the black indictment that lies against me why did I abuse his love and reject his addresses disregard his promises and slight his threatnings throw off his easie yoke as an intolerable burthen and choose darkness death and misery before light and life and glory what can I say to my Judge what to my self Cover me shame and blushing yea let death hide me and everlasting darkness cast its covering upon me But death will not befriend one that hath so sad a reason to seek it and darkness flies away from yond glorious presence O the day that I put far from me and the danger that I would not consider The wrath I have been treasuring up and the evils that I fear'd but would not endeavour to avoid These are come upon me Mercy is at an end and pardon is no more excuses are in vain and Prayers insignificant The Judge is just and inexorable not mov'd by fond pity nor weak affections He will shew no more favour to those who so long have slighted it Nor will He have mercy upon them that would have none upon themselves Such reflections of anguish and despair as these we may suppose the sight of the Great Day will occasion in the wicked and be the beginnings to them of a sad and intolerable Eternity On the other side 2. The Transports of the faithful will be unspeakable on that day when they shall exchange the doleful tone of How long how long O Lord for the pleasant voice He is come He is come See now how the nimble spirits play in the smiling eyes that languish'd and droop'd before And all the lovers of the Holy Jesus awaken into chearfulness and vigour Joy warms the cold and liveless blood and sends it about with a pleasant thrill through all the channels of its motion and the enkindled spirit is ready to melt the gross mass that detains it from the adorable object of its love O my soul saith the transported admirer How reasonable was thy Faith and how unjust were thy Fears How small were the troubles of thy night to the pleasures of this day and how injurious were thy complaints to so glorious an expectation O blessed tears that end in such triumphs O pleasant sorrow that ends in rapture Was it such comfort that our Lord promised to those that mourn was this the time I did so coldly expect and so indifferently regard Is this the Saviour I loved so little and was this that Lord I was so careless to obey Is this He whom the flesh and world tempted me so often to deny and whose interest could do so little with me Stupid soul How unworthy art thou of this sight of Glory and how more unworthy of the favour of this glorious and triumphant Jesus O the grace that pardons such great defects and thus rewards such mean services O the pleasure of Faith when it comes to be in sight and the transports of hope that is within the reach of enjoyment Such and incomprehensibly greater will be the Ecstasies of the faithful in the day when the Judge shall appear Let us all then II. make it our main care and business to prepare for this time We are probationers here for another state and the Day of Judgement is the great Time of Trial for it As we are found then our condition will be for ever And according as our actions have been the Sentence will pass either to everlasting Joyes or endless Woe What remains then but that we look on this as our great and most necessary work That we have the future Judgement alwayes in our eye and thoughts That we study the Laws whereby we are to be judged That we frequently judge our selves before and that we square our actions by the directions and example of the Judge And if we thus prepare That Day which will be so dreadful to the wicked will be the most joyful one to us that we ever saw and the beginning of an everlasting Day of Joy that hath no night of sorrow to succeed it For at the conclusion of the Judgement we shall pass with the Judge to those Regions of Bliss and Triumph where we are to dwell with him to eternal Ages singing Hallelujahs to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost To whom are due from us and all creatures all Glory Honour Praise and Adoration henceforth and for ever Amen SERMON IX OF THE NECESSITY OF AN Unfeigned Repentance SERMON IX JONAH III. 5. So the people of Nineveh believed God and proclaimed a Fast and put on Sackcloth from the greatest of them even to the least of them NIneveh the ancient and famous City of Assyria was founded by Nimrod the mighty Hunter and supposed first Monarch of the Earth it had its name from Ninus who compleated it and was the third of that Empire Where its particular place was is not at this day certainly known but this is certain it was a great City of three days journey saith the Sacred History Jonah 1. And as was the extent such were the sins of it all great Cities abound in vice but it seems the wickedness of this was notorious it made a cry and that cry came up before God to call for deserved vengeance on their heads but he that is slow to wrath and doth not willingly afflict the children of men resolves to warn before he strikes and therefore sends Jonah a Prophet of Israel to foretel their approaching Ruine He considering the ungratefulness of the Message and doubting what Entertainment he was like to have from a proud and as he might think an obdurate City diverts another way and flees toward Tarshish but the judgement of God overtook him and plunged him into the Deep where a Fish prepared swallowed the Prophet who having been three days in that Belly of Hell was by Miracle discharg'd upon the Shoar and then the former Commission being renewed he was not disobedient to the Heavenly voice but went to Nineveh cryed against it and the Event was beyond all expectation and extremely contrary to his own for The people of Nineveh believed God and proclaimed a Fast and put on Sack-cloth from the greatest of them to the least of them Very different was this Success from what other Messengers of God Patriarchs and Prophets and holy men of ancient and later times have had Noah was a Preacher of Righteousness and preached many years while the Ark was in preparing but they were disobedient in the days of Noah and went on in their sins till the Flood came and swept away that world of the ungodly The Prophets were earnest and importunate they cryed aloud spared not and God by them stretched out his hand all day long and yet they were a disobedient and a gain-saying people and gave them reason to complain Who hath believed our report or to whom hath the Arm of the Lord been revealed The Holy Jesus himself who was greater than Jonah than any of the Prophets than all the Brightness
