not our Relations or our Friends onely but also all Mankind and to do good to all without exception though especially to the Houshold of Faith to good men Nay our Saviour hath laid a strict charge upon us not to exclude our malicious enemies from our love that is of benevolence but to pray for them that despitefully use us and to Bless those that Curse us Which Law as harshly as it sounds to Carnal Persons they themselves cannot but acknowledge that what it enjoyneth is heroically and highly vertuous Secondly The Christian Precepts require the most Intensive Holiness Not onely Negative but Positive as was now intimated that is Not onely the forbearance of what is evil but the performance also of what is good Not onely Holiness of Actions and Words but likewise of Affections and Thoughts The worship of God with the Spirit as well as with the outward man a Holy frame and habit of mind as well as a holy life They forbid cherishing sin in the heart as well as practising it in the Conversation They make Iusting after a Woman Adultery as well as the Gross Act of Uncleanness They make Malice Murther as well as Killing They forbid Coveting no less than defrauding and being in love with this worlds goods as much as getting them by unlawful means And I shall digress so far as to say That there is infinite Reason that Thoughts and the inward workings of mens souls should be restrained by Laws upon these two accounts First Because Irregular Thoughts and Affections are the immediate Depravers of Mens Natures and therefore it is as necessary in order to the design of making men Holy that these should be forbidden as that evil Actions and Words should But suppose this were otherwise Yet Secondly Laws made against evil words and Actions would signifie very little if men were left at liberty as to their Thoughts and Affections It would be to very little purpose to forbid men to do evil if they might think and love it For where the sparks of Sin are kept glowing in the Soul how can they be kept from breaking out into a Flame in the Life From the abundance of the Heart the Mouth will speak and the Hands act But to proceed The Precepts of the Gospel command us not onely to perform good Actions but also to do them after a right manner with right ends c. or in one word from good Principles Whatsoever we do to do it heartily as to the Lord and not as to men To be fervent in Spirit in our service of God To do all to the glory of God To be holy as he that hath called us is Holy in all manner of Conversation To be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect Which Precepts shew that we ought to imitate him not onely in the matter of our actions but likewise in the qualifications of them Among which that which I said is Essential to true Holiness is a principal one namely To do good actions for those Reasons which moved God to enjoyn them and I adde which make it pleasing to him to perform them himself viz. because they are either in themselves and upon their own account excellent worthy and most fit to be done or are made so to be by some Circumstance Our whole Duty to God and our Neighbour as our Saviour hath told us is comprehended in the love of them But the love of God required by him is a most Intense love we are commanded to love him with all the Heart and Soul mind and strength And that of our Neighbour which he hath made our duty is such as for the kind of it is like the love which we bear to our selves such as will not permit us to wrong him in his good name any more than in his estate or person such as will not allow us rashly to speak or so much as think ill of him such as will cause us to put the best constructions on those actions of his that are capable of various interpretations c. And for the degree such as will make us willing to lay down our very lives for him that is for the promoting of his eternal happiness To summe up all together We are commanded to adde to our faith vertue to vertue knowledge to knowledge temperance to temperance patience to patience Godliness to Godliness Brotherly Kindness and to Brotherly kindness Charity To behave our selves in all respects towards our Creatour as becometh his Creatures and those which are under unspeakable obligations to him Towards one another as becometh those that are indued with the same Common nature and according to the diverse relations engagements and other Circumstances we stand in each to other and Towards our selves according as the Dignity of our Natures require we should In short whatsoever things are true whatsoever things are honest Whatsoever things are just whatsoever things are pure whatsoever things are lovely whatsoever things are of good report whatsoever things have vertue and praise in them are the objects of the Christian Precepts and by them recommended to us Let any one read but our Saviours incomparable Sermon upon the Mount the 12 th to the Romans and the third Chapter of the Epistle to the Colossians and well consider them and it will be strange should he find it difficult to assent to the truth of that Proposition Even Trypho himself in the Dialogue betwixt Iustin Martyr and him confessed that the Precepts contained in the Book called the Gospel are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Great and Admirable He saith indeed that