getting out of the way a not daring to meet or approach or accept of Christ when he is offered them the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among the Physicians a contraction of the soul a shriveling of it up a sudden correption and depression of the mind such as the sight of some hideous danger is wont to produce so 2 Mac. vi 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. to be discouraged and to forsake the Jewish Religion because of the calamities So is the word used of Peter Gal. ii 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. He withdrew and separated himself fearing those that were of the Circumcision The Infidel I say draws back withdraws and sneaks out of the way as if he were afraid of the mercies of his Saviour as if it were death to him to be so near salvation as if Christ coming to him with the mercies of the Gospel were the mortal'st enemy under Heaven and there were no such mischief to be done him as his conversion This indeed is an aversion in the highest degree when we fly and draw back from God when he comes to save us when the sight of a Saviour makes us take our heels Adam might well hide himself when God came to challenge him about his disobedience the guilty conscience being afraid of revenge may well slink out of his presence with Cain Gen. iiii 16. But to tremble and quake at a proclamation of mercy when God draws with cords of a man Hos xi 4. a powerful phrase exprest in the next words with the bands of love when he loveth us and calls his Son out for us v. 1. then to be bent to backsliding in the 7. v. to draw back when he comes to embrace this is a stubbornness and contraction of the soul a crouching of it in a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that neither nature nor reason would be guilty of an aversion from God which no other sin can parallel and therefore of all other most intolerable in the first place 2. Infidelity gives God the lye and denies whatever God proclaims in the Gospel The reason or ground of any ones belief the object am for male quo that by assenting to which I come to believe is Gods Veracity the Confidence that God speaks true the relying on his word is that which brings me to lay hold on Christ and therefore the Infidel is down-right with God he will not take his word he 'l never be perswaded that these benefits of Christs death that are offered to all men can ever do him any good Let God call him to accept them he 'l never come his surly resolute carriage is in effect a contradicting of whatever God hath affirmed a direct thwarting a giving the lye to God and his Evangelists and this is an aggravation not to be mentioned without reverence or horror the most odious affront in the World the Lord be merciful to us in this matter Next this sin is a sin of the most dangerous consequences of any 1. It produces all other sins and that positively by doubting of his justice and so falling into adulteries blasphemies and the like in security and hope of impunity by distrusting of his providence and mercy and so flying to Covetousness murmuring tempting subtlety all arts and stratagems of getting for our temporal estate and ordinary despair in our spiritual then privatively depriving us of that which is the mother and soul of our obedience and good Works I mean faith so that every thing for want of it is turned into sin and thereby depopulating the whole man making him nothing in the World but ruins and noysomness a confluence of all manner of sins without any concomitant degree of duty or obedience 2. It frustrates all good Exhortations and forbids all manner of superstructions which the Ministers are wont to labour for in moving us to charity and obedience and joy and hope and prayer by not having laid any foundation whereon these must be built any of these set or planted in any Infidel heart will soon wither they must have a stock of faith whereon to be grafted or else they are never likely to thrive As Galba's Wit was a good one but 't was unluckily placed ill-seated there was no good to be wrought by it The proudest of our works or merits the perfectest morality will stand but very weakly unless it be sounded on that foundation whose corner stone is Christ Jesus 3. It leaves no place in the world for remedy he that is an Idolater a Sabbath-breaker or the like he that is arraigned at the law and found guilty at that Tribunal hath yet an Aavocate in the Gospel a higher power to whom he may appeal to mitigate his sentence but he that hath sinned against the Gospel hath no farther to go he hath sinn'd against that which should have remitted all other sins and now he is come to an unremediable estate to a kind of hell or the grave of sin from whence there is no recovery There 's not a mercy to be fetch'd in the world but out of the Gospel and he that hath refused them is past any farther treaty He that believeth not is condemned already Joh. iii. 18. his damnation is sealed to him and the entail past cutting off 't is his purchase and now wants nothing but livery and seizin nay 't is his patrimony 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ecclus. XX. 28. he is as sure of it as of any peny-worth of his inheritance And the reason is implyed 1 Cor. XV. 17. If Christ be not risen you are yet in your sins there is no way to get out of our sins but Christs resurrection and he that believeth not Christ is not risen to him 't were all one to him if there had never been a Saviour and therefore he remains in his old thraldom he was taken captive in Adam and hath never since had any other means to restore him the ransom that was offered all he would none of and so he sticks unredeemed he is yet in his sins and so for ever like to continue And now he is come to this state 't were superfluous farther to aggravate the sin against him his case is too wretched to be upbraided him the rest of our time shall be imployed in providing a remedy for him if it be possible and that must be from consideration of the disease in a word and close of application The sin being thus displayed to you with its consequencies O what a spirit should it raise in us O what a resolution and expression of our manhood to resist and banish out of us this evil heart of unbelief Heb. iii. 12. what an hatred should it work in our bowels what a reluctancy what an indignation what a revenge against the fruit of our bosom which hath so long grown and thrived within us only to our destruction which is provided as it were to eat
