the Extirpation of Heresie are more immediately concerned Of this Nature are the Doctrines of Equivocation and Mental Reservation and the Lawfulness of such Artificial ways of Lying to avoid the Danger of the Law when they are brought before Heretical Magistrates and this is the common Doctrine of the most learned Casuists of all Orders in the Church of Rome And such likewise are their Doctrines of the Lawâ—ulness of extirpating Hereticks by the most barbarous and bloody Means and of breaking Faith with them tho' given by Emperours and Princes in the most publick and solemn manner both which are the avowed Doctrines of their General Councils and have frequently been put in Practice to the Destruction of many millions of Christians better and more righteous than themâ—elves But we have not so lâ—arned Christ who have heard him and been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus They who are rightly instructed in the Christian Religion are so far from thinking it lawful to do any thing that is evil to bring others under suffering that they do not allow it in any Case whatsoever no not for the Cause of God and Religion and to free themselves from the greatest Sufferings that can be inflicted upon them 3. Provided also that we do trust the Providence of God and do indeed commit our selves to it relying upon his Wisdom and Goodness and entirely submitting and resigning up our selves to his Will and Disposal both as to the Degree and the Duration of our Sufferings believing that he will do that for us which upon the whole matter and in the final issue and result of things will be best for us That Blessing wherewith Moses the Man of God blest the People of Israel before his Death doth belong to good Men in all Ages He loveth his People and all his Saints are in his hand Deut. 33. 3. Innumerable are the Proâ—ises in Scripture concerning the merciful Providence and Goodness of God towards those who trust in him and hope in his Mercy Psal 32. 10. Many sorrows shall be to the wicked But he that trusteth in the Lord mercy shall compass him about Psal 33. 18â— 19 20 21 22. Behold the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him Upon them that hope in his mercy To deliver their soul from death and to keep them alive in famine Our soul waiteth for the Lord he is our help and our shiâ—ld For our heart shall rejoyce in him Because we have trusted in his holy name Let thy mercy O Lord be upon us according as we hope in thee Psal 34. 22. The Lord redeemeth the soul of his servants And none of them that trust in him shall be desolate Psal 37. 39 40. But thâ— salvation of the Righteous is of the Lorâ— he is their strength in the time of trouble And the Lord shall help them and deliver them He shall deliver them from the wicked and save them because they trust in him Psal 31. 19. O how great is thy goodness which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before the Sons of men Psal 55. 22. Cast thy burden upon the Lord and he shall sustain thee He shall never suffer the rightâ—ous to be moved Psal 125. 1. They that trust in thâ— Lord shall be as mount Zion which cannot be removed but aâ—idâ—th for ever Esa 26. 3 4. Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee because he trusâ—eth in thee Trust ye in the Lord for ever For in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength 4. Provided yet further that we pray earnestly to God for his Gracious Help and Assistance for his merciful Comfort and Support under Sufferings that he would be pleased to strengthen our Faith and to encrease and lengthen out our Patience in proportion to the Degree and Duration of our Sufferings All the Promises which God hath made to us are upon this Condition that we earnestly seek and sue to him for the Benefit and Blessing of them Psal 50. 15. Call upon me in the day of trouble I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorifie me Ezek. 36. 37. After a great Deliverance and many Blessings promised to them this Condition is at last added Thus saith the Lord God I will yet for this be enquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them And this likewise is the tenor of the Promises of the New Testament Mat. 7. 7. Ask and it shall be given you seek and ye shall find knock and it shall be opened unto you And in this very Case that I am speaking of God expects that we should apply our selves to him for Spiritual Wisdom and Grace to behave our selves under Sufferings as we ought Jam. 1. 