such as yet leave all to him to do so far that he were a Fanatic as to worldly interests who without endeavoring in the use of means should look that God would work out his ends for him give bread without sowing nourish without eating notwithstanding that Scripture dos ascribe to God the intire efficacy shall the like expressions in the order of grace leave nothing for the Christian to do especially when the same endeavors are commanded him too I know not whether these expressions made to us to turn our felves c. do make more Pelagians that deny all need of grace or else ascrib'd to God make more deny all need of our endeavors even of our praiers or of any thing but more dependance waiting for his season Whereas indeed we are to work because he works and gives means to enable us and not to use the means he gives us is to temt him 't is to refuse Salvation by the ordinary methods of his workings expect new miracle 't is to be that fanatic that dos look to live without food 'T is gospel truth to say it is not the direction of Gods laws can rule us nor his promises allure us nor his threats affright us but his Holy spirit must direct and rule our hearts Coll. 19. Sun aft Trin. and he must write his laws there Heb. 8. 10. and he must give us a heart to love and dread him To affirm the other is heresy and to say that a sinner can dispose himself for his conversion or that the outward means can by their own moral efficacy turn a sinner is an heresy against grace but grace where it hath not been too far resisted still accompanies the means Gods word is the ministration of the Spirit and of rightousness and his word and Spirit go together Acts 7. 51. for to resist one is to resist the other And if the heart be not by evil education bad converse and example great advancers these of reprobation deprav'd either hardened or made dissolute or overgrown with principles that choak all God's good seed that can be sown in it those means so assisted call attention work some disposition to regard them The ordinariest means are blest to that end Prov. 23. 14. thou shalt heal him with the rod and deliver his soul from hell Yea they do it tho the force of good education have been broken when these gracious means find congruous soft seasons lay hold on occasions of calamity or such like and they move the inclinations and so make soile prepar'd for God's husbandry And since experience shews us mere Gentile breeding and converse if there be but care and parts can temper take off at least moderate all insolence and passion make men generous and meek and humble decent as to all behavior towards God and man not one ill vicious habit in their practise but an universal probity upon the face of their whole life why therefore may not those beginnings of God's workings which he never fails to carry on for his part do as much And if they but keep off ill habits and by constant practise weaken inclinations to them here 't is plain that God's means of grace find not so much resistance and that which in another state of mind would not have been sufficient there becomes effectual especially when with them that work he works and as S. James says gives more grace to them that use it and diverts temtations enables to do all things thro Christ that strengthens O that the Christian would but try and strive to use his means as heartily as the Child of this world It is because men are not so industrious for salvation answer not the motions of God's Spirit but neglect grace given when the worldly man is indefatigable in and therefore is wiser in order to his end Yet in relation to their proper means in order to their several ends I must confess the worldling does observe the rules of prudence better the true child of this world for the most part chuseth the prescribed known waies to his end and do's use the general means and methods of the world gets into a profession or a place in which if he use false arts they are trades now mysteries well taught and known there are few adventure on untrodden paths Projectors seldom thrive But the generality of Christians who would gladly reconcile God and this world life hereafter with the being well here do not therefore acquiesce in Gods means only but make Principles by-Rules of Conscience which they guide themselves by on occasions and have taught themselves to think they are safe waies and such as do not lead them from salvation It is too well known what one sort of men have attemted in this case how by new-rais'd principles of Probability and directing the intention they have reconcil'd all villany with Christian life made it safe yea meritorious to lye forswear and bear malice to defame revenge by either force or treachery rebel massacre drown whole Nations in their own bloud depose or murder Kings But passing these as monsters in Religion honest heathen humanity there are pretenders to some tolerable regard of God and vertue who on occasions fit their conscience to their convenience Besides S. Pauls good Conscience void of offence to God and man there is one of gentility of Politics of Honour of friendship and a conscience for persons times and places one of compliance and one of the mode one for the interests of a Profession and the like I might have nam'd some quite the other way the Conscience that is rul'd by rouling changeable Principles which play fast and loose now strains at Gnats and now can swallow camels or a