impose upon the Almighty and make Him believe that we are good when we are not and so steal to Heaven in a Vizard Fourthly and Lastly FROM hence 't is visible what great reason we have to be chearful under the Afflictions and Miseries of this World considering what Glories and Felicities there are prepared for us in the World to come Indeed all the Miseries of this World are more or less as we have more or less reason to be supported under them but when we consider that our Time here is but a Moment compared with our everlasting Abode in the World to come our present Happiness and Misery will appear to be very inconsiderable We are now upon our Iourney towards our heavenly Countrey and it is no great matter how rough the Way is provided that Heaven be our Journey 's End for though here we want many of those Accommodations which we may expect and desire yet this is but the common Fate of Travellers and we must be contented to take things as we find them and not look to have every thing just to our Mind But all these Difficulties and Inconveniencies will shortly be over and after a few days will be quite forgotten and be to us as if they never had been and when we are safely landed in our own Countrey we shall look back from the Shore with Pleasure and Delight upon those boisterous Seas which we have escaped and for ever bless the Storms and Winds that drove us thither Wherefore hold O my Faith and Patience a little longer and your work will soon be at an end and all my Sighs and Groans within a few moments will expire into everlasting Songs and Hallelujahs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now our days are dark and gloomy but the bright glorious day is dawning which Night shall never interrupt for God himself is the eternal Sun that enlightens us with the bright Rays of his own Glory And what is a little cloudy Weather compared with an everlasting Sun-shine Doubtless these light Afflictions which are but for a moment are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us Let us therefore comfort our selves with these things and while we are groaning under the Miseries of this Life let us encourage our selves with this Consideration that within a little little while all our Tears shall be wiped from our Eyes and there shall be an everlasting Period put to all our Sorrows and Miseries when we shall be removed from all the Troubles and Temptations of a wicked and ill-natur'd World be past all Storms and secured from all further danger of Shipwrack and be safely landed in the Regions of Bliss and Immortality And can we complain of the Foulness of a way that leads into a Paradise of endless Delights and not chearfully undergo these short though bitter Throws which like the Virgin-Mother's will quickly end in Songs and everlasting Magnificats Chear up therefore O my crest-fallen Soul for thy bitter Passion will soon be at an end and though now thou art sailing in a tempestuous Sea yet a few Leagues off lyes that blessed Port where thou shalt be crowned as soon as thou art landed and then the Remembrance of the Storms thou hast passed will contribute to the Triumphs of thy Coronation and all the bad Entertainments thou meetest with in this life will but make Earth more loathsome to thee while thou art here and Heaven more welcome when thou comest there and these thy light Afflictions which are but for a moment will work for thee a far more exceeding and eternal weight of Glory 2 Cor. iv 17. CHAP. VI. Of the Necessity of Mortification to the obtaining of Eternal Life I COME now to the Second thing proposed namely that the eternal Life and Happiness of good Men depends upon their mortifying the Deeds of the Body and that it doth so I shall endeavour to prove First FROM God's Ordination and Appointment Secondly FROM the Nature of the Thing I. FROM God's Ordination and Appointment God who is the supreme Governour of the World hath proposed Eternal Life as an Encouragement to those who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality And supposing that wicked Men could enjoy the Happiness of the other World yet it would be inconsistent with the Wisdom of his Government to admit them to it For should he reward Offenders with eternal Happiness who would be afraid of offending him And if once he rules with such a slack and indulgent Rein as to take away all reason of Fear from his Subjects his Government must immediately dissolve into Anarchy and Confusion And therefore to prevent this he hath fairly warned us by his reiterated Threats that if we live in Disobedience to his Laws we shall be for ever banished from that Kingdom of Happiness which he hath prepared for those that love and fear him So in Rom. viii 13. we are assured that if we live after the flesh we shall die And in Gal. v. 19 20 21. we are told that the works of the flesh are manifest which are these adultery fornication uncleanness lasciviousness idolatry witchcraft hatred variance emulations wrath strife seditions heresies envyings murders drunkenness revellings and such like of which I tell you before as I have also told you in times past that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God And so 1 Cor. vi 9 10. Know ye not saith the Apostle that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God be not deceived neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor effeminate nor abusers of themselves with mankind nor thieves nor covetous nor drunkards nor revilers nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God And to the same purpose the same Apostle tells us that no whoremonger nor unclean person nor covetous man who is an idolater hath any inheritance in the kingdom of God Ephes. v. 5. All which dreadful Denunciations must be supposed to be conditional for else they are not consistent with the Promise of Pardon to those that truly repent So that the meaning of them is plainly this that if we persevere in these Lusts of the Flesh and do not mortify them we shall have no Part nor Portion in the Kingdom of God Hence the Apostle exhorts us Col. iii. 5 6. Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth fornication uncleanness inordinate affection evil concupiscence and covetousness which is idolatry for which things sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience which plainly implies that if they did mortify these Lusts the Wrath of God should not come upon them but if they did not they should be liable to the divine Indignation among the Children of Disobedience By all which it is apparent that according to God's free Ordination and Appointment our eternal Happiness and Welfare depends upon our mortifying the deeds of the Body since God hath so ordained that if we do
the heavenly Banquet that she could relish any Sweetness in Wherefore either her Nature must be changed or the Nature of Heaven for while both continue what they are they are irreconcileable and if God himself were so easie and indulgent as to pass by all the Affronts in the other World which wicked Souls have offered him in this yet he could not make them happy there without creating in them a new Heart or creating for them a New Heaven For it is altogether as possible for us to see without Eyes or hear without Ears as to enjoy Heaven without a heavenly Disposition How causelesly therefore dost thou presume that talkest of going to Heaven whilst thou continuest in thy Sin Alass poor Wretch What wouldst thou do there if upon an impossible Supposition thou couldst be admitted into it There are no wanton Amours among those heavenly Lovers no Rivers of Wine among their Rivers of Pleasure to gratifie thy unbounded Sensuality no Parasite to flatter thy lofty Pride no Miseries to feed thy meager Envy no Mischiefs to tickle thy devilish Revenge but all the Felicities with which that heavenly State abounds are such as Thou wouldst loath and nauseate as being too pure and refined for thy depraved Appetite So that if thou wert in Heaven it would be but a cooler Damnation to thee yea perhaps Hell it self would be less intolerable than a Heaven so incongruous to thy Nature And yet how ordinary is it for lewd and dissolute Persons to flatter themselves into confident Hopes of Heaven for which when they come to be examined they can give no other Reason but this that they firmly rely upon the Merits of their Saviour who died for them and obeyed God's Law in their stead and therefore though they have no Righteousness of their own yet they doubt not being cloathed in the white Garment of Christ's they shall be pardoned and accepted of God Which is a Pretence so very absurd and unreasonable that one would think it were impossible for any Man to be imposed upon by it that had not a Mind to deceive himself for supposing what is false that Christ did obey the Law in our stead and that God doth account us righteous because He was so yet what would this signifie to our Pardon and future Happiness without an inherent Righteousness of our own which is so necessary to our future Happiness that Heaven it self cannot make us happy without it For if by being cloathed in the Robe of Christ's Righteousness we could be admitted into Heaven yet unless we left behind us our hellish Disposition we should be miserable Wretches under that glorious Garment in which we should be only crucified like Iesus in his purple Robe with greater Scorn and Solemnity For since the main of Heaven consists in the perfection of inherent Holiness it necessarily follows that a mere imputable Holiness will only entitle us to an imputable Happiness that is to a mere imaginary Heaven which how glorious soever it may look at a distance will when we come to embrace it glide from between our Arms and leave us desperate and miserable And though 't is true that Christ by his Death and Passion hath purchased for us Pardon and eternal Life yet it is upon this Condition that we mortifie our Lusts and conform to the Rule of the Gospel and indeed without this Pardon and eternal Life are Words that signifie nothing for what doth a Pardon signifie to one that is dying of the Stone or Strangury He can but die if he be not pardoned and die he must though he be And as little Advantage it would be to a depraved Soul to be pardoned and absolved by God while She hath a Disease within her that preys upon her Vitals and hastens her to a certain Ruin she could have been but miserable in the future Life if she had not been pardoned and miserable she must be if she continue wicked whether she be pardoned or no. All the Advantage that such a Soul could reap from God's pardoning her would be only to be released from those arbitrary Punishments which God may inflict on her in the world to come but if she were freed from these