members should perish and not that thy whole body should be cast into Hell Matt. 5.29 30. These men must find out some distinctions whereby they may retain that eye whereby they may reserve that hand secure their dearly beloved lusts and yet escape the flames of Hell It shall be answered to these and all other like expressions either that this is legal Doctrine and that Christ hath so fulfilled the Law as that there is nothing for them to do but to rely on his righteousness or else as it is on another hand that they will make satisfaction to God for those sins which they will not forsake they will confess them to the Priest they will receive his absolution they will most duly perform the penance which is prescribed them by the Priest give so much Alms say so many Prayers pass through a course of so many fasts And when they have found out these shifts then will they believe their sins forgiven although they wilfully still retain them they will believe that this is so in spight of common sense and reason in spight of the very light of nature in spight of the holy Scripture it self and the plain design of Christianity they will have a Creed which shall allow them in their lusts though clearly contrary to that Gospel which our Lord himself hath revealed to us From whence observe that no man can be secure of truth who is no friend to real Piety nor is he likely to understand the will of God who is not willing to obey it 3. Hence we understand that the only safe and certain way to know the will of God aright to know what true Religion is and what is the way to life eternal is such a sincere disposition of mind as renders us willing to obey whatsoever God prescribes unto us For so is the Gospel propounded to us that whosoever is so disposed will readily believe and entertain it upon the evidence which attends it seeing nothing obscures nothing eclipses this evidence but an aversation to the duties which are commanded in the Gospel There is no Doctrine no precept no promise or threat in the whole Gospel that contradicts the hopes or interests of any man that is really good 'T is no interest of good men that there should not be a day of judgment that Christ should not come to judge the World that he should not judge it by these Laws which are prescribed us in the Gospel 'T is no interest of good men that any thing should not be commanded which is commanded in the Gospel that every thing should not be forbidden which the same Gospel doth forbid on the other hand it is most suitable not only to the judgment and reason but to the inclinations of good men that God should command us to love himself with all our hearts to love our neighbours as our selves that he should command all the vertues that are commanded in the Gospels truth justice temperance patience meekness humility and the like that he should forbid what is forbidden pride and covetousness and animosity fornication adultery and excess it is suitable to their reason and hopes that he should distribute rewards and punishments in another world according to mens behaviour here and whosoever is thus prepared to understand and believe the Gospel will neither reject nor misbelieve it nor any thing that is contained in it which is absolutely necessary to Salvation especially seeing that God hath promised to guide and assist them with his Spirit who are resigned unto his will and willing to do what he commands them Observe we then the great security that good men have of being led into all truth which is needful unto their Salvation observe what is the ready way to be guided into all such truth it is to be upright and sincere it is to be willing to do Gods will willing to do whatsoever it be that God shall please to require of us If you find this willingness in your selves suffer not your selves to be overborn with their confidence who vainly boast of infallibility in the midst of most pernicious errours and in plain contradiction to the Scripture Truth is plain to them that love it to them that are willing to entertain it but as for them that are insincere that have no hearty love to it the plainest things are obscure to them showers and snares are in the way of the froward Prov. 22.5 which way soever they turn themselves because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie 2 Thes 10.11 4. Now therefore let the consideration of what I have said upon this point perswade sincerity towards God perswade to willingness to obedience in every instance whatsoever Sincerity is that which doth dispose us to know and believe all needful truth sincerity is that which God will bless with the assistance of his Spirit sincerity is that which he will reward not only with his conduct here but also with eternal happiness and everlasting life in the world to come The Fourteenth Sermon Malach. 1. 6. If then I be a Father where is mine honour And if I be a Master where is my fear The former part of the verse is thus A son honoureth his Father and a servant his Master If then I be a Father where is mine honour And if I be a Master where is my fear THERE are several relative names or titles given to God in the Holy Scriptures amongst which are these of Father and Master He is styled our Father because we receive life from him He is called our Master because he hath a just dominion over us And because he is such a Father to us as hath created us out of nothing therefore are we entirely his and because we are entirely so therefore is he such a Master as hath most absolute and most Sovereign Dominion over us upon which account he may and doth require the highest love and fear and the most sincere obedience from us The neglect whereof in the persons to whom the Prophet here applies himself was the cause of this expostulation If then I be Father where is mine honour and if I be a Master where is my fear I shall not insist on these two duties we owe to God that is to say honour and fear apart and distinctly from one another But rather observe that such an honour is due to God as comprehends a fear in it and such a fear as also contains an honour in it from both which things put together there results a filial awe or reverence which is compounded of love and fear of love to God as he is our Father and then of fear as he is our Master This reverence then is the duty suggested in the words before us which I shall pursue in this method I shall shew 1. The degrees of reverence which God requires 2. The proper effects of it 3. The
Christs Laws pass with God for righteous persons These things explained I shall observe these two things from the words before us 1. That men may imagine themselves to be righteous persons in Gods eyes to be in grace and favour with him though they live impure and unrighteous lives although they do not do righteousness else this caution had been useless So it had been had it been a caution against an errour that no man could have fallen into 2. That this Imagination is a very great and dangerous errour so do the words themselves suggest He that doth righteousness that is he and be only that is righteous even as Christ is righteous not that any man can be so in the same degree with Christ himself nor by his own desert and merit gain the favour and grace of God but that there is no way to gain it without being really just and righteous as Christ was perfectly and fully so First I begin with the first which is that men imagine themselves to be righteous persons in Gods account to be in grace and favour with him though they live in habitual disobedience to the Laws and precepts of the Gospel In the prosecution of which point 1. I shall first prove that this may be so 2. And then secondly give some account of the rise or occasions of this errour 3. And lastly reflect upon the whole by way of inference or application And for the first that there may be such an errour as this which I have now mentioned to you plainly appears from matter of fact and matter of fact plainly appears 1. From the open profession of some 2. And secondly from the lives of others 1. There are some who openly profess that there is nothing required from us to recommend us to Gods favour no condition on our parts to gain acceptance and grace with him They own no Covenant between God and us but only one between God and Christ This say they Christ hath performed and so reconciled us unto God without the performance of any condition on our parts see Saltm Flowings c. p. 152. wherein they palpably contradict the whole strain and tenour of the Gospel all its commands threats and promises as well as the vow made in Baptism whereby we enter into a Covenant with God himself and promise sincere obedience to him These are they who are commonly styled the Antinomians which was a Sect once very numerous in this Nation but is now become either less numerous or more silent and therefore I shall not at this time make any longer stay upon them 2. But proceed to those who though they do not in words profess that men may be in favour with God and duly hope for life eternal though they live in habitual contradiction to the Laws and precepts of Christianity yet live as men who so believe and consequently may be duly judged to cherish such a belief as this and of these there are divers and several sorts 1. Those who profess or not deny the Christian faith but have no care no concernment for Religion in any instance of their lives live as though there was no such thing in all contradiction to its Laws Such there were in St Paul's days as you may see Phil. 3.18 Many walk of whom I have told you often and now tell you even weeping that they are enemies to the croft of Christ whose end is destruction whose God is their belly and whose glory is their shame who mind earthly things Yet these very persons professed themselves to be Christs Disciples and to believe the Christian Faith As they did so do many in our days They profess to believe in Jesus Christ they profess the hope of life eternal declared and promised in the Gospel and yet they live in habitual and wilful disobedience to the holy precepts and institutions which the same Gospel hath prescribed Now how can these things consist together how can they possibly be reconciled unless these persons judge themselves in Gods favour though they live in such disobedience to him could men neglect all the Laws all the precepts of the Gospel could they promise themselves the remission of fin and eternal life while they continue in this neglect did they not judge that they might gain remission of fin and the favour of God notwithstanding the wickedness of their lives or else at least not judge the contrary They do profess as I said before the hope of Salvation Salvation promis'd in the Gospel they give no signs of doubt or fear of falling short of so great a happiness they pass their days in ease and pleasure they enjoy the world they enjoy themselves in the midst of prophaneness and impiety which shews they have in their own thoughts reconciled the hopes of future happiness with the present enjoyment of their sins 2. Another fort there is who though they seem to have some concernment for Religion yet wholly neglect the practice of it They spend their time either in speculation of things remote from life and practice or in meer dispute about the things that relate to practice in the mean time their own lives are little better than theirs who neglect all Religion They are not more careful of truth and justice of mercy and charity in their lives than other persons the same temptations that sway the affections and vitiate the lives of other men do also sway and vitiate theirs they love the wealth and power and honour all the pleasures all the advantages of the World as much as they who love them most nor do they forbear to use any of the same methods the same forbidden arts and ways to attain their ends that are used by the common sort of persons They please themselves in the speculation of useless notions or spend their zeal in meer disputes or the censure of the lives of others but take no care to reform themselves yet all this while believe extremely well of themselves assure themselves of Gods favour and of his singular love to them which shews they presume upon his favour though they continue in their sins 3. There are some other persons who proceed indeed a step further but not so far as a Christian life who yet fully allure themselves of being righteous in Gods account and of eternal life and happiness These are they who confess their fins and possibly with bitter lamentations and with great accusations of themselves as in truth we have ail reasons to do but when they have done take no care to amend and reform those very sins which they confess with so much passion and such invectives against themselves Or if they proceed a little further it is but to some ineffectual purposes faint resolutions of reformation which never come to effect or issue They take the design for the thing it self the resolution of reformation for the very repentance God requires The former of these namely the resolution of reformation they look upon as a