Conscience of caprice that sets it self strong suddain heats of nice observances somtimes in little things somtimes in greater but is firm in nothing But waving these and that for Politics too which is govern'd wholly by reasons of State which is too nice and high for my consideration the man of honor makes himself a Principle which will allow him to require reparations for the least affront so call'd for otherwise what Gentleman would be of Christ's Religion he can right himself with sword and pistol and with a good Conscience The conscience for friendship is like that of Chilon whom I mention'd to you hath a by-rule And indeed who is there almost that hath the same sentiments or laws for equity and justice in his own cause or the cause of those he is most concern'd for as in others They mesure not by the same standard do not think in conscience the same case is like when it makes against as when it serves a turn As for persons so for times We have one conscience for the time of health and one for sickness Things do not equally seem good or evil in their different seasons And as for places ut vestitum sic sententiam aliam domesticam aliam forensem saith the
no such command and it were not my duty for till then I knew nothing of it this alone therefore do's propose and apply duty to us and consequently whether that which it proposes be my duty really in it self or no yet I must needs look upon it as so having no other direction imaginable what to do or forbear but what my conscience some way instructed tells me God or my Governors have commanded or forbid me So that if I am resolv'd in my mind of the sinfulness and obliquity of an action propos'd tho really the thing be innocent yet to me in my present circumstance 't will be utterly unlawful and tho the action be innocent the agent will be guilty 2. That God hath plac'd the conscience in us as the only next and immediate rule of all our actions according to which they are to be directed which if they be not they are faulty as every thing that swerves from its rule is not right tho what I have said will sufficiently prove yet Scripture do's confirm when it saies Rom. 14. 23. Whatsoever is not of faith is sin that is to say whatsoever is contrary to the perswasion of lawfulness that is in other words contrary to conscience is sin whatsoever he do's as long as he thinks in conscience he should not do it he sins whether the thing be sin or no as that was no sin of which he there spake And reason good for we are so far honest hearted lovers of God as we embrace that which our hearts are really possest is his service and our duty and hate the contrary that is as we follow our conscience conscience being nothing but the persuasion that this is duty which if we go against 't is sure we like and follow that which in our thoughts is vicious and wicked be it what it will in it self to us 't is so 't is sure the inclinations and the actions pursue vice when they pursue that which they cannot look upon but as vice Conscience therefore is the rule from which 't is sin to recede 'T is with fair pretence to reason said that nothing can be a rule which is it self crooked and irregular That which is strait is indeed said to be index sui obliqui and having justified its own rectitude becomes qualified to be a test of right and wrong in others For certainly if the man knew what God's Law do's require of him in that case the conscience do's not erre if he do not know what God's word do's require how can he follow it against that which his conscience tells him God requires And it is certain if the man should suspend his action and have not reason to act according to his erring conscience he never can have reason to act according to a conscience well-inform'd not when it tells him God is to be lov'd for it is sure his conscience do's as much propose the error as his duty as it do's the truth the man as really believes the one is to be don as the other and hath no reason to make difference and therefore if at any time he must follow his conscience he must alwaies and it will be sin to act against it be it what it will But then you 'l hope it will excuse to act according to it Oh no alas for that 's the second thing in this case of erring conscience if a man act according to his conscience he sins too if he act against the Law of God Scripture will furnish me with several examples and proofs of this and 't is a doctrine worth the taking notice of it having prov'd to so many persons a plea for actions otherwise abominable they follow'd their conscience 't was it may be mistake in judgment but 't was uprightness of heart sincerity of conscience Now to take off this color which I shall do with all imaginable plainess Our Savior John 16. 2. foretells to his Disciples they shall put you out of their Synagogues yea the time will come that whosoever killeth you will think that he doth God service 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he do's offer God an oblation or worship shall think it not only lawful but acceptable to God and of the nature of a Sacrifice which propitiates for other offences to put you to death See here a conscience bravely glos'd when the error look'd like Religion and Attonement a color not at all strange to our daies in such another case and yet these Jews that did so for of them he speaks were given up to the direst punishments that ever any nation did groan under Of the same Jews S. Paul saies Rom. 10. 