Priesthood any pretence for Rebellion But all these pretences would not serve to make them escape the severe hand of divine justice for in an extraordinary and remarkable manner he made them suffer the just desert of their sin for they perished in their contradiction which is the next thing to be considered viz. 2. The Iudgement which was inflicted upon them for it They had provoked Heaven by their sin and disturbed the earth by their Faction and the earth as if it were moved with indignation against them trembled and shook as Iosephus saith like waves that are tossed with a mighty wind and then with a horrid noise it rends asunder and opens its mouth to swallow those in its bowels who were unfit to live upon the face of it They had been dividing the people and the earth to their amazement and ruine divides it self under their feet as though it had been designed on purpose that in their punishment themselves might feel and others see the mischief of their sin Their seditious principles seemed to have infected the ground they stood upon the earth of a sudden proves as unquiet and troublesome as they but to rebuke their madness it was only in obedience to him who made it the executioner of his wrath against them and when it had done its office it is said that the earth closed upon them and they perished from among the Congregation Thus the earth having revenged it self against the disturbers of its peace Heaven presently appears with a flaming fire taking vengeance upon the 250. men who in opposition to Aaron had usurped the Priestl office in offering incense before the Lord. Such a Fire if we believe the same Historian which far outwent the most dreadful eruptions of Aetna or Vesuvius which neither the art of man nor the power of the wind could raise which neither the burning of Woods nor Cities could parallel but such a Fire which the wrath of God alone could kindle whose light could be outdone by nothing but the heat of it Thus Heaven and Earth agree in the punishment of such disturbers of Government and God by this remarkable judgement upon them hath left it upon record to all ages that all the world may be convinced how displeasing to him the sin of faction and sedition is For God takes all this that was done against Moses and Aaron as done against himself For they are said to be gathered together against the Lord v. 11. to provoke the Lord v. 30. And the fire is said to come out from the Lord v. 35. And afterwards it is said of them This is that Dathan and Abiram who strove against Moses and against Aaron in the company of Corah when they strove against the Lord. By which we see God interprets striving against the Authority appointed by him to be a striving against himself God looks upon himself as immediately concerned in the Government of the world for by him Princes raign and they are his Vicegerents upon earth and they who resist resist not a meer appointment of the people but an Ordinance of God and they who do so shall in the mildest sense receive a severe punishment from him Let the pretences be never so popular the persons never so great and famous nay though they were of the great Council of the Nation yet we see God doth not abate of his severity upon any of these considerations This was the first formed sedition that we read of against Moses the people had been murmuring before but they wanted heads to manage them Now all things concur to a most dangerous Rebellion upon the most popular pretences of Religion and Liberty and now God takes the first opportunity of declaring his hatred of such actions that others might hear and fear and do no more so presumptuously This hath been the usual method of divine Judgements the first of the kind hath been most remarkably punished in this life that by it they may see how hateful such things are to God but if men will venture upon them notwithstanding God doth not always punish them so much in this world though he sometimes doth but reserves them without repentance to his Justice in the world to come The first man that sinned was made an example of Gods Justice The first world the first publick attempt against Heaven at Babel after the plantation of the world again the first Cities which were so generally corrupted after the flood the first breaker of the Sabbath after the Law the first offerers with strange fire the first lookers into the Ark and here the first popular Rebellion and Usurpers of the office of Priesthood God doth hereby intend to preserve the honour of his Laws he gives men warning enough by one examplary punishment and if notwithstanding that they will commit the same sin they may thank themselves if they suffer for it if not in this life yet in that to come And that good effect this Judgement had upon that people that although the next day 14000. suffered for murmuring at the destruction of these men yet we do not find that any Rebellion was raised among them afterwards upon these popular pretences of Religion and the Power of the People While their Judges continued who were Kings without the state and title of Kings they were observed with reverence and obeyed with diligence When afterwards they desired a King with all the Pomp and Grandeur which other Nations had which Samuel acquaints them with viz. the officers and Souldiers the large Revenues he must have though their King was disowned by God yet the people held firm in their obedience to him and David