advantagious pursuits in this Errour of our ways as the Wise man calls it is sure a most prodigious mistake a most unfortunate errour and to have been guilty of it more than once the most unpardonable simplicity From our loves proceeding to our hopes which if it be any but the Christian hope than this hope on him 1 Joh. iii. 3. i. e. hope on God and that joyned with purifying it is in plain terms the greatest contrariety to it self the perfectest desperateness and for secular hopes the expectation of good of advantages from this or that staff of Egypt the depending on this whether prophane or but ordinary innocent auxiliary 't is the forfeiting all our pretensions to that great aid of Heaven as they say the Loadstone draweth not when the Adamant is near 't is the taking us off from our grand trust and dependance setting us up independent from God and that must needs be the blasting of all our enterprises that even lawful aid of the Creature if it be looked on with any confidence as our helper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. i. beside or in separation from the Creator is and God is engaged in honour that it should be struck presently from Heaven eaten up with worms like Herod when once its good qualities are deified broken to pieces with the brazen Serpent burnt and stampt to powder with the golden Calf and the strong shall be as tow Isa i. 31. the fals Idol strength is but a prize for a flash of lightning to prey on And as St. Paul and Barnabas are fain to run in a passion upon the multitude that meant to do them Worship with a Men and Brethren c. and the very Angel to St. John in Rev. xxii when he fell down before him vide ne feceris see thou do it not for fear if he had been so mistaken by him he might have forfeited his Angelical estate by that unluckiness so certainly the most honourable promising earthly help if it be once looked on with a confidence or an adoration if it steal off our eyes and hearts one minute from that sole waiting and looking on God 't is presently to expect a being thunder-struck from Heaven as hath been most constantly visible among us and that is all we get by this piece of simplicity also And it were well when our worldly hopes have proved thus little to our advantage our worldly fears in the next place might bring us in more profit But alas that passionate perturbation of our faculties stands us in no stead but to hasten and bring our fears upon us by precipitating them sometimes casting our selves into that abyss which we look on with such horror running out to meet that danger which we would avoid so vehemently sometimes dispiriting and depriving us of all those succours which were present to our rescue the passion most treacherosly betraying the aids which reason if it had been allowed admission was ready to have offered but perpetually anticipating that misery which is the thing we fear the terror it self being greater disease sometimes constantly a greater reproach and contumely to a Masculine Spirit than any of the evils we are so industrious to avoid 'T is not a matter of any kind of evil report really to have suffered to have been squeez'd to atomes by an unremediable evil especially if it be for well-doing but to have been sick of the fright to have lavish'd our constancy courage conscience and all an Indian sacrifice to a Sprite or Mormo ne noceat to escape not a real evil but only an apprehension or terror this is a piece of the most destructive wariness the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the greatest simplicity that can be I shall not enlarge the prospect any further as easily I might to our Unchristian Joyes that do so dissolve our Unchristian Sorrows that do so contract and shrivel up the Soul and then as Themison and his old sect of Methodists resolv'd that the laxum and strictum the immoderate dissolution or constipation were the principles and originals of all diseases in the World so it will be likely to prove in our spiritual estate also nor again to our heathenish 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rejoycing at the Mischiefs of other men which directly transform us into fiends and furies and reak no malice on any but our selves leave us a wasted wounded prostitute harrast Conscience to tire and gnaw upon its own bowels and nothing else I have exercised you too long with so trivial a subject such an easie every days demonstration the wicked mans contradictions to all his aims his acting quite contrary to his very designs a second branch of his Character a second degree and advancement of his simplicity The Third notion of Simplicity is that of the Idiot the Natural as we call him he that hath some eminent failing in his intellectuals the laesum principium the pitcher or wheel in that 12. of Ecclesiastes I mean the faculty of understanding or reason broken or wounded at the fountain or cistern and so nothing but animal sensitive actions to be had from him And of this kind of imperfect Creatures it will be perhaps worth your marking that the principal faculty which is irrecoverably wanting in such and by all teaching irreparable unimproveable is the power of numbring I mean not that of saying numbers by rote for that is but an act of sensitive memory but that of applying them to matter from thence that of intellectual numbring i. e. of comparing and measuring judging of proportions pondering weighing discerning the differences of things by the power of the judicative faculty which two seem much more probably the propriety and difference of a man from a beast than that which the Philosophers have fancied the power of laughing or discoursing To reckon and compute is that which in men of an active clear reason is perpetually in exercising per modum actus eliciti that naturally of its own accord without any command or appointment of the will pours it self out upon every object We shall oft deprehend our selves numbring the panes in the Window the sheep in the Field measuring every thing we come near with the eye with the hand singing Tunes forming everything into some kind of metre which are branchesstill of that faculty of numbring when we have no kind of end or design in doing it And this is of all things in the world the most impossible for a meer Natural or Idiot And so you have here the third and that is the prime most remarkable degree of simplicity that the Unchristian fool the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whether you render it the animal or natural man is guilty of that pitious laesum principium that want of the faculty of weighing pondering or numbring that weakness or no kind of exercise of the judicative faculty from whence all his simplicity and impiety proceeds The Hebrews have a word to signifie a wise man which
