclaimed our selves Enemies to God yet notwithstanding all this Christ vouchsafed to die for us If we apply this Argument to our own Obligation arising from the Divine Benefits we shall find it very cogent For if for a good although not for a just Man some would out of Gratitude even dare to die What ought not we to do for God who by his superabundant Goodness hath so far exceeded what he oweth to us in Justice that the latter holdeth no Proportion to the former In strict propriety of Speech he oweth nothing to us Since our Creation is an Act of his own Free-will and although when once created he cannot without Injustice necessitate us to be miserable or lay greater evil upon us without respect to our Demerits than what may be countervailed by the Happiness necessarily flowing from our Existence yet is this owing rather to the Justice of his own Nature than to any right acquired by us But then the undeserved Benefits bestowed on us are greater than we are able to conceive and hold no Proportion with any thing save the infinity of his Goodness as being no less than Redemption from eternal Death and the hopes of everlasting Happiness For what can we plead in behalf of our selves to render us worthy of the Divine Favour Not the Dignity of our Nature which in his sight is dust and ashes not the perfections of our Mind which are the Products of his own Power and miserably debased by sinsul Habits not our Righteousness or Piety which is infinitely inferiour to our Demerits and although most perfect yet were no more than our Duty not the Ability of magnifying the persections of his Nature and celebrating his Majesty for that is infinite already and can receive no Addition from our imperfect Praises The Angels were much more fitted by the Exâ—…lency of their Nature to persorm that Office as haâ—…ing more noble Conceptions of the Divine Majesty and â—…eing able by reason of their Spirituality to sing Praises unto him without intermission Yet obtained not they the same Favours with Mankind nor enjoy the Benefit of the forbearance and long-suffering of God For them after Apostacy he receiveth not to Mercy But the Angels which kept not their sirst estate but left their own habitation he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judement of the great day Jude VI. It is Man alone whom God seems to have chosen out for the darling of the Creation and to have tried how far it was possible to oblige his Creatures by undeserved Benefits to the Worship of him This Consideration cannot but strike our Souls with a lively Sense of our Obligation to God that in dispensing the riches of his Goodness he weighed not our Merits but chose to make known his Power in our weakness A Consideration which might justly find matter of Astonishmeâ—…t for our whole Lives and working up our Souls into an Extasie of gratitude constrain us to Obedience Wisely therefore did Moses so much inculcate it in the IX of Deuteronomy where aggraâ—…ating the Greatness of the Obligation which God had laid upon the People of Israel by his wonderful and numerous Benefits he chargeth them to remember withall that they were undeserved Speak not thou in thine heart after that the Lord thy God hath cast out the Canaanites from before thee saying For my righteousness the Lord hath brought me to possess this land Not for thy righteousness or for the uprightness of thy heart dost thou go to possess their land but for the wickedness of these Nations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee and that he may perform the word which the Lord sware unto thy fathers Abraham Isaac and Jacob. And this is the Second Head upon the account of which the Divine Benefits ought to appear infinite unto us and create a proportionable degree of thankfulness Bâ—…cause they are undeserved by us Lastly if we consider the Nature of Mankind we shall easily discover that no Argument so effectual could be proposed to us as this of Gratitude The greatest part of Mankind are no otherwise moved than by the report of their Senses and have not so far improvâ—…d their Reason as to conceive the perfection of the Divine Attributes without the Assistance of sensible Objects These can be no other than the visible and most remarkable effects of the Divine Power and Goodness By these as Men are chiefly led to the knowledge of a God so they are perswaded to pay him Worship and Adoration To this Purpose no Actions of God are so adapted as those which declare his Beneficence and Liberality in which Mankind is peculiarly concerned and receive the benefit of them Other Actions indeed might equally manifest his Nature if seriously reflected on but these few make the subject of their Meditations Men seldom consider God any otherwise than in Relation to themselves and therefore want some extraordinary Benefits to excite their Attâ—…ntion and entertain their Consideration These beyond all other Arguments make the deepest Impressions on our Imaginations and therefore continue longest in our Mâ—…mories So that if the remembrance of these be once effaced we may reasonably conclude all other Arguments of our Duty and Subjection to God to have been long before forgotten And accordingly the Scripture frequently expresseth the final Apostacy of Men from Religion by their forgetting the Benefits of God Thus Judges II. after it had been said Verse 7. That the people served God all the days of Joshua and of the Elders who had seen all the great works of the Lord that he did for Israel It is subjoyned Verse 10. That when all that generation was dead there arose another generation after them