himself though anointed to be King persecuted by Saul and though he might have pleaded Necessity and Providence as much any ever could when Saul was strangely delivered into his hands yet we see what an opinion he had of the person of a bad King The Lord forbid that I should do this thing against my Master the Lords Anointed to stretch forth my hand against him seeing he is the Anointed of the Lord. And lest we should think it was only his Modesty or his Policy which kept him from doing it he afterwards upon a like occasion declares it was only the sin of doing it which kept him from it For who can stretch forth his hand against the Lords Anointed and be guiltless Not as though David could not do it without the power of the Sanhedrin as it hath been pretended by the Sons of Corah in our age for he excepts none he never seizes upon him to carry him prisoner to be tryed by the Sanhedrin nor is there any foundation for any such power in the Sanhedrin over the persons of their Soveraigns It neither being contained in the grounds of its institution nor any precedent occurring in the whole story of the Bible which gives the least countenance to it Nay
a flame together For then the present frame of things shall be dissolved and the bounds set to the more subtile and active parts of matter shall be taken away which mixing with the more grâ—ss and earthy shall sever them from each other and by their whirling and agitation set them all on sire And if the Stars falling to the earth were to be understood in a literal sense none seems so probable as this that those aethereal fires shall then be scattered and dispersed thoughout the universe so that the earth and all the works that are therein shall be turned into one funeral Pile Then the foundations of the earth shall be shaken and all the combustible matter which lies hid in the bowels of it shall break forth into prodigious flames which while it rouls up and down within making it self a passage out will cause an universal quaking in all parts of the earth and make the Sea to roar with a mighty noise which will either by the violent heat spend it self in vapour and smoak or be swallowed up in the hollow places of the deep Neither are we to imagine that only the sulphureous matter within the earth shall by its kindling produce so general a conflagration although some Philosophers of old thought that sufficient for so great an effect but as it was in the deluge of water the fountains of the great deep were broken up and the windows of Heaven were opened so shall it be in this deluge of fire as one of the ancients calls it not only mighty streams and rivers of Fire shall issue of out the bowels of the earth but the cataracts above shall discharge such abundance of thunder and lightning wherein God will rain down fire and brimstone from Heaven that nothing shall be able to withstand the force of it Then the Craters breaches made in the earth by horrible earthquakes caused by the violent eruptions of Fire shall be wide enough to swallow up not only Cities but whole Countries too And what shall remain of the spoils of this devouring enemy within shall be consumed by the merciless fury of the thunder and lightning above What will then become of all the glories of the world which are now so much admired and courted by foolish men What will then become of the most magnificent piles the most curious structures the most stately palaces the most lasting monuments the most pleasant gardens and the most delightful countries they shall be all buried in one common heap of ruines when the whole face of the earth shall be like the top of mount Aetna nothing but rubbish and stones and ashes which unskilful travellers have at a distance mistaken for Snow What will then become of the pride and gallantry of the vain persons the large possessions of the great or the vast treasures of the rich the more they have had of these things only the more fuel they have made for this destroying fire which will have no respect to the honours the greatness or the riches of men Nay what will then become of the wicked and ungodly who have scoffed at all these things and walked after their own lusts saying where is this promise of his coming because all things yet continue as they were from the beginning of the creation When this great day of his wrath is come how shall they be able to stand or escape his sury Will they flie to the tops of the mountains that were only to stand more ready to be destroyed from Heaven Will they hide themselves in the dens and the rocks of the mountains but there they fall into the burning furnaces of the earth and the mountains may fall upon them but can never hide them from the wrath of the Lamb. Will they go down into the deep and convey themselves to the uttermost parts of the Sea but even there the storms and tempests of these shours of fire shall overtake them and the vengeance of God shall pursue them to everlasting flames Consider now whether so dreadful a preparation for Christs coming to judgement be not one great reason why it should be called the terror of the Lord For can any thing be imagined more full of horror and amazement than to see the whole world in a flame about us We may remember and I hope we yet do so when the flames of one City filled the minds of all the beholders with astonishment and fear but what then would it do not only to see the earth vomit and cast forth fire every where