Aristotles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A man ought to have indignation at some persons may seem to justifie it Our Saviour calls not for any such stern passion or indeed any but love and bowels of pity and charity toward the person of any the most enormous sinner and S. Paul only for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the restoring setting him in joynt again that is thus overtaken in any fault but Indignation I say at the sin at the simplicity and the folly that refuse reproachful Creature that hath the fate to be beloved so passionately and so long And to this will Aristotles season of indignation belong the seeing favors and kindness so unworthily dispenced the upstarts saith he and new men advanced and gotten into the greatest dignities knowledge to be profestly hated and under that title all the prime i. e. Practical Wisdom and Piety and simplicity i. e. folly and madness and sin to have our whole souls laid out upon it O let this shrill Sarcasm of Wisdoms the How long ye simple ones be for ever a sounding in our ears Let this indignation at our stupid ways of sin transplant it self to that soyl where it is likely to thrive and fructifie best I mean to that of our own instead of other mens breasts where it will appear gloriously in S. Pauls inventory a prime part of that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the durable unretracted repentance an effect of that godly sorrow that worketh to Salvation And if it be sincere O what indignation it produceth in us What displeasure and rage at our folly to think how senselesly we have moulted and crumbled away our souls what unthristy bargains we have made what sots and fools we shall appear to Hell when it shall be known to the wretched tormented Creatures what ambitions we had to be but as miserable as they upon what Gotham arrants what Wild-goose chases we are come posting and wearied thither O that a little of this consideration and this passion betimes might ease us of that endless wo and indignation those tears and gnashing of teeth quit us of that sad arrear of horrors that otherwise waits behind for us Lord do thou give us that view of our ways the errors the follies the furies of our extravagant Atheistical lives that may by the very reproach and shame recover and return us to thee Make our faces ashamed O Lord that we may seek thy Law Give us that pity and that indignation to our poor perishing souls that may at length awake and fright us out of our Lethargies and bring us as so many confounded humbled contrite penitentiaries to that beautiful gate of thy temple of mercies where we may retract our follies implore thy pardon deprecate thy wrath and for thy deliverance from so deep an Hell from so infamous a vile condition from so numerous a tale of deaths never leave praising thee and saying Holy holy holy Lord God of Hosts Heaven and Earth are full of thy glory Glory be to thee O God most high To whom with the Son and the Holy Ghost be ascribed c. The IV. Sermon MAT. I. 23. Emmanuel which is by interpretation God with us THe different measure and means of dispensing Divine Knowledge to several ages of the World may sufficiently appear by the Gospels of the New and Prophecies of the Old Testament the sunshine and the clearness of the one and the twilight and dimness of the other but in no point this more importantly concerns us than the Incarnation of Christ This hath been the Study and Theme the Speculation and Sermon of all holy Men and Writers since Adam's Fall yet never plainly disclosed till John Baptist in the third of Matth. and the third Verse and the Angel in the next verses before my Text undertook the Task and then indeed was it fully performed then were the Writings or rather the Riddles of the obscure stammering whispering Prophets turned into the voice of One crying in the Wilderness Prepare ye the wayes of the Lord c. Isa xl 3. Then did the cry yea shouting of the Baptist at once both interpret and perform what it prophecyed At the sound of it Every valley was exalted and every hill was brought low the crooked was made straight and the rough places plain v. 4. That is the Hill and Groves of the Prophets were levell'd into the open champain of the Gospel those impediments which hindred Gods approach unto mens rebel hearts were carefully removed the abject mind was lifted up the exalted was deprest the intractable and rough was render'd plain and even in the same manner as a way was made unto the Roman Army marching against Jerusalem This I thought profitable to be premised to you both that you might understand the affinity of Prophecies and Gospel as differing not in substance but only in clearness of revelation as the glorious face of the Sun from it self being overcast and mask'd with a cloud and also for the clearing of my Text For this entire passage of Scripture of which these words are a close is the Angels message or Gospel unto Joseph and set down by S. Matthew as both the interpretation and accomplishment of a Prophecy delivered long ago by Isaiah but perhaps not at all understood by the Jews to wit That a Virgin should conceive and bear a Son and they should call his name Emmanuel Where first we must examine the seeming difference in the point of Christs Name betwixt the place here cited from Isaiah and the words here vouched of the Angel V. 21. and proved by the effect V. 25. For the Prophet says he shall be called Emmanuel but the Angel commands he should be and the Gospel records he was named Jesus And here we must resume and enlarge the ground premised in our Preface that Prophecies being not Histories but rude imperfect draughts of things to come do not exactly express and delineate but only shadow and covertly vail those things which only the Spirit of God and the event must interpret So that in the Gospel we construe the words but in Prophecies the sence i. e. we expect not the performance of every Circumstance exprest in the words of a Prophecy but we acknowledge another sence beyond the literal and in the comparing of Isaiah with St. Matthew we exact not the same expressions provided we find the same substance and the same significancy So then the Prophets and call his name Emmanuel is not as humane Covenants are to be fulfill'd in the rigour of the Letter that he should be so named at his Circumcision but in the agreement of sence that this name should express his nature that he was indeed God with us and that at the Circumcision he should receive a name of the same power and significancy Whence the observation by the way is that Emmanuel in effect signifies Jesus God with us a Saviour and from thence the point of Doctrine that Gods coming
