procuring it And in that sense we acknowledge That the death of Christ was a declaration of Gods will and decree to pardon but not meerly as it gave testimony to the truth of his Doctrine for in that sense the blood of the Apostles and Martyrs might be said to purge us from sin as well as the blood of Christ but because it was the consideration upon which God had decreed to pardon And so as the acceptance of the condition required or the price paid may be â—aid to declare or manifest the intention of a person to release or deliver a Captive So Gods acceptance of what Christ did suffer for our sakes may be said to declare his readiness to pardon us upon his account But then this declaration doth not belong properly to the act of Christ in suffering but to the act of God in accepting and it can be no other ways known than Gods acceptance is known which was not by the Sufferings but by the Resurrection of Christ. And therefâ—re the declaring Gods will and decree to pardon doth properly belong to that and if that had been all which the Scripture had meant by purging of sin by the blood of Christ it had been very incongruously applied to that but most properly to his Resurrection But these phrases being never attributed to that which most properly might be said to declare the will of God and being peculiarly attributed to the death of Christ which cannot be said properly to do it nothing can be more plain than that these expressions ought to be taken in that which is confessed to be their proper sense viz. That Expiation of sin which doth belong to the death of Christ as a Sacrifice for the sins of the world But yet Socinus and Crellius have another subterfuge For therein lies their great art in seeking rather by any means to escape their enemies than to overcome them For being sensible that the main scope and design of the Scripture is against them they seldom and but very weakly assault but shew all their subtilty in avoiding by all imaginable arts the force of what is brought against them And the Scripture being so plain in attributing such great effects to the death of Christ when no other answer will serve turn then they tell us That the death of Christ is taken Metonymically for all the consequents of his death viz. His Resurrection Exaltation and the Power and Authority which he hath at the right hand of his Father But how is it possible to convince those who by death can understand life by sufferings can mean glory and by the shedding of blood sitting at the right hand of God And that the Scripture is very far from giving any countenance to these bold Interpretations will appear by these considerations 1. because the effect of Expiation of our sins is attributed to the death of Christ as distinct from his Resurrection viz. Our reconciliation with God Rom. 5. 10. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son much more being reconciled we shall be saved by his life To which Crellius answers That the Apostle doth not speak of the death of Christ alone or as it is considered distinct from the consequences of it but only that our Reconciliation was effected by the death of Christ intervening But nothing can be more evident to any one who considers the design of the Apostles discourse than that he speaks of what was peculiar to the death of Christ for therefore it is said that Christ dyed for the ungodly For scarcely for a righteous man will one dye but God commâ—ndeth his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners Christ dyed for us Much more then being now justified by his blood we shall be saved through him upon which those words follow For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son c. The Reconciliation here mentioned is attributed to the death of Christ in the same sense that it is mentioned before but there it is not mentioned as a bare condition intervening in order to something farther but as the great instance of the love both of God and Christ of God in sending his Son of Christ in laying down his life for sinners in order to their being justified by his blood But where is it that St. Paul saith that the death of Christ had no other influence on the expiation of our sins but as a bare condition intervening in order to that power and authority whereby he should expiate sins what makes him attribute so much to the death of Christ if all the benefits we enjoy depend upon the consequences of it and no otherwise upon that than meerly as a preparation for it what peculiar emphasis were there in Christs dying for sinners and for the ungodly unless his death had a particular relation to the expiation of their sins Why are men said to be justified by his blood and not much rather by his glorious Resurrection if the blood of Christ be only considered as antecedent to the other And that would have been the great demonstration of the love of God which had the most immediate influence upon our advantage which could not have been the death in this sense but the life and glory of Christ. But nothing can be more absurd than what Crellius would have to be the meaning of this place viz. that the Apostle doth not speak of the proper force of the death of Christ distinct from his life but that two things are opposed to each other for the effecting of one of which the death of Christ did intervene but it should not intervene for the other viz. it did intervene for our reconciliation but it should not for our life For did not