the firm assurance of a supernatural power and help to subdue the corruptions of our natures grounded upon the promise of God gives those that really believe the Gospel such faith and hope and strength and courage which gives them victory over the world and their own inordinate lusts and appetites From all which instances it appears how many singular helps and motives the Gospel gives us in order to a holy life which the light of nature cannot give and consequently that it is most necessary to believe the Gospel over and above all the Principles which the light of nature can discover 3. Add hereunto in the third place That as this is necessary for the perfect knowledge of our Duties and the helps and motives thereunto so likewise for our support and comfort under all the tryals fears and troubles that assault us in the present world whether those arise from 1. Outward evils or 2. From inward guilt and fear of punishment 1. And for the former Man says Job is born for trouble as the sparks fly upward that is to say The state of man is naturally troublesome in this world So many are the afflictions and tryals which fall upon us in this life so many the dangers or disappointments so many losses and calamities in our names or persons or estates or in the persons related to us which four and imbitter the present world that there is nothing can support us and make our lives easie to us but the firm assurance and expectation of a blessed and glorious immortality which as I have clearly shewed before was never found among the Heathen never clearly known by the light of nature Could they then so enjoy themselves in all the confusions in all the calamities of this world they who had no assured hope of immortality as we may do that have that hope or as the Primitive Christians did We are troubled says the Apostle on every side yet not distressed we are perplexed but not in despair persecuted but not forsaken cast down but not destroyed 2 Cor. 4.8 9 Not destroyed no we do not faint we do not languish under our troubles so he adds at the 16. verse and would you know how they were supported how sustained under all their tryals persecutions that appears from the first words of the following Chapter We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved we have a buildin with God a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens And this it was this certain knowledge this which the light of nature wants which gave support and comfort to them under all their sufferings and afflictions 2. Add hereunto in the second place that the light of nature can never give men that assurance of the grace and favour of God towards them and the remission of their sins which the Gospel most expresly gives and therefore never so support us under the fears and sense of guilt as the declarations of the Gospel The Gospel assures us that God sent his beloved Son to be the propitiation for our sins 1 John 4.10 The Gospel assures us that the Son of God appear'd in the presence of God for us Heb. 9.24 that he interceeds a Priest for us The Gospel tells us that he will continue so to do so to intercede for ever and that his intercession for us is most prevalent for our Salvation that he is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them Heb. 7.25 And that he is not able only but also willing so to do as being a merciful and faithful High Priest Heb. 2.17 upon which account we are exhorted to come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need Heb. 4.16 And are not these express declarations of the mighty efficacy of Christs Sacrifice to make atonement for our sins and of his intercession for us to commend us to the favour of God infinitely great supports to us under our fears of guilt and punishment or could the very light of nature give such assurance of Gods mercy to mankind as Gods express promise gives The light of nature could never give us that assurance It did indeed convince men of their sin and guilt and of the danger of Gods displeasure thence arising and therefore laboured to atone and to remove divine displeasure by many Sacrifices and Oblations yea by the blood of humane Sacrifices but still alas left the Offerers under great confusions and uncertainties whereas God hath clearly and expresly declared himself reconciled to us by the spotless Sacrifice of his Son Having thus shewed the absolute necessity of believing what the Gospel reveals over and above what the light of nature can discover Let us hence observe the sin and danger of those persons who pretend indeed to believe in God but not in him whom God hath sent to be the Redeemer of the World 1. They reject the Lord of life and glory whom God hath made the very judge of the quick and dead to whom he hath given all Authority in Heaven and Earth They reject the head of that body to which alone Salvation is promised for there is no name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved but that of Christ Acts 4.12 And he that believeth not on the Son full not see life but the wrath of God abideth on him John 3.36 2. Nor can it reasonably be pretended that the light of nature affords the same helps and motives to make men righteous good and holy which the very Gospel itself affords There is nothing falser nothing vainer than that pretence as I have already clearly shewed Nor do those men who do pretend to believe in God but yet refuse to believe in Christ refuse this upon other reasons but only because the Laws of Christ are too severe and holy for them they will not do what he commands and therefore will not believe the Gospel nor would they pretend to obey the very light of nature save only because by these means they gain a liberty of doing as little as they please for if you reprove them for any sin their answer is that it is not so by the light of nature They make that light to be what they please and then do what they please also pretending the light of nature allows it But let all those who would not ruin their precious Souls who do in deed and good earnest desire eternal life and happiness fully and faithfully believe the Gospel believe in him who hath thereby brought life and immortality to light who hath offered himself as a spotless Sacrifice to make expiation of their sins who as he is now in Gods presence making intercession for his body so will appear to the World again at the last day and reward men according to their works Let us all stedfastly believe in him the only begotten Son of
Kingdom of Heaven to a pearl of such a price and rate as that the person who once saw it sold all he had forth purchase of it Matt. 13.46 esteeming nothing too dear or pretious to obtain a thing of infinite value namely the glory of Gods Kingdom 2. Again it ought to be considered that although the subduing of our lusts and opposing our sinful inclinations be troublesome unto flesh and blood yet God hath promised his Grace and Spirit promised a supernatural power to enable us to correct our natures Hence that profession of St Paul Phil. 4.13 I can do all things thorough Christ which strengtheneth me hence that exhortation also Phil. 2.12 13. work out your salvation with fear and trembling for it is God which works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure From whence it appears that God affords his assistance to us to enable us to attain the end and perform the duties we cannot attain cannot perform by the power of nature 3. Add hereunto that being quickned being assisted by the operation of Gods Spirit that self-denyal and mortification that temperance holiness and humility that resignation to Gods will that mercy and charity unto men which was before hard and difficult irksome and troublesome to our natures is now made easie and pleasant unto us that Yoke of Christ which we before judged to be pressing and uneasie is now made light and easie to us so that the man who found the duties found the graces of the Gospel contrary to his inclinations now finds his affections and inclinations greatly reconciled unto them and cannot now please himself in any evil but finds it contrary to his nature being altered by the grace of God and this is that which St John suggests 1 Ep. 3.9 Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin but his feed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God These things considered it is no wonder that so great a loss as that of glory and immortality should attend the wilful violation of the duties prescribed in the Gospel though they be difficult to flesh and blood For though they be so yet the reward promised to us is so great that it deserves the undertakding of the greatest difficulties to attain it and God hath promised his Spirit to us to assist and help us in those difficulties and the assistance of his Spirit makes our duties first possible and afterwards easie to us 3. The last occasion which I shall mention that some men take to judge themselves to be righteous persons to be in grace and favour with God although they be Servants to corruption is a false notion they have received of the imputation of Christs righteousness They fansie that God looks upon them as having done what Christ did and also suffered what he suffered that is to say both obeyed the Law and made satisfaction for their sins which is a very great mistake representing God as judging of things otherwise than they are in themselves as judging them to have done and suffered what they have neither done nor suffered which is to impute an errour to him The true notion of the imputation of Christs righteousness is that God is pleased in consideration of that righteousness to pardon the sins and accept the persons not of those that do not believe or not sincerely obey the Gospel but of those only who do believe and so obey it God never intended that Christs righteousness should quit and deliver from our obligation to obedience but that it should oblige us to it For he bare our sins in his own body upon the Tree that we being dead unto sin should live unto righteousness 1 Pet. 2.24 3. And now to reflect upon what I have said to the last general before propounded 1. Hence we learn that the reason why the Gospel of Christ hath no greater success and efficacy in the reformation of the lives of those that make profession of it is not any defect in it but in those that make profession of it it is not any defect in the Gospel but wilful mistakes in the minds of men that renders the Gospel unsuccessful in the reformation of their lives The Gospel gives no ground at all for any to think themselves righteous or hope for the pardon of their sins who are not true and faithful penitents who do not forsake their vitious courses If men shall promise themselves pardon while they continue in their sins this is a promise of their own it is no promise of the Gospel The Gospel menaces death eternal to the impenitent and disobedient and if men shall still believe the contrary it is their errour their wilful errour so to do nor is it the Gospel that deceives them but they deceive and abuse themselves 2. Lastly seeing it is so easie for men to impose upon themselves to judge themselves in favour with God while they continue in their sins it will very much concern us all duly to examine our selves and make reflection upon our lives First let us very well consider whether we do not indulge our selves in some sin yet flatter our selves with hopes of pardon though we continue in such indulgence thereunto although we live and die in it If we find our selves guilty of this we labour under a great imposture an imposture which if not corrected will rob us of our immortal Souls It is hard for men of the truest principles to subdue their inordinate inclinations to enter in at that strait gate which leads unto eternal happiness but if the very principles of men if the mind it self be possessed with errour and with an errour of this nature which promises life eternal to them while they indulge themselves in evil there is no hope no expectation of reformation till the errour it self be quite removed Now therefore if thy life be vitious if stained with any one sin which thou indulgest in thy self awake and excite and examine thy self and see what it is that gives encouragement to that indulgence and if thou be serious with thy self and search the bottom of thine heart thou will find it is one of these two things either a presumpti-of thy repentance and reformation sometimes hereafter or a belief that thou mayest be saved although thou continuest in thy sin without repentance and amendment The former of these is the greatest folly the greatest impudence in the world the latter the most destructive errour for certainly there is no such folly no such imprudence in all the world as to defer a necessary duty to a time uncertain a time thou mayest never live to see or if thou dost mayest use as ill as that which is already past that which is now present with thee And then to believe a sin pardoned while it is indulged is such an errour as doth not only open a gate to all sin but shut the door to all repentance and reformation Consider what I say and the Lord
