beg your patience whilst I put you in mind of some of those arguments and considerations which seem most proper and effectual to engage men to the imitation of this blessed example to doe all the good they can in the World 1. This of all other employments is most agreeable to our natures By doing good we gratify and comply with the best and noblest of our natural inclinations and appetites The very same sense which informs us of our own wants and doth powerfully move and instigate us to provide for their relief doth also resent the distresses of another and vehemently provoke and urge us to yield him all necessary succour This is true in all men but most apparent in the best natures that at beholding the miseries and calamities of other men they find such yernings of their bowels and such sensible commotions and passions raised in their own breasts as they can by no means satisfy but by reaching forth their helping-hand and to deny our assistance according as our ability permits us is a violence to our very natural instincts and propensions as well as contrary to our religious obligations Our very flesh which in many other instances tempts us to sin yet in this case prompts us to our duty This is a gratious provision God Almighty hath made in favour of the necessitous and calamitous that since his providence for great reasons is pleased to permit such inequalities in mens fortunes and outward conditions the state of some in this life being so extremely wretched and deplorable if compared with others lest the sick and blind and naked and poor should seem to be forgotten or wholly disregarded by their Maker he hath therefore implanted in men a quick and tender sense of pity and compassion which should always solicit and plead their cause stand their friend and not onely dispose us but e'en force us for our own quiet and satisfaction though with some inconvenience to our selves to relieve and succour the afflicted and miserable according to our several capacities and opportunities And this sympathy doth as truly belong to humane nature as love desire hope fear or any other affection of our minds and it is as easie a matter to devest our selves of any other passion as of this of pity and he who like the Priest and Levite in our Saviour's Parable of the wounded man is void of all compassion is degenerated not so much into the likeness of a brute beast as of the hardest rock or marble Thus to doe good is according to the very make and frame of our beings and natures 2. Hence it follows that it must be the most pleasant and delightfull employment we can choose for our selves Whatever is according to our nature must for that reason be pleasant for all actual pleasure consists in the gratification and satisfaction of our natural inclinations and appetites Since therefore the very constitution and temper of our nature sway and prompt us to the exercise of charity and beneficence the satisfying such inclinations by doing good must be as truly gratefull to us as any other thing or action whatever that ministreth to our pleasure and it cannot be more delightfull to receive kindnesses than it is to bestow them A seasonable unexpected relief doth not affect him that stands in great need of it with more sensible contentment than the opportunity of doing it doth rejoice a good man's heart Nay it may be doubted on which hand lies the greatest obligation whether he who receives is more obliged to the giver for the good turn he hath done him or the giver be more obliged to the receiver for the occasion of exercising his goodness When we receive great kindnesses it puts us to the blush we are ashamed to be so highly obliged but the joy of doing them is pure and unmixed and this our Saviour hath told us Acts 20.35 It is more blessed to give than to receive and some good men have ventured to call it the greatest sensuality a piece of Epicurism and have magnified the exceeding indulgence of God who hath annexed future rewards to that which is so amply its own recompence These two advantages this pleasure of doing good hath above all other pleasures whatever 1. That this satisfaction doth not onely just accompany the act of doing good but it is permanent and lasting endures as long as our lives The very remembrance of such charitable deeds by which we have been really helpfull and serviceable to others our after-reflexion upon the good we have done in the world doth wonderfully refresh our souls with a mighty joy and peace quite contrary to all other worldly and corporeal pleasures There are indeed some vices which promise a great deal of pleasure in the commission of them but then at best it is but short-lived and transient a sudden flash presently extinguisht It perishes in the very enjoyment like the crackling of thorns under a pot as the Wise-man elegantly expresses it it presently expires in a short blaze and noise but hath very little heat or warmth in it All outward bodily pleasures are of a very fugitive volatile nature there 's no fixing them and if we endeavour to make up this defect by a frequent repetition and constant succession of them they then soon become nauseous men are cloyed and tired with them Nor is this yet all these sensual pleasures do not onely suddenly pass away but also leave a sting behind them they wound our consciences the thoughts of them are uneasie to us guilt and a bitter repentance are the attendants of such indulging our selves sadness and melancholy comes in the place of all such exorbitant mirth and jollity These are the constant abatements of all outward unlawfull pleasures Whereas that which springs from a mind satisfied and well pleased with its own actions doth for ever affect our hearts with a delicious relish continually ministers comfort and delight to us is a never-failing fountain of joy such as is solid and substantial