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
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
of Meekness Mercy and universal Love Thus imperfect Strivers may imploy themselves in the external offices of Religion I have instanced only in Three the like may be said of the rest And to this I add IV. That they may not only exercise themselves in the outward matters of duty but may arrive to some things that are accounted greater heights and are really more spiritual and refined To instance 1. They may have some love to God Goodness and good Men. The Soul naturally loves Beauty and Perfection and all mankind apprehend God to be of all Beings the most beautiful and perfect and therefore must needs have an intellectual love for him The reason that that love takes no hold of the passions in wicked men is partly because they are diverted from the thoughts of Him by the objects of Sense but chiefly because they consider him as their enemy and therefore can have no complacency or delight in him who they think hath nothing but thoughts of enmity and displeasure against them But if once they come to be perswaded as many times by such false marks as I have recited they are that God is their Father and peculiar Friend that they are his chosen and his darlings whom he loved from Eternity and to whom he hath given his Son and his Spirit and will give Himself in a way of the fullest enjoyment Then the Love that before was only an esteem in the understanding doth kindle in the affections by the help of the conceit of Gods loving them so dearly and the passion thus heated runs out even into seraphick and rapturous Devotions while yet all this is but meer animal love excited chiefly by the love of our selves not of the Divine Perfections And it commonly goes no further than to earnest expressions of extraordinary love to God in our Prayers and Discourses while it appears not in any singular obedience to his Laws or generous and universal love to mankind which are the ways whereby the true Divine Love is exprest for This is the love of God that we keep his Commandments saith the Apostle 1 Joh. 5. 3. And as to the other thus If we love one another God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us 1 Joh. 4. 12. And on the contrary If a man say I love God and hateth his brother he is a lyar John 4. 20. Charity then and universal obedience are the true arguments and expressions of our love to God and these suppose a victory over corrupt inclinations and self-will But the other love which ariseth from the conceit of our special dearness to God upon insufficient grounds that goes no further than to some suavities and pleasant fancies within our selves and some passionate complements of the Image we have set up in our imaginations This Love will consist with Hatred and contempt of all that are not like our selves yea and it will produce it those poysonous fruits and vile affections may be incouraged and cherish'd under it So that there may be some love to God in evil men But while self-love is the only motive and the more prevalent passion it signifieth nothing to their advantage And as the imperfect striver may have some love to God so he may to piety and vertue every man loves these in Idea The vilest sinner takes part in his affections with the vertuous and religious when he seeth them described in History or Romance and hath a detestation for those who are character'd as impious and immoral Vertue is a great Beauty and the mind is taken with it while 't is consider'd at a distance and our corrupt interests and sensual affections are not concern'd 'T is These that recommend sin to our love and choice while the mind stands on the side of vertue with that we serve the Law of God but with the flesh the Law of Sin Rom. 7. 25. So that most wicked men that are not degenerated into meer Brutes have this mental and intellectual love to goodness That is they approve and like it in their minds and would practise it also were it not for the prevalent biass of flesh and sense And hence it will follow likewise That the same may approve and respect good men They may reverence and love them for their Charity Humility Justice and Temperance though themselves are persons of the contrary Character yea they may have a great and ardent affection for those that are eminently pious and devout though they are very irreligious themselves The conscience of vertue and of the excellency of Religion may produce this in the meer natural man who is under the dominion of vile inclinations and affections and therefore neither is this a good mark of godliness Our love to God and goodness will not stead us except it be prevalent And as the love described may be natural and a meer animal man may arrive unto it So 2. He may to an extraordinary zeal for the same things that are the objects of his love Hot tempers are eager where they take either kindness or displeasure The natural man that hath an animal love to Religion may be violent in speaking and acting for things appertaining to it If his temper be devotional and passionate he becomes a mighty zealot and fills all places with the same of his godliness His natural fire moves this way and makes a mighty blaze Ahab was very zealous and 't is like 't was not only his own interest that made him so 2 Kings 10. 