yet by a Necessity of Nature she must still be extreamly miserable for her own Wickedness would incapacitate her for Heaven and kindle a perpetual Hell within her So that should Christ have died to obtain a Pardon for those that continue in their sin he would have died to no purpose for a wicked Soul cannot be pardoned because there is such an inseparable Relation between Sin and Punishment that it is as great a Contradiction for the one to be without the other as for a Son to be without a Father And then though Christ by his Death hath procured eternal Life yet he cannot have procured it for those that are unreformed because they if they might yet cannot enjoy it their inward Temper and Disposition being contrary to it so that unless Christ by his Death had altered the Nature of Heaven and converted that Paradise of pure and holy Pleasures into a Seraglio of brutish and carnal Enjoyments he cannot have procured it for lewd and depraved Souls So that for any Man to presume upon Heaven upon any account without Holiness and Amendment is the most egregious Nonsence in the World For Heaven is nothing else but Holiness in its Perfection freed from all those Incumbrances that here do perpetually clog and annoy it so that a Heaven without Holiness is a Heaven without a Heaven that is a Word that signifies nothing a Happiness wholly abstracted from it self While therefore we flatter our selves with the Hopes of a future Bliss continuing in our Sins we do but court a painted Heaven and woo Happiness in a Picture but in the mean time are sinking into a true and real Hell where all our foolish Hopes will be swallowed up for ever in our woful Experience of its substantial Miseries II. WE may discern from hence the indispensable Necessity of Mortification since it is plain we can't be happy without it so that to mortify our Lusts is just as necessary for us as it is to obtain Heaven and avoid Hell For Vertue and Vice are the Foundations of Heaven and Hell Hell is nothing but that Hemisphere of Darkness in which all Sin and Wickedness moves and Heaven is the opposite Hemisphere of Light the glorious Orb of Holiness Truth and Goodness and in the Possession of the one or the other we do all of us actually enstate our selves in this Life For take Holiness and Vertue out of Heaven and all its Glories will immediately be clouded in horrid Darkness and overcast with the dismal Shades of Hell Take Sin and Wickedness out of Hell and all its blackness of Darkness will vanish and it will presently clear up into Light and Serenity and shine out into a glorious Heaven For 't is not so much the Place as the State that makes either
that blessed Son who never grudged to come down from Heaven into this Vale of Miseries and pour out his Blood for our sakes Was it not much harder for Him to part with Heaven than 't is for you to part with a little Mony And can you think it much to bestow an Alms for his sake who never grudged to lay down his Life for yours This is the Argument of the Apostle 2 Cor. viii 9. For ye know the grace of our Lord Iesus Christ that though he was rich yet for your sakes the became poor that ye through his poverty might be rich IV. CONSIDER that giving of Alms charges an high Obligation to us upon the Accounts of God and our Saviour For God lends the poor Man his Name and allows him to crave our Succours for his sake He gives him Credit from himself to us for what he stands in need of and bids him charge what he receives upon his own Account permitting to reckon Himself obliged thereby and to write Him down our Debtor So that when we stop our Ears to the Cries of the Poor he reckons himself repulsed by us and interprets it as a rude Affront offered to his own Person it being offered to one that bears his Name and wears his Livery For the poor Man's Rags are the Badges of his Relation to God and his Wants are the Mouths by which God himself intreats our Relief and Succour assuring us that he will reckon it to our selves and accept it as kindly at our hands as if we had relieved Him in his own Person For he that hath pity upon the poor saith the Wise Man lendeth unto the Lord Prov. xix 17. in which one Sentence methinks there is more Rhetorick than in a whole Library of Sermons And surely did we but understand and consider it in its full Emphasis we should not need such Volumes of Instructions but might easily learn to be charitable by an Epitome O blessed God! that thou should'st own thy self my Debtor only for repaying thee a Part of what thou hast lent me and of what is still thine own by an unalienable Propriety that thou who art the great Landlord of the World should'st thus acknowledge thy self indebted to thy poor Tenant for paying thee a small Quit-rent a Pepper-corn of Homage for what I hold in thy Right and by thy Bounty And yet thus it is he lends us our Estates and then writes himself our Debtor for that small Part which we repay him in Works of Piety and Charity And as God putteth our Alms to his own account so doth our Saviour also For so Matth. xxv 40. In as much saith he as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren ye have done it unto me that is I account my self obliged by it and do receive it at your hands with the same Kindness and Acceptance as if you had been with me in my state of Humiliation and shewed me all this Mercy in my own Person And when both God and my Saviour do send a poor Wretch to me in their own Name and Person and desire me for their Sakes and upon their Accounts to relieve him Can I be either so ungrateful to them to whom I am indebted for all that I have or do hope for or so wanting to my own Interest as to neglect so fair an Opportunity of making them some Return of their Favours and thereby obliging them to heap more Favours upon me For when in giving to the Poor I give to God and my Saviour what glorious Compensations may I expect from such kind and liberal Pay-Masters he that soweth bountifully shall reap bountifully saith the Apostle speaking of Alms 2 Cor. ix 6. for he soweth in the richest Soil in the fruitful Hands of God and his Saviour where the Seed being nourished with infinite Bounty never faileth to increase and multiply a thousand-fold For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love which ye have shewed towards his name in that ye have ministred to the Saints and do minister Heb. vi 10. Though he may sometimes defer yet he never forgets to return a charitable Work So that you may safely reckon upon it that so much as you have bestowed in Works of Charity so much with vast Increase and Interest you have secured to you in the Hands of God who will either return it to you hither in Temporal Blessings or which is a thousand times better repay it to you with infinite Interest in the weight of your Eternal Crown For so our Saviour promises the young Man that if he would give what he had to the poor he should have treasure in heaven Matth. xix 21. So that by giving Alms we make Earth tributary to Heaven and in a nobler sense than the new System of Astronomy teaches advance it into a Celestial Body and consequently enrich not only our Selves but our Wealth too by thus transmitting it to Heaven before us as it were by Bills of Exchange to be repaid us when we come there in an everlasting Treasure of Happiness And when by relieving the poor Man 's needs we may thus transmute our Dross into Gold and which is more our perishing Gold into immortal Glory What Man in his Wits would refuse any fair Opportunity of making such a blessed Exchange CHAP. IV. Of the Natural Reasons and Grounds of Mercy HAVING shewn at large what Mercy is and to what particular Duties it extends I shall now proceed to the second thing viz. the Eternal Reasons upon which it is founded and rendred morally Good Which I shall reduce to these five Particulars First THE Suitableness of it to the Nature of God Secondly THE Convenience of it with the Frame and Constitution of Humane Nature Thirdly THE near and intimate Relation of those Persons to us upon whom our Mercy is to be exercised Fourthly THE Equitableness of it to our own State and Circumstances Fifthly THE Necessity of it to the tolerable Well-being of Humane Society I. ONE eternal Reason upon which Mercy is founded and rendered morally Good is the Suitableness of it to the Nature of God which abounding as it doth with all the possible Kinds and Degrees of Perfection is an infinitely full and everlasting Fountain of Happiness to it self so that it cannot wish for any Kind or any Degree of Blessedness beyond the Enjoyment of it self and those infinite Complacencies it takes in its own essential Beauties and Perfections And having such an inexhaustible Treasure of Happiness within it self it can have no Need of or Dependence upon any thing without it nor consequently be liable to any temptation to oppress or render others miserable either for the Security or Augmentation of its own Revenues And as he who is infinitely happy can have no Temptation to render others miserable so his own Happiness cannot but incline him to render the miserable happy For so from a Natural Principle of Self-Love every
