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
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
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-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
HIS was that they may be perswaded to conform theirs unto it and though mens understandings are convinced already that Charity is their Duty yet there is but too much need to represent some of the vast heap of injunctions that make it so to incline their Wills I shall therefore briefly lay together a few of the chief instances of this kind that you may have the distincter sense of the reasons of your Duty and from them the most powerful motives to enforce it In order to this let us consider in short the Injunctions of Christ and the teachings of his Apostles Our Saviour urgeth it as his New Commandment John 13. 34. and inculcates it again under the obliging form of his Command John 15. 12. He makes it a distinguishing note of his Disciples John 13. 35. and enjoyns them to love their Enemies Mat. 5. 24. He mentions it as the great qualification of those on his Right hand that shall be received into his Kingdom Mat. 25. 34 35. and the want of it as the reason of the dreadful Curse pronounced upon those miserable ones on the Left at the solemn Judgement ver 41 42. St. Paul calls Love the fulfilling of the Law Rom. 13. 8 9 10. and sets it in the first place among the fruits of the Spirit Gal. 5. 22. yea reckons it five times over under other Names in the Catalogue viz. those of Peace Long-suffering Gentleness Goodness Meekness ver 22 23. He advanceth it above all Gifts and Graces 1 Cor. 13. above the Tongues of Men and Angels ver 1. and above Prophecie and Mysteries and Knowledge and Faith ver 2. And the beloved Disciple St. John who lay in the Bosom of his Dear Lord and seems to partake most of his Spirit is transported in the commendation of this Grace He tells us that God is love 1 John 4. 7. and repeats it again ver 16. He makes it an Argument of our being born of God and Knowing Him ver 7. and the want of this an evidence of not Knowing God ver 8. He counts it the mark of Discipleship aâ—d the contrary a sign of one that abideth in Death 1 John 3. 14. He calls him a Murtherer that hates another ver 15. and a Lyar if he pretends to Love God and loveth not his Brother 1 John 4. 20. In fine he out-speaks the greatest heights of Praise when he saith God is Love and he that loveth dwelleth in God and God in him 1 John 4. 16. I might represent further that we are commanded to Love without dissimulation Rom. 12. 9. to be kindly affectioned one towards another ver 10. to put on the Breast-plate of Faith and Love 1 Thess 5. 8. to be pitiful and courteous 1 Pet. 3. 8. to provoke one another to love and to good works Heb. 10. 24. to serve one another Gal. 5. 13. to love as Brethren 1 Pet. 3. 8. We are minded of Christ's New Commandment 1 Joh. 3. 23. and of the Message which was from the beginning That we should love one another ver 11. and are urged by the consideration of Gods loving us 1 John 4. 1. Thus the Apostles exhort and teach and they Pray that our Love may abound Phil. 1. 9. and 1 Thess 3. 12. and give solemn Thanks for it when they have found it 2 Thess 1. 3. And now considering the expresness of all these places I cannot see but that any Duty of Religion may be more easily evaded than this and those who can fansie themselves Christians and yet continue in the contrary Spirit and Practice may conceit themselves religious though they live in the constant commission of the greatest sins And if such can quiet their Consciences and shuffle from all these plain Recommendations and Injunctions they have found a way to escape all the Laws of God and may when they please become Christians without Christianity For the evidence I have suggested to prove the necessity of this Duty doth not consist in half Sentences and doubtful Phrases in fancied Analogies and far-fetcht Interpretations but in plain Commands and frequent Inculcations in earnest Intreaties and pressing Importunities in repeated Advices and passionate Commendations And those whom all these will not move are Incapable of being perswaded against their humour or their interest to any Duty of Religion So that though I see never so much eagerness for an Opinion or Heat for an indifferent Circumstance without the conscience of Christian Love I shall never call that forwardness for those little things Zeal or Religion Yea though those warm men should sacrifice their Lives to their beloved Trifles I should not think them Martyrs but fear rather that they went from one Fire to another and a Worse And in this I have the great Apostle to warrant me who saith Though I give my body to be burned and have not Charity it profiteth me nothing 1 Cor. 13. 3. Thus of the First Head the Necessity of the duty I Come to the II. the Extent Our Love ought 1. To be extended to all Mankind The more general it is the more Christian and the more like unto the Love of God who causeth his Sun to shine and his Rain to fall upon the Good and upon the Evil. And though our Arms be very short and the ordinary influence of our kindness and good will can reach but to a very few yet we may pray for all men and desire the good of all the world and in these we may be charitable without bounds But these are not all Love obligeth us to relieve the Needy and help the Distressed to visit the Sick and succour the Fatherless and Widows to strengthen the Weak and to confirm the Staggering and Doubting to encourage the Vertuous and to reprove the Faulty and in short to be ready in all the offices of Kindness that may promote the good of any man Spiritual or Temporal according to the utmost of our power and capacity The good man is Merciful to his Beast and the Christian ought to be Charitable to his Brother and his Neighbour and every man is our Brother and every one that Needs us is our Neighbour And so our Love ought to extend to all men universally without limitation though with this distinction II. That the more especial Objects of our Love ought to be those that agree with us in a common Faith Gal. 6. 