and withal acknowledge that there is no other method whereby to obtain the one or escape the other but a hearty and sincere Repentance and yet with this Belief and Confession should continue in a state of Unrepentance Or if perhaps it may be possible that two such contrary things should consist together yet it cannot be denied but that by his Actions he proclaims his Unbelief to the World who neglects this necessary Duty of Repentance or which is all one deferrs to perform it This was the Second Head proposed namely the time prefixed by God to our Repentance To day if ye will hear his voice harden not your hearts Or as the Apostle expresseth it Hebr. III. 13. While it is called to day Which may either import the term of our natural Life for that Repentance will take no place after Death agreeably to that of our Saviour John IX 4. The night cometh wherein no man can work So that Repentance being necessarily to be performed in this Life and no more of this Life being certain to us than that moment which we now enjoy it ought to commence from this very moment Or else which seems most natural and agreeable to the Design of the Psalmist and the Apostle in the III. of the Hebrews Repent to day That is immediately while God continueth his offers of Mercy before it be too late for that he will not await our Repentance till we please nor suffer his Goodness to be willfully slighted This term of Repentance fixed by God to every Man may be easily discovered as being no other than the first moment of his Conviction of the necessity of Repentance When that Conviction is once throughly formed when Men are fully satisfied that it is their indispensable Duty to conform themselves to the Will of God when they know withal that this Conformity consists in practising all the Divine Precepts of Holiness Justice and Sobriety and that all habitual Sins are an open Opposition to it when they are asâ—…ured that God hath proclaimed his Pardon to Penitent and denounced his Wrath to Impenitent Sinners Then is Life and Death truely set before them Then is it committed to their Choice which they will preferr An easie Choice one would imagine had not the deplorable Experience of so many obstinate Sinners taught us the unhappiness of Mankind in choosing the worse even under Convictions of their Interest and Obligation to the contrary If we enquire after the Cause of this miserable Perverseness we find indeed the Temptations to which Mankind is exposed to be very violent the Lusts of the World and the Flesh to be very powerful and the Pleasures of sin of a bewitching Nature Yet all this would not be sufficient to Master the Dictates of Reason and natural desire of true Happiness which is found in all did not an unhappy mistake misguide the practice of Men and render all the present Convictions of Conscience ineffectual Men are apt to raise false Notions from the Divine Attribute of infinite Mercy and flatter themselves with vain Hopes that the term prefixed by God to their Repentance is not yet expired that it will never be too late to begin their Repentance and in Vertue of it take out their Pardon This is that Deceitfulness of sin of which the Apostle warns us in the afore-mentioned place least any of us be hardened through it after the Example of the Jews of whom some when they had heard did provoke Verse 16. That is after a full Conviction of the Power and Veracity of God refused to obey his Commands or rely on his Pomises as in the Case of their refusal to go up and take possession of the Land which God had given to them related in the XIV of Numbers to which this Psalm particularly relates They immediately indeed repented of their Folly and resolved forthwith to take up Arms and enter upon the Design but then it was too late they had slipt their time and God refused to be among them or to give them Success It is frivolous therefore to plead the Hopes of continual offers of Pardon for deferring of Repentance and to pretend that if they exactly knew the time beyond which the Patience of God would not await they would immediately begin to form a sincere Repentance Such Resolutions may possibly be true and indeed unless a monstrous stupidity intervenes it cannot be otherwise But then the term is manifest and cannot be unknown to any being the moment from which we are convinced that it is our Duty to obey God and know what are the Rules and Measures of Obedience We must believe that God can do nothing irrational now the reasonableness of Pardon to sinful Man is founded either in the invincible ignorance of his Duty or in the Infirmity of his Nature prone to yield to powerful Temptations The latter supposeth an endeavour of Obedience and Piety and cannot consist with a fixed