Nothing and that in the Business of Religion and the great concern of Souls all that is short of Obedience and a Good Life is Nothing but Trick and Evasion Froth and Folly and consequently that if they build upon such deceitful Grounds and with such slight materials they must and can expect no other than after all their cost and pains to have their House fall upon their Heads and so perish in the Ruin And with this Terrible Application in these two last Verses which I have pitched upon for my Text he concludes his Divine Sermon and Discourse from the Mount The words of the Text being too plain and easy to need any Nice or large Explication I shall manage the discussion of them in these four Particulars First In shewing the Reasons upon which I conclude Practice or Obedience in the great Business of a Man's Eternal Happiness to be the best and surest Foundation for him to build upon Secondly In shewing the False Foundations upon which many build and accordingly in Time of Tryal Miscarry Thirdly In shewing the Causes why such Miscarry and fall away in time of Tryal or Temptation Fourthly and Lastly In shewing wherein the Fatal greatness of their Fall consists And First for the first of These viz. to shew the Reasons why Practice or Obedience is the best and surest Foundation still supposing it bottomed upon the merits of Christ for a Man to build his designs for Heaven and the hopes of his Salvation upon I shall mention Three First Because according to the ordinary way and Oeconomy of God's working upon the Hearts of Men nothing but Practice can change our Corrupt Nature and Practice continued and persevered in by the Grace of God Will. We all acknowledge that is all who are not wise above the Articles of our Church that there is an Universal stain and depravation upon Mans Nature that does incapacitate him for the Fruition and Infinitely pure Converse of God The Removal of which cannot be effected but by introducing the contrary habit of Holiness which shall by degrees expell and purge out the other And the only way to produce an habit is by the frequent repetition of Congenial Actions Every Pious Action leaves a certain Tincture or disposition upon the Soul which being seconded by Actions of the same Nature whether by the superaddition of new Degrees or a more radicate fixation of the same grows at length into an Habit or Quality of the Force and Energy of a second Nature I confess the Habit of Holiness finding no Principles of Production in a Nature wholly corrupt must needs be produced by Supernatural Infusion and consequently proceed not from Acquisition but Gift It must be brought into the Soul it cannot grow or spring out of of it But then we must remember that most excellent and true Rule of the Schools that Habitus infusi obtinentur per modum acquisitorum It is indeed a supernatural effect but as I may so speak wrought in a Natural way The Spirit of God imitating the Course of Nature even then when it works something above it A person in the State of Nature or Unregeneracy cannot by the sole strength of his most improved Performances acquire an Habit of True Grace or Holiness But as in the Rain it is not the bare Water that fructifies but a secret Spirit or Nitre descending with it and joined to it that has this Vertue and produces this effect So in the Duties of a meer Natural Man there is sometimes an hidden Divine Influence that keeps pace with those Actions and together with each performance imprints a holy disposition upon the Soul which after a long Series of the like Actions influenced by the same Divine Principle comes at length to be of that force and firmness as to outgrow and work out the Contrary Qualities of inherent Corruption We have an illustration of this though not a Parallel Instance in Natural Actions which by frequency imprint an habit or permanent facility of Acting upon the Agent Godliness is in some sense an Art or Mystery and we all know that it is Practice chiefly that makes the Artist Secondly A second Reason for our Assertion is Because Action is the highest Perfection and Drawing forth of the utmost Power Vigor and Activity of Mans Nature God is pleased to Vouchsafe the best that He can give only to the Best that we can do And Action isâ— undoubtedly our best because the most Difficult for in such cases Worth and Difficulty are inseparable Companions The properest and most raised Conception that we have of God is that He is a Pure Act a Perpetual Incessant Motion And next to Him in the Rank of Beings are the Angels as approaching nearest to Him in this Perfection being all Flame â—nd Agility ministring Spirits always busy and upon the Wing for the Execution of His Great Commands about the Government of the World And indeed Doing is nothing else but the Noblest Improvement of Being It is not as some nice Speculators make it an airy diminutive entity or Accident distinct from the Substance of the Soul but to define it more sutably to it self and to the Soul too Action is properly the Soul in its best Posture Thirdly A Third Reason is because the main End Drift and Design of Religion is the Active part of it Profession is only the Badge of a Christian Belief the beginning but Practice is the Nature and Custom the Perfection For it is this which translates Christianity from a bare Notion into a Real Business from useless Speculations into Substantial Duties and from an Idea in the Brain into an Existence in the Life An Upright Conversation is the bringing of the General Theorems of Religion into the particular Instances of solid Experience and if it were not for this Religion would exist no where but in the Bible The Grand deciding Question at the last day will be not What have you said or What have you believed but What have you done more than others But that the very Life of Religion consists in Practice will appear yet further from those subordinate Ends to which it is designed in this World and which are as Realâ—y though not as Principally the purpose of it as the Utmost attainment of the Beatifick Vision and the very last Period of our Salvation And these are Two First The Honouring of God before the World God will not have His Worship like His Nature Invisible Next to Authority it self is the Pomp and Manifestation of it And to be acknowledged is something more than to be Obeyed For what is Sovereignty unknown or Majesty unobserved What Glory were it for the Sun to direct the Affairs if he did not also attract the Eyes of the World It is his open and Universal Light more than his Occult Influence that we love and admire him for Religion if confined to the Heart is not so much entertain'd as imprisoned That indeed is to be its Fountain
out of his Kingdom without striking a stroke as on the Contrary where he intends to own and support the Royal Estate of any Monarch He shall set Him up a Throne in every one of his subjects Breasts So that according to that Scripture-Expression Their Desire shall be to Him and He shall rule over them And certainly where Affection binds Allegiance must needs be very Easy And a pleasant thing to Rule where there is no heart to Resist 5. God saves and delivers Sovereign Princes by rescuing them from unseen and unknown mischiefs prepared against them This is most Evident For if a Prince's own observation can bear Witness to many deliverances vouchsafed him by Providence Providence it self can certainly bear Witness to many more which He is wholly Ignorant of Forasmuch as in every Man but especially in Princes their Concerns reach further and Carry a Wider Compass than their Knowledge can It being impossible that any Man living should know all that is spoken or done concerning Him and consequently be aware of all the mischievous Blows levelled against Him How many secret Cabals and Plots have been against the Reputation the Interest and sometimes the Life also of every Considerable Person in the World which never yet came to their Eye or their Ear nor thanks to the Care of a Guardian Providence ever troubled so much as a Thought nor hurt so much as an Hair of their head And yet the Contrivers of them have wanted neither Will nor Wit nor Power the natural force of Causes Considered to add Execution to Intention and to give Fire to their Trains and Efficacy to their cursed Projects had not an invisible overswaying Power baffled and disappointed all the Artifices of their Malice and stifled the Base Conception before the Birth And this is a way of deliverance so Eminent for the mercy of it that if a Prince or great Person can be obliged to Providence for any it must be for this For when a Man knows the Danger he is in all his sences quickly take the Allarm call up the Spirits and arm his Courage to meet the approaching Evil and to defend himself But when he knows nothing of the Impending mischief he lies open and defenseless like a Man bound and naked and sleeping while a Dagger is directed to his Breast And for a Merciful Tender Providence then to step in to his assistance to ward off the Fatal blow and to turn the approaching Edge from his unguarded Heart this surely is the height of mercy and engrosses the Glory of the deliverance wholly to the Divine Goodness without allowing any Mortal Wit or Courage the least share or concurrence in it No Prince can tell what the Discontents of ill Subjects the Emulation of Neighbour States or Princes have