10. that is All Christians as Christians and because such Whatever makes our Brother a Member of the Church Catholick that gives him a title to our nearer affections which ought to be as large as that Our Love must not be confin'd by names and petty agreements and the interests of Parties to the corners of a Sect but ought to reach as far as Christianity it self in the largest notion of it To love those that are of our Way Humour and Opinion is not Charity but self-Self-love 't is not for Christ's sake but our own To Love like Christians is to Love his Image
that native Majesty and splendour in the face of universal mankind That He who made an humble stoop from the Throne to the Manger from the Government of the World to the life of a mean subject should at last be illustriously advanc'd as much above the heights of humane grandeurs as then he was below them 'T is fit that That Holy and Divine Person who was buffeted and affronted condemned and crucified by an abusive and injurious world should righteously judge his Judges That Herod may see that he persecuted not the Infant King of a little Province but the Soveraign of Angels and men And that Pontius Pilate and the Jews may be convinc'd that He whom they called King in scorn is really a greater Emperour than Caesar And that those who were scandal'd at the Cross and a verse to the belief of an humble Saviour may see the shame and confutation of their Infidelity and their Folly in the exaltation of the Holy Jesus above all the possibilities of worldly glory Upon this account 't is reasonable and becoming that the Man Christ Jesus should be the Judge And it is so upon another viz. 2. Because He contracted an alliance with our Natures and experimentally knows and felt the Infirmities of our state If the Supream naked Deity should judge us immediately we should be confunded and astonished at the Mjaesty of his presence his greatness would make us afraid For who can bear that dazzling Glory who can stand before a Throne surrounded with incomprehensible Light and Flame This Glory is therefore allay'd by the interposal of humane nature and this Light wears a veil upon it to encourage our approaches Yea 't is our Brother and our Friend that loved us and dyed for us who is the man ordain'd to be our Judge He hath the same compassion as when he wept over an obstinate City and the same love as when he bled and dyed for a rebellious World He knows the strength of our temptations and the weakness of our natures and will make abatements for them So that the faithful may hearfully appear before his Throne confessing their sins and relying upon his Love He that loved us and was like us is to take our Accounts 'T is our Redeemer is to be our Judge Thus may believing Penitents incourage themselves before him and hold up their heads in that Day of terrours as much reviv'd by the apprehension of his humanity and meekness as the wicked will be dejected by the knowledge of his greatness and power And for this cause also 't is congruous and fit that the Man Christ Jesus should be Judge when mankind is at the Bar. I Come now to the IV. General to be consider'd He will judge the World in Righteousness viz. 1. By a Rule Not by unaccountable humour or arbitrary Will Not by hidden Decrees or secret scrowls of Predestination But by those plain and open Records that are in our Houses and our Hands that are Preached in Publique places and declar'd in a language we understand The Books shall be opened Rev. 20. 12. and the Books the Rules of Righteousness are the Law and the Gospel The one strictly requires perfect obedience the other accepts of sincere Now while our actions are tried by the Law and measured by its Righteousness our straightest Lines are crooked and uneven and our greatest services are very scant and defective The best are like the dust in the Ballance and the rest are lighter than Vanity For as Magnifying Glasses betray roughness and a ragged surface in the best polish'd Marble So this Glass of the Law discovers wrinkles and deformity in the fairest and most even vertue And while mens lives and actions are compared with this Rule all mankind is distrest and a cloud hangs upon the brow of the most religious and most innocent The Law concludes all men under sin and sin under wrath So that by this all the world is cast and were happiness to be had upon no other terms strait would be the Gate indeed and so narrow the way that none would find it And while no other Book than this is opened all the Generations of men fall prostrate before the Throne condemn'd by the Law and by themselves Nothing is to be heard but an universal groan and the suppliant cry of Mercy Mercy Lord When loe the other Book is opened and out of it is read Grace and Peace and multiplyed Pardons to all the followers of the Lamb who have believ'd in the Crucified Jesus and testified that Faith by their Repentance and sincere obedience But shame and darkness and new confusions Death Horrour and everlasting Destruction from the presence of God and of his Christ to all the stubborn rejecters of His Grace who would not have him to Rule over them nor accept of His offer'd Salvation These are the Declarations of this Book and these the measures of that Righteousness whereby we are to be judg'd As the Judge himself hath told us John 12. 