the Light is made to attend the darkness Contrary to the methods observ'd by Nature where the causes are ever more worthy than their effects from their first beginning downward Now as he is pleas'd to transcend and deviate from the tracts and capacities of natural Agents thereby to assert his Prerogative and render his omnipotency more conspicuous to the world So is he no less delighted to use the same recesses in displaying his Grace evermore ushering in his mercies with the Black Rod thereby inhansing and endearing our subsequent refreshments And though the goodness of those celestial inhabitants and the happiness of their condition need neither foyl nor artifice to render that or their acknowledgements of the Divine favour greater Yet however if we consider these things as a reward and incouragement of our obedience the proceeding thus is but regular and necessary that we should do our work before we receive our wages and finish our undertaking before we demand satisfaction Earnest and Security Heaven has vouchsaf'd us but to deposite the whole in hand this were not to encourage but bribe our Obedience This were to destroy Morality and turn Vertue into Nature Nor yet is the Divine goodness less communicable in this life but we are not so capable of receiving it For look as in Nature neither the single excellency of the Object or the Agent alone is sufficient to produce any notable effect but both are requir'd So likewise in Religion all the effects of the divine grace and bounty though that be free and infinite are limited and determin'd by our capacities and reception So that while our Appetites those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they are call'd in Scripture that are to be the receptacles of all this Glory are either replenish'd with the vain and sinful objects of this Life or are straitned and contracted by the weakness and imperfection of this dull and lumpish matter they must be rid of the one and devested of the other and then we should be instantly happy You have seen the happiness of the Christian man there are indeed encouragements of another nature namely earthly blessings and temporal rewards our whole present interest unless it happen to interfere at any time with the other Religion has descended to the securing of these too and that not only by moral designation but by a proper and natural efficiency so that we cannot better prosecute our present interest than by the methods of Religion And by this gracious and happy complication of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 together they are made to become helpful and assisting to each other serving reciprocally as a means or motive either to other But this encouragement is neither proper nor adequate to Christianity since it may be as well pursu'd by natural as by divine rules better perhaps by diabolical arts than either nothing experimentally so inriching men as sordidness oppression and other violences and frauds The Devil in all likelihood giving the fairest prospect and most likely possession of the Kingdoms and glory of this world But they are things I have shewn you of a nature infinitely more sublime that Christianity propounds to its observers The rewards of our Religion exceeding as well the capacities of our Nature as all those other things To the attainment whereof as all vicious practices are extremely contrary so have all the others Philosophick transactions been miserably vain Some weak and glimmering light the Heathen had of these things which it is not certain whether they collected from some fragments of tradition or extracted from the principles of natural reason but which way ever it came it was so weak and imperfect as serv'd to shadow not help to discover but eclipse the transcendent excellency of that State till as the Great Apostle of the Gentiles saith Life and Immortality were brought to light by the Gospel And indeed without this all other proposals were unsuitable to its professors and disproportionate to the difficulty and severities of Religion Cicero saith None ought to be deem'd a vertuous or a just man that will be allur'd or affrighted from his duty by any advantage or disadvantage whatever But who trow ye would abide both these upon no other consideration than barely to have acted according to the sentiments of right Reason or in hope to acquire an insignificant fame of Vertue of which they could have no knowledge or remembrance after death And for this cause I judge the Stoicks more absurd in their morals than the Epicureans considering the principles that is upon which they built For 't is the premise and not the inference of theirs that 's so urg'd by the Apostle Let us eat and drink 1 Cor. 15. 