us go without his part of our voluptuousness Let us leave tokens of our joyfullness in every place for this is our portion and our lot is this And true it is whatsoever it is that men pursue with preference unto all other things that is the thing they make their portion And what is the use of this discourse that men may know what it is they make their chief Good and to make it appear how much they often mistake themselves in the choice thereof when they are little aware of it Who will believe so ill of himself as that he values the treasures on earth more than those of Heaven it self who will believe he hath chosen wealth or power or honour or the perishing pleasures of this life as his supreme and chief good and yet if none have so chosen why do so many so pursue these very things why so study this present World as to forget and neglect the other Men live by sight and not by Faith they chuse by sense and not by reason and they are surprized into this choice by the early acquaintance which they contract with what is pleasing unto sense before they imploy their understandings and when they arrive at the use of them they make no other use of reason than for the gaining of that end which they had formerly chose by sense Did they use faith nay reason it self in the choice of the great end of life they would not chuse as now they do Faith would fix upon that glory which God hath promised although future and invisible for faith is the subsistence of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen Reason would make a reasonable choice the mind would consult its own advantage That which is spiritual and immortal would chuse immortal and spiritual joys Reason would never judge it reasonable to be a servant and slave to sense it would never believe that sensible things would give satisfaction to a spirit that things uncertain would give a stable and certain happiness that we can be happy after death by that which will leave us when we die that we can be blessed in any enjoyment of shorter duration than our selves that is than our immortal souls from whence it appears that they who have chosen the perishing things of this world as the very best and chief enjoyments which they have done who pursue these things with greater care than any other have neither chosen by Faith nor reason and therefore have cause to mend their choice 2. For secondly seeing the heart will be where the treasure is this shews of what importance it is to make a true and a right judgment of what is true and lasting treasure that is to chuse that for happiness which is in truth the thing we seek and will not deceive our expectations He that mistakes in this business fails in the choice of that end whereby his whole life is governed which therefore upon this account is nothing but one continued errour he thinks indeed that he hath pitched upon an excellent and worthy thing he fansies great content and pleasure in view of the thing which he hath designed he imploys and busies all his thoughts he contrive and orders all his Counsels bends all his labours to attain it and though it cost him many a thought many a tedious and weary step yet he makes no doubt but that it will answer all his hopes that it will reward him for all his pains that it will prove worthy of all his cares He verily believes that he should be happy if he could but once attain unto it Yet so it is every step he makes towards it sets him further from true happiness the further he goes the further is he out of his way his back is upon the thing he seeks and his face on a false appearance of it It is a vanity it is a delusion which he hath chosen he is under a very sad mistake and to use the Prophet Isaiahs words Isa 44.20 A deceived heart hath led him aside that he cannot deliver his Soul nor say is there not a lie in my right hand And well it were if it were only loss of labour for a man to pursue that as his happiness which is not really and truly so but it is infinitely worse than so it is pernicious and destructive For he that chuses a false end as the scope of all his aims and labours as every man doth who doth not chuse what God commands is thereby led and hurried on to the greatest errours the greatest evils that offer themselves if to make it his end he promote and propagate a false means to gain it if he seek his end in sensuality no wonder if he debauch himself by riot and drunkenness chambering and wantonness by making provision for the flesh for the fulfilling the lusts thereof If he believe just contrary to our Saviours words Luk. 12.15 that a mans life doth consist in the abundance of the things which he possesseth can we wonder if he defraud or oppress if he lie and dissemble to his neighbour or if he extort out of his hands that he may more plentifully fill his own He will not believe he is true to himself if he be not so to that he hath made the end of life and therefore that will he still pursue where ever he spies an opportunity and finds an advantage to attain it He will not be startled at oppositions he will not boggle at any difficulties he will not spare his own pains nor the greatest concernments of other persons he will follow his end where ever it leads if he can but hope to overtake it so fatal are the effects and issues of seeking our happiness in those things where our Creator hath not laid it On the other hand to place it there where he hath placed it is an advantage next to the very fruition of it He that trusts God cannot be deceived he that chuses that which he hath promised cannot be cheated or disappointed the thing will afford what he expects and infinitely more than what he can imagine he shall not be flattered with vain hopes puffed up and swelled for a little while and then emptied by disappointment and vext with the loss of expectation Time will discover the sad mistakes of other persons age infirmities and experience or if not these yet death at least will wear off the gloss of every vanity of every vain and perishing thing howsoever it now deludes the fancie and commends it self to imagination But time will still more and more justifie the choice strengthen the hopes and confirm the purposes and resolutions of every wise and good man and so conduct and lead him on to a blessed eternity for having deliberately chosen the glory which God hath promised as the only thing that can make him happy this will effectually secure his innocence in all deliberate thoughts and actions If any temptation offer it self and present an occasion
R. White Sculp â—ELMUS OUTRAMUS S.T.P. S ti Petri apud Westmonasterienses Canonicus TWENTY SERMONS PREACHED upon Several Occasions BY WILLIAM OWTRAM D.D. Prebendary of Westminster and one of his MAJESTIES Chaplains in Ordinary Printed after the Authors own Copies LONDON Printed by J. M. for Richard Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St Paul's Church-Yard 1682. TO THE READER Reader IT is well known that the Author of these following Sermons could never he prevailed upon either by the Intreaty of his Friends or the Authority of his Superiours though very much urged by both to publish any of his Sermons in Print and his nearest Relations would have paid that respect to him in this as in all other things to have denyed them to the Publick for the sake of his own Judgment in this matter had not a forward Bookseller only to serve the ends of his own profit thrust out into the World Six Sermons under his name not many Months after his Death To promote the Sale of which he indeavours in an Epistle before them to make the Reader believe that although as he confesses they were taken from the Author by a Short-hand-man many years since yet they were allowed and corrected by himself That they were agreeable to his sense And that there was no other more perfect Copy to be procured If all this had been true What right had the Bookseller and his Short-hand Friend by this to publish them in the name of this Author Did the Author Correct them for the Press Or is it sufficient to justifie the publishing of such Discourses under a Mans name because they are agreeable to his sense Or if no other Copy could be procured was it therefore necessary to publish this But this pretence was so far from being true that whosoever has been abused by this Publisher so much as to buy and look into those Sermons will find that they are so far from being Corrected by the Hand of this Author that they were never Corrected by any That they are so far from being agreeable to his sense that in very many places they are no sense at all And the Publisher knows very well that he never inquired of any of the Authors Relations for any Copies or Papers remaining in their hands If he had he might have been shewed Three Sermons upon the first Text Heb. 10.38 whereas he has published but Two of them and those two put together as one and that so imperfect so incoherent and so ungrammatical that the Reader must be very kind if he would excuse the Author in many places as well as the Printer One might point to mistakes in almost every Page some of which are very absurd and intolerable But in regard some Friends of the Authors have thought fit to collect a Volume of his Sermons upon Theological Subjects amongst which it will be most proper to insert these upon the 10th of the Hebrews concerning the Life of Faith in connection with other Discourses of Faith it is sufficient to acquaint the Reader that these shall be reprinted after the Authors own Copy In like manner the Publisher if he had consulted the Authors Friends might have seen that the Second and Third Sermons of Providence upon St. Matt. 10.29 are but a part of his Discourses upon that Subject which it will be most proper to put together and publish if at all in a Volume of the Attributes of God upon which the Author has several Sermons But besides that these are but apart of his Meditations upon Providence they are also very broken and imperfect in many places though the Short-hand-man has endeavoured according to his skill in Divinity to supply and fill them up Of the three following two of them cannot yet be found amongst the Authors Papers so that it is very doubtful whether they be his or no and therefore the Publisher besides the wrong he has done the Author and the World too in exposing his labours imperfectly has also very probably fathered upon him those that are none of his The just indignation which the Authors Friends have taken to this injurious dealing of the Publisher together with Reports brought frequently to their ears of a design of other persons to publish other of his Sermons inclined them though they are sensible against the Authors own opinion to set forth a Volume at present according to his own Copies And these Twenty being lately preached upon particular occasions and some of them in the most august and solemn Audience and all of them designed to obviate the evils of the Age and to secure Men in the belief and practice of the true Religion are thought not improper to be first offered to the publick view The Author was sensible by what Artifices what degrees and what parties of Men this most excellent constitution of the Church of England is endeavoured to be undermined and denying to no Man the liberty of Disquisition and Discourse he understood the strength both of their Arguments and their Interest And the Reader may discern by these Sermons that he apprehended our danger to arise of late from a confederacy it may be one cannot say but a complication of enemies Papists Libertines and Dissenters but chiefly from the first who imploy the two latter to work under them and to weaken the Church of England one by Prophaneness and the other by Separation that so they may argue against the sufficiency of our constitution to maintain good Life and preserve Unity and dispose those who are of no Religion and no Church to become Proselytes to theirs Amongst the Libertines may be reckoned that sort of Men who though indeed they have natural conviction of a supreme Being pretend to more wit than to be satisfied with the Authority of our Blessed Saviour and so because they have no good opinion of the Truth of his Religion they neglect Religion in general for what Theist was ever known to live according to the Principles of natural Religion to which notwithstanding he owns himself obliged For the Dissenters they have many different Opinions amongst themselves some of which are here taken notice of either ex proposito in some Sermons or by the by in others So that the whole Collection is an Antidote Very seasonable for the malignity of the Age and by the blessing of God may have some profitable effect from the Press as by the testimony of the Hearers they had from the Pulpit and they are offered to the world for that end not as a Character of the great abilities of the Author and his great Accomplishments in almost all kinds of Science but as an instance of his Zeal for the Truth and goodness of the Christian Religion in general and the Church of England in particular especially in this juncture His extraordinary skill in Rabbinical Learning and the use and service of it to the Confirmation and Illustration of the Christian Theology he has made appear to the learned World
was so far from being terrified either by his bonds or death it self that were it not for their sakes to whom his life might be more useful he should rather desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ He further acquaints them with his design to visit them again in order to their support and settlement if God should rescue him from his bonds In the mean time gives this admonition Only let your conversation be as becometh the Gospel of Christ that whether I come and see you or else be absent I may hear of your affairs that ye stand fast in one Spirit with one mind striving together for the faith of the Gospel and in nothing thing terrified by your adversaries That ye stand fact c. In which words you have an account what are the most effectual means for any Church which God hath blessed with the true Faith of Christianity still to abide and continue in it Firmness of mind in every mans private belief of it close union amongst themselves zeal and diligence in joynt endeavours for its defence and propagation and courage against such oppositions as others may possibly make against it 1. Firmness of mind in every mans private belief of it which is suggested in these words Stand fast that is to say as it there follows in the faith of the Gospel 2. Union amongst themselves Stand fast in one spirit with one mind 3. Zeal and diligence in joynt endeavours for its defence and propagation Stand fast in one spirit with one mind striving together for the faith of the Gospel 4. Courage against such oppositions as other persons make against it And in nothing terrified by your adversaries These are the methods which our Apostle here propounds for a Church to retain the true Faith that is to continue a true Church 1. The first of which is firmness of mind in every mans private belief of truth For feeing that every particular Church is made up of particular persons so far as particular Members fail in the true Faith so far is that Church they are Members of maimed and mutilated in its parts and the whole in tendency to dissolution Now seeing the firmness of belief depends upon clear and evident proof I might here offer a demonstration of the truth and excellency of Christianity But being this is neither so needful nor yet so seasonable to the occasion of our meeting I shall rather chuse to address my self to what the occasion now requires which is to shew the truth and excellence of Christianity as it is professed in our own Church in opposition to that of Rome which I shall do by comparing theirs