they are so admirable as that he suspected them not to be by Humane Nature Observable but in that he spake not unlike to himself that is a prejudiced and Carnal Iew. If it be now objected that notwithstanding what hath been said concerning the Christian Precepts recommending the most elevated Vertue to be practised by us it is acknowledged by all Sober Christians that they are not to be understood in so high a sense as to require of us indefective and unspotted Holiness or at least that our Saviour will accept of and reward that Holiness which is far short of Perfect and therefore he can be no such Great Friend to it as hath been affirmed The answer is very easie and obvious viz. That our Saviour's not rigidly exacting such a degree of Holiness as amounts to Perfection proceeds from hence that the attainment of it is in this state impossible to us and therefore it is not to be attributed to his liking or allowance of the least Sin but to his Special grace and good will to fallen Mankind Nay moreover it proceeds from his passionate desire that we may be as pure and holy as our unhappy Circumstances will admit he well knowing that should he declare that nothing short of Perfection shall be accepted at our hands he would make us desperate and take the most effectual Course to cause us to
if multitudes of those which lay a great claim to it should be as Excellent a Religion as it is little the better nay and in some respects even the worse for it And on the Contrary it is not to be in the least doubted That nothing can be so available to the introducing of a better state of things the abating and perfectly quenching our intemperate Heats the regulating and bringing into due order our wild exorbitances the governing and restraining our extravagant and Heady Zeal the induing us with becoming tempers sober thoughts and good spirits as would the thorow-belief the due minding and digesting of this one Principle And for this Reason I am not able to imagine how time may be spent to better purpose than in endeavouring to possess mens minds with it And to Contribute thereunto what it can is the Business of this Treatise Whereof these following are the General Heads which shall be insisted on with all possible perspicuity and convenient brevity viz. 1. First A plain Demonstration that True Holiness is the Special Design of Christianity 2. Secondly An Account how it comes to pass that our Saviour hath laid such Stress upon this as to prefer it before all other 3. Thirdly An Improvement of the whole Discourse in diverse and most of them Practical Inserences SECT I. That True Holiness is the Design of Christianity plainly Demonstrated CHAP. I. The Nature of True Holiness Described IN order to this Demonstration it is necessary to be premised That the Holiness which is the Design of the Religion of Christ Jesus and is by various Forms of Speech express'd in the Gospel as by Godliness Righteousness Conversion and Turning from Sin Partaking of a Divine Nature with many other is such as is so in the most proper and highest sense Not such as is Subjected in any thing without us or is made ours by a meer External application or is onely Partial But is Originally seated in the Soul and Spirit is a Complication and Combination of all Vertues and hath an influence upon the whole man as shall hereafter be made to appear and may be described after this manner It is so sound and healthful a Complexion of Soul as maintains in life and vigour whatsoever is Essential to it and suffers not any thing unnatural to mix with that which is so by the force and power whereof a man is enabled to behave himself as becometh a Creature indued with a principle of Reason keeps his Supreme Faculty in its Throne brings into due Subjection all his Inferiour ones his sensual Imagination his Brutish Passions and Affections It is the Purity of the Humane Nature engaging those in whom it resides to demean themselves sutably to that state in which God hath placed them and not to act disbecomingly in any Condition Circumstance or Relation It is a Divine or God-like Nature causing an hearty approbation of and an affectionate compliance with the Eternal Laws of Righteousness and a behaviour agreeable to the Essential and Immutable differences of Good and Evil. But to be somewhat more express and distinct though very brief This Holiness is so excellent a Principle or Habit of Soul as causeth those that are possessed of it I mean so far forth as it is vigorous and predominant in them First To perform all Good and Virtuous Actions whensoever there is occasion and Opportunity and ever Carefully to abstain from those that are of a Contrary Nature Secondly To do the one and avoid the other from truly generous Motives and Principles Now in order to the right understanding of this it is to be observ'd That Actions may become Duties or Sins these two ways First As they are Complyances with or Transgressions of Divine Positive Precepts These are the Declarations of the Arbitrary Will of God whereby He restrains our liberty for great and wise reasons in things that are of an indifferent nature and absolutely considered are neither Good nor Evil And so makes things not good in themselves and capable of becoming so onely by reason of certain Circumstances Duties and things not evil in