as it were the Midwife of the Old Testament to open its Womb and bring the Messias into the World Howsoever at the least it is plain that the Old Testament brought him to his birth though it had not strength to bring forth and the Prophets as Moses from Mount Nebo came to a view of this Land of Canaan For the very first words of the New Testament being as it it were to fill up what only was wanting in the Old are the Book and History of his generations and birth Matth. i. You would yet be better able to prize the excellency of this Work and reach the pitch of this days rejoycing if you would learn how the very Heathen flutter'd about this light what shift they made to get some inkling of this Incarnation before-hand how the Sibyls Heathen Women and Virgil and other Heathen Poets in their writings before Christ's time let fall many passages which plainly referred and belonged to this Incarnation of God It is fine sport to see in our Authors how the Devil with his famous Oracles and Prophets foreseeing by his skill in the Scripture that Christ was near his birth did droop upon it and hang the wing did sensibly decay in his courage began to breath thick and speak imperfectly and sometimes as men in the extremity of a Feaver distractedly wildly without any coherence and scarce sense and how at last about the birth of Christ he plainly gave up the ghost and left his Oracular Prophets as speechless as the Caves they dwelt in their last voice being that their gread god Pan i. e. The Devil was dead and so both his Kingdom and their Prophecies at an end as if Christ's coming had chased Lucifer out of the World and the powers of Hell were buried that minute when a Saviour was born And now by way of Use Can ye see the Devil put out of heart and ye not put forward to get the Field can you delay to make use of such an advantage as this can ye be so cruel to your selves as to shew any mercy on that now disarmed enemy will ye see God send his Son down into the Field to enter the Lists and lead up a Forlorn Troop against the Prince of this World and ye not follow at his Alarm will ye not accept of a conquest which Christ so lovingly offers you It is a most terrible exprobration in Hosea Chap. xi 3. look on it where God objects to Ephraim her not taking notice of his mercies her not seconding and making use of his loving deliverances which plainly adumbrates this deliverance by Christ's death as may appear by the first verse of the Chapter compared with the second of Mat. 14. Well saith God I taught Ephraim to go taking them by their arms but they knew not that I healed them I drew them with the cords of a man an admirable phrase with all those means that use to oblige one man to another with bands of love c. i. e. I used all means for the sustaining and strengthening of my people I put them in a course to be able to go and fight and overcome all the powers of darkness and put off the Devils yoke I sent my son amongst them for this purpose Vers 1. And all this I did by way of love as one friend is wont to do for another and yet they would not take notice of either the benefit or the donor nor think themselves beholding to me for this mercy And this is our case beloved If we do not second these and the like mercies of God bestowed on us if we do not improve them to our Souls health if we do not fasten on this Christ incarnate if we do not follow him with an expression of gratitude and reverence and stick close to him as both our Friend and Captain Finally if we do not endeavor and pray that this his incarnation may be seconded with an other that as once he was born in our flesh to justifie us so he may be also born spiritually in our Souls to sanctifie us For there is a spiritual 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Mystical incarnation of Christ in every regenerate man where the Soul of Man is the Womb wherein Christ is conceived by the Holy Ghost The proof of which Doctrine shall entertain the remainder of this hour For this is the Emmanuel that most nearly concerns us God with us i. e. With our spirits or Christ begotten and brought forth in our hearts Of which briefly And that Christ is thus born in a regenerate mans soul if it were denied might directly appear by these two places of Scripture Gal. ii 20. I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me Again Ephes iii. 17. That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith c. Now that you may understand this Spiritual Incarnation of Christ the better we will compare it with his Real Incarnation in the Womb of the Virgin that so we may keep close to the business of the day and at once observe both his birth to the World and ours to Grace and so even possess Christ whilst we speak of him And first if we look on his Mother Mary we shall find her an entire pure Virgin only espoused to Joseph but before they came together she was found with child of the Holy Ghost Matth. i. 18. And then the Soul of Man must be this Virgin Now there is a threefold Purity or Virginity of the Soul First An absolute one such as was found in Adam before his fall Secondly A respective of a Soul which like Mary hath not yet joyned or committed with the World to whom it is espoused which though it have its part of natural corruptions yet either for want of ability of age or occasion hath not yet broke forth into the common outrages of sin Thirdly A restored purity of a Soul formerly polluted but now cleansed by repentance The former kind of natural and absolute purity as it were to be wished for so is it not to be hoped and therefore is not to be imagined in the Virgin Mother or expected in the Virgin Soul The second purity we find in all regenerate infants who are at the same time outwardly initiated to the Church and inwardly to Christ or in those whom God hath called before they have engaged themselves in the courses of Actual heinous sins such are well disposed well brought up and to use our Saviours words Have so lived as not to be far from the Kingdom of God Such happily as Cornelius Acts x. 1. and such a Soul as this is the fittest Womb in which our Saviour delights to be incarnate where he may enter and dwell without either resistance or annoyance where he shall be received at the first knock and never be disordered or repulsed by any stench of the carcass or violence of the Body of sin The restared purity is a right Spirit renewed in the Soul