16. The Pharisees were zealous people and certainly their zeal was not always personated and put on but real though they were Hypocrites yet they were such as in many things deceived themselves as well as others They were zealous for their Traditions and they believ'd 't was their duty to be so St. Paul while a persecutor was zealous against the Disciples and he thought he ought to do many things against that name And our Saviour foretells that those zealous Murderers that should kill his Saints should think They did God good service in it John 16. 2. So that all the zeal of the natural man is not feigning and acting of a part nor hath it always evil objects The Pharisees were zealous against the wickedness of the Publicans and Sinners Zeal and that in earnest and for Religion may be in bad men But then this is to be noted that 't is commonly about opinions or external rites and usages and such matters as appertain to first Table Duties while usually the same men are very cold in reference to the Duties of the Second And when Zeal is partial and spent about the little things that tend not to the overcoming the difficulties of our way or the perfecting of humane nature 't is a meer animal fervour and no Divine Fire And the natural man the Seeker that shall not enter may grow up to another height that looks gloriously and seems to speak mighty things As 3. He may have great comforts in
from whom we are so called And that consists not in demure Looks and affected Phrases in melting Tones and mimick Gestures in Heats and Vehemence in Rapture and Ecstasie in systems of Opinion and scrupulosity about Nothing But in Faith and Patience Innocence and Integrity in Love to God and Charity to all the World in a modest sweetness and humble Deportment in a peaceable Spirit and readiness to obey God and Those He hath set over Us Where-ever These are there is the Image of our Lord and There ought to be our Love though the persons thus affected are Ignorant of many things and err in many though they differ from us in some Opinions we count Orthodox and walk not in the particular ways or Circumstances which We esteem Best And thus briefly of the Extent of the Duty we ought to Love ALL MEN but especially ALL Christians I descend to the Third general viz. III. The Excellency of Christian Love which I represent in the following particulars I. IT is the Image of God and of all the graces renders us most like our Maker For God is love and the Lover of men and his tender Mercies are over all his Works And the most sutable apprehension we can form of his Being is to look on him as an Omnipotent Omniscient Immutable Goodness And is it not a glorious Excellency that makes Men like the fountain of all perfection Our unhappy first Parents lost Paradise by aspiring to be like God in Knowledge and if we endeavour to be like him in Love we shall be in the way of gaining a better Paradise than they lost II. LOVE is the Spirit of Angels Glorified Souls and the best of Men. There is nothing by which the Angelical nature is so much distinguish'd from the Diabolical as Love and Goodness for the Devils have Spiritual and Immortal natures and great degrees of Power and Knowledge and those perhaps not much inferiour to what is to be found in some of the better Spirits so that the great difference is not in the excess of natural perfections which the Angels of Light have above those of Darkness but in this that the former abound in Love Sweetness and Benignity and the latter in Malice Cruelty and Revenge these are the very Image of Satan and Spirit of Hell Whereas all the Celestial Inhabitants live in the joyful exercise of uninterrupted Love and endearments Nor is that Love confined to the blessed and glorified Company but it sheds it self abroad upon the nether world and they are Ministring Spirits for our good Heb. 1. 14. They so far Love us that they can stoop from Heaven to serve us There is Joy there at the Conversion of a Sinner and no doubt there is Love to converted Saints and care and pity for all the rest of Men. For the spirits of the just made perfect are freed from their froward humours and pettish natures their mistaken Zeal and fondness of Opinions which straitned their Affections while they were on Earth and now they are inlarged by the vast improvements of their Knowledge and accomplishment of their Vertue by a fuller sense of Divine Love and of their Duty by the genius of their company and the imployment of the happy Place So that in Heaven all are truly Catholick in their Affections And the better any man is the more he is so upon Earth The good man makes not himself his center nor are his thoughts wholly engrost about his own concernments but he is carefully solicitous for the general benefit and never so much pleased as when he is made an instrument of Divine Goodness to promote the interests of his Christian brethren 'T was an high strain of Love in Moses exprest towards the Transgressing Israelites when he was content to be blotted out of Gods Book rather than that their Sin should not be blotted out Exod. 32. 