the one or the other and the State of Heaven and Hell consists in perfect Holiness and Wickedness and proportionably as we do improve in either of these so we do approach towards Heaven or Hell For as Heaven is the Center of all that is vertuous pure and holy and every thing that is good tends thither by a natural Sympathy so Hell is the Center of all Impiety and Wickedness and whatsoever is bad doth naturally press and sink down thither as towards its proper Place and Element And should not the divine Vengeance concern it self in excluding wicked Souls out of Heaven yet their own Wickedness would do it for that is a Place of such inaccessible Light and Purity that nothing that is impure or wicked can approach it but must of Necessity be beaten off by the perpetual Lightnings of its Glory and tumbled headlong down as oft as ever it essays to climb up into it As on the other hand should not God by an immediate Vengeance precipitate wicked Souls into Hell yet their own Sin and Wickedness hastened by the mighty Weight of its own Nature would necessarily hurry them down thither with a most swift and headlong Motion And if this be so then questionless it is as necessary for us not to continue in our Sin as it is not to be excluded out of Heaven nor thrust down into the flames of Hell and did we but know what this meant doubtless we should run away from our Sins in a greater Fright and Maze than ever we did from the most astonishing Danger For consider O Man by those short Pleasures with which thou treatest thy lusts thou excommunicatest thy self from eternal Ioy and wouldst thou be but so wise as to deny thy self the Pleasure of a Moment thou mightst be pleased for ever and millions of Ages hence be rejoycing among Angels and blessed Spirits because thou wouldst not gratify thy self with those fulsom Delights which would have died away in the Enjoyment And is it possible thou shouldst be so besotted as to exchange the Pleasures of an immortal Heaven for those of an intemperate Draught to sell the Joys of Angels for the Embraces of an Harlot and pawn thy Part in Paradise for a little Money of which e'er long thou wilt have no other Use but only to purchase six foot of Earth and a Winding-sheet O most prodigious Folly What account canst thou give for such an extravagant Bargain at the Tribunal of thy own Reason But it may be you will say What doth the loss of Heaven signify since as you have told us already if we could be admitted to it it could be no Heaven to us And why should we think much of losing that which we cannot enjoy To which I answer 'T is true you cannot enjoy it unless you part with your Lusts because Heaven and they are inconsistent but you may part with your Lusts if you will and being quit of these you may and shall enjoy it for ever Your Sin is the only Wall of Separation between you and Heaven which being once demolished you may enter into it without any Interruption and take Possession of all its Glories So that if you think the Loss of Heaven will be no Trouble to you in the other World because it is such a Heaven as your depraved Souls will be averse to you are infinitely mistaken for though you will be averse to it yet your own Consciences will tell you that if you would you might have conquer'd that Aversation as well as those blessed Spirits that do enjoy it and that if you had done so you might have been infinitely happy as well as they Whereas now you are condemned to wander for ever in a woful Eternity tormented with a restless Rage and hungry unsatisfied Desire after these sensual Goods you have left behind you and to which you shall never return more the Consideration of which will render the Loss of Heaven as grievous to you as if it were a Heaven over-flowing with sensual Delights and abounding with such Ioys as you will then hunger after but can never enjoy For how will it sting you to the heart when you shall thus ruminate with your selves as you are wandring through the Infernal Shades Ah besotted Fool that I am now I see too late that Heaven is a state wherein a Soul may be infinitely happy look how yonder blessed Spirits are imparadised how they exult and triumph how they sing and give praise and are rapt into extasies of love and joy whilst I through my own Sensuality and Devilishness am utterly incapable of those sublime Delights whereof their Heaven is composed and like a forlorn Wretch am left for ever destitute of those sensual pleasures which are the only Heaven I can now enjoy And therefore as you would not spend an Eternity in such direful Reflections and have those dismal Thoughts like so many Vulturs preying upon you for ever be persuaded to set persently upon this great and necessary Work of Mortification For assure your selves God will as soon let Hell loose into Heaven and people the Regions of immortal Bliss with the Inhabitants of the Land of Darkness as crown a wicked Soul with the glorious Reward of eternal Life For God hath reduced us to this issue either our Sins or our Souls must die and we must shake hands with Heaven or our Lusts so that unless we value eternal Happiness so little as to exchange it for the sordid and trifling Pleasures of Sin and unless we love our Sins so well as to ransom them with the blood of our immortal Souls it concerns us speedily to shake off our sins by Repentance for this is an eternal and immutable Law that if we will be wicked we must be miserable III. FROM hence we may perceive what is the only true and solid Foundation of our Assurance of Heaven namely our mortifying the Deeds of the Body for if they that mortify the deeds of the body shall live then if we do or have mortified them we are sure that we are entitled to eternal Life So that to be assured of Heaven we need not go about to spell out our Names in the Stars or to read them in the secret Volumes of eternal Predestination for if our Wills be but so subdued to the Will of God that we do not live in any wilful Violation of his Laws we may be as certainly persuaded of our Interest in eternal Life as if one of the winged Messengers from above should come down and tell us that he saw our Names enrolled in the Volumes of Eternity For besides that God hath promised Heaven to us upon condition of our Mortification we shall when our Lusts are throughly subdued feel Heaven opening it self within us and rising up from the center of our Souls in a Divine Life and God-like Nature so that we shall not need to seek for Heaven without us because we shall find it already come down into us
concluded that doubtless he was employed upon some great Design of Love to communicate from the Almighty Father some mighty Blessing to the World and accordingly we find that though the holy Angels did not comprehend the particular Intention and Mystery of Christ's Incarnation yet they concluded in the general that it was intended for some great Good to the World as is apparent by the Anthem they sung at his Nativity Glory be to God on high on Earth peace good will towards Men. Now the greatest Expression of God's good Will towards Men is to rescue them from all Iniquity and restore them to the Purity and Perfection of their Natures for without this all the Blessings of Heaven and Earth are not sufficient to make us happy While our Nature is debauch'd and overgrown with unreasonable Lusts and Passions we must be miserable notwithstanding all that an Omnipotent Goodness can do for us for Misery is so essential to Sin that we may as well be Men without being reasonable as sinful Men without being miserable Since therefore the End of Christ's coming into the World was to dispense God's greatest Blessings to Mankind and since the greatest Blessing that we can receive from God is to be redeemed by his Grace from our Iniquities and to be made Partakers of the Divine Nature we may reasonably conclude that this was his main Design in the World and the great End of that everlasting Gospel which he revealed to it And hence the name Iesus was given him by the Direction of an Angel because he should save his people from their Sins Matth. i. 21. and indeed I cannot imagine any Design whatsoever excepting this that could be worthy the Son of God's coming down into the World to live such a miserable Life and die such a shameful Death Had it been only to save us from a Plague or War or Famine it had been an Undertaking fit for the lowest Angel in the heavenly Hierarchy but to save us from our sins was an Enterprize so great and good as none in Heaven or Earth but the Son of God himself was thought worthy to be employed in This therefore was the Mark of all his Aims while he was upon Earth the Center in which all his Actions and Sufferings met to save us from our Sins and to inspire us with a divine Life and God-like Nature that thereby we might be disposed for the Enjoyment of Heaven and made to be meet Partakers of the Inheritance of the Saints in Light 'T is true he died to procure our Pardon too but it was with respect to a farther End namely that we might not grow desperate with the Sense of our Guilts but that by the Promise of Pardon which he hath purchased for us we might be encouraged to repent and amend But should he have procured a Pardon for our Sin whether we had repented of it or no he would have only skinned over a Wound which if it be not perfectly cured will rankle of its own accord into an incurable Gangrene Christ therefore by the offering of himself is said to purge our consciences from dead works that we might serve the living God Heb. ix 14. and the great Apostle makes the ultimate Intention of his giving himself for us to be this that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works Tit. ii 14. And until his Death hath had this Effect upon us it is not all the Merit of his Blood and Vertue of his Sacrifice that can release us from the direful Punishments of the other Life For unless he by his Death had so altered the Nature of Sin as that it might be in us without being a Plague to us it must necessarily if we carry it with us into the other World prove a perpetual Hell and Torment to us So that it is apparent that the great and ultimate Design of Christ was not to hide our filthy sores but to heal and cure them and for this End it was that he revealed to us the grace of God from Heaven to teach us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly and righteously and godly in this present world Tit. ii 12. Let us not therefore cheat our own Souls by thinking that the Gospel requires nothing of us but only to be holy by Proxy righteous by being cloathed in the Garments of another's Righteousness as if its Design was not so much to cure as cover our filthy Sores not to make us whole but to make us accounted so For can any Man imagin that Christ would ever have undertaken such a mighty Design and made so great a noise of doing something which when it is all summed up is nothing but a Notion and doth not at last amount unto a Reality As if the great Design of his coming down from Heaven to live and die for us was only to make a Cloak for our sins wherein we might appear righteous before God without being so But do not deceive your selves it is not all the Innocence and Obedience of Christ's Life nor all the Virtue and Merit of his Death that can render you pure and holy in God's eyes unless you really are so and you may as well be Well with another's Health or wise with another's Wisdom as righteous before God with the Righteousness of Christ while you abide in your Sins For God sees you as you are and the most glorious Disguise you can appear in before him will never be able to delude his all-seeing Eye so as to make him account you righteous when you are not and if it were possible for you to impose upon God yet unless you could also impose upon the Nature of Things and by fancying them to be otherwise than they are make them to be what they are not it will be to no purpose For if you could be cloathed in Christ's Righteousness while you continue wicked it would signifie no more to your Happiness than it would to be cloathed in a most splendid Garment while you were pining with Famine or tortured with the Gout or Strangury Wherefore as we love our own Souls and would not betray our selves into an irrecoverable Ruin let us firmly conclude with our selves that the great Design of our Religion is internal Holiness and Righteousness and that without this all that Christ hath done and suffered for us will be so far from contributing to our Happiness that it will prove an eternal Aggravation to our Misery and that all that precious Blood which he shed in our behalf will be so far from obtaining Pardon and eternal Happiness for us that it will arise in Iudgment against us and like the innocent blood of Abel instead of interceeding for us will cry down Vengance from Heaven upon us For how can we imagine that the pure and holy Iesus who hated our Sins more than all the Pangs and Horrors of a woful Death should all of a