been designing endeavouring and projecting against Him all which Counsels by a Controuling Power from above have from time to time been made abortive and frustraneous Let Princes therefore Reckon upon this and know assuredly that they stand endebted to Providence for more deliverances than they can know And if the Protecting Mercies of Heaven thus surpass their Knowledge surely it is but Reason that their sence of them and gratitude for them should surmount Expression Sixthly God saves and delivers Soveraign Princes by imprinting a certain Awe and Dread of their Persons and Authority upon the minds of their Subjects And there is not any one thing which seems so manifestly to prove Government a thing perfectly Divine both as to its Original and Continuance in the World as this For what is there in any one Mortal Man that can strike a dread into and command a subjection from so many Thousands as every Prince almost has under his Government should things be rated according to the meer natural Power of second Causes For the strength of one Man can do nothing against so many and his Wisdom and Counsel but little more and those who are to obey him know so much and yet for all that they yield Him absolute Subjection dread his Threatnings Tremble at his Frowns and lay their Necks under his Feet Now from from whence can all this be but from a Secret Work of the Divine Power Investing Soveraign Princes with certain Marks and Rays of that Divine Image which overawes and controuls the Spirits of Men they know not How nor Why But yet they feel themselves actually wrought upon and kept under by them and that very frequently against their will And this is that properly which in Kings we call Majesty and which no doubt is a kind of shadow or Portraiture of the Divine Authority drawn upon the looks and Persons of Princes which makes them Commanders of Men's fears and thereby Capable of governing them in all their concerns Non fero fulgur oculorum tuorum is the Language of every Subjects heart struck with the awfull Aspect of a resolute and magnanimous Prince There is a Majesty in his Countenance that puts Lightning into his Looks and Thunder into his Words In Dan. 5.19 it is said of Nebuchadnezzar that God gave him such a Majesty that all People Nations and Languages trembled before Him When Alexander the Great found his whole Army in a Mutiny and Resolute not to March forward but to return to their own Country against any Arguments or Perswasions that He could use he leaps down from the place upon which he had been speaking to them and arguing with them and laying hold of thirteen of the most forward and violent Mutineers causes them to be bound hand and foot in the face of his whole Army looking on and then thrown into the Sea All which this Terrible and Victorious Army to which he himself owed his greatness and which but even now was upon such high and daring Terms with him quietly sees and suffers and with a sneaking abject behaviour return to their Tents as if a Lion had Charged and Chased a Flock of Sheep into their folds Nay the History says further that they were Fearful and Sollicitous and Inquisitive what the King meant to do with the rest of them By which and the like passages Kings may see what they are and what they may do if they will but own their high Office with an equal Courage and be true to that Soveraignty and Character which God has stamp'd upon them Alexander as great as he was was but one Man but he was a Prince and as such acted by a Commission from Heaven as one of the Almighty's Vice-gerents and upon that Account able to Encounter as well as to Lead his Army A King acting as a King has all the Power of Heaven to bear him out the Stars in their Courses shall fight for him the Angels are his Guards and the Lord of Hosts their Captain And this is the Sixth way by which God saves and delivers Princes Namely by the Authority and Majesty of their Persons 7. In the seventh and last place God saves and delivers Sovereign
and much less His Conscience together For neither Grace nor Nature will have it so It is an utter Contradiction to the methods of Both. Who hath Woe Who hath Sorrow Who hath Contentions Who hath Babling Who hath wounds without Cause Who hath Redness of Eyes says Solomon Prov. 23.29 Which Question He Himself presently Answers in the next verse They who tarry long at the wine they who seek after mixt wine So say I who has a stupid Intellect a Broken memory and a blasted wit and which is worse than all a Blind and a Benighted Conscience but the Intemperate and Luxurious the Epicure and the Smell-feast So Impossible is it for a Man to turn Sott without making Himself a Blockhead too I know this is not always the present effect of these Courses but at long run it will Infallibly be so and Time and Luxury together will as certainly change the Inside as it does the outside of the Best heads whatsoever and much more of such Heads as are strong for nothing but to bear drink concerning which it ever was and is and will be a sure observation that such as are Ablest at the Barrel are generally Weakest at the Book And thus much for the first great Darkner of Man's mind sensuality and that in Both the Branches of it Lust and Intemperance Secondly Another Vitious affection which Clouds and Darkens the Conscience is Covetousness Concerning which it may truly be affirmed that of all the Vices incident to Humane Nature none so powerfully and peculiarly Carries the Soul downwards as Covetousness does It makes it all Earth and Dirt Burying that Noble Thing which can never Die. So that while the Body is above ground the Soul is under it and therefore must needs be in a state of Darkness while it Converses in the Regions of it How mightily this Vice Darkens and Debases the Mind Scripture-Instancer do abundantly shew When Moses would assign the proper Qualifications of a Judge which office certainly calls for the Quickest Apprehension and the solidest Judgment that the Mind of Man is well Capable of Deut. 16.19 Thou shalt not says He take a Gift But why He presently adds the Reason Because a Gift says He blinds the Eyes of the wise And no wonder for it perverts their will and then who so Blind as the Man who resolves not to see Gold it seems being but a very bad help and Cure of the Eyes in such Cases In like manner when Samuel would set the Credit of his Integrity clear above all the Aspersions of Envy and Calumny it self 1 Sam. 12.3 Of whose hands says He have I received a Bribe to blind my Eyes therewith Implying thereby that for a Man to be Gripe-handed and Clear-sighted too was Impossible And again Eccl. 7.7 A gift says the Wiseman destroyeth the Heart That is as we have shewn already the Iudging and Discerning Powers of the Soul By all which we see that in the Judgment of some of the wisest and greatest Men that ever lived such as Moses Samuel Solomon Himself Covetousness Baffles and Befools the mind Blinds and Confounds the Reasoning Faculty and that not only in ordinary Persons but even in the Ablest the Wisest and most sagacious And to give you one Proof above all of the peculiar blinding Power of this Vice there is not the most Covetous wretch Breathing who does so much as see or perceive that He is Covetous For the Truth is preach to the Conscience of a Covetous Person if he may be said to have any with the Tongue of Men and Angels and tell him of the Vanity of the World of Treasure in Heaven and of the Necessity of being Rich toward God and Liberal to his Poor Brother and 't is all but flat insipid and ridiculous stuff to Him who neither sees nor feels nor suffers any thing to pass into His Heart but through his Hands You must preach to such an One of Bargain and sale Profits and Perquisits Principal and Interest use upon use and if you can perswade Him that Godliness is gain in his own sense perhaps you may do something with Him otherwise though you edge every word you speak with Reason and Religion Evidence and Demonstration you shall never affect nor touch nor so much as reach his Conscience for it is kept sealed up in a bag under Lock and Key and you cannot come at it And thus much for the second base Affection that blinds the mind of Man which is Covetousness A thing directly Contrary to the very Spirit of Christianity which is a free a large and an open Spirit A Spirit open to God and Man and always carrying Charity in one hand and Generosity in the other Thirdly The third and last Vile affection which I shall mention as having the same Darkening effect upon the Mind or Conscience is Ambition For as Covetousness dulls the mind by pressing it down too much below it self so Ambition dazles it by lifting it up as much above it self But both of them are sure to darken the light of it For if you either look too intently down a deep Precipice upon a Thing at an extreme distance below you or with the same earnestness fix your Eye upon something at too great an Height above you in both cases you will find a Vertigo or Giddiness And where there is a Giddiness in the Head there will be always a mist before the Eyes And thus no doubt it was only an Ambitious aspiring after high Things which not long since caused such a Woful scandalous Giddiness in some Men's Consciences and made them turn Round and Round from this to That and from That to this till at length they knew not what Bottom to fix upon And this in my Opinion is a Case that admits of no Vindication Pride we know which is always Cousin-German to Ambition is Commonly reckoned the Fore-runner of a Fall It was the Devil's sin and the Devil's ruine and has been ever since the Devil 's strategem who like an Expert Wrestler usually gives a Man a Lift before he gives Him a Throw But how does he do this Why by first blinding Him with Ambition and when a Man either cannot or will not mind the Ground he stands upon as a Thing forsooth too much below Him he is then easily justled down and thrust headlong into the next ditch The Truth is in this case Men seem to ascend to an High station just as they use to leap down a very great steep in both Cases they shut their Eyes first for in both the danger is very dreadful and the way to venture upon it is not to see it Yea so fatally does this touring aspiring humour intoxicate and impose upon Mens minds that when the Devil stands Bobbing and Tantalizing their Gaping hopes with some Preferment in Church or State they shall do the Basest the Vilest and most Odious things Imaginable and that not only in defiance of Conscience but which is yet more