and ours together in point of Faith and Worship and Manners 1. And first of all for matter of Faith we firmly believe the holy Scriptures and every thing therein contained to be the infallible Word of God We believe the Scriptures do contain all things necessary to Salvation according as St. John assures us Joh. 20.31 These things are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God and that believing ye might have life through his Name Which we could not have if every thing necessary to Salvation was not written was not contained in this very Gospel of St. John Nay further yet we believe and receive all Creeds that were ever received in the Catholick Church These Creeds are taken into our Liturgy they are repeated in our Churches we signifie our assent to them by standing up when they are repeated and are we still to be judged Hereticks and deficient in the Catholick Faith On the other hand the Roman Church deny the Scriptures to be a compleat Rule of Faith they build their faith upon Tradition a thing uncertain They rely upon Councils which may erre nay upon such as have grosly erred They vary as well from the Primitive Church in many cases as from the holy Scripture it self And last of all they pretend a power of making new Articles of Faith that is such as were not made by our Blessed Lord and his Apostles which being so let reason judge whether they or we be likeliest to erre in point of Faith 2. For matter of Worship in the second place their publick Prayers are made and used in a tongue unknown unto the people ours in a tongue which we all understand And here let St. Paul decide the controversie that is between us I Cor. 14 15 16 c. I will pray with the spirit and I will pray with understanding also I will sing with the spirit and I will sing with understanding also Else when thou shalt bless with the spirit how shall he that occupieth the room of the unlearned say Amen at thy giving thanks seeing he understandeth not what thou sayest For thou verily givest thanks well but the other is not edified From whence it appears what edification may be expected from their prayers that is to say none at all And therefore the Apostle further adds I thank God I speak with tongues more than you all yet in the Church I had rather speak five words with my understanding that by my voice I might teach others also than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue But to proceed as we make our prayers in a known tongue so in them we invoke the true God and him only We use no other Mediator no other Patron but only Christ whom God hath appointed so to be For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men the man Christ Jesus 1 Tim. 2.5 But they that are of the Church of Rome make their addresses to Saints and Angels as well for patronage and protection as for their prayers to God for them and some of those the Virgin Mary do they invoke in as magnificent and high a stile as they invoke God himself We pay no worship to any Images seeing that God hath expresly said Thou shalt not make to thy self any graven image nor the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above or in the earth beneath or in the water under the earth thou shalt not bow down to them nor worship them But they bow down and prostrate themselves before the Images of Christ and others And though they affirm that the honour they give unto the Image passes through it to the person whom it represents yet still they acknowledge they worship the Image that this at least is a transient object of their Worship And then again we give the Sacrament of the Lords Supper unto the people as well as the Priests in both kinds So it was instituted by Christ himself so it was given all along for many Ages but others in perfect contradiction to the Institution of our Lord deny the Cup unto the Laity We believe that after Consecration the Bread and Wine set apart and consecrated for the Sacrament do still retain the natural substance of bread and wine And so the Apostle himself believed when he stiled that bread of
darkest Plots he can defeat the greatest craft he can disarm the greatest Powers and scatter them all into confusion And we are not without very good hopes that he will concern himself for us and imploy his Providence for our help We have a Cause that God hath favoured wonderfully favoured in former times How many Plots against this Cause did he discover confound and punish during the Reign of Queen Elizabeth How did he do the like again when her Successor began his Reign How hath he still preserved and blessed it in many confusions many divisions amongst our selves since that time How hath he now at the present time wonderfully discovered the works of darkness brought hidden and secret evils to light Made those discoveries done those things that we could never have done for our selves God will never be wanting to us or to the Religion we profess if we our selves be not wanting to it Let us therefore awaken all our powers to diligence in our own defence and then commit our cause to God making our daily prayers to him that he would defend his own Truth that he would protect his own Inheritance and water the Vine that himself hath planted Yea let us make our appeals to him whether we or cur enemies be in the right And then O God who art a just and righteous God take the matter into thine own hand do thou judge between them and us Pardon our sins forgive those evils which may provoke thine indignation against us but for our cause for that Faith that we do profess against our enemies that we freely leave to thee we do appeal unto thy judgment and are willing to stand or fall by it Let us therefore adorn it in our lives this is the first and principal way of procuring the blessing of God upon it Let us seek and improve all occasions to gain it credit and reputation And seeing that it hath pleased the King to recommend the rebuilding of St Pauls unto our Charity at this time and himself to set us a great Example let us not be wanting to this Work according unto our proportion It is certainly a Work of Christian piety to build up places for Gods Worship No sooner were the Christians freed from the Persecutions of the Heathen but they did zealously apply themselves to this work and raised magnificent and noble Structures for the publick places of Gods Worship This Church which is now to be rebuilt may be stiled the chief of all the Nation It hath formerly been its greatest glory in its kind and we hope it may be so again What pity were it that such a Work should fail or flag at such a time when we are to give especial evidence of a publick Spirit of free and noble and generous minds The time is an extraordinary time the work an extraordinary work Let us open our hands to a more than ordinary bounty towards it And as for us in this place we have singular reason so to do seeing it pleased Almighty God to preserve our Churches and Habitations from those flames that devoured our Neighbours Now therefore let us at this time honour the Religion we do profess by this particular work of piety as well as in all other instances making our prayers to Almighty God that he would defend his own Truth that he would protect his own Inheritance and preserve the Religion himself planted And thou O God c. The Fourth Sermon Matth. 6.23 If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness how great is that darkness THE great security of mans life as well from the cheats of his own as from the temptations of the world depends upon true and stable Principles of Faith and Piety And the ground of all these Principles is a true judgment of what is happiness what is the great end of life and what are the ways that lead unto it and a choice suitable thereunto This is the thing which our Lord suggests 19 20 21 verses Lay not up for your selves treasures upon earth where moth and rust doth corrupt and where thieves break through and steal hut lay up for your selves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt and where thieves do not break through and steal for says he when your treasure is there will your heart be also that is to say that which you chuse to be your happiness that will you place your hearts upon and pursue in all your deliberate actions Having thus exhorted us to take care to chuse that for our chief good which is indeed really so to conduct our lives by true Principles he speaks a Parable wherein he shews the great advantage of so doing and the danger of doing otherwise The former of these in those words vers 22. The light of the body is the eye if therefore thine eye be single thy whole body is full of light The application of which words is this The judgment of the mind is the guide of life Wherefore if the judgment be true and good the life hath a true guide to rule it And then the danger of a false judgment is declared in the words that immediately follow But if thine eye be evil thy whole body is full of darkness And so he comes to the words of the Text If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness how great is that darkness that is if thy judgment be corrupt if thy mind and conscience be erroneous how great and dangerous are those mistakes which thou art then exposed unto Now that which the words thus explained offer unto our consideration is the mighty danger that they are in to lose their souls who are led and governed by false Principles Which will appear if we consider that such Principles 1. Leave them dangerously exposed to sin 2. And not only so exposed unto it but that they also encourage to it I say 1. They leave them dangerously exposed to evil which will be very clear and manifest if we consider 1. First of all that our present condition and state is such that we are under many temptations thereunto 2. That the nature of man is apt of it self to close and comply with those temptations 3. That we have nothing else save only true and right Principles assisted by the Grace of God to prevent and hinder complying with them 4. From whence it most inevitably follows that where those Principles are not found we are most dangerously exposed to evil 1. I shall begin with the first of these which is that our present condition is such that we are under many temptations unto evil The world is full of deceits and snares where-ever we tread we are in danger to fall into them There is no business no imployment no condition or state of life but lies exposed unto temptation Sometimes we are courted by sensual charms by the hopes of favour or wealth or honour to part with our innocence and integrity sometimes we are in great
have nothing but good Principles to prevent and hinder such complyance From whence it most inevitably follows that where such principles are not found where men are under the power and guidance of evil Principles they are most dangerously exposed to evil This is the least of the ill effects that we can possibly expect from them 2. But then secondly we must consider That as all ill principles in Religion leave us at least exposed to evil so are there many do very highly encourage to it There are such principles to be found as turn the greatest crimes to merit and make men hope for a reward hope to gain eternal glory by the foulest practices in the world by those that tend to eternal misery Our blessed Lord foretold his followers that the time would come wherein they would put them out of the Synagogues and not so only but also that whosoever killed them should think he did God service by it John 16.2 So did the Jews use his Disciples They first accused them of Schism and Heresie and then persecuted them unto death And just so doth the Roman Church to all Christians dissenting from them They pronounce them guilty of Schism and Heresie they excommunicate them out of the Church they flatly deny that they can be saved they doom them all unto damnation they pronounce it lawful to destroy them to destroy the very greatest Princes when they have once judged them Hereticks They make it a meritorious act in those that adventure so to do and lest men should not venture upon it some of them teach that they are obliged and bound to do it extremo animarum suarum perieule si vires habeant ad hoc idoneas Philopator under the pain of the loss of their Souls if they have sufficient strength to do it Could a man have thought that such practices as these are should ever have been undertaking by any making profession of Christianity could he have thought that although these should be undertaken they should be justified and defended nay urged and pressed with great severity under no less a tie and penalty than that of the loss of a mans Soul But this it is to have the mind and conscience defiled as the Apostle himself expresses it Tit. 1.15 This it is as he speaks elswhere 1. Tim. 4.2 to have the Conscience seared with a hot iron If a mans Principles be corrupt his conscience perverted and depraved what will not such a conscience admit and such Principles urge upon him If the very light that is in him be darkness how great then is that darkness And now to apply what I have said upon this point 1. Seeing the danger of false Principles in Religion is so prodigiously and strangely great let this be a mighty caution to us to avoid communion with such persons as govern themselves by such Principles and more especially the Church of Rome It is not imaginable how this Church hath perverted the Doctrine of Christianity and quite overthrown the practice of it in many considerable parts of it There is scarce any one command of God which they have not clouded and perverted by some perverse interpretations And besides all this they have formed and stated general Principles which effectually lead to the overthrowing of all the precepts of Christianity And some of these I shall instance in 1. The first of these is the Doctrine received in the Roman Church of acting according to probable opinions received not only among the Jesuits but by many others as well as them 