the death of Christ equally intervene for our life as for our reconciliation was not our eternal deliverance the great thing designed by Christ and our reconciliation in order to that end what opposition then can be imagined that it should be necessary for the death of Christ to intervene in order to the one than in order to the other But he means that the death of Christ should not intervene anymore what need that when it is acknowledged by themselves that Christ dyed only for this end before that he might have power to bestow eternal life on them that obey him But the main force of the Apostles argument lies in the comparison between the death of Christ having respect to us as enemies in order to reconciliation and the life of Christ to us considered as reconciled so that if he had so much kindness for enemies to dye for their reconciliation we may much more presume that he now living in Heaven will accomplish the end of that reconciliation in the eternal salvation of them that obey him By which it is apparent that he
an Expiatory Sacrifice do belong to the death of Christ nothing now remains but an answer to be made to two Objections which are commonly insisted on by our Adversaries The first is That God was reconciled before he sent his Son and therefore Christ could not dye to reconcile God to us The second is That the Doctrine of Satisfaction asserted by us is inconsistent with the freeness of Gods grace in the remission of sins Both which 〈◊〉 admit of an easie Solution upon the principles of the foregoing discourse To the first I answer That we assert nothing inconsistent with that love of God which was discovered in sending his Son into the world we do not say That God hated mankind so much on the account of sin that it was impossible he should ever admit of any terms of Reconciliation with them which is the only thing inconsistent with the greatness of Gods love in sending Christ into the world but we adore and magnifie the infiniteness and unexpressible greatness of his love that notwithstanding all the contempt of the former kindness and mercies of Heaven he should be pleased to send his own Son to dye for sinners that they might be reconciled to him And herein was the great love of God manifested that while we were enemies and sinâ—ers Christ dyed for us and that for this end that we might be reconciled to God by his death And therefore surely not in the state of favour or Reconciliation with God then But it were worth the while to understand what it is our Adversaries mean when they say God was reconciled when he sent his Son and therefore he could not dye to reconcile God to us Either they mean that God had decreed to be reconciled upon the sending his son or that he was actually reconciled when he sent him if he only decreed to be reconciled that was not at all inconsistent with Christs dying to reconcile God and us in pursuance of that decree if they mean he was actually reconciled then there was no need for Christ to dye to reconcile God and us but withal actual Reconciliation implies pardon of sin and if sin were actually pardoned before Christ came there could be no need of his coming at all and sins would have been pardoned before committed if they were not pardoned notwithstanding that love of God then it can imply no more but that God was willing to be reconciled If therefore the not remission of sins were consistent with that love of God by which he sent Christ into the world then notwithstanding that he was yet capable of being reconciled by his death So that our Adversaries are bound to reconcile that love of God with not presently pardoning the sins of the world as we are to reconcile it with the ends of the death of Christ which are asserted by us To the other Objection Concerning the inconsistency of the Freeness of Gods Grace with the Doctrine of Satisfaction I answer Either Gods Grace is so free as to exclude all conditions or not If it be so free as to exclude all conditions then the highest Antinomianism is the truest Doctrine for that is the highest degree of the Freeness of Grace which admits of no conditions at all If our Adversaries say That the Freeness of Grace is consistent with conditions required on our part Why shall it not admit of conditions on Gods part especially when the condition required tends so highly to the end of Gods governing the world in the manifestation of his hatred against sin and the vindication of the honour of his Laws by the Sufferings of the Son of God in our stead as an Expiatory Sacrifice for our sins There are two things to be considered in sin the dishonor done to God by the breach of his Laws and the injury men do to themselves by it now remission of sins that respects the injury which men bring upon themselves by it and that is Free when the penalty is wholly forgiven as we assert it is by the Gospel to all penitent sinners but shall not God be free to vindicate his own Honor and to declare his righteousness to the world while he is the Iustifier of them that believe Shall men in case of Defamation be bound to vindicate themselves though they freely forgive the Authors of the slander by our Adversaries own Doctrine and must it be repugnant to Gods Grace to admit of a Propitiatory Sacrifice that the world may understand that it is no such easie thing to obtain pardon of sin committed against God but that as often as they consider the bitter Sufferings of Christ in order to the