32. But now the Christian Religion propounds such overtures to our Obedience and Patience as may justly and reasonably encourage us thereunto IV. For a Conclusion let us take in the Importance of that Phrase of dying in the Lord which relates primarily to Martyrdome but must also be extended to as many as live and dye in the faith of the Holy Jesus The result of all is this That we would so consider this happiness as every of our great interest that we forfeit not our propriety therein by a vicious and sinful life There 's nothing else can render it hazardous or doubtful but that which indeed in the very nature of the thing renders it impossible Let us not repeat Esau's folly sell our birth-right for a trifle and for the sake of some pitiful lust proscribe our selves out of our celestial inheritance Neither let us contemn our happiness for being feasible Were wilful poverty and certain Martyrdome part of our duty and inseparable appendages of our Religion there is tentation enough in the proposals to make us conflict with the greatest difficulties and overcome them When Christianity was thus attended and had nothing else to recommend it self to the world besides the reasonableness of its injunctions with what holy violence did those blessed Saints storm Heaven and with a strange eagerness pursue Martyrdome But now as if the fervour of our Devotion were only kindled and maintain'd by Antiperistasis Now I say the Impediments are remov'd and Religion is become a part of our Civil obedience and made necessary to our secular interests and guarded with a great many other temporal Phylacteries men are yet more hardly wrought upon to be Religious the consideration of a single lust shall be able to weigh down all And if any would seem to have a greater zeal for it than ordinary as if they were in love with the troubles of Religion and not the thing they suffer their heat to spend it self in little piques and contentions and about things of none or ill moment in maintaining of parties and opposing their Superiours and not in Devotion Obedience Charity Humility and the like as they ought In short Christians let the thoughts of this blessedness excite our affections Heaven-ward and quicken our endeavours Let it animate us against all difficulties and buoy us up above all adversities Let it cheer us in our duty quiet us in affliction and comfort us in death That so living unto Christ we may at last dye in him and in the end be for ever blessed And now to accommodate all to our present case It has pleas'd God to take away this extraordinary man for such considering all things we must needs allow him and because 't was some we what early I think of Dr. Hammond's notion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Text the sooner the better the better for him no doubt I had once thought to have given you his Character but I am not asham'd to tell you I found me not able to do it worthy of him And calling to mind a saying of one of the Roman Historians I soon desisted from any further attempt of it who when he was reckoning up some of the great men of that age Virgil and Ovid Livie and Salust and going to commend them stops and concludes thus But of men of Eminency as their admiration is great so is their censure full of difficulty As to those Relations that are more nearly interessed in this solemnity I would beseech them to remember that all Indecency and excess of Grief for our deceased friends must needs reflect upon the memory of the dead or the discretion of the survivers God enable them to bear it And supply this loss to them by his Grace and Providence Let me say and to the Church of England by increasing the number of such men of no worse Learning Integrity and Courage that are able and dare defend her against the encroachments of Popery and Fanaticisme Now to God only wise be Glory through Jesus Christ for ever Amen FINIS 1 Ep. c. 2. v. 9. 2 Ep. ch 12. v. 4. Joh. 17. 3. Phil. 1. 23. 1 Tim. 1. 10.
be a form of Godliness but 't is nothing to the life and power And where we see not this effect of Religion let the professor of it be never so high and glorious in his profession we may yet conclude that either his Religion is not good or that he only pretends and really hath it not This I take to be a consideration of great moment and great certainty viz. That Christian Religion aims at the bettering and perfecting of our natures For the things it commands relate either to worship or virtue The instances of external worship are prayer and praise both which are high acts of gratitude and justice and they fit us for divine blessings and keep us under a sense of God and prepare us for union with him which is the highest perfection of which the creature is capable Thus the outward acts of worship tend to our happiness and the inward do infinitely the same These are Faith and Love and Fear Faith in God supports and relieves us in all afflictions and distresses The love of him is a pleasure and solace to us in all losses and disappointments since he is an object most filling and satisfying and one that cannot be lost except we wilfully thrust him from us Fear of God hath no torment 'T is no slavish dread of his greatness and Power but a reverence of his perfections and a lothness to offend him and this disposeth us also for the communications of his grace and love Psal 85. 9. And this it doth by congruity and its own nature which is to be said likewise of the others So that they would make those happy that practise them whether they had been positively enjoyn'd or not And though no express rewards had been annext unto them There are other two acts of worship which Christianity requires which are instituted and positive and respect Christ our Lord They are the Sacraments Baptism and the Lords Supper both which are holy Rites of high signification and seals of an excellent Covenant between God and us assuring us of pardon of sins and all divine favours upon the conditions of our Faith and repentance and more firmly obliging us to holy obedience and dependance The only way in which we can be happy Whence we see briefly that all the parts of worship which Christianity binds upon us tend to our perfection and Felicity And all the vertues that it commands do the same both those that respect us in a personal capacity and those others that relate to us as members of Societies Thus humility recommended Mat. 5. 3. Meekness blest ver 5. purity ver 8. are vertues that accomplish our particular persons and make us happy in our selves For of Pride cometh Contention Prov. 13. 