fills our minds with good hopes and chearfull thoughts and is the onely certain ground of true peace and contentment 2. This pleasure and joy that attends doing good doth herein exceed all fleshly delights that it is then at the highest when we stand in most need of it In a time of affliction old age or at the approach of death the remembrance of our good deeds will strangely cheer and support our spirits under all the calamities and troubles we may meet with in this state By doing good we lay up a treasure of comfort a stock of joy against an evil day which no outward thing can rob us of But now it is not thus with bodily pleasures they cannot help us in a time of need they then become miserably flat and insipid the sinner cannot any longer taste or relish them nothing remains but a guilty sense which in such time of distress is more fierce and raging especially at the hour of death Yet even
for those Laws which he hath made and by which he will govern and judge the world as wicked men themselves have but should we grant all that can be asked in this case and suppose it very doubtfull whether our souls are immortal and surely no man will pretend to prove it impossible that they should be so nay should we suppose it great odds that there is not a future state yet that man doth nevertheless most notoriously betray his want of prudence and discretion who will not contradict his own brutish inclinations and deny himself some short pleasures and chuse that course of life which our reason no less than our Religion doth recommend to us rather than run the least hazard though it were of an hundred to one of being for ever miserable And thus much concerning being enticed to wicked practices And now I might discourse at large of another sort of enticing which is to erroneous and pernicious doctrines and of such as go about to inveigle and corrupt our judgments and debauch our understandings by seducing us to the belief of opinions no less wicked than false But I shall at present onely crave leave briefly to shew 1. What danger men are in of being seduced by such temptations 2. What is our best armour and security against them 1. What danger we are in of being enticed from that profession and belief which is publickly taught and own'd amongst us which danger arises partly from the earnestness importunity or the arts that subtile men use to bring us off but most especially from the doctrines themselves which they would learn us and instill into us which are such as are most pleasing and gratefull to one who delights in his sins such as cannot but be most acceptable to him as giving him hopes of heaven though he deny himself very little for it such as lay the grounds and foundations of sinning chearfully without any fear or remorse and therefore as long as the greatest part of the world love vice and ease will succeed and be greedily entertained It is no hard matter to persuade men to believe what they before-hand wish were true and there needs no great store of proof or arguments to recommend those opinions to the sensual and prophane which give them leave to fulfill their lusts without any regret of conscience or dread of punishment Is it not a comfortable doctrine and will it not be readily embraced by every resolved sinner that after a long wicked life at the last gasp a bare sorrow for sin out of fear of hell with the Priest's absolution shall at least free him from eternal pains and take away the guilt of his sins so that he need not be afraid of any thing besides a sudden death which happens but seldom When he is at any time disturbed with the sense of his dangerous condition when the forced remembrance of his sins doth gall and fret his mind and fill him with fears and melancholy thoughts what a relief must it needs be to him to be assured that it is but going to a Priest and confessing his sins and undergoing some small penances and he is safe for then he may go on in his full carriere with the greatest security imaginable then he may sin with judgment and commit all manner of wickedness with discretion He who hath no mind to part with his lusts is easily persuaded that they are invincible nor is it very difficult to make him who is loth to take any pains or be at any trouble for keeping of Christ's commands to believe that they are impossible to be kept and that our Saviour fulfilled even his own law in our stead and that we have nothing to doe but to believe that he hath done all and be thankfull In a word where the obscurity of Scripture or the difficulty of the matter or the weakness of our understandings have caused one to mistake multitudes have been drawn aside to the most pernicious errours by their lusts and secular interests and carnal designs and love to gain sloth or sensuality and by this chiefly are the several dissenting parties amongst us maintained and do encrease their numbers to wit by levelling the doctrine of Christianity to mens corrupt inclinations and passions whilst we of the Church of England dare not be so false either to our own trust or the souls of men as to give them hopes of everlasting bliss on any other condition but that of living godlily righteously and soberly in this present world from all which follows 2. That our security against such temptations doth not consist in much reading and great learning in our skill in controversies or cunning in managing a dispute or ability of discerning between good argument and sophistry so much as in an honest mind and humble heart an unfeigned desire of knowing and sincere endeavour of doing the will of God Him who is thus minded God by his infinite goodness is ingaged not to suffer to fall into any errour of mischievous effect and as for other mistakes wherein a good life is not concerned God is ready to overlook and pardon what is the result onely of the imperfection of