1. They teach that although an opinion seems to be false to any man considering the reasons that make against it yet that it is a probable opinion if it be maintained by two or three nay by one Doctor of note amongst them 2. And then secondly that any person may lawfully act and govern himself by such an opinion in point of practice by an opinion maintained by others although it seem to be false to himself just contrary to the Apostles Doctrine Rom. 14.23 Whatsoever is not of faith is sin The very words they use are these Ex anthoritate unius tantùm posse quem illam in praxi amplecti licèt à principiis intrinsecis falsam improbahilem existimet that is That a man may lawfully follow an opinion in practice upon the authority of one Doctor though he himself considering the reasons of that opinion judge it to be false and improbable Guimen pag. 55 My Author adds an example to this and that is although a Confessor shall himself believe it to be unlawful to absolve a man in a certain case yet that notwithstanding he may absolve him if others judge it to be lawful Now here I observe in the first place that this is directly against the Scripture which pronounces that to be unlawful which a man acts against his own mind and conscience although agreeably to other mens And then secondly that this opinion gives all men liberty to do whatsoever a few Doctors nay any one of the Roman Church have judged lawful And what is it that some of them have not judged lawful especially against all those persons upon whom they fix the name of Hereticks And if you inquire what is the design of those persons that do maintain this opinion it is most evident that it is this That the spiritual Guides of the Roman Church may have a pretence to lead the people boldly to act what they require although against the minds and judgments of them they lead That is in case a private person judge it unlawful to break his faith to falsifie promise to a Heretick or to deprive him of life or fortunes or reputation yet that he may still lawfully do it if two or three of their Guides and Teachers nay if any one of them judge it lawful 3. But then thirdly they further teach That where there are any two opinions one less probable than another that a man may lawfully guide his practice by that which appears to be less probable So Martial de Prado concludes and abundance of others as well as he as Guimen p. 64. Saepe in praxi licitum est sequi opinionem minùs probabilem relictâ probabiliori It is often lawful in matter of practice to follow a less probable opinion forsaking that which is more probable Which is as much as if they said that a man is not bound to govern his life according to the best of his judgment but may very lawfully do what is worse where he knows and believes he might do better And is this for a man to guide his life according to the rules of Charity or that integrity that sincerity which true Christianity requires from us 4. And yet I must add what is still worse for it is added upon this point in the Church of Rome That it is lawful for any person to follow a less probable opinion rather than one that is more probable and that although the more probable
this end that it be a hope of the very happiness God hath promised unless it expect that happiness upon those terms and no other whereupon 't is promised in tha Gospel and those are faith working by love those are as God himself declares to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly righteously and godly in the world Whence that of the Author to the Hebrews Chap. 12. vers 14. Follow peace with all men and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. he that hopes for happiness without these terms cannot by virtue of that hope be any way moved to practise these so far is such a hope as that from moving men unto their duties that it gives them the very greatest encouragement to live in the perfect neglect of them What need they to deny themselves and their vicious appetite and desires What need they to offer any violence to their sinful lusts and inclinations Why should they part with a right hand why should they pluck out a right eye forego the pleasure lose the profit of any lust if they can hope for eternal Glory in the fruition of their lusts and reconcile the hopes of Heaven with all the desires of flesh and blood and soft indulgence to those desires From whence I conclude that that hope which purges the hearts and lives of men must be a hope of that happiness that God hath promised upon those terms and those only whereupon 't is promised in the Gospel 3. And yet further we must observe that it is only a firm assurance of arriving at that eternal happinefs upon the performance of those terms that shall enable us to perform them Conjecture is too weak a thing to overcome those strong temptations that dare men into sin and folly No man will deny himself what he feels to gratifie his sensual appetites at the present upon meer guess of what may possibly be hereafter Strong desires are not subdued by weak hopes Men will not deny their present ease their present pleasures their present joys though never so contrary to the Gospel upon meer probabilities and peradventures they will be sure of something future before they part with what they have they will be sure of something better before they forsake what they feel or apprehend to be good and useful at the present And it was want of this assurance in the Philosophy of former days that made its Precepts and Institutions so ineffectual in the World and so Lactantius then observed Omnia ibi conjecturis aguntur ideo nemo paret quia nemo vult in incertum laborare Philosophy affords but meer conjecture in the point of suture life and happiness and therefore no man observes its precepts because no man will labour at all adventures From whence I conclude that that hope which shall effectually perswade with men to obey the Precepts of our Lord to cleanse themselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit must be a firm and strong assurance of gaining the happiness God hath promised upon the terms that he requires sincere obedience to his Precepts 4. But now because it is impossible for flesh and blood in this degenerate state of man and in the midst of these temptations which daily assault him in this state sincerely to obey those Precepts without the assistance of Gods Spirit there is yet a further qualification that is required in that hope which shall enable us so to do which is that it wholly grounds it self upon the promise of Gods grace and moves a man to apply to God for the assistance and help thereof in the purifying of his heart and life Nature will never raise it self to a supernatural state of life or to a supernatural end Man is of the earth earthy and in no capacity so to elevate his own thoughts so to advance his own desires as to prepare and fit himself for that happiness which lies in likeness to God himself in perfect purity and incorruption without the assistance of Gods grace And therefore that hope must of necessity be successless must fail to cleanse and purge our hearts to purifie us as God is pure which shall not be so far instructed as to teach us to apply to God for the assistance of his Spirit in a work above the power of Nature But now to recollect the summ of what I have said upon this point that hope which fixes on that happiness which God hath promised in the Gospel consisting in purity and immortality which is a hope of this happiness upon those terms and those only whereupon it is there promised to us which is a firm and full assurance of that happiness upon the performance of those terms which grounds it self upon the assistance of Gods Spirit in that performance and therefore moves to apply to God by fervent prayer for the attaining of that assistance which is never denied when so desired that is the hope the Apostle intends in these words that is the hope that purifies us as God is pure Which leads me to the second general 2. Where I am to shew the several ways whereby it hath these effects upon us and these I refer to two particulars 1. This hope moves and excites to strong endeavours in order unto this end namely the purifying of our selves 2. It is of such a nature as cannot but render those endeavours truly effectual unto that end 1. It moves to strong endeavours in order unto this great design which is the purifying of our selves from all our inordinate lusts and passions and the reason is because it hath firmly fixed the soul upon future glory and immortality as its only happiness and perfection the only thing that is fit or worthy to be made the end and design of life and also fixt and setled this as a most sure and certain truth that the purifying of a mans heart and life according to the Laws of Christ is the only and certain way of attaining to that bliss and happiness God hath made us all of such a nature that we cannot forbear to love our selves nor can that creature forbear to desire his own happiness that cannot forbear to love himself nor can the desires of that enjoyment wherein a man hath placed his happiness cease to urge and press endeavours in order to the attainment of it Suppose we then that a man believe that true happiness lies in the purity and immortality that God hath promised in his Kingdom suppose he believe that a holy life is the only means to attain this happiness suppose these things fixed and setled upon his heart by the operation of Gods Spirit can we imagine but that the hope of such an end should most effectually excite and move him to purifie himself as God is pure Will he not be content to resist his sinful lusts and appetites subdue his inordinate inclinations in consideration of such a happiness Will he not be content to deny himself all the unlawful joys
and pleasures all the poor and mean advantages that any sin can offer to him in the stedfast view and hope of it Will he think any loss or disadvantage that a holy life can bring upon him to be compared with the loss of it Will he think it much to suffer the loss of wealth or honour or life it self rather than that of eternal glory if he cannot retain the possession of one without plain forfeiture of all his title to the other If he must abandon one of these can he doubt whether he shall reject and that under full and clear conviction wrought by the very grace of God which we suppose in this hope that he cannot retain them both together I may boldly say supposing the things I have supposed in this hope he can no more refuse to do or yet suffer whatsoever can be proposed unto him in this life rather than forfeit that to come than he can put off humane nature than he can cease to be a man and forbear to desire his own happiness The stable hopes of Eternal Glory of the fruition of Gods presence in perfect purity and immortality will recommend that purity to him as an essential part of happiness and felicity it will also teach him to do and suffer whatsoever is requisite to obtain so great a happiness and felicity Thus Moses esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Aegypt for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward Heb. 11.26 So Christ himself for that joy that was set before him endured the Cross despising the shame Heb. 12.2 So did S. Stephen part with his life in view of the glory which he saw Acts 7.6 and that with such content and charity that he prayed for the very men that stoned him Lord lay not this sin to their charge So did the rest of Christs followers in the Primitive Ages of Christianity rather chuse to part with their very lives as well as their other advantages in the World than with their title to future Glory They all judged as S. Paul did the suffering of this present time were not worthy to be compared with the Glory that should be revealed in them Rom. 8.18 which is a sufficient demonstration what strong endeavours to do and suffer the will of God and that in very greatest tryals flow from the firm and stable hopes of future bliss and immortality 2. Add hereunto in the second place that the nature of that hope is such as that it doth not only move to such endeavours but likewise carries that in it which cannot but render them efficacious in the subduing every lust in the producing of every grace in the accomplishing every thing requisite unto Life Eternal For besides that the hope I have described is always quickned and encouraged by the operation of Gods Spirit which makes it powerful for the purifying of mens hearts and lives it takes the very force and sting out of all the temptations of this World whether they lye in the good or evil in the hopes or fears of things below 1. It destroys the force of those temptations that arise from wealth and power and honour from sensual pleasures and satisfactions by raising the thoughts and desires of men and transferring them to the things above So it subdues those Capital Lusts the lust of the flesh the lust of the eye and pride of life Sensuality Avarice and Ambition and all the spawn of these Vices Fraud Oppression and Revenge Envy Malice and Animosity So it begets the Graces contrary to all these Vices Charity Purity and Humility For no man that hath placed his hope upon Eternal Life and Glory as his only happiness and felicity as his supreme and sovereign good can so esteem the perishing pleasures the fading profits of this World as to envy those that abound in them or despise those that have them not much less to deceive or to oppress to lie or flatter or dissemble to defame or reproach his Neighbour to do an injury or deny a favour to attain them And hence it is that this hope makes men plain and simple hearted makes them merciful kind and gentle makes them pure and heavenly minded It elevates the mind raises the thoughts inlarges the heart alters the frame of mans nature and makes him imitate that God in whom he hath setled all his trust and in conformity to whose likeness with the enjoyment of his presence he hath placed all his