Prosopopoeia in the Person of the Scribes and Pharisees whose Custom it was to Preface and Authorize their Lectures and Glosses to the People with the Pompous Plea of Antiquity and Tradition As if Christ had bespoken them thus You have been accustomed indeed to hear the Scribes and Pharisees tell you that This and This was said by those of old Time but notwithstanding all these pretences I tell you that the Case is much otherwise and that the True Account and sence of the Law is Thus and Thus. This I say is the natural purport and meaning of our Saviour's words throughout this Chapter Thirdly That passage in the 43. v. of the same Ye have heard that it hath been said ye shall love your Neighbour and hate your Enemy is so far from being the words of the Mosaick Law that Moses Commands the clean Contrary to the latter Clause Exod. 23.4 If thou seest thine Enemies Ox going astray thou shalt surely bring it back to Him again and if thou see the Ass of him who hateth thee lying under His Burthen thou shalt surely help Him And if this was the Voice of the Law then can we Imagine that it would make it a Mans Duty to relieve his Enemies Oxe or his Ass and at the same time allow Him to hate or malign his Person This certainly is unaccountable and Incredible Fourthly If Christ opposed his Precepts to those of the Mosaick Law then God speaking by Christ must Contradict Himself as speaking by Moses For whatsoever Moses spoke He spoke as the Immediate Dictates of God from whom He received the Law But this is Absurd and by no means Consistent with the Divine Holiness and Veracity Fifthly and lastly Christ in all this discourse never calls any one of the Doctrines opposed by Him the Words of Moses or of the Law but only the Righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees which shews that they and they only were the Persons with whom He mannaged this whole Contest Let this therefore Rest with us as a firm Conclusion That Moses and Christ were at perfect Agreement whatever the Controversy was between Him and the Pharisees And so from the Scheme anâ— Context of the words I pass to the Duty enjoined 〈◊〉 them which is to Love our Enemies The discussion of which I shall cast under these three General Heads First I shall shew Negatively what is not that Love which we are here commanded to shew our Enemies Secondly I shall shew positively wherein it does Consist Thirdly I shall produce Arguments to enforce it And first for the First of these what is not that Love which we must shew our Enemies this we shall find to exclude several things which would fain wear this Name 1. As first to treat an Enemy with a fair deportment and amicable Language is not the Love here enjoined by Christ. Love is a thing that scorns to dwell any where but in the Heart The Tongue is a Thing made for words but what reality is there in a Voice what substance in a sound and words are no more The Kindness of the Heart never kills but that of the Tongue often does And in an ill sence of soft Answer may sometimes break the Bones He who speaks me well proves himself a Rhetorician or a Courtier but that is not to be a Friend Was ever the Hungry fed or the Naked Cloathed with good looks or fair Speechâ—â— these are but thin Garments to keep out the Cold and but a slender repast to conjure down the rage of a Craving Appetite My Enemy perhaps is ready to Starve or Perish through Poverty and I tell him I am heartily glad to see Him and should be very ready to serve him but still my Hand is Close and my Purse shut I neither bring him to my Table nor lodge him under my Roof He asks for Bread and I give him a Complement a thing indeed not so hard as a Stone but altogether as dry I treat him with Art and outside and lastly at parting with all the Ceremonies of dearnessâ— I shake him by the hand but put nothing into it In a word I play with his Distress and dally with that which I will not be dallied with Want and Misery and a Clamorous Necessity For will fair words and a Courtly behaviour pay Debts and discharge Scores if they could there is a sort of Men that would not be so much in debt as they are Can a Man look and speak himself out of his Creditors hands Surely then if my words cannot do this for my self neither can they do it for my Enemy And therefore this has nothing of the Love spoken of in the Text. It is but a Scene and a meer Mockery for the receiving that cannot make my Enemy at all the Richer the giving of which makes me not one Penny the Poorer It is indeed the fashion of the World thus to amuse Men with empty Caresses and to feast them with Words and Air Looks and Legs nay and it has this peculiar privilege above all other Fashions that it never alters but certainly no Man ever yet quenched his Thirst with looking upon a golden Cup nor made a Meal with the outside of a Lordly Dish But we are not to rest here fair Speeches and Looks are not only very Insignificant as to the real effects of Love but are for the most part the Instruments of hatred in the Execution of the greatest mischiefs Few Men are to be ruined till they are made Confident of the Contrary and this cannot be done by threats and roughness and owning the mischief that a Man designs but the Pit-fall must be covered to invite the Man to Venture over it all things must be sweetned with professions of Love Friendly Looks and Embraces For it is Oyl that whets the Razor and the smoothest Edge is still the sharpest they are the Complacencies of an Enemy that Kill the Closest Hugs that stifle and Love must be pretended before Malice can be effectually practised In a word he must get into his Heart with fair Speeches and Promises before he can come at it with his Dagger For surely no Man fishes with a bare hook or thinks that the Net it self can be any Enticement to the Bird. But now if these outward shows of fairness are short of the Love which we owe to our Enemies What can we say of those who have not arrived so far as these and yet pretend to be Friends disdain and distance sowre looks and sharp words are all the expressions of Friendship that some Natures can manifest I confess where real Kindnesses are done these circumstantial Garnitures of Love as I may so call them may be dispensed with and it is better to have a rough Friend than a fawning Enemy but those who neither do good Turns nor give good Looks nor speak good Words have a Love strangely subtil and metaphysical for other poor Mortals of an ordinary Capacity are forced to be ignorant of that
that a Soveraign could suffer from his Subjects Scorning all Revenge as more below him than the very Persons whom he might have been revenged upon he gloried in nothing so much as in giving Mercy the upper hand of Majesty it self making Amnesty his Symbol or Motto and Forgiveness the peculiar signalizing Character of his Reign herein Resembling the Almighty Himself as far as mortality can who seems to claim a greater Glory for Sparing and Redeeming Man than for Creating Him So that in a word as our Saviour has made Love to our Enemies one of the Chiefest badges of our Religion so our King has almost made it the very mark of our Allegiance Thus even to a Prodigy Merciful has he shewn Himself Merciful by Inclination and merciful by Extraction merciful in his Example and merciful in hiâ— Laws and thereby expressing the utmost dutifulness of a Son as well as the highest Magnanimity and Clemency of a Prince while He is still making that good upon the Throne which the Royal Martyr his Father had enjoined upon the Scaffold where He dyed pardoning and praying for those whose malice he was then falling a Victim to And this with a Charity so unparallell'd and a devotion so â—ervent that the Voice of his Prayers 't is to be hoped drowned the very Cry of his Blood But I Love not to dwell upon such Tragedies save only to illustrate the height of one Contrary by the height of another and therefore as an humble follower of the Princely Pattern here set before us I shall draw a Veil of silence over all especially since it surpasses the Power of Words sufficiently to set forth either the greatness of the Crimes forgiven or of the mercy that forgave them But to draw to a close We have here had the highest and the hardest