our present state besides which honesty of mind or love to vertue is in it self and its own nature our best preservative against being infected with any bad opinions I am far from taking upon me to judge or condemn those that were born and bred up and have lived well under any forms of Religion different from what is established amongst us for it is very possible for men to hold opinions very wicked and yet not perceiving nor acknowledging the just consequences of them to live very good lives yet this is true that one that designs nothing so much as pleasing God and saving his soul and is willing to take any pains for it and hath no by-ends to serve will not desire to be excused from the mortification of his lusts subduing his appetites crucifying his flesh and from the severities of an holy life by substituting in the room of them pilgrimages vain oblations bodily austerities or such formal devotions as very bad men may perform and be very bad still Those principles which most advance the honour of God by laying the strictest obligations on men to all manner of goodness he will hearken to and readily believe but if they serve the ends of avarice or ambition if they are apt to make men dissolute or licentious lazie or presumptuous this alone to such an one will be reason sufficient utterly to reject them let them be propounded to him with never so much advantage or subtilty I shall conclude all with this that did I know any constituted Church in the world that did teach a Religion more holy and usefull that delivered doctrines in themselves more reasonable or in their consequences tending more directly to the peace of Societies and the good of every particular person to the promoting of piety and true morality and
necessity the absolute necessity of our duty in order to our happiness till by degrees we come to a love and liking of goodness and Religion and then holy pious and devout thoughts will be easie free and almost natural to us it is I grant it a vain thing to persuade you to look after your thoughts whilst your minds are estranged from God but a renewed mind a new heart as the Scripture calls it would produce new and other-ghess thoughts As the fountain is such will the streams be where the treasure is there will the heart be also An evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit nor can we gather figs from thorns or grapes from thistles evil thoughts lusts foolish imaginations are the natural genuine spawn of a wild dishonest mind When I was a child saith St. Paul I thought as a child I spake as a child but when I became a man I put away childish things As it is impossible for a wise man after that he is arrived to years of understanding and his mind is furnished with the knowledge of the best and worthiest things to please himself with those silly fancies and childish imaginations which were the entertainment and diversion of his younger rawer years so 't is no less impossible for any one who is deeply touched with the things of God and hath a due sense of those things which are more excellent to endure such silly worldly extravagant thoughts as possessed his soul and pleased him in the days of his ignorance and folly How do I love thy law saith David it is my meditation day and night This is the first rule look after your heart and affections 2. And more particularly Consider what care and art wicked men use to prevent good thoughts and let us use the same diligence and endeavours to hinder evil and wicked thoughts and motions There is no man especially that lives in any place where Religion is professed and in any tolerable credit that can go on in a course of sin without some regret and remorse sometimes his conscience will find a time to speak to him the natural notions of a God and a future state will ever and anon be stirring and are apt to disturb the repose and jollity of the most secure and hardened sinner Now to one resolvedly wicked such thoughts of a judge a future accompt and everlasting punishments cannot but be very uneasie and unwelcome and therefore doth he strive all that he can to stifle such chilling thoughts in their very first rise to silence or drown the whispers of his conscience he would fain even run away from himself he chuses any diversion entertainment or company rather than attend to the dictates of his own mind and reason is afraid of nothing so much as being alone and unemployed lest such ghastly and frighting apprehensions should croud in upon him he keeps himself therefore always in a hurry and heat and by many other artifices endeavours to shut all such cool and sober thoughts out of his mind till by often quenching the motions of God's good spirit and resisting the light and voice of his own conscience he by degrees loses all sense of good and evil all good principles are laid asleep within him and he arrives at his wisht-for happy state of sinning without disturbance or interruption Now if we would but use equal diligence and watchfulness to prevent or expell evil thoughts we should find just the same effect that in time our minds would become in a great measure free from their solicitations and importunity would we but presently reject them with the greatest disdain and indignation use all manner of means to fix our minds on more innocent and usefull subjects avoid all occasions or provocations or incentives to evil thoughts as carefully as wicked men do reading a good book or keeping of good company we certainly should find in a short time our minds no longer pestered or troubled with them we should begin to lose all savour and relish of those sins we formerly delighted in by their being for some considerable time kept out of our minds there would arise a strangeness between them and us and they would become as uneasie to us as now they are pleasant and gratefull 3. Would you prevent