2 3 4. Where speaking of the manifold Temptations that Christians would be exercised withal he directs them to pray to God for Wisdom to demean themselves under Persecutions with Patience and Constancy and Chearfulness My Brethren account it all joy when ye fall into divers Temptations meaning the Temptations and Tryals of Suffering in several kinds Knowing this that the trying of your faith worketh patience But let patience have its perfect work And because this is a very difficult Duty and requires a great deal of Spiritual Skill to demean our selves under Sufferings as we ought therefore he adds in the next words If any of you lack wisdom let him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not and it shall be given him And this earnest application we are to make to God for his grace and seasonable help in time of need not to put him in mind of his Promise but to testifie our dependance upon him and expectation of all good from him And we must likewise use great importunity in our Prayers to God to assist us and stand by us in the day of Trial and the hour of Temptation And therefore our Saviour heaps up several words to denote the great earnestness and importunity which we ought to use in Prayer bidding us to ask and seek and knock And to shew that he lays more than ordinary weight upon this Matter and to encourage our importunity he spake two several Parables to this purpose the first Luke 11. 5. of the Man who by meer importunity prevailed with his Friend to rise at midnight to do him a kindness which our Saviour applies to encourage our importunity in Prayer ver 9. And I say unto you ask and it shall be given you seek and ye shall find knock and it shall be opened unto you The other is the Parable of the importunate Widow and unjust Judge related by the same Evangelist Luke 18. 1. with this Preface to it and he spake a Parable unto them to this end that Men ought always to pray and not to faint And to speak the truth they seem at first sight two of the oddest of all our Saviour's Parables if the
thus with us as he threatned the People of Issrâ—el Isa 27. 11. When the boughs are withered they shall be broken off and set on fire for it is a People of no understanding therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them and he that formed them will shew them no favour And now I have done with the three Points which I proposed to handle from this Text and the Discourse which I have made upon them does all along apply it self by dirâ—cting us how we ought to commit our selves to the Providence of God in all Cases of Danger and Suffering especially for the Cause of God and his Truth viz. in the faithful discharge of our Duty and a good Conscience and by a firm Trust and Confidence in the Wisdom and Goodness of the Dâ—vine Providence not doubting but that he who made us and knows our frame will have a tender Care of us and not suffer us to be tempted above what we are able And as to our present Danger and that Terrible Storm which threatens us let us pray to God if it be his will to divert it but if otherwise he hath determined to fit and prepare us for it And let us be fervent and earnest in our Prayers to him not that he is moved by our importunity but that we may thereby be qualified and made fit to receive the Mercy which we beg of him And let us take this Occasion to do that which we should have done without it to breaâ— off our Sins by Repentance and to turn every one of us from the evil of our waysâ— that hereby we may render God propitious to us and put our selves under the more immediate Care and Protection of his Providence that we may prevent his Judgments and turn away his wrath and displeasure from us as he did once from a great and sinful City and People upon their sincere Humiliation and Repentance Jonah 3. 10. where it is said of the People of Niniveh That God saw their works that they turned from their evil way and God repented of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them and he did it not Above all let us be sincere in the profession of our Religion and conscientious in the Practice of it nothing will bear us up under great Trials and Sufferings like the testimony of a good Conscience void of offence towards God and Men. I will conclude this whole Discourse with those Apostolical Blessings and Prayers Colos 1. 10 11. That ye may walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing being fruitful in every good work strengthned with all might according to his glorious Power unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness And 2 Thes 2. 16 17. Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God even our Father who hath loved us and hath given us everlasting Consolation and good hope through Grace comfort your hearts and stablish you in every good word and work To him be Glory and Dominion for Ever and Ever Amen A SERMON ON JOHN IX 4. I must work the works of him that sent me while it is day The night cometh when no man can work THese words our Blessed Saviour spake of himself whilst he was upon Earth in which he tells us that he was sent by God into the World and had a certain Work and Imployment appointed him during his Abode in it A great Work indeed to instruct and reform and save Mankind A Work of great Labour and Pains and Patience not to be done in a short time and yet the time for doing it was not long after he came into the World It was a good while before he began it and after he began it the time of Working was not long before the Night came and put an End to it I must work the works of him that sent me while it is day The night cometh when no man can work But this which our Saviour here speaks of himself and which properly belongs to him and no other may yeâ— be accommodated to every Man with some Allowance for the Difference and Disproportion For tho' every Man be not sent