48. The words that he spake the same shall Judge us in the last day And God will judge the secrets of men saith St. Paul according to my Gospel Rom. 2. So that believing Penitents that are not perfect according to the Law of Works may plead their sincerity their Faith Repentance and new obedience which is their perfection according to the Law of Pardon And this will be accepted by the Judge with a gracious Air and the sweet reviving voice of Well done ye good and faithful Servants He invites them to Him with the voice of pity and endearment and ravisheth their souls with the pleasant sound of Come ye blessed of my Father Matth. 25. 34. O the Ecstasies that are in that Sentence O the killing harmony of that voice Can a Finite spirit bear such excess The pleasures of Eternity crouded into a moment Did unfaln Angels ever know such another or can there be more transport in ten thousand Hallelujahs Certainly the boundless imagination it self cannot form an Idea of that rapture nor the Tongue of a Cherub express it The summ is The World shall be judg'd in Righteousness viz. according to a Rule and not by meer power and will A Rule not the strict and severe one of the Law but the sweet and gracious one of the Gospel whose Righteousness is Faith and sincere obedience which in the Great Day shall be accepted and gloriously rewarded 2. God will judge the World in Righteousness viz. with impartial equity To evidence this let us consider the Judge in the three great qualifications of his WISDOM JUSTICE and POWER 1. He is Wise and cannot be abused by Witnesses nor mistaken in Law cannot be imposed on by false allegations nor cozened by fair pretensions He intimately understands the Fact and the Cause and cannot be deceived by malice of enemies nor subtilty of excuses 2. He is Just 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A pure Mind without interest or affection He cannot be aw'd by
Prerogatives and dignity of humane nature Man is but a Beast of prey and his use of and dominion over the other creatures is but a proud usurpation over his equals So that this opinion degrades our natures and affronts the whole race of mankind together And 2. In the direct tendency of it it destroyes humane Societies For those cannot subsist without Laws nor Laws without some conscience of good and evil nor would this signifie to any great purpose without the belief of another world Take away this and every thing will be good that is profitable and honest that conduceth to a mans designs That would be mine that I could get by force and I had no right to any thing longer than I had strength to defend it and thus the world would be ipso facto in a state of war and fall into endless confusions and disorders So that the whole Earth would quickly be an Hell intolerable every man would be a Devil to another yea and every man to himself 3. It suppresseth mens private happiness and felicity and even the Rioters of the world have stings and torments from it If a man live in Sensuality and fulness of pleasure what a cutting thought is it to consider that in a little time he must bid adieu to this and to all felicity for ever And if his life be in trouble and discomfort how terrible is it to reflect that he must go from being miserable to be nothing How can those think of parting with their possessions and enjoyments that have nothing else to expect or how can they bear up under the burdens and vexations of this state that cannot relieve themselves by the hopes of a better With what sad pangs of sorrow should we lay our Friends into the Grave if we had cause to be assured that they were lost eternally and how could we reflect upon our own mortality if we were to look for no farther Being The pleasures of the present Life are gone in a moment and leave nothing but dregs and bitterness behind them and if there be no further delights besides these mean and fading satisfactions 't is not worth the while to live but we had better to have been nothing for ever The summ is The Sadducee vilifies Mankind destroyes the peace of Societies and the happiness of every private person and so professeth himself the common enemy of men and a Renegado to humane nature IT will not be needful for me to say much in Applying this Discourse Almost every Sermon we hear is an Application of it for here is the matter and ground of our hopes and hence are taken the great enforcements of our duty I presume there are few or none in this place but who are ready to profess their belief of a Future Life and as I premised I have not insisted on the proof to perswade You of this Article but to shew that the confidence is groundless which affirms There is no reason for the great Doctrines of Religion and to contribute somewhat towards the settlement of the weak against such temptations Now if we believe this great Truth as we say Let us do it to purpose and not content our selves with a cold and customary assent but endeavour to raise our Faith to such an height that it may have an effectual influence upon our lives The general belief that education hath infused is but a dead image in the soul that produceth nothing Let us endeavour by fervent Prayer and frequent Meditation to invigorate and excite ours to that degree that it may be a