fansies him also Wicked as those words spoken in the Person of God Psal. 50. do shew Thou thoughtest I was altogether such an one as thy self And in the last place it concludes him to be Nothing at all The fool hath said in his heart There is no God Infidelity first entertains Mean thoughts of God doubts of his Attributes and afterwards of his very Being Infidelity moved God to send upon the Israelites in the Wilderness almost as many and grievous Plagues as he had sent upon the Egyptians And many Christian Professors are so possest against this Sin that they have not doubted to aver That as there is no Vertue that justifies but Faith so there is no Sin that condemns but Infidelity And that the Jews were highly guilty of this Sin in reference to Christ there is no question for though he had wrought so many Miracles among them as the Evangelist says they believed not on him They might have known who he was if they had not been wilfully blind by the Rule given them by Moses Deut. 18.12 to discern a True Prophet from a False and again at the 18 th ver to distinguish the Messiah from other Common Prophets yet blinded with Pride Malice Envy and the like the Great Council it self of the Sanhedrim condemned the Lord of Life for an Impostor and crucified him affirmed That by a Confederacy with the Devil he cast out Devils So that this their Unbelief and perverse Proceeding might be a very just Cause of the Descent of the third Person in the Trinity to vindicate the Injury and Outrage done to the second after a Judicial Manner to arraign and convince the World of Sin i. e. of Infidelity and Injustice to the Son of God But though there was Infidelity in the Case I conceive they do exactliest hit the meaning of the place who make not our Lord's Words point so much at any particular determinate Sin after his Coming as at the General Sin wherein all the World lay before his Coming viz. the Sin of Adam in which both Jew and Gentile were concluded and from which 't is said He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved but he that believeth not shall be damned Now the Holy Ghost when he came into the World to bear Testimony to all that Christ did reproved and convinced it that is all Unbelievers that they lay still under the Old Condemnation of the First Man seeing they embraced not the Means of Grace and Pardon offer'd by Christ in the Gospel nay and that their Infidelity added a new and worse Guilt to the former they lay under the Guilt of refusing Offer'd Redemption which would make their Condemnation yet heavier For though Hell be the ultimum Supplicium the utmost Punishment the Divine Vengeance can inflict yet as there are Degrees of Sins so there are Degrees of Torment and as 't is said Hell shall be a second time heated for those that leave their first Station so we may say it shall be a second time heated for those that refuse the Salvation offer'd by Christ. The second Particular the Spirit shall convince the World of is of Righteousness But how must this be understood Shall he convince the World of Sin and of Righteousness both Yes de Peccato proprio Justitia aliena as S t Augustine distinguishes of its Own Wickedness and of an Others Righteousness the Spirit shall convince the World that 't is sinful and that Christ was Righteous And thus our Lord afterwards interprets his own Words He will convince the World of Wickedness because I go to my Father The World spared not while Christ was on Earth to spend their rash Judgments of him He is a Good Man say some Nay say others but he deceiveth the People Others again He is a Samaritan and hath a Devil and the like But his going to the Father stopt the Mouth of all Slander For as this was an approv'd Maxim which was utter'd by the Man that was born Blind God heareth not Sinners So this was a Truth likely to find a more Easie and General Admittance God translateth not Sinners miraculously and visibly to Heaven Enoch and Elias were thus translated but 't is testified of the first That he pleased God and of the last That his Zeal for God's Glory exceeded Christ therefore being translated to Heaven it was an irrefragable Proof of his Righteousness But how did the Holy Ghost convince this Why by his very coming into the World had he born no other Testimony For Christ had said in the Verse before my Text If I go not away the Comforter will not come unto you but if I depart I will send him unto you The Descending of the Holy Ghost was the Consequent of Christ's Ascending But then the Righteousness which the Spirit shall here convince the World of must be understood in a greater Latitude than only of the Inherent Righteousness in Christ's Person it comprehends also the Transient Righteousness that past from him to others As S t John says in another place That he was not only a Glorious Light in himself but the Light of the World and the Light of Men. A Righteousness of greater Concern and Importance than his Inherent Righteousness for that made his Person only Illustrious but this brought Utility and Benefit to Mankind and as the first spoke him the Son of God the last also the Saviour of the World Christ's Righteousness is therefore here to be understood Causativè that he was the Author or Cause of Righteousness not only that he was Righteous but Righteousness unto others and that two Ways First In respect of his Doctrine that was Righteousness the very Rule and Standard of it the perfect Will of God able to conform us to his Likeness and the World rejected it only because their Deeds were Evil. And this the Holy Ghost when he came convinc't the World of viz. of the Desperateness of its Condition that it had refused the True Light and for no other reason than for that which was named Because their Deeds were Evil and they hated to be reform'd Secondly Christ was Righteousness in respect of the Justification of the World as he was Justitia nostra the Lord our Righteousness as the Prophets had foretold And indeed this was the Chief Office and Business of the Holy Ghost at his coming to convince Men That there was no other Name under Heaven by which they could be sav'd but only by that Name That neither the Contemplation of things Divine together with the Practice of Moral Vertues which was the Gentiles Way nor the Plea of being Circumcised and descended from such and such Parents which was the Jewish Way avail'd any thing towards the obtaining of Justification without the laying hold of Christ's Righteousness The third Particular the Spirit shall convince the World of is of Judgment S t Bernard understood the Words Actively viz. That the Spirit shall convince the World of its
from paying him Obedience that they knew him not from acknowledging him their King that they crucifi'd him They dreamt of a second Joshua for their Messiah not of a Melchizedeck of a fighting not a preaching King when therefore he rebuk'd their Vices they conspir'd his Death and cut him off instead of cutting off their Sins 'T was no wonder therefore that God allow'd but one Week of Years for the destroying so Carnal so wicked so ungrateful a People 'T is an Ominous and Fatal Sign when God has given Eminent Deliverance to a Nation and allow'd it time for the Re-establishing it self if at least in the second place it makes not Religion and his Worship its Business but falls from Secular Employments to Sensual and Sinful never reflecting either why he did so severely punish them or why again so Graciously Restore them We of this Nation attend not the fulfilling of the Weeks foretold by Daniel for the Coming of the Messiah in the Flesh his Cutting off and the Destruction of Jerusalem these things are already past But there are other Weeks in which we are concern'd which are not yet fulfill'd viz. the few Weeks before God may possibly call us to account for the ill Use we have made of his Glorious Restoration of our King and Nation and his other Illustrious Mercies Or if in his Wisdom he shall think fit to adjourn this Account to the General Audit at the Last Day then the very few Weeks before we that are here present shall be seal'd up for that Dreadful Day by our Departure out of this Life And in the mean time we have daily an Image or representation of that Great Assize of the Whole World in the Absolution which the Church pronounces to Penitent Sinners and consequently in binding over to Judgment the Impenitent For though the Righteous are not juridically and finally absolv'd in this World nor the Wicked condemn'd yet the Issue that both are to expect is foreshew'd and however there seems for a time a Forgetfulness of the one and the other that the Just appear to go away without their Reward and the Unjust to be Tenants to an Easie Lord that will never call them to account yet they will receive their Recompence according to what they have done in this Life and find though Christ suffered for Sin he never suffered or tolerated Sin but that his Death will prove Effectual for their Condemnatition for whom it prov'd not Effectual for their Salvation The Reason that Men put off the Fear of the Lord 's Coming to Judgment or think his Coming but a Fable is because they consider not how far he is already advanc'd on his Way towards them how many Stages he has past and how very near he is come He is advanc'd long since to the Destruction of Jerusalem there 's the first prophesy'd Stage of his Coming and so many Weeks of Years past Secondly His Gospel is preach'd through the World Christ is arriv'd so much Nearer on his Journey towards us Thirdly Anti-Christ is come the Apostle speaks of him as entred into the World though as 't were incognito or conceal'd in his time but now for many Years he has shew'd himself openly and raged in the Church and there 's the Third Sett of Weeks foretold for Christ's coming past So that there remains but one Parcel of Weeks more before we shall see him at our very Doors i. e. coming in the Clouds of Heaven to judge the Quick and the Dead We have seen three Predictions of his Coming actually fulfill'd and is it possible our Sins should perswade us that he will tire by the Way and that the fourth shall not come to pass The Night succeeds not the Day Winter the Summer so certainly as Christ's Second Coming shall succeed in the time appointed And seeing these things shall be so what manner of Persons as S t Peter says ought we to be in all holy Conversation and Godliness My Text says Christ was not cut off for Himself let us take care to be of the Number of those he was cut off For and not of those he shall be cut off From. And so I pass to my Second General Part the Angel's Direction for the right Understanding of his Prediction He shall be cut off but not for himself The Words in the Original ve en lo which our Translators render but not for himself and in the Margent and shall have nothing are so concise and abrupt that they leave place to several Apprehensions to add what they think will best fill up their Sense But all that is offered being merely conjectural and also less edifying than what we read in our own Bibles I shall not decline what I there find And it may be understood in two Respects That Christ was cut off and not for Himself 1. In Respect of any Demerit or Fault of his There were many that pretended to be the Messiah that were Thieves and Murderers and were cut off but 't was justly for their Offences But the Angel prevents here the least Suspicion that the True Messiah should be a Guilty Person cut off for his own Crimes He did no Sin as S t Peter says neither was Guile found in his mouth But he could make that bold Challenge to all the Nations of the Jews Which of you convinceth me of Sin It fared indeed with him as it did with David a good King and his Type who Psal. the 59 th and the 3 d complains of his Enemies after this manner They lye in wait for my Soul the Mighty are gathered against me not for My Transgressions nor for my Sin O Lord they run and prepare themselves without my Fault No if any man could take away our Messiah by justly alledging Impiety against him we would readily deliver him up our selves But when he was Holy in his Life and Doctrine when his Righteousness was attested from Heaven before and in and after his being in the World by Prophecies Miracles by the Voice to use S t Peter's expression which came to him from the Excellent Glory saying This is my Beloved Son in whom I am well-pleased by his Resurrection Ascension and sending the Holy Ghost we may well adhere to such a Saviour and excuse the seeming Shame of his Cutting off for those real Glories which none beside himself ever pretended to 2. Not for himself in respect of any Benefit he received If the Angel had told the Prophet That the Cutting off of the Messiah had been for any Personal Advantage of his own though he had taken Death in the Way to that Advantage his Suffering had not been Relative to Others it had been for Himself But the Scripture disclaims this and affirms 'T was for our Redemption our Salvation our being Reconcil'd to God and instated in Glory that Messiah suffered For he being enthron'd already in Heaven what could he gain to himself by taking our wretched Flesh and undergoing all the Miseries and
cruelty they used unto their other Prisoners they cry'd out They were Citizens of Rome at which the Pyrates pretended to start as awed by that formidable Name and commanded presently Gowns to be brought and put upon their Backs and Shoes on their Feet and then with a seeming lowly observance besought them To walk over the sides of the Ship and be free telling them by way of excuse for their Violation of such Venerable Persons When they met them next in that Attire they should not be ignorant of their Quality and with this derision threw them into the Sea when the unfortunate men refus'd to cast themselves And the Enemies of David were such as God thought fit not only to destroy but also to mock and vex as 't is said Verse the 4 th and 5 th The Lord had them in derision And vext them in his sore displeasure But How and after What manner did he mock and vex them By letting them a long time plot and strengthen themselves make a profuse expence of labour money and bloud by letting them perswade themselves they had prevailed that David was utterly excluded and then after all to shew them the despised and Rejected Son of Jesse set Gloriously on the Throne their Machine of Usurped Government made a Pageant for his Triumph all their endeavours all their glorying serve but for this Occasion of God's glorying over them Yet have I set my King upon my holy Hill of Sion I have done with the Words which have been twice already eminently fulfilled Once as I have shewed in the Person of David And a Second time in the Exaltation of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ into the Kingdom of Heaven after his Resurrection and setting up his Spiritual Throne in the hearts of men So that I may seem to essay an Impious thing to make a Third Application to any Mortal King whatsoever But while I shall not parallel or compare the Sufferings and Exaltation of the Divine and Mystical King but adore his Foot-steps there will be no danger to shew the Tracts and Lineaments that are between the Deliverance and Establishment of David and of our Gracious Sovereign for the awaking our Gratitude and magnifying God's mercies shewed to this Nation this Day And to observe the Method I began with For the same Reasons and Respects that David is called Gods King in my Text our King may pretend to the Title before all the present Kings of the Earth First He was a King of God's particular and singular Advancing and placing on the Throne though not call'd like David from being a poor Shepherd-Boy to Rule a Kingdom but descended of a long and glorious Race of Kings yet recall'd from a forlorn exil'd State and a deposd Condition to hold the Scepter of his Royal Ancestors by a no less Divine Favour So that whatever his Title to the Crown was we may truly say Had he not been God's King he had not been King of this Land Secondly David was not only call'd God's King as we have shew'd for his Eminent Deliverance of him but His Son And whoever considers the many Risques of our Sovereign's Life the Prodigies both of his Dangers and Escapes how God snatcht him out of the Battel led him safe through the midst of his Enemies conceal'd him many days by a Divine Providence after the manner the Ancients feign'd their Heroes were wrapt in a Cloud and then without the assistance of Armies