by God into the World after so peculiar a manner and upon so particular and vast a Design Yet upon a general Account every Man is sent by God into this World and hath a Work given him to do in it which he is concern'd vigorously to mind and to prosecute with all his Might And tho' every Man be not sent to save the whole World as the Son of God was yet every Man is sent by God into the World to work out his own Salvation and to take Care of that in the first Place and then to promote the Salvation of others as much as in him lies So that every one of us may in a very good Sense accommodate these Words of our Saviour to himself I must work the works of him that sent me while it is day The night cometh when no man can work I shall therefore at this time take the Liberty to handle these words according to this moral Accommodation of them and apply what our Saviour here says of himself to every Man that cometh into the World And this I shall do by shewing these three things First That every Man hath a Work assigned him to do in this World by him that sent him into it and may in some Sense say as our Blessed Saviour did of himself I must work the works of him that sent me Secondly That there is a certain and limited time for every Man to do this Work in While it is day Thirdly That after this Season is expired theâ—e will be no further Oportunity of working The Night cometh when no man can work First Every Man hath a Work assigned him to do in this World by him that sent him into it and may in some sense say as our Blessed Savâ—our did of himself I must work the works of him that â—ent me God who made man a reasonable Creature and hath endowed him with Faculties whereby he is capable of knowing and serving him hath appointed him a Work and Service suitable to these Faculties And having infused an immortal Soul into this Earthy Body hath certainly designed him for a State beyond this Life in which he shall be for ever happy or miserable according as he useth and demeans himself in this World So that the Work which every one of us hath to do in this World is to prepare and fit our selves for that Eternal Duration which remains for us after Death For the Life which we live now in this World is a time of Exercise a short state of Probation and Tryal in order to a durable and endless state in which we shall be immutably â—ixt in another World This World into which we are now sent for a little while is as it were God's School in which immortal Spirits clothed with Flesh are trained and bred up for Eternity and therefore the best
the lawful Enjoyments of this World as he that makes it his only Design to be Rich and Great in this World nay as to the necessaries of Life and a competency of outward things he hath a much greater and better security from the Providence and Promise of God than the Men of the World have by all their Care and Pains Besides that he hath this Considerable advantage by minding these things only as accessories that if he miss of them he hath something better to support him in the want of them being secure of a Happiness which this World can neither give nor take from him But now the Worldly Man if he be defeated in his Designs is of all Men most miserable because he hath nothing else to Comfort him nothing else to trust to he fails of his hopes as to this World and hath done what in him lies to make his Case desperate as to the other Upon all these Considerations and Encouragements you see how reasonable it is that we should make Religion and the Concernments of another Life our great Care and Business And yet how are these neglected by the greatest part of Mankind and by the best of us God knows not minded as they ought and as they deserve What can we say for our selves in excuse of so intolerable a folly There are two or three things which Men commonly prâ—tend if not in justification yet in mitigation and excuse of this great neglect First they pretend great difficulties and discouragements in the ways of Religion This I have already acknowledged to be true so far as to awaken our Care and to whet our Industry but by no means to make us despond and give over all Care of so great a Concernment because of the Difficulties it is attended withall Men who have no mind to a thing are apt to imagine great difficulties in the attaining of it and to magnifie them in their fancies beyond Reason As the People of Israel when they were to enter into Canaan which was the Type of the Kingdom of Heaven represented the Inhabitants of the Land whom they were to Conquer more terrible than in truth they were reporting to one another that the Land was full of Giants and Sons of Anak Men of prodigious Stature which reached up to Heaven And this the Wise Man observes to be the perpetual excuse of the Sloathful when they have no mind to a thing they say there is a Lyon in the way that is they fancy to themselves Dangers and Terrors which are not Thus Men who are averse from Religion and have no mind to be at the trouble and pains to get to Heaven are apt to complain of the monstrous and insuperable Difficulties of Religion and how hard it is for a Man to mortifie his Lusts and subdue his