Spirit to enable us to mortify our Sins p. 349 350 351. Secondly The Necessity of our Concurrence with the Spirit p. 352 353 354 355. Thirdly The Certainty of Success p. 356 357. Fourthly The great Reason there is for our continual Prayers to God p. 358 359. Fifthly The indispensable Necessity of our faithful and sincere Endeavours in order to the mortifying our Lusts p. 360 361. Sixthly The Possibility of keeping the Commands of God in that God by his Spirit doth so powerfully Aid and Assist us p. 362 363. Seventhly The Inexcusableness of Sinners if they go on in their Wickedness p. 364 365 366. CHAP. V. OF the Eternal Reward of Mortification That there is a State of everlasting Life and Happiness prepared for good Men proved by plain and easie Arguments First Because the Law of our Natures hath not a sufficient Sanction without it 367 368 369 370 371 372. Secondly From those Desires and Expectations of it which do so generally and naturally arise in pure and vertuous Minds p. 373 374 375 376. Thirdly From the Justice and Equity of the Divine Providence p. 377 378 379. Fourthly From the Revelation of his Will which God hath made to us by Jesus Christ p. 380 381 382 383. From the Consideration of which the following Inferences are raised First What an unreasonable thing it is for us Christians immoderately to doat upon the World p. 384 385 386. Secondly How vigorous and industrious we ought to be in discharging the Duties of our Religion p. 387 388 389. Thirdly How upright and sincere we ought to be in all our Professions and Actions p. 390 391. Fourthly What great reason we have to be chearful under the Afflictions and Miseries of this World p. 392 393 394 395. CHAP. VI. OF the Necessity of Mortification to the obtaining Eternal Life proved First From God's Ordination and Appointment p. 396 397 398. Secondly From the Nature of the thing which implies a Disagreement in wicked Souls to the future Happiness p. 399. To evidence this Disagreement three things are proposed First Wherein the Felicities of the future State do consist p. 401 402 403. Secondly What the Temper and Disposition of wicked Souls will be in the future Sate p. 404 405 406 407. Thirdly How contrary such a Temper and Disposition must be unto such Felicities p. 408 409. For First There is in it an Antipathy and Contrariety to the Vision of God p. 410 411. Secondly To the Love of God p. 412 413. Thirdly To the Resemblance of God p. 414 415 416. Fourthly To the Society of the Spirits of just men made perfect p. 417 418. From all which these following Inferences are deduced First How unreasonable it is for any Man to presume upon going to Heaven upon any account whatsoever without mortifying his Lusts p. 419 420 421 422 423 424 425. 426. Secondly The indispensable Necessity of Mortification since it is plain we can't be happy without it p. 426 427 428 429 430 431. Thirdly What is the only true and solid Foundation of our Assurance of Heaven p. 431 432 433 434 435 436 437. Fourthly What is the great design of the Christian Religion p. 438 439 440 441 442 443 444 445. OF THE Christian Life PART III. CHAP. I. Of Justice as it preserves the Natural Rights of Men and particularly in reference to their Bodies HAVING in a former Discourse asserted and explain'd the Nature of Moral Good and Evil in Humane Actions I shall now distinctly consider the Sum of all that Moral Duty which we owe to God and to our Neighbour as the Prophet hath compris'd it in these words He hath shewed thee O man what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly to love mercy and walk humbly with thy God Mic. vi 8. I begin with that Duty which God requires of us towards our Neighbour and 't is all imply'd in the two distinct Vertues of Iustice and Mercy IN discoursing of Iustice I shall endeavour these two things 1. To shew what that Justice is which is requir'd of us towards our Neighbour 2. To prove that it is grounded upon such immutable Reasons as do render it a Moral Good I. I shall endeavour to shew what that Justice is which is owing to our Neighbour In general therefore Iustice consisteth in giving to every one his due in which latitude it comprehendeth all matter of duty for every Duty is a due to God or our Neighbour or our selves and accordingly every performance of every duty is a payment of some due and as such is an act of Righteousness And therefore in Scripture Good Men are frequently stiled Righteous and the Whole of Vertue and Goodness is called Righteousness because it is a payment of some due either to God our selves or our Neighbours But Iustice being here consider'd as a distinct and particular Vertue must be understood in a more limited sense viz. for Honesty in all our dealings with men or giving to every man his due with whom we have any Intercourse And wherein this consisteth will best appear by considering what those things are which are due from one Man to another or what those Dues and Rights are which men may claim by the eternal Laws of Righteousness And these are twofold 1. Natural and 2. Acquired I begin with the First viz. the Natural Rights of Men which are such as appertain to Men as they are Reasonable Creatures and dwelling in Mortal Bodies and joyned to one another by their natural Relations and by Society For in all these capacities there accrue to men certain Natural Rights which we are obliged in Justice not to violate but so far as we can to secure and make good to one another First Therefore we will consider men as dwelling in mortal Bodies Secondly As Rational Creatures Thirdly As joyned to one another by natural Relations Fourthly As naturally united in Society and I will shew what Rights there are redounding to them from all these Respects and Considerations I. WE will consider Men as dwelling in mortal Bodies in which there is a twofold Right accruing to them 1. a Right to their Bodies 2. a Right to their bodily Subsistence I. As dwelling in mortal Bodies they have a natural Right to their Bodies and to all the Parts of them for their Bodies being the Tenements which the great Landlord of the world hath allotted to their Souls during their abode in this terrestrial State are upon that account their undoubted Right which unless they forfeit they cannot be deprived of without manifest Injury and Injustice For if God gave this Body to my Soul it is certain that immediately under him my Soul hath a Right to it and holding in Capite as it doth from the Supreme Proprietor is Tenant at will to none but him for this its earthly Habitation so that antecedently to all Humane Laws and Constitutions every Soul is vested with a natural Right to its own Body
as so many Sacrifices to the Devil Wherefore we stand obliged not only in Fidelity to God who hath committed their Souls to our charge and will one day require an account of them at our Hands but also in Mercy to them that they may not perish eternally for lack of knowledge to take all possible care to instruct their minds in the Duties and Obligations of Religion And as Mercy obliges us to instruct our Children and Servants who are in our power and disposal so it also obliges us to instruct others whom we know to be ignorant of God and their Duty to take all fair opportunities to insinuate the Knowledge of Divine Things to them and to cultivate their rude and barbarous Minds with the Principles of Vertue and Religion or at least where we cannot be admitted to do them this good Office our selves or our endeavouring it may be looked upon as a piece of Sauciness or Pedantry to recommend their miserable Case to others who have more Authority with them or from whose hands it may be better taken For sure if we have any Mercy or Compassion in us we cannot sit still and see a miserable Wretch wandring in the dark upon the Confines of eternal Ruin without endeavouring by some way or other to reduce and light him back to Heaven Hence 2 Tim. ii 25 26. 'T is made a necessary act of Mercy Meekly to instruct those that oppose themselves that is out of ignorance of the Gospel if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the Truth that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the Devil who are taken captive by him at his will IV. ANOTHER of the Miseries which affect Mens Souls is Malice and Obstinacy of Will in mischievous and destructive courses which is doubtless one of the greatest Infelicities that can happen to a Man on this side Hell For to be obstinate in mischievous courses is but one remove from the forlorn Condition of a damned Soul which being fixed and determined to Evil by the invincible Obstinacy of its own will lies under a fatal Necessity of being its own eternal Hell and Devil so that every degree of Obstinacy in Wickedness is a nearer Approach to eternal Damnation and will at last inevitably center in it if it be not stopped in its Course and Progress and cured by a timely Application Now what a deplorable sight is this to see a wretched Soul obstinately pursuing his own destruction and even forcing his way to Hell through all the resistances of his Religion and Reason and Conscience together Should you see a mad Man break loose from his Chain and run his Head against a Wall or catch up a Knife or Dagger and thrust it into his own Breast and repeat Stab after Stab in despight of all your Counsels and Dissuasives would you not pity and lament his Case and heartily wish him deprived of all that Liberty which he employs only to his own Destruction And is it not a much more lamentable spectacle to see a wild and desperate Soul break loose from those ties of Religion and Conscience which bind it to its Duty and Happiness and in a deaf and obstinate Rage seize on the Weapons of Perdition and plunge them into its own Bowels and by repeated Acts of Wickedness imbrue its hands in its own blood whilst the blessed Spirit with its own natural sense of God are strugling with it in vain and fruitlesly endeavouring to disarm its desperate Fury that it may not wound it self to eternal Death What merciful Heart can forbear wishing O would to God this miserable