themselves Sins Such were all the Injunctions and Prohibitions of the Ceremonial Law and some few such we have under the Gospel Secondly Actions are made Duties or Sins as they are agreeable or opposite to the Divine Moral Laws That is Those which are of an Indispensable and Eternal obligation which were first written in mens hearts and Originally Dictates of Humane Nature or necessary Conclusions and Deductions from them By the way I take it for granted and I cannot imagine how any Considerative supposing he be not a very Debauch'd person can in the least doubt it That there are First Principles in Morals as well as in the Mathematicks Metaphysicks c. I mean such as are self-evident and therefore not capable of being properly demonstrated as being no less knowable and easily assented to than any Proposition that may be brought for the proof of them Now the Holiness we are describing is such as engageth to the performance of the Former sort of Duties and forbearance of the Former sort of Sins for this Reason primarily because it pleaseth Almighty God to command the one and forbid the other Which Reason is founded upon this certain Principle That it is most highly becoming all Reasonable Creatures to obey God in every thing and as much disbecoming them in any thing to disobey him And secondarily upon the account of the Reasons if they are known for which God made those Laws And the Reasons of the Positive Laws contained in the Gospel are declared of which I know not above three that are purely So viz. That of going to God by Christ and the Institutions of Baptism and the Lord's Supper Again This Holiness is such as engageth to the performance of the Duties and forbearance of the Sins of the second kind not meerly because it is the Divine pleasure to publish Commands of those and Prohibitions of these but also and especially for the Reasons which moved God to make those Publications namely because those are Good in themselves and infinitely becoming Creatures indued with Understanding and Liberty of Will and these are no less evil in their own Nature and unworthy of them That man that would forbear gratefully to acknowledge his Obligations to God or to do to his Neighbor as he would that he should do to him c. on the one hand and would not stick at dishonouring his Maker or abusing his Fellow Creatures in any kind c. on the other if there were no written Law of God for the former and against the latter doth not those Duties nor forbears these Sins by virtue of an Holy nature that informs and acts him but is induced thereunto by a meer Animal principle and because it is his interest so to do And the Reason is clear because no one that doth thus onely in regard of the Written Precepts and Prohibitions of the Divine
us in the performance of Holy Actions It is the making the Gospel and all means effectual to the Renovation and Reformation of our Hearts and Lives If it be objected that we read of two Miracles namely his cursing the Fig-tree and sending the Devils into the Herd of Swine which are so far from containing any Lessons of Morality or tending to the least good that they seem to be on the contrary onely of an Evil and Mischievous Consequence I answer That as for our Saviour's Cursing the Fig-tree that bare leaves and had no fruit on it it was a most significant document unto Men that their Profession which is answerable to bearing Leaves must be joyned with a sutable Practice and have fruit accompanying or 't will be nothing worth And Fruitless Persons were taught by that Emblem what they must look for if they continued so But the most pregnant meaning of it is as the Learned Doctor Hammond hath shewn that the Jews which were just like that Leafie-tree without fruit at that time on it a meer Professing People were to expect speedy destruction from him on supposition that they persisted in their unfruitfulness It is not once to be imagined that this which our Saviour did to the Fig-tree was any other than Emblematical for no one that deserveth but the Name of a Man would be guilty of such a piece of Impotent Revenge as to wreak his anger on a Senseless tree that was not upon the account of its barrenness or any thing else in a capacity of being faulty or blame worthy And besides it is mentioned in the story as related by S. Mark Chap. 11. 13. that the time of figs was not yet Or it was not then a season for Figs that is it was not a good Fig-year which is given as the cause of the Tree's being at that time without fruit And it seems to me very probable that that clause was purposely added that it might be the more easily observed that our Saviour's Curse was not designed to be terminated in the Tree but that it was pronounced against it onely as it was an apt Resemblance of a Professor that is barren of good works So that our Blessed Lord who was so meek and forbearing towards wicked and the worst of men and likewise so very gracious and kind to them could not be supposed to have been at all much less so very angry with an innocent Vegetable as to destroy it for no other reason than that he once found no fruit upon it but it is evident that he onely took hold of this opportunity to do as I now said So that this Miracle was designed no less than the forementioned to be Instructive to the spectators of it and to all that