32. And St. Paul was no less Zealously affectionate towards the Jews when he said he could wish himself accursed from Christ viz. separated from Christian communion as a most vile and abject person for their sakes Rom. 9. 3. These were spirits whom Religion and Divine Love had enlarged and the more any man advanceth in Christianity the nearer he approacheth to this generous heroick temper III. LOVE is an eminent branch of the Divine Life and Nature Love is of God and every one that Loveth is born of God saith the Apostle 1 John 4. 7 8. The Divine Nature in us is the Image of God Pourtray'd and lively drawn upon the regenerated Soul and I noted before that Love is the vital Image of our Maker 't is His spirit infused into us and growing in us and upon that account to be preferred before all Gifts and natural Perfections as St. Paul hath done it in the mentioned 1 Cor. 13. And the common Gifts of the Spirit differ from this special Grace as the Painters Picture doth from his Son His Counterfeit may indeed in a superficial appearance to the Eye resemble him more than his Child but yet it is but an empty shadow destitute and incapable of his Life and Nature So there are a sort of Gifts that have a spiritual appearance and may to those that see things at distance or have not their senses exercised seem more like the divine nature than this modest vertue But those that come near them and are better able to discern perceive that in themselves they are without the Divine Life and Motion and are meer Lifeless Pictures And here I dare say that the happiest faculty to Preach Plausibly and Pray with Fluency and Eloquence to Discourse Devoutly and readily to Interpret Scripture if it be not joyned with a benign and charitable spirit is no participation of the God-like life and nature nor indeed any more Divine than those common gifts and natural parts which those that think highly of themselves upon these accounts despise For very Evil men have been eminent in these accomplishments and Wicked Spirits are without question endowed with them and they are of themselves arguments of nothing but a faculty of Imitation a devotional Complexion and warm Imagination Whereas on the other hand Charity and Christian Love are good Evidence of a Renewed state and nature Our Saviour made it a Character Joh. 13. and the Apostle concludes from it 1 John 3. 14. By this we know that we are passed from death to life because we love the Brethren And if this be a Mark and St. John be not mistaken I doubt that some who are very gracious by many Signs of their own will want one of Christs to prove their comfortable presumption IV. LOVE is the bond and tye of Christian Communion How can two walk together except they are agreed The Church is a Body consisting of many Members which unless they Unite and send their mutual supplies one to another the whole is distempered and in the ready way to Death and Dissolution Now Charity is that vital Cement whereby they
are United and the Soul by which the common body lives that whereby the League between the members is preserved and health with it When this decays sad symptoms and mortal evils follow We see in Nature the great Fabrick of the World is maintained by the mutual Friendship and conspiracy of its parts which should they universally fall out and break the bond of Amity that is between them should they act their Antipathies upon each other yea should they but cease to serve one another for the general good the whole frame would be dissolved and all things shuffled into their old Chaos and Abyss And the greatest evils that have or can happen to the Church have been the effects of the Decay of Charity and those intestine Divisions that have grown up in it From these she hath always suffered more than from external persecutions The flames within have consumed her when those from without have only sindg'd her garments V. LOVE is the most Catholick grace and upon that account the most excellent since that which promotes the good of the whole is better than any private perfection for which reason things in nature will quit their particular interests when the common good so requireth as heavy bodies will ascend and light bodies descend to prevent a chasm and breach in Nature Now of all the divine vertues there is none of so large an influence as Love 't is a grace designed for the good of the community as the principle of self-Love is for the preservation of particular beings This stirs up our endeavours for the good of others and especially for the general good The Church receives no wound but Love feels the smart of it nor is any member of it