joy and happiness And thus doth the hope of this happiness raise him above the force and power of those temptations that the profits or pleasures of this world can offer or suggest unto him 2. Nor is it any thing less effectual in securing him from the loss of innocence by those that arise from the evils of it reproach or poverty or death it self or any of those many calamities which may assault him in the world He knows these things cannot deprive him of that glory wherein he hath placed all his happiness he knows they will shortly have an end in the mean time he is content rather to suffer all the evils that the present world can bring upon him than the loss of the hope of life eternal This hope gives him strength and courage it gives him patience and resignation to his will from whom he expects eternal glory and an increase of that glory as a reward for all his patience and perseverance in well doing under all his sufferings in the world Besides that God never fails to bless and strengâ—â—â—n those persons that patiently suffer his will with the joys and comforts of his Spirit as the Apostle himself assures us Rom. 5.2 3 and following verses We rejoyce in the hope of the glory of God and not so only but we glory in tribulations also knowing that tribulation worketh patience and patience experience and experience hope and hope maketh not ashamed because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us The summ is this the stable hope of eternal glory in the fruition of God himself in perfect purity and immortality renders the man possessed with it so indifferent to this world as to pursue and to enjoy the good of it with great sobriety and moderation without sensuality fraud or injury without animosity pride or envy with purity gentleness and Christian charity It renders him so indifferent to it as to endure the evil of it with constancy patience and perseverance in all simplicity and integrity By these he is so endeared to God that as he before gave him the assistance of his Spirit so he gives him now the joys thereof in the testimony of his love to him which love still further excites a mutual have to God and also to men for his salâ—â—â— and by these means further improves all his graces and purifies him as God is pure which is the second of those generals which I propounded to consider
twenty other dues all but one at the peoples charge and of the dues that were so charged one was the flesh of the expiatory Sacrifices and these Sacrifices were required for above fifty kinds of sins But that which I now insist upon is not the greatness of the expence which the Law charged upon the Jews but that all their Offices of Love and Charity were so circumstantiated by the Law that they who had the best inclinations to these duties in the general must of necessity be much encumbered by the circumstances which the Law required in the exact performance of them 5. Add hereunto the numerous Rites prescribed to the Jews in the very culture of their bodies and that in the very minutest things They could not so much as cut their hair or shave their beards but under the restraint and scruple of Law Levit. 19.27 They were not begotten they were not born without a ritual stain upon their parents every woman that had brought forth a child was to take a journey to Jerusalem to sacrifice for her purification and the child it self was to be redeemed with a certain price if it were a son and her first-born And now that I have mentioned Purification what shall I say of the numerous cases wherein the Jews were made unclean by the sentence and judgment of the Law What shall I say of the several Washings the several Sacrifices sometimes required to purge and make them clean again What shall I say of their confinement and separation from the Congregation during the time they were unclean The Jews observe that there were eleven general Fountains so they stile them of pollution and these generals were almost infinite in their particular parts and branches If a man had touched an unclean creature or any of the clean which died of themselves if he had touched a dead mans body or any thing else which that had touched if he had an issue of blood in himself or had touched another that had such an issue or any thing else which he had touched In these and innumerable other cases he was by the Law pronounced unclean and being unclean upon pain of death to purge himself sometimes by Sacrifice sometimes by the water of separation always by bathing himself in water Time would fail me if I should insist upon all the minute and scrupulous Rites which the Law of Moses enjoyned the Jews and indeed I have said enough already in order to my present purpose For as it appears from what I have said they could not legally worship God without abundance of nice observances wholly indifferent in themselves but hard and troublesom in performance They could not discharge their moral offices towards men without most scrupulous observations in point of circumstance of time and place and other minute considerations They could not manage the least affairs they could not do the commonest things without the scruple of Law and Conscience For they could not build or inhabit their houses they could not so much as cloath themselves they could not plow nor sow nor plant they could not reap or gather in their fruits they could not eat or prepare their meat they could scarce discharge any one action religious moral civil or natural but under the check of a positive Law And that which is further to be observed is that the most exact performance of the letter of all these positive Laws might leave them vicious and immoral full of hypocrisie pride and malice slaves to the world and their own lusts and that where it left them in this condition it did neither improve them in themselves nor recommend them to Gods acceptance much less procure eternal life Which plainly appears from the Scribes and Pharisees who although the most exact observers of all these ritual institutions were most impure and foul within and least acceptable unto God Yet after all it was not needless and therefore no unreasonable thing that a people amongst whom God himself in the first Ages of their Polity held the place of a Civil Magistrate a people prone unto Idolatry and living among idolatrous Nations should be thus bound up by positive Laws in every instance of life and action that so whatsoever they saw or did the commonest actions in the world might put them in mind of the true God and of his absolute Soveraignty over them Especially seeing that their bondage under this toilsom Dispensation might better dispose them to embrace the easier state of Christianity when God should please to call them to it S. Peter tells them that Moses his Law meaning its positive institutions was such a yoke as neither they nor their fathers were able to bear Act. 15.10 Christ tells us that his yoke is easie and his burden light Mat. 11.30 They were in bondage under the elements of the world Gal. 4.3 And as S. Paul himself stiles them under weak and beggarly elements v. 9. We are under a royal law Jam. 2.8 We are under the law of liberty Jam. 1.25 a Law recommended by better promises a Law attended with greater helps larger effusions of Gods Spirit a Law that requires little else but what is immutably good in itself a Law that where it proceeds further rests in few and easie instances in Baptism and the Lords Supper these are the Sacraments of the Gospel these are but two and both of them easie in practice easie in sense and signification and also greatly useful to us both to oblige us to our duties and to increase our strength and comforts Such is the liberty wherein the Gospel hath placed the professors of Christianity a liberty from those numerous rights those scrupulous precepts and injunctions which fettered and perplexed the Jews in every instance of life and action 2. Yet secondly there is a further liberty wherein the Gospel hath placed us Christians arising from the relaxation of the rigour of the penal Sanction which was added to the Law of Moses The Law indeed did not threaten death to every sin but in some cases allowed a sacrifice for expiation but wheresoever it threatned death in express words it did not allow repentance it self as a condition of remission Add hereunto that the same Law did threaten death to abundance of several kinds of sins which the time will not suffer me to enumerate whensoever committed against knowledge So that whosoever had so sinned in any of those numerous kinds had no dispensation from the Law no not upon repentance it self but was by the sentence of the Law to die by God or the Magistrates hand 'T is true indeed the Law-maker did sometimes that is in some extraordinary cases dispense with the rigour of his own Law An example whereof we have in David who although he was the supreme Magistrate and therefore not to account to men for his transgression of the Law was lyable to the hand of God a punishment threatned in the Law for his sins in the matter of Vriah yet was
ends wherein the best and wisest men shall be esteemed the very worst superstitious cold and formal men by those that are zealous in some Faction and know no Religion but that zeal because such times as these may be it is safest to content our selves in gaining those rewards and blessings that are peculiar to Religion the testimony of a good Conscience and life eternal in the World to come 3. And then lastly Because hypocrisie is so deceitful and sly a sin as always serving worldly interest which is apt insensibly to blind the eyes and infatuate the minds of the wisest men and yet hide it self from them themselves it will concern us to be very frequent and impartial in the examination of our selves to weigh our counsels to try our ends to prove our designs in every action relating any way to Religion It will be needful to consider whether we indeed design it really intend to promote and practise it whereever we make a profession of it And then because that God alone knows the heart and because his Grace is most needful to discover our selves unto our selves in the midst of the many sins and passions that may infatuate and beguile us let us earnestly pray for his Holy Spirit to deliver us from all the infatuations and all the seductions of our lusts Let us make the Address which David did Psal 139.22 24. with whose words I shall conclude Search me O God and know my heart try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting The Eleventh Sermon John 14.1 Ye believe in God believe also in me The whole verse is thus Let not your heart be troubled ye believe in God believe also in me THESE words are a preface to a very large and kind discourse made by our Lord unto his followers wherein he delivers the main foundations of Christianity as well in matter of Faith as Practice which is the reason why he begins it with such words as might effectually stir them up to give both attention and belief to all that he should deliver in it Ye believe in God believe also in me In which words we have two parts 1. A concession or supposition Ye believe in God that is ye believe that there is a God and what is consequent hereupon that he is to be trusted and obeyed although some others read the words not as a Declaration Ye believe in God but as a Command Believe in God but there is no reason to depart from our own Translation in this matter 2. Here is a Precept also Believe in me that is to say believe that I am the Son of God sent by him into the world to reveal the Gospel of life eternal and therefore judge your selves obliged to believe whatsoever I reveal and obey whatsoever I command you Now being that belief in Christ in the sence I have now explained unto you is here required as an addition or further accession to the mere belief in God only as he may be known by the light of nature The Subject which the Words before us offer to our consideration is That the belief of Christian Doctrine as it is revealed to us in the Gospel over and above that knowledge of God which the light of Nature affords unto us is necessary to our eternal happiness In the prosecution of which Point 1. I must first consider That the firm belief of the Gospel of Christ is most expresly required by God and the denial of such belief forbidden under no less a penalty than the utter loss of life eternal Salvation is always promised to them who believe in him who hath revealed it and become his Followers and Disciples to other persons it is not promised As Moses lifted up the Serpent in the Wilderness so must the Son of man be lifted up that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life Joh. 3.14 15. Nor is it only promised to those and those only that so believe but denied to them that believe not to them that refuse to yield their belief to him whom God hath sent and sanctified to be the Saviour of the World He that believeth on him is not condemned but he that believeth not is condemned already because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God And so again omitting several other places of the same sense and signification in the first Epistle of St John chap. 5. ver 10. He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself he that believeth not God hath made him a Lyar because he believeth not the Record that God gave of his Son Thrice did God bear this Record and owne our Lord to be sent by him by an express voice from Heaven once at his Baptism in these words Matt. 3.17 This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased A second time at his transfiguration upon the mount with some addition to those words Matt. 15.5 This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased hear ye him And yet again a third time a little before our Saviours passion when praying to God in these words Father glorifie thy name he was answered by a voice from Heaven saying I have both glorified it and will glorifie it again John 12.28 To all which clear and express testimonies given by the Father to his Son I might first add the glorious miracles wrought by Christ during his life then his resurrection from the dead and the effusion of his Spirit upon the Apostles sent by him and all the miracles wrought by them and all his other followers also which being evident demonstrations that he was the very son of God and sent by him to save the World highly aggravate the great sin of infidelity and unbelief and teach us to forbear to wonder that it should be punished with death eternal and that Christ himself should thus pronounce Mark 16.16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved but he that believeth not shall be damned 2. But then secondly lest you should think that God will have us believe the Gospel meerly because he will have it so and that he had no further end in the truth therein revealed unto us than that we should believe them only I further add that the belief of those truths is greatly necessary to several ends of infinite moment and importance 1. For the full and perfect knowledge of the duties which he requires from us 2. For the like knowledge of the great motions to those duties 3. For our better support under all our tryals fears and dangers 1. The belief of the great truths revealed unto us in the Gospel is necessary for the perfect knowledge of the duties which God requires from us and that upon several considerations namely 1. because that though the light of nature well improved may in some measure direct us to very many of them yet