obtaining the forgiveness of our sins that should be the greatest Argument to disswade them from the practice of them But why should it be more inconsistent with the Sacrifice of Christ for God freely to pardon sin than it was ever presumed to be in all the Sacrifices of either Jews or Gentiles who all supposed Sacrifices necessary in order to Atonement and yet thought themselves obliged to the goodness of God in the Remission of their sins Nay we find that God himself in the case of Abimelâ—ch appointed Abraham to pray for him in order to his pardon And will any one say this was a derogation to the grace of God in his pardon Or to the pardon of Iobs Friends because Iob was appointed to Sacrifice fâ—r them Or to the pardon of the Israelites because God out of kindness to them directed them by the Prophets and appointed the means in order to it But although God appointed our High-Priest for us and out of his great love sent him into the world yet his Sacrifice was not what was given him but what he freely underwent himself he gave us Christ but Christ offered up himself a full perfect and sufficient Sacrifice Oblation and Satisfaction for the sins of the world Thus Sir I have now given you a larger account of what I then more briefly discoursed of concerning the true Reason of the Sufferings of Christ and heartily wishing you a right understanding in all things and requesting from you an impartial consideration of what I have written I am SIR Your c. E. S. Ian. 6. 166â— FINIS Serm. I. A B C D E A B C D a Lam. 2. 1. E A B C D E A B C D E A a Luk. 17. 28 29. B 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 de beil Jud. l. 7. c. 14. C D E A B C D a Jude 7. E A a Tacit. Aâ— 15. B 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Xiphil in Epit. Dion in Tito p. 227. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Herodian in Commod hist. l. 1. p. 22. v. Xiphil ad fin Commodi C b Niceph. l. 15. c. 21. c Eâ—â—gr l. 2. cap 13. d Baâ—â—â— Tom. 5. A. 465. 1. D E A B C D E A B C D E A B a Hieron in loc C D b Gildas
rules of Religion and goodness and are ready to yield our selves to whatever hath got retainers enough to set up for a custom we may know where we begin but we cannot where we shall make an end For every fresh assault makes the breach wider at which more enemies may come in still so that when we find our selves under their power we are contented for our own ease to call them Friends Which is the unhappy consequence of too easie yielding at first till at last the greatest slavery to sin be accounted but good humour and a gentile compliance with the fashions of the world So that when men are perswaded either through fear or too great easiness to disuse that strict eye which they had before to their actions it oft-times falls out with them as it did with the Souldier in the Roman History who blinded his eye so long in the time of the Civil Wars that when he would have used it again he could not And when custom hath by degrees taken away the sense of sin from their Consciences they grow as hard as b Herodotus tells us the heads of the old Egyptians were by the heat of the Sun that nothing would ever enter them If men will with Nebuchadnezzar herd with the beasts of the field no wonder if their reason departs from them and by degrees they grow as savage as the company they keep So powerful a thing is Custom to debauch Mankind and so easily do the greatest vices by degrees obtain admission into the souls of men under pretence of being retainers to the common infirmities of humane nature Which is a phrase through the power of self-flattery and mens ignorance in the nature of moral actions made to be of so large and comprehensive a sense that the most wilful violations of the Laws of Heaven and such which the Scripture tells us do exclude from the Kingdom of it do find rather than make friends enough to shelter themselves under the protection of them But such a protection it is which is neither allowed in the Court of Heaven nor will ever secure the souls of men without a hearty and sincere repentance from the arrest of divine justice which when it comes to call the world to an account of their actions will make no defalcations at all for the power of custom or common practice of the world 3. The Impossibility of the Command or rather of obedience to it When neither of the former pleas will effect their design but notwithstanding the pretended necessity of humane actions and the more than pretended common practice of the World their Consciences still fly in their faces and rebuke them sharply for their sins then in a mighty rage and fury they charge God himself with Tyranny in laying impossible Laws upon the sons of men But if we either consider the nature of the command or the promises which accompany it or the large experience of the world to the contrary we shall easily discover that this pretence is altogether as unreasonable as either of the foregoing For what is it that God requires of men as the condition of their future happiness which in its own nature is judged impossible Is it for men to live soberly righteously and godly in this world for that was the end of Christian Religion to perswade men to do so but who thinks it impossible to avoid the occasions of intemperance not to defraud or injure his neighbours or to pay that reverence and sincere devotion to God which we owe unto him Is it to do as we would be done by yet that hath been