appetites which every man is endued with which tend to the preservation of life and the propagation of mankind are in themselves the work of God and are designed by him for good ends and we may lawfully gratifie them so far as is requisite for the accomplishment of those ends But this is one of the greatest trials of our prudence and resolution in the government of our lives to understand the true bounds how far we may lawfully indulge the lower faculties and to restthere for if our Reason which should prefide over them once let go the reins by which she should govern and restrain them they easily get the mastery and are not to be reduced to their just measures without great difficulty and reluctancy Now the regulating these desires I conceive to be that which our Saviour recommends to us S. Matt. v. 8. as a means to attain to the beatifical vision of God Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God Which blessing though it principally be understood of the blissful sight or knowledge of God in the Kingdom of Heaven yet hath it part of its accomplishment in this life The pure in heart being the best qualified to judge of those divine and spiritual things which God hath made known to us in the Gospel And this will easily appear if we consider how much the contrary Vices tend to the debauching the Understanding in these matters The fumes of Lust and Intemperance are very pernicious to our rational powers they make men dull and of no understanding even in the ordinary affairs of life and then surely if they make men unfit for worldly business they will render them infinitely more uncapable of religious enquiries A man who is led captive by his impure desires will not easily be brought to spend so much time to enquire seriously into the nature of Religion as is necessary for his satisfaction he is afraid he should be convinced of something that would ruffle and discompose his thoughts awaken his conscience and put a check to his Carreer of pleasure and therefore while he can find pretences to defer his enquiry he will But then suppose a man of this temper should for once undertake to peruse the Gospel yet being prepossessed with the love of these sensual delights he would find out many Arguments to defend himself withal many arts and evasions to justifie or at least to palliate and excuse his practice and then withall it is certain he would not have a due relish of the excellency of those precepts which the Gospel gives nor of the rewards it promises they being of a more refined and spiritual nature and of a kind so vastly different from what he is most delighted with So S. Paul tells us 1 Cor. ij 14. The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness to him neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned To this purity of heart I have been speaking of may be reduced a generous contempt of the World a freedom from all covetous and ambitious desires for he that hath his heart set upon riches or upon the pomps and gallantries of the World is not in any capacity of receiving or understanding the Gospel These two Vices Covetousness and Ambition have even from the Apostles times been noted for the great causes of Infidelity and Heresie The love of Money was that which made the young man in our Saviours time go away sorrowful because he could not be admitted a Disciple of our Saviour without relinquishing his large possessions This was the cause of Demus's Apostasie from the Religion he once embraced because he loved the present World Diotrephes is noted by S. John for his ambition for he withstood the Apostle loving to have the pre-eminence S. Paul also puts these two causes together Pride and Covetousness as the principal reasons of Heresie and false doctrine 1 Tim. vj. 3. If any man teach otherwise and consent not to wholsom words even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ and to the doctrine which is according to godliness he is proud knowing nothing but doting about questions and strifes of words supposing that gain is godliness And indeed it is easie to observe how hard it is to convince any man of what is contrary to his interest or ambitious desires and therefore we cannot but understand that this duty of purity of heart which consists in regulating our worldly and sensual affections highly conduces to the understanding and embracing the Gospel because it takes away those dangerous causes of Errour and Apostasie 3. A third branch of Duty which I proposed to treat of as being a necessary qualification for all Enquirers after divine truth is Humility and the efficacy of this duty to make us capable of divine impressions will appear if we consider these properties of an humble and modest man 1. He that is truly humble and sensible of his many defects and infirmities will readily acknowledge that he is not able to understand all Mysteries He knows the nature of God which is infinite cannot be comprehended by his finite and narrow faculties He knows that no reasonings of ours can give us so true an account of the Nature and Attributes of God and of the various methods of his providence towards men as God himself can and therefore he doth with all reverence submit his understanding to those revelations which God hath made in the Gospel and provided they be there plainly delivered he will not be discouraged from his belief of them by any of those imperfect reasonings wherewith men of corrupt minds may endeavour to shake his Faith 2. A truly humble man will not be too curious and inquisitive in praying into those things which are not clearly revealed much less will he be positive and dogmatical concerning them This vertue of humility will lead him to consider that had the knowledge of such and such controverted doctrines been necessary for him they would have been delivered in Scripture with the same plainness as other things of the greatest importance are he will satisfie himself that God was able to have interpreted his mind to the World as far as he thought convenient and therefore where God hath not used this plainess he thinks it a sufficient check to his curiosity and that he ought not to pry into it According to that of Moses Deut. xxix 29. The secret things belong unto the Lord our God but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever 3. An humble man is naturally apt to learn he is willing to be instructed he will easily believe that some other men may have better abilities to understand and judge of truth than himself especially he will have a great deference and regard to his spiritual Guides who are set over him for his instruction in the way of righteousness he will consider that these men are commissioned by God and have a peculiar