Duty perhaps belonging to a Christian both recommended to our Judgment by Argument and to our Practice by Example and what remains but that we submit our Iudgment to the one and govern our Practice by the other And for that Purpose that we beg of God an Assistance equal to the Difficulty of the Duty enjoyned for certainly it is not an ordinary measure of Grace that can conquer the opposition that Flesh and Blood and corrupt Reason it self after all its convictions will be sure to make to it The greatest miseries that befall us in this World are from Enemies and so long as Men naturally desire to be happy it will be naturally as hard to them to Love those who they know are the grand Obstacles to their being so The Light of Nature will convince a Man of many Duties which it will never enable him to perform And if we should look no further than bare Nature this seems to be one cut out rather for our Admiration than our Practice It being not more difficult where Grace does not Interpose to cut off a Right Hand than to reach it heartily to the Relief of an inveterate Implacable Adversary And yet God expects this from us and that so peremptorily that he has made the Pardon of our Enemies the Indispensable Condition of our own And therefore that Wretch whosoever he was who being pressed hard upon his Death-Bed to Pardon a notable Enemy which he had answered That if He died indeed he Pardoned Him but if He lived He would be Revenged on Him That Wretch I say and every other such Image of the Devil no doubt went out of the World so that he had better never have come into it In fine after we have said the utmost upon this Subject that we can I believe we shall find this the Result of all That He is an happy Man who has no Enemies and he a much happier who has never so many and can Pardon them God preserve us from the one or enable us to do the other To whom be rendred and ascribed as is most due all Praise Might Majesty and Dominion both now and for evermore Amen False Foundations removed AND True ones laid for such Wise Builders as design to build for Eternity IN A SERMON Preached at St. Mary's Oxon before the University Decem. 10. 1661. MATT. VII 26 27. And every one that heareth these sayings of Mine and doth them not shall be likened unto a foolish Man which built his House upon the Sand. And the Rain descended and the Floods came and the Winds blew and beat upon that House and it fell and great was the fall of it IT seems to have been all along the Prime Art and method of the great Enemy of Souls not being able to root the Sense of Religion out of Mens hearts yet by his Sophistries and Delusions to defeat the Design of it upon their Lives and either by empty Notions or false perswasions to take them off from the main business of Religion which is Duty and Obedience by bribing the Conscience to rest satisfyed with something less A project extremely sutable to the corrupt Nature of Man whose chief or rather sole quarrel to Religion is the severity of its Precepts and the Difficulty of their Practice So that although it is as Natural for him to desire to be happy as to breath yet he had rather lose and miss of happiness than seek it in the way of Holiness Upon which Account nothing speaks so full and home to the very inmost Desires of his Soul as those Doctrines and Opinions which would perswade him that it may and shall be well with him hereafter without any Necessity of his living well here Which great Mystery of Iniquity being carefully managed by the utmost skill of the Tempter and greedily embraced by a Man 's own Treacherous affections lies at the bottom of all false Religions and eats out the very Heart and Vitals of the True For in the strength of this some hope to be saved by Believing well some by Meaning well some by Paying well and some by shedding a few insipid Tears and uttering a few hard words against those Sins which they have no other Controversy with but that they were so unkind as to leave the Sinner before he was willing to leave them For all this Men can well enough submit to as not forceing them to abandon any one of their Beloved Lusts. And therefore they will not think themselves hardly dealt with though you require Faith of them if you will but dispense with Good Works They will abound and even overflow with good Intentions if you will allow them in quite contrary Actions And you shall not want for Sacrifice if that may Compound for Obedience nor Lastly will they grudge to find Money if some body else will find Merit But to Live well and to Do well are Things of too hard a Digestion Accordingly our Saviour who well knew all these false hopes and Fallacious Reasonings of the Heart of Man which is never so subtle as when it would deceive it self tells his hearers that all these little trifling Inventions will avail them
Death where is thy Sting So that when we come to resign back these frail Bodies these Vessels of Mortality to the Dust from whence they were taken we may yet say of our Souls as Christ did of the Damosel whom he raised up That she was not dead but only Slept for in like manner we shall as certainly rise out of the Grave and Triumph over the dishonours of its Rottenness and Putrefaction as we rise in the Morning out of our Beds with Bodies refreshed and advanced into Higher and Nobler Perfections For the Head being once risen we may be sure the Members cannot stay long behind And Christ is already risen and gone before to prepare Mansions for all those who belong to him under that High Relation That where He is They to their Eternal Comfort may be also rejoycing and singing Praises and Hallelujahs to him who sitteth upon the Throne and to the Lamb for Ever and Ever To Whom Be Rendered and Ascribed as is most due all Glory Might Majesty and Dominion to Eternal Ages Amen THE Christian Pentecost OR THE Solemn Effusion of the Holy Ghost IN THE Several Miraculous Gifts Conferred by Him upon the Apostles and first Christians Set forth in a SERMON Preached At Westminster-Abbey 1692. 1 COR. XII 4 Now there are diversities of Gifts but the same Spirit OUR Blessed Saviour having Newly Changed his Crown of Thorns for a Crown of Glory and ascending up on high took Possession of his Royal Estate and Soveraignty according to the Custom of Princes is here treating with this Lower World now at so great a distance from him by his Ambassador And for the greater Splendour of the Embassy and Authority of the Message by an Ambassador no ways Inferiour to Himself even the Holy Ghost the Third Person in the Blessed Trinity in Glory Equal in Majesty Co-eternal and therefore most peculiarly fit not only as a Deputy but as a kind of Alter Idem to supply his Place and Presence here upon Earth and indeed had he not been Equal to him in the Godhead he could no more have supplyed his Place than he could have filled it which we know in the Accounts of the World are Things extreamly different as by sad and scandalous Experience is too often found Now the summ of this his Glorious Negotiation was to Confirm and ratifie Christ's Doctrine to seal the New Charter of the Worlds Blessedness given by Christ Himself and drawn up by his Apostles and Certainly it was not a greater Work first to Publish than it was afterwards to Confirm it For Christianity being a Religion made up of Truth and Miracle could not Receive its Growth from any Power less than that which first gave it its Birth And being withal a Doctrine Contrary to Corrupt Nature and to those Things which Men most Eagerly Loved to wit their Worldly Interests and their Carnal Lusts it must needs have quickly decayed and withered and dyed away if not Watered by the same Hand of Omnipotence by which it was first planted Nothing could keep it up but such a standing mighty Power as should be able upon all occasions to Countermand and Controul Nature such an one as should at the same time both Instruct and Astonish and baffle the Disputes of Reason by the Obvious overpowering Convictions of Sense And this was the Design of the Spirit 's Mission That the same Holy Ghost who had given Christ his Conception might now give Christianity its Confirmation And this he did by that wonderful and various Effusion of his Miraculous Gifts upon the first Messengers and Propagators of this Divine Religion For as our Saviour himself said John 4.48 Vnless you see signs and wonders you will not believe So that Sight was to introduce Belief and accordingly the first Conquest and Conviction was made upon the Eye and from thence passed victorious to the Heart This therefore was their Rhetorick this their method of Perswasion Their Words were Works Divinity and Physick went together They Cured the Body and thereby Convinced the Soul They Conveyed and enforced all their Exhortations not by the Arts of Eloquence but by the Gift of Tongues These were the Speakers and Miracle the Interpreter Now in Treating of these Words I shall Consider these Three Things First What those Gifts were which were conferred by the Spirit both upon the Apostles and first Professors of Christianity Secondly What is Imported and to be understood by their Diversity and Thirdly And Lastly What are the Consequences of their Emanation from one and the same Spirit First And first for the first of them These Gifts are called in the Original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say Acts of Grace or