judged by strangers to the Christian Religion a most exact measure of humane conversation Is it to maintain an universal kindness and good will to men that indeed is the great excellency of our Religion that it so strictly requires it but if this be impossible farewell all good nature in the world and I suppose few will own this charge lest theirs be suspected Is it to be patient under sufferings moderate in our desires circumspect in our actions contented in all conditions yet these are things which those have pretended to who never owned Christianity and therefore surely they never thought them impossible Is it to be charitable to the poor compassionate to those in misery is it to be frequent in Prayer to love God above all things to forgive our enemies as we hope God will forgive us to believe the Gospel and be ready to suffer for the sake of Christ There are very few among us but will say they do all these things already and therefore surely they do not think them impossible The like answer I might give to all the other precepts of the Gospel till we come to the denying ungodliness and worldly lusts and as to these too if we charge men with them they either deny their committing them and then say they have kept the command or if they confess it they promise amendment for the future but in neither respect can they be said to think the command impossible Thus we see their own mouths will condemn them when they charge God with laying impossible Laws on mankind But if we enquire further then into the judgements of those who it may be never concerned themselves so much about the precepts of Christian Religion as to try whether they had any power to observe them or not nay if we yield them more than it may be they are willing to enquire after though they ought to do it viz. that without the assistance of divine grace they can never do it yet such is the unlimited nature of divine goodness and the exceeding riches of Gods Grace that knowing the weakness and degeneracy of humane Nature when he gave these commands to men he makes a large and free offer of assistance to all those who are so sensible of their own infirmity as to beg it of him And can men then say the command is impossible when he hath promised an assistance suitable to the nature of the duty and the infirmities of men If it be acknowledged that some of the duties of Christianity are very difficult to us now let us consider by what means he hath sweetned the performance of them Will not the proposal of so excellent a reward make us swallow some more than ordinary hardships that we might enjoy it hath he not made use of the most obliging motives to perswade us to the practice of what he requires by the infinite discovery of his own love the death of his Son and the promise of his Spirit And what then is wanting but only setting our selves to the serious obedience of them to make his commands not only not impossible but easie to us But our grand fault is we make impossibilities our selves where we find none and then we complain of them we are first resolved not to practise the commands and then nothing more easie
God and the Power of God Here the Iew might find his Messias come and the Promises fulfilled which related to him here the Greek might find his long and vainly looked for certainty of a life to come and the way which leads to it here the Roman might see a Religion serviceable to another world and this together Here are Precepts more holy Promises more certain Rewards more desireable than ever the wit or invention of men could have attained to Here are Institutions far more pious useful and serviceable to mankind than the most admired Laws of the famous Legislators of Greece or Rome Here are no popular designs carried on no vices indulged for the publick interest which Solon Lycurgus and Plato are charged with Here is no making Religion a meer trick of State and a thing only useful for governing the people which Numa and the great men at Rome are lyable to the suspicion of Here is no wrapping up Religion in strange figures and mysterious non-sense which the Aegyptians were so much given to Here is no inhumanity and cruelty in the sacrifices offer'd no looseness and profaneness allowed in the most solemn mysteries no worshipping of such for Gods who had not been fit to live if they had been men which were all things so commonly practised in the Idolatries of the Heathens But the nature of the Worship is such as the minds of those who come to it ought to be and as becomes that God whom we profess to serve pure and holy grave and serious solemn and devout without the mixtures of superstition vanity or ostentation The precepts of our Religion are plain and easie to be known very suitable to the nature of Mankind and highly tending to the advantage of those who practise them both in this and a better life The arguments to perswade men are the most weighty and powerful and of as great importance as the love of God the death of his Son the hopes of happiness and the fears of eternal misery can be to men And wherein is the contrivance of our Religion defective when the end is so desireable the means so effectual for the obtaining of it 2. Which is the next thing to be considered There are two things which in this degenerate estate of man are necessary in order to the recovery of his happiness and those are Repentance for sins past and sincere Obedience for the future now both these the