tumbling as in a praecipice violently to Hell like the swine which formerly our Wills were resembled to Luk. viii 33. running full speed down a steep place into the Lake And these are like to prove the parts of my ensuing discourse First Gods willingness that we should be saved Secondly Mans wilfulness toward his own damnation And of these plainly to your hearts not your ears not so much to advance your knowledg which though it could be raised to the tallest pitch might yet possibly bear thee company to Hell but rather to encrease your zeal to work someone good inclination in you to perswade you to be content to suffer your selves to be saved to be but so tame as to be taken by Heaven that now even besieges you And with my affectionate Prayers for success to this design I will presume of your ears and patience and begin first with the first God's Willingness that we should live Why will ye die Amongst all other prejudices and mis-conceits that our phansie can entertain of God I conceive not any so frequent or injurious to his Attributes as to imagine him to deal double with Mankind in his Word seriously to will one thing and to make shew of another to deliver himself in one phrase and reserve himself in another It were an unnecessary officious undertaking to go about to be God's Advocate to apologize for him to vindicate his actions or in Job's phrase to accept the person of God Our proceedings will be more Christian if we take for a ground or principle that scorns to be beholding to an Artist for a proof that every word of God is an argument of his Will every action an interpreter of his Word So that howsoever he reveals himself either in his Scripture or his Works so certainly he wisheth and intends to us in his secret Counsels Every protestation of his love every indignation at our stubbornness every mercy confer'd on us and that not insidiously but with an intent to do us good are but wayes and methods to express his Will are but rays and emissions and gleams of that eternal Love which he exhibits to the World Now there is no way to demonstrate this willingness of God that we should live à priori or by anything either in God or us preexistent as the cause of it unless it be his love which yet is rather its genus than its cause somewhat of larger extent though otherwise coincident with it The more vulgar powerful convincing way is to enforce it to your hearts by its effects and those divers and familiar some few of which we will insist on And first and principally The sending of his Son 1 Joh. iv 9. In this was manifest the love of God toward us because that God sent his only begotten Son into the World that we might live through him Mark God's love to us in sending his Son that we might live through him His love the cause of his Mission this Mission the manifestation and argument of that love and that we live the end of both Had God been any way enclined to rigor or severity there had needed no great skill no artificial contrivance for a fair plausible execution of it It had been but passing us by the taking no notice of us the leaving of us in our blood Ezek. xvi and then Hell had presently opened its mouth upon us We were all cast out in the open field to the loathing of our persons in the day that we were born Ezek. xvi 5. ready for all the Vultures infernal to fix on that hideous Old Testament 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eccles xiv 12. The Testament of Hell or in the mercifullest construction the Covenant of Grace had passed on us naturally then what infidelity now makes us condemned already our damnation seal'd to us with our life born to no other inheritance but Hell as if the Devil had out of policy faln before Adam or rather descended and that in post like lightning Luk. x. 18. left if his journey from Heaven had been to have been performed after some other Creature should have intercepted him of his prey But God's Bowels were enlarged above the size wider than either the covetous gates of Hell or that horrid yawning head that is all mouth 'T was not within the Devil's skill to fear or suspect what a way of mercy and deliverance God had found out for us Somewhat he understood by the event the decay of his Prophetick Arts becoming now his Oracle and even his silence growing vocal to him But all this could not declare the Mystery at large when Christ was born he would have been rid of him betimes musters all his forces Pharisees and People Herods and Pilots Rome and Jerusalem and all the friends he had in the World to make away with him and yet when he was just come to the push to the consummation of his plot he was afraid to act it as in the Epistle ascribed to Ignatius the Martyr and directed to the Philippians 't is observed that whilst he was at a pretty distance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Devil hastned the structure of Christs Cross as much as he could set Judas and all the Artificers of Hell about the Work 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but when all was even ready Christ for the Cross and the Cross for Christ then he began to put in demurs shews Judas an Halter frights Pilate's Wife in a dream she could not sleep in quiet for him and in sum uses all means possible to prevent Christs Crucifixion Yet this saith Ignatius not out of any repentance or regret of Conscience but only being started with the foresight of his own ruine by this means Christ's suffering being in effect the destruction of his Kingdom his death our Triumph over Hell and his Cross our Trophy By this you may discern what a Miracle of God's love was this giving of his Son the conceiving of which was above the Devil's reach and wherein he was providentially engaged and if we may so speak 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 carried blindfold by God to be an Instrument of his own ruine and in a kind be a Co-worker of our Salvation Not to enlarge or expatiate upon Circumstances Man being thus involved in a necessity of damnation no remedy within the sphere either of his power or conceit left to rescue him nay as some have been so bold to say that God himself had no other means besides this in his Store-house of Miracles to save us without intrenching on some one of his Attributes for God then to find out a course that we could never prompt him to being sollicited to it by nothing in us but our sins and misery and without any interposition any further consultation or demur to part with a piece of himself to redeem us Brachium Domini The Arm of the Lord as Isaiah calls our Saviour Isa liii Nay to send down his very Bowels