should afterwards hear or read the story concerning it which none could be so dull as not to understand that had but the least knowledge of him And as for that other viz. his sending the Devils which he had ejected out of a Poor Man into a Herd of Swine and by that means causing them to run violently down a steep hill into the Sea and to perish there We read First that our Saviour did not command them but onely suffered them as 't is expressed both by S. Mark and S. Luke at their own request to take possession of those Beasts Nor doth the saying unto them Go which is in S. Matthew's Relation of the Story speak any more than a bare Permission seeing their beseeching him to suffer them to go is there expressed as the occasion of his so speaking So that the Mischief that was done the Devils onely were the Authors or the proper Cause of Nor secondly could our Saviour permit this either to make sport or to please himself with the Destruction of the poor Creatures for both these were infinitely below him and perfectly Contrary to the Seriousness of his Spirit and Goodness of his Nature but there were very weighty and great reasons why he should thus do As first To expose the Hateful Nature of the Devils and to give men to understand and take notice how extremely they delight in doing Mischief which it doth greatly concern the wellfare of our Souls both not to be ignorant of and well to Consider By this experiment it appeared that those unclean Spirits are so maliciously disposed and so bent upon mischievousness as that rather than want objects to vent their Spite on they will be glad to do it upon Bruit Beasts But especially the Devils most inveterate and deadly hatred to man-kind was hereby shewed in that when they were no longer permitted to do them a greater they were glad of an opportunity to make them the objects of a less mischief And to procure to them what hurt they were able in their Goods when they ceased to be in a Capacity of tormenting them in their Minds and Bodies 2ly By this means there was a discovery made what a multitude there were of them that possessed that one or at most according to S. Matthew two persons insomuch as that those which were cast out of them were enough to actuate the Bodies of a great herd of Swine and consisting of no fewer than about two thousand as S. Mark saith and none could tell but he that cast them out of the men and suffered them to enter the swine how very many each of these might be possessed with This was of great importance to be known in order to the understanding of the Greatness of the Miracle that was wrought in behalf of the Miserable wretches and to their being made sensible of the exceeding vastness of the deliverance that by their Saviour was brought unto them For though the Devils declared that their name was Legion to signifie that they were a very mighty multitude Yet what they said was too incredible to be received upon the bare word of those which from the very beginning were always Liars but this permission of our Saviour gave a plain demonstration that in this saying of theirs they spake the truth Thirdly These Persons were by this means most effectually taught how infinitely they were obliged to the Divine Providence in not suffering this huge number of Fiends all the time they had possession of them to destroy them when as they no sooner entred into the herd of Swine but immediately they dispatch'd them all Fourthly This permission was also a just punishment to the Gaderens to whom those Beasts belonged who as afterward it appeared were a generation of Covetous Muck-worms and preferred their Swine before their Souls and so likewise it was as effectual and proper a course as could well be taken for their Reformation Several other Reasons of this action might be instanced in but these nay any one of them may well suffice So that it is apparent that this Miracle was so far from being a Mischievous one or of no use that there was scarcely any one wrought by our Saviour that is so pregnant
that all that have the conduct of Souls committed to them should do the like S. Paul exhorted Timothy first to take heed to himself and then to the Doctrine and the former advice was of no whit less necessity and importance than was the latter For as woful experience assureth us a Minister of a careless and loose life let his parts and ability in preaching be never so great nay though he should behave himself never so faithfully in the Pulpit and be zealous against the very vices he himself is guilty of which would be very strange if he should must needs do more hurt incomparably than he can do good And though as some of them will tell them it is the Peoples duty to do as they say and not as they do yet is there nothing more impossible than to teach them effectually that Lesson Mankind as we had before occasion to shew is mightily addicted to imitation and Examples especially those of Governors and Teachers have a greater force upon people ordinarily than have Instructions but chiefly bad Examples in regard of their natural proneness to vice than good Instructions Had not the Apostles expressed as great a care of what they did as of what they said how they lived as how they preached Christianity would without doubt have been so far from prevailing and getting ground as it hath