by the same Invisible and Unresistable Hand fixt him in his Throne must confess we have not only reason to celebrate this Day for his coming into the World and his coming to the Crown for the Birth I say of his Person or the Birth of his Royal Dignity but for his being Born God's King and God's Son i. e. The King of his Preservation and the Son of his Promotion Thirdly As David was call'd God's King because he was more pleased with him than with others was the King of his liking as well as of his Preserving and Advancing So the Wonderful Testimonies of God's Love to our Sovereign warrants nay obliges us to believe and revere him as God's King also in this sense as the King of his liking and after his own heart And whom God has approv'd let no man judge whom he has Seal'd let no man dare to Censure no not in his thoughts Princes then for the most part want Goodness when the People want Candour and their defect of Vertue is their Subjects defect of Love and Loyalty But if those were God's Kings Kings of his liking Kings after his own heart that set up the True Worship and discountenanc'd the False that executed Justice and Judgment in the Land then Malice it self must confess our King is God's King David was renown'd for that one Merciful Speech upon his Return to his Kingdom Shall there any man be put to death this day in Israel As if it had been a thing to be abominated to shew Severity when God had shew'd him such singular Grace But how many Shimei's how many Railers how many Cursers 't is but a small thing which I have said how many Capital Enemies how many Betrayers how many Covenanters against him and lyers in wait for his Blood did our David pardon upon his Return 'T was an Observation of Old regnabit sanguine multo Ad regnum quisquis venit ab exilio The King that returns after Exile will Reign for the Future in Blood and Revenge But our King contrariwise after his Exile regnabat Sanguine parco Reigns at this day as one Elected to a Kingdom that had a Crown bestow'd on him and not as one that had recover'd his own So that as the Virgins gave David the preheminence to Saul in the Songs of Victory and Triumph saying Saul has slain his thousands and David his Ten thousands We in the Songs of Mercy and Clemency may give our King the preheminence to David and say As David pardon'd one single Detractor our Gracious Sovereign gave life and opportunity of Repentance to thousands of Traitors and Murtherers and was truly in this Gods King and not only a King of his liking but a King that is like him resembling him in one of his Noblest Attributes that of his Mercy Those to whom Princes intrust the care of their Souls ought to be faithful to them and not only speak pleasing things but true to imitate good Surgeons who not always use Oyls and Lenitives but if need be Lancets and Corrosives But then let no man at a distance surmise Evil of his Prince lest while he denies him to be Gods King he sets to his hand to make him no King at all and while he strips him of his Righteousness strips him also of his Royal Dignity I speak not to the Kings Enemies but to his severer Friends if he have any The Sinister Thoughts and Censures of the Subject are often Ominous and Fatal to a Prince whereas their good Opinions are
in the most General and Universal comprehension both of Prince and People not of the Prince alone as some are willing to reckon the Benefits his Majesty has receiv'd not to revere him the more for being so much in God's Favour but to make him more indebted to God than themselves as if because this is call'd the King's Day all the Mercies of it and all the Thanks for them were to be put upon his account Undoubtedly the Kings Obligations to Heaven are infinite but was he only restor'd this Day to his Crown and Country Or were not all we likewise re-call'd from the same Banishment or from Prisons and Sequestrations Dungeons and Gibbets at home to enjoy our Lives and Liberties our Religion and Estates Has all the delicious Fare of the Land been serv'd to the Kings Table All the Gold Lace been worn upon his Back Nay but I behold many at this instant standing like Kings in the presence of the King and 't is to be complain'd of that the Enjoyments of many Out vie his in their proportion Is there then no Thanks of our Own due to God We have this Obligation even more than the King has that we have him that we enjoy this Principle of Union this Bond of Peace this Foundation of Security and Prosperity O let us not forget in the loud Joys and Gaiety and Festivity of this Day the days of Sadness and Silence of Scarcity and Doubtfulness of Soul when we had no King when a Villain sat on the Throne when our Hatred and Aversion rul'd over us the Scourge of Loyalty and the Oppressor of Religion and Justice Let us not forget the Time when to be Noble was to be Guilty and to be Loyal an Enemy to the State Again when to be a Mechanick made room for the Person in the Places of Honour and a Fanatick qualify'd him for the highest Charges and Honours and our Great Ones bow'd down to these or bow'd under the saddest Misery The remembrance of these things will make us readily acknowledge the Mercies of this Day to have been General to us all and not only heighten but sanctifie our Joy make the Feast resound with Thanksgiving and Praises of God and not wholly to be spent in loose and confus'd Mirth Riot and Excess it will preserve us from falling into that Fatal Ingratitude which accompanies Prosperity and which God in the People of Israel warns all Nations of and yet which all more or less fall into The forgetfulness of the Arm that deliver'd them and the Goodness that made them Great And in the midst of our Felicity we shall remember our Duty and our Ease shall not corrupt our Manners nor our Prosperity and Affluence be snares to us And God will repeat and iterate his glorying we have heard this Day not only in the Person of our King but of his Posterity to all Ages even till all Kingdoms are swallow'd up in the Kingdom of Heaven Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Sion Which God of the riches of his Mercy grant to whom be ascribed all Honour Glory and Thanksgiving this day forth and for evermore Amen The Eighth Sermon JOHN xvi 8 And when he is come he will reprove the World of Sin of Righteousness and of Judgment GOD who at sundry times and in divers manners says the Apostle spake in times past unto the Fathers by the Prophets hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son c. as if this were his ultimus conatus the last and utmost Effort or Endeavour of his Power and Goodness to reduce the Sinful and Unbelieving World But by miserable Event it appear'd that this Means prov'd as uneffectual as the former that the World did unto Christ as they had done unto the Prophets before him slew the Son as they had slain the Servants Yet notwithstanding the unfathomable Depths and Riches of the Divine Goodness gave not over here where Reason would have given over but shew'd it self still Infinite where Humane Imagination was Finite bow'd the Heavens again and sent down the third Person in the Trinity the Holy Ghost Pertinacia nostra exhausit Coelum the Obstinacy of Men even drain'd and exhausted Heaven Verbum Caro the Word made Flesh was not sufficient to master this Obstinacy but it must be Verbum Spiritus too the Spirit must become a Word i. e. be sent from Heaven to be a Word in the Mouth of the Apostles to reprove or as the Margent has it to convince the World of Sin And when he is come he will reprove or convince the World of Sin of Righteousness and of Judgment To convince is to force the Understanding of the Opposer by strength of Argument to acknowledge the Truth that is contended for And to reprove or rebuke is again but a Moral Conviction of Sin in a person In the Words I shall consider these two things I. The Matter of the Conviction which the Spirit shall bring the World to an Acknowledgment of namely of Sin of Righteousness and of Judgment II. The Manner how he shall bring the World to this Acknowledgment viz. by convincing it by irrefragable Arguments I begin with the Matter of the Conviction Sin Râ—ghteousness and Judgment And First He shall convince the World of Sin What Sin it is which is meant here that the Spirit shall convince the World of is doubtful It may well be thought to be the Sin of Cruelty the perverse and barbarous Inhumanity the Jews shew'd when they demanded a Murderer to be releas'd unto them and kill'd the Just One. And we read in Effect Acts 2.36 that it was one of the first Works of the Spirit after his coming to bring three thousand Souls to confess this Sin and shew their Compunction for it for after S t Peter had laid before them how by wicked hands they had crucified and slain the Lord of Life they were prick'd to the heart and said Men and Brethren what shall we do i. e. to be deliver'd from the Sin of Murder or Cruelty But though this Interpretation be plausible it agrees not with the Reason Christ himself gives in the Verse immediately following my Text why the Holy Ghost should convince the World of Sin Of Sin says he because they believe not on me It should seem then it was the Sin of Unbelief that he came to reprove or convince the World of And this is the Opinion of many on the place The truth is Infidelity is a Sin highly injurious to the Deity it makes God a Lyar as S t John says He that believeth not God hath made him a Lyar. It makes him impotent and ignorant How should God perceive says the Wicked Psal. 73.11 is there knowledge in the most High And the faithless Israelites Can God prepare a Table in the Wilderness He smote the stony Rock indeed that the Water gushed out but can he give Bread also and provide Flesh for his People Nay it
for Sin if Christ had not come in the Flesh no Redemption no Salvation of the World if the God of the World had not vouchsafed to have been born of a Woman Yes some perhaps will say God of his free Grace might have pardoned mens sins without the Incarnation of his Son or any Sacrifice or Atonement for them What belongs to this will fall-in in the next Place the handling the Purpose of the Manifestation of Christ in the â—â—â—sh which was To take away our Sins It is no Wisdom barely to understand things but this is Wisdom To understand the Purpose of things Generally the greatest Naturalists among us admire the World this stupendous Workmanship of the Almighty and Eternal Agent and think they have studied and observed fairly if they have arrived to the Knowledge of the Qualities and Properties of some particular Natural Bodies but rarely do they deduce them from their first Original the Creator and rarelier discern the chief End for which they were created they see a continual corruption and generation of Sublunary Beings and that by this means the succession of the Universe is maintained but pierce not so deep as to see that this is done not so much for the continuance of the World as for the continuance of God's Glory in the World and that many Ages may see and acknowledge his Power and partake of his Bounty and Goodness And so it is with many Believers under the Gospel they read what 's written of Christ they magnifie his Miracles admire his holy Life and Doctrine commemorate his Sufferings celebrate his Festivals But what was the main Design of these things what they were to bring to pass in the World they reflect not on as they ought to do but stand in need to be put in mind of it as the first Christians our Apostle here wrote to All men are ready to assent to this Saying of St. Paul Great is the mystery God was manifest in the Flesh justify'd in the Spirit seen of Angels preached to the Gentiles c. But then that all these Mysteries are Mysteries of Godliness i. e. such as should produce Godliness Vertue and Piety in all those to whom they are preached and revealed make them renounce their wicked ways and fulfil the Law of righteousness this they neither penetrate into nor care to be convinc'd of We cannot be therefore too solicitous and assiduous in making known the End and awakening men to the consideration of the Design and Purpose of the Transactions of their Salvation as necessary to be understood as the Transactions themselves As our Apostle does not only teach That Christ was manifested in the Flesh but adds also the Reason of it that 't was to take away our sins And this being his chief design in my Text I shall endeavour to explain How Christ assuming our Flesh did take away our sins For the contrary may be imagined that by taking our Flesh he should have taken likewise our sins but not have taken them away But Christ by his Incarnation took away our sins two ways He took them away From us And took them away out of us or From within us First He took away our sins from us And this he did by taking them upon himself and paying to God the forfeiture for them undergoing the punishment of their guilt in our behalf so that they were no longer our sins but his own the Original sin of Adam after this manner and all the Actual sins since of the whole World he made his own To speak strictly indeed the Guilt of sin can never be taken away for sin after 't is once committed remains for ever sinful but in a Legal and Political sence Sin may be said to be taken away from us when the Guilt of it is transferr'd and the Punishment undergone by another and the Word in the Original for taking away our Sins is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies the lifting them up and is in importance the same with St. Peter's expression he bare or as the Margent of our Bible has it he bare away our sins in his Body on the Tree What our Lord said of his Exaltation on the Cross When I am lifted up from the Earth I will draw all men unto me may be affirmed of their Sins as well as of themselves of the Guilt as well as of the Persons of them that believe in him viz. that by his lifting up on the Cross the Sins of all men should be taken up from them as Exhalations are drawn up from the Earth by the heat of the Sun and after dispers'd into Air. But now if we consider seriously this great and wonderful Dispensation of God's in manifesting his Son in the Flesh to take away the Sins of the World we must certainly conceive that he had a further and more excellent aim and end in it than merely to pardon the Guilt of Sin and to cancel past Transgressions For if this had been all as 't was objected this might have been done freely and with less ado without Sacrifice or Atonement for Sin without God's sending his Son from Heaven to live so many Years upon Earth in a poor and persecuted Condition and at last to suffer a painful and ignominious Death Besides in all reason the Pardon of Sin would have been pronounced more authoritatively and satisfactorily by God in his Glory than in the Disguise of Humane Nature as the Great Lord of Heaven and Earth than as a poor Delinquent standing himself before the Tribunal of Justice Again what had all the other Mutations in the Church of the Jews the removing of the Law of Moses and the introducing a more perfect that of the Gospel to do with the bare Remission of Sin the giving so many excellent Precepts and Christ himself for an Example of a holy Life the clear discovery of a Heaven for the Reward of Well-doers and of a Hell for evil the confirming these things with so many Miracles and the Bloud of so many Divine Persons the instituting an Order of men to preach and inculcate these things to the end of the World If I say the absolving men from their past Transgressions had been all the business and nothing had been aimed at further or required of them to qualifie them to receive this Grace but barely to believe that such a Grace was offered them as too many flatter and delude themselves all these operose toilsome mysterious and astonishing Performances of Christ and the Holy Ghost might have been spar'd and any one of the least of the Sons of the Prophets would have serv'd to have proclaim'd the Remission of Sins and coming on this Errand would have found credence and welcome But alas the Case was otherwise Men were not only to be pardoned but reformed to be absolved from their Guilt but as 't is in the Benedict ' being delivered out of the hands of their Enemies they were to serve God without fear in holiness