mans mind whether these things be his will or not And though the Gospel in some cases that is when truth is contradicted require us rather to suffer for it than to forsake or to deny it yet seeing suffering in this case evidently tends to confirm the truth to the glory of God to the good of the World and hath also the promise of life eternal This very love of patient suffering in this case cannot offend the minds of any but those that are prejudiced by their lusts those who will not do Gods will although sufficiently propounded to them 2. As for those Articles of our faith that do not contain matter of practice since there is nothing of contradiction nothing at all of absurdness in them since those that declare matter of fact as that our Lord lived and dyed and rose again and sent the Spirit to his Apostles are attested by universal consent of those that could not but know the truth and had no reason to abuse it since all the rest were clearly confirmed by evident and undeniable miracles there is no cause we can imagine why any man should doubt or disbelieve them save only prejudice against the precepts against the Laws of the same Gospel wherein these Doctrines are revealed so that whosoever is so disposed as that he is willing to do Gods will is under an effectual preparation to believe and entertain the Gospel whensoever duly propounded to him 3. Add hereunto in the third place that God hath promised his holy Spirit to assist the upright and sincere and that a willingness to do Gods will whensoever we know and understand it is the very nature of sincerity Ask and it shall be given you seek and you shall find knocks and it shall be opened unto you Luk. 11.9 and afterwards at the 13th verse If ye then being evil know how to give good gifts unto your Children how much more shall your heavenly Father give the holy spirit to them that ask him To whom is this promise of the Spirit made if unto all that pray for it much more to them that sincerely ask it to these at least or else to none to these although to no other persons The meek says David will he guide in judgment the meek will he teach his way Psal 25.9 and more expresly at the 14th verse The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him and he will shew them his covenant them will he bless with his assistance them will he guide by his Holy Spirit them will he govern and direct for as he sometimes offers his grace to them that refuse to entertain it so he never denies it to them that do sincerely desire and use it Now then to conclude the point in hand being they that are willing to do Gods will are willing to use the best endeavours to understand it being they are free from those prejudices that hinder the understanding of it being they have the promise of God to guide and assist them to this purpose hence we conclude what we have observed that a hearty and sincere inclination to do Gods will is a most effectual preparation to understand and believe the Gospel Now for the uses of this point 1. Hence you see that God is not wanting to those persons who can reasonably expect assistance from him to those that are willing to do his will when it is duly discovered to them whosoever he is that is thus disposed may assure himself of Gods assistance to guide him into all needful truth into all things necessary to salvation whosoever is not thus disposed cannot justly expect assistance from him for why should God make known his will where it is certain before hand that it will it not be complyed withall why should he discourse his will to them who are resolved to serve their lusts whatsoever the will of God should be nay to them who will scarce believe any thing that contradicts their lusts and passions though never so duly propounded to them which is the case of every false insincere person who is resolved to believe nothing which doth not comply with his own corruptions God hath not promised that they shall fee who suffer their lusts to shut their eyes who are not willing to have the light nor was their reason for such a promise This fully acquits Gods providence that he hath token sufficient care so to recommend the Gospel in all things needful for Salvation to give such evidence of its truth that whosoever is disposed to do whatsoever God commands which the light of nature it self suggests shall easily know and entertain whatsoever is necessary to Salvation such is the course that God hath taken in the revelation of the Gospel and of all things necessary to Salvation that none will complain of want of evidence but only those that want integrity those who will not do Gods will although they know and understand it And for this they are to blame themselves and consequently for the effects of it their infidelity or misbelief 2. But then secondly seeing they that are willing to do Gods will find the Gospel so attested as that they who will give credit to it shall know and understand whatsoever is necessary to Salvation hence we may guess at the great cause of infidelity and misbelief wheresoever the Gospel is revealed The Gospel forbids the Gospel threatens the sinful lusts and lives of men and therefore they who resolve to continue in their sins cavil and quarrel and contradict it they hate that Doctrine which reproves them and will not believe what they hate although it flash in their very faces These men seeing see not and hearing they hear not saith our Lord and in them is fulfilled the Prophecie of Isaiah which saith by hearing ye shall hear and shall not understand and seeing ye shall see and shall not perceive Matt. 13.14 And as there are some who disbelieve the whole Gospel meerly in favour of their lusts so others upon the same account grosly mistake and misunderstand it They will admit no sense of it but what is consistent with their sins what gives them leave to enjoy their lusts and hope for pardon notwithstanding Men who resolve to retain their lusts who will not part with their darling sins upon any conditions whatsoever must search out easie ways to Heaven find out other terms of Salvation than what the Gospel hath propounded Let the Gospel be never so express in the denunciations of Gods displeasure against those sins they live in they must find out some arts and shifts to evade and escape the plainest truths by some reserves or false glosses by clouding what is plain and evident Let it be never so expresly said and that by our blessed Lord himself If thy right eye offend thee pluck if out and cast it from thee and if thy right hand offend thee cut it off and cast it from thee for it is profitable for thee that one of thy
as men besides themselves bereft of their reason and understandings so is this person represented Observe further that he no sooner came to himself as being now chastised and subdued by the miseries his sins had brought upon him but he resolves to return again to his Fathers house to confess his sins to implore pardon to abase himself before his Father and to submit to the meanest offices wherein he imployed his hired Servants So much regret and ingenuity so much humility and self-abasement so much sorrow for former sins such effectual purposes of reformation for time to come may the thoughts of our ways by the grace of God produce in us in consideration of the miseries which attend a vitious course of life Thirdly Especially seeing the same thoughts may also mind us of the vanity and emptiness of all those pleasures and enjoyments in fond indulgence whereunto we expose our selves to the dangers and miseries before mentioned which is the third of those particulars which the thoughts of our ways may suggest to us And here I shall not take the advantage either of repeating those miseries or of shewing the meanness of such enjoyments whether you call them profits or pleasures which the generality of men attain or can reasonably hope to attain unto by all their wit and power and interest I shall consider no allays wherewith the want of wealth and power or bodily health may dash the pleasures of this life but I shall give them all the advantage that can be wished considering them nakedly on themselves and shewing that even thus considered they are yet utterly insufficient to give satisfaction to our Souls And for the proof of this particular I shall not entangle your understandings with subtle and curious speculations but I shall exhibite it in a plain instance made in the great and glorious Solomon whose wisdom and splendour were so great that when our Saviour would give an account of his own wisdom he found no fitter a way to do it than to prefer it before Solomon's Matth. 12.42 And when he would livelily represent the glory of the Lilies of the Field tells us that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these Matth. 6.29 He was a Prince of infinite wealth his Herds and Flocks were so numerous that he offered twenty thousand Oxen and an hundred and twenty thousand Sheep and all these for Peace-offerings beside what he spent in Burnt-offerings at the dedication of the Temple 1 Kin. 8.63 64. The daily provision of his house were ten fat Oxen namely such as were fed in their Stalls and twenty Oxen out of the Pastures and an hundred Sheep besides Harts and Roe-bucks and Fallow Deer and fatted Fowl 1 Kings 4.23 The yearly income of his own Traffick over and above what was imported by the Merchants was six hundred threescore and six Talents of Gold 2 Chron. 9.14 And as for Silver he made it so plentiful in Jerusalem that it was nothing accounted of ver 20. of that Chapter it was but as Stones in his days as it follows in the 29th Verse His magnificence was equal to his wealth for his Throne was of Ivory covered with Gold and its Footstool was of the same Metal and so were all his drinking Vessels and all the Vessels of the house that stood in the Forest of Lebanon and many of his very Shields and Targets as you may see in the same Chapter 2 Chron. 9. His wisdom I have already mentioned He spake three thousand Proverbs and his Songs were a thousand and five He spake of Trees from the Cedar-Tree that is in Lebanon even to the Hyssop that springeth out of the Wall he spake also of Beasts and of Fowl and of creeping things and of Fishes 1 Kings 4.33 His oeconomical skill was such that when the Arabian Queen beheld the state and order of his Family She was amazed and astonished at it and had no spirit left in her 2 Chron. 9.4 From whence it appears he had skill enough so to apply and use his wealth as to create the highest pleasures that any thing in this World can afford by extracting the finest spirit of it Nor had he only skill sufficient so to do but he wholly applyed himself to do it He sought in his heart as himselfe tells us to apply himself unto wine yet still acquainting his heart with wisdom Eccl. 2.3 He made great works as it there follows he builded Houses planted Vineyards made Gardens and Orchards and planted Trees in them of all kinds of Fruits and made Pools of Water to render them fruitful He got him Men-Singers and Women-Singers and the delights of the Sons of men as musical Instruments and that of all sorts Eccl. 2. And that you may see how liberal he was to other inclinations he had seven hundred Wives Princesses and beside them three hundred Concubines who were as Wives excepting only that they were not solemnly espoused and endowed In short he denied himself no pleasure that the World could possibly afford unto him So he professes of himself Eccles 2.10 Whatsoever mine eyes desired I hept not from them I withheld not my heart from any joy Thus liberally did he indulge himself and that in the very Flower of his Age while he had youth and health and strength to taste and enjoy all the pleasures that wealth and power could minister to him and these attended with admirable skill to use and employ them to that purpose All this while he had nothing to interrupt his pleasures having perfect peace at home and abroad no seditions amongst his own Subjects no wars with any Neighbouring Princes no nor any thing of envy or animosity nothing but honour and admiration and what might serve to encrease his pleasures For all the Kings of the Earth sought his presence to hear his wisdom that God had put in his heart and they brought every man his Present Vessels of Silver and Vessels of Gold and Rayment Harness and Spices Horses and Mules at a rate year by year 2 Chron. 9.23 24. Now what an account of the joys and pleasures of this World may we expect from a glorious King flowing with wealth abounding in honour enjoying all the delights of the World and that in the very flower of his time and without any outward interruptions Would it not seem extreamly strange if he should not find his soul at ease and in full content and satisfaction Would it not seem much stranger still if he should express a dissatisfaction and discontent in the midst of all these secular pleasures Yet this very thing doth he express upon a serious review of them for so he concludes his own relation of what he had done and enjoyed in the World Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought and on all the labours that I had laboured to do and behold all was vanity and vexation of spirit Eccles 2.11 See here the account that the wise and great