10. And a great part of our troubles arise from stomach and self-will which humility cures Meekness also takes away the occasion of the numerous mischiefs we run into through the rage and disorder of our passions and 't is in it self a great beauty and ornament since it ariseth from the due order and government of our faculties Purity which comprehends temperance of all sorts frees us from the tormenting importunity of those desires that drag us out of our selves and expose us to sin and folly and temptation and make us exceeding miserable besides which it is a perfection that renders us like unto God and the blest Spirits of the highest rank And Christian vertues do not only accomplish and make us happy in our particular persons but they do the same in our publique capacities They dispose us to a quiet obedience to our governours without murmuring and complaining and thereby the publique peace is secured and all good things else in that But there are other vertues that Christianity enjoyns which have a more direct tendency to the happiness of others as Justice Mat. 7. 12. Charity 1 Cor. 13. Loyalty Rom. 13. and all other publique vertues may I think be comprehended under these Where there is no Justice every man preys upon another and no mans property is safe Where Charity is wanting Jealousies hatreds envying back-bitings and cruelties abound which render the world deplorably unhappy Where there is not Loyalty and conscionable submission to Governours the publick is upon every occasion of commotion involv'd in infinite miseries and disasters So that all the precepts of our Religion are in their own nature proper instruments to make us happy and they had been methods of Felicity to be chosen by all reasonable creatures though they had never been required by so great and so sacred an Authority These things I have said because I could not choose but take this occasion to recommend the excellency and reasonableness of our Religion And I have done it but only in brief hints because it ariseth but upon a Corollary from my main subject and from this I infer further III. That Christianity is the height and perfection of morality They both tend to the real bettering and accomplishment of humane nature But the rules and measures of moral Philosophy were weak and imperfect till Christ Jesus came He confirmed and enforced all those precepts of vertue that were written upon our hearts and cleared them from many corruptions that were grown upon them through ignorance and vice the glosses of the Jews and false conceits of the Gentiles and he inforced them anew by his Authority and the knowledge he gave of divine aids and greater rewards and punishments than were understood before yea he enlarged them in some instances such as loving enemies and forgiving injuries Thus Christ Jesus taught morality viz. the way of living like men And the 5th Chapter of Matthew is an excellent Lecture of this kind So that to disparage morality is to disgrace Christianity it self and to vilifie one of the ends of Christs coming into the world For all Religion and all duties respect either God our neighbour or our selves and the duties that relate to these two last are acknowledg'd moral vertues The Apostle St. James counted these Moralities of visiting the Widow and Fatherless to be the pure Religion and undefiled Jam. 1. 17. and the Prophet Micah intimates that those moral vertues of Justice and mercy were some of the main things that God required of us Micah 6. 8. Our Saviour saith that the whole Law is summ'd up in these two to love God with all our souls and our neighbour as our selves Matth. 22. 13. which latter contains the duties of morality And that which the grace of God in the Gospel teacheth according to St. Paul is to live soberly righteously and godly in this present world Tit. 2. 11. There is no godliness without morality All the fruits of the Spirit reckon'd up Gal. 5. 22. are moral vertues And when we are commanded to grow in grace 2 Pet. 3. 18. vertue is partly understood For one branch of what is call'd Grace in us is moral vertue produced by divine aids Christian principles and incouragements though 't is
eternal enemy 4. Let us beware of too much delight in the humour of Drollery and Jesting expresly forbidden by the Apostle Eph. 5. 4. This sort of wit in most is a dangerous and ungovernable Lust and spares nothing sacred or serious when 't is indulg'd it makes the Spirit vain and trifling and indisposeth it for any weighty exercise either of Reason or Religion and from the indisposition it produceth to such imployments 't is an easie step to the contempt of them 5. Let us not intimately and frequently converse with the people of this sort There is infection in such company and a secret Witchcraft in this humour that may work us insensibly to an imitation of it And O that the Youth of the present Age would be perswaded to put a mark upon those men and to avoid their dangerous conversation Certainly they had better joyn themselves to Poisoners and Cut-throats than to have much to do with those Factors for Damnation A Generation so vile that should Satan send the most malignant spirits of Hell openly and professedly to trade for him They could not act with more direct and declar'd opposition to God and goodness than these wretched men do So that one may justly wonder that they are not shun'd by all sensible men as desolation and the plague and hooted into their wits or quite out of them by an universal contempt and most deserved scorn I am sure it becomes all that are of a Gentile Vertuous and ingenuous Education to avoid giving them any countenance or incouragement by any familiarity of acquaintance and 't is a duty they owe to God their Nation and their own present and eternal interests 6. Take heed of speaking lightly of any thing that appertains to Religion Sacred things are never to be mention'd but with seriousness and reverence If we toy and play in our discourses with them though without direct scorn or malice this too familiar use of Divine things will at last bring us to an habitual disvalue of them which in time will grow into contempt If we direct our selves by such Rules of caution we may by the Grace of God escape the Epidemical infection that flies almost every where in our days from the Scoffers that walk after their own Lusts I have thus shewn the sin folly and danger of scoffing at Religion and given some Rules of caution against it One would think there should be no