afflicted but Love is grieved This is the very Spirit of our dear Lord who was touched with a feeling of our Infirmities And to these I add this last VI. LOVE commends Christianity to those without and cleanseth the Profession of it from many Spots it hath contracted within The generality of men are not able to judge of Religions themselves but usually reckon of them as they do of their Professors Whatever is excellent or else unworthy in a Votary of Religion redounds to the credit or disparagement of the Religion he hath adopted So that were the charity and goodness of Christianity transcribed into the lives of Christians it would ravish the eyes of all Beholders and out-shine all other Professions Men would more easily be perswaded to believe that Religion to be from God whose Professors they saw to be so God-like Love and goodness prevail where nothing else will these win and captivate the Soul And such conquests are better and more noble than either those of Arts or Arms which only bring the body under 'T is but small credit to any Religion to cut its way by the Sword or gain upon the world by Power or Policy That which opens it self a passage by its native loveliness and beauty is the most Illustrious and makes the surest and most generous Conquests And were Christendom but Christian in this regard and the Professors of the true Religion truly Religious that is abounding in that charity and goodness which Christianity enjoyns our Religion would spread its wings through the World and all contrary Professions would lie in the dust before it Whereas the Divisions and fatal feuds of Paganized degenerated Christendom are now the great partition-Wall between Us and the Heathen-World yea they are more particularly the great scandal of the Reformation and make us the scorn of Those of Rome And O that They that speak and pray much against the Beast would not prove instrumental to uphold his Throne We expect and hope for glorious times when the Man of Sin is faln and doubtless there shall be such But then the glory of those times consists not in external rule or dominion of the Church but in the Universal Restauration of it to its primitive Simplicity and Purity Then will the Church be Glorious indeed when all Christians shall unite upon the Foundation of an Holy Life and the joynt Profession of the few plain Fundamentals of Faith When they shall make real Goodness the Object of their affections towards each other and all Differences in Opinions and dispensable Practices the Objects of their mutual Forbearance When such times as these shall come then doth the Reign of Christ begin And this is the true and wish't Millennium Now we cannot expect those glorious days which are to Commence upon the Fall of Anti-christ till we see all Christians sincerely set upon Destroying what is Anti-christian in themselves Anti-christ will not be overthrown by our declaiming against Him and spitting the fire of Rage at the Infallible Chair It will be to better purpose for us to examine what of Anti-christianism remains in our selves And while Rancour and Bitterness Rage and Animosities upon the Account of Difference in smaller Opinions are in our Borders Anti-christ hath a Throne among us and there is nothing could be so Effectual a Blow at the Root of Anti-christianism as the exercise of Charity and Catholick Goodness And when we see these take place then may we Triumphantly sing forth BABYLON IS FALN I Come now Fourthly to the Means of attaining this excellent and Catholick Temper And I propose them by way of DIRECTION CONSIDERATION and CAUTION The DIRECTIONS are these I. Acknowledge worth in any man Whatever is good is from God and He is to be lov'd and owned in all things as well in the Paint upon the Butter-flies wing as in the glorious uniform lustre of the Sun as well in the composure of the little Ant as in the vast Bodies of the Whale or Elephant In the least Herb under our feet as well as in the Stupendous Fabrick of the Heavens over us And moral Perfections are to be acknowledg'd as well as these natural ones We are to love Vertue in an Heathen and whatever is Well or Worthy in those whose Apprehensions are most distant from our own And we must take care that we make not our Relish the Measure of Worth and Goodness Say not this is excellent because 't is agreeable to your particular Palates and that on the other hand is Vile and Loathsom because 't is distastful to your Gust and Genius There are various kinds and degrees of Excellency which differently affect the diversity of Tempers and Constitutions And at the best we are Imperfectly good and therefore cannot be the Measure of it Let us then be so Ingenuous as to own the vertue and the goodness that is in all parties and Opinions Let us commend and love it This will be a means to sweeten our Spirits and to remove the Animosities we are apt to conceive against the Persons of Dissenters and 't will ingage them on the other hand to a greater kindness for us and so Lessen our Distance and Disagreements There is a kind of Spirit among some which is so