favour and signifie here certain Qualities and Perfections which the Spirit of God freely bestowed upon Men for the better Enabling them to Preach the Gospel and to settle the Christian Religion in the World and accordingly we will Consider them under that known Dichotomy or Division by which they stand divided into Ordinary and Extraordinary And first for the Ordinary Gifts of the Spirit these he conveys to us by the mediation of our own Endeavours And as He who both makes the Watch and Winds up the Wheels of it may not Improperly be said to be the Author of its motion so God who first Created and since sustains the Powers and Faculties of the Soul may justly be called the Cause of all those Perfections and Improvements which the said faculties shall attain unto by their Respective Operations For that which gives the form gives also the Consequents of that form and the Principle with all its appendant Actions is to be referred to the same Donor But God forbid that I should determine God's Title to our Actions barely in his giving us the Power and Faculty of Acting Durandus indeed an Eminent Schoolman held so and so must Pelagius and his followers hold too if they will be True to and abide by their own Principles But undoubtedly God does not only give the Power but also vouchsafes an Active Influence and Concurrence to the production of every particular Action so far as it has either a Natural or a Moral goodness in it And therefore in all acquired Gifts or Habits such as are those of Philosophy Oratory or Divinity we are properly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Co-workers with God And God ordinarily gives them to none but to such as Labour hard for them They are so his Gifts that they are also our own Acquisitions His assistance and our own study are the joint and adequate Cause of these Perfections And to imagine the Contrary is all one as if a Man should think to be a Scholar barely by his Master's Teaching without his own Learning In all these Cases God is ready to do his Part but not to do both His own and ours too Secondly The other sort of the Spirit 's Gifts are Extraordinary Which are so absolutely and entirely from God that the Soul
looking too deep into them or dwelling too long upon them And these are not properly framed to serve the Church either in the knotty dark and less pleasing parts of Religion but are fitted rather for the Airy Joyful Offices of Devotion such as are praise and Thanksgiving Iubilations and Halleluja's which though indeed not so difficult are yet as pleasing a Work to God as any other For they are the Noble Employment of Saints and Angels and a lively resemblance of the Glorified and Beatifick State in which all that the Blessed Spirits do is to rejoice in the God who made and saved them to sing his Praises and to adore his Perfections Again there are others of a melancholy reserved and severe Temper who think much and Speak little and these are the fittest to serve the Church in the Pensive Afflictive Parts of Religion in the Austerities of Repentance and Mortification in a Retirement from the World and a settled Composure of their Thoughts to self-reflexion and meditation And such also are the ablest to deal with troubled and distressed Consciences to meet with their doubts and to answer their Objections and to ransack every Corner of their shifting and fallacious hearts and in a word to lay before them the true State of their Souls having so frequently descended into and took a strict Account of their own And this is so great a Work that there are not many whose Minds and Tempers are Capable of it who yet may be serviceable enough to the Church in other Things And it is the same Thoughtful and reserved Temper of Spirit which must enable others to serve the Church in the hard and controversial parts of Religion Which sort of Men though they should never rub Men's Itching Ears from the Pulpit the Church can no more be without than a Garrison can be without Souldiers or a City without Walls or than a Man can defend Himself with his Tongue when his Enemy comes against Him with his Sword And therefore great pity it is that such as God has eminently and peculiarly furnished and as it were cut out for this service should be cast upon and compell'd to the Popular Speaking Noisy part of Divinity it being all one as if when a Town is besieged the Governour of it should call off a Valiant and expert Souldier from the Walls to sing Him a Song or Play Him a Lesson upon the Violin at a Banquet and then turn him out of Town because He could not sing and play as well as He could fight And yet as ridiculous as this is it is but too like the irrational and absurd Humour of the present Age which thinks all sence and Worth confined wholly to the Pulpit And many Excellent Persons because they cannot make a Noise with Chapter and Verse and Harangue it twice a Day to factious Trades-Men and Ignorant Old Women are esteemed of as Nothing and scarce Thought worthy to eat the Church's Bread But for all these false Notions and wrong measures of Things and Persons so scandalously prevalent amongst us Wisdom as our Saviour tells us is and will be justified of Her Children But then again there are others besides these who are of a Warmer and more fervent Spirit having much of heat and fire in their Constitution And God may and does serve his Church even by such kind of Persons as these also as being particularly fitted to Preach the Terrifying Rigours and Curses of the Law to obstinate daring Sinners Which is a Work as absolutely Necessary and of as high as Consequence to the good of Souls as it is that Men should be driven if they cannot be drawn off from their Sins that they should be cut and launced if they cannot otherwise be Cured and that the Terrible Trump of the last Iudgment should be always Sounding in their Ears if nothing else can awaken them But then while such Persons are thus busied in Preaching of Iudgment it is much to be wished that they would do it with Iudgment too and not Preach Hell and Damnation to Sinners so as if they were pleased with what they preached No let them rather take heed that they mistake not their own fierce Temper for the mind of God for some I have known to do so and that at such a Rate that it was easy enough to distinguish the Humour of the Speaker from the Nature of the Thing he spoke Let Ministers threaten Death and Destruction even to the very worst of Men in such a manner that it may appear to all their sober Hearers that they do not desire but fear that these dreadful Things should come to pass let them declare God's Wrath against the hardened and impenitent as I have seen a Iudge Condemn a Malefactor with Tears in his Eyes for surely much more should a dispenser of the Word while he is pronouncing the infinitely more killing Sentence of the Divine Law grieve with an inward bleeding compassion for the misery of those forlorn Wretches whom it is like to pass upon But I never knew any of the Geneva or Scotch model which sort of Sanctifyed Reprobationers we abound with either use or like this way of Preaching in my Life but generally Whips and Scorpions Wrath and Vengeance Fire and Brimstone made both Top and Bottom Front and Rear First and Last of all their Discourses But then on the Contrary there are others again of a Gentler a Softer and more Tender Genius and these are full as serviceable for the Work of the Ministry as the former sort could be though not in the same way as being much fitter to represent the Meekness of Moses than to Preach his Law to bind up the broken hearted to speak Comfort and Refreshment to the weary and to take off the Burden from the heavy Laden Nature it self seems peculiarly to have fitted such for the dispensations of Grace And when they are once put into the Ministry they are as it were marked and singled out by Providence to do those benign Offices to the Souls of Men which Persons of a rougher and more vehement Disposition are by no means so fit or able to do These are the Men whom God pitches upon for the Heraulds of his Mercy with a peculiar Emphasis and felicity of Address to proclaim and issue out the pardons of the Gospel to close up the wounds which the Legal Preacher had made to bath and supple them with the Oyl of Gladness and in a word to Crown the sorrows of Repentance with the Joys of Assurance And thus we have seen how the Gospel must have both its Boanarges and its Barnabas Sons of Thunder and Sons of Consolation the first as it were to Cleanse the Air and Purge the Soul before it can be fit for the Refreshments of a Sunshine the Beams of Mercy and the Smiles of a Saviour David had shewn himself but a mean Psalmist had his skill reached no further than to one Note and therefore Psal. 101. 1