need of such a discourse among a Christian people who have felt so many Judgements and enjoy so many mercies who have the Gospel preach'd to them with so much power and plainness and have made so long and so zealous a profession of it But is there not a cause for all this If there be none I crave pardon for my troubling you so long to no purpose but if there be I pray God that we may all lay it to heart earnestly beseeching him to awaken those that are guilty of this hainous impiety to see their sin and their danger before it be too late and to divert from them and others the Judgements that such bold heights in wickedness do most justly deserve That he would in mercy find a way to remove this vile abomination and scandal from our Land and diffuse such an aweful sense of Religion through the Nation as may keep us under the power and obedience of it That he would make us all tender and zealous in the things that refer to his Glory and the Honour of his Religion and assist us by his Grace in all holy endeavours to promote those interests begging all in the Name and Mediation of Christ our Lord to whom with the Father and Holy Ghost be all Honour and adoration henceforth and for ever SERMON V. THE CHURCHES Prayer and Complaint OF CONTEMPT FROM PROPHANE and FANATICK Enemies The Second Edition SERMON V. THE CHURCHES PRAYER AND COMPLAINT PSAL. CXXIII 3 4. HAVE MERCY upon us O Lord have mercy upon us for we are exceedingly filled with Contempt Our soul is exceedingly filled with the Scorning of those that are at ease and with the Contempt of the Proud THE State of the Church in this world is Militant and uncertain subject to those alterations and vicissitudes which attend all things that are of a mutable nature One while 't is in a fair and flourishing condition orderly without and united within beautiful in its external appearance and more so in its inward holiness and peace And then its Heaven is overcast clouds and thick darkness rest upon it It is overwhelm'd by troubles and disorders and rent asunder by Heresies and Divisions so that the ways of Sion mourn and her Gates are desolate In the afflicted state was the Church at the penning of this Psalm whether its afflictions were from the Tyranny of Antiochus the Babylonish Captivity or its own corruptions I shall not here dispute It may suffice for us to take notice that the Church was now in great distress and that it took the right way of remedy by applying it self to God for relief Have mercy upon us O Lord have mercy upon us In which words we have two parts 1. A passionate Supplication Have mercy upon us O Lord have mercy 2. The Ground and occasion of it for we are exceedingly fill'd with contempt This is last in order of words but first in order of nature and therefore I shall begin here and consider in it 1. The matter of trouble and complaint it was contempt and scorning 2. The degree of it 't was exceeding contempt and their souls were fill'd with it 3. The character of the persons by whom the Church was so contemn'd they were 1. Those at ease And 2. the Proud 1. For the matter of complaint 'T is exprest to be Contempt which consists in a mean and vile opinion of the person contemn'd and scorning which may be taken for the shewing of it in actual derision and abuse Now contempt supposeth a mean and low condition and hatred upon it For misery moves pity and not contempt where there is any thing of charity or kindness So that at this time the Church was low and hated in its lowness both which together make up the occasion of contempt and the scorning that was consequent to it This is one of the most grievous of all evils exprest well by him that said Nihil in se gravius habet paupertas quà m quòd homines efficit ridiculos Want we may think is misery enough but it is aggravated and heightned by the contempt and scorn that usually goes along with it even the vertues and the wisdom of the poor are despised 2. We have the degree of contempt exprest They were exceedingly contemn'd and exceedingly fill'd with contempt And their souls were exceedingly fill'd with scorning Exceedingly fill'd glutted with it 't is a Metaphor taken from an oppressive repletion of the stomach even to nauseating and loathing Their soul was fill'd the greatest and quickest sense of evil was over-charg'd with
publick places of worship those sacred houses of God deserted as if their walls were infected and exchang'd for private corners Such contempt is pour'd upon this excellent Church and all this reproach it suffers from the spiritual proud who think themselves wiser than the Aged not because they keep but because they break the Laws and phancy they are inlightned enough to be a Law unto themselves without needing the Rules of other Governours than those of their own Imaginations In the last days shall come Scoffers walking after their own lusts 2 Pet. 3. 3. Pharisaical as well Dehauch'd Scoffers who walk after their phantastical as the others do after their carnal lusts and therefore despise and contemn all Laws that should bound and restrain them But the Church suffers contempt also from the other sort the carnal proud have her exceedingly in derision and make mouths at her And we are faln into an Age in which to be a Church and to profess Religion not this or that but any is occasion enough with some and God knows not a few for contempt and scorning The fool in old time said in his heart There no God Psal 14. 1. but that folly hath put off its modesty in ours and vile men now set more than their hearts against the Heavens Psal 73. 9. 