evil thoughts above all things avoid idleness the spirits of men are busie and restless something they must be doing and what a number of monstrous giddy frothy improbable conceits do daily fill our brains merely for want of better employment no better way therefore to prevent evil thoughts than never to be at leisure for them I went by the field of the slothfull saith Salomon and loe it was all grown over with thorns and nettles and therefore indeed those are most of all concerned in this discourse about thoughts whom providence hath placed in such a station as that they are under no necessity of minding any particular calling for the gaining of a livelihood for whom God hath provided a subsistence without their own labouring and working for it such as these are in manifest danger of consuming a great part of their time in idle and unprofitable if not lewd and wicked imaginations having little else to doe the Devil or their own vain fancies will find work for them and when consideration and argument alone are not able to drive out these wicked inward companions yet business will and therefore I know nothing more advisable than that we should be always stored with fit materials and subjects to exercise our thoughts upon such as are worthy of a reasonable creature that is endued with an immortal soul that is to live for ever Those who are most busie yet have some little spaces and intervals of time in which they are not employed Some mens business is such as though it employs their hands and requires bodily labour yet doth not much take up their thoughts nor need their minds be very intent upon it now all such should constantly have in their minds a treasure of innocent or usefull subjects to think upon that so they may never be at a loss how to employ their minds for many of our evil thoughts are owing to this that when our time hangs upon our hands we are to seek what to think of Let us therefore every one resolve thus with our selves the first opportunity of leisure I have the first vacant hour I will set my self to consider of such or such a good subject and have this always in readiness to confront and oppose to any wicked or evil thoughts that may sue for entrance or admission for if we doe thus temptations will always find our minds full and prepossessed and it is an hard case if neither the visible nor invisible world neither God's works nor providences nor word can supply us with matter enough for our thoughts unless we feign extravagant conceits or repeat our old sins in our minds or tickle our selves with wild suppositions of things that never were
SERMONS Preached upon Several Occasions Never before Printed BY BENJAMIN CALAMY D. D. Late Vicar of St. Lawrence Jewry and one of His Majesty's Chaplains in Ordinary LONDON Printed by M. Flesher for Henry Dickenson and Richard Green Booksellers in Cambridge and are to be sold by Walter Davis in Amen-Corner 1687. To his Worthy Friends The INHABITANTS Of the PARISHES OF St. LAWRENCE JEWRY AND St. MARY MAGD MILK-STREET Gentlemen I Here present you with some Sermons of my dear Brother deceased your late if I may be allowed to say it worthy and faithfull Pastour in transcribing them for the Press I have not presumed to make any alteration or to correct so much as the plain errata's of the original Copy except onely some few and those such as any Reader almost would have observed and may well be supposed to have been occasioned onely through his haste in writing and if after all there happen to be any such still remaining in the print I hope you will blame neither him nor me since I pretend not to publish any discourses designed or fitted by him for the Press but onely those very Sermons which you your selves heard just as I found them in his notes If it be asked why these rather than others I answer these were the Sermons which I found had been preached by him in the most publick places to which however because they would not alone have made a just volume I thought it necessary to add two or three more and I doubt not but you will find them all plain and usefull and every way fitted to doe good And if it be asked why no more I think it will be time enough to answer that question when I shall have seen what acceptance these now published meet with in the world It was some time before I could persuade my self to comply with your desire in publishing these Sermons because I have sometimes heard my Brother express an unwillingness that any thing of his should be printed after his death but when I had once resolved to print them it took me no time to consider it was not left to my choice to whom I should present them seeing you had an undoubted title to them and all the world would have blamed me if I had not taken this occasion of acknowledging with all thankfulness your extraordinary respect to his person whilst alive and to his memory after his decease one particular instance of which I must by no means omit I mean your generous Present to his Widow a kindness which as I am confident he never expected even from you from whom he might have expected any thing that was kind so I dare say if he could have foreseen it would have pleased him more than any nay than all the other kindnesses he ever received from you In the words therefore of Naomi concerning Boaz Blessed be ye of the Lord who have not left off your kindness to the living and to the dead I am Gentlemen Your most obliged Servant James Calamy The CONTENTS SERM. I. Act. X. 38. Who went about doing good Page 1. SERM. II. 1 Cor. XI 29. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself not discerning the Lord's Body p. 37. SERM. III. Prov. I. 10. If sinners entice thee consent thou not p. 67. SERM. IV. Rom. XII 16. Be not wise in your own conceits p. 101. SERM. V. S. Matth. XV. 19. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts p. 135. SERM. VI. 1 Cor. XIII 4 5 6 7. Charity suffereth long and is kind charity envieth not charity vaunteth not it self is not puffed up doth not behave it self unseemly seeketh not her own is not easily provoked thinketh no evil rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth beareth all things believeth all things hopeth all things endureth all things p. 177. SERM. VII Numb XXIII 10. Let me die the death of the righteous and let my last end be like his p. 219. SERM. VIII S. Matth. V. 34. But I say unto you swear not at all p. 255. SERM. IX S. Matth. I. 21. And thou shalt call his name Jesus for he shall save his people from their sins p. 291. SERM. X. S. Mark VI. 12. And they went out and preached that men should repent p. 323. SERM. XI 1 Cor. XV. 35. But some man will say how are the dead raised up And with what body do they come p. 365. SERM. XII Job XXVII 5 6. God forbid that I should justifie you till I die I will not remove my integrity from me My righteousness I hold fast and will not let it go my heart shall not reproach me so long as I live p. 423. SERM. XIII 2 Tim. I. 10. And hath brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel p. 459. IMPRIMATUR Nov. 29. 1686. Ex Aedibus Lamb-hithanis Jo. Battely Rmo P rl ac D no D no Wilhelmo Archiep. antuariensi a Sacris domesticis A SERMON Preached at WHITE-HALL The First Sermon ACTS X. 38. Who went about doing good WHICH words give us a short account of our blessed Saviour's life here on earth it was spent in doing good They also teach us after what manner we his disciples ought to live in this World namely that we should omit no fair opportunity of doing good according to our several abilities and capacities I shall speak to them I. As referring to our Lord and Saviviour and describing his manner of life to us II. I shall consider them as prescribing to us our duty in imitation of his most glorious example who went about doing good I. As referring to our Lord and Saviour and describing his manner of life to us Now these words he went about doing good especially signifie these three things 1. That this was the chief business and employment of his life to doe good 2. That where he did not readily find he went about to seek objects of pity and compassion 3. This he constantly persevered in notwithstanding the foul ingratitude and malicious opposition his good works met with in the World 1. This was the chief business and employment of his life to doe good To propound to you the several instances of it were to give you an history and account of his whole life the four Gospels being nothing else but the authentick records of those good works Jesus of Nazareth did containing his excellent instructions his free reproofs the wise methods he used for the bettering and reforming men's minds together with those various kindnesses he shewed to their bodies and outward estates with a generosity and charity not to be parallell'd by any thing but the divine goodness it self I shall not therefore descend to particulars but onely take notice 1. That doing good was his ordinary daily employment 2. That to the same end tended all his extraordinary miraculous works and 3. That this was also the sum and substance of his Religion From all which it will easily appear that he made doing
us to recompence the trouble of his service what advantage will it be to me if I be cleansed from my sin Here is a deal of doe and bustle made about Conscience and Religion I will e'en venture my self as I see a thousand others do I shall scape as well as the rest of my company or acquaintance and the like God onely knows how many of us suffer such vile thoughts as these to lodge in our breasts 3. I might instance in our thinking and musing upon things innocent and harmless enough in themselves which yet become evil because of the seasons of them that is because we should then be thinking of better things for it is certainly lawfull to think of our friends relations temporal concerns but then it must be in due time and place they must not justle out all other thoughts nay we must wholly banish them our minds when we come into God's more especial presence at our prayers or at receiving of the Sacrament such thoughts are by no means to be admitted I speak not now of the sudden excursions of our thoughts even when the mind is about the most serious employments nor of the greater unruliness of our thoughts upon some particular accidents or occasions I mean onely our gross heedlesness in suffering them to wander to the ends of the earth whilst in pretence and shew we are engaged in worshipping that God who is a spirit and will be worshipped in spirit and truth What man that now hears me would be content that all the several things not onely that have suddenly come into his mind but which he hath voluntarily for a considerable time dwelt upon and entertained his mind with during this short exercise should be here openly exposed to the whole Congregation How many of us have been telling our money or counting over our bags or selling or buying in our shops or at our games and sports or ordering our houshold affairs or conversing with distant friends into how many Countries have some of us travelled how many persons have we visited how many several affairs have we dispatched to say no worse since we first this day began Divine Service 4 I might farther mention envious malitious fretting thoughts when our spirits are disquieted and vexed at the prosperity and happiness of other men who get the start of us and are preferred before us because they have a greater trade or are better loved and more respected than our selves Or 5. Troublesome anxious thoughts of future events multiplying to our selves endless fears and solicitudes distracting our minds with useless unnecessary cares for the things of this life perplexing our