Gospel gives men the greatest encouragements to and therefore is the most likely to effect the design it was intended for 1. For Repentance for sins past What more powerful motives can there be to perswade men to repent than for God to let men know that he is willing to pardon their sins upon the sincerity of their Repentance but without that there remains nothing but a fearful expectation of judgement and fiery indignation that their sins are their follies and therefore to repent is to grow wise that he requires no more from men but what every considerative man knows is fitting to be done whenever he reflects upon his actions that there can be no greater ingratitude or disingenuity towards the Son of God than to stand at defiance with God when he hath shed his blood to reconcile God and Man to each other that every step of his humiliation every part of the Tragedy of his life every wound at his death every groan and sigh which he uttered upon the Cross were designed by him as the most prevailing Rhetorick to perswade men to forsake their sins and be happy that there cannot be a more unaccountable folly than by impenitency to lose the hopes of a certain and eternal happiness for the sake of those pleasures which every wise man is ashamed to think of that to continue in sin with the hopes to repent is to stab a mans self with the hopes of a cure that the sooner men do it the sooner they will find their minds at ease and that the pleasures they enjoy in forsaking their sins are far more noble and manly than ever they had in committing them but if none of these arguments will prevail with them perish they must and that unavoidably insupportably and irrecoverably And if such arguments as these will not prevail with men to leave their sins it is impossible that any should 2. For Holiness of Life For Christ did not come into the World and dye for us meerly that we should repent of what is past by denying ungodliness and worldly lusts but that we should live soberly righteously and godly in this present world And what he doth expect he hath given the greatest encouragements to perform by the clearness of his precepts the excellency of his own example the promise of his Grace and the proposition of eternal rewards and punishments whereby he takes off all the objections men are apt to make against obedience to the Commands of Christ the pretence of ignorance because his Laws are so clear the pre tence of impossibility by his own example the pretence of infirmity by the assistance of his Grace the pretence of the unnecessariness of so great care of our actions by making eternal rewards and punishments to depend upon it Let us then reflect upon the whole design of the Gospel and see how admirably it is suited to the end it was intended for to the condition of those whose good was designed by it and to the honour of the great contriver and manager of it And let not us by our impenitency and the unholiness of our lives dishonour God and our Saviour reproach our Religion and condemn that by our lives which we justifie by our words For when we have said all we can the best and most effectual vindication of Christian Religion is to live according to it But oh then how unhappy are we that live in such an Age wherein it were hard to know that men were Christians unless we are bound to believe their words against the tenour and course of their actions What is become of the purity the innocency the candour the peaceableness the sincerity and devotion of the Primitive Christians What is become of their zeal for the honour of Christ and Christian Religion If it weâ—e the design of men to make our Religion a dishonour and reproach to the Iews Mahumetans and Heathens could they do it by more effectual means than they have done Who is there that looks into the present state of the Christian World could ever think that the Christian Religion was so incomparably beyond all others in the world Is the now Christian Rome so much beyond what it was while it was Heathen Nay was it not then remarkable in its first times for justice sincerity contempt of riches and a kind of generous honesty and who does not though of the same Religion if he hath any ingenuity left lament the want of all those things there now Will
though upon different grounds agree in the neglect of their own salvation But is the case of such men grown so desperate that noremedy can work upon them hath the love of sin and the world so far intoxicated them that no reason or consideration whatever can awaken them have they hardned themselves against all the power of divine Truths with a resolution as strong as death and as cruel as the grave whither they are going Will neither the love of happiness nor the fear of misery their own interest and the wisdom of avoiding so great a danger the dread of the Majesty and Power of God and the horror of the great day prevail at least so far on men to consider whether these things be true or no and if they be what unspeakable solly it is to neglect them And the better to make that appear I shall prove these following things 1. That God by the Gospel hath taken so great care of mens happiness that nothing but a gross neglect can make them miserable 2. That nothing can be more unreasonable than when God hath taken so much care of it men should neglect it themselves 3. That it is very just for God to vindicate himself against so gross a neglect by the severe punishments of the life