'T is wit to deride Religion and modish accomplishment to make merriment of things Sacred As if we were past the dispensation of disputing against God and were so certain that he is not or not to be worshipped that there were no more to be done now but to laugh at the silly belief of his Existence and the vain folly of adoring Him To this height we are come and by it have out-done the impudence of all former times and what we are to expect if this bold impiety be not stopt is very sad but very easie to foresee What are the effects of it at present we know and the Church wofully feels in the extream contempt and scorn that is upon it And by reason of the one sort of proud contemners and the other it may too justly complain in the words of the Jewish Church in the Lamentations I am a derision to all my people and their Song all the day and in the language of the Prophet How do I sit solitary that was full of people my ways mourn because few come to my solemn Feasts my Gates are desolate My Priests sigh and the precious Sons of Sion comparable to fine Gold are esteem'd as earthen pitchers the work of the hands of the Potter My adversaries are the chief my enemies prosper all my persecutors overtake me between the straights They hiss and gnash their teeth and say We have swallowed her up Certainly this is the day we looked for we have found we have seen it This is our case and O Lord have mercy upon us have mercy upon us for none other fighteth for us but only thou O God II. SInce we cannot be secure from contempt let us endeavour not to deserve it nor give occasion to that hatred and scorn which is upon the Church and its members This I shall take liberty to address 1. To my Brethren of the Clergy and 2. To the people that are yet in communion with us 1. As for Vs we are sure to be the first and deepest sharers of the contempt that is upon the Church And how it is with us at this day by reason of it is easie to see but deplorable to consider I desire not to speak fond or over-weaning things but this I think I may say with justice That no Church in the world enjoyes a more truly learned and sober Clergy than this and with as much truth I may affirm That no Clergy upon earth undergoes so great a burden of contempt The Heathens of all times and places of the world have had reverence for their Priests the Jews and Turks sacred respect for theirs the people of the Greek Churches pay great venerations to the meanest of the Priesthood the Romanists are very respectful to them Yea even the several Classes of Sects among us reverence their Teachers So that the dueness of respect to the Ministers of Religion seems to be the common acknowledgement of mankind grounded upon the Relation they have to God as his Embassadours and Stewards of his Mysteries and the nobleness and importance of the business they are employed in the conducting the souls of men to everlasting happiness But we the Clergy of this Church and only we seem to be cut off from the common acknowledg'd rights of Priesthood as if there were an exception against us in the general Rule and all the Ministers of Religion were to be honour'd except those of the Church of England In all cases else greatness of Relation and dignity of employment give title to respect But in this where the Relation is to the highest and the business is about things most worthy and most necessary the practice is quite otherwise and we are exposed by our character and employment to disesteem and neglect 'T is true we are guilty of many sins and imperfections that may occasion disrespect but I hope not in proportion to the contempt that is upon us In judging of all others men make abatements in consideration of the weakness of humane nature But we are under the Law I mean as to mens censures and are judg'd by the strictest severities there is no mitigation no pardon for us and it will not be considered that we are but dust Yea every Mote in our eye is made a beam every infirmity is blown up to an height of villany and every vice of which any person among us is guilty is reflected upon the whole Order So that were it not for the right we expect at a juster Bar than that of mans judgement we were of all men the most miserable for we are treated here as if we had no claim to the civility and good nature of mankind but were either another race of creatures or out laws of this The Apostle suppos'd it reasonable we should be counted worthy of double honour but the world thinks single respect too much for us and treble contempt scarce enough We are gone over as the stones in the street by the carnal proud and reckon'd as the dirt of it by the spiritual Scorners Yea there are scarce any whose condition is so bad or so low but think themselves good enough and great enough to despise us We look not for the great honours and venerations of the world and 't is not fit we should but yet there is no man that is not stupid but would be sensible of such treatment and I think we ought to resent it since the ground of our reproach is contempt upon Religion if not upon the Author of it Abstract us from our relation to that and our Order may without boasting pretend to as much wisdom and knowledge ingenuity and vertue as other men Our
that greatest of our Saviours Resurrection from the Dead by which he is declared the Son of God with power all his Doctrines and all his Actions and the whole Scope of his designs do infinitely confirm it unto us And yet we doubt and dispute and cavil when we should Repent This also greatly heightens our sins and will our condemnation if we do not seasonably speedily take another course 5. The Ninevites repented upon the Preaching of a Temporal Judgement forty days and Nineveh shall be destroyed It was the destruction of their City no express mention of the Ruine of their persons and posterities much less of the damnation of their Souls and yet upon this lesser Threatning they Repented But now besides the many Temporal evils our sins threaten us with we have denounc'd against us the loss of our Souls to eternal ages The wicked shall be turned into Hell and all the Nations that forget God Ps 9. 17. And terrible is that Sentence pass'd on the impenitent Mat. 25. 41. Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting Fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels Every word speaks terrour depart and Depart cursed into Fire into everlasting Fire and Fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels in their company and under their condemnation and Torment Such threatnings one would think should effectually restrain men from their sins and bring them to Repentance and woe to us if those or Gods other Methods do not effect it 6. The people of Nineveh Repented upon uncertainty of Success They were not sure that their Repentance would be accepted yea they had great reason to fear it would not for the threatning in the Form seem'd to be absolute But they knew that there was certain Ruine in the way in which they were going and some probability possibility at least that the Divine goodness might interpose for them upon their Repentance and they acted wisely and took the safer course they Repented and Repented upon the faint Encouragement of a peradventure who knows but the Lord may repent and turn v. 9. But now God hath pleased to give us the fullest the greatest assurance of Pardon and Favour upon Repentance for this we have his repeated word and his Oath and the Blood of his Son and the Testimony of his Spirit This is the Covenant he hath made with us and his Son came into the world to give us the assurance and his Spirit hath always confirmed it that by these immutable things by which it is impossible for God to lye we might have strong confidence that our Repentance will be accepted and rewarded And 't will be a very great Instance and aggravation of our hardness if notwithstanding we go on impenitently in our accustomed sins 7. The men of Nineveh Repented and they did it speedily When the Prophet began to enter into the City a days journey it follows immediately So the people of Nineveh believed God They did not stand to consult and deliberate about the business they did not say to Jonah as Foelix did to St. Paul We will hear thee some other time of this matter no They heard and Repented presently But we are apt to procrastinate and delay and put the work off from one day to another from youth to manhood from thence to old age from the time of Health to Sickness from thence to a Death-bed and still cry to morrow and hereafter But if we think to do it at all let us take the next time Delays here are most dangerous and the work will still grow the more difficult We are call'd by present Providences to instant Repentance if we delay yet longer it may be too late immediate Reformation is expected and required from us or immediate Judgements are to befal us And The same Encouragement have we for the work of speedy Repentance as these Ninevites had for this is most certain that if we Repent of the Evil we have done God will also Repent of the Evil he hath said Both which gracious Acts of Penance on our part and Pardon on Gods that they may be done God of his infinite Mercy grant through the Merits and Mediation of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord To whom with the Holy Ghost be ascribed by Angels and men by all things in Heaven and Earth as is most due all possible Praise and Power Might and Majesty Dominion and Adoration to Eternal Ages Amen SERMON X. The Various METHODS OF Satan's Policy DETECTED SERMON X. 2 COR. II. 11. For we are not ignorant of his Devices THe great and known Enemy of Mankind at tempts our ruine by a double method that of confest opposition and flattering insinuation and what he cannot compass by main strength he endeavours by Stratagem and by Artifice In which latter he hath always been most unhappily successful prevailing more by Policies than by Power Satan is most dangerous in the livery of Religion and the appearing Angel of light hath done more execution than the known Prince of Darkness Indeed in the early times of Christianity it 's enemy and ours thought to have over-born and crusht it by open ways of violence and therefore vigorously assaulted this new and naked Religion with all the force that Wit and Interest Power and Malice combined could draw together and with all that rage that Hellish zeal could inspire flew upon the naked Infant that had no captivating arts to recommend no visible aids to assist it But Innocence was too powerful for Arms and Truth and Vertue for assault and the Designer perceiving that this persecuted Christianity did but brighten and grow more conspicuous by the Flames he kindled against it That the injured Innocents prevail'd more on the World by their Patience than their enemies did on them by their Cruelties That this hated this maligned Religion stood like a Rock in the Sea while the spightful Waves and foaming Billows did but dash and break themselves against it I say perceiving how little success he had in his assaults he betakes him to his arts and his devices He pretends to that which he designs against and gets into Religion that he might overthrow it And this design he hath been ever since carrying on in the world viz. to destroy Religion by it self And if ever Christianity be exploded 't is like to be by a Spirit that highly pretends unto it So that the roaring of the Lyon is not so formidable as the wily subtilties of the Serpent And the Deceiver in the close Pharisee is more dangerous than Satan in the Publican and open Sinner Now the way to defeat frauds and wiles is to understand them and the Designer is disappointed assoon as his practices are discovered we therefore owe this care to the interest of our souls to endeavour to be acquainted with the arts of our enemy and we shall be secure from the danger of their influence when We are not ignorant of his Devices Now the chief Devices of the Grand Designer are levell'd against