Soul had no Will that it had not the Liberty to choose or act Would to God it were a Stone or a Tree that have no power to dispose of or determine their own Motions rather than be thus left at liberty as it is only to murder and destroy it self But since to wish thus would be in vain who that hath any Pity can sit still and see a miserable Wretch thus outrage himself without endeavouring to hold his Hands and bind him down with Reason and good Counsel And this is the proper Act of Mercy which the miserable Case in hand requires viz. When we see an obstinate Sinner resolutely pursuing his own Destruction to endeavour by prudent and seasonable Reproofs by pious and compassionate Counsels and Admonitions to reclaim him from the Error of his way For thus our Holy Religion directeth us to exhort one another daily while it is called to day least any of us should be hardened i. e. irrecoverably hardened through the deceitfulness of sin Heb. iii. 13. And how acceptable a work this is to God St. Iames informeth us Chap. v. 19 20. Brethren if any of you err from the truth and one convert him let him know that he who converteth a Sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death and shall hide a multitude of sins Whereas by permitting Men to run on in their sins without any check or disturbance under a pretence of Complaisance and Civility is as much as to say Sir you are going headlong to destruction and go you are like for me for my part whether you are damned or saved is much at one to me if you are minded to make an experiment of damnation much good may it do you I know should I attempt to hinder or disturb you you will think me rude and troublesome and therefore rather than I will run the hazard e'en let the Devil take you And would it not be a high Complement if you saw a Man plunging a Sword into his Bowels to cry Sir I would hold your Arm but that I am afraid you will be angry with me 'T is true this merciful Work of Reproof and Admonition ought to be managed with a great deal of Caution if the Person we reprove be out of our power we ought to observe the mollia tempora fandi to forbear him till his Passion is down or his intemperate Draught digested till his Mind is sedate and calm and best disposed to attend to and receive a pious Admonition for he who reproves a Man when his Mind is disordered by Passion or Intemperance doth but Preach Patience to a Northern Wind which the more he endeavours to resist the lowder it will storm and bluster But then when he is fit to receive a Reprehension we ought to give it with the greatest Privacy If he offend in publick Conversation where there are other Witnesses of it besides our selves unless the matter be highly scandalous it is sufficient for the present that we express our Dislike of it by the Severity of our Looks and the Seriousness of our Behaviour and afterwards between him and our selves to remonstrate to him the Folly and Danger of his Sin For to reprove Men publickly looks more like Malice then Mercy especially till we have first made Trial of private Reprehensions and found them ineffectual But
that amiable Character the Psalmist gives of him Psal. cxix 68. Thou art good and thou dost good So that in relieving the Necessities of others we act the Part and the best Part too of the Almighty Father of Beings who sits at the upper End of the Table and carves to his whole Creation Hence St. Gregory Nazian speaking of the Charitable Man saith that he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. A God to the unfortunate imitating the Mercies of God for Man hath in nothing so much of God as in doing good which is doubtless the most divine and Godlike thing that a Creature is capable of What then can be more honourable or more becoming a Creature than to tread in the Footsteps of God to transcribe his Nature and Actions and be a kind of Vice-God in the World Surely did we but understand and consider how divinely magnificent it is to supply the Necessities and contribute to the Happiness of others we should court it as our highest Preferment and bless God upon our bended Knees for deeming us worthy of such an illustrious Employment and that among the numerous Blessings he hath heaped upon us he hath vouchsafed to admit us to share with himself in the Glory of doing Good AND as the Example of God doth highly recommend to us relieving of the poor and miserable so also doth the Example of our Saviour For it was for this that he left his Father's Bosom and came down from Heaven into our Nature that he might relieve a poor perishing World and rescue it from Eternal Ruin And what a glorious Recommendation of Charity is this that the Son of God chose rather to do good upon Earth than to reign over Angels in Heaven And while he was here the sole Employment he thought worthy of himself was to relieve the Miserable to feed the Hungry to cure the Blind and the Lame to restore the Sick to instruct the Ignorant and reclaim the Rebellious This was the Drift of all his Actions this the Subject of his Miracles and this the Scope of all his Doctrines So that his whole Life was nothing else but a continued Train of Beneficencies for the Apostle telleth us in the x. of the Act. 38. that he went about doing good Consider this therefore O thou hard-hearted Christian that stoppest thy Ears against the poor Man's Cries What would thy blessed Lord have done had he been in thy Case and Circumstances Would He who had so much Compassion on the Multitude as to work a Miracle to feed them have turned that miserable Wretch away as thou dost without the least Dram of Comfort and Relief Would He whose Heart and Hand was always open to the Poor and Miserable have despised the poor Man's Moans as thou dost or shut his Bowels of Compassion against him Do but peruse the Pattern of his Life and scan over his whole Behaviour and see if there be any one Action in all that great Exemplar that doth not upbraid thee and cry Shame upon thee for entitling thy narrow cruel and stingy Self a Disciple to such a merciful generous and liberal Master and if so learn for the future either to be so honest as to follow his Rule and Example or else so modest as to disclaim thy Relation to him III. CONSIDER that giving of Alms is a most substantial Expression of our Love and Gratitude to God and our Saviour How much we are obliged to express our Gratitude to God for these our outward Enjoyments and Abilities to do good to others is evident from hence because we receive them from him and do hold in vertue of his Donation For to suppose our selves independent Possessors of them is in effect to devest God of his Dominion and to strip him into an insignificant Cypher that only sits above in the Heavens like an Almighty Sardanapalus with his Arms folded in his Bosom and no further concerning himself in the Affairs of this lower World than to look down from his Throne and please himself to see Men scrambling for their several Shares of it But if we suppose him as we have infinite Reason to do the Almighty Author and Supream Disposer of all things then we must acknowledge that 't is from his overflowing Bounty that we derive whatever we possess that 't is the Gold of his Mines that enriches us the Crops of his Fields that feed us the Fleeces of his Beasts that cloath us and that every Good Thing we enjoy is handed to us by the Ministry of his all-disposing Providence And since we owe all to his Bounty and in our greatest Flourish are but his Alms-men and Pensioners how deeply are we obliged to return upon him in the Oblations of Love and Thanksgiving And since Love and Gratitude consist either in the Affection of the Mind or in the verbal Signification of it or in the effectual Performance of good things to the Person whom we thank and love this last is the most compleat and substantial Expression of the Reality of our Words and Affections For though Good-Will is indeed the Root of Love and Gratitude yet that lying under Ground and out of sight we cannot conclude its Being and Life without visible Fruits of Beneficence to the Person whom we thank and love And as for good Words they are at best but the Leaves of Love and Gratitude but 't is good Works that are the real Fruits of them by which their Sincerity is demonstrated For as no Man doth ever impress a false Stamp upon the finest Metal so costly Thanks and Love are seldom counterfeit It is to decline spending their Goods or their Pains that Men do so often forge and feign pretending to make up in wishing well the Defects of doing so and paying down Words instead of Things But where Works are wanting there is no Expression of our Love or Gratitude can either be real in it self or acceptable to God So that we may spare our Breath if we keep back our Substance for our close Hand giveth the lye to our full Mouth and all our verbal Praises of God when we will part with nothing for his sake are only so many empty Compliments and down-right Mockeries But then do our Love and Gratitude to God discover their Reality when it appears by our Actions that we think nothing too dear for him when for his sake who hath fed and clothed us and abundantly supplied our Necessities we are ready upon all Opportunities to feed and cloath and supply the Necessities of others And can we think any Thing too dear by which we may express our Gratitude to Him upon whose overflowing Bounty we depend for every Blessing we have or hope for who hath provided not only this Temporal World for our Bodies but also an Eternal Heaven for our Souls and hath sent his Son to us from his own Bosom to tread out our Way to it and conduct us thither Or can we think any Thanks too costly for