living representation of eternal things that our Faith may be the certainty and presence of the invisible world The substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen Heb. 11. That we may have such an apprehension of it as if the prospect were open and our eyes beheld it that we may fix our thoughts there and fill up our souls with the consideration of that world Such a Faith as this ought to be our aim and if we did so believe the other world what excellent what heroical what happy persons should we be in this Such a Faith would secure us from the flatteries and temptations of this sensual life and excite us to more earnest longings and more vigorous endeavours after the happiness of a better It would inable us to despise this vain world in comparison and to bear all the crosses of it with magnanimity and steadiness of mind It would quiet our solicitudes and answer the objections against providence and the present unequal distribution of good and evil It would make the most difficult services of Religion easie and pleasant to us and fill our lives with sweet hope and delights infinitely more agreeable than the most relishing sensual joys It would afford us satisfaction amid our disappointments and rest amid our anxieties and cares It would raise our designs and thoughts to things generous and noble and make us live like the Inhabitants of an Heavenly Countrey Such blessed effects as these follow this Faith here and unmeasurably unspeakably greater in the other world the vision of God and full enjoyment of His love the perfection of our natures and the compleatment of our happiness in the arms of our Redeemer and amidst the triumphant Songs of Angels and Saints in the exercise of holy love admiration and praise Things too great to be exprest or to be imagin'd For eye hath not seen nor ear heard nor hath it entred into the heart of man to conceive what God hath reserved for those that love him To Him be all Glory and humble Adoration henceforth and for ever SERMON VII THE Serious Consideration OF THE Future Iudgement The Second Edition SERMON VII ACTS XVII 31. Because he hath appointed a day in which he will judge the World in Righteousness by the man whom he hath ordained ALthough it might be well expected that the Laws of God should abundantly prevail by vertue of His Authority and their own native reason and goodness Yet such is the stupidity and perverseness of men that these alone have not usually any considerable effect upon us And therefore God who earnestly desires our Reformation and our happiness hath superadded the greatest Sanctions to enforce His Laws glorious rewards on the one hand and most terrible Penalties on the other and these to be distributed in a most solemn manner represented in such circumstances as are most apt to work upon our Hopes and Fears For He hath appointed a day Which words are part of St. Paul's Speech to the Athenians upon the occasion of their superstitions and Idolatries These in the time of Gentile ignorance God winked at vers 30. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He took no notice of those sins in comparison He was not so much offended and displeased but consider'd the general ignorance and temptations and made abatements for them As our Saviour said with reference to the Jews Joh. 15. 22. If I had not come
the Glory of God the Peace of the Church our Faith and a good life All which in some of their main branches I shall endeavour faithfully to discover and though I foresee my discourse will light on things which are very sacred with some who will be angry with every one that is not fond of their darling devices yet I shall not keep the Devils Counsel because I know they are not so much theirs as his And the more men are taken with the pretence in the greater danger are they of the mischief To begin then with the first Head proposed Satan deviseth against the Glory of God and that in these instances viz. against his Goodness his Grace his Spirit and his Worship 1. Satan designs against the Glory of Gods goodness The goodness of God is his nature and the fountain of his actions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Philosopher and God is love saith the Apostle And the most suitable apprehension we can form of God is to look on him as an Infinite Eternal and Almighty Love as that benign fountain that is continually overflowing and that glorious Sun that is always shedding abroad its beams and brightness Indeed the dry essence of God we cannot know 't is hid from our sight and our approaches in dazling glory and light inaccessible But his nature that is the Principle of his actions is his goodness and his attributes are but the several modes and variegations of Almighty Love from which they differ but as the colours of the Rain-bow do from the light of the Sun This then is the dearest and most God-like Attribute and the Divine glory is most concern'd in the honour of his goodness and against this Satan hath in these latter days especially been most subtilly and unhappily designing For perceiving that the notion of a God was so deeply prest upon the Souls of men that there was no erasing no plucking it thence He endeavours to corrupt and undermine what he could not otherwise destroy And if he cannot obtain of the world to say with the Fool There is no God he 'l attempt to perswade them to believe that God is like him or themselves and so is worse than none which he doth by instilling notions into the minds of men vastly prejudicial to the honour of his goodness and representing him as cruel merciless