2. I bear them record that they have a zeal of God but not according to knowledg that is I must testify of them that they are very many of them great zealots for their Law as that which is commanded them by God and so in their way and heart zealous to have God obeied only for want of knowledg they are mistaken in their zeal Here is strong conscience granted in these Jews and that built up upon a Law of God then indeed outdated which yet thro a zealous earnestness they were ignorant of but yet the following this zeal and conscience was plagued with total induration of of that people c. 11. 8 9 10. Nor was this S. Pauls heat against that persecuting nation but that Apostle do's more plainly yet and home to our matter say of himself Acts 23. 1. I have liv'd in all good conscience before God until this day I have all my life long even when I was a defender of the Mosaical Law against Christ's reformation acted sincerely and uprightly according to my conscience and again 2 Tim. 1. 3. I thank God whom I serve from my forefathers with a pure conscience i. e. whom I have obeied sincerely all my time even when thro ignorance I persecuted the Christian faith doing according to the dictate of my conscience and as I was perswaded I ought to do And now if conscience will excuse there was enough of that a good conscience and a pure conscience and will his fiery persecutions nâ—w by vertue of his conscience be Christned holy zeal shall the pure conscience make his bloudy hands to be undefil'd Oh no 't was Blasphemy and injury and persecution for all 't was conscience 1 Tim. 1. 13. I was before a blasphemer c. and notwithstanding I did it all in the uprightness and sincerity of my heart I am the chief of sinners v. 15. And let us not suppose these aggravations were laid on by S. Paul upon himself because of his unbelief that that was the only thing that gave guilt to his actions and that we thro faith and assurance shall escape if we do such gross actions out of an erring conscience For on the contrary S. Paul do's bring his unbelief not as the Aggravation but the Apology of his crimes he pleads that for himself v. 13. and he finds
our own doings and our sins pull down calamities or mischiefs on us so far somtimes as to scare us with the landshape of their after expectations having thrown us on the brink of destruction laid us at the gates of the grave at the very mouth of Hell where if God had left us we had bin sealed up determin'd to the irreversible retributions of our iniquities but he interpos'd to snatch us thence and set us further off so to enlarge our time to be accepted in and to lengthen the day of salvation to us I challenge every man's experience to attest this there is no man but his heart heart witness to it and to this too how when we have thrown our selves upon temtation he is pleas'd to blunt or turn aside the edge of it how often have we put our selves into those circumstances wherein thousands have miscarried as to all considerations both of this world and the other And inevitably we had don so but that he was pleased to temper the malignity of the occurrences and divert the mischief merely that he might preserve us for his opportunities It is for this he watches over us as he tells Jeremy 31. 28. when as God knows we are so far from importuning him to do it that we think not of him nor of our selves do not so much as ask his cares indeed neglect affront them yea deny them yet he spares us for these blessed purposes and is long-suffering to uâ—-wards not willing that any should perish 2 Pet. 3. 9. Spares us that if possible he may find softer seasons wherein we may be more pliant take impression more easily therefore also he provides oft such a state of things as may be more effectual more prevailing with us as if indeed he waited for the time of our good pleasure when himself should be acceptable to us and his motions receiv'd by us Yea and that they may be so with these external methods there are also inward excitations and assistances afforded us That he may both find and make these congruous seasons he is either trying or solliciting and importuning frequently our very hearts Behold I stand at the door and knock saith he Rev. 3. 20. if any man bear and open I will come in to him 'T is he it seems that waits to be admitted and waits long too 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have stood knocking and am there still doing so Your hearts however barr'd against me by your contumacy otherwise I that have the key of David and that open'd Lydia's heart could not be kept out but altho it be so yet I do not pass by or stand at them unconcern'd expecting whether you will open and admit me but I knock importunately and unwearied by disquieting men in their Lethargick state of inconsideration and insensibility by exciting apprehension to reflect upon their duty and their practice that is so distant from it and the danger of that I attemt to rouse their Conscience if so be when that is waked and troubled and affrighted it may possibly prevail with them to be content to let a Savior in Nor is he satisfied with standing still so and expecting for God is that very Father in the Parable who when the Prodigal had wasted among riotous men and harlots all his portion all the obligations of his Father's kindness but at last made sensible by the extremity of want and hunger and not able