to bring home to it self the dreadful Commination made in my Text against them And first As Israel desired a Change of Government only to remove God further from them so if we may judge of mens minds by their outward actions of the Secrets of their hearts by their following behaviour the passionate desire of many among us to have a King again after the fatal stroke struck this Day was on no better an account than Israel's desire to have a King We had lain a long time under a sad Oppression at home or a sadder Exile abroad ate no Bread for many Years but what came in a manner to us like Manna from the immediate hand of God and the frequent Fasts strict Devotions and holy Lives which could only promise a continuance of such favour from Heaven were as insupportable as the Holiness and Obedience God required of Israel that he might dwell among them And many desired a King not so much to deliver the Nation from Oppression and Confusion as themselves from the Paedagogy of Divine Discipline not so much I say to rescue them from the Tyranny of the Usurper as from the Tyrannies of Religion And such a Surfeit many took no less of holy Duties than of evil days that they have endeavoured since to obliterate all memory of them both as 't was the practice or at least the boast of a prophane Person That whereas others observed the Days of their Deliverance from any great danger with Fasting and Humiliation he always kept such Days with Feasting and Jollity and for this Reason To make his Soul amends for what it had suffered And such has been the deportment of some men since God restored them to their prosperity that they seem to vie by their voluptuous lives with the former miseries they suffered to make their Souls amends for the twenty Years affliction they lay under by a twenty Years or a whole future Lifes Debauchery When God restored us to our forfeited Peace and Prosperity he promised himself he had restored a People sensible of so wonderful a mercy who as he had made them to abound in all secure enjoyments would have abounded in Good Works and Gratitude to him but he has found such an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as I may say such an unexpected Issue among us as the Prophet Isaiah complains he did in Israel in his Days He lookt for righteousness but behold a cry When God lookt for righteousness that his Glory should have been exalted in this Land more than in any other because he had done more for it than for any other behold I know not what Cry of more than usual infidelity and wickedness What shall I say that we are fallen back again into those Sins which brought on us the calamity of this Day Nay but we have outdone all our old Sins and all that ever went before us we have not only broken God's righteous Laws and Commandments but denyed he ever gave a Law to the World we have not only denyed him by our wicked lives but even in our words to have any Being and as all Ages have been guilty of Adultery Drunkenness and the like 't is the Character of this That it affirms such things are no sins Secondly As Israel put their confidence in Flesh and Bloud believed if they could obtain a King of their own Nation he would be invincible possessed of all the Heroick Qualities they had read of their Judges and as his Character was greater so his Performances would be also greater and this of course as if God had been obliged for his own Glory to see it should be so though they never so little regarded his Glory themselves And have not we put as high a confidence in Flesh and Bloud who have lookt upon our King not only as a defence against our Enemies but even against God himself not only as a Foundation of our Peace and Felicity but of our Rebellion against Heaven Who have said in our hearts We have no need of the burthensom Duties of Religion and the severities of a holy Life now we have a King to provide against our dangers from abroad and to take care for our quiet at home Few considering in order to the Prosperity they desire what are the provocations of the Land how we stand in favour or disfavour with God But enquiring What Alliances we have made abroad What Ships we are able to set out What Money there is in the Exchequer What Supplies the Parliament will give and the like Is not this to provoke God to infatuate our Counsels and to bring our Enterprizes to nought to involve our King in a common destruction with our selves as he did this Day though he were even a Hezekiah or a David Thirdly As Israel was mutinous and rebellious upon the least occasions against their best Governours we come not behind them in this Sin witness the black disloyalty of this Day Historiographers the publick Censurers of Mankind brand every Nation of the Earth with some Vice more peculiar to them than others as to name none one with Drunkenness another with Robbery and Piracy a third with ambition and desire of Sovereignty a fourth with Whoredom and abusing themselves with Mankind c. And we of this Nation among the rest are taxt for stubbornness and proneness to Rebellion noted for a People that delight in Sedition and seditious Persons that are apt to think the most turbulent and factious the best Patriots the greatest Troublers the greatest Lovers of their Country So that as other Princes in regard of the sweet compliance of their Subjects are styled Reges Hominum Kings of Men ours are styled Reges Diabolorum Kings of Devils And 't is observable that what was the Vice of every Nation many hundred Years ago continues to be the same still Time has not altered them nor the Preaching of the Gospel reformed them But though we of this Nation should not care to wipe off the imputation that lies upon us among men nor yet fear the displeasure of God who counts Rebellion as the Sin of Witchcraft i. e. Disobedience to Governours a Degree of Apostasie from himself yet the experience alone of the former Evils which our unquiet Spirits have brought upon us and their direct tendency to bring the like again viz. to bereave us a second time of our Royal Government and to cast us under the subjection of the basest of the People may well make us abhor all seditious thoughts I say for fear lest a second time we become not only the most miserable but the most ridiculous and despicable of all People while we give the World leave to say that we that could not digest a miscarriage in the State are forc'd to digest Oppression and Tyranny that could not pass by an oversight in our Rulers are compell'd to undergo Sequestration and Banishment the Axe and the Halter perhaps a Foreign Yoke To draw to a Conclusion It is a common
should be the Reception of the Messiah the Entertainment that the Prince of Peace should find in the World when he came to offer Peace to the World And that he may set it off the more lively he does it by way of Dialogue shews it in a kind of Drama or Acted Representation introduces a Nameless Person to be astonish'd at the Strange Spectacle of an Ambassadour wounded a publick Minister invaded like a publick Enemy and the Person so used giving as strange an account of his Usage viz. that 't was not on the Road but in the City not in the Camp but in the House again not in the House of his Enemies but in the House of his Allies and Friends And one shall say unto him What are these Wounds in thy hands Then shall be answer Those with which I was wounded in the House of my Friends I am not ignorant that the Generality of Interpreters a few only excepted as well ancient as modern apply these Words to the False Prophet mentioned ver 5. and not to Christ but though I affect not to follow the Few rather than the Many yet I find it hard to resign a Picture so perfectly resembling our Lord as my Text does and allow it to be drawn for a False Prophet I shall therefore shew upon what Considerations I have been induced to understand the Words as I do and if they are not convincing content my self to handle them by way of Accommodation to the Business of the Day though not by way of Interpretation In the first Verse of the Chapter the Times of the Messiah are confessedly spoken of In that Day there shall be a Fountain opened to the house of David and to the Inhabitants of Jerusalem for Sin and for Vncleanness In the five following Verses the things transacted preparatory to the Coming of the Messiah are set down viz. the rooting Idolatry out of the Land of Israel and the destroying of the False Prophets as at ver 2. For God having for a time determined to silence all Prophecies and to restrain all Miracles that greater Notice might be taken of his Son when he came in the Power of both with that lumine prophetico which Justin Martyr says Christ first kindled again after 't was Extinguish'd False Prophets from hence took occasion to arise and having nothing Divine to countenance their pretended Mission from Heaven they apishly imitated the Outward Garb and Austerity of the true Prophets as 't is ver 4. wore rough Garments and used boldness of Speech But God not suffering these Impostors to frustrate his Divine Counsels sent a Discerning Spirit into his People and stir'd them up to bring them to condign Punishment as at v. 3. The very Father and Mother of the False Prophet shall thrust him through and force him to confess that he spoke Lies and that he was not sent by God but was a Herdsman that had kept Cattel from his Youth And Christ at this Season entering on the Stage of Judaea in a Mean and Poor Condition far Unlike that Glorious and Warlike Prince that carnal Nation had fansy'd him the Priests and Rulers set him at nought and out of a pretence of Zeal to God's Glory as the faithful Jews had a little before laid hands upon the False Prophets did the like on the Messiah and crucifi'd him for an Impostor as these things are imply'd partly in the Words of my Text What are these Wounds in thy hands c. and partly in the Verse immediately following Awake O Sword against my Shepherd against the Man which is my Fellow says the Lord of Hosts smite the Shepherd and the Sheep shall be scattered Which last Words our Lord also applies to himself Matth. 26.31 The Prophet Zechary recounting so close together the semblable Treating of these two most Unresembling Persons the Messiah and the False Prophets and shifting his Narration from the one to the other without any transition has made it hard to distinguish which he speaks of But in Prophetick Writings this Abruptness is common as the Rabbins say lumen propheticum est lumen abruptum and S t Hierom Non curae fuit Spiritui prophetali Historiae ordinem sequi the Spirit of Prophecy is not sollicitous to observe Method but despising all Historical and Logical Contextures makes the Exits and Intrats of Persons in an unaccountable Manner And such a Freedom it uses in this Chapter that 't is impossible rightly to apply the Particulars related to the Persons they belong but by considering what was truly and indeed done to each of them And by this Rule Piercing the Hands plainly alludes to Crucifying and must belong to the Messiah this being a Punishment never practised among the Jews till they fell under the Roman Yoke Stoning being the Penalty of a False Prophet by the Law and then if we consider Wounding the Hands is not only a punishment differing from that prescribed but also an Odd one that no way comports with the Crime it being more sutable to the Offence to have bored the Tongue of the False Prophet than his Hands But the truth is the Prophet had exprest the Punishment of the False Prophet before at the third Verse namely by Thrusting him through which might be done jure Zelotarum by the Right of Zealots God exciting his own Relations against him Or else the Punishment may refer to Exod. 19.12 where God commands That if Man or Beast came within the forbidden Precincts of the holy Mount they should be Thrust through with a Dart Our Prophet threatning here the same Death to those that Uncall'd invaded the Prophetick Office which was threatned there to such as presumptuously intruded to pry into God's Mysterious and Dreadful Appearance Which things being premis'd I shall proceed to handle the Words as they are applicable to our Saviour and so they contain in them two Great Mysteries of our Faith which I shall explain by enquiring I. For what Reason the Divine Goodness so order'd it That Christ our Saviour should be a Wounded Saviour in satisfaction to this Question What are these Wounds in thy Hands II. For what Reason the Divine Goodness so order'd it That he should be wounded by those he deserved Best from in exposition of these Words Those with which I was wounded in the House of my Friends I begin with the First of these Why Christ was to be A Wounded Saviour What are these Wounds in thy Hands The Wounds in Christ's Hands do more particularly relate to the Wounds made by the Nails of the Cross but by the Figure of a Part for the Whole they may stand for the Wounds he received all his Body over and not only so but for all his Sufferings whether in Body or in Spirit from his Cradle to his Grave from the Manger at Bethlehem to his Crucifixion at Mount Calvary and the Summ Total of this Question What are these Wounds in thy Hands imports no less Than what is the meaning
Christ from the dead shall quicken your mortal Bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you IF the Resurrection of Christ had been of his Person only it would have been a rare and glorious Event but an Event of no Concern to us and if we did meet only this Day to celebrate his Resurrection from the Dead and not our Own that shall be though we celebrated a Great Miracle we should not celebrate a Great Benefit But S t Paul teaches us in my Text how we may be assured to commemorate our own Resurrection as well as Christ's namely If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in us Those whom the Spirit does not inhabit in this Life when they dye they dye for ever but they on the other side in whom it dwells and inhabits now the Resurrection of Christ is not to them a History but a Precedent and such Persons shall not be only Admirers but themselves Partakers of the Miracle If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the Dead dwell in you he that raised up Christ from the Dead shall also quicken c. To look further into this Mystery and the Expedient propos'd to bring this Wonderful thing to pass I shall observe in the Words these three Particulars I. What it is for the Spirit of God or which is all one of him that raised up Jesus from the dead to dwell in us II. The Effect or Consequence of such In-dwelling of the Spirit of God viz. if it be in a Man He that raised up Christ from the Dead shall raise up his Mortal Body III. By what Means God will produce this Effect in such a Man even by that which dwelleth in him by his Spirit that dwelleth in him I. What it is for the Spirit of God to dwell in a man The Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the Dead is no other than the Eternal Spirit of God the third Person in the Trinity the Spirit which is mentioned in Genesis that in the beginning of the World gave Life to all things is the same Spirit that still gives the Palingenesia the second Genesis or Regeneration whether we understand the Word of the Change and Renovation of our Soul and Affections to the Will of God in this Life or the Resuscitation of the Body from the Grave in the next and the Reuniting it with the Soul in order to Eternal Bliss The Spirit is said here to be the Spirit Of God but not the Spirit In God as if it dwelt in God as it dwells in us it is in God Personally and Essentially as his Being but 't is in us only by way of Tenancy as an Inhabitant or Inmate to excite in us its Gifts and Graces And this may serve to refute and silence those deceived Souls who of late times through their misunderstanding of the Union of the Saints with God exprest in Scripture have run into such high-flown and horrible Blasphemies as to say They are In-Godded in God and In-Christed in Christ thus claiming Prerogative instead of Priviledge and affirming Divinity instead of a Divine Spirit to be in them supposing themselves to be inspired even Essentially with the Divine Nature But such Blasphemous Conceits as these so audacious and injurious to the Deity are so far from being Effects of God's Spirit which is the Principle of Eternal Life in those it dwells that they are Demonstrations of the Spirit of Satan an Affectation to be like the Most High and to equal their Maker and unrepented of will certainly consign them to have a Portion with him in Eternal Death for what the Jews blindly objected against our Lord as a Crime That being but a Man he made himself God may be justly charged on these that being indeed but Men and commonly but the Dreggs of Men they fansie themselves to be Gods Only the Sin of these is more unpardonable in regard that after so long a time and so much warning of the like Miscarriage in this kind they have not exploded this old worn out Stratagem of Satan's But though this Diabolical Frenzy must be abhorr'd yet when 't is said that the Spirit of God dwells in a Man we must look upon it as denoting something more Extraordinary and Excellent than the common Lodging or Abiding of an Inhabitant in a House as representing rather God's Residence in his Temple at Jerusalem which Temple as it was Splendid and Glorious with all that Art and Cost could make it a Representation of Heaven so God by wonderful Tokens and Testimonies declared his Divine Presence in it And after this manner the Heart of every Christian ought to be embellish'd with Vertue and sanctified like a Temple appear like a little Heaven upon Earth in which the Holy Spirit may be seen to dwell by shewing his Divine Operations Know ye not says S t Paul that your Bodies are the Temples of the Holy Ghost Solomon built God but one Material House but Christ by his Spirit has raised to God as many Living Temples on Earth as there are Believers But to be more particular Dwelling in a House implies three things 1. Legitimate Possession by Legal Title and Introduction 2. Command and Dominion 3. Residence or Mansion And all these Properties the In-dwelling of the Spirit of God ought to have in those whom it hereafter quickens to Everlasting Life 1. The Spirit must have Legitimate Introduction and Possession God dwelt not in his Temple at Jerusalem till it was Dedicated and consecrated to him till he was introduced into it by Supplications and Sacrifices And his Holy Spirit will not dwell in Mens Hearts till they be dedicated and consecrated to him by Baptism and he be introduced by Prayer and Vows of Faith and Repentance Ephes. 