to come 1. That God by the Gospel hath taken so great care of mens salvation that nothing but a gross neglect can make them miserable For whatever the mind of man can imagine necessary in order to its own happiness in its present fallen and degenerate condition is abundantly provided for by the Gospel of Christ. For man was so wholly lost as to his own felicity that among the ruins and decays of his Nature he could not pick up so much as the perfect image and Idea of his own happiness when he reflects upon himself he finds himself such a consused mass of folly and weakness that he can never imagine that so noble a design should have its ground-work laid upon so course a Being And rather than believe the foundation of his happiness to be within himself there is nothing so vain and trifling without him but he is ready to fall down before it and cry out Here I place my selicity Sometimes he admires the brave shews and the Pomp and Gallantry of the World and thinks nothing comparable to a glorious out-side and a great train of attendants sometimes he raises himself and flutters upon the wings of a popular Air till a cross blast comes and leaves him in the common rout sometimes his eyes are dazled with the glory of the more refined and solid pieces of that Earth out of which he was framed and thinks it reasonable that the softness of flesh and blood should yield to the impressions of silver and gold sometimes he even envies the pleasures of the Brutes and if it were possible would outdo them in their grossest sensualities sometimes again he slatters himself and then adores his own imperfections and thinks his Passions Honour and his Profaneness Wit So far is vain man from making himself happy that the first step to it is to make him understand what it is to be so But supposing that the true image of his happiness should drop down from Heaven and by the place from whence it fell should conclude where the thing it self is to be found yet this were only to make him more miserable unless he withal knew how to come thither He is sure not to climb up to it by the tops of the highest mountains nor to be carried thither upon the wings of a mighty wind he hath no fiery Chariots at his command to ascend with to the Glories above but only he that maketh his Angels Spirits and his Ministers a flame of fire is able to preserve the souls of men from vanishing into the soft air and to conduct them to the Mansions of eternal Bliss It is he only that can make them capable of the Joys of another life by purging them from the stains and the pollutions of this And therefore without his grace and favour ever to hope for the happiness of Heaven must be by fancying a Heaven to be there where there is no God So that it is necessary that the Proposals of this salvation must come from the Author of it and that with such arguments as may perswade men of the truth of it and with such motives as may encourage men to accept of them Now the Gospel of Christ affords us all these things which are necessary to our happiness there we have the most agreeable and setled notion and Idea of it the most large and free offers of divine goodness in order to it the greatest assurance that these things did immediately proceed from God and the most encouraging motives to accept of these offers in order to that great salvation which is tendred to us 1. We have the most agreeable and setled notion of true happiness not such a mean and uncertain thing which lies at the mercy of the continual vicissitudes and contingencies of this present state but that which is able to bear up the mind of man against all the troubles of this life and to carry him to a Region beyond them all where there is a fulness of joy without an allay of sadness after it and ever-flowing rivers of pleasures that need no dams to make them rise higher nor falls to make their motion perceived Our Blessed Saviour never flatters his followers with the expectation of a felicity in this life Contentment is the most he hath promised them and that they may enjoy if they follow his directions let this world be what it will and do what it pleases with them He never tells his Disciples they may have satisfaction here if they lie upon their beds of down with their heads full of tormenting cares that the pleasure of humane life lies in the gratifications of the senses and in making what use they can of the world he never deceives them with the promise of so poor a happiness as that which depends upon health friends prosperity and having our own wills No but he tells them of a more noble and generous felicity that will preserve its own state and grandeur in spight of the world a happiness consistent with loss of Estate loss of Friends with affronts and injuries with persecutions and death it self For when our Saviour begins to discourse of happiness what another kind of strain doth he speak of it in than any of those Philosophers who have so much obstructed the happiness of mans life by their voluminous writings and contentions about it Here we meet with no Epicurean softness which the sense of true Vertue carried the minds of the more noble Heathens above no rigid and incredible Stoical Paradoxes that make men only happy by the change of names no Aristotelean supposition of a prosperous life for Vertue to shew its power