to find any sustenance elsewhere then resolves on returning and acknowledging his fault when he was yet a great way off saw him and had compassion on him did not stay his coming but ran out to meet him and fell on his neck to kiss him yea fell lower in his kindness than the Son in his humiliation and acknowledgments accepted him to all the dearness that relation enhanc'd by the recovery of what was lost and hopeless could pretend to He is that Shepherd who went out to seek that lost sheep that ran from him and that thought not of returning who sought till be found it and when it was wearied so with wilful stragling that it could not come back carried it on his shoulders rejoicing And now judge I pray between God and the Sinner whether he have not Salvation offer'd him and whether there be not a time wherein he may be certainly accepted if he come to God when in fum of that which hath bin said 't is plain to preach the Gospel to us Sinners is to proclaim this acceptable year of the Lord it is to tender us Salvation purchased for us and confirm'd to us by the bloud of the Son of God which Son of his God was incarnate crucified raised and exalted to be Lord of Heaven and Earth to work it out and to bestow it on us and to direct us in attaining it he keeps a standing Embassy of men commissionated to advise premonish and sollicite to encourage to it represent the dangers if we follow other our own counsels and he suffers us to run our selves into some of them that the tast may make us sensible and however we pass him by scornfully and make no applications to his Providence but despise his cares of us yet he delivers us to give us more time that we may not perish yea diverts temtations when we seek them or defeats the mischief of them when we throw our selves upon them and himself invites beseeches temts us finds or else makes congruous seasons and contrives such circumstances as may press in fine importunes knocks and calls on us and runs out to meet us follows us seeks till he finds us carries us home to him And what could have him don more to the Sinner that he hath not don And what we thus have seen him doing for particular persons that he does much more unweariedly for Nations in whose undisturb'd tranquillity and good righteous Government the Godliness and honesty as well as wealth and quiet of particular men St Paul saith is concern'd since in careless and loose Governments and disturb'd and broken ones men equally grow vitious dishonest and ungodly and in too great calms as well as tempests are apt to make shipwrack both of Faith and of good Conscience Therefore God expresseth his concern for Nations in most passionate words He rejoiceth over them to do them good with his whole heart and with his whole soul Jer. 32. 41. and when the importunity of crying National enormities and that are so far from being punish'd they are not discountenanc'd enforce him that he can forbear no longer to endeavor by some chastning to reduce them yet in all their affliction he is afflicted Isaiah 63. 9. and tho he correct them yet he suffers having all the bowels of a tender Parent to them and cries out in most lamenting wishes O that my people would have hearkned unto me for if Israel bad walk'd in my ways I should soon have subdued their enimies and turned my hand against their adversaries Psalm 81. 13 14. And
own Indictment yea and his own Sentence too for our own heart condemns us saith S. John And when ever it does so Oh that we would follow it through all the gradations that brought Christ to Death and use our wickedness as he was us'd strip it from its Cloaths bare it from its fair pretexts it useth to be dress'd in Lay our anger naked from all those excuses which our provocations that either wrath or humour will be sure to think intolerable do make for it strip our Pride and Vanity from those paints and dresses which the Custom of the Age that does require and warrant strange things dawbs the sin with use our Luxuries and Intemperances so and the other greater and more thirsty dropsie that of Wealth and of unjust unworthy gains which there are richer Luxuries in too And there are none of these but have their pleas their colours which they set themselves out in to please the Appetite and to deceive the Mind all which we must strip off and then when we have laid them naked spit upon them vomit all our spleen and contumelious despite at that which hath made us so ugly in Gods sight scourge it with Austerities and buffet it as they did Christ and S. Paul did himself 1 Cor. xvi 27. And when the Body of Sin is thus tamed and weakened it will be easie then to lead it out and crucifie it A Crucifiction this that does make our Good-Friday be a day of Expiation and Atonement to us A sight which next to that of his own Son upon the Cross is the most acceptable to the Lord when he does see us execute his Enemies although they be our selves and Crucifie the dear Affections of our bosom as God did This is indeed to be conform'd unto the death of Christ. If I might have leave to go before you and to let you into the Example draw the Curtain from before the Passion I would call my Sins out drag them to behold that Prospect hale them into the Garden shew them how he was us'd there You my Extravagancies of my youth my mad follies and wild jollities come see my Saviour yonder how he swoons when guilt began to make approaches towards him and can I make my