our Minds and render them unfit especially for the most perfect Exercise of our Reason Thus Drunkenness dilutes the Brain which is the Mint of the Understanding and drowns those Images which are stamp'd upon it in a Deluge of unwholsome Moistures Thus Gluttony cloggs the Animal Spirits which are as it were the Wings of the Mind and renders them incapable of performing the noblest and sublimest Flights of Reason Thus Anger and Wantonness force up the boiling Blood into the Brain and by that disorders the Motions of the Spirits there confounds the Fantasms and disturbs the Conceptions and shuffles the Ideas of the Imagination into an heap of inarticulate and disorderly Fancies And how is it possible our Minds should strike true Harmony when its Instrument is thus disorder'd and all the Strings of it are so out of Tune How should we understand well while our Brains are overcast with the thick Fumes of sensual Lusts and those Spirits which should wing our minds are grown so listless and unactive that they rather hamper and entangle them For what Clearness is to the Eye that Purity is to the Mind As Clearness doth dispose the Eye to a quick and distinct Perception of Material Objects so Purity from Lust and Passion disposes the Mind to a more clear Apprehension of Intellectual ones and the more any Man's Soul is cleansed from the Filth and Dregs of Sensuality the brighter it will be in its Conceptions and the more nimble and expedite in its Operations For Purity doth naturally fit the Body to the Mind it puts its Organs all in Tune and renders its spirits fine and agil and fit for the noblest Exercises of Reason which they can never be whilst they are subject to disorderly Passions and drenched in the unwholsome Reeks of Sensuality and Voluptuousness But besides this Mischief which Sin doth to our Understandings by rendering our Bodies unapt to all Intellectual Purposes it also dyes the mind with false Colours and fills it with Prejudice and undue Apprehensions of Things For while our Souls are under the sway of any disorderly Passion or Appetite they will naturally warp our Iudgments into a Compliance with their own Interest and bribe us to judge of things not according to what they are but according to what we would have them And when our Iudgments are thus bribed by our Interest and swayed by our Passions it is impossible we should judge truly of Things For our Passions will discolour the Objects of our Understandings and disguise them into such Shapes as are most agreeable to our Humor and Interest and so our Opinions of Things will alter upon every Variation of our Humours and our Thoughts like Weather-cocks will be wheeling about upon every Change of Wind. So that while we are encompassed with the Mists of sinful Prejudice they will necessarily hinder the Prospect of our Reason and obscure the Brightness of our Understandings and the Clearness of our discerning Faculties And thus you see how natural it is to Vice to spoil and wast our Understandings and to choke up those Fountains of Light within us with Clouds and Darkness And that it doth so is very apparent in Fact for how much wicked Men have lost their Reason is apparent by the ridiculous Principles upon which they generally act which generally are so very weak and absurd that it would be impossible for Men to assent to them were not their Understandings perished and the Reason of their minds wofully impaired and wasted As for instance the desperate Atheist wishes that there were no God upon this Principle that it is better for Men to be without a God than to be without their Lusts then which there can be nothing more wild or extravagant For it is plain that without our Lusts we can be happier than with them whereas it is the common Interest of Mankind that the World should be governed by infinite Goodness conducted by infinite Power and Wisdom and no Man or Society of Men can be happy without it For take God out of the World and you take away all Hope from the miserable all Comfort from the sorrowful and all Support from the dejected and calamitous and at one blow cut in sunder all the Bands of Society rase the Foundations of Virtue and confound all Distinction between Good and Evil. And yet the besotted Wretch for the sake of a paltry Lust that betrays him with a Kiss and stings him in the Enjoyment would fain banish God out of the World though it is apparent that in so doing he would do Mankind more Mischief than if he should blow out all the Lights of Heaven or pull down the Sun from the Firmament And in the general what more ridiculous Principles can there be thought than such as these That Sense is to be preferred before Reason Earth before Heaven Moments before Eternity that the short-liv'd pleasures of sin which expire in the fruition are sufficient to ballance the loss of an immortal Heaven and the sense of an eternal Hell that 't is time enough to repent when we can sin no more and that God is so fond a Being as that rather than ruin those that wilfully spurn at his Authority and trample upon his Laws he will accept a few Tears and Promises to live well when we can live no longer in exchange for all the Duty we owe him and that we may sit all the day in the lap of our Lusts and enjoy them without controul and then at night when we can enjoy them no longer fly up to Heaven upon the Wings of a Lord have mercy upon us And yet a wicked Life is either built upon no Principles at all or upon such as these which are ridiculous beyond all the extravagant Conceits of Fools or Madmen 'T is no wonder therefore that the Scripture so frequently brands the Sinner with the infamous Character of a Fool for if you measure him by the Principles he acts upon there is not a greater Fool in Nature which is a plain Evidence how much Vice doth besot the Understandings of Men and like those Barbarous Philistines puts out their Eyes only to sport it self with their Follies and Extravagances So that methinks had we any Reverence for our own Reason by which we are constituted Men and distinguish'd from the Beasts that perish we should never endure those Lusts within our Bosoms that do so much impair and wast it II. SIN subverts the natural Subordination of our Faculties For the natural Order and Politie of our Natures consists in the Dominion of our Rational Faculties over our sensitive Passions and Appetites so that then only we live according to the Law of our Nature when we eat and drink and love and hate and fear and hope and desire and delight according as right Reason prescribes For the noblest Principle of Humane Nature is Reason by which it is that we are constituted Men and advanced into a Form of Beings above all sublunary
World he hath in the name of God proposed to us a Heaven of endless Joys and Felicities and brought life and immortality to light So that if he were commissioned from God to make this great Proposal to Mankind we have as much Security of a future Happiness as we can have of the Truth of God which is the Foundation of all the Certainty we have whether in Philosophy or Divinity Now that he was commissioned from God to promise what he did to us is apparent because God himself by sundry Voices from Heaven declared him to be his Embassador to the World and proclaimed him his beloved Son in whom he was well pleased and whom he had substituted the Supream Minister of his Grace and Goodness to Mankind and what he declared in Words he also demonstrated in Deeds For when Christ was baptized God sent down his holy Spirit upon him in a bright shining Flame which spreading it self round his Head encircled his Brows like a Crown of Sun-beams and remained upon him which glorious Appearance answering to that visible Glory by which God appeared from between the Cherubim declared him to be the Temple of God in whom the Fulness of the Godhead dwelt bodily and in which he meant to take his Residence for ever And accordingly after this visible Shechinah or Glory disappeared we find most palpable and apparent Signs of the Presence of God in him for by this it was that he cured the Sick and calmed the Seas and raised the dead and wrought all those wondrous Works by which he proved his Mission from above For so we are told that the went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the Devil for God was with him Acts. x. 38. and after all the Miracles that he did in his Life by this Power and Presence of God that was in him being barbarously murdered he rose from the dead by the same Power and ascended triumphantly to Heaven Of the Truth of all which we have as clear and credible Testimony as ever was given to any Matters of Fact the Report of them being handed down to us from those who were Eye and Ear-Witnesses who in the defence of what they testified exposed themselves to infinite Hazards and at last confirmed their Testimony with their dearest Blood which is the greatest Security that any Witness can possibly give of his Honesty For what should move them to testifie these things had they not known them to be true It was apparently their temporal Interest to have concealed them and their Religion in which their eternal Interest was involved prohibited them all wilful Lying under the Penalty of an endless Damnation and would any Men in their wits have maintained a known Imposture when they were assured before-hand that all they should gain by it was to die for it here and to be damned for it hereafter And if their Testimony be true as we have all manner of Reason to believe it is then what they testifie doth plainly denote the Blessed Iesus to be the Holy One of God from whom as from his most holy Habitation God would hereafter communicate all his Blessings to Mankind And if so then we are sure of eternal Life upon condition of our patient continuance in well-doing for whatsoever he hath promised us he must have promised us from God who dwelt in the sacred Temple of his Body and from thence pronounced the Oracles of his Grace and Goodness and manifested himself perpetually by sundry miraculous Effects FROM the Consideration of our Future Happiness many useful Inferences may be raised and First from hence we may perceive what an unreasonable thing it is for us Christians immoderatly to doat upon the World I confess if our chief or only Interest were involved in this World and we had no Hopes beyond the Grave there were then some Excuse to be made for immoderate Sollicitude about the trifling Concerns of this present Life but when it is so apparent that we are born to higher Hopes and are here but Candidates and Probationers for an everlasting Preferment in the highest Heavens methinks the Sense of it should make us blush at our own Follies to think how busie we are in pursuing the fading Vanities of this World whilst the great Interest of our Eternity is wholly neglected and forgotten Blessed God! Who would imagin that in a World peopled with immortal Spirits that must live for ever in unconceivable Happiness or Misery the greatest Number of us should be such utter Strangers to the Thoughts and Concerns of another World That we who are so industrious in our temporal Affairs as not to slip any Opportunity of Gain but are so ready to court every occasion that tends to advance these our momentary Pleasures Profits and Honours should be regardless of those Celestial Joys which if we fall short of we are undone for ever and which if we arrive to we shall be as happy as all the Beatitudes of an immortal Heaven can make us O inconsiderate Beings that we are Where is the Reason that constitutes us Men that we should chuse thus crosly to the Nature of Things when there is so vast a Disproportion between the Objects of our Choice between Heaven and Earth between Moments and Eternity between the hungry and withering Joys of this World and the eternally ravishing Pleasures of the World to come Methinks if we had any Dram of Reason left in us the Consideration that we are born to an immortal Crown which nothing but our own Folly can disseise us of were enough to inspire us with a noble Disdain of all these bewitching Vanities about us and to make us look upon them as Things beneath us Toys and Trifles not worthy our scrambling for When we consider that there is an Heaven of endless Ioys prepared for us which if we will we may make as sure of as we can of our own Beings methinks so vast an Hope should raise our groveling Thoughts so high above this World that when we look down upon it it should disappear or look like a thin blew Landskip next to nothing and all the Hurries and Scramblings of silly Mortals for little Parcels of Earth should seem as trifling and inconsiderable to us as the Toils and Labours of a little World of Ants about a Molehil For how is it possible almost that such little Impertinencies should take up our Thoughts who have an Eternity of Weal and Woe before us And when we have all that an everlasting Heaven means to busie our Thoughts and employ our Cares about how can we engage with so much Zeal and Vigour in the petty Affairs of this World Foolish and unwise that we are Thus to neglect our most important Interests for every impertinent Trifle to sell our Souls for a little money and give immortal Hallelujahs for a Song And when we are born to such infinite Hopes to chuse Nebuchadnezzar's Fate and leave Crowns and Scepters to live among the
