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
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
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-love 't is not for Christ's sake but our own To Love like Christians is to Love his Image
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
the Formality and Superstition of Separatists that keeps on the Separation They contend for fancies and arbitrary trifles We for order and obedience The people are abused by names and being frighted by the shadows of Superstition and Formality they run into the worst Formality and silliest Superstition in the World The Kingdom of Heaven consists not in meats and drinks Rom. 14. 17. neither in Circumcision nor Uncircumcision 1 Cor. 7. 19. not in zeal for little things nor in zeal against them both the one and the other are equally formal The power of Religion lies in using Divine aids heartily and constantly in order to the overcoming the Difficulties of our way This Godliness is not exercised so much in reforming others as our selves The chief design is to govern within and not to make Laws for the World without us This is that Wisdom that is from above which is pure and peaceable Jam. 3. 17. It makes no noise and bluster abroad but quietly minds its own business at home So that certainly the best men have not always had the greatest fame for Godliness as the wisest have very seldom been the most popular They are the effects of the Animal Religion that make the biggest shew The voice of true Religion is heard in quiet it sounds not in the corners of the street The power of Godliness is seen in Justice Meekness Humility and Charity things that look not so splendidly as the Spiritual Forms And thus of the Inferences and Corollaries that may be drawn from my Discourse which though they cannot all be inferred from any of its minute and separated parts yet they lie in the design and contexture of the whole I Come now to the Advice for Practice The way of Happiness is difficult but the difficulties may be overcome by striving A little will not do many seekers are shut out what remains then but that we perswade our selves to strive and that diligently with constant resolution and endeavour We were made for Happiness and Happiness all the World seeks who will shew us any good Psal 4. 6. is the voice of all the Creatures We have sought it long in emptiness and shadows and that search hath still ended in shame and disappointment Where true substantial Felicity is we know and the Way we know Joh. 14. 4. It is not hid from us in Clouds and thick Darkness or if it were 't were worth our pains to search after it It is not at so great a distance but it may be seen yea it may be brought so near as to be felt Though the way is strait yet 't is certain or if it were otherwise who would not venture his pains upon the possibility of such an issue Many difficulties are in it but our Encouragements and Assistances are infinite The love of God and the gift of his son the blood of Christ and his intercession the aids of the Spirit and the directions of the Gospel the Invitations and Promises the rare Precepts and incomparable Examples of those holy men that have gone before us These are mighty helps and great motives to assist us in striving and to quicken us to it Let us then arise in the strength of Faith and in the encouragement of those aids and attempt with courage upon the Difficulties of our way Let us ingage our deepest Resolutions and most diligent endeavours Here is no need to deliberate the things are necessary the benefits unspeakable and the event will be glorious It is no Question I hope whether God or the Creature is to be first chosen whether Heaven or Hell be better and therefore there is no cause that we should stay and consider we cannot be rash here we cannot hurt our selves by a too sudden ingagement we have delayed too long already and every moment we sit still is one loss to our Duty and our Happiness Let us resolve then and begin with courage and proceed with diligence 't is our End and Felicity for which we are to strive and every thing is active for its End and Perfection All Creatures are diligent in serving the Designs of Providence the Heavens are in restless motion and the Clouds are still carrying about their fruitful Waters the sluggish Earth it self is always putting forth in variety of Trees and Grass and Flowers the Rivers run towards the Sea the Brooks move towards them and the Sea within it self Thus all things even in inanimate Nature may mind us of acting towards our end And if we look a little higher the Beasts of the Field the Fowls and Cattel and creeping things are diligent in striving after the good and perfection of their Natures and Solomon sends the Sluggard to those little Insects the Ant and Bee to teach him activity and diligence Prov. 6. 6. And shall the Beasts act more reasonably than the professed Sons of Reason May it not shame us that we need Instruction from the Creatures that have no understanding With what face can we carry our heads so high and look down with contempt upon inferiour Animals when they live more wisely and more regularly than we The Sum is All things are incessantly moving towards an End and Happiness is ours which therefore should ingage our most careful Thoughts and most active Endeavours We are sollicitous and diligent about things of infinitely less moment and in effect of none viz. uncertain Riches sensual Pleasures and worldly Honours though the way to these is sufficiently difficult and uneasie yet we are not discouraged we attempt all those Difficulties with an obstinate Courage though without promise of any equal assistance or assurance of success We are often defeated in our pursuits and yet we go on We are overmaster'd by cross events and yet we try again We miss our happiness when we have attain'd our end and yet we are as active in courting disappointment another time either we attain not the things we seek or find no true satisfaction in them or they die in our hands presently and yet we strive And doth not this activity about uncertain unsatisfying Trifles shamefully reprove our Negligence in reference to our great End Happiness and Perfection In striving for which we have all the powers of Heaven to aid us and the Word of God and the Blood of his Son and the experience of all that ever try'd to assure us that we shall neither fail of the things we seek nor of the pleasure that we expect from them And why then do we lazily sit down and with the Sluggard say There is a Lion in the way while we despise greater discouragements when vain things are to be sought The Merchant doth not give off because there are Storms and the numerous Dangers of the Deep to be met with in his way to the Indies nor the Souldier lay by his Arms because of the hazards and toils of War And do we act courageously for petty purchases and faint and despond when we are to strive for Crowns and