Fair. And then for the Gift of Healing let a bleeding Church and State shew how notably they were gifted that way They played the Chirurgeons indeed with a Witness but we never yet heard that they Acted the Physitian all their Practice upon the Body Politick was with Powder and Ball Sword and Pistol No saving of Life with those Men but by Purging away the Estate And likewise for the Gift of discerning of Spirits They had their Tryers that is a Court appointed for the Tryal of Ministers but most properly called Cromwell's Inquisition In which they would pretend to know Men's hearts and inward Bent of their Spirits as their word was by their very looks But the Truth is as the Chief Pretence of those Tryers was to enquire into Men's Gifts so if they found them but well Gifted in the Hand they never looked any further for a full and Free hand was with them an Abundant demonstration of a Gracious Heart a word in great request in those times And moreover for the Gift of diverse Tongues it is certain that they scarce spake the same Thing for two days together Though otherwise it must be Confessed that they were none of the greatest Linguists their own Mother Tongue serving all their Occasions without ever so much as looking into the Fathers who always spoke the Language of the Beast to such as could not understand them Latin was with them a Mortal Crime and Greek instead of being owned for the Language of the Holy Ghost as in the New Testament it is was looked upon like the Sin against it so that in a Word they had all the Confusions of Babel amongst them without the Diversity of Tongues And then Lastly For the Gift of Interpreting they thought themselves no ordinary Men at Expounding a Chapter if the Turning of a few Rational significant Words and Sentences into a loose tedious Impertinent Harangue could be called an Exposition But above all for their Interpreting Gift you must take them upon Ezekiel Daniel and the Revelation and from thence as it were out of a Dark Prophetick Cloud Thundring against the Old Cavaleirs and the Church of England and as I may but too appositely express it breaking them upon the wheels in Ezekiel Casting them to the Beasts in Daniel and pouring upon them all the Vials in the Revelation After which let any one deny it who durst that the Black Decree was Absolutely passed upon those Malignants and that they were all of them to a Man Sons of Reprobation And thus I think I have Reckoned up most of the Extraordinary Gifts of the Spirit and Compared them with those of our late Gifted Brethren Amongst all which Divine Gifts I must declare that I cannot find the Gift of Canting and whining and making Faces that is of Speaking Bad sence with worse looks which yet those Men used to call the Language of Canaan Nor can I find the Gift of uttering every suddain crude undigested thought coming over their minds and of being Impudently bold and Familiar with Almighty God in Prayer I cannot find the Gift of exploding the Mysteries and peculiar Credenda of the Gospel in order to the turning Christianity into bare Morality I cannot find the Gift of accounting Tenderness of Conscience against Law as a Thing Sacred but Tenderness of Conscience according to Law as a Crime to be prosecuted almost to Death In a word I cannot find the Gifts of Rebelling Plundering Sequestring Robbing Churches and Murdering Kings and all this purely for the sake of Conscience and Religion These Things I say whether it be through the Weakness of my discerning Faculties or whatsoever else may be the Cause I cannot for my Life find amongst the Primitive Gifts of the Spirit And therefore wheresoever I do find them let Men talk never so much of Inward Motions and Extraordinary Calls of the Spirit of the Kingdom of Iesus Christ and of the Publick good of Moderation and of an Healing Spirit and the like yet long and sad Experience having taught us the true meaning of all these fine and fallacious Terms I must needs say both of them and the Spirit from which they proceed in those words of St. Iames 3.18 That they descend not from above but are Earthly Sensual and Devilish These are the Names which God knows and calls them by though Schismaticks and Hypocrites may call them Reformation But Fourthly In the fourth and last place This Emanation of Gifts from the Spirit assures us that Knowledge and Learning are by no means opposite to Grace since we see Gifts as well as Graces conferred by the same Spirit But amongst those of the late Reforming Age whom we have been speaking of all Learning was utterly cryed down So that with them the best Preachers were such as could not read and the ablest Divines such as could not write In all their Preachments they so highly pretended to the Spirit that they could hardly so much as spell the Letter To be blind was with them the Proper Qualification of a Spiritual Guide and to be Book-Learned as they called it and to be Irreligious were almost Terms Convertible None were thought fit for the Ministry but Tradesmen and Mechanicks because none else were allowed to have the Spirit Those only were accounted like St. Paul who could work with their hands and in a litteral sence drive the Nail home and be able to make a Pulpit before they preached in it But the Spirit in the Primitive Church took quite another Method being still as Careful to furnish the Head as to sanctifie the Heart and as He wrought Miracles to found and establish a Church by these extraordinary Gifts so it would have been a greater Miracle to have done it without them God as He is the giver of Grace so He is the Father of Lights He neither Admits Darkness in Himself nor approves it in others And therefore those who place all Religion in the Heats of a furious Zeal without the due Illuminations of Knowledge Know not of what Spirit they are indeed of such a Spirit as begins in Darkness Leads to it and Ends in it But certainly we shall one day find that a Religion so much Resembling Hell neither was nor could be the Readiest way to Heaven But on the Contrary That the Spirit always Guides and instructs before He saves and that as He brings to Happiness only by the ways of Holiness so He never leads to true Holiness but by the Paths of Knowledge To which Holy Spirit together with the Father and the Son Three Persons and one God be rendred and ascribed as is most due all Praise Might Majesty and Dominion both now and for evermore Amen THE Peculiar Care AND Concern of Providence FOR THE Protection and Defense of Kings Set forth in a SERMON Preached At Westminster-Abbey Nov. 5. 1675. Psalm CXLIV 10 former part It is He that giveth Salvation unto Kings THE greatest and most magnificent Title by which God
that the whole Order and Connexion of these things one with another may be reckoned an Act of Providence Extraordinary And thus much for the first general thing proposed which was to shew upon what Account the Works of Providence come to be thus distinguished which Consideration it will be easy for every one to make application of to the ensuing particulars I proceed now to the Second General thing proposed which is to shew How and by what means God does after such an Extraordinary manner save and deliver Princes I shall mention seven 1. By endowing them with a more than ordinary Sagacity and Quickness of Understanding above other Men. Kings they say have a long Reach with their Arm but they have a further with their Mind In 1 Kings 4.29 God is said to have given Solomon Largeness of Heart even as the sand on the sea shore And in Prov. 25.5 The Heart of Kings is said to be unsearchable In the former Text the Royal Mind is compared to the Sand on the Sea shore for Compass and in this latter it may seem to Vie with the Sea it self for Depth And does not this days Solemnity give us an Eminent proof of this For when this horrid Conspiracy contrived in Hell and Darkness was Conveyed to one of the Confederates under the shelter of an Equivocal Writing our apprehensive and quick-Scented King presently Smoaked the Ambiguous Paper and Sounding the Depths of the Black Intrigue found that at the Bottom of it which few Mortals besides though of the Quickest faculties could have discovered from it who had not had their Conjectures alarm'd by some Glimmerings of Light into that Dark Project before Such a piercing Judgment does God often give to these his Deputies A Judgment which looks into or rather through and through all others but is looked into by none And there is nothing that both adorns and secures a Prince Comparably to this discerning faculty for by this as by a great Light kindling many others he commands the use of the best understandings and Judgments throughout his Dominions calling them to his Council and so seeing with their Eyes apprehending and contriving with their heads all their Knowledge and Experience like Rivers paying Tribute to the Ocean being conveyed into and swallowed up in his Royal Breast It is both the safety and felicity of a Prince to have a wise Council but it must be his Own Wisdom which provides Him one Wisdom is a Noble Quality and not discernible but by it self It is Art that must judge of Art and He who discovers Wisdom in another must do it by the Idea He first had of it in his own Brain Now as the first and chief external safeguard of a Prince is in his Council and as it is his discerning faculty which must furnish him with this so his next safety is in the choice of his Friends and it is the same discerning faculty which must secure him here too For it is this that must distinguish between friendship and flattery the most baneful mischief that can be practised by one Man upon another and shadows do not more Inseparably follow Bodies than flattery does the Persons of great Men. Flatterers are the Bosom Enemies of Princes laying Trains for them not at all less destructive than that which was discovered this day Contriving their Ruin acceptably pleasingly and according to their own hearts desire Poyson has frequently