3.17 S t Paul beseeches God that he would grant to the Ephesians according to the riches of his Glory to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the Inner-Man that Christ may dwell in their Hearts by Faith They that by Faith in Christ do not unite themselves unto him and so receive of his Spirit have not yet introduced the Spirit into its Temple and they that recede again from the Faith after they have received it dislodge and thrust the Holy Spirit out of his Tenure and Occupation The Jews reckoned that God was still among them as before when they had rejected and crucified the Holy One but after such their Infidelity and Wickedness he remained no more in their Hearts than he did in their Material Temple after that Voice was heard to come out of it migremus hinc let us depart hence Wheresoever it is so That either Men believe not on the Son of God or else having believed on him through the Allurements of the World and the Flesh fall back again into Unbelief and chuse rather to dispossess his Spirit than their Sins and Lusts there no Quickening Power will be found to revive their Mortal Bodies at the
the enlivening us to a Life of Grace But though this meaning sutes well with S t Paul's Design in this Epistle to confute the Imagination of the Jews that they could obtain Eternal Life by Virtue of the Law of Moses without Faith in Christ Yet the Words of my Text point at the Blessed Immortality the Righteous shall hereafter be Partakers of and are only to be understood after this manner If Christians give themselves up to be led and governed by the Spirit of God in this World which is the Spirit that raised up Jesus they in like manner shall be raised up by it at the Last Day and the more they are quickned to a Life of Grace here the more they may be assured they shall be quickned to the Life of Glory hereafter Many Practical Uses and Advantages might be inferred from hence but I shall collect only this one which may be of great Encouragement to our Christian Industry and Endeavours to lead a Godly Life and that is the Expedition we shall make towards the attaining the Unspeakable Rewards of the Kingdom of Heaven There are three Lives to be attained and all to be attained by the Well-Ordering of One of our Spiritual Life alone in this World if we rise from the Death of Sin to Newness of Life we shall attain by the same Performance three Resurrections to that of perfect Grace to that of perfect Time or Duration and to that of perfect Joy and Glory This I say is so rich a Harvest and to be purchas'd with such Expedition that the Nicest and most impatient of Toil and Difficulties may be encouraged to strive for it Happy is he says S t John that has a share in the first Resurrection i. e. in the Life of Grace for the other are but Corollaries or Additional Complements of this Sanctification is as certain and assured a Way to Glorification as Childhood is the Way to Manhood 't is the Inchoation or Beginning of it and in a sense may be said to be it Those whom he Justify'd says S t Paul those he also Glorify'd as if these were done together and not in process of Time But to proceed The Author secondly of this Grace and Bounty is God And why did not the Apostle express himself so in a Word but used this Circumlocution He that raised up Jesus from the dead Because since Christ's coming in the Flesh and having performed the Work of our Salvation God has left off to govern in the Church immediately by himself and does all things by and through our Lord Jesus Christ. God Created and Drowned the World and wrought all the other wonderful things we read of in the Old Testament in his Own Name as God But now under the Gospel he dispenses all his Mercies as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and we must expect the Gift of Grace the Pardon of Sin Resurrection to Eternal Life and all his other Blessings and Favours from his Relation to his Son It is indeed by the Power of God that all men shall be raised from the Dead but then it is again for the Merits sake of Christ and their Believing in him that they shall be raised to Glory And that we should take notice of the Change of his Name in the New Testament from that he delighted to be called by in the Old is his own Will and Pleasure Says he there By my name Jehovah I will be known but now to us by the Name of his Relation to his Son as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Manichees from the Mistake of some Passages and Observations like this raised their detestable Heresie That the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New were two Different Persons the Father of Christ another God from the Creator of the World who sent his Son in the Flesh with a Design to win men from the Creator of the World But these are Wicked and Impious Dotages 't is only an Other Name that God has taken 't is not an Other God that acts among us there is but One God from and to all Eternity whose Name be Blessed for ever The meaning of the Scripture is only to teach us That 't is not God quatenus God that we expect should quicken us at the Last Day but God as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And this manifests the Perverseness of the Jews who still adhere to Moses and the Synagogue for their hopes of Salvation and the Blindness also of those who perswade themselves they can please God and attain Heaven by Natural and Moral Performances without Faith in Christ But the time permits me not to insist on these things I haste therefore to my last Particular The Means by which God will quicken our Mortal Bodies at the last Day viz. By his Spirit that dwelleth in us This Particle By in the Original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does not infer any Means that God shall use as Instrumental for the quickening our Mortal Bodies but implies here and in many other places the Motive only or Reason that invites the Agent to perform an Action God will raise us from the Dead as he does all his other Works by his Word or Omnipotent Power but though his Power does the thing yet 't is for something in Men that invites him to do it namely his Holy Spirit which he gave them to that very End and Purpose to dispose and fit them for the receiving Eternal Life David says of himself immediately and Christ typically and of all Faithful People mystically Thou wilt not suffer thy Holy One to see Corruption i. e. God will not leave or forsake the Righteous either in their Life or Death as if he had forgotten them and the Motive of this his Favour to them is Because they are Righteous or Holy Ones And the Psalmist expresses the thing with some Indignation and as if it were an injury to God to imagine that he could suffer in his very Nature that that which was Holy should be swallowed up in the Grave that which was Righteous should perish that which was Incorruptible should see Corruption And indeed there is not only an Incongruity but an Impossibility that this should be For what the Apostle says of Christ's Resurrection God raised him up having loosed the Pains or Bands of Death because it was possible he should be held of them may be said of the Resurrection of all the Faithful with this Difference only That the Impossibility of Christ's being detain'd in the Grave proceeded from his Divine Nature ours from a Divine Promise Nay we may add and with good Warrant That the Impossibility of our remaining in the Grave depends not only on an External Promise but on Something With-in our selves though not Of our selves even on the Spirit of God which dwelleth in us by which we are united to Christ and made Members of his Body he being the Head and our Resurrection must
the performing Noble Actions out of an Honest Disobedience as I may say refus'd to keep the Silence he enjoined them For after he had done such Wonderful things and no less Good and Beneficial than Great and astonishing they could not they would not consent they should be smothered that that which was Praise-worthy should go away without Praise that that which deserved so well of the World should not be known to the World and they even contested with our Lord in this matter as 't is said ver 36. By how much the more he charged them to keep Silence by so much the more a great deal they publisht it 'T is reported that Virgil condemned his incomparable Poems to the fire and that this endeared them the more to Posterity men setting a Value on them afterwards not only because they were Excellent but because they were Preserved And the People in like manner here set a higher Rate on those Miracles our Lord sought to Conceal because he sought to Conceal them more industriously endeavoured to make them Illustrious because they were condemned to Obscurity and Oblivion to pay them their due Honour because it was denyed them When the Pharisees out of Envy urged our Lord to rebuke his Disciples and the Multitude for crying Hosanna before him he said unto them If these should hold their peace the Stones would cry out And if the People had not done him the Right they did the Stones would have proclaim'd his Glory and I look not upon their words in my Text as proceeding from the Spirit of Opposition and Contradiction but from the Spirit of Grace and Truth even from the Inspiration and Dictate of the Holy Ghost himself He hath done all things well he maketh both the Deaf to hear and the Dumb to speak Before I proceed yet to the Division it will not be amiss to premise some things more particularly both concerning the Words and the Speakers of them And the Words in the first place are plainly a Justification of our Saviour from the mouth of the People their Verdict given upon him in Opposition to the Censure of their Priests and Rulers But of What are they a Justification Of his Innocent and holy Conversation among men There was no need of that He went about his whole Life as S t Peter says doing Good conferring Health as well as Faith Curing as well as Converting men and though the Malice of his Adversaries joined with the Malice of Hell at his arraignment to bring an Accusation against him they found none There was as little need also of their Justification of his Miracles for they were wrought in the face of all Judea and the Sanhedrim as well as the People confest them What do we do say they John 11.47 for this Man doth many Miracles Of what then was their Justification Not so much of his Life and Miracles as of the Divine Power or Principle by which he wrought all that he did There was a Division in the Thoughts of men concerning him upon the Sight of his works and some said He was a Good Man and others again Nay but he deceiveth the People secretly intimating that every One that made a holy Show was not a holy Person that every Worker of Miracles was not a Messenger of God's but many times the most seeming Instruments of Heaven were indeed Agents and Instruments of the Devil In these Extremes of a good and bad Opinion the People adhered to the most Favourable concluded that he was a Good Man and no Seducer that a Great Prophet was risen among them and that God had visited his People And their omnia bene in my Text he hath done all things well points not so much at his Morality as at his Mission from God at the Truth of his Miracles as at the Truth of his Pretences viz. that all he taught and did was by the Power and Spirit of God Secondly The Persons that pronounc'd this Sentence were the Multitude the Judgment proceeded ex ore populi from the mouth of the People But it was ne'er the worse for that what is to be concluded upon the Sight of an undoubted Miracle may be believed as well nay perhaps better from the impartial Opinion of the People than from the biass'd Reasonings of the Great Ones in those things where Common sense is a sufficient Guide 't is safer many times to submit the Tryal to the Country than to the Bench to honest and plain Dealing than to Wit and Learning for too often it comes to pass that the Politicks of Persons in high Place extinguish their Ethicks and that the Truth of Religion is corrupted for Reasons of State As may be seen in the Church of Rome where Truth holds always the second place to Interest and is frequently on its account allow'd no place at all The Scribes and Pharisees saw the same Miracles which the People did but while they were ambitious to be Teachers themselves while Vain-Glory Envy and other by-Respects possest them they were not Converted but hardened by them John 9.24 when our Lord had cured one that was born blind the Pharisees said to him Give God the Praise we know this Man is a Sinner But the Person cured that was one of the People and unconcern'd in their Pretences pronounced If he were not of God he could do nothing Again Matth. 12.22 when our Lord healed another that was blind and dumb and possest with a Devil the Pharisees said This Fellow doth not cast out Devils but by Beelzebub the Prince of the Devils But what said the Multitude on the other side Is not this the Son of David i. e. the Great Prophet or Messiah that was to come into the World Such were the Collections of a Simple and Sincere People free from Envy and Malice We owe the Growth of Christian Religion to plain honest Men that heard the Gospel with disinteressed and unprejudiced Affections and closed with it when they saw it consonant to Right Reason and Christ found at first but few of the Great or Learned that were fit to be Evangelists or yet Disciples 't was three hundred Years before any Scepter submitted to Christ and none were so fierce Opposers of the Faith in the Infancy of it as the Philosophers But the Ignorant People that knew not the Law as the Pharisees reproach'd them to weaken their Testimony convey'd to us the Knowledge of the Gospel and in my Text and many places beside it may be truly said Vox populi Vox Dei the Voice of the People was the Voice of God O how happy and blessed were this Nation if it had a People of the like Temper that without Prejudice and Prepossession without Siding and Faction would embrace Sound Doctrine and bear Testimony to it by their peaceable and holy Lives be profitable Hâ—â—rers of the Word and not like the Pharisees aâ—fect to be Teachers of it Followers of Christ and his Apostles and not think they are