amongst us to witness his compassion to satisfie for us by his own death and attach himself for our liberty to undergo such hard conditions rather than be forced to a cheap severity and that he might appear to love his Enemies to hate his Son In brief to fulfil the Work without any aid required from us and make Salvation ready to our hands as Manna is called in the sixth of Wisdom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bread baked and sent down ready from Heaven Wisd xvi 20. to drop it in our mouths and exact nothing of us but to accept of it this is an act of love and singleness that all the malice we carry about us knows not how to suspect so far from possibility of a treacherous intent or double dealing that if I were an Heathen nay a Devil I would bestow no other appellation on the Christians God than what the Author of the Book of Wisdom doth so often 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the friend or the lover of Souls But this is a vulgar though precious subject and therefore I shall no longer insist on it Only before I leave it would I could see the effect of it exprest in our Souls as well as acknowledged in our looks your hearts ravished as thorowly as your brains convinc'd your breasts as open to value and receive this superlative mercy as your tongues to confess it then could I triumph over Hell and death and scoff them out of countenance then should the Devil be reduced to his old pittance confined to an empty corner of the World and suffer as much by the solitariness as darkness of his abode all his engines and arts of torment should be busied upon himself and his whole exercise to curse Christ for ever that hath thus deprived him of Associates But alas we are too sollicitous in the Devil's behalf careful to furnish him with Companions to keep him warm in the midst of fire 't is to be feared we shall at last thrust him out of his Inheritance 'T is a probable argument that God desires our Salvation because that Hell wheresoever it is whether at the Center of the Earth or Concave of the Moon must needs be far less than Heaven and that makes us so besiege the gate as if we feared weshould find no room there We begin our journey betimes left we should be forestall'd and had rather venture a throng or crowd in Hell than to expect that glorious liberty of the Sons of God 'T is to be feared that at the day of Judgment when each Body comes to accompany its Soul in torment Hell must be let out and enlarge its territories to receive its Guests Beloved there is not a Creature here that hath reason to doubt but Christ was sent to die for him and by that death hath purchased his right to life Only do but come in do but suffer your selves to live and Christ to have died do not uncrucifie Christ by crucifying him again by your unbelief do not disclaim the Salvation that even claims right and title to you and then the Angels shall be as full of joy to see you in Heaven as God is willing nay desirous to bring you thither and Christ as ready to bestow that Inheritance upon you at his second coming as at his first to purchase it Nothing but Infidelity restrains Christs sufferings and confines them to a few Were but this one Devil cast out of the World I should be straight of Origens Religion and preach unto you Universal Catholick Salvation A second Argument of God's good meaning towards us of his willingness that we should live is the calling of the Gentiles the dispatching of Posts Heralds over the whole ignorant Heathen World and giving them notice of this treasure of Christs blood Do but observe what a degree of prophaneness unnatural abominations the Gentile World was then arrived to as you may read in all their stories and in the first to the Romans how well grown and ripe for the Devil Christ found them all of them damnably Superstitious and Idolatrous in their Worship damnably unclean in their lives nay engaged for ever in this rode of damnation by a Law they had made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 never to entertain any new Laws or Religion not to innovate though it were to get Salvation as besides their own Histories may be gathered out of Act. xvii 18. And lastly consider how they were hook'd in by the Devil to joyn in crucifying of Christ that they might be guilty of that blood which might otherwise have saved them and then you will find no argument to perswade you 't was possible that God should have any design of mercy on them Peter was so resolv'd of the point that the whole succession of the Gentiles should be damned that God could scarce perswade him to go and Preach to one of them Act. x. He was fain to be cast into a Trance and see a Vision about it and for all that he is much troubled about the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their prophaneness and uncleanness that they were not fit for an Apostle to defile himself about their Conversion And this was the general opinion of all the Jews they of the Circumcision were astonished at the news Act. x. 45. Nay this is it that the Angels wondred at so when they saw it wrought at the Church by Pauls Ministery never dreaming it possible till it was effected as may appear Eph. iii. 10. This was the Mystery which from the beginning of the World had been hid in God V. 9. One of God's Cabinet Counsels a Mercy decreed in secret that no Creature ever wist of till it was performed And in this behalf are we all being lineally descended from the Gentiles bound over to an infinite measure both of humiliation and gratitude for our deliverance from the guilt and reign of that second original sin that Heathenism of our Ancestors and Catholick damnation that Sixteen hundred years ago we were allinvolv'd in Beloved we were long ago set right again and the obligation lies heavy upon us to shew this change to have been wrought in us to some purpose to prove our selves Christians in grain so fixed and established that all the Devils in Hell shall not be able to reduce us again to that abhorred condition If we that are thus called out shall fall back after so much Gospel to Heathen practices and set up Shrines and Altars in our hearts to every poor delight that our sottishness can call a God if we are not called out of their sins as well as out of their ignorance then have we advanced but the further toward Hell we are still but Heathen Gospellers our Christian Infidelity and practical Atheism will but help to charge their guilt upon us and damn us the deeper for being Christians Do but examine your selves on this one Interrogatory whether this calling the Gentiles hath found any effect in your