and tyrannical as one that hath made Myriads of excellent creatures to make them miserable for ever and who delights in triumphing over the wretched and calamitous whom meer unaccountable Will hath made so As one that hath involv'd the greatest part of his best Creation in black and dismal fates before they sin'd or had a being that do what they can will dragg them into the Regions of endless woe and pain Thus representing the God of Love under the character of the most detestable Cruelty and Injustice and making him who is a Lover of men an Almighty Cannibal and an Idol more black than the God of the barbarous Americans Which sowre and injurious apprehensions of God had never enter'd upon the minds of men by profest and open ways of opposing that goodness which shines with so clear a beam into our Souls and is writ upon every leaf of the sacred volume and external nature and therefore the cunning agent hath insinuated them by a Device pretending himself a mighty Zelot for the glory of God's absolute will power and prerogative over his Creatures which he hath strain'd and forc'd beyond all the bounds of Right Just and Good And by such representations he knows he doth no real honour to these Attributes but reflects a certain disparagement upon the divine goodness For a Will that is arbitrary and not govern'd by goodness and wisdome is meer unaccountable humour and womanish impotence and not becoming him who acts by the Council of his own will according to the Apostle yea and the Heathen Poet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And that power and prerogative that is a perfection of the divine nature is always in conjunction with the milder and sweeter attributes he cannot lye he cannot destroy him saith the Apostle He cannot act contrarily to the rules of his infinitely perfect essence And indeed to act inconsistently with the eternal laws of Right and Good is not only cruelty and injustice but impotency and weakness So that this mighty noise of the glory of Gods absolute power and prerogative in contriving and resolving the ruine of his creatures is no exaltation of any perfection in God but a sad and particular execution upon his goodness and consequently upon Religion the foundation of which is laid in Love to God which is fatally overthrown by such sowre and surly notions of him as represent him as the hater of his creatures And when such apprehensions as one hath well observ'd meet with stout and resolute tempers they do but canker them against such a Being so that first they wish he were not and then easily perswade themselves he is not Or if such opinions of God light on the more timorous and passive spirits they do but fright them into some poor sneaking forc'd and feminine devotions which are devoid of all heart and life And thus the success of the first device against the glory of the divine goodness is either Atheism or a Superstition that is near it But 2. Satan deviseth against the glory of God by disparaging his Grace which he doth by detracting from the fulness under pretence of exalting the freeness of it The Enemy of Mankind is envious at that Grace the Divine goodness affords us and denies him and because he cannot confine the bounty of Heaven or hinder the beams from descending from above he 'l endeavour to raise clouds below that shall intercept them and deprive us of their influence which he doth by suggesting narrow and diminishing apprehensions of the grace of God and representing it as an arbitrary contracted desultory thing bestowed only here and there by humoursome measures and directed by no rule but that of meer unaccountable will by which abusive representation the glory of the divine Grace which consists in its universal diffusion is clouded and eclipst and the minds of men hindred from apprehending what they enjoy and from enjoying what without such an abuse they could not but apprehend This is the design and the mischievous issue which to cover and to propagate the cunning Machinator pretends the exaltation of the freeness of that grace which he designs to dishonour and defeat He raiseth a mighty cry of Free Grace and intitles the Libellings of divine goodness by the specious name of Vindiciae gratiae He fills mens heads and mouths with Grace Grace O the freeness of Gods grace Nothing will be admitted but what comes in the Livery of grace men are pleased with the very word and tickled with that dear and agreeable sound all discourses are insipid that are not full of free grace and he will not be allow'd to know
would suffer a contradiction and become imperfect And that not only for the future but the present by introducing such passions as must needs debase and allay the highest delights So that by being thus secur'd in the possession of our happiness we receive thereby an unspeakable addition to it II. Proceed we next to shew you the Security and Evidence upon which this happiness is promis'd and asserted and whether it bear any proportion to our duty and the Rewards of it for so we are allow'd to call them though not upon the account of merit yet by reason of their necessary connexion with dependance upon and that kind such a one as 't is of proportion they bear to each other There is a two-fold evidence God Almighty has given us for the strengthning of our hope and confirming of our faith in the belief and expectation of the other World The first moral grounded upon the testimony of the Spirit the other I call natural and is grounded in the things themselves 1. The first evidence of our future bliss is the testimony of the