all Christs and Apostles themselves believe because the first Evangelists were Fishermen that therefore all Fishermen and Fishermen-like are Evangelists because God can enable the most Unlearned and Ignorant to be Expounders of his deepest Mysteries that therefore the most Ignorant and Unlearned are the best Expounders of them in a word because want of Scholarship is no Obstruction to God's Omnipotent Power that 't is therefore the highest Qualification of a Person to preach Alas my Brethren though the Multitude could give Testimony to Christ's Miracles they could not preach Christ's Sermons though the People could say Diseases cannot be cured Devils cast out the Dead raised to Life by a Word speaking unless a Divine Power accompanied that Word yet even the Apostles were not able to understand the Prophecies which related to our Lord's Person and his Kingdom till he interpreted to them the Scriptures concerning himself and as it was a Speech of Ingenuity to say He hath done all things well he maketh both the Deaf to hear and the Dumb to speak so it had been no less than a Prodigy if the People had taught the Pardon of Sins through the Bloud of Christ Justification through Faith or any other revealed Doctrine When therefore the People in these Days take upon them to condemn the Doctrine and Worship of the Church they were bred in to reject all Antiquity and to expound the hardest Scriptures without Learning by their New-Lights 't is not enough for them to say The Apostles who were Handy-Crafts men like us did such things in the Jewish Church before us unless they can also shew the like Warrant and Commission from Heaven which the Apostles did namely unless they can speak all Tongues cure all Diseases utter such Wisdom as all the Learning in the World cannot withstand For we must not take out-of-Fashion Hats and Coats rude Behaviour Thouing and Theeing their Betters for Miracles and the Seals of a Divine Calling accept of Ignorance and Presumption for Gifts of the Holy Ghost Non-sence and Dreams of Inspiration for Inspiration In the days of the Prophet Zechary there arose a Sort of Mock-Prophets or Teachers like these who having no Divine Gift to countenance their pretended Mission from Heaven apishly imitated the Outward Garb and Free Speech of the True Prophets And the like Entertainment which the People of God gave to those Impostors ours deserve to receive For 't is recorded that the very Father and Mother that begat the False Prophet said unto him Thou shalt not live for thou speak'st Lyes in the Name of the Lord and they thrust him through and made him ashamed every one of his Vision and that he had prophesied so that they wore Rough Garments no more to deceive but were constrained to say I am no Prophet I am a Husbandman for men have taught me to keep Cattel from my Youth Zech. 13. To come at length to the Division of the Words they offer these two things in general to our consideration 1. Our Saviour's Performance He made the Deaf to hear and the Dumb to speak 2. The Verdict or Testimony of the People upon it He hath done all things well In our Saviour's Performance we may consider more particularly 1. The Substance of it Giving of Hearing and giving of Speech 2. The Ceremonies or Circumstances which he used in giving them set down ver 33. the Touch of his Finger his Spittle the lifting up of his Eyes and Sighing and the Word he utter'd Ephata or be opened The Testimony or Verdict of the People offers also three things to our consideration 1. The Appellation they give our Lord He or this Man 2. The Kind or Nature of their Verdict 't was an Approbation that he had done Well 3. The Extent of their Approbation that he had done All things Well I begin first with the Substance of Christ's Performance Giving of Hearing and giving of Speech Deaf and Dumb are in Effect one and the same Infirmity Evils so complicated that one is a necessary Consequence of the other and the Word in the Original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies both Deaf and Dumb to cure also the one is to cure the other i. e. he that opens the Ear does with one and the same Act so far release the Tongue as to put it into a Capacity of recovering Speech But yet the People here very properly exprest these as two distinct Cures for though that which makes a Bar on the one Sense tyes a Knot likewise on the other yet they are really two Impotencies and the Operation of our Lord was as I may say a Single Double Miracle Single considering the necessary Complication of the two Evils Double considering the opening of the two Doors the Door of Audience and the Door of Utterance and the People with good Reason Separated as well as Extolled the Fact viz. that our Lord with the simple Clue or Key only of his Finger did perforate and discover all the subtile Wards and Meanders of the Ear and the hidden Vaults of the Mouth and so rectifie the Imperfections of them that Sound entered into the one and was formed and made to issue Articulately out of the other The Senses may receive Help from the Arts and Inventions of men but not Creation the Orator with a Pebble in his mouth might help his Pronunciation and by an Instrument conveying Sound the Hearing may be assisted but a total Privation or rather Privative Abnegation or Original Impotence that derides the Operations of the Surgeon and the Prescriptions of the Physician and the Cure can never be wrought but where the Finger of Christ is the Probe and the Salve But I have not yet declared the Greatness of the Miracle it was still more wonderful if as Interpreters conjecture and not without reason Christ did not only open the Ears and loosen the Tongue of the Impotent Person but also enricht his Understanding instructed his Mind as well as healed his Senses bestowed on him Knowledge which through defect of Hearing must needs be defective in him conferred on him Words as well as the Power to pronounce them and Conceptions as well as Words thus giving him linguam linguam not only a Tongue but also a Language infusing into his Soul the Dictionary or whole Treasure of Words in a Moment together with a Competency of Principles and Notions which even to those that have the Use of the Organs is opus dierum a Work of Time and Labour to acquire after the Miracle done upon the Deaf and Dumb Man there was need of Study and Industry to inform him when the Surgeon had done his Work there was place still for the Teacher As may be seen by him that was newly recovered of his Blindness in the following Chapter I see says he Men like Trees walking i. e. I see but I know not well what I see I cannot distinguish Men from Trees but that they walk Those that are endowed with the Senses
Poets tell of a famous Enchantress whose Spells were so dreadful that the Celestial Orbs yielded Obedience to her carmenque timent audire secundum and durst at no time stay her second Charm But though this were but a Fiction or Juggle yet so it was that all the Creatures without any Demur speedily and constantly obeyed the Injunctions of our Lord and never stay'd his second Command whether they were Elements Diseases or Devils themselves And as when he commanded the Storm to cease the Mariners ask'd amazedly What manner of Man is this that even the Sea and the Winds obey So the Multitude were no less astonisht here when they saw not only the deaf Elements obey but Deafness it self to lend an Ear when I say upon the pronouncing only of this single powerful Ephata they beheld the Doors of Audience and of Utterance both fly open the Dumb to speak and the Deaf to be so quick of hearing their Mouths were also open'd in Lauds and Praises and with one Universal Consent they gave our Lord this Testimony or Elogy He hath done all things Well he maketh both the Deaf to hear and the Dumb to speak Which brings me to my second General Part The Verdict and Approbation of the People But the time will not suffer me to go through the Several Stages of it I shall therefore only make some Use of what I have said and conclude at present We have heard that our Lord not only in the present Miracle before us but in many others used divers Ceremonies though he could have wrought them if he had pleas'd without so much as seeing the Persons as he did the absent Servant of the Centurion But while such Ceremonies edified the Beholders instructed their Ignorance made a deeper and more durable Impression in their Minds of his Glorious Works while they added Authority to his Words and Veneration to his Person he disdained not to serve himself with them And though the Wisdom of our Church for the like prudential Reasons viz. to explain her Doctrines to adde Order and Beauty to her Worship to stir up Zeal and Reverence in her Worshippers and the like has admitted of some few Ceremonies yet they lye under so great a Prejudice to many that to name them only without Detestation is enough to render the Person that names them Detestable But what our Lord has so far approved of as to practise ought not to be detested by his Followers It will not be possible in the few Minutes remaining to me to treat fully of this Subject But what are Ceremonies which are so cry'd-out against but the Outward Expressions of the Faith and Devotion we have Inwardly in our Hearts to God As the Apostle says With the Heart we believe unto Righteousness and with the Mouth Confession is made unto Salvation For we may manifest our Belief by Actions as well as by Words neither is it material by which we do it so we do it sincerely and whatever Exceptions can be made against Ceremonies may be made also against Words viz. that they may be Abused But then as men reject not the Use of Words because some do Deceive with them So neither ought they to reject Ceremonies the Outward Expressions of a Devout Soul because they are used by some Superstitiously and Idolatrously And the true Cause indeed of so manys abhorring Ceremonies is the Excessive and Idolatrous Use of them in the Church of Rome the multitude of their Cringings Bowings Crossings Prostrations Sprinklings of Water tinklings of Bells censing and kissing of Books Images and Altars changing of Vestments exposing of Reliques lighting and extinguishing of Candles c. all in one and the same Service insomuch that the Worship of God among so many busie Fooleries is the least part of it self and Religion so far from being Explained and Adorned by these things that 't is Disfigured and rendred only more Dark and Mysterious Which while some have taken just offence at they have run as much into the other Extreme and condemned all Ceremonies in general and endeavoured to justifie their transport against them by Scripture Unskilfully or Unsincerely wresting whatever they find spoken against the Old Jewish Ceremonies to the Christian Whereas the Apostles Quarrel against the Jewish Ceremonies was not for any thing which they had in Common with those that are used at this day in the Church of Christ but for their being directly Contrary to Christianity they were Types of Christ and of the Gospel and while they were kept on foot they denyed that he was come into the World However therefore that Ceremonies have been abused or that it may be said that the Outward Worship of the Body if compared with the Inward Worship of the Soul is but as the Outward Court of the Sanctuary to the Holy of Holies Yet if we consider rightly of the Exterior Acts of Devotion they are no less the Acts of the Heart than the Interior for as the one are the Elicite the other are the Imperate Acts of the Soul and though in a Degree once removed may be as Cordial and Sincere as the other and are in many respects not only Useful but Necessary in Religion For first It is not possible to perform the Publick Worship of God without them the assembling in his House in his holy Name and on his Own Day the bowing our Knees before him and lifting up our Hands and Eyes to Heaven and the like are all Ceremonies Outward Expressions of the Faith Reverence and Dependence we have on God and those that are so Unreconcil'd to some of these things necessarily and unavoidably practise others of the like nature to those they condemn And what reason can these Men give when they can dishonour and sin against God with their Body why they may not also honour him with it When with their Body they can commit Idolatry why with their Body also they cannot perform a Legitimate and holy Worship The Body is to be Partaker with the Soul hereafter in Glory and no reason can be given why it should not now join with the Soul in the Duties of Religion How graciously did God accept and reward the Formal Outward and Ceremonial Humiliation of that Hypocrite and Idolater Ahab for his Fasting and putting on Sackcloth and walking softly upon hearing the Judgments denounced against him by Elijah God revers'd his Judgments Seest thou says God to the Prophet how Ahab humbleth himself before me because he humbleth himself before me I will not send the Evil in his days c. If men rightly considered these things they would not come into God's House as if they came to affront and not to adore him neither baring the Head nor bending the Knee out of a foolish fear to commit Idolatry deport themselves in his Presence like Idols and as if they came there to be worshipp'd and not to worship 2. Ceremonies are useful in regard of the Persons that use them for they are
prays well he preaches well he is ever arraigning Sin and the like but caetera sint paria do all things correspond does his private Practice comport with his publick Demeanour his inward Goodness with his outward Austerity as he is Severe against Sin is he merciful to Sinners as he is assiduous in his Calling is he Obedient to his Governours and faithful to his Prince as he exhorts the People to Church does he not debauch them with Factious Doctrines when they come there as he is not Scandalous in his Conversation so is he not Morose Proud or Covetous In a Word does he conform his Whole Life to the Tenor of the Gospel does he indeed do All things well All things that is in a Moral Sense and according to the Measure of a Sincere Honest Man If he does let him carry away our Euge's and our Sophos our Approbations and Applauses But if he does only two or three of these things and those hypocritically and upon Design to give credit to a Cause and to carry on an Interest the Pharisees made long Prayers that they might devour Widows houses and Herod heard John the Baptist gladly and did many things upon his preaching but continued still to live incestuously with his Brother Philip's Wife and at last gratify'd her Malice with the Baptist's head If a few Good Actions may set such a Colour and Varnish upon mens Lives that they ought to be accounted holy Persons the Scenes in our Theatres may pass for the Glorious Heavens and solid Edifices they represent when they are nothing but patcht Clouts and pasted Papers painted and shewed to an artificial Light Lucian's Image of Jupiter in Gold outwardly of a Majestick Form grasping a Thunder-bolt may be allowed to be the Deity that rules the World though it be nothing within but Dust and Cobwebs Soder and Cramps of Iron which hold the miserable Machine from falling asunder I say if we thus make Saints from Shews and Seemings we may fill the Kalendar with Red Letters but we shall adde but few Names to the Book of Life I shall therefore conclude this last Particular with our Lord's advice John 7. 