and resolved unrepentance for then every Sin will be the effect not of humane Infirmity but of Resolution The former Cause vanisheth when the Ignorance of Men is removed by a clear Revelation of the Will of God And therefore the Apostle tells the Athenians That God winked indeed at the times of ignorance but now after the Manifestation of the Gospel Willeth all men every where to repent As for us Christians we cannot pretend an Ignorance of our Duty much less those who have the Happiness to be Members of a Church so excellently Constituted We have the Scriptures open to us are admonished and incited to the Practice of our Duty by weekly Exhortations and disown all little Arts so usual in other Churches of procuring Salvation without a strict and real Obedience There remains then to us only the Plea of Infirmity whereby to excuse our Sins and not wholly to despair of the Divine Mercy This supposeth our sincere Endeavours of performing our Duty and a settled Course of Vertue and Piety in which Course we may be overtaken with Temptations and being unawares insuared by them may be betrayed into Sin while the Soul is clouded with a Passion and by violent impressions from the Body or outward Objects hath scarce the Liberty of directing her thoughts aright But if when this Tempest is allayed this Cloud removed when the Mind regains its perfect Freedom and enters into a serious thought of its Condition it entertains any Complacency with the Sin performed or is willing to permit a continuance of it this is no longer a Sin of Infirmity but of deliberate and resolved Choice much more when any Man resolves wholly to stand out against the Divine Command and Convictions of his own Conscience and to proceed in his unrepentance although but for a certain time This is a Sin of so heinous a Nature that no Pardon is promised to it under the Gospel nor indeed can it consist with the Justice and Holiness of God to give it And then even for Sins of Infirmity it is
our constant Duty to watch over them to prevent them and if possible at last wholly to remove them Otherwise if the hopes of obtaining Pardon for them betrays us into a neglect or perhaps a voluntary Admission of them they lose their Plea of Infirmity and become Sins of Presumption Sins of a much deeper Contagion To cure therefore and prevent even thofe Sins which alone can take place in a true and real Christian we must endeavour by an assiduous diligence and circumspect Carriage to form Habits of Vertue and Piety For this end the Observation of Lent was wisely instituted by the Church wherein by a more than ordinary vigilance over our Actions by frequent Meditation Prayer and other pious Exercises and if it were necessary by Bodily Austerities and Mortifications also we might seek Remedies to the diseases of our Soul and begin to form Habits of Holiness and Sobriety which should not expire with the Solemnity of the holy Season but be continued and improved through the whole year and even the whole Course of our Lives If then we be indeed convinced that Repentance is a necessary Duty that it ought to be undertaken upon the first Conviction and that to deferr it after That is an unpardonable Obduration let us from this moment resolve to do it let us confirm our Resolutions by a more than ordinary vigilance and attention in this Holy Season and so by making these pious Resolutions become Habits continue the happy Effects of them to our Lives end So shall we not fail of that infinite Reward which is annexed to true Repentance and the consequent of it unfeigned Obedience To which Reward God of his infinite Mercy bring us all for the Sake and Merits of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The Tenth SERMON PREACH'D March 16th 1689 90. At LAMBETH CHAPEL Luke XIII 5. Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish IT is an ancient and most prudent Constitution of the Church to set a part solemn Times for the exercise of Repentance and a more serious application to the duties of Religion founded upon the example of our Lord himself who though he committed no Sins whereof to repent yet before he entred upon his Office prepared himself for the execution by it by an extraordinary abstinence for forty days together and continued by the Church in all Ages although the remissness and degeneracy of latter times hath almost defeated the use of it The design of it was that Men who are always willing to put off their Repentance from day to day and contriving reasons of their delay being loth to fix the time of an unwelcom Duty might be obliged by the Constitution of the Church by the example of their fellow Christians and by the admonition of their Guides to enter upon it at this time to apply themselves in a particular manner to search their Consciences enquire into the condition of their Souls discover their Diseases and seek the remedies of them by confessing their sins to God acknowledging the guilt of them begging pardon of God who is offended by them removing them from the Soul introducing contrary habits of Piety and Religion taming the unruly pafsions of the Body by a serious attention to the Commands of God to his