Appetites and govern his Passions and to do all those things which are necessary to bring him to Heaven Well! it is acknowledg'd to be difficult And is it not so to get an Estate and to rise to any thing in this World The true pains which Men take about these things shew that they are difficult only when Men have a mind to a thing and their Heart is set upon it they do not stand to complain of the difficulty but buckle to it and grapple with it Is Religion difficult And what is not so that is good for any thing Is not the Law a difficult and crabbed study Does it not require great labour and perpetual drudging to excel in any kind of Knowledge to be Master of any Art or Profession In a word is there any thing in the World worthy the having that is to be gotten without pains And is Eternal Life and Glory the only slight and inconsiderable thing that is not worth our Care and Industry Is it fit that so great a good should be exposed to the faint and idle Wishes to the cheap and lazy Endeavours of sloathful Men For what Reason Nay with what Conscience can we bid less for Heaven and Eternal Life than Men are contented to give for the things of this World things of no value in Comparison not worthy the toiling for not sure to be attained by all our Endeavours things which perish in the using and which when we have them we are liable to be deprived of by a thousand Accidents One fit of a Feaver may shatter our Understandings and confound all our Knowledge and turn us into Fools and Ideots an Inundation or a Fire may sweep away and devour our Estates a Succession of Calamities may in a few hours make the Richest and Greatest Man as Poor as Job and set him upon a Dunghill But be the Difficulty what it will of attaining the Kingdom of God and his Righteousness they are to be sought at any rate because they are absolutely necessary and we miserable and undone if we have them not And therefore not to dissemble in the Matter the Difficulties of Religion are considerable but then they are much greater aâ— first and will every day abate and grow less and the work by degrees will become eaâ—â—e and turn into Pleasure and Delight a Pleasure so great as none knows but he that hath it and he that hath it would not exchange it for all the sensual Pleasures and Enjâ—yments of this World Secondly Others pretend want of time for the minding of so great a Work And 't is very true that all Persons have not equal leisure for this purpose some are much more straitned than others and more taken up with the necessary Cares of this Life but God hath put no Man upon this hard necessity that for want of time he shall be forced to neglect his Body and his Health his Family and Estate to save his Soul And yet if any Man were brought to this distress it were well worth his while to secure his Eternal Salvation tho' it were with the neglect and loss of all other things But those who are most straitned for time have so much as is absolutely necessary for there is a considerable part of Religion which does not require time but Resolution and Care Not to commit Sin not to break the Laws of God not to be intemperate to make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the Lusts thereof does not spend time but saves it for better Purposes so that every Man hath time not to do that which he ought not to do And for the positive part of Religion whether it consists in the exercise of our Minds or in the External Acts of Religion no Man is so distrest but he hath time to think of Heaven and Eternity time to love God to esteem him and delight in him above all things And this a Man may do very frequently and very acceptably while he is labouring and travelling about his Worldly Affairs while his hand is upon the Plow his heart may be with God and while he converseth here upon Earth his Thoughts and Affections may be in
Heaven Every Man hath time to pray to God every day for his Mercy and Forgiveness for his Grace and Assistance for his Preservation and Support and to thank him heartily for all his Blessings and Benefits And a little time seriously employed in this kind would have the same acceptance with God as the more solemn and longer Devotions of those who have more leisure and opportunities for them To be sure we have all of us time to serve God upon his own Day and to employ it wholly in the Exercises of Piety and in the Care and Consideration of our Souls But this when all is said is the Case but of very few most of us have no colour for this Complaint non inopes temporis sed prodigi sumus as Seneca says we are not Poor but Prodigal of our time and lavish it away profusely upon Folly and Vanity Our Vices and Lusts our Pleasures and Diversions consume and divert those precious hours which should be employed to these better purposes nay many times Time oppresseth us and is a burthen to us and lies upon our hands and we know not how to get rid of it and yet we chuse rather to let it run waste than to bestow it upon Religion and the Care of our Souls insomuch that I fear this will be the Condition of many that when they were at a loss what to do with their Time and knew not how to spend it they would not lay it out