different from that Charity which thinketh no Evil 1 Cor. 13. that it thinks nothing else concerning those of a differing Judgement but that their Vertues are dull Morality and their Piety Hypocritical Pretensions or what-ever Worse Ill-will can Invent and Rage can say They will not believe that to be a Jewel which they find among so much supposed Rubbish But let us take Care that we deny not God the Honour of his Gifts and Graces or proudly fancy that he hath given us the Monopoly This is contrary to that Charity which is not puffed up and doth not behave it self unseemly Or if we could modestly suppose that there is nothing but Ignorance and mistake among all those who are not of our Opinion yet however their Vertues ought to be acknowledg'd The Son of God was to be Worshipped even when he lay in the Stable and the Ark to be owned when among the Philistins 'T is a sign that we love God for himself if we Love him every where And indeed that Worth is more to be admired that grows up in an uncultivated Soyl and among the Weeds of Errour and false Principles To find a Rose or Tulip in a Garden is a common thing and merits less of our regard but to meet with them in the High-way or open Fields this ingageth our nearer Notice and recommends the Flowers to our more particular Kindness Thus Vertue though in all men excellent yet 't is no more than is expected to be in Persons of Knowledge and right Judgement But in the Ignorant and Mistaken it thrives under Disadvantages and deserves more to be Cherish'd and Incourag'd And now if 't were possible to bring the divided World to these Ingenuous Acknowledgements men would find their Spirits compos'd and their Animosities qualified They would see they have Friends even in the Tents of their Enemies and this Apprehended and Own'd mutually would be a very hopeful way to endear and reconcile us II. Be much in the Contemplation of the Love of God He that knows how much God hath Loved him hath a mighty Reason to Love his Brother The Apostle urgeth the Argument 1 John 4. 11. If God so Loved us we ought also to Love one another and he that considers cannot choose for he must needs find himself sweetly Ingaged to Love God of whose Love he is sensible and he that loves Him loves all things in him For all things are his and he tenders every thing he hath made The Love of God doth not confine us to his single abstracted Essence but requires our Kindness to all that bear his Image yea and produceth it Seraphick Love will be Catholick It doth not burn like a Lamp in a Sepulchre but 't is like the Stars of Heaven that impart themselves to all things And as the Planets that receive their Light from the Sun do not suck it in and ingross it but disperse and shed it abroad upon the most distant Bodies in like manner a Christian Soul that is warmed and lightned by Divine Love doth not keep it within it self but communicates its benign Influences to all the Objects that are within its reach The Love of God in its proper Nature is diffusive and very opposite to Envy and Animosity It Dispels the Clouds and Allays the Tempests that arise from the Body and its Appetites and composeth the Soul to the Sweetest and most even Temper It Inlarges our Minds and Softens our Affections and Calms our Passions and Smooths the Ruggedness of our Natures It destroys our Pride and Selfishness and so strikes up the Roots of Enmity and Divisions and thus disposeth us to the most Generous and Comprehensive Charity III. Make the great Design of Religion yours and know that the Intent of that is not to fill our heads with Notion or to teach us Systems of Opinion to resolve us a Body of Difficult Points or to Inable us to talk plausibly for lesser Truths But to furnish our minds with incouragements of Virtue and instances of Duty to direct us to govern our Passions and subdue our appetites and self-wills in order to the glory of God the good of Societies and our own present and eternal Interests And if Christians would take this to be their business and conscientiously apply themselves unto it they would find work enough in their own hearts to imploy them and neither have time nor occasion to pry into the Infirmities of others nor inclination to quarrel with them they would see how unwise it is to be seeking and making Enemies when they have so many within themselves and how dangerous to be diverted to a needless and unjust forein War while a deadly domestick Foe is strengthned by it And methinks 't is wonderful and 't is sad that we should be so mild and indulgent to the Enemies that we are bound to engage against by our Duty to God and to our selves by his Laws and our own Reasons by the precepts and examples of his Son our Saviour by his Sacraments and by his Blood by all things in Religion and all things in Interest and at the same time be so eager against those whom we ought to consider as Friends upon the account of our relation to God and the tie of common