but too much will unfit them for greater business But do men believe these things to be true or not when they say thus if they be true why need they fear their uncertainty if they be certain what pains and care can be too great about them since a little will never serve to obtain them Let but the care and diligence be proportionable to the greatness of the end and the weight of the things and you never need fear the want of a recompence for all your labour But suppose you say if you were fully convinced of their certainty you would look more after them What hinders you from being so convinced Is it not a bad disposition of mind which makes you unwilling to enquire into them examine things with a mind as free as you would have it judge seriously according to the reason of things and you will easily find the interests of a life to come are far more certain as well as more desireable than those of this present life And yet the great uncertainty of all the honours and riches of this world never hinder the covetous or ambitious person from their great earnestness in pursuit of them And shall not then all the mighty arguments which God himself hath made use of to confirm to us the certainty of a life to come prevail upon us to look more seriously after it Shâ—ll the unexpressible love of the Father the unconceiveable sufferings of the Son of God and the miraculous descent and powerful assistance of the Holy Ghost have no more impression on our minds than to leave us uncertain of a future state What mighty doubts and suspicions of God what distrusts of humane Nature what unspeakable ingratitude and unaccountable folly lies at the bottom of all this uncertainty O fools and slow of heart to believe not only what the Prophets have spoken but what our Lord hath declared God himself hath given testimony to and the Holy Ghost hath confirmed 3. But is not your Interest concerned in these things Is it all one to you whether your souls be immortal or no whether they live in eternal felicity or unchangeable misery Is it no more to you than to know what kind of Bables are in request at the Indies or whether the customs of China or Iapan are the wiser i. e. than the most trifling things and the remotest from our knowledge But this is so absurd and unreasonable to suppose that men should not think themselves concerned in their own eternal happiness and misery that I shall not shew so much distrust of their understandings to speak any longer to it 3. But if notwithstanding all these things our neglect still continues then there remains nothing but a fearful looking for of judgement and the fiery indignation of God For there is no possibility of escaping if we continue to neglect so great salvation All hopes of escaping are taken away which are only in that which men neglect and those who neglect their only way to salvation must needs be miserable How can that man ever hope to be saved by him whose blood he despises and tramples under foot What grace and favour can he expect from God who hath done despight unto the Spirit of Grace That hath cast away with reproach and contempt the greatest kindness and offers of Heaven What can save him that resolves to be damned and every one does so who knows he shall be damned if he lives in his sins and yet continues to do so God himself in whose only pity our hopes are hath irreversibly decreed that he will have no pity upon those who despise his goodness slight his threatnings abuse his patience and sin the more because he offers to pardon It is not any â—elight that God takes in the miseries of his Creatures which makes him punish them but shall not God vindicate his own honour against obstinate and impenitent sinners He declares before hand that he is far from delighting in their ruine and that is the reason he hath made such large offers and used so many means to make them happy but if men resolve to despise his offers and slight the means of their salvation shall not God be just without being thought to be cruel And we may assure our selves none shall ever suffer beyond the just desert of their sins for punishment as the Apostle tells us in the words before the Text is nothing but a just recompence of reward And if there were such a one proportionable to the violation of the Law delivered by Angels how shall we think to escape who neglect a more excellent means of happiness which was delivered by our Lord himself If God did not hate sin and there were not a punishment belonging to it why did the Son of God die for the expiation of it and if his death were the only means of expiation how is it possible that those who neglect that should escape the punishment not only of their other sins but of that great contempt of the means of our salvation by him Let us not then think to trifle with God as though it were impossible a Being so merciful and kind should ever punish his Creatures with the miseries of another life For however we may deceive our selves God will not be mocked for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he reap for he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flâ—sh reap corruption but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting I shall only propound some few Considerations to prevent so great a neglect as that of your salvation is 1. Consider what it is you neglect the offer of Eternal Happiness the greatest kindness that ever was expressed to the World the foundation of your present peace the end of your beings the stay of your minds the great desire of your Souls the utmost felicity that humane Nature