selves about things that do not at all concern us nor belong to us How many who want nothing they can reasonably desire render their lives strangely wretched and miserable onely by discontented and melancholy thoughts and ill-boding apprehensions their souls continually shaking with the pannick dread of improbable crosses and misfortunes creating to themselves great pain and confusion by tragical and idle jealousies of evils to come and by vexing at what they cannot help or avoid or 6. I might insist on haughty proud admiring thoughts of our selves How much time do many men spend in studying and considering their own worth and excellencies how do they please themselves with viewing their own endowments and accomplishments and imagine all others to have the same opinion of them they have of themselves that every one is speaking of their praise and that all that pass by them take notice of them and ask who they are I might instance in carking and projecting thoughts plotting and contriving for years and ages to come as if our houses were to continue for ever and our dwelling places to all generations I might instance in thoughts of presumption and security bidding our souls take their ease and satisfy themselves with those good things we have laid up for many years I have not time now to speak of vain unprofitable insignificant thoughts when as we ordinarily say we think of nothing that is not any thing we can give an account of when our thoughts have no dependence nor coherence one upon the other which I may call the nonsense of our thoughts they being like the conceits of madmen or like little boys in a School who as long as the Master is with them all regularly keep in their several places every one minding his proper work but as soon as his back is turned are all streight out of their places in disorder and confusion such are our thoughts when we forget to watch over them or command them but this is an endless subject III. The onely thing remaining is to name to you some plain practical rules for the right government of our thoughts 1. The first Rule shall be grounded upon the words of my Text Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts If they proceed from our hearts then we must look especially after them In the words therefore of Solomon Prov. 4.23 Keep thy heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life Thus the Prophet Jeremiah 4.14 Wash thy heart from wickedness how long shall vain thoughts lodge within thee and here our Saviour out of the heart proceed evil thoughts Now by heart in the Scripture phrase is most ordinarily meant the affections such as love hope fear joy desire and the like so that the plain sense of this place is that such as mens affections are such as the objects are upon which they are placed and towards which they are most carried out such will their thoughts be we shall certainly think most of those things that we love most that we fear most that we desire most Do we not find it thus in all other instances and were our affections but duely set upon divine and heavenly objects we should as constantly and as pleasantly think of them as the worldly or ambitious man doth of his honours and riches Were our hearts but once throughly affected with a sense of God and goodness and the things of the other world we should hardly find any room in our thoughts for meaner and inferiour objects such divine and spiritual matters would fill our souls and wholly employ and take up our minds If we once really loved God above any present enjoyment or temporal contentment it would be impossible that things sensible should exclude the thoughts of him out of our minds or that we could pass any considerable time without some converse with him and addresses to him Have we a business of such infinite moment depending upon those few hours that yet remain of our lives how few God onely knows and have we time and leisure to spend whole days and weeks in unprofitable useless fancies and dreams in the mean time forgetting the danger we are in and the onely necessary work we have to doe Here then must the foundation be laid in setting our affections upon things above in frequent considering the importance the
this he will take as a better expression of our gratitude than if we spent never so many days in verbal praises and acknowledgments of his love and bounty Let us all open our hearts and breasts to receive and entertain this great friend of mankind this glorious lover of our souls and suffer him to take full possession of them and there to place his throne and to reign within us without any rival or competitour and let us humbly beg of him that he would be pleased to finish that work in us which he came into the world about that by his bloud he would cleanse and wash us from all filthiness both of flesh and spirit that he would save us from our sins here and then we need not fear his saving us from everlasting destruction hereafter Which God of his infinite mercy grant to us all for the alone sake of our blessed Lord and Redeemer to whom with the Father c. A SERMON Preached on ASH-WEDNESDAY The Tenth Sermon St. MARK VI. 12. And they went out and preached that men should repent THOUGH repentance be a duty never out of season nay is indeed the work and business of our whole lives all of us being obliged every day to amend yet there are some particular times wherein we are more especially called upon to review our actions to humble our souls in God's presence to bewail our manifold transgressions and to devote our selves afresh to his service such are times of affliction either personal or publick when extraordinary judgments are abroad in the earth or are impendent over us or when we our selves are visited with any sickness or grievous calamity so also before we receive the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper we are then more strictly to examine our selves and renew our vows and resolutions of living better And to name no more the Church in all ages hath thought fit to set a-part some solemn times to call upon men more earnestly to repent and to seek God's face before it be too late such were the fasting-days before the feast of the resurrection or Easter and accordingly our Church as you have heard in the exhortation this day read to you doth at this time especially move us to earnest and true repentance that we should return unto our Lord God with all contrition and meekness of heart bewailing and lamenting our sinfull lives acknowledging and confessing our offences and seeking to bring forth worthy fruits of penance And such as now seriously set themselves to repent of all the sins they have committed using such abstinence as is necessary for the subduing the flesh to the spirit do certainly keep Lent far better than they who for so long time onely scrupulously abstain from all flesh and call filling themselves with the choicest fish sweet-meats and wine fasting I shall at this time suppose you sufficiently instructed in the nature of repentance it being one of the first principles of the doctrine of Christ as the Apostle to the Hebrews calls it Heb. 6.1 and also that you will readily acknowledge the indispensible necessity of it in order to the obtaining the pardon of your sins and eternal life and that which I now design is onely to set before you some if not the main hindrances and impediments that keep men from repentance and to endeavour to remove them and I shall discourse in order of these three of the many that might be mentioned I. Want of consideration II. The unsuccesfulness of some former attempts when men have resolved and begun to reform but have soon found all their good purposes and endeavours blasted and defeated this discourageth them from making any farther trials III. The hopes of long life and some better opportunity of repenting hereafter One of these is commonly the ground and cause of those mens remaining in an impenitent state who yet are convinced of the absolute necessity of repentance in order to their peace and happiness I. Want of consideration For could men but once be persuaded seriously and in good earnest as becometh reasonable creatures to consider their ways and actions patiently to attend to the dictates of their own minds and soberly to weigh the reasons and consequences of things their is no doubt to be made but Religion would every day gain more proselytes vertue and righteousness would prosper and flourish more in the world and men would soon become ashamed and afraid of nothing so much as vice and wickedness Of such infinite moment are the matters of Religion so mighty and strong are the arguments which it propounds to us so clear and convincing are the evidences it gives us of its truth and certainty so agreeable to our minds are all its principles so amiable and excellent its precepts so pleasant and advantageous is the practice of them that there seemeth nothing farther required to make all men in love with it but onely that they would open their eyes to behold its beauty that they would not stop their ears against all its most alluring charms Let men but once throughly ponder the folly and mischief of sin with the benefits and rewards of piety and an holy life let them but compare their several interests together and look sometimes beyond things present unto that state wherein they are to live for ever and use their understandings about these matters as they do about other affairs and it is impossible they should enjoy any tolerable peace or ease without a carefull and strict provision for another world Vice oweth its quiet possession of mens minds onely to their stupidity and inadvertency to their carelesness and inconsideration it reigns undisturbedly onely in ignorant secure unthinking spirits but streight loseth all its force and power when once men begin to look about them and bethink themselves what they are doing and whither they are going Could we but once gain thus much of wicked men to make a stand and pause a little and to cease but a while from the violent pursuit of their pleasures and fairly reflect upon their lives and see what is the fruit of all their past follies and consider the end and issue of these things could we I say but obtain thus much we might spare most of our pains spent in persuading them to repent their own thoughts would never suffer them to be in quiet till they had done it Let us but once begin to deliberate and examine and we are sure on which side the advantage will lie sin and wickedness can never stand a trial let our own reasons be but judges it hates nothing so much as to be brought to the light A vitious man however he may brave it in the world yet can never justify or approve himself to his own free thoughts and however he may plead for sin before others yet he can never answer the objections his own conscience would bring against it would he but once dare impartially to consider them But the misery of wicked men is that they