purest times those of the first three hundred nay six hundred years which assertions I have in this place particularly and largely made good and divers of our Learned Divines have in their writings fully proved it Nor is there any one thing which we condemn in the Roman belief or practice but what hath arose by the corruption of times long since the beginning and indeed in the the Church of Rome there is an eternal fountain of Innovations in the authority they assume of declaring that is in good earnest in making new Articles of Faith So that their people can never know when they have all new things may still be obtruded as necessary and essential without end On the other side the Character of Antiquity condemns the Sects also Among them there are some old Heresies received but their principles and practices as opposite to those of our Church of England were not in the first best times Presbytery Independency Anabaptism Quakerism may have been here and there of old in the brains of some particular conceited men but never were in any general practice any where the eldest not two hundred years ago and some have arose in our own time Their ways they pretend to be contain'd in the holy Scriptures and if so we would presently acknowledge them to be Primitive But they are in the Scriptures only as those are interpreted by their private Spirits that is not there but in the fancies of the Innovators and these being their guide in interpreting Lo here also is a fountain of perpetual novellizing And as long as the imaginations of men can frame novelties we shall never be at the end of new Sects We have seen the rise of some in our late times of confusions and if ever we should be so unhappy as to see such again which God forbid in all likelihood from the same Source other new yet unheard of Sects and Heresies would arise to the further dividing of the Chncurh ad scandal of Religion There is nothing so pregnant with Novelties as imagination and the Sectarian private Spirit is no better nor worse than Fancy I deny not but these all sorts of them do retain some of the Primitive Doctrines as the Roman Church also doth but their opinions and ways that are opposite to the Church of England are not such This our Church without fondness or overweening I may say doth profess and teach the Ancient Apostolical Primitive Christianity and hath admitted no new things that are contrary to it It was reformed according to the Scriptures the Scriptures as they are interpreted by the first General Councils and Fathers those next the Apostles who we ought to believe understood best what were their doctrines and ways This Church in its constitutions is therefore truly ancient so in every main every considerable thing and truly Protestant protesting both against Roman and Sectarian Innovations 2. Another Character of the Faith delivered to the ancient Saints is that it was pure 'T was delivered to the Saints and it made them such The wisdom that is from above is first pure It teacheth and produceth Purity Holiness and real Goodness in Heart and Life The business of it is to conform us unto God and to make us like him And the Lord our God is holy And by this Character also is Popery condemn'd For this teacheth some direct impieties and immoralities and by the consequence of some other of its Doctrines the necessity of Reformation of life is quite taken away the Reins are laid on mens necks and Gods Laws are made void by their traditions Of the first sort are their Idolatries and Invocation of Saints and Angels which God both in the Old Testament and the New hath so earnestly declared against as the highest dishonour to his Majesty and affront to his Glory and which he stigmatizeth as the greatest impurities and frequently calls Fornication and Whoredome they are spiritually so Likewise their doctrines and practices of deposing and murdering of Princes and absolving the people from their Allegiance their dispensing with Perjuries Rebellions and other sorts of wickedness are highest immoralities and most Antichristian that is most contrary to the Spirit Genius and designs of the holy Jesus which were to redeem unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works Besides which direct and point blank oppositions to the Christian principles and Rules they strike at the root and main design of Christianity by those their doctrines that render repentance and change of life unnecessary For according to them the favour of God and eternal Salvation may be had upon easier terms Crossings Pilgrimages Ave Maries Whippings Fastings with Confession and Absolution will do the business There is no need of cutting off right hands of plucking out of right eyes and mortifying the body in our Saviours spiritual sence that is of subduing and rescinding all inordinate appetites and affections which are the great difficulties of Religion the bodily exercises will suffice we may be safe and Sainted without obedience to those hard sayings Or if the other things should be omitted 't is but going to Purgatory at last and if you have money to leave for Masses and Dirge's you are secure of being pray'd out thence So that here the greatest design of the Gospel which is real inward holiness and purity is destroyed And without holiness 't is here made possible to see God And this is the worst thing that any thing that pretends to Religion can be guilty of On the other hand the Sects whatever purity and spirituality they pretend do many most of them teach doctrines and walk in ways that are contrary to the purity of heart and life that becomes a Christian The Gnosticks who were some of the first Fanaticks in the Christian Church pretended that they were the spiritual the pure people and that all things to them were pure on which account they gave themselves up to all Immorality and filthiness Sensual saith the Apostle having not the Spirit They denyed there was any moral good and evils in the nature of things and estimate of God And this Heresie is received among some of our Sects God they think and say sees no sin in them his elect people He loves not for the sake of holiness and vertue but freely that is for no reason but meer unaccountable will and if so 't is in vain to amend our lives to live soberly righteously and godly in order to our acceptance with him Though we are the quite contrary in all manner of evil conversation we may yet be his beloved his chosen This hath the malignity of the worst of Popery or Heathenism And such a Principle is among some of the Sects I accuse not all others that do not affirm so much as this do in a manner make good works unnecessary Faith their airy Faith that prescinds from moral goodness is all All is believing receiving trusting relying which are great duties parts of Faith but this as