precepts to his Promises and his Threats to the deformity and unhappy Consequences of Sin by inuring the mind to Acts of Religion and Devotion by a constant Meditation both of the Duty prescribed and the Arguments enforcing it and if all this be not sufficient to check and overrule the violent motions of the Body to depress them by abstinence and Fasting in a word to subdue the Body to the Government of the Soul and the Soul to the Obedience of God We are indeed always obliged to watch over our Actions to repent of our Sins as soon as we discover them and to strive against them yet it will be necessary to fix some certain times wherein a more severe examination is to be made the state of the Soul to be exactly searched the imperfections and corruptions of it to be discovered a stricter Course of Piety to be undergone whereby it may make deep impressions in the Mind and as it were take Root in it This time the Church hath most wifely determined and not left her Sons to their own direction who might possibly deferr their Repentance till either it were prevented by Death or Sin had taken such deep root that it could not be removed And such was the excellent discipline of the Church herein in former Ages so Solemn and Devout their Observation of Lent I mean not in abstaining from this or that sort of Meat for that even when rightly used is but â—…ubservient to the great Design but in the Forming an Exercise of a strict Repentance of a more careful Obedience and more constant Devotion that it could not fail to have great effect upon the Minds of all sorts of Christians They were not content to exercise in secret all theâ—…e Acts of Mortification for so I call whatsoever tends to destroy Sin in Man which is the true notion of mortification but did it in publick in the Face of the whole Church and in many external Acts of Life Those who had committed more hainous sins voluntarily underwent a publick Penance fequestred themselves from the â—…ank of the Faithful placed themselves in a particular part of the Church appointed for the Penitents there publickly confessed their sins implored the mercy of God and desired the Intercession of the whole Church for them Not only those but all other Christians who were not conscious to themselves of any flagrant Crimes still applyed themselves during all that holy Season to an extraordinary exercise of all the Acts of Religion denied themselves many of the ordinary and Innocent pleasures of Life that they might without interruption attend to the forming of a true Repentance to the mortifying of their Lusts and to the improving of their good Resolutions into habits of Piety I mean not that they macerated themselves with Hair-cloth or Whippings or unreasonable Fastings those were the Follies of latter and more Ignorant Ages but they afflicted their Souls with the continual thoughts of having offended God by their Sins they endeavoured to Form a hatred of sin by taking the shame of it upon themselves in a publick confession they daily implored the Mercy of God with all the ardent expressions and real signs of Repentance which Pious Souls could invent They fitted themselves for the receiving of that Mercy by raising and fixing steady Notions and Resolutions of their Duty to God and their obligation to all the Precepts of Religion by generous Acts of Charity by a vigilant strugling with all sinful Motions and even rooting them out by maceration if no other means could prevail that so they might present themselves pure and unspotted to their Lord at the ensuing solemnity of Easter when whosoever did not Communicate and had not prepared himself
this prejudice that Men forming Rules from like Cases of this World fondly imagine that Men have escaped all possibility of punishment when they have put off the Body as the Tyrant said of his Adversary who had killed himself that he had escaped his Hands In that case Men see not the punishment inflicted on them and then those who are wont to consult the report of sense alone will not believe it little considering that it is impossible the Soul of Man should perish that after the dissolution of the Body it is no less capable of Reward or Punishment since by that alone it is that Man even in this Life is sensible of either that after Death it ceaseth not to be the Creature of God subject to his Dominion and responsible for all its Actions done in this Life which was the time of Probation allowed to it All this is illustrated by the Parable following in this Chapter which our Lord purposely delivered in confirmation of what he had spoken in the Text. There God is represented in the Person of the Possessor of a Vineyard wherein was an unfruitful Vine the ordinary apprehensions of Men are represented in the Dresser of that Vineyard who perceiving the unfruitfulness of the Vine presently crieth out that it ought to be cut down that it cumbreth the Ground that it should be rooted up and cast out of the Vineyard The Owner of the Vineyard on the contrary commandeth it should be let alone for some while longer that it may fully appear if perhaps it will ever bear Fruit during which he willeth the Dresser of his