self merry with nothing else but that which made him die tickle chear and heighten my self with Agonies You my intemperate Draughts my full Bowls and the riotous Evenings I have past look yonder what a sad night do these make Christ pass look what a Cup he holds which makes him fall lower to deprecate than ever my Excesses made me lie You my lazy Luxuries Fulness of Bread and Idleness whereby I have controul'd Gods Curse and onely in the Sweat of others Faces eat my Bread and in that dew drank up the Spirits of those multitudes that toil to faintings to maintain my dissolute life see how he is forc'd to bear the whole Curse for me how the Thorns grow on his head and how he Sweats all over You my supine Devotions which do scarce afford my God a knee and less an heart not when I am deprecating an Eternity of all those Torments which kill'd Christ look yonder how he prays behold him on his Face petitioning see there how he sweats and begs You my little Malices and my vexatious Anger 's that are hot and quick as Fire it self and that do fly as high too that are up at Heaven strait for the least wrong on Earth look how he bears his how his patience seems wounded onely in a wound that fell upon his Persecutors and when one that came to apprehend him wrongfully was hurt as if the Sword of his defence had injur'd him he threatned and for ever curs'd the black deeds of that angry Weapon and made restitution of what he had not taken made his Adversary whole whom he had not hurt See how with his cruel Judges he is as a Sheep that not before his shearers onely but before his Butcher too is dumb You my Scorns and my high Stomach that will take no satisfaction but Blood and Soul for the faults of inadvertency for such as not the wrong but humour makes offences lookhow they use him they buffet and revile and spit upon him Ye my dreadful Oaths and bitter imprecations which I use to lace my speeches with or belch out against any one that does offend me in the least making the Wounds and Blood of God and other such sad words either my foolish modes of speaking or the spittings of my peevishness There you may see what 't is I play with so you may behold the Life of Christ pouring out at those Wounds which I speak so idly of and what I mingle with my sportive talk is Agony such as they that beheld afar off struck their breasts at and to see them onely was a Passion Ye my Atheisms and my Irreligion but alas you have no prospect yonder it 's but faint before you who out-do the Example whatsoever Judas and the rest did to the Man Christ Jesus you attempt on God you invade Heaven Sentence Cruicifie Divinity it self And now having shewed my Sins this Copy of themselves what they are in their own demerits when my bowels do begin to turn within me at that miserable usage which Christ underwent it will be a time to execute an act of Indignation at my self who have resetted in my bosom all these Traytors to my Saviour made those things the joy and entertainment of my life which had their hands in the Blood of my God and what a stupid sensless Soul have I that was never troubled heartily at that which did make him almost out of hope and if this be the effect of sin then it is time for me to throw it off O my Jesu sure I am I am not able to support the weight of that thou didst sink under Thou didst come to bear our sins in thy own Body on the Tree therefore in thy Body they were nailed to the Cross and then certainly I will not force and tear them thence No there I leave them and will never re-assume them more which resolution is the effect of that vertue and efficacy which is in the Cross of Christ to the crucifying of sin which is the second sense in which the Christian does profess with S. Paul I am Crucified with Christ. There are some Learned Men that when they would assign reasons sufficient to move God to lay the punishment of our iniquities upon his Son and execute that Indignation that was due to us on the most innocent most Holy Jesus give this onely that this was the highest and most signal way imaginable to discover Gods most infinite displeasure against Sin and by consequence to terrifie men from the practice of it For if any thing in Heaven or in Earth could make us fear and from henceforth commit no such evil it was surely this to see Sin sporting in the Agonies of Christ Iniquity
of this World can entertain and slatter Thus they did and thus they did prevail For the first Ages of the Church were but so many Centuries of Men that entertained Christianity with the Contempt of the World and Life it self They knew that to put themselves into Christ's Service and Religion was the same thing as to set themselves aside for spoil and Rapine dedicate themselves to Poverty and Scorn to Racks and Tortutes and to Butchery it self Yet they enter'd into it did not onely renounce the Pomps and Vanities of the World in their Baptism when they were new born to God quench their affections to them in those waters but renounc'd them even to the death drown'd their affections to them in their own heart bloud ran from the World into flames and fled faster from the satisfactions and delights of Earth than those flames mounted to their own Element and Sphere In fine they became Christians so as if they had been Candidates of death and onely made themselves Apprentises of Martyrdom Now if it were not possible it should be otherwise than thus as the World stood