about us and the Sea to boyl and swell and froth like water in a seething pot but to hear nothing but perpetual claps of thunder and to see no light in the Heavens but what the flashings of lightning give Could we imagine our selves at a convenient distance to behold the eruption of a burning mountain such as Aetna and Vesuvius are when the earth about it trembles and groans the Sea foams and rages and the bowels of the mountain roar through impatience of casting forth its burden and at last gives it self ease by sending up a mixture of flames and ashes and smoak and a flood of fire spreading far and destroying where ever it runs yet even this though it be very apt to put men in apprehensions and fears of this great day falls very far short of the terror of it Could we yet farther suppose that at the same time we could see fire and brimstone raining from Heaven on Sodom and Gomorrah the earth opening to devour Corah and his company Belshazzar trembling at the hand writing against the wall and the Jews destroying themselves in the fire of their Temple and City this may somewhat higher advance our imaginations of the horror of the worlds conflagration but yet we cannot reach the greatness of it in as much as the Heavens and the earth which are now are kept in store saith the Apostle reserved unto fire against the day of judgement and perdition of ungodly men even those heavens whole beauty and order and motion and influence we now admire and that earth whose fruitful womb and richly adorned surface affords all the conveniencies of the life of man must either be destroyed or at least purged and refined by this last and dreadful Fire The expressions of which in Scripture being so frequent so particular so plain in Writers not affecting the â—ofty Prophetical stile wherein fire is often used only to express the wrath of God make it evident that their meaning is not barely that the world shall be destroyed by the anger of God but that this destruction shall be by real fire which adds more to the sensible terror of it to all that shall behold it 2. The terror of Christs appearance in that day The design of the Scripture in setting forth the coming of Christ to judgement is to represent it in such a manner to us as is most
continuing their lives and making them miserable but let them live and they will sin yet further must it be by utterly destroying them that to persons who might have time to sin the mean while supposing annibilation were all to be fear'd would never have power enough to deterr men from the height of their wickedness So that nothing but the misery of a life to come can be of force enough to make men fear God and regard themselves and this is that which the Gospel threatens to those that neglect their salvation which it sometimes calls everlasting fire sometimes the Worm that never dies sometimes the wrath to come sometimes everlasting destruction all enough to fill the minds of men with horror at the apprehension and what then will the undergoing it do Thence our Saviour reasonably bids men not fear them that can only kill the body but are not able to kill the soul but rather fear him which is able to destroy both body and soul in hell Thus the Gospel suggests the most proper object of fear to keep men from sin and as it doth that so it presents likewise the most desireable object of hope to encourage men to be good which is no less than a happiness that is easier to hope to enjoy than to comprehend a happiness infinitely above the most ambitious hopes and glories of this world wherein greatness is added to glory weight to greatness and eternity to them all therefore call'd a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory Wherein the Joys shall be full and constant the perception clear and undisturbed the fruition with continual delight and continual desire Where there shall be no fears to disquiet no enemies to allarm no dangers to conquer nothing shall then be but an uninterrupted peace an unexpressible Joy and pleasures for evermore And what could be ever imagined more satisfactory to minds tired out with the vanities of this world than such a repose as that is What more agreeable to the minds and desires of good men than to be eased of this clog of flesh and to spend eternity with the fountain of all goodness and the spirits of just men made perfect What more ravishing delight to the souls that are purged and made glorious by the blood of the Lamb than to be singing Hallelujahs to him that sits upon the Throne and to the Lamb for ever and ever How poor and low things are those which men hope for in this world compared with that great salvation which the Gospel makes so free a tender of What a mean thing is it to be great in this world to be honourable and rich i. e. to be made the object of the envy of some the malice of others and at last it may be an instance of this worlds vanity and after all this to be for ever miserable But O the wisdom of a well-chosen happiness that carries a man with contentment and peace through this life and at last rewards him with a Crown of everlasting felicity Thus we see the Gospel proposes the most excellent means to make men happy if they be not guilty of a gross neglect of it and if they be that is their own act and they must thank none but themselves if they be miserable 2. But I pray what reason can be given since God is so tender of our happiness that we should neglect