and true c. Such also are the general notions of good and evil which God hath planted in every mans soul which have so evident an obligation that no pretended demonstration in the World ought to shake our belief of them But there are other opinions which men take up upon lesser evidence which they are sometimes as tenacious of as of those first fundamental principles And these sort of prejudices are commonly the great hindrances of the propagation of truth there being scarcely any Sect in Religion which have not some peculiar tenets which they take up upon weak and incompetent grounds in proportion to which they judge of all other doctrines and make them the rule and measure according to which all places of Scripture must be interpreted Now in regard we all confess our selves liable to infirmity and mistake it is certainly the most equitable and reasonable thing in the World that when we come to enquire after truth we resolve with our selves always to submit to clear evidence though we have been otherwise persuaded Now that the want of this temper is a very great hindrance both to the receiving the Gospel and to our understanding it aright when we have received it I shall endeavour to prove by two notorious instances of the power of prejudice in either of these cases The first instance shall be that of the Jews in our Saviours days The great opposition which our Saviour met withall among the Jews the great reason why they would not receive him for their Messias was grounded upon this prejudice that they took it for granted that their long expected Messias was to have been a temporal Prince and to have appeared with worldly pomp and splendor and that he should have delivered them from the Roman Yoke and have reigned gloriously in Jerusalem And therefore when they saw him appear in so mean and despicable a condition not all the demonstrations of a divine authority accompanying him in all his mighty work not the greatest wisdom with which he spake not the most divine and excellent precepts he gave not all the predictions of their Prophets fulfilled by him not any of these things though they were in themselves as great evidence as they could have required yet none of them could prevail with them against that one prejudice that his Power was to be temporal and that he should restore the kingdom to Israel in a literal sense which was inconsistent with that state of sufferings in which our Saviour appeared Now that this Opinion of the Jews was taken up upon insufficient grounds is evident from hence because though there are glorious things spoken of the Messias yet his sufferings also are foretold by the same Prophets in as plain words as the other Nay it is expresly said by Isaiah that the glory that should be given to the Messias was to be consequent upon his sufferings as a reward of them And the Jews themselves have been so far sensible of the force of those predictions to prove that the Messias should suffer that to salve those prophecies they invented a Fable concerning a two-fold Messias one of which was to suffer for them and the other to redeem them and to reign gloriously over them Though the Prophet Isaiah ch liij v. 12. expresly attributes both to the same person making the suffering of the Messias the reason of the glory which God would afterward confer on him Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great and he shall divide the spoil with the strong because he hath poured out his soul unto death c. But the minds of the Jews were strongly affected with the love of this present World and the glory of it and they hoped that in the days of the Messias they should plentifully enjoy all the blessings of this life and therefore they were resolved to believe no more of the Prophets than agreed with this opinion that was so suitable to their inclinations and were uncapable of being convinced by the most powerful demonstration to the contrary that could possibly be given Thus we see how great the power of this one prejudice was to hinder the Jews from receiving the Gospel at first Nor is the power of preconceived opinions and prejudices less dangerous to hinder our understanding the Gospel when we have received it And of this I might produce many instances in the several dissenting Parties in Christendom every Sect having some peculiar and darling Notion which they hold tenaciously against all opposition and to comply with which all other doctrines must be bowed and wrested as they can best contrive it I shall give but one instance of this kind and that is the doctrine of Infallibility as it is maintained in the Church of Rome This is the leading prejudice of that Party which being once firmly received it becomes the Mother of the most absurd and contradictious opinions in the World and which is worst of all makes those who believe it uncapable of conviction by any argument though never so clear and cogent For what argument can possibly prevail with those who resolve to reject the testimony of their senses though never so well qualified rather than call in question the infallible decision of their Church And this the Papists plainly do in the doctrine of Transubstantiation which hath so many plain absurdities in it and is so clearly contradicted by our several senses that are capable of judging in that matter that there can be no other reason of their obstinate defending of it but that they cannot renounce the doctrine without quitting their claim to Infallibility It is beside my present business to consider upon what grounds they build that infallible power of their Church in determining matters of Faith but yet methinks I cannot persuade my self that they have any Argument for it so plain and cogent as the testimony of their senses and therefore it cannot but seem a strange way of arguing which they use to deny matter of fact evident to their several senses to maintain a doctrine for which they have infinitely less evidence than that they reject We see then how far preconceived opinions and prejudices may prevail both to make men uncapable of receiving the Gospel and of understanding it rightly when they have received it and consequently how much this simplicity of mind doth contribute to our success in the enquiries we make after divine truth 2. The second branch of duty which doth highly conduce to our receiving the Gospel and understanding it aright is purity of heart which consists chiefly in the moderation of our sensual appetites and pleasures He that intends to do the will of God must not retain in his bosom any lust or habitual inclination which he is not willing to forego if he find it contradictory to his will whom he resolves to obey and for that reason must have a constant watch over his sensual desires to keep them in their due bounds Those natural