destroyed Kings but none has been so efficaciously mortal as that drank in by the Ear. He who meets his Enemy in the Field knows how to encounter Him but he who meets him at his Table in his Chamber or in his Closet finds his Enemy got within Him before he is aware of him Killing him with Smiles and Kisses and acting the Assassinate under the Masquerade of a Councellour or a Confident the surest but the basest way of destroying a Man But now it is the Prince's Wisdom and discerning Spirit that must be His rescue from the Plots of this friendly Traitor It is a most Remarkable Speech of Solomon Prov. 20.8 That the King sitting on the Throne of Iudgment scattereth away all Evil with his Eye And the Nature of this Evil is peculiarly such that to discover is to defeat it It is a work of Darkness which the Light never looks upon but it scatters too Nothing is so Notable in the Royal Bird the Eagle as the Quickness of his Eye The sight is the sence of Empire and Command that which is always first and leads the way in every great Action For so far as a Prince sees so far properly he rules And while he keeps his Eye open and his Breast shut he cannot be surprized And thus much for the first way by which Providence saves and delivers Princes namely by endowing them with a more than ordinary Sagacity and Quickness of Understanding above other Men. 2. God saves and delivers Soveraign Princes by giving them a singular Courage and Presence of Mind in cases of difficulty and Danger As soon as ever the Sacred Oyl had Anointed Saul King it is said 1 Sam. 10.9 that God gave him another heart That is a great and a Kingly Spirit raising his Thoughts above the Common Level and Designs of a Private Condition And a little after when there was a General Consternation over all Israel upon the Invasion of the Ammonites though the Report of it met Saul in his former mean Employment Coming from the Field after his Fathers Herd yet it is said in the 11. Chapter of the same Book and 6. v. That the Spirit of God came upon Saul when he heard these tydings That is the Royal Spirit which he had received at his Anointing then began to Stir and Act and flame out like it self taking him presently from following an Herd and putting Him in the Head of an Army It is incredible to Consider the motion of some minds upon the suddain surprize of danger and how much in such cases some will even out-act themselves How much quicker their Wit is to invent and their Courage to execute than at other times Tullus Hostilius in the midst of a Battle surprized with the Treachery of Metius Suffetius falling off with a great part of his Army to the Enemy cries out to his Soldiers that it was by his order and thereby confirmed their hearts from fainting through the Apprehension of Treachery into a present and Glorious Victory by their supposing it a contrived Stratagem Next to Wisdom the greatest gift of Heaven is Resolution It is that which gives and obtains Kingdoms that turns Swords into Scepters that Crowns the Valiant with Victory and the Victorious often with a Diadem It was answered by a Neighbouring Prince to one alledging a Flaw in the Title of Hen. 7. to the Kingdom of England that he had three of the best Titles to his Kingdom of any Prince living Being the Wisest Prince the Valiantest Prince and the Richest Prince in Christendom
Presence of mind to get out of a Plunge and upon the suddain to Unravel the Knots and Intricacies of a Perplexed business argues a Head and a Heart made for great things It is a kind of Ecstacy and Inspiration a Beam of Divine light darting in upon Reason and exalting it to a Pitch of Operation beyond its natural and accustomed measures and perhaps there was never any Person in the World remarkably and heroically great without some such kind of Enthusiasm that is such a mighty Principle as at certain times raised him up to strange unaccountable heights of Wit and Courage And therefore whosoever He is who in the strength of such a Spirit can look the most menacing dangers in the face and when the state of all Things about Him seems desperate can yet bear his great Heart above despair such an one for the most part makes fortune it self bend and fall down to him difficulties vanish and dangers fly before Him so much is Victory the Claim of the Valiant and success the Birth-right of the Bold And this is the second way by which Providence gives Salvation unto Kings 3. God saves and delivers Soveraign Princes by disposing of Events and Accidents in a strange Concurrence for their Advantage and preservation Nothing indeed is or can be properly Accidental to God but Accidents are so called in respect of the Intention or Expectation of second Causes when things fall out beside their Knowledge or design And there is nothing in which Providence so much Triumphs over and as I may so say laughs at the Profoundest Wisdom of Men as in the stable certain Knowledge and disposal of all Casual Events In respect of which the Clearest mortal Intellect is wholly in the Dark And upon this Account as loose as these Events seem to hang upon one another yet they are all knit and linked together in a firm Chain and the highest link of that Chain as the Poets speak most truely and Philosophically though in a fable is fastened to Iupiter's Chair that is it is held and managed by an Unerring Providence the Chain indeed may wave and shake this way and that way but still the hand that holds it is steady and the Eye that Guides it Infallible Now nothing has so Powerful an Influence upon the great Turns of Affairs and the Lives and Fortunes of great Persons as the little unobserved unprojected Events of things For could any thing be greater than the Preservation of a great Prince and his next Heir to the Crown together with his Nobles and the Chief of his Clergy from certain imminent and prepared destruction And was not all this effected by a pityful small Accident in the mistake of the superscription of a Letter Did not the oversight of one syllable preserve a Church and a State too And might it not be truly said of that Contemptible Paper that it did Caesarem vehere fortunam Caesaris and that the Fate of three Kingdoms was wrapt and sealed up in it A little Error of the Eye a misguidance of the hand a slip of the foot a starting of an Horse a suddain mist or a great shower or a Word undesignedly cast forth in an Army has turned the stream of Victory from one side to another and thereby disposed of the fortune of Empires and whole Nations No Prince ever returns safe out of a Battle but may remember how many Blows and Bullets have gone by Him that might as Easily have gone through Him and by what little odd unforeseeable Chances Death has been turned aside which seemed in a full ready and direct Career to have been posting to him All which Passages if we do not acknowledge to have been Guided to their Respective Ends and Effects by the Conduct of a Superior and a Divine Hand we do by the same Assertion Casheir all Providence strip the Almighty of his Noblest Prerogative and make God not the Governour but the meer Spectator of the World And thus much for the third way The Fourth By which God saves and delivers Sovereign Princes is by wonderfully inclining the Hearts and Wills of Men to a Benign Affection towards them Hearts and Wills are things that Princes themselves cannot Command and yet the only Things in the strength of which they do Command For the Heart is the grand spring of Action and He who governs that part does by Consequence Command the whole But now this is the incommunicable Prerogative of God who and who only can either by Power or by Knowledge reach the Heart For as it is said Prov. 21.1 That the Heart of the King is in God's hand and that as the Rivers of Water He turneth it which way soever He will So are the hearts of the People too which like a mighty stream or Torrent He turns this way or that way according to the Wise Counsels of his Providence For if He intends to advance a Prince they shall be a stream to bear Him up from sinking if to forsake or ruin a Prince they shall overflow and swell and rush in upon Him with such a furious ungoverned Tide as no Power or Arts of State shall be able to divert or to withstand God can turn the Hearts of a Nation suddainly and Irresistibly He has done so more than once or twice and may do so again Thus for instance when David fled before Absalom and was forced to leave the Royal City it was the General Affection of his People God touching their Hearts which brought Him back and Resettled Him in his Throne so that in 2 Sam. 19.14 it is said of Him That he bowed the Hearts of all the Men of Judah even as the Heart of one Man so that they sent this word unto the King Return thou and all thy servants And just such another message did the Lords and Commons of England send our Banished David in the Year Sixty For what was it else which so gloriously restored the King Plots were nothing and Foreign Assistance less than nothing It was an Universal Invincible Current of the Peoples Wills and Affections that bore down all those Mountains of Opposition which so many Years had been raising up against Him and at length in spight of Guilt and Malice brought Him in free and unshackled absolute and victorious over the Heads of his Armed Enemies It was his Peoples Hearts which made their Hands useless to his Restoration On the other side when the greatest part of the Kingdom was rent from the House of David and Transferred to Ieroboam in 1 Kings 12.14 the Prophet expresly tells them That this thing was from God that is He by a secret over-ruling Energy upon the Hearts and Affections of the People took them off from one and enclined and carried them over to the other And it is often by this alone that the Great Lord of Lords and Controuler of Monarchs putteth down one and setteth up another He can raise Armies of Hearts to drive any King