it our selves which is the next thing to be spoken to There are three sorts of things we think we have reason to neglect Such as are too mean and unworthy our care such as are so uncertain that they will not recompence it such as our own Interest is not at all concerned in but I hope there are none who have an immortal soul and the use of their understandings can ever reckon their salvation under one of these 1. Is it too mean an employment for you to mind the matters of your eternal welfare Is Religion a beggarly and contemptible thing that it doth not become the greatness of your minds to stoop to take any notice of it Hath God lost his honour so much with you that his service should be the object of mens scorn and contempt But what is it which these brave spirits think a fit employment for themselves while they despise God and his Worship Is it to be curiously dressed and make a fine shew to think the time better spent at the Glass than at their Devotions These indeed are weighty imployments and fit in the first place to be minded if we were made only to be gazed upon Is it meerly to see Plays and read Romances and to be great admirers of that vain and frothy discourse which all persons account wit but those which have it This is such an end of mans life which no Philosopher ever thought of Or is it to spend time in excesses and debaucheries and to be slaves to as many lusts as will command them This were something indeed if we had any other name given us but that of Men. Or lastly is it to have their minds taken up with the great affairs of the World to be wise in considering careful in managing the publick interest of a Nation This is an employment I grant fit for the greatest minds but not such which need at all to take them off from minding their eternal salvation For the greatest wisdom is consistent with that else Religion would be accounted folly and I take it for granted that it is never the truly wise man but the pretender that entertains any mean thoughts of Religion And such a one uses the publick Interest no better than he doth Religion only for a shew to the world that he may carry on his own designs the better And is this really such a valuable thing for a man to be contented to cheat himself of his eternal happiness that he may be able to cheat the world and abuse his trust I appeal then to the Consciences of all such who have any sense of humanity and the common interest of mankind setting aside the considerations of a life to come whether to be just and sober vertuous and good be not more suitable to the design of humane Nature than all the vanities and excesses all the little arts and designs which men are apt to please themselves with And if so shall the eternal happiness which follows upon being good make it less desireable to be so No surely but if God had required any thing to make us happy which had been as contrary to our present Interest as the Precepts of Christianity are agreeable to it yet the end would have made the severest commands easie and those things pleasant which tend to make us happy 2. Are these things so uncertain that they are not fit for a wise man to be solicitous about them if they will come with a little care they will say they are destreable
of Religion neither inquisitive about them nor serious in minding them what can we otherwise think but that such a one doth really think the things of the World better worth looking after than those which concern his eternal salvation But consider before it be too late and repent of so great folly Value an immortal Soul as you ought to do think what Reconciliation with God and the Pardon of sin is worth slight not the dear Purchase which was bought at no meaner a rate than the Blood of the Son of God and then you cannot but mind the great salvation which God hath tendered you 2. Consider on what terms you neglect it or what the things are for whose sake you are so great enemies to your own salvation Have you ever found that contentment in sin or the vanities of the World that for the sake of them you are willing to be forever miserable What will you think of all your debaucheries and your neglects of God and your selves when you come to die what would you give then if it were in your power to redeem your lost time that you had spent your time less to the satisfaction of your sensual desires and more in seeking to please God How uncomfortable will the remembrance be of all your excesses oaths injustice and profaneness when death approaches and judgement follows it What peace of mind will there then be to those who have served God with faithfulness and have endeavoured to work out their salvation though it hath been with fear and trembling But what would it then profit a man to have gained the whole World and to lose his own soul Nay what unspeakable losers must they then be that lose their Souls for that which hath no value at all if compared with the World 3. Consider what follows upon this neglect not only the loss of great salvation but the incurring as great damnation for it The Scripture describes the miseries of the life to come not meerly by negatives but by the most sensible and painful things If destruction be dreadful what is everlasting destruction if the anguish of the soul and the pains of the body be so troublesom what will the destruction be both of Body and Soul in Hell If a Serpent gnawing in our bowels be a representation of an insupportable misery here what will that be of the Worm that never dies if a raging and devouring fire which can last but till it hath consumed a fading substance be in its appearance so amazing and in its pain so violent what then will the enduring be of that wrath of God which shall burn like fire and yet be everlasting Consider then of these things while God gives you time to consider of them and think it an inestimable mercy that you have yet time to repent of your sins to beg mercy at the hands of God to redeem your time to depart from iniquity to be frequent in Prayer careful of your Actions and in all things obedient to the will of God and so God will pardon your former neglects and grant you this great salvation SERMON VI. Preached on GOOD-FRYDAY before the Lord Mayor c. HEBREWS XII III. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself lest ye be weary and faint in your minds IT hath never yet been so well with the World and we have no great reason to hope it ever will be so that the best of things or of men should meet with entertainment in it suitable to their own worth and excellency If it were once to be hoped that all Mankind would be wise and sober that their judgements would be according to the truth of things and their actions suitable to their judgements we might then reasonably expect that nothing would be valued so much as true goodness nothing so much in contempt and disgrace as impiety and profaneness But if we find it much otherwise in the Age we live in we have so much the less cause to wonder at it because it hath been thus in those times we might have thought would have been far better than our own I mean those times and ages wherein there were not only great things first spoken and delivered to Mankind but examples as great as the things themselves but these did so little prevail on the stupid and unthankful world that they among whom the Son of God did first manifest himself seem'd only solicitous to make good one Prophesic concerning him viz. That he should be despised and rejected of men And they who suffer'd their malice to live as long as he did were not contented to let it dye with him but their fury increases as the Gospel does and wherever it had spread it self they pursue it with all the rude clamors and violent persecutions which themselves or their factors could raise against it This we have a large testimony of in those Iewish Christians to whom this Epistle was written who had no sooner embraced the Christian Religion but they were set upon by a whole army of persecutions Heb. 10. 32. But call to remembrance the former days in which after ye were illuminated ye endured a great fight of afflictions As though the great enemy of souls and therefore of Christians had watched the first opportunity to make the strongest impression upon them while they were yet young and unexperienced and therefore less able to resist so sharp an encounter He had found how unsuccessful the offer of the good things of this World had been with their Lord and Master and therefore was resolved to try what a severer course would do with all his followers But the same spirit by which he despised all the Glories of the World which the Tempter would have made him believe he was the disposer of enabled them with a mighty courage and strange transports of joy not only to bear their own share of reproaches and afflictions but a part of theirs who suffer'd with them v. 33 34. But lest through continual duty occasion'd by the hatred of their persecutors and the multitude of their afflictions their courage should abate and their spirits saint the Apostle finds it necessary not only to put them in mind of their former magnanimity but to make use of all arguments that might be powerful with them to keep up the same vigour and constancy of mind in bearing their sufferings which they had at first For he well knew how much it would tend to the dishonour of the Gospel as well as to their own discomfort if after such an early proof of a great and undaunted spirit it should be said of them as was once of a great Roman Captain Ultima Primis cedebant that they should decline in their reputation as they did in their years and at last sink under that weight of duty which they had born with so much honour before Therefore as a
he will not do it when he hath declared that he will is instead of bringing peace to his own mind to set God at variance with himself For nothing can be more plainly revealed more frequently inculcated more earnestly pressed than that there is a day of wrath to come wherein the righteous judgement of God shall be revealed and wherein God will render to every man according to his deeds wherein tribulation and anguish and wrath shall be upon every soul of man that doth evil wherein the secrets of all hearts and actions shall be disclosed when the graves shall be opened and they that have done good shall come forth to the resurrection of life and they that have done evil to the resurrection of damnation For the Lord Iesus himself even he who dyed for the salvation of all penitent sinners shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty Angels in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God and obey not the Gospel of Christ who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and the glory of his power Then shall that dreadful sentence be passed upon all impenitent sinners depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels Which words are so full of horrour and astonishment as might not only disturb the sinners peace and security but awaken him to such a sense of his sins as to loath abhorr and forsake them and thereby flie from the wrath to come 3. But after all this is it possible to suppose that any should think their present pleasures would countervail all the miseries of another life which is the last imaginable foundation for a sinners peace while he continues in his wickedness The most professed Epicureans that ever were made this one of their fundamental maxims that no pleasure was to be chosen which brought after it a pain greater than it self on which account they made temperance and sobriety necessary to a pleasant life because excesses and debaucheries leave far more of burden than of ease behind them But what would these men have said if they had believed the intolerable anguish of a tormented mind the racks of an enraged conscience the fire of everlasting vengeance to be the consequent of all the pleasures of sin they must upon their own principles have concluded that none but madmen and fools would ever venture upon them And that not only because the after pain would so much exceed the present pleasure but because the fears of that pain to come must abate proportionably of the pleasure which might otherwise be enjoyed Suppose a man certainly knew that upon the pleasing his palat with the most excellent wine and gratifying his appetite with the most delicate food he must be racked with the stone and tormented with the Gout as long as he should live can we imagine such a person could have any pleasure in his mind whatever his palat had in the emjoyment of them while he did consider the consequent of them But what are these miseries compared with the insupportable horrour of a conscience loaden with guilt sunk under despair having a gnawing worm and unquenchable flames the wrath of an almighty God and the fury of his vengeance to encounter with without the least hopes of conquering I do not now ask what the sinner will then think of all his Atheism and Infidelity when the greatness of his miserie shall convince him that it is an Almighty hand which lays it upon him nor what pleasure he can have in the thoughts of his former excesses when not one drop can be procured for the mitigation of his flames nor what satisfaction those lusts have given him the very thoughts of which pierce his soul and if it were possible would rend him in pieces with the torment of them but that which I demand is what peace of mind a sinner can have in this world who knows not how soon he may be dispatched to that place of torment can he bind the hands of the Almighty that he shall not snatch him away till he doth repent or can he reverse the decrees of heaven or suspend the execution of them can he abrogate the force of his Laws and make his own terms with God can he dissolve the chains of darkness with a few death-bed tears and quench the flames of another world with them O foolish sinners who hath bewitched them with these deceitful dreams will heaven-gates fly open with the strength of a few dying groans will the mouth of hell be stopt with the bare lamentation of a sinner Are there such charms in some penitent words extorted from the fear of approaching misery that God himself is not able to resist them Certainly there is no deceit more dangerous nor I fear more common in the world than for men to think that God is so easie to pardon sin that though they spend their lives in satisfying their lusts they shall make amends for all by a dying sorrow and a gasping repentance As though the unsaying what we had done or wishing we had done otherwise since we can do it no longer for that is the bottom of all putting off repentance to the last were abundant compensation to the justice of God for the affronts of his Majesty contempt of his Laws abuse of his patience and all the large indictments of wilful and presumptuous sins which the whole course of our lives is charged with The supposal of which makes the whole design of Religion signify very little in the world Thus we have examined the foundations of a sinners peace and found them very false and fallacious 2. we are now to shew that those things do accompany a sinners course of life which certainly overthrow his peace which are these two 1. The reflections of his mind 2. The violence of his passions 1. The reflections of his mind which he can neither hinder nor be pleased with No doubt if it were possible for him to deprive himself of the greatest excellency of his being it would be the first work he would do to break the glass which shews him his deformity For as our Saviour saith every one that doth evil hateth the light lest his deeds should be reproved not only the light without which discovers them but that light of conscience within which not only shines but burns too Hence proceeds that great uneasiness which a sinner feels within as often as he considers what he hath done amiss which we call the remorse of conscience and is the natural consequent of the violence a man offers to his reason in his evil actions It was thought a sufficient vindication of the innocency of two Brothers by the Roman Judges when they were accused for Parricide that although their Father was murthered in the same room where they lay and no other person was found on whom they could fasten the