Spirit express in the Text Yea saith the Spirit But then we must have a care of what kind of Testimony of the Spirit we understand it for understand it as 't is vulgarly taken for some act or operation wrought in and upon us besides the Enthusiasm of it fain would I be satisfy'd what validity can there be in such a testimony as it self needs something else to confirm it for so this testimony of the Spirit is to be tryed by its concordance and agreement to the word of God nor do I know any other way to distinguish it from a motion or suggestion of the Devil 's besides And though to err thus in this single instance may not be very pernicious for I am not mighty solicitous how it was wrought so there be a firm perswasion in us of this truth yet in other cases I know how dangerous it is nor is it safe in this for it leaves a passage open and unguarded to down-right Atheism By the testimony of the Spirit therefore I understand the word of God or the Scriptures as made known and prov'd to us to be deriv'd from this Divine Spirit which we may call the outward testimony thereof for though St. John knew this by the other way as most certainly all others did who received any Revelation yet never was any other than the person himself assur'd that way Nor do I make degrees of more or less certainty in the way or manner of the Spirit 's revealing a thing for the Apostles were as well assur'd of the infallibility of their doctrine before they wrought any miracles as we are by them but we were not nor could be so But this notwithstanding in respect of us we must admit of such degrees for no body I hope will be so blasphemous to equal such private dictates they have in their own breast to the divine authority of the Holy Scriptures So then I make this to be the moral evidence of future happiness God hath said it in his word And this I call a moral certainty not in opposition to divine and infallible as they are sometimes contradistinguish'd but only to natural for we can desire no greater evidence we cannot have a higher confirmation of any truth than the veracity of Heaven to attest it I do not know any proposition that carries greater self-evidence than this That God ought to be believ'd in what he says and therefore though we may question the truth of the Revelation 't is impossible to do so of any thing we acknowledge to be so revealed So that the stress of this point lyes upon that great and necessary praecognition in our Religion namely the Divine authority of the Holy Scriptures Upon which postulate if we proceed there is as great certainty of the truth of this proposition That good men shall enjoy eternal happiness after this life as if we should again hear that Daughter of voice and God himself should sensibly attest it 2. But there is another ground or evidence of our future happiness which I call natural because it depends upon that Intrinsick Relation and consent there is between goodness and it the difference between them being only in degree like the dawning of the Morning to the lustre of the Noon For what is it to be happy but to be united to God and what does unite us to God but Love and what is the love of God but Religion And if you remove but all inward imperfections and all outward impediments there remains no difference at all So that Virtue and Piety do not only dispose and prepare us for Heaven and Salvation but we thereby receive and experience the very beginnings and anticipations of it And though in respect of the mutability of our will and affections toward God and goodness in this world we cannot be infallibly assur'd of it as to our own particulars because every alteration in the one produceth a like answerable effect as to the other Yet in the general we may even from hence be very well assur'd hereof because there is nothing more requir'd to the compleating of our essential happiness than an advance and progression in the same vertuous tract And however it looks in a Divine if we will speak rationally to the thing we must allow the love and hatred of God to be the true natural causes of our salvation and damnation even of their very eternity it being naturally impossible to be other than happy while we love God and contrariwise if we hate him and this is the only instant cause of its continuation through all the durations of Eternity And to remove your astonishment see how in this lower world many stupendous and admirable works are daily produc'd which were mean and unnoted while they lay hid and contain'd in the seminal beginnings after the same wonderful manner by divers minute gradations does this divine Creature grow up from its first formation in our trembling and unstable desires to the stature and perfection of Everlasting Glory And yet there remains less doubt if we take in the Consideration of the Divine nature How else will you vindicate the Justice of God in all the odd and confused occurrences of this World Where 's your infinite goodness and bounty that suffers its servants always to be neglected what will become of an almighty and omniscient Justice if sinners are never call'd to an accompt Or one or t'other cannot be III. 'T is true indeed the compleating of this bliss which brings us to our next head is neither promis'd nor to be had in this life 'T is at Death these rewards become due and payable Dicique beatus Ante obitum nemo supremáque funera possit It has been the constant method of Divine providence to cause the most excellent things to follow and arise from the most uncouth and unlikely Thus in the Creation order springs from confusion and