one degree of their guilt that they observed the power of it in their speculations and made use of it also to censure and find fault with others but seldom or never strived to better themselves or straighten their own actions by it Again to follow our Apostles argument and look more distinctly upon them in their particular chief sins which this contempt produced in them you shall find them in the front to be Idolatry and superstition in the verses next before my Text When they knew God they glorified him not as God verse 21. But changed his glory into an Image c. verse 24. And then we may cry out with Theodoret in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the errors and vanities of their worship hath rased out all the characters that God anciently had written in them And can any man shew a greater contempt to a book or writing then to tear and scrape and scratch out every letter in it The first voice of nature in the creature which it uttered even in the cradle when it was an infant in the world and therefore perhaps as children are wont not so plainly and syllabically and distinctly as could have been wished is the acknowledgment and worship of one eternal God Creator of that soul we breath by and world we live in as one simple incorporeal everlasting essence and thus far no doubt could nature proclaim in the heart of every Gentile though it was by many of them either silenced or not hearkned to which if it were doubted of might be deduced out of the 19. verse of this chap. God hath shewed unto them c. Now this light shining not equally in all eyes some being more overspread with a film of ignorance stupid conditions and passions and the like yet certainly had enough to express their contempt of it so that they are without excuse ver 20. All that would ever think of it and were not blind with an habit of sottishness acknowledged a God yet none would think aright of him Some would acknowledge him a simple essence and impossible to be described or worship't aright by any Image as Varr◠an Heathen observes that the City and Religion of old Rome continued 170 years without any Images of the Gods in it Yet even they which acknowledged him simple from all corporeity and composition would not allow him single from plurality Jupiter and Saturn and the rest of their shole of Gods had already got in and possest both their Temples and their hearts In sum their understandings were so gross within them being fatned and incrassate with magical phantasms that let the truth within them say what it would they could not conceive the Deity without some quantity either corporeity or number and either multiply this God into many or make that one God corporeous And then all this while how plainly and peremptorily and fastidiously they rejected the guidance of nature which in every reasonable heart counselled nay proclaimed the contrary how justly they provoked Gods displeasure and disertion by their forsaking and provoking him first by their foolish imaginations I need not take pains to insist on Aristotle observes in his Rhet. that a man that hath but one eye loves that very dearly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and sets a far higher price on it is much more tender over it then he that hath two so he that hath but one son cannot chuse but be very fond of him and the greatest lamentation that can be exprest is but a shadow of that which is for ones only Son as may appear Amos viii 10. Zach. xii 10. when 't is observed that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the only begotten and the beloved are taken in Scripture promiscuously as signifying all one And then what a price should the Heathen have set upon this eye of nature being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 having no other eye to see by having neither Scripture nor Spirit those two other glorious eyes of the world to enlighten them and therefore being sure by the contemning and depriving themselves of this light to turn all into horrible darkness 'T would strike a man into agony of pity and amazement to see a world of Gentiles for many years thus imprisoned and buried in a dungeon and grave of invincible idolatrous ignorance and from thence engaged in inevitable hell as 't is in the Book of Wisdom and all this directly by contemning this first and only begotten light in them which God set in the Firmaments of their hearts to have lead and directed them a more comfortable way And this or as bad is every unregenerate mans case exactly if they be not forewarned by their elder brethren the Heathens example as we shall anon have more leisure to insist on Secondly among the Jews under which name I contain all the people of God from Adam to Christ 't is a lamentable contemplation to observe and trace the law and the contempt of it like a Jacob at the heels supplanting it in every soul which it came to inhabit Those Characters of verum and bonum which in Adam were written in a statelier Copy and fairer Manuscript then our slow undervaluing conceits can guess at nay afterwards explain'd with a particular explication to his particular danger Of the tree of knowledge c. thou shalt not eat Gen. ii 17. Yet how were they by one slender temptation of the Serpent presently sullied and blurr'd so that all the aqua fortis and instruments in the world will never be able to wash out or erase that blot or ever restore that hand-writing in our hearts to the integrity and beauty of that Copy in its primitive estate And since when by that sin darkness was in a manner gone over their hearts and there remained in them only some tracks and reliques of the former structure the glory whereof was like that of the second Temple nothing comparable to the beauty of the first instead of weeping with a loud voice as many of the Priests and Levites did Ezra iii. 12. or building or repairing of it with all alacrity as all Israel did through that whole Book their whole endeavour and project was even to destroy the ruins and utterly finish the work of destruction which Adam had begun as being impatient of that shelter which it would yet if they would but give it leave afford them Thus that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 two sparks of that primitive sacred flame which came from Heaven still alive and warm though weak in them intended by God to direct them in his will and for ever set either as their funeral pile or their Ordeal fire their punishment or acquittal either as their Devil or their God to accuse or else excuse them were both in their practice neglected and slighted nay in a manner opprest and stifled For any natural power of doing good God knowes it