nature and the obligations of Divine Commands and the interests of Societies and the practice of the best times past and the hopes of a future happiness This is lamentable in it self and yet the more so for being common And it seems to me such a kind of madness as if a man should be picking causless quarrels with his Neighbours about a chip of Wood or a broken Hedge when a Fire in his house is consuming his Goods and Children Such Frenzies and much greater are our mutual enmities and oppositions while we quietly sit down in our unmortified Affections And we should know them to be so did we understand our Danger or our Duty and seriously mind either the one or other We should find then that a Christian hath no such enemies as the Flesh the world and the Devil that these will require all our care and imploy all our strength and diligence and he that knows this and considers and acts suitably will find too much in himself to censure and oppose and too little to admire himself for above other men He will see sufficient reason to incline him to pardon his erring brother and be the more easily induced to exercise charity which himself so many ways needs The last Direction is this IV. Study the moderate pacifick ways and principles and run not in extremes both Truth and Love are in the middle Extremes are dangerous After all the swaggering and confidence of Disputers there will be uncertainty in lesser matters and when we travel in uncertain Roads 't is safest to choose the Middle In this though we should miss a lesser truth which yet is not very likely we shall meet with Charity and our gain will be greater than our loss
consequence from it And thus also are our differences heightned and rendred almost incurable If then we have any kindness for Charity and Christian Love let us take care of such dis-ingenuous practices A true Catholick should not take any Name to himself but that of a Christian nor Reproach any other with any Style of Infamy He should not and cannot in Modesty or Justice charge his brother with any Opinion which he will not own though he never so clearly see that it may be concluded from what he believes and teacheth If men would learn to be thus Fair and Candid to each other our Differences would be reduced to a narrower Circle and there might be some hopes that Peace and Love would revive and flourish in our Borders IF any now should ask me Whether this Doctrine of Universal Love do not tend to Universal Toleration I should answer that thus far it doth viz. that all private persons should Tolerate each other and bear with their brothers Infirmities That every man should allow another that Liberty which he desires himself in things wherein the Laws of God and the Land have left him Free and permit him his own Opinion without Censure or Displeasure Such a Toleration I think Christianity requires in Private men But as to the Publick I do by no means think it Modest for Us to determine what the Government should do And in This case 't is as unfit as in Any whatsoever since this matter depends upon the Consideration of so many Things that 't is very Difficult to state the Bounds of Just Permission and Restraint Leaving That therefore to Their Prudence whom Providence hath called to determine in It I shall only say that so much Toleration as may consist with the Interests of Religion and Publick Safety may be Granted But such a Liberty as is prejudicial to any of These should not be expected For Christianity and all other Considerations oblige the Government to provide for the Common Good And were the Duty of Catholick Charity duly practised and Private Christians once perswaded to Tolerate one another it might then be safer for the Government to give a Larger publick Toleration than possibly now is fit In the mean while without troubling our selves with fansies about the Duty of our Governours Let us mind our Own especially this great one of Charity and Christian Love And if we mind this and practise sutably God will be Glorified and Religion Advanced the Church will be Edified and our Souls Comforted Government will be Established and the Peace of the world Promoted And the Peace of God which passeth all Understanding will keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus To whom with God the Father and God the Holy Ghost be ascribed all Glory and Worship henceforth and for ever SERMON III. Christian Loyalty Preach'd on the KING'S MARTYRDOME The Second Edition SERMON III. A FAST SERMON ON THE King's Martyrdom ROM XIII 2. And they that resist shall receive to themselves Damnation AS there are some Ages and Times that are more infested than others with unhappy influences from the Heavens and noxious reeks from the Earth which by poysoning the Air Roots and Herbs convey that pestilential venome into mens bodies that even wearies Death and gluts the Grave with its slaughters and was matter of our late miseries In like manner there are Times when poysonous Doctrines from the Pulpit and malign humours in the