Savage Herds of the Wilderness II FROM hence we may learn how vigorous and industrious we ought to be in discharging the Duties of our Religion For how can we think any Pains too much when an everlasting Heaven is the Reward of our Labour What a poor thing is it that we should grudge to spend a few Moments here in the severest Exercises of Holiness and Vertue when within this little little while in consideration of our short Pains we shall have nothing else to do throughout a long and blessed Eternity but to enjoy a Heaven of pure Pleasures and hath our Faculties for ever in fresh Delights to converse with the Fountain of all Love and Goodness and warble eternally Praises to him and in the Vision of his Beauty and Goodness to live in everlasting Raptures of Ioy and Love O my Soul What though thou toilest and labourest now to climb the everlasting Hills Yet be of good Heart for it will not be long before thou art at the top where thou wilt find such pleasant Gales and glorious Prospects as will make thee infinite Amends for all yea though the Toil thou undergoest were abundantly more than it is though instead of the Labour of mortifying thy Lusts and living soberly righteously and godly thy Task were to row in the Gallies or dig in the Mines for a thousand years together yet methinks the Consideration that Heaven will be at last thy Reward should be enough to sweeten and endear it O would we but often represent to our Minds the glorious Things of another World what holy Fervours would such charming Thoughts kindle within us And with how much Spirit and Vigour would they carry us through the weary Stages of our Duty what Lust is there so dear to us that we should not willingly sacrifice to the Hopes of Immortality What Duty so difficult that we should not chearfully undergo while the Crown of Glory is in our Eye Surely did we but look more frequently to the recompence of Reward we should be all Life and Spirit and Wing our sluggish Souls would be inspired with an Angelical Vigour and Activity and we should run with Alacrity as well as Patience the race that is set before us but alas We look upon our Reward as a Thing a great way off and 't is I confess reserved for us within that invisible World whereinto our dull Sense is not able to penetrate which is the Reason that we are not so vigorously affected with it Wherefore to make Amends for this Disadvantage let us often revive the Considerations of Eternity upon our Minds and inculcate the Reality and Certainty of our future Weal or Woe together with the great Weight and Importance of them let us thus reason with our selves O my Soul If it be so certain as it is that there are such unspeakable Ioys reserved for good Men and such intolerable Miseries for the wicked why should not these things be to me as if they were already present Why should I not be as much afraid to sin as if the gates of Hell stood open before me and I saw the astonishing miseries of those damned Ghosts that are weltring in the flames of it and why should I not as chearfully comply with my Duty as if I had now a full prospect of the Regions of Happiness and I saw the great Iesus at the right Hand of God with Diadems of Glory in his Hand to crown those pure and blessed Spirits who have been his faithful Servants to the death And doubtless would we but inure our Minds a little to such Thoughts as these they would wonderfully actuate all the Powers of our Souls and be continually inspiring us with new Vigour in the ways of Holiness and Virtue for what Difficulties are there that can daunt our good Resolutions while they are animated with this Persuasion that if we have our fruit unto holiness our end shall be everlasting life Rom. vi xxii III. FROM hence we may perceive how upright and sincere we ought to be in all our Professions and Actions For if there be such an Happiness reserved for us in Heaven then doubtless if we intend to partake of it we must be sincerely good because he that is the Donour of this glorious Reward is a God that searcheth the heart and tryeth the reins and is a curious Observer of our secret Thoughts and most retired Actions and consequently will reward us not according to what we seem to be but to what we really are We may possibly cheat Men into a fair Opinion of us by disguising our selves in a form of Godliness and facing our Conversation with specious Pretences of Piety but that God with whom we have to do sees through all the Dawbings and Fucus's of Hypocrisie and can easily discern a rotten Core through the most beautiful Rind that can be distended over it So that we can never hope to obtain His Blessing as Iacob did his blind Father's by a counterfeit Voice or exteriour Disguise of Religion for all the fair Vizards of Hypocrisie are so far from hiding our Blemishes from God that they lay them more open to his all-seeing Eye and make them appear more monstrous and deformed Wherefore unless we are really good we were better not to seem to be so for mere Pretences of Piety will be so far from procuring Salvation for us that they will but enhanse and aggravate our Condemnation and sink and plunge us deeper into Hell instead of obtaining any Entrance for us into the Kingdom of Heaven Since therefore there is such an immortal Reward prepared for us in the World to come if we love our selves or have any regard for our most important Interest we cannot but be in good earnest for Heaven and if we are so we shall be sincere and upright in all our Actions and the great Design of our Lives will be to approve our selves to God and our own Consciences If by giving Alms we hope to increase our Stock in that great Bank of Bliss above we shall not care so much to blow a Trumpet when we do it that so the World may take notice of and praise our Bounty but our rejoycing will be this that we have approved our selves to God from whom we expect the Reward of our Obedience If we abstain from Sin with respect to the future Recompence we shall do it in private as well as in the View of the World knowing that wherever we are we are under God's Eye who alone can make us happy or miserable for ever In a word if we seriously mind the Glory that is set before us we shall be as curious of our Thoughts and secret Purposes as if they were to be exposed upon an open Theatre considering that they are all open and naked to that God with whom we have to do and upon whom the Hope of our immortal Happiness depends For to what purpose should we dissemble and play the Hypocrites unless we could
of its benign Influences and altogether indisposed to be wrought upon by it For as the Sun enlightens not the inward parts of an impervious Dunghil and hath no other effect upon it but only to draw out its filthy Reeks and Steams though as soon as he lifts his head above the Hemisphere he immediately transforms into his own Likeness all that vast Space whether he can diffuse his Beams and turns it into a Region of Light even so the divine Glory and Beauty which is the Object of the beatifical Vision will never illustrate lewd and filthy Souls their Temper being impervious unto his heavenly Irradiations and wholly indisposed to be enlightned by it but instead of that it will irritate their devilish Rage against it and provoke them to bark at that Light which they cannot endure whereas it no sooner arises upon well-disposed Minds but it will immediately chase away all those Reliques of Darkness remaining in them and transform them into its own Likeness But doubtless the Sight of the divine Purity and Goodness will be so far from exciting sensual and devilish Spirits to transcribe and imitate it that it will rather inspire them with Indignation against it and provoke them to curse and blaspheme the Author of it Fourthly and Lastly IN every sensual and devilish Soul there is an utter Incongruity and Disagreement to the Society of the Spirits of just Men made perfect For even in this Life we see how ungrateful the Society of good Men is unto those that are wicked it spoils them of their fulsome Mirth and checks them in those Riots and Scurrilities which are the Life and Piquancy of their Conversation So that when the good Man takes his leave they reckon themselves deliver'd his Presence being a Confinement to their Folly and Wickedness And as it is in this so doubtless it will be in the other World for how is it possible there should be any Agreement between such distant and contrary Tempers between such sensual and malicious and such pure and benigne Spirits What a Torment would it be to a spightful and devilish Spirit to be confined to a Society that is governed by the Laws of Love and Friendship What an Infelicity to a carnalized Soul that nauseates all Pleasures but what are fleshly and sensual to be shut up among those pure and abstracted Spirits that live wholly upon the Pleasures of Wisdom and Holiness and Love Doubtless it would be as agreeable to a Wolf to be governed by the Ten Commandments and fed with Lectures of Philosophy as for such a Soul to live under the Laws and be entertained with the Delights of the heavenly Society So that could these wicked Spirits be admitted into the Company of the Blessed