Vineyard to dig about it and dung it to promote the fertility of it by all means possible and if after all it continueth unfruitful then giveth sentence that it shall be cut down During the time of this Life God executeth not his final sentence upon Men he doth not immediately deliver them up to the Tormenter upon the first Act of disobedience for then alas who could be saved But with an admirable patience awaits their Repentance till the end of Life when there is no more place of Repentance left and in the mean time promotes it by the solicitations of his Spirit by the admonitions of his Pastors by all imaginable methods which may incline the Will of Man without putting any force upon it If then in this Life we find not the just recompence of our evil Actions it is not because they have escaped the knowledge of God or pass unregarded by him it is not because they deserve not the Divine Vengeance or that we continue in his Favour but because he will not alter the method of his most prudent Government of the World nor violate the ordinary Rules of it by which he hath determined this World to be the Stage of Action for Mankind and the next to be the Seat of Judgment Yet may not this forbearance of God encourage Men to deferr their Repentance till the end of their Life That St. Paul tells us Rom. 2. Is to despise the riches of the goodness forbearance and long-suffering of God and thereby to treasure up wrath against the day of wrath Our Lord throughout all his Gospel warns Men concerning the suddenness and unexpected time of his coming to Judgment in prevention of this fatal errour What his second coming was to the Jews and what his last coming in Judgment will be to all Mankind that Death is to us which if it finds us unprepared all the miseries which Christ denounced should befall them will fall on us Nor if Life were assured to us could we at all times form such a true Repentance as would qualifie us for the Mercy of God which consists not in a transient sorrow for past Sins but in a total change of all the vicious habits and inclinations of the Will Nor lastly is there any pardon promised to presumptuous sins deliberately committed in prospect of the pardon offered to all truly penitent sinners But of the Nature Necessity and Benefits of Repentance I shall speak more largely in the further prosecution of these words in my next Discourse The Eleventh SERMON PREACH'D March 23d 16889 90. At LAMBETH CHAPEL Luk. XIII 5. Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish IN my last Discourse I described to you the Reason and the Excellency of the Institution of this Holy Season To improve which I proposed to treat of Repentance from these words and therein observed the occasion of them which was a pernicious mistake of the Jews that the Divine Justice not punishing the Sins of men in this Life did thereby warrant them and that the Defect of such a visible Execution was an Argument of the little necessity of Repentance In opposition to which I shew you that however the Jewish Revelation might give some Countenance to such an Opinion yet that they had therein mistaken their Law That under Christianity there is yet much less Pretence to entertain such a perswasion which is contrary to the Constitution of humane Nature to the Wisdom of God and to the present Order of the world settled by him the Author of it Lastly That however God doth ordinarily bear with the Sins of men in this Life and deferr the Punishment of them to another world yet that this giveth no reasonable Encouragement to men to put off their Repentance till the end of their Lives After having removed these obstacles of Repentance I proceed to enforce the Duty and direct you in the use of it The Motive to Repentance is taken from the plain words of the Text being the certainty of Destruction without Repentance pronounced by our Lord Except ye repent ye shall perish And the Usefulness of it is insinuated in the same words that by Repentance if true sincere and rightly applied Destruction may be avoided These two then shall be the Heads of my present Discourse And first I will improve the Argument of Repentance drawn from the inevitable consequence of Destruction attending the want of it and endeavour to convince you of the certainty of that Consequence The Evidence of the Argument when once a full Conviction is formed of the truth of it is manifest being taken from that which most affects Mankind their own Interest It were indeed more noble to pay our just Obedience to God rather from a Sense of Duty than that of Interest rather out of Gratitude to God for the many Benefits received from him and a Conviction of the entire Subjection due to that Almighty Being than from the fear of Punishment or the hope of Reward But such is the weakness of humane Nature so corrupted is his Will and so much darkened his Understanding that this Argument hath been ever found insufficient God therefore of his infinite Mercy hath been pleased to employ that more sensible Argument of Profit and Interest by propofing Rewards to his obedient Servants and denouncing Punishments to obstinate Sinners An Argument which cannot fail if Man