Populace infect the Publick Air and spread a fatal Contagion into mens Principles and Manners which flies like Infection and destroys like the Plague And if ever Times were under cross and unlucky Aspects if ever there were a publick Spirit of Phrensie and mischief in the World in any days since the first certainly this Lot is fallen upon ours wherein mens Principles and Practices contend which shall out-do the other in the degree of Evil And 't is hard to say which are worse Mens actions or opinions We are fallen into Times wherein among some 't is a piece of Gallantry to defie God and a kind of Wit to be an Atheist among others 't is Religion to be Humorous and Phantastick and Conscience to be Turbulent and Ungovernable Nor have mens Practices come short of the malignity of their Belief but if possible have out-done it Atheism hath not rested in the judgement but proceeded to all enormities and debauches And we had not been called to the sad solemnity of this Day if Rebellion had stopt in Opinion But alas the venome of the Asp hath swoln into deadly Tumors and those seditious Principles have shot their poysonous arrows into the vitals of the publick Body We yet feel the smart of those wounds and the Generations to come will wear the scars and the marks of our misery and our guilt What is past we may lament but cannot help What we may do and what we ought is to inform our selves better of the Duty we owe to God and those he hath appointed over us and to endeavour the suppressing those principles and affections which breathed the Plagues that destroyed the Nation and would again burn us up in hotter Flames than those And if that fatal Fire which so lately prey'd upon our Peace and our Properties our Religion and our Government our Persons and our Friends hath not yet convinced us of the evils and danger of Resistance yet there is another and a greater one as certain and more fatal threatned by the Apostle They that resist shall receive to themselves damnation Which words were spoken in the days of NERO who besides that he was an Heathen was a Persecutor and a Tyrant and the most infamous instance in Nature and yet this Monster is not excepted as to the Tribute of Obedience Whereas had this been said in the days of such a Prince as our CHARLES the First it might have been supposed that the vertue of the person claimed the reverence and subjection and not the character of the Prince And that 't was damnable to resist because he was Good not because he was Supream because he was a Nursing Father of the Church not because the Ruling Father of his Countrey 'T was an happy coincidence therefore to secure the Authority of the Magistrate which answers the greatest pretensions of Rebellion If Religion be pretended an Heathen must not be resisted If Tyranny 't is damnation to oppose a Nero. They that resist shall receive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the wrath and judgement of God which implies the guilt and expresseth the danger Now to resist lawful Authority is so sinful and so dangerous principally upon this three-fold account RESISTANCE 1. Affronts the Authority of God 2. 'T is contrary to the Spirit of Religion And 3. Destructive to the Interest of Societies The two former express the Guilt and the latter both the Sin and the Punishment Of each in order 1. RESISTANCE is an affront to the authority of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lord sets up Kings saith
reverence of the most High which is a direct contempt of his perfections Now scorn is one of the greatest indignities especially it is sore and provoking when one is contemn'd by his inferiours and more when they are his dependants that have their bread from his Bounty such is the case here in all possible degrees of aggravation vilest worms and lowest dust scoff at the highest Majesty and fullest perfection The universal King our Soveraign before whom Angels bow and Devils tremble is derided by the slaves of his Kingdom and Creation The general Father and Benefactor flouted by those that have their Being and all their comforts from his goodness and cannot live or move or breathe without him Acts 17. 28. Instead of lowest reverence gratitude and prostrations they lift up their heads in proud scorn and defiance of him and as the Royal Psalmist speaks of them Psal 73. 