24. Judge not according to Appearance but judge righteous Judgment And now what Use shall we make in general of the Peoples Testimony and Approbation of our Lord shall we likewise justifie his Actions assert his Divine Mission and say He hath done all things well To praise Christ to speak Honourably of him to vindicate him from the Aspersions of Jews and Gentiles and the like is our bounden Duty but all of us here present are his Disciples and Followers all of us Christianissimi Pretenders to be the Chiefest and most Eminent of his Worshippers and we acknowledge not only that he spake the Truth but that he is the Truth even the Eternal Logos and to take upon us to pass a humane Judgment on him and to censure him as one Man censures another to say He is no Seducer or the like were so far from honouring him that it were to be Irreverent and Insolent towards him and to set our selves above him for the Justifier is Greater than the Justified How then must we celebrate his Eternal Generation and Descent from his Father's Bosom for our Redemption in Magnificats sing his Victory over Death and Hell Yes this we must do but not this only for these are still but Empty Words we must adde Deeds to our Praises Obedience to our Magnificats Duty and Service to our Psalms and Hymns the Praises of a holy Life to the Acknowledgments of a thankful Tongue To praise God only with the Voice is to praise him like the Trumpets of the Sanctuary or the Organs of our Churches Or as the Psalmist calls upon the Sun and Moon Fire and Hail Beasts and feather'd Fowls to praise him which all do in a Figure and after a manner in that they are the Works of his hands and proclaim his Wisdom and Power thus also the Devils and Damned Spirits praise him while their Sufferings and Torments declare his Justice But we are to praise God not only passively occasionally and instrumentally like Inanimate Brute or accursed Creatures but intentionally primarily and affectionately as becomes Rational and Intellectual Beings Obliged and illuminated Persons and Believers And as the Faithful do best evidence their Faith by their Works so they best evidence also their Good Opinion of Christ by their Works viz. by following his Precepts then we give our true Approbation of him when we transcribe his Actions and tread in his Steps 't is the Life of a man that expresses his Thoughts of Christ if that be righteous and conformable to his Gospel he has set to his Seal that he is the Messiah and Son of God that was to come into the World proclaims indeed That he has done All things Well But if his Ways are Wicked and repugnant to his Gospel let him praise him never so industriously never so ambitiously with never so loud Vociferations he does but in Effect say He was an Impostor and deceived the People For as S t Paul says of False Teachers Tit. 1.17 They profess that they know Christ but in Works they deny him being abominable disobedient and to every Good Work reprobate So we may say of these false and counterfeit Extollers of Christ that in Words they Approve him but in their Works they Condemn him being abominable disobedient and to every Good Work reprobate How can a Strumpet praise Chastity Or the Sot that is fill'd with Drink like a Spunge say any thing in the Commendation of Sobriety Vertue is praised of her Followers and the best Verdict we can pass on Christ is to imitate him in all holy Conversation to live after his Example is the highest Encomium we can give him To God the Father Son and Holy Ghost be ascribed all Honour Glory Worship and Thanksgiving this Day forth and for evermore Amen The Eleventh Sermon AMOS iii. 2 You only have I known of all the Families of the Earth therefore will I punish you for all your iniquities THIS Expression of God's knowing a Thing or Person is taken in Scripture in several Senses Sometimes it is meant literally and in propriety of Speech of the Knowledge of mere Perception and Discerning as when David says Thou knowest my thoughts long before and S t John God is greater than our hearts and Knoweth all things i. e. perceiveth and discerneth all things Sometimes again it is taken Figuratively not for mere Perceiving or Understanding a thing but for the Owning Approving Favouring Blessing of it or the like because these follow upon God's perceiving a Good thing Thou hast Known my Soul in adversity says the Psalmist i. e. Own'd protected and delivered it Again the Lord Knoweth the way of the Righteous and the way of the Ungodly shall perish Knoweth their way i. e. prospereth blesseth and will not suffer it to miscarry like that of the Ungodly
Moloch and the Queen of Heaven So these ascribe to Chance or Fortune to Good and Bad Seasons to Humane Prudence or Folly all their Prosperity and Adversity and not to Divine Providence When I say the Goodness of God is thus injured his Benefits over-seen or denied his Judgments contemned his Righteousness hated and his Deity set at naught what wonder is it if his Love be also turned into Detestation and Hatred When Men hate they wish the Person hated may perish they wish it I say because their Power does not always answer their Anger but God to whom it is as easie to destroy as to be angry when he hates he sends certain Ruine and Destruction on the Offenders he punishes with the same Facility as he says in my Text I will punish you for all your iniquities And now to hang our Ancestors Picture in our Gallery if I may so allude to set the Actions of Israel by ours that we may draw some Instructions from them I could almost wish that this Proposition Whatever People God has blessed above others if they sin against him he will also punish above others were not so great a Truth so Ominously it sounds For if there be a Nation upon the Earth that God has Known i. e. distinguish'd by his Singular and Signal Favours from all others it is this of ours S t Paul reckons it among the highest Priviledges of Israel that they had the Oracles of God though we may say of them they were Oracles indeed if their Darkness be compared with the Clear Light of the Gospel revealed to us Christ was preached to them and not preached but if to any of us he be hid 't is through wilful and affected blindness and as the Apostle says He is hid only to those that perish And when through the Inundation of Barbarians and Ignorance and the worse Inundation of Corrupt Manners Errours and Superstition over-spread the Face of the whole Christian World upon the first Dawning again of the Light of the Gospel and the shaking off of this Darkness while the Abominations of Rome were yet seen and detested by all Discerning and Conscientious Believers and the Fermentation of the Truth in mens hearts was not settled again upon the Lees of Secular Policy and Interest we were rescued by God's Goodness from the Yoke of Anti-Christ But not to look back to the Benefits of remote Ages but only to those we our selves have been immediate Partakers of and are accountable for What Mercy was ever more Glorious than the Restauration of our King and Church in these our Days not to name our later though Signal and Illustrious Deliverances But as God has known us in all our Distresses and Adversities and wrought such Miracles of Mercy for us how have we received them What Miracles of Thanksgivings and Duty have we returned to him We have wrought Miracles indeed but Miracles in an Untoward Sense Miracles of Impiety and Ingratitude As God restored our King and Kingdom to their former Splendour and Glory and all of us to our forfeited Peace and Prosperity multitudes have endeavoured by their Atheistical Opinions to depose God from his Kingdom in Heaven and Government over the World As God brought us out of the Saddest and Darkest Night of Adversity into the bright Sun-shine of Felicity by a Power and Goodness like that by which he brought Light out of Darkness at the Creation there are those that have turned Light into Darkness i. e. denied and obscured all the Light of Divine Truth and Revelation again that have turned Darkness into Light made the Sins of Darkness become Sins of Light and Noon-day those Sins which were reproachful and crept into Corners in all Ages to be of Credit and Reputation in this These together with the rendering things Venerable and Sacred ridiculous and contemptible are the Miracles of these times Saint Peter says In the last days shall come Scoffers walking after their own Lusts. These two Sins Walking after their own Lusts and Scoffing at things Holy go together and 't is no wonder that this dissolute and profligate Age should mock at Religion and at all things Serious mock at their Reason and degrade it below their Sense mock at the Immortality of their Souls and level themselves with the Beasts mock the Kingdom of Heaven into a Dream and the Torments of Hell into a Fable the Creation of the World into a piece of Non-sence and Impossibility and why Because 't is more rational to believe the Doctrine of Atoms that the orderly and beautiful Frame of Heaven and Earth and all that is in them were produced by the casual shuffling together of I know not what little Particles than by the Contrivance of an Infinitely Wise and Powerful God Or again that the World was from all Eternity and that Men and all other Creatures grew at first like Plants out of the Earth and the like rather than that they were created No certainly these things are not so easie to be conceived and digested by Reason as the Doctrines that are rejected but the most Monstrous Opinions are easier to be embrac'd by Wicked men than such Truths as cannot be held together with their Vicious Lives as the Apostle says They live without God in the World and they cannot endure to hear that he made it and will judge it that their Bodies should dye and their Souls survive their Pleasures come to an End and their Guilt remain that there should be a Resurrection to Punishment and not for the Execution of their Lusts. Julian the Apostate to justifie his revolt from the Faith said of the Gospel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have perused it I have understood it I have despised it Alas if he had approved it he must have condemned himself if he had acknowledged the Gospel to be Divine and the Way to Bliss he must have confess'd himself a Monster and the most Accursed of Mankind But that which is so great a Prodigy is that the least Night or Darkness of Atheism should be seen in this Kingdom where the Gospel shines in its Meridian that Apostasie should be found where so many glorious Manifestations of God's Power and Goodness are found We have heard that the Ungratefully Wicked the Wicked after much Good done for them are in greater Danger of God's Wrath and Displeasure than the Simply Disobedient What then can we expect our Portion should be when after so many Unparallell'd Benefits we have shew'd our selves not only Unthankful but Atheistical not only Transgressors of God's Laws but Renouncers of them Says our Prophet Verse the 5 th Will a Lion roar in the Forest when he has no Prey i. e. will he roar to no purpose when nothing provoketh him when he designs nothing by it So when God threatens Sinners does he mean nothing are the Dreadful Denunciations of his Judgments mere Empty Noise Again in the Verse before my Text says the Prophet Can two walk together
he spared not the Natural Branches take heed lest he spare not you 'T is not so much the Contingency that is in the Nature of the things of this World as the Sins of Men that make them unstable the Fortunes of Kingdoms are not tost like the Waves of the Sea lift up one while to the Clouds and then carried down again to the Center by the force of Winds but according to their Righteousness or Unrighteousness God pulls down one and sets up another Neither are they governed by the Power of Stars The Jews have an excellent Saying Non est Planeta Israeli Israel has no Planet i. e. though God gave up the Heathen oft-times to be governed like the Plants of the Earth by the Influences of Stars because they trusted in such Vain things yet he orders and disposes the Affairs of his faithful People immediately himself And 't is a mere Vulgar Conceit that Comets cause Wars and Changes of States Divine Philosophy tells us Mens Sins occasion God to send Comets and to fill the Sky with Prophetick Prodigies We affect to look as far beyond our selves as we can for the Causes of our Evils but they are to be found nearer at Home and arise out of our own Breasts the Heavens are not the Authors of our Misfortunes i. e. the Conjunctions or Revolutions of the Celestial Bodies but our own Wicked Lives and the surest Prognosticks are to be made from the Innocence or Guilt of a Nation and not from the Face of the Sky Let no Man think I cast a Cloud upon the Glory of this Day Illustrious in the Birth Illustrious in the Restoration of our most Gracious King that instead of exciting I affect to damp the Publick Joy by Ill Bodings unless he also supposes that the Blessings of a Nation cannot be rightly commemorated and celebrated without Noise and Inconsideration Tumult and Riot Excess and Debauchery setting-light by Sin and forgetfulness of Religion A sad and severe Reflection on our Unthankfulness to God for the Singular Mercies of this Day with a serious Resolution of our better Acknowledging them by a future Holy Life will add more Lustre and true Joy to it than the Bravery and Feasts the Bells and Bonfires and all the other Pomps that solemnize it For let us consider That every Wise Agent works to some End or other and that not only the Words we have heard this Day explain'd but the whole Tenour of Scripture concurs in this That the End and Purpose of God's bestowing Benefits on a Nation is to make them Righteous and Holy and that the only Expedient on our part to secure a Continuation of them is to have a strict regard to our Duty that Obedience is the best Preserver of our Happiness and the Means always to keep God's Favour is always to keep his Laws The Thirteenth Sermon MARK viii 2 3. I have Compassion on the Multitude because they have now been with me three days and have nothing to eat And if I send them away fasting to their own houses they will faint by the way for divers of them came from far THESE Words were the Introduction to that Illustrious Miracle by which our Lord fed four thousand Souls with seven Loaves and a few small Fishes made the bare and spare Allowance of seven Persons as some suppose sufficient to satisfie the Hunger of so great a Multitude A Miracle that baffled one of the clearest and most irrefragable Principles in Natural Reason namely That the Part is less than the Whole making it appear that when the Lord of Nature will have it so a Part shall as many times exceed the Whole as he pleases as the Bread and Fishes here encreased by being eaten and consumed multiplied by being dol'd and distributed about and the Fragments which remained exceeded seven times seven fold the Provision which at first was set before them that eat Our Lord wrought this Miracle as himself declares to relieve the Hunger of the Multitude but his principal Design here as in all his other Miracles was to create Faith in such as received Benefit by them to teach those whom he healed that he was the great Physician of the Soul and whom he fed that he was the true Bread that came down from Heaven And if We at this great Distance of time by our Meditations and Reflections on this Miracle shall make it also nourish our Souls refresh our Faith relieve and sustain our fainting Spirits ready to sink under the continual Opposition of Sin and the length of Duties we shall add yet to the Glory of it and in a Spiritual Sense make these Words spoken to us I have Compassion on the Multitude because they have now been with me three days and have nothing to eat c. This Portion of Scripture is part of a larger Narrative and I shall take that Way in handling it which those do who make Remarks and Observations upon Notable Occurrents and Events in History reflect and descant on the Principal Passages in it as I conceive they may be most edifying and useful And in order to this I shall observe in the Words three things 1. Our Lord 's tender and compassionate Spirit I have Compassion 2. The Object of his Compassion the Persons to whom he shew'd it the Multitude I have compassion on the Multitude 3. The Motives of his Compassion which are exprest to be two Their present Distress they were Hungry and had nothing to eat And their future feared Danger in case they were so dismiss'd they will faint by the way I begin first with Christ's tender and compassionate Spirit I have Compassion The Great Preacher our Blessed Lord had ended his Sermon to the People and as the antient custom of the Church was at the End of the first Service to dismiss the Poenitentes and Catechumeni all such as were not qualify'd to receive the Sacrament with these Words Ite missa est Depart and void the Church So the Disciples might very fairly here have pronounc'd an Ite missa est to the Multitude Ye may be gone there is nothing more at this time to be expected the Prophet has no further words of Instruction to impart to you For as for their want of Bread whether it proceeded from Negligence or Necessity it was not chargeable on the Preacher he that ministred Spiritual things was not also to minister Temporal but in these to be ministred to But our Lord had no purpose to shift off a Work of Mercy when 't was seasonable and in his power though he might never so fairly have done it he cast not therefore in his thoughts how he might plausibly Excuse his not relieving the peoples Hunger but which way he might do it best for the Glory of God and their Comfort and Edification There were a Sort of Preachers in this Kingdom in the days of its late Troubles who when they had usurp'd the whole Revenues of the Church grudg'd to allow