conscience being as it were bribed in their testimony by the love they bear to the pleasures and profits and honours of this World Now if we lay aside these two sorts of men those that act by no principle of Reason at all and those who are manifestly corrupted by their lusts and smother and contradict their own Reason neither of which can be esteemed fit men to be relied upon as Judges of Truth the remainder of the World if there be any not reducible to one of these two sorts is infinitely a less number than those who have been constant Witnesses to and Assertors of the Divine Providence and that with the loss of all other things that are most dear to them and of life it self And therefore I think it reasonable to infer that though the Fathers in the former Chapter be considered onely as Witnesses of this Truth in general that God is a rewarder of those that diligently seek him yet their examples added to the convictions of our own Reason are sufficient to justifie the wisdom of our choice in being religious though we had no further motives to it than this inasmuch as they who renounce Religion do it either without or against their Reason and there can be no competent evidence on their side who do so but the force of their examples before mentioned will be yet more considerable to engage us to imitate their patience if we consider 2. The great difference between their state and ours and the far greater advantages we enjoy above them How far their knowledge extended beyond the the principle before mentioned it is not easie nor necessary to determine But thus much is plain that their condition was much more imperfect than ours under the Gospel The knowledge they had of a future state was dark and obscure the promises they received were mysterious and unevident but now under the Gospel the case is much otherwise The types and shadows and ceremonies of the Law under which the promised Messias was obscurely represented of old are now exchanged for the substance it self Now life and immortality is brought to light by the Gospel We have now greater demonstration of the goodness and mercy of God towards us than they had in that he spared not his own Son but gave him for us all We have a better prospect of the promised reward We have now clearer promises of the divine Spirit to assist and support us in all our Trials and to enable us to run our Race with patience These and many other advantages of knowledge we enjoy These encouragements to practise we have received beyond what the Fathers were acquainted with And this the Apostle refers to in the conclusion of the former Chapter These all having obtained a good report through saith received not the promises God having provided some better things for us that they without us should not be made perfect Now the inference from this consideration is very plain and obvious For if the Fathers before the coming of our Saviour who received not those exceeding great and pretious promises which are revealed in the Gospel did yet exercise so great degrees of Faith so mighty a confidence and trust in God as to endure such bitter things in obedience to him as we read they did how strongly should this excite and provoke our zeal and fervor to follow after them in this glorious enterprize and to run with patience the Race set before us how should we be ashamed and blush to read the History of their sufferings and the glory of their vertues if we who enjoy so many advantages above them do yet come short of their bravery and resolution and constant obedience to the will of God 3. The examples of those who have gone before us in the ways of Vertue ought to have this further influence to engage us in the like chearful discharge of our duty inasmuch as they are witnesses of the possibility of those things that are required of us in order to the attainment of that reward the Crown we seek for The hardest duties required of us have been long since accomplished by them and accomplished with such full assurance of hope such ravishing apprehensions of the joy set before them as perfectly over-balanced all the difficulties they met with and made them joyful and couragious amidst the most severe tortures Let no man then pretend that the commands of God are impossible to be kept that his Laws are hard or grievous to be done since we have seen them fulfilled in so high a manner and that under a more imperfect dispensation than that of the Gospel as the state of those manifestly was nor is it a bare possibility of our task which we are taught by their example but they are Witnesses of the loveliness of Vertue that it is very excellent and desirable worthy our choice and constant embraces though it be attended with greatest dangers and persecution For if it were not so it were not possible that all the Saints and Martyrs who have gone before us should have expressed so constant a joy and satisfaction in what they suffered for its sake It was a fansiful supposition of Tully that if Vertue could be seen by bodily eyes it would appear so comely and amiable so beautiful and lovely that men would need no other arguments to invite them to embrace it I will not say this supposition is altogether extravagant because it may fairly be understood of those great examples of Vertue some of which have appeared in all Ages to vindicate its practice from all the disadvantages under which the folly and slothfulness of men is wont to represent it In brave and Heroick examples Vertue appears as it were clothed with flesh and blood visible to the eyes of the most stupid and insensible since there are none so barbarous and savage who will not follow a truly vertuous man with reverence and applause though they see him oft-times clouded by affliction and oppressed by the malicious and unjust The truth is no kind of Arguments hath greater advantages of persuasion and leave us more without Excuse than good and vertuous Examples Others may speak great things in commendation of Vertue and the Reward prepared for it but if notwithstanding they live not as they teach there is an easie answer to be made to such Exhortations and we may be apt to reply Surely these men do not really believe what they endeavour to persuade us for if they did it would be their interest to practise Vertue as well as ours and why do they neglect it But when men teach us by Example as well as Doctrine then they may urge their precepts with good assurance and we have no excuse or pretence left why we should not follow and imitate them The Saints therefore and Martyrs who have left behind them such glorious Memorials of their obedience and faith in God and patient sufferings for conscience sake do herein give us the most powerful