18. They set their mouth against the Heavens 2. This is a sin that is a step beyond Atheism it self 'T is greater impiety to say God is a careless or a contemptible Being than to say He is not As the Moralist tells us He would rather it should be affirm'd that there was no such man as Plutarch than that it should be believ'd that there was such a man but that he was a vile and worthless person Now to deride Religion while we allow there is a God is to say by immediate consequence either that he is a careless and idle Greatness that heeds not his Creatures and so worship is an impertinence or that he is so bad or so mean a Being that he deserves not to be worshipp'd that is that we owe him no acknowledgement of his Being or his Bounty and which is more that 't is ridiculous to pay him any To deny the existence of God is gross and unreasonable but to acknowledge that and to scoff at the expressions of love and veneration of him is down-right madness So that if the scoffer be not an Atheist he is the more inexcusable in his scoffing and if possible he is worse 3. The humour of deriding Religion is monstrousness in the soul All sin is deformity but this is Horrid For a man to have his parts and members misplaced His legs suppose on his shoulders his eyes in his neck and his arms growing out of his belly is frightful but there 's a misplacing in the soul that is more ugly Man hath such powers given him as scorn and derision and while they are exercised against sin and folly there is nothing amiss in them But when they are misplaced upon holiness and wisdom upon the greatest and the purest upon the most visible and most universally acknowledg'd perfections they are then an excess of deformity in the soul and such scorners are greater monsters than the man that hath horns and hoofs 4. It is a wickedness beyond the degeneracy of Devils We read that They fought against the Angels the Ministers of God Rev. 12. 7. but never that they derided them for their Ministeries They oppose Gods ends and interests in the world but we find them not scoffing at Him No they believe and tremble Jam. 2. 19. This Fear is not a vertue indeed in those Apostate spirits and yet it proceeds from a sense and apprehension of divine power and vengeance But the impious Scoffers at Religion have out-grown that and are more bold than all the Legions of darkness They have so little dread of the wrath of God that by their scoffs they endeavour to provoke and as it were to dare him to pour his displeasure on them As if they had a mind to challenge the field with Him and to try the reality and force of his power and terrours Thus briefly of the malignity and aggravations of the sin of Scoffing at Religion There will be an occasion of saying more of it in the sequel I therefore descend now III. To an account of some Effects and Consequences of it and shall confine my self here also within the bounds of that which is mention'd as the character of these Scoffers in the Text Walking after their own Lusts We have seen that mens lusts are the ground and occasion of their scoffing and I add that this again is a cause of the greater heights and boldness of their Lusts like Water and Ice they produce one another Mens lusts put them upon scoffing at that which should restrain them and this through the judgement of God and the nature of the thing brings them at last to walk after their lusts in such obsequiousness and intireness that they follow them 1. Without any check or restraint upon their Lusts 2. Without power to forsake or disobey them 3. Without or with very little hope of remedy or deliverance from the dominion and sad consequences of them These are all dreadful things and such as frequently if not mostly follow upon the impious humour of scoffing at Relgion As to the first The Scoffers walk after their own lusts 1. Without restraint or check from the Spirit of God This strives long with sinners but it will not always strive with them that strive against it Gen. 6. 3. When men move with their Lusts as those that are joyn'd to them the holy Spirit will let them alone Hos 4. 17. And this impiety in the very nature of it is of all sins most likely to provoke Him to a dereliction of the sinner Since it is the greatest most direct and most intolerable affront of the most High and if any thing be a fighting against the Holy Spirit a vexing yea a blaspheming of Him This is Moreover such a sinner becomes a subject incapable of His communications Nothing that is sacrâ—d or serious makes any impression upon such whiffling spirits 't were as good attempt writing on the water or painting with a Pencil on the air as to think of fastening any sober sense upon the scoffer And when it is come to this that the sinner hath made himself incapable of any benefit from the influences of the Spirit He withdraws his solicitations from that miserable person He will not plough upon a rock nor sow upon the sands So that the man hath the advantage now of not being disturb'd in his pursuits by the grand Enemy of his lusts but is suffer'd to run upon the wrath of God and everlasting torments without controul from Him 2. The scoffer gets this priviledge also to walk after his own Lusts without check from his Conscience This is an Inward Judge that summons censures and condemns and while there is such a Court and such transactions in the sinners breast he cannot walk after his lusts in quiet But the scoffer takes a course with Conscience 1. He debauches it And 2. He makes it stupid As to the First it may be consider'd That when He enters upon the trade of deriding Religion he doth not believe it to be really so contemptible and ridiculous only he follows a fashion and