of Imagination and proudly look'd down upon the modest and humble Believer who were full of mysterie and rapture scorn and talk but void of justice modesty and love These we have reason to think shall then be cast out and receive their portion with the Pharisee to the shame and disappointment of their confidence and their hopes In this Day shall the Errours and the follies that were recommended to the deceiv'd embraces of the Sons of men by frauds and Art paint and meretricious bravery be expos'd in their naked Deformities to the sight and contempt of all the world And that Truth and those Vertues that were persecuted into Corners and cover'd with dust and shame torn piece-meal by wrath and ignorance and scatter'd up and down in the Tents of Errour shall then be brought into the Light and cleansed from all debasing mixtures and represented in their native loveliness and beauty that they may receive the praises and acclamations of their ancient friends and acquaintance Yea and the acknowledgements of their now blushing and confounded enemies Upon the whole we see That the Faith of a Future Judgement is not misbecoming the severest Sons of Reason and Philosophy but is infinitely agreeable to the faculties of men and the Analogy of things I Come now to the SECOND main thing in the Text II. The Universality of the Subject to be judged the World so it is here And the Scripture elsewhere expresseth it in very general terms The secrets of men Rom. 2. 16. Every man Rev. 20. 13. The Dead small and great Rev. 20. 12. The quick and the dead 1 Pet. 4. 5. Now I shall consider the Universality of the Subject of Judgement in two great solemnities of it viz. The General Summons and the General Resurrection that follows both mentioned together 1 Cor. 15. 52. The trumpet shall sound and the Dead shall be raised 1. The Trumpet either some divine universal vertue or the voice of some mighty Angel crying Arise ye Dead and come to Judgement Methinks I hear that voice 't is full of Majesty and terrour 't is more loud than Fame and more general than the Light of Heaven 'T is heard at both the Poles in the Earth and Sea and Air and all Deep places Attend Attend Ye Sons of Adam Ye that are afar off and ye that are near Ye that begun with the Infant World and ye that liv'd in its latest Periods Ye that freeze under the uncomfortable North and ye that are hid under the remotest South Ye that dwell in the temperate Regions and ye that are scorch'd with the heats of the Line Ye that only cry'd and ceas'd to breathe and ye that went slowly and late to the Grave Ye that are yet alive and ye that have been Ages under ground Hearken Hearken to the Proclamation of the great King the Prince of Glory the Judge of Angels and Men The Day the Day of vengeance and recompence is come the Day of Terrours and of Triumphs The night is past Arise ye dead cease sleeping in the Grave Put on our bodies gather up your scatter'd parts summon your thoughts together and make up your Accounts The Tribunal is set the Judge is coming And ye living Inhabitants lay by your designs let fall your Traffique quit your pleasures and pursuits the time for these is done for ever done Eternity is in view Trim your Lamps the Bridegroom is at the door 2. And now the General Resurrection follows Behold the closest Vaults throw away their coverings and disclose the proud Families that lay hid in that stately darkness See how the loose Earth moves about the Cloysters of the Dead and the Grave opens all its doors to enlarge its Prisoners And lo a numerous people riseth from under ground to attend the great Assize of Angels and men They arise but are not yet alive Death sits upon their faces clad in dread and paleness They lose that motion with astonishment which they gained with their restored parts and are ready to be shaken into their former dust by the fear that hath seized their unsettled joynts They wonder at the Light and at themselves and are ready to drop back into the Graves from which they just peep'd out See here the mighty sits trembling by his Monument unconcern'd at the vain Epithets it gave to his flatter'd Memory and the delicate sighs with his first breath willing to return to darkness rottenness and worms rather than to the light that will discover the guilt and the follies of a Life of vanity and sin The Hypocrite droops to consider that his painting and his shame are to be brought out of the night and silence of the Grave into a naked and open day and the vitious dies again to think That he hath taken up his body from one Death to carry it to another and a worse Thus the world of the wicked shall all appear and all be concern'd in the Judgement that follows The Righteous shall rise also They awake with vigour in their souls and life in their eyes with gayety in their looks and transports in all their powers Their new warm'd blood moves pleasantly in its ancient chanels and the restored spirits dance in the renewed veins They are glad to meet the old companion of their pleasures and their miseries rejoycing at its rescue from the infamous dishonours of corruption and that 't is ready to pass with them into the promised and long expected Glories These are the First-fruits and the full Crop is near and their joy is beyond the joy of Harvest and we must leave the degree to be imagin'd that cannot be exprest And thus the universal World both of the wicked and the righteous shall appear on the Solemn Summons The Earth and Air and Sea and Death and Hell shall give up their Dead Rev. 20. 13. And so Adam and the Patriarchs and all the Ancient Sages with their Sons and Nephews to the latest Posterity shall stand up together before the Judgement Seat for all are subjects of the same general Empire and all are accountable for their Actions to the same Soveraign Judge And He is the Man whom God hath ordain'd to judge the world in Righteousness And this is the next thing in the Text to be consider'd viz. III. The person appointed The Man whom he hath ordain'd And this is the Man Christ Jesus even the Man who being in the form of God thought it no robberry to be equal with God Phil. 2. 6. The same is He who is ordain'd of God to be the Judge of the quick and the dead Act. 10. 42. And now under this Head I shall shew how fit he is as man for this great and solemn office in these two particulars 1. He is fit to be the General Judge as Man because he descended to the meanness of our condition 'T is but just that He who laid by his ancient Glory and cloath'd himself in the Livery of guilt and shame should re-assume
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