from dying gradually either by the Encroachments of Superstition or the attempts of Innovation And it is observable which I speak not in flattery but in a Profound sense of a Blessing which the whole Kingdom can never be Thankful enough for That none of the Families that ever Reigned over this Nation have to their Power been so careful and tender of the Church kept their hands so clean from any thing that might look like Sacrilege been so Zealous of its Privileges and so kind to its Ministers as the Royal Family that now sways the Scepter in the Succession of three several Princes And I doubt not but as Sacrilege has blasted the mightiest Families with a Curse so the Abhorrence of it will and must perpetuate a Blâ—ssing upon this And thus having dispatched the several Heads at first proposed and shewn upon what accounts the Actings of God's Providence may be said to be extraordinary and by what ways and means this extraordinary Providence saves and delivers Princes as also the Reasons why it does so I proceed now to the Fourth and last thing proposed Which is to make some useful deductions from what has been delivered and it shall be by way of Information concerning two Things First The Duty and Behaviour of Princes towards God Secondly The Duty and Behaviour of Subjects towards their Prince First And first for that of Princes towards God It shews them from whom in their Distress they are to expect and to whom in their Glory they are to Ascribe all their Deliverances David was as great a Warriour and as Valiant a Prince as ever Reigned In all his Wars success waited upon his Courage and Victory did Homage to his Sword yet He tells us that He would neither trust in his Sword nor in his Bow nor in the Alliance of Princes All Auxiliaries but those from above He found weak fickle and fallacious And as Princes are to own their Great deliverer so are they to shew the World that they do so by setting a Due Estimate upon the deliverance especially when it is shown in so signal an Instance as that which we now Commemorate And whosoever He is who really and Cordially Values any Notable Deliverance vouchsafed Him by God surely above all things it will concern Him not to Court the mischief from which He has been Delivered But Secondly Which most properly belongs to us We Learn from the Premises the Duty and Behaviour of Subjects towards their Princes Does not God by such a peculiar protecting Providence over Kings point out to us the Sacredness of their Persons and Command a Reverence where He Himself thinks fit to place an Honour does not every extraordinary deliverance of a Prince carry this Inscription upon it in the Brightest Characters Touch not mine Anointed Whom God has placed upon the Throne shall any Humane Power presume to drag to the Bar or shall Royal Heads be Crowned and Anointed only to prepare them to be Sacrificed upon a Scaffold As for our parts when we Reflect upon our Prince signalized by so many strange unparallell'd Rescues ought they not both to endear him to our Allegiance and in a manner Consecrate him to our Veneration For is not this He whom in the Loins of his Royal Progenitor God by this days Mercy as I may so say delivered before he was Born He for whose sake God has since wrought so many Miracles Covering his head in the day of Battle and which is more securing it after Battle when such a Price was set upon it Is not this He whom the same Providence followed into Banishment and gave him safety and Honour where he had not so much as to lay his Head or to set his foot upon that He could call his own is not this He whom God brought back again by a Miracle as great as that by which he brought Israel out of Egypt not dividing but as it were drying up a Red Sea before Him Is not this He whom neither the Plots of his Enemies at home nor the United strength of those abroad have been able to shake or supplant And lastly is not this He whom neither the Barbarous Injuries of his Rebel Subjects at Home nor the Temptations of Foreign Princes abroad nor all the Arts of Rome besides could in his greatest Extremity bring over to the Romish Profession but that after all He returned and since his Return still continues in the same Communion which He was of when he went from us Carolus à Carolo firm and Immoveable like the Son of a Father who could rather part with his Crowns Kingdoms and his very Life than quit his Honour or give up his Religion For all which glorious Things done for Him and by Him may the same God who has hitherto delivered Him order His affairs so that he may never need another Deliverance but that He may grow old in Peace and Honour And be as great as the Love of his Friends and the Fears of his Enemies can make Him Commanding the Hearts of the One in spight of the Hearts of the Other and in a word Continue to Reign over us till Mortality shall be swallowed up of Immortality and a Temporal Crown Changed into an Eternal Which God of His Infinite mercy grant to Whom be rendred and ascribed as is most due all Praise Might Majesty and Dominion both now and for evermore Amen FINIS * See a Learned Tract in 8 â—o Intituled The Growth of Error c. Sect. 8. Printed in the Year 1697. Dub. Evang. Parte 3â— pag. 782. * Some render it to those See something upon the like subject Vol. 2 d. p. 160. * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Suidas Again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hesych So that the Pharisees properly were and might be called the Jewish Cathari or Puritans * Tantùm id mihi videtur statui posse post hanc Vitam Hominis Animam sive Animum non ita per se subsistere ut ulla praemia poenásve sentiar vel etiam illa sentiendi sit capax And again In ipso primo homine toâ—ius immortalitatis rationem uni gratiae Dei tribuo nec in ipsâ Creatione quicquam immortalis Vitae in homine agnosco Socin Ep. 5. ad Joh. Volkelium See more of the like nature cited by the Learned Dr. Ashwell in his Dissertation de Socino Socinianismo Pag. 187 88 89 c. * As it stands rectifyed by Junius and Tremellius who place the Comma after Assir and not between Jeconiah and that Note that those four Sons of David by Bathsheba mentioned in 1 Chron. 3.5 are not there set down according to the order of their Birth For Solomon though last named was certainly Born first and Nathan as he is generally reckoned immediately next Acts and Monuments of the Church P. 522. * See more of this in the following discourse on Esay 53.8 Having had the opportunity and happiness of a frequent Converse with Dr. Pocock the late Hebrew and Arabick Professor to the University of Oxon and the greatest Master certainly of the Eastern Languages and Learning which this or any other Age or Nation has Bred I asked him more than once as I had occasion what he thought of Grotius's Exposition of Isaiah 53. and his Application of that Prophecy in the first sence and design of it to the Person of the Prophet Ieremy To which smiling and shaking his Head he answered Why what else can be thought or said of it but that in this the Opiniator over-ruled the Annotator and the Man had a mind to indulge his Fancy This account gave that great Man of it though he was as great in Modesty as he was in Learning greater than which none could be withal had a particular respect for Grotius as having been personally acquainted with him But the truth is the matter lay deeper than so for there was a certain party of Men whom Grotius had unhappily engaged himself with who were extremely disgusted at the Book de Satisfactione Christi written by him against Socinus and therefore he was to pacify or rather satisfy these Men by turning his Pen another way in his Annotations which also was the true reason that he never answered Crâ—llius A shrewd Argument no doubt to such as shall well consider these matters that those in the Low-Countries who at that time went by the name of Remonstrants and Arminians were indeed a great deal more * See Dr. Hammond's Annot. on the place Notwithstanding the Sanctifyed Character they bear in the Republicans New Gospel viz. Ludlow's Memoirs and in the Judgment of those who like such Practices and therefore Publish such Books to the manifest Affront of the Monarchy they live under A strange Unaccountable way doubtless of Supporting it * See a late Signal Instance of this in a Prince who had his Shoulder so Kindly Kissed by a Cannon Bullet as the late Archbishop by a peculiar strain of Rhetorick Expresses this Wonderful Passage in his Sermon at Court upon Ieremiah 9 23 24. Page 34. For well indeed might it pass for Wonderful the Salutes from the Mouth of a Cannon being Commonly so boisterous that they seldom Kiss but they Kill too * At the same time uttering these Words so suteable to his Kingly Mind and Courage Iam scietis quantùm sine Rege valeat exercitus quid opis in me uno sit Quin. Curtius Libr. X. ☜