they would soon be weary of it and perhaps it would be so tedious and irksom to them that they would rather chuse to associate themselves with Devils and damned Ghosts than to undergoe the Torment of a Conversation so infinitely repugnant to their Natures accounting it more eligible to live in the dismal Clamour of hellish Threnes and Blasphemies than to have a tedious Din of heavenly Praises and Hallelujahs perpetually ringing in their Ears And indeed considering the hellish Nature of a wicked Soul how contrary it is to the Goodness and Purity of Heaven I have sometimes been apt to think that it will be less miserable in those dismal Shades where the wretched Furies like so many Snakes and Adders do nothing but hiss at and sting one another for ever than it would be were it admitted into the glorious Society of heavenly Lovers whose whole Conversation consists in loving and reloving and is nothing else but a perpetual Intercourse of mutual Indearments For this would be an Employment so infinitely repugnant to its black and devilish Disposition that rather than endure so much Outrage and Violence it would of its own accord forsake the blessed Abodes to flee to Hell for Sanctuary from the Torment of being in Heaven But this however we may rationally conclude that so long as the prevailing Temper of our Souls is sensual and devilish we are incapable of the Society of blessed Spirits and that if it were possible for us to be admitted into it our Condition would be very unhappy till our Temper was chang'd so that it is a plain Case both from God's Ordination and from the Nature of the Thing that our eternal Happiness and Welfare depends upon our mortifying the deeds of the Body To offer some Practical Inferences from hence I. WE may perceive how unreasonable it is for any Man to presume upon going to Heaven upon any account whatsoever without mortifying his Lusts. For he that thinks to go to Heaven without Mortification and Amendment presumes both against the Decrees of God and the Nature of Things he believes all the Threatnings of the Gospel to be nothing else but so many Bugs and Scare-crows and though God hath told him again and again that unless he forsake his sins he shall never enter into the Kingdom of Heaven yet he fondly imagines that when it comes to the Trial God will never be so severe as he pretends but will rather revoke the Decree that is gone out of his mouth than exclude out of the Paradise of endless Delights a Soul that is infinitely offensive to him As if God were so invincibly fond and indulgent as that rather than excommunicate an obstinate Rebel from Happiness he would chuse to prostitute the Honour of his Laws and Government and commit an Outrage upon the Rectitude and Purity of his own Nature For so long as he is a pure God he cannot but be displeased with impure Souls and so long as he is a wise Governour he cannot but be offended with those that trample upon his Laws so that before he can admit a wicked Soul into Heaven he must have extinguish'd all his natural Antipathy to Sin and stifled his just Resentment of our wilful Affronts to his Authority When therefore we can find any reason to imagine that God is no Enemy to sin and that he hath no regard of his own Authority then and not till then we may have some Pretence to presume upon going to Heaven without Mortification and Amendment But supposing this Hinderance were removed and that God were so easie as to be induced to prefer the Happiness of a wicked Soul before the Honour of his Government and the Purity of his Nature yet still there is an invincible Obstacle behind that renders her future Felicity impossible and that is that it cannot be without a plain Contradiction to the Nature of Things For as I have shewed you already the Genius and Temper of a wicked Soul is wholly repugnant to all the Felicities of the other World so that if they were set before her She would not be able to enjoy them but must be forced to pine and famish amidst all that Plenty of Delights there being not one Viand in all
springing up in their Minds and arising higher and higher proportionably as their Progress is in Virtue and true Goodness Which is a plain Evidence that these Hopes and Desires are natural to us and that they are interwoven by the great Creator in the Frame and Constitution of our Souls Now how can it consist with the Goodness of God to implant such Desires and Hopes in our Natures and then to withhold from them the only Object that can suit and satisfie them As if it were a Recreation to him to sit above in the Heavens and behold the Work of his Hands spending it self in weary Strugglings towards him and gasping all the while it continues in Being after an Happiness it shall never enjoy As for other Beings we see they have no natural Desire in vain the good God having so ordered things that there are Objects in Nature apportioned to all their natural Appetites but if there be no State of Happiness reserved for good Men in the other World we are by a natural Principle most strongly inclined to that which we can never attain to As if God had purposely framed us with such Inclinations that we might be perpetually tormented between those two Passions Desire and Despair an earnest Propension after a future Happiness and an utter Incapacity of ever enjoying it as if Nature it self whereby all other Beings are disposed to their Perfection did serve only in Mankind to make them miserable and which is more considerable as if Virtue which is the Perfection of Nature did only contribute to our Infelicity by raising in us Desires and Expectations which without a future Happiness must be for ever baffled and disappointed For if there be no future Happiness either we may know it or we may not if we may not know it why should we think that which reflects so much Dishonor upon God viz. that he hath created in us Desires and Expectations only to mock and tantalize them But if we may know it then do these Desires and Expectations seem to be created in us on purpose to torment us For for what other End can we desire to be eternally happy who are only brought forth into the Light to be e'er long extinguished and shut up in everlasting Darkness The Consideration of which must needs be an exceeding Torture and Affliction to us III. THAT there is a future Happiness reserved for good Men is evident from the Iustice and Equity of the Divine Providence That God is a most just and righteous Governour is acknowledged by all that believe there is a God and that he rules and governs the World and if it be so then his Iustice must first or last discover it self in distributing Rewards and Punishments to men according as they obey or violate the Laws of his Government For what Iustice can he express in governing the World if he rules at random if he never makes any Difference between the Good and the Bad but rewards and punishes his Subjects promiscuously without any Distinction between the Loyal and Rebellious And yet in the ordinary Course of Divine Providence in this world we see little or no Distinction made between them but as the Wise Man hath observed Eccl. ix 2. All things come alike to all so that he cannot know God's Love or Hatred by any thing that is before us nay many times we see the wicked as the Psalmist describes them flourishing like a green Bay-tree Psal. xxxvii 35. whilst the righteous are sorely oppressed and crushed under the triumphal Chariots of their barbarous Enemies So that were there no other State of things but what we see before us it would be impossible for us to give any tolerable Account of the just Retributions of the Divine Providence For if when we have all acted our Parts upon this Stage of Time we were to lye down together and sleep for ever in the Dust how many millions of Good Men are there that have thought nothing too dear for God and have not only sacrificed their Lusts but their Lives and Fortunes to his Service who would have no other Recompence for so doing but a miserable Life and a woful Death and an obscure and dishonourable Grave And on the contrary how many millions of millions of Wicked Men are there whose whole Lives have been nothing but one continued Act of Rebellion against God who have blasphemed his Honour and affronted his Authority and openly contemned all the Laws of his Government and yet would undergoe no other Punishment for so doing but only to live prosperously to die quietly and then to be gloriously enshrined in Monuments of Marble And can we think this and at the same time believe that there is a righteous Providence which superintends the Affairs of the World Certainly if not to govern this material World and to put things into such a regular Course as may be suitable to their Natures and the Operations for which they are designed would argue some Defect of Wisdom in God then doubtless not to compensate Virtue and Vice and adjust things suitably to their Qualifications but thus crosly to couple Prosperity with Vice and Misery with Virtue would argue him deficient both in Wisdom and Goodness and Iustice. And perhaps it would be no less expedient with Epicurus to deny all Providence than to ascribe to it such Defects it being less unworthy of the Divine Nature to neglect the Universe altogether than to administer humane Affairs with so much Injustice and Irregularity So that either we must deny Providence or which is worse deny the Iustice of it or believe that there is a future State wherein all things shall be adjusted and good Men crowned with the Rewards of their Obedience and the Wicked undergo the Punishment of their own Follies For this we are sure of that the Judge of all the World will do righteously and that first or last he will distribute his Rewards and Punishments according to the Merit and Demerit of his Subjects and therefore because we see he doth not ordinarily do it in this World we have great Reason to conclude that he will do it effectually in the World to come Fourthly and Lastly THAT there is a State of future Happiness prepared for good Men is evident from the Revelation of his Will which God hath made to us by Iesus Christ. And this I confess is the most concluding Argument of all as for the former Arguments they render the Case so highly probable that this at least must be acknowledged that we have far more Reason to believe and expect a future Happiness than we have to doubt or despair of it but as for this last it puts all out of Question and leaves us no Pretence of Reason why we should doubt or suspect it For eternal Happiness and Salvation is the great Blessing which our Saviour hath promised us to encourage us to Perseverance in Well-doing and in that everlasting Gospel which he preached to the