souls such a lively apprehension of it as that they must offer the greatest force and violence to their own minds before they can bring themselves to disbelieve it nay I believe let the most resolved sinner labour and struggle never so hard with himself to subdue and extirpate this natural persuasion of another life yet after all his pains he will not be able wholly to root out all thoughts and fears of it This shall suffice for the first sort of persons those who doubt of or deny this great fundamental of Religion I proceed now II. To those who profess to believe this immortal life but yet doe it not really and heartily And this I fear is the case of the generality of Christians amongst us For it may well be enquired what is the reason that this promise of eternal life than which there cannot be a greater hath yet so little power upon mens minds doth so little move their affections what makes their endeavours after it so faint and languid Are any of those good things which men here court and seek after so desirable and considerable as the glories and joys of Heaven or are there any evils in this world that can vie terrours with Hell this cannot be pretended since all the good or evil things of this world can onely make us happy or miserable for a short time for this life at most which is not to be named with living for ever either in unspeakable happiness or misery Whence is it then that Christians are so strangely cold and indifferent about these most weighty things of another life as if they were of no concernment to them After all our search we must resolve it into one of these two causes Either that men whatever they profess do not heartily believe this Doctrine or else that they do not duly consider it 1. Most men whatever they profess or pretend though they dare not renounce or deny it yet are not heartily and thoroughly persuaded of the certainty of this future state Their understandings were never rationally convinced of the truth of it and so the belief of it is not firmly rooted and setled in their minds Would but God Almighty be gratiously pleased to indulge to us a sight of those future glories and miseries which he hath revealed in the Gospel this we imagine would certainly prevail for the conviction and reformation of all men Would he give us though but a short and transient view of that blessed place where himself dwells that we might but for a few moments behold the joys and triumphs of those happy souls that are admitted into his beatifick presence or would he but open the gates of Hell and once suffer us to look into those dismal receptacles of impure spirits that so we might be eye and ear witnesses of their grievous torments and horrid despair such a sight as this we doubt not would presently change us all and make us whatever God requires us to be But God's ways are not as our ways nor his thoughts as our thoughts He governs men in a method suited to their reasonable natures and hath given us such assurances of another life as are abundantly sufficient to satisfy and convince the understandings of men but yet may be resisted by those who have no mind or are resolved not to believe it For there could have been no trial of men no discrimination made between the wise and considering and the foolish and wicked if the rewards of Religion had been present or exposed to our senses God will not force a faith upon us as the sight of these things would do but will have it to be a matter of choice and an instance of vertue in us No praise is due to them who believe onely what they see Such cannot be said to believe God but their own eyes but rather blessed are they saith our Saviour who have not seen and yet have believed God hath denied us the sight of these things to prove us and try whether we dare trust his promises and threatnings Our belief therefore of this invisible world if we would have it effectual for the amendment of our hearts and lives must be so strong and powerfull as to serve instead of ocular and sensible demonstration Whence the Apostle calls it Heb. 1.11 the evidence of things not seen that so the things unseen which God hath revealed to us may have the same effect upon us not as to degree but the same real effect as if the other world were always visible to us Now our belief of any thing must necessarily be stronger or weaker according as the evidence is upon which it is believed and that not onely as the evidence is in it self but as it is perceived by us For however evident a thing may be in it self yet if it doth not appear so to us our belief of it must be very uncertain and wavering because it is groundless Since then the truths or principles of Religion which relate to another life are not things to be seen or felt we can be assured of them onely by undeniable arguments and testimonies about which we must use our reasons and our discerning and judging faculties before we can understand the force of them or be really convinced by them Not that there is any great difficulty in apprehending these arguments but yet there is required such attention of mind and serious thoughts about them and a frequent revolving over the proofs and evidences of a future state with such diligence and carefull examination of them as all men ordinarily use about other matters wherein they are greatly concerned to find out the truth But now is any thing more plain than that the generality of Christians who profess these Doctrines of Religion are so far from being rationally by the force of arguments convinced of the truth of them that very few amongst them ever so much as set themselves to enquire into the reasons of their belief They owe their faith solely to education prepossession instruction and example of others take it up without any consideration of the grounds and reasons of it and is it then at all wonderfull that this faith should have but very little force or power on mens minds which is thus received without any rational conviction of their understandings which is thus weakly founded and supported Any little blast will overthrow that house which is thus built upon the sands I deny not but that a belief thus taken up upon trust and confirmed by a long and customary profession of it may be so strong and a man may be so resolved in it as that he will never stir from it But then I say this is not the faith which our Saviour requires or which God will accept of in those who are capable of a better and a Mahometan born and bred at Constantinople hath as good reason for his belief of the Alcoran as such a one hath for the belief of Christianity Such a