was utterly departed and therefore this thin measure of knowledge or judgment betwixt good and evil that was left them which my awe to Gods sincere love of his creature makes me hope and trust he bestowed on them for some other end then only to increase their condemnation to stand them in some stead in their lives to restrain and keep them in from being extreamly sinful This I say they horribly rejected and stopt their ears against that charmer in their own bosoms and would not hear that soft voice which God had still placed within them to upbraid their wayes and reprove their thoughts What a provocation this was of Gods justice what an incentive of his wrath may appear by that terrible promulgation of the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai They despised the law in their hearts where God and nature whisper'd it in calmly insensibly and softly and therefore now it shall be thunder'd in their ears in words and those boisterous ones at which the whole mount quaked greatly Exod. xix 18. And in the 16. verse it must be usher'd with variety of dismal meteors upon the Mount and the voice of a trumpet exceeding loud so that all the people that was in the Camp trembled Thus upon their contempt and peevishness was this manuscript put in print this Privy Seal turned into a Proclamation and that a dreadful one bound and subscribed with a Cursed is he that continues not in every title of it to perform it Mean while the matter is not altered but only the dispensation of it That which till then had taught men in their hearts and had been explain'd from tradition from Father to Son Adam instructing Seth and Seth Enoch in all righteousness is now put into Tables that they may have eyes to see that would not have hearts to understand that the perverse may be convinced and that he that would not before see himself bound may find and read himself accursed And after all this yet is not the old law within them either cast away or cancel'd by the promulgation of the other for all the book is printed the old copy is kept in archivis though perhaps as it alwayes was neglected soil'd and moth-eaten and he shall be censured either for ambition or curiosity that shall ever be seen to enquire or look after it Still I say throughout all their wayes and arts and methods of rebellions it twing'd and prick't within as Gods judgments attended them without and as often as sword or plague wounded them made them acknowledge the justice of God that thus rewarded their perversness Nay you shall see it sometimes break out against them when perhaps the written law spake too softly for them to be understood Thus did Davids heart smite him when he had numbred the people though there was no direct commandment against mustering or enâ—olment yet his own conscience told him that he had done it either for distrust or for ostentation and that he had sinned against God in trusting and glorying in that arm of flesh or paid not the tribute appointed by God on that occasion To conclude this discourse of the Jews every rebellion and idolatry of theirs was a double breach of a double law the one in tables the other in their heart and could they have been freed from the killing letter of the one the wounding sense of the other would still have kept them bound as may appear in that business of crucifying Christ where no humane law-giver or magistrate went about to deter them from shedding his blood or denying his miracles yet many of their own hearts apprehended and violently buffetted and scourged and tormented them At one time when they are most resolved against him the whole Senate is suddenly pricked and convinced within and express it with a Surely this man doth many miracles John xi 48. At another time at the top and complement of the business Pilate is deterr'd from condemning and though the fear of the people made him valiant yet as if he contemn'd this voice of his conscience against his will with some reluctance he washes his hands when he would have been gladder to quench the fire in his heart which still burnt and vext him Lastly when Judas had betray'd and sold him and no man made huy and cry after him his conscience was his pursuer judge and executioner persecuted him out of the world haunted him would not suffer him to live whom otherwise the law of the Country would have reprived till a natural death had called for him Lastly even we Christians are not likely to clear our selves of this bill 't is much to be feared that if our own hearts are called to witness our Judge will need no farther Indictments 'T was an Heathen speech concerning this rule of our lives and actions that to study it hard to reform and repair all obliquities and defects in it and then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to set it up strong and firm as a pillar in our hearts was the part and office of a Philosopher and then afterwards to make use of it in our whole conversation this was the part of a vertuous man complete and absolute And how then will our contempt be aggravated if Christianity which Clemens calls spiritual Philosophy and is to be reckoned above all moral perfections hath yet wrought neither of these effects in us if we have continued so far from straightning or setting up or making use of this rule that we have not so much as ever enquired or mark't whether there be any such thing left within us or no Theodoret in his second 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is very passionate in the expression of this contempt of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the light of truth shining in our understandings There be a sort of birds saith he that flie or move only in the night called from thence Night-birds and Night-ravens which are afraid of light as either an enemy to spy to assault or betray them but salute and court and make love to darkness as their only Queen and Mistress of their actions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a creature sent on purpose to preserve them and these saith he deserve not to be child but pitied for nature at first appointed them this condition of life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 't is their birth-right and inheritance and therefore no body will be angry with them for living on it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. But for them who were made creatures of light and had it not been for their wilfulness had still continued light in the Lord who are altogether encompast and environed with light light of nature light of reason light of religion nay the most glorious asterism or conjunction of lights in the world the light of the Gospel to walk in for these men meerly out of perversness of wilful hearts to hate and abjure and defie this light to run out of the world almost for fear