upon that which was best and most necessary for this surely is the very best use that can be made of Time to prepare and provide for Eternity Thirdly Others pretend it will be time enough to mind these things hereafter But this as bad Excuses seldom hang together and agree with one another directly contradicts the former pretence which supposeth so much time necessary and more than many have to spare and yet now they would make us believe that a very little time will suffice for this Work and that it may be done at any time even just when we are going out of this World But this of all other is the strangest Interpretation of seeking the Kingdom of God and his Righteousness first to put it off to the very last This surely is a greater error on the other hand to think that the business of Religion is so quickly to be dispatched and that the great work of our Lives can be crowded into so narrow a corner of it that the time of Sickness and Old Age nay the hour of Death well employed to this purpose will be sufficient Alas what can we then do that is good for any thing that can in Reason be thought either acceptable to God or available for our selves When we have not Sense and Understanding enough to dispose of our Temporal Concernments and to make our Wills do we think we shall be fit to repent of the Sins and Miscarriages of our whole Lives and to make our Peace with God Every Man must not expect to have Saul's Fortune who when he was wearied with seeking his Father's Asses met with a Kingdom We must not think when we are tired with pursuing the Follies and Vanities of this World to retire into Heaven and to sit down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of God Our Saviour hath taken care to caution us against this desperate Folly by a Parable to this very purpose of the Foolish Virgins who having trifled away their time 'till the Bridegroom was coming and neglected to get Oyl into their Lamps by which we are to understand all those good Preparations and Dispositions which are necessary to qualifie us for the Kingdom of God I say having neglected their opportutunity of getting this Oyl while they were looking after it too late the Door was shut against them They thought to have repaired all at last by borrowing of others and supplying themselves that way And thus many deceive themselves hoping to be supplied out of another store when they have no grace and goodness of their own out of the Treasure of the Church from the redundant Merit of the Saints and their Works of Supererrogation of which some believe I know not for what Reason that there is a great stock which the Pope may dispose of to supply those who have taken no care to get Oyl into their Lamps But I know not for what Reason Works of Supererrogation are supposed the Wise Virgins knew not of any Merit they had to spare it was the Foolish Virgins only that entertained this senseless Conceit I am sure the Parable insinuates the quite contrary that the Best and Holiest Persons which are represented by the Wise Virgins have nothing to spare for the supply of others who have been careless of their Souls the Foolish said unto the Wise give us of your Oyl for our Lamps are gone out but the Wise answered saying not so lest there be not enough for us and you but go ye rather to them that sell and buy for your selves It seems they had no works of Supererrogation that they knew of but they do Ironically send them to a Market that was set up somewhere and where these things were pretended to be Sold but how they sped the Conclusion of the Parable tells us that whilst they were running about in great haste to make this purchase of the Merits and good Works of others the Bridegroom came and the Wise Virgins that were ready went in with him to the Marriage and the rest were shut out And there are those likewise among our selves who having been careless to qualifie themselves for the Kingdom of God hope to be supplied out of the infinite Treasure of Christ's Merits but this also is a vain hope For tho' there be Merit enough in the Death and Sufferings of Christ to save all Mankind yet no Man can lay claim thereto who does not perform the Condition of the Gospel Others think by sending for the Minister when the Physician hath given them over to receive in a few hours such Advice and Direction as will do their business as effectually as if they had minded Religion all their Lives long and that a few Devout Prayers said over them when they are just imbarking for another World will like a Magical Wind immediately waft them over into the Regions of Bliss and Immortality But let us not deceive our selves we may defer the Business so long 'till we shall get nothing by our late application to God and crying to him Lord Lord open unto us but that severe Answer Depart from me ye workers of Iniquity I know ye not whence ye are If we would not have this our Doom let us first seek the Kingdom of God and his Righteousness that so having our Fruit unto Holiness our End may be Everlasting Life A SERMON ON PSAL. CXIX 96. I have seen an end of all Perfection but thy Commandment is exceeding broad THis Psalm seems to have a great deal more of