as they were from the beginning of the creation but as it follows v. 9. Because God is long-suffering to us-ward not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance yea even those very persons themselves that injure his patience and long-suffering In the mean time I cannot deny that there is some shadow of an objection against Gods providence in the World to them that measure him by themselves and judge of him by their own model For that he should readily pardon our frailties and long forbear our wilful sins that he should continue those very mercies which men abuse and turn into weapons of unrighteousness feed the mouth that blasphemes his name support the arm that works iniquity preserve that very life and strength which is spent and wasted to his dishonour and patiently wait for a Sinners return while the Sinner abuses that very patience to an encouragement to impenitence is such an example of long-suffering as is no where found but in God only But I consider that Gods thoughts are not as our thoughts nor his ways as our ways that one day as St Peter affirms is with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day that he hath appointed and fixed a day wherein he will judge the World in righteousness and therefore firmly still believe that his patience to Sinners in the mean time designs their repentance and reformation and that his mercies in Jesus Christ are so great that he will pardon the hearty Penitent after the greatest provocations And this is that which himself suggests Isai 55.7 8 9. Let the wicked forsake his way and the righteous wan his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy on him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon And lest we should disbelieve this as a thing improbable for God to do because unusual amongst men he presently addes in the following words For my thoughts are not your thoughts neither are your ways my ways saith the Lord for as the Heavens are higher than the Earth so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts From whence I conclude That it is not indifferency to good and evil nor want of concernment for mankind which causes God to delay punishment but merely his patience and long-suffering waiting for the Sinners return to him And may not the consideration of this when deeply fixed upon the mind so powerfully affect the hearts of Sinners as to urge them to speedy reformation May it not produce a great indignation against themselves to remember their many misbehaviours and also their long continuance in them under all the patience of God towards them May not the thoughts of that patience where there is any ingenuity left provoke the hearts of men to gratitude and gratitude unto speedy repentance Could any man think it safe or reasonable still to trespass against that patience which he had already long abused and to provoke that very goodness which he had forfeited long ago did he seriously reflect upon these things I hope there are few so void of sense of their own concernments and of love and gratitude towards God whom serious thoughts of their own evils under the patience of God towards them would not move to speedy reformation Saint Paul I am sure represents the contrary as a despight to the mercies of God and a dangerous cruelty to our selves in that severe expostulation Rom. 2.4 5. Despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long-suffering not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance but after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thy self wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God which is so clear a demonstration that the consideration of Gods patience and of his ends and designs in it should perswade to speedy reformation that it would be needless to add any more to this Argument Secondly Proceed we therefore to the second thing which cannot easily escape our thoughts while we reflect upon our ways and the effects and issues of them which is the uncertainty of our lives in this state of frailty and mortality Which is so clear and evident to us both from what we feel within our selves daily decays of natural strength and from what we see in many others short life and sudden death that there is nothing in all the world no not the denial of a God nor the making of one of the Trunk of a Tree reproached in Scripture as a greater folly than a presumption of long life and of ease and joy and pleasure in it Observe how this is represented in the Parable of a certain rich man who having had so plentiful and so large a Harvest that he had not where to bestow his fruits thus deliberates with himself Luke 12.17 18 19. Verses What shall I do because I have no room where to bestow my fruits And he said This will I do I will pull down my Barns and build greater and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods And I will say to my soul Soul thou hast much goods laid up for many years take thine ease eat drink and he merry But what 's the next thing he hears from God Thou fool this night shall thy soul be required of thee The sharpness and bitterness of which rebuke joined with the sudden confutation of this mans promises made to himself represents the folly sin and danger of the like presumptions in other men Let us therefore while we consider our ways the number and nature of our sins with all their several aggravations the ill effects that will attend them unless prevented by repentance the absolute necessity of this Duty for the prevention of those effects let us I say together with these consider the frailty of our lives and in the consideration hereof never defer a necessary Duty to a time uncertain to a day we may never live to see and that not only because long life is a thing uncertain in it self but because the expectation of it especially being generally used as an encouragement to delay repentance may very justly provoke God to blast it with sudden disappointment God doth not only hate the delay of reformation grounded on presumption of long life as a neglect of duty to him but reproaches the very folly of it styles him a fool who so presumed which puts me in mind of that of Solomon Eccles 9.10 Whatsoever thine hand findeth to do do it with thy might for there is no work nor device nor knowledge nor wisdom in the Grave whither thou goest Thirdly But now because many men may purpose future amendment although they neglect it at the present and will believe that these purposes shall take effect notwithstanding all that can be said to shew the uncertainty of this event give me leave to add a third Particular which the thoughts of our ways
God for he that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life 1 John 5.12 The Twelfth Sermon Philip. 1.10 That ye may approve things that are excellent ALthough God in his infinite wisdom never enjoined any thing to men but what considering all circumstances of times and places and persons likewise was useful and convenient for them though indifferent in its own nature such were the numerous Rites and Ceremonies of Moses's Law yet are there other instances of Duty which are immutably good in themselves and therefore proper for all Ages So are these two general Duties to love God with all our hearts and to love our neighbour as our selves So are the particular Branches of them to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly righteously and godly in the world And so with very little exception are all the Duties of the Gospel Which impartially tryed and weighed cannot but be approved as good even by them that do not practise them But a general assent of the understanding not applied to particular instances of life and action is far short of the approbation which the Apostle here designs For although the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 used in the Greek sometimes signifie something less than a bare assent of the understanding that is to try and examine only as where it is required that we prove all things 1 Thess 5.21 yet here it signifies much more Here as also in other places it imports such a clear and setled judgment of what is good as is accompanied with resolution to practise what we judge to be so This appears from what the Apostle joins in the same period with it sincerity and a blameless life and these retain unto the end For so is the tenour of his words That ye may approve things that are excellent that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ The same appears from the Style wherein the Apostle speaks For the words of my Text are part of a Prayer wherein after his usual custom of saluting the persons to whom he writes ver 1. and praying grace and peace for them from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ ver 2. after his thanks rendred to God for their fellowship in the Gospel in the following verses of the eighteenth Chapter he further prays that their love might abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment and that they might approve things that are excellent Being then the Apostle prays this for them as a thing of singular concernment to them and being a cold assent of mind an ineffectual approbation of what is excellent is a thing of no concern at all this cannot possibly be the thing which he so heartily prays for them but what is far more than this such an approbation of the mind as upon a full and clear survey of all the differences of good and evil in their natures issues and effects both in this and the other world ends in a certain determination never to deviate from what is good So then taking this for granted which the Apostle here supposes that the things prescribed to us in the Gospel are things excellent and good for us worthy thy to be commanded by God and reasonable to be practised by us especially upon the powerful motives whereupon the Gospel recommends them the proper subject which these words offer unto our consideration is the approbation of these things that is a clear and stable judgment in the Duties prescribed to us in the Gospel In the handling of which Subject it is most fit that we consider 1. The singular use and advantage of such a judgment in those Duties 2. How it may be gained 3. And lastly How it must be exercised by them that have attained unto it 1. And for the first let it be considered That the judgment which I have now described is of such singular use to us that it is 1. Both an effectual cure of all the Diseases of our minds considered absolutely in themselves and 2. Also a constant Guide and Monitor in every instance of our lives First A Guide to discover our Duties to us and Secondly A Monitor to press the practice of them and steady perseverance in that practice whatsoeever may tempt us to the contrary 1. If we survey the several maladies of our minds the diseases of humane understanding there are First Ignorance Secondly Doubt and Thirdly Vanity Ignorance of what is true and useful or Scepticism and doubt in what is so or Vanity in applying our minds to things impertinent and useless to us though we may have certain knowledge of them First The first Disease of the understanding is ignorance of that which is truly good For as the knowledge of what is so is the proper perfection of the mind because it was made to know this and every thing is perfect in its end so the ignorance of what it was made to know is its greatest malady and imperfection Ignorance is that Disease in the mind which utter blindness is in the eye that imperfection in the understanding which darkness would be in the Sun and Stars 'T is that which Death is unto Life its proper ruine and destruction It hides the face of truth from us it eclipses all the lustre of goodness it puts us under the power of errour which vitiates and perverts our choice and doth not only lead to danger but also reconcile us to it Now just contrary to these effects are those of clear and stable judgment in things pertaining to life and happiness or as the Apostle's expression is of the approbation of things excellent Truth is to the mind as light to the Sun its proper lustre and perfection Besides it powerfully recommends and sets off every thing that 's good it shews it in its native colours and gives it the advantages due unto it so that to use the Apostles words Philip. 4.8 Whatsoever things are true whatsoever things are honest whatsoever things are just whatsoever things are pure whatsoever things are lovely whatsoever things are of good report if there be any vertue if there be any praise whatsoever there is that deserves our love it is so represented in the mind when the mind is duly informed by truth that it commends itself to choice and gains the possession of our hearts for as we naturally desire and love what our minds recommend unto us as good in itself and for us likewise so the hearty love of what is good is the gaining the very thing we love for there is this remarkable difference between the love of good or evil and that of all other things in the world that we may love these other things and yet fall short of the things themselves but he that loves good or evil is good or evil by so doing The consequence of which discourse is this that the approbation of things excellent a clear and stable