done that it could not have long survived its Blessed Author if it had not bid adiue to the world with him Most men do what we can will judge of our Sermons by our Conversations and if they see these bad they will not think those good nor the Doctrines contained in them practicable seeing they have no better effect upon those that preach them And besides no man will be thought to be serious and in good earnest in pressing those duties upon others which he makes no conscience of performing himself Nay every man's judgement in Divine things may warrantably be suspected that is of a wicked and vicious Life And those that are conscious to themselves that they are not able to pass a judgement upon Doctrines may not be blamed if they question their Minister's Orthodoxy while they observe in him any kind of Immorality and see that he lives to the satisfaction of any one Lust. For the promise of knowing the Truth is made onely to such as continue in Christ's words that is that are obedient to his Precepts And I adde that such a one 's talks of Heaven and Hell are like to prevail very little upon his Auditors or to be at all heeded by the greatest part of them while they consider that the Preacher hath a soul to save as well as they And therefore the love that they bear to their lusts with the Devil's help will easily perswade them that either these things are but mere sictions or else that the one may be obtained and the other escaped upon far easier terms than he talks of But as for those few in whom the sense of true Vertue and Piety have made so deep an impression as that they have never the slighter opinion of the necessity thereof in regard of their Minister's wicked Example the prejudice that they cannot but conceive against him renders his discourses insipid and unaffecting to them and so they ordinarily take all opportunities to turn their backs upon him and at length quite forsake him And then if they are not as understanding as well meaning people are too easily drawn away from all other Churches when they have left their own and become a prey to some demure and fairly pretending Sectary And I am very certain from my own observation that no one thing hath so conduced to the prejudice of our Church of England and done the separating parties so much service as the scandalous lives of some that exercise the Ministerial Function in her The late Excellent Bishop of Down and Connar hath this memorable passage in a Sermon he preached to the University at Dublin If ye become burning shining Lights if ye do not detain the Truth in unrighteousness if ye walk in light and live in the Spirit your Doctrine will be true and that truth will prevail But if you live wickedly scandalously every little Schismalick will put you to shame draw Disciples after him and abuse your flocks and feed them with Coloâ—…ynths and Hemlock and place Heresie in the chair appointed for your Religion But to hasten to the dispatch of this unpleasant Topick wicked ministers are of all other ill-livers the most scandalous for they lay the greatest stumbling block of any whatsoever before mens souls and what our Saviour said of the Scribes and Pharisees may in an especial manner be applyed to them viz. that they will neither enter into heaven themselves nor yet suffer them that are entering to go in so far are they from saving themselves and those that hear them But I would to God such would well lay to heart those sad words of our Saviour Luke 17. 1 2. It is impossible but that offences will come but woe unto him through whom they come it were better for him that a Milstone were hanged about his neck and he cast into the Sea c. And those words are not more effectual to scare them than are these following of a Heathen viz. Tully concerning vicious Philosophers to shame them into a better life saith he in his Tusculan Questions the second book Quotusquisque Philosophorunâ—… invenitur qui sit ita moratus c. What one of many Philosophers is there who so behaves himself and is of such a mind and life as Reason requireth which accounteth his Doctrine not a boast of Science but a law of life which obeyeth himself and is governed by his own precepts We may see some so light and vain that it would have been better for them to be wholly ignorant and never to have learn d any thing others so covetous of money thirsty of praise and honour and many such slaves to their lusts ut cum eorum vitâ mirabiliter pugnet oratio That their lives do marvellously contradict their Doctrine Quod quidem mihi videtur esse turpissimum c. Which to me seems the most filthy and abominable of all things For as he which professing himself a Grammarian speaks barbarously and who being desirous to be accounted a Musician sings scurvily is so much the more shame-worthy for his being defective in that the knowledge and skill of which he arrogates to himself so a Philosopher in ratione vitae peccans miscarrying in his manners is in this respect the baser and more wretched Creature that in the office of which he will needs be a Master he doth amiss artemque vitae professus delinquit in vitâ and prosessing the art of well-living or of teaching others to live well is faulty and miscarrieth in his own life Could this excellent Heathen thus inveigh against wicked Philosophers what Satyre can be tart and