then it was necessary that the Captain of Salvation should lead on go before this noble Army of Martyrs if it were necessary that they must leave all who followed him then it was not possible that he should be here in a state of Plenty Splendor and Magnificence but of Poverty and Meanness giving an Example to his followers whose condition could not but be such To give which Example was it seems of more necessity than by being born in Royal Purple to prevent the fall of many in Israel who for his condition despis'd him I am not so vain as to hope to persuade any from this great Example here to be in love with Poverty and with a low condition by telling them this Birth hath consecrated meanness that we must not scorn those things in which our God did chuse to be install'd that Humility is it seems the proper dress for Divinity to shew it self in But when we consider if this Child had been born in a condition of Wealth and Greatness the whole Nation of the Jews would have received him whereas that he chose prov'd an occasion of falling to them Yet that God should think it much more necessary to give us an Example of Humility and Poverty below expression then it was necessary that that whole Nation should believe on him When of all the Virgins of that People which God had to chuse one out to overshadow and impregnate with the Son of God he chose one of the meanest for he hath regarded the low estate of his Handmaiden said she and one of the poorest too for she had not a Lamb to offer but was purified in formâ pauperis When he would reveal this Birth also that was to be the joy of the whole Earth he did it to none of that Nation but a few poor Shepherds who were labouring with midnight-watches over their Flocks none of all the great Ones that were then at ease and lay in softs was thought worthy to have notice of it Lastly when the Angels make that poverty a sign to know the Saviour by This shall be a sign unto you You shall â—ind the Babe wrap'd in swadling cloaths and laid in a Manger As if the Manger were sufficient testimony to the Christ and this great meanness were an evidence 't was the Messiah From all these together we may easily discover what the temper is of Christianity You see here the Institution of your Order the First born of the Sons of God born but to such an Estate And what is so original to the Religion what was born and bred with it cannot easily be divided from it Generatio Christi generatio populi Christiani natalis Capitis natalis Corporis The Body and the Head have the same kind of Birth and to that which Christ is born to Christianity it self is born Neither can it ever otherwise be entertain'd in the heart of any man but with poverty of spirit with neglect of all the scorns and the Calamities yea and all the gaudy glories of this World with that unconcernedness for it that indifference and simple innocence that is in Children He that receiveth not the Kingdom of Heaven as a little Child cannot enter thereinto saith Christ True indeed when the Son of God must become a little Child that he may open the Kingdom of Heaven to Believers Would you see what Humility and lowliness becomes a Christian see the God of Christians on his Royal Birth-day A Person of the Trinity that he may take upon him our Religion takes upon him the form of a Servant and He that was equal with God must make himself of no Reputation if he mean to settle and be the Example of our Profession And then when will our high spirits those that value an huâ—â— of Reputation more than their own Souls and set it above God himself when will these become Christian Is there any more uncouth or detestable thing in the whole World than to see the great Lord of Heaven become a little one and Man that 's less than nothing magnifie himself to see Divinity empty it self and him that is a Worm swell and be puffed up to see the Son of God descend from Heaven and the Sons of Earth climbing on heaps of Wealth which they pile up as the old Gyants did Hills upon Hills as if they would invade that throne which he came down from and as if they also were set for the fall of many throwing every body down that but stands near them either in their way or prospect Would you see how little value all those interests that recommend this World are of to Christians see the Founder of them chuse the opposite extream Not onely to discover to us that these are no accessions to felicity This Child was the Son of God without them But to let us see that we must make the same choice too when ever any of those interests affront a Duty or solicite a good Conscience whensoever indeed they are not reconcilable with Innocence Sincerity and Ingenuity It was the want of this disposition and temper that did make the Jews reject our Saviour They could not endure to think of a Religion that would not promise them to fill their basket and to set them high above all Nations of the Earth and whose appearance was not great and splendid but look'd thin and maigre and whose Principles and Promises shew'd like the Curses of their Law call'd for sufferings and did promise persecution therefore they rejected him that brought it and so this Child was for the fall of many in Israel 2. This Child is for the fall of many by the holiness of his Religion while the strictness of the Doctrine which he brings by reason of mens great propensions to wickedness and their inability to resolve against their Vices