Custom of the World is to place its Contempt to teach by his Own Example what he afterwards taught his Apostle S t Peter by the Sheet of all Sorts of Creatures let down from Heaven To hold none Refuse or Common no not to esteem the People themselves Vulgar I pass to the Motives of our Lord's Compassion which I said were two The present Want of the Multitude They have nothing to eat And their fear'd future Danger in case they were so dismiss'd They will faint by the Way 1. Their present Want They have nothing to eat Our Lord not only exercised his Compassion towards the Meanest of Men but even in the Meanest things which concerned such men the catering or providing Food for them His Disciples after him thought it a Disparagement to their higher Calling of Preaching to stoop to such Low Employments It is not reason say they that we should leave the Word of God to serve Tables but He despised not to serve Tables too Meat is not the Reward or Aim of a Follower of Christ but Grace and the Holy Ghost Heaven and Eternal Life Food raiment houses land and the rest of things Temporal are indeed but Impedimenta Religionis the Baggage or Luggage of our Christian Warfare cumbersome to a Believer as well as useful yet because they are useful in our present Condition Christ indulges them to us and is troubled if we want a Sufficiency of them and however there is but Vnum Necessarium One Great Requisite Faith yet the other things of this Life which are necessary in their kind to that One Necessary he wills and commands should be given to his Servants and if they be he imputes it to the Givers of them for Righteousness and if they be not to the With-holders of them for Unrighteousness The second Motive of Christ's Compassion was The fear'd future Danger of the People lest they might faint by the way He shew'd himself not only troubled at present and incumbent Distresses but solicitous for those that were future and possible for all Emergences of Evils which might happen Thus he wept for the Destruction of Jerusalem forty Years before it was destroyed bewail'd the Desolation of Capernaum while it yet flourisht and was exalted to heaven Compassion or Fellow-feeling of anothers Misery expresses not the Commiseration that was in Christ his was an Ante-passion or Fore-feeling he felt not only what his Servants felt but what they felt not but might possibly feel If I send them away fasting says he they will faint by the way We are sensible of one anothers Calamities when they fall out Christ even when they are contingent He well deserves the Title of a Merciful High-Priest who shew'd himself not only touch'd with the Evils that oppress men but with those also that threaten them These were the two Motives of our Lord's Compassion The present Distress And the future Danger of the People But the Distresses and Dangers of all Sorts of Men do not equally affect him but only those of the Worthy It was the Singular Faith and Devotion of the Multitude which brought them into the Inconvenience they were in and our Lord's words do not only express a Disposition or Inclination to relieve them but an Indignation that they should suffer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that men should do Well and yet suffer Evil his Gracious Nature could not endure The Circumstances of the Peoples Worthiness and Goodness which may be collected from the Words of my Text are these four 1. The End for which they follow'd Christ It was purely for Instruction and Conviction they had no other Design no other Interest in attending him but to hear his Words and to see his Works and such deserved not to be starved away The Lions do lack and suffer hunger says the Psalmist but they which seek the Lord shall want no manner of thing that is good Those that sit assiduously at Christ's feet deserve to be fed by his hand who neglect all for him to be cared for by him and till he had here relieved the Multitude he himself suffered for they appeared to him not only to be his Disciples but his Martyrs The second Circumstance of their Worthiness was The Pains they took in following Christ Divers of them says he came from far To follow Christ only from Street to Street and Synagogue to Synagogue within the City merited Regard but to attend him from Town to Town from City to Country from Mountain to Desart call'd for a greater measure of our Affection To receive the Gospel when 't is brought Home to us is commendable but to go on Pilgrimage to hear Wisdom like the Queen of Sheba deserves as she did to find more Satisfaction than was expected those that submit to hear the Word of God shall find Comfort and Refreshment to their Souls but they that hunger and thirst after Righteousness inebriabuntur ubertate domûs tuae they shall be even gorged and sated with the Plenty of his House The Church of Rome among other vain and false Glories reckons that of Pilgrimages but who looks nearly into the Mystery of them will find that when they are undertaken by Great Men 't is with a Perswasion that the most heinous Offences may be expiated by Bodily Pains and profuse Offerings without Reformation of Life and when by those of the Meaner Sort 't is but under a Colour of Religion a plain running-away from their Wives and Children or the Burden of their Calling and as they went out Idle and Profligate Persons they return commonly Thieves and Murderers The third Circumstance of their Worthiness was The Generosity and Spiritual-Mindedness they shew'd Though they had continued with our Lord three days and had made no Provision for the Body yet they felt no Hunger or despised it they were so transported with his Conversation that what Christ said of his own doing the Will of his Father That it was Meat and Drink to him appear'd true in the Multitudes hearing his Gracious Words That it was Meat and Drink to them they practis'd this Precept before it was taught them Anima est plusquam esca the Concerns of the Soul are to take place before those of the Body 'T was said of the ancient common People of Rome duas tantum res anxias optat Panem Circenses that they passionately set their heart but upon two things Bread and Plays their Belly and their Pastime But the People here of a Nobler Strain despised their belly pleasure profit ease Life it self for Religion and Instruction sake And therefore though our Lord many other times sent away the People Empty or slipt away himself from their importunity he treated and feasted these and dismist them with Respect and Complement The fourth Circumstance of their Worthiness was their Constancy and Perseverance they forsook not Christ in three days Those that are not discouraged at the first Onset on Religion yet many times length and hardness of Duties
Endowments S t James notes that Elijah by the power of prayer shut the Windows of Heaven and caused a Dearth and again open'd them and made Plenty But the Prayers of the Apostles wrought not only Wonderful Effects in the second Region of the Air in the Magazines of Snow and Rain but entering into the Heaven of Heavens call'd down Showres of Supernatural and Divine Graces And though before the time of Christ it was said That 't was not known that God so hearkened to the Voice of a Man as he did to Joshua commanding the Sun to stand still yet after Christ's ascension he frequently hearkened to the Voice of Men and effected greater Wonders For after this Promise was once of force Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my Name he will give it you nothing was impossible nothing was difficult to a Disciple of Christ. But some perhaps will say That it does not appear that this Promise was fulfilled according to the Extent and Latitude of it even to the Apostles themselves not to say how little of it has been made good to the Faithful since For undoubtedly S t Paul was not the only Person that prayed thrice i. e. often and instantly that the Thorn in his Flesh might be taken away and was not heard but others also of the Apostles and first Planters of the Gospel made many earnest Supplications for Success to their Endeavours and Deliverance in their Persecutions and were not answered in their Petitions So that this Promise Whatsoever ye shall ask c. seems to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Promise with Repentance which was never made good To this may be said in general what S t Paul says of all God's Promises That in him they are Yea and Amen i. e. Truths which are ratified with Performances But when we meet with such General and Unlimited Expressions as this in my Text Whatsoever ye shall ask he will give it you though we ought to look upon them as no more than what God is both able and willing to perform when any Just Cause shall require yet they are only then to be expected from him when a Just Cause does require For we must not imagine because he promises according to the Greatness of his own Power and Goodness that he promises according to the Extravagance of Mens Lusts and Phancies because he promises Liberally that he promises also like Herod Licentiously who at a wanton Banquet engaged the one half of his Kingdom to a dancing Damsel and gratify'd a Harlot with the Head of a Saint God's Unlimited Promises are to be understood like the Unlimited Promise of the Good Samaritan when he left the Wounded Man in the Inn Whatsoever thou spendest more says he to the Host I will give it thee i. e. in Order to the hurt man's Recovery the Credit did not extend to the Purchace of the Inn in case his Guest had desired it And if we shall thus receive the Words of our Lord cum grano Salis as they say but with two Grains only of prudent Interpretation cast into them we shall understand their just Latitude and Extent Whatsoever ye shall ask he will give it you i. e. si justum si rationabile if it be Righteous if it be Reasonable First If it be Righteous Righteous in the Matter Righteous in the End and Righteous in the Manner of the Petition 1. Righteous in the Matter if it be something Pious or Charitable that is pray'd for something for God's Honour or the Spiritual Advantage of the Votary something in a word worthy to concern and engage Heaven in for if men shew themselves over-much in love with the things of this Life too solicitous for that which is Vile and Transitory when they have the Promise of things Eternal this declares a Degenerateness in their Affections and an Indecorum that is reprovable and not rewardable as 't is said indecorum est ei curare de cibo qui militat de regno Care of the Belly and the Kitchin ill becomes him that is in pursuance of a Kingdom Such as these while they pray to God despise him and let them not hope while they set at Nought the Glories of Heaven that he will regard their abject Desires he promised to give to them that ask'd in his Son's Name not in the Name of the World 2. Righteous in the End The End of what men desire should be the Glory of God for if it be to satisfie their Pride Revenge Concupiscence c. 't is enough again to put an Embargo upon their Requests as S t James says Ye ask and ye receive not because ye ask for your Lusts and though God has promised to have his Ears open to faithful Prayers he has not engaged to assist Sin or to be accessory to Wickedness 3. Righteous in the Manner if men lift up pure and holy Hands sincere and faithful Hearts without Hypocrisie and without Presumption neither doubting nor tempting God constant but with resignation devout but yet humble Zealous and Fervent but without Murmuring and impatience Heaven is taken by Violence but 't is by an Agonistical not a Hostile Violence by contesting with our own Sins not by quarrelling with God his Kingdom is not to be storm'd after the manner the Poets feign'd the Giants to assault Olympus but to be conquered by Submission Duty and Devotion God is to be wrestled with as Jacob did with the Angel in Faith and Prayer and they are brutish who because he has promised his Servants shall have power With him expect to have a power Over him And thus as our Prayers must be Righteous have nothing in them repugnant to God's Holiness and Majesty so secondly they must be Reasonable i. e. agreeable to God's Divine Will for Reasonable here is not to be measur'd by what is Reasonable to us but to God that which is often Good and fit in our Eyes is not so in his If therefore as S t John says we ask according to his Will he heareth us And a thing may be supposed to be ask'd according to his Will three Ways 1. If it be not contrary to his Decrees something which he has predetermined for these are immutable and though Noah Daniel or Job should intercede they should not prevail again as reducible to these if the Prayer be not against the Decrees or Laws of Nature For though I confess the Promise made to the Apostles in my Text relates chiefly to things of a Miraculous Nature yet the Promise in that part is not to be extended beyond the Apostles Own Persons or the Time of the first planting the Gospel To bring about some great Designs of his in the World God thought fit to interrupt and discompose the Order of Nature but 't is not for Men at their Pleasure to think to do the same Miracles 't is true were wrought by Men but they were never wrought by the Will of men and 't is a Fanatick Presumption
fulfill'd in the most eminent Manner They shall look on him whom they pierced 2. For the clearer Conviction and more sensible Compunction of those that denyed and murdered him For as it is the Custom again among Men to send Malefactors to be judged and executed near the Place they committed their Crimes the more to awaken their Guilt so God the more first to awaken and then to confound the daring and relentless Infidelity of our Lord's Crucifiers who after all their Persecutions wish'd his Bloud might be on them and on their Children has determin'd to pass the Sentence of Condemnation on them in the Place they perpetrated their Crimes And the Prophecy of Joel Chap. 3. seem'd to some of the Antients to countenance this Opinion That God will assemble all Nations to Judgment in the Valley of Jehoshaphat which was near adjoining to Jerusalem says the Prophet Assemble your selves all ye Heathen and come up to the Valley of Jehoshaphat for there I will sit to judge c. Multitudes multitudes in the Valley of Jehoshaphat for the Day of the Lord is near in the Valley of Decision Which Prophecy whatever earlier Accomplishment it had in God's judging the Heathen that were Enemies to Israel yet the Principal Completion of it has been thought to point at the last Universal Judgment And 't is a General Perswasion of the Jews that the Tryal of all Men at the Last Day shall be at Jerusalem but not understanding That the Dead shall be gathered together by the Office and Ministry of Angels they say That in whatever remoter Parts of the World they dye in their Dispersion their Bodies by the Power of God shall be roll'd along through the inward and secret Parts of the Earth to Jerusalem the Place assigned for their Resurrection and the Appearance of all Men. But now after all that has been said though we conclude not peremptorily and chorographically Where or over what Part of the Earth Christ will erect his Throne for Judgment the Scriptures being silent or very obscure as to the Place yet there is nothing that they deliver more plainly than that the Great Session or Assize at the End of the World shall be Conspicuous and Dreadful and they seem even solicitous and industrious in describing the formidable Manner of it to make in mens minds a deeper impression of the Terrours of the Lord as the Apostle calls them And as we have two Corporal Senses or Inletts of Fear into the Soul the Eye and the Ear the Word of God makes the Terrours of Dooms-Day to consist in the Objects of both these Senses viz. in fearful and amazing Sounds and in Prodigious and Ghastly Sights For 't is said That the Lord shall descend from Heaven in a Shout with the Voice of the Arch-Angel and with the Trump of God and the Dead shall rise and the Sun shall become black as Sackcloth and the Moon red as Bloud and the Stars shall fall and the Heavens be roll'd up like a Scrole c. A Picture of such Horrour which no Phancy of Man could ever have drawn or possibly conceiv'd if it had not first been Divinely revealed and though we look upon this Scheme or Draught of the Lord 's coming at present with little Concern because we suppose it to be at a great Distance yet if we would consider that the holiest Persons of old were as dead men at the Sight only of an Angel though coming to them in a familiar Shape and with a gracious Message and that we our selves are beside our selves but at the fansy'd Appearance of a Spectre or Ghost or any other Supernatural Occurrent what must our amazement and Confusion be when we shall behold the whole World in a Flame the Visible Heaven and Earth passing away with tumultuous Thunders Lightnings and Earthquakes When we shall hear the Crack of the dissolving Universe and the Groans of dying Nature when we shall behold not only one Evil Spirit but the whole accursed and damned Crew in their Horrour again when we shall behold not only one Angel but all the Host of Heaven and their Lord and ours sitting in the midst of them with all the annexes of Majesty and Terrour And this dreadful Spectacle not like one of the Visions of the old Prophets which concerned not the Beholder himself but others but such as concerns the Eternal Woe or Welfare Salvation or Damnation of every Person there present i. e. of all that ever came or shall come into the World When our Lord discoursed of these things to his Disciples and of the dreadful manner of the Destruction of the Jewish Nation as a Prelude to it they were too big for their Imaginations to conceive or their Faith to digest and they could not or durst not understand him they were in the like Astonishment the three Disciples were in at his Transfiguration when Peter said not knowing what he said Let us make three Tabernacles c. So great I say was the Consternation of the Disciples at our Lord's Words that their Reason and Spirits were in a kind of Deliquium or Swoun as well as their Faith And they answered and said unto him Where Lord a Question not of Curiosity but of Terrour and Doubt And even still to this day we find men more inclin'd to distrust what is taught of the last Judgment than to be warn'd and edify'd by it to think the things affirmed of it impossible than to follow S t Peter's Advice and to consider what manner of Persons they ought to be seeing the World shall be dissolved And so I pass to my last Observation The Vnwillingness of Men to believe a Judgment-Day So weak is the Nature of man or such is the Subtilty of our Spiritual Adversary the Devil that even when we are convinced of the Substance of many Truths yet by reason of the Strangeness and Unconceiveableness of some Circumstances of them we let go the very Substance of the Truths again and the best Men have been sometimes subject to this Infirmity The Psalmist was throughly instructed in this fundamental Truth That there was a God that judged in the Earth yet because he saw the Righteous opprest and the Wicked in prosperiry he stagger'd in his Faith and his feet as himself confesses had well-nigh slipt The Blessed Virgin could not but believe the Message of an Angel appearing at Noon-day and out-shining the Brightness of the Noon-days Light but because she was to conceive miraculously without the knowing of a man some Scruple remained in her holy breast of the Event of the Prediction The Israelites heard from their Prophets of whose Divine Mission they doubted not That if they went on in their Transgressions their Temple should be destroyed and themselves led Captive by the Gentiles but then the Conceit that God would never suffer these things to be done for his own Glory whatever their Demerits were that if they were remov'd he would want a People and if
I never heard he ceases not to be my Brother nay though he be a Jew Mahometan or Infidel and not only an Enemy to the Faith but also to me he has not lost his Humanity though he lost his Religion and Goodness he has not drunk of Circe's Cup he is not become a Lion or a Wolf docet Christus delicto alterius non tolli Naturam and Christ teaches us that a mans Nature is not destroyed by his Sins the Image of God remains still in him and he is yet a Member of Mankind and whoever shall obliterate this Character though but in his Uncharitable Estimation is impious and sacrilegious and because his Brother has done something unworthy of his Relation to him he does that which is unworthy of his Creation unworthy of the Divine Character he bears The Word Enemy ought to be a mere Notion or empty Term in Christian Religion or to be Relative to nothing but to Sin and Satan to the Devil and the Devil's Works God and Nature made all men Brethren Malice Interest or Chance made them Strangers or Enemies Says Hierocles To a Good man no man is an Enemy i. e. a Good man may be hated but he will not hate again he may be treated hostilely but he will not use another as an Adversary And this unconquered Love of returning good for evil is the truest and noblest Badge of our Christian Profession The Disciples of the Philosophers were distinguisht by the Various Opinions of their Masters those of the Lawyers by particular Sentences and Interpretations of the Law the Scholars of the Pharisees by certain Traditions and Observations But Christ would have his Disciples known by no Vain-glorious Marks or Distinctions But by this says he shall men know that you are my Disciples if ye love one another And those that hate their Brother be it upon what Pretence soever Judaize and though they wear their Baptismal Cross as conspicuously on their Foreheads as the Pharisees did their Phylacteries they are Disciples of the Synagogue I shall add but one thing more and conclude this Point Though we are oblig'd to love one another i. e. All men to love all men we are not obliged to love all men alike Our heavenly Father who is set to be our Example in general Beneficence does not do so though his Love be Universal to all 't is not Equal to all but as Seneca says of Earthly Kings Rex honores dignis dat congiarium indignis a King bestows common Largesses both on the Worthy and Unworthy but Offices and Charges of Honour he confers only on the Worthy So the King of Heaven sends his Rain and makes the Sun to shine on the Good and Bad on the Just and Unjust but does not in the like promiscuous manner and without Distinction scatter the Gifts of his Holy Spirit he shews himself a Common Father to all men but a Gracious Father only to the Righteous And we ought to conduct our private limited Charity by the like Rule shed the common Influences of it on all Mankind even as far as we can extend them but when they will not reach both to Believers and Unbelievers then to give the preference to Believers for the Alliance of Grace is yet straiter than that of Nature And thus S t Paul states this Duty Gal. 6.10 As we have opportunity says he let us do good to all men but especially unto the houshold of Faith And I conceive after this manner we are to understand what is said Ecclus 12.4 Give to a godly man and help not a Sinner i. e. help the Godly man rather when thou canst not relieve both chuse to relieve the first And let thus much suffice to be said of the Object of our Charity I proceed to the Reason that inforces it which is taken from its Operation and Effect It covers Sins together with the Extent of that Effect not one or two but many and many Sins For Charity shall cover the multitude of Sins These Words are Parallel to the last Verse of the fifth Chapter of S t James He that converteth a Sinner from the errour of his ways shall save a Soul from death and shall hide a multitude of Sins But in some Copies both in this place and in my Text the Original has not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Future Tense Charity shall cover a multitude of Sins implying the Sins of the Charitable Man but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the present Does cover a multitude of Sins implying the Sins of other men as 't is Prov. 10.12 Hatred stirreth up Strife but Love or Charity covereth all Sins i. e. hideth and beareth with the transgressions of other men and thus again 't is said 1 Cor. 13.4 Charity suffereth long and is kind In which words the Apostle speaks of a prime Act of Charity not of its Reward of the Goodness it shews not of the Recompence it shall receive But there will be no need to contend for rendring of the Words either way for both these Propositions are true Charity is a benign Vertue that pardons the Sins of those that offend against us And again Charity is so acceptable a Vertue in the Sight of God that for its sake he will pardon many Sins committed against him I shall therefore handle the Words in both Senses And first Charity shall cover the Multitude of Sins i. e. of our own Sins against God Sins are said to be hid or covered in Scripture when they are pardoned so Psal. 32.1 Blessed is he whose unrighteousness is forgiven and whose sin is covered And again Psal. 84.3 Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people thou hast covered all their Sins Covering of Sins imports not the concealing them in relation to God's Sight or Knowledge but in relation to his Justice or Punishment as men are said to forget Injuries not in a Sense of Memory but of Mercy when they remember them not to revenge them as Joseph forgot his Brethrens selling him into Egypt not as Pharaoh's Butler forgot Joseph in Prison But may not then the same Question be ask'd here which the Scribes and Pharisees ask'd in the Gospel Who can forgive sins but God alone In what Sense can Charity be said to cover or pardon Sins for covering or pardoning of Sins and Justification are one and the same thing the peculiar Prerogative of God and his free Gift of Grace through Jesus Christ and to affirm that Charity or any other Vertue whatsoever can work this Work belonging only to God were to make it as S t Hilary speaks ambitiosa errorum patrona an ambitious or aspiring Patroness of Errour to make it affect the Throne of God like Lucifer to attribute to an imperfect humane Vertue the Power of the Deity and to advance that to be a Giver of Pardon which stands in need to receive Pardon it self When 't is said therefore That Charity shall cover our Sins it means only That it
shew'd them not the Father now in the Person of another but in their Own in his Divine and Omnipotent Power displayed in themselves And this was not only a Plain and Evident but a Gracious Revelation of the Father which as it improv'd their Knowledge of him so it gave them also Demonstrations of his Love and Favour The Father was both gracious to them and present with them before under the Law he was their God and they were his People but after they had embrac'd the Gospel he sent his Son into the World to preach they were admitted into a Nearer Relation and were not only call'd the People and Servants but the Children of God the adopted Brethren of Christ and the Father of Heaven and Earth was appropriated by our Lord no less to them than to himself I go says he to my Father and to your Father to my God and to your God And this being the blessed Condition not only of the first Disciples but of all true Believers since I cannot chuse but take Occasion from hence to say That those Christians are not sensible of their own Priviledge and Dignity that go a Compass to God when they are allowed the Directest and Shortest Way to him who keep a Distance when they are invited and encouraged to make a Near and familiar Address out of an affected Humility move them that they may move her that she may move Christ that Christ may move the Father What a trifling Ambages is this after our Lord has promised an Immediate Access and upon no better ground but because forsooth the like is practised in the Courts of Earthly Princes where Strangers and Unknown Persons are not allow'd to make their Approach to the King without the Introduction of some in Place Alas to the Court of Heaven there comes no Strangers or Unknown Persons all the Suters there are Sons and these use not to implore the help of Servants but being first in Power and Place themselves go directly and boldly to the Throne of the King their Father as S t Paul Heb. 4.16 encourages the Faithful to do Let us come boldly says he to the Throne of Grace and our Lord at the 16 th Verse of this Chapter speaks as if his own Mediation were not always necessary At that day says he ye shall ask in my Name and I say not unto you that I will pray the Father for you for the Father himself loveth you because ye have loved me and have believed that I came out from God Those that believe that Jesus is the Christ as the Apostle says are born of God and begotten of his Spirit and they need no other Advocate to speak for them but the Spirit and such their Propinquity by Faith and to distrust their Interest were to distrust God's Love and Christ's Truth and we may say of such a Diffidence what one says of the like in humane Alliance peccat Qui commendandum se putat esse suis he sins against the Right of Kindred that thinks he needs to be recommended to his own Relations Therefore though we decline not with the ranker Socinians the Intercession of Christ who say He is mere Man and not God and consequently that all Prayers made to him are idolatrous Nor yet comply with the more allay'd and qualify'd Poyson of others of them who allow it lawful to pray to Christ but not necessary yet we may vindicate the Prerogative given to a Disciple in my Text against the Shew of Wisdom in Will-Worship and Humility practis'd in the Church of Rome For we who are rightly instructed in the Close Conjunction of the Father and the Son that teach he is both God and Man know it is indifferent whether we supplicate the Father or the Son whether with our Lord himself we say Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit or whether with S t Stephen Lord Jesu receive my Spirit who praying after this manner is said also to have call'd upon God And in truth when our Lord sends his Disciples in my Text to his Father he neither extinguishes his own Adoration nor Mediation but sends them from his Humane Nature as I may say to meet them again in his Divine And this is the true Importance of his sending them to the Father but they were not capable at this time of receiving the Doctrine of his Divinity for a little before in plain terms without a Figure he had discoursed to them of his Death and Passion and those to whom it was a hard Saying That they should eat his Flesh and drink his Bloud would have thought it a much harder to have heard That he was the Eternal God and could yet be Crucify'd by Wicked men Not willing therefore to force their Reason either by his Argumentation or Authority he let this Mystery alone to be revealed in due time by the Holy Ghost and establisht their Comfort on a Foundation more easie to be conceived by them the Goodness and All-Sufficiency of the Father For however they did believe their Master to be an Extraordinary and Divine Person they could not chuse but believe their God was Greater and if it were a happiness to follow the Son it must be yet a higher Felicity to be Favourites to the Father of whom the whole Family of Heaven and Earth is named Now this being the Condition which a Disciple was left in at his Lord's Departure he had no reason to mourn and languish for his Absence with S t Augustine to desire to see Christum in ore Christ's natural face again while he enjoyed Christum in Patre Christ in the power and presence of the Father When a less Person at his Departure gives us the Favour of a Greater we may say He does not Desert us but bestows his Absence on us But Christ's Care of his Disciples and kindness to them will be seen yet more in the Unlimited Measure in which they were promised God's Favour exprest in these Words Whatsoever ye shall ask he will give it you Which is the next thing I am to explain Whatsoever ye shall ask he will give it you This was a large Promise and yet as largely and stupendiously made good For 1. Such was the Power of a Disciple by Prayer upon Earth that he could cast out Devils chase away all Diseases heal all Infirmities call the Dead out of their Grave and send the Living into it 2. Such was his Power in the Sea that when the Ship was become a Prey to the merciless Element and nothing but Death and Desperation appear'd to all others a S t Paul could say Not one of the Company shall perish And why so Because he had pray'd and God had given him the Lives of them that sail'd with him 3. Such was his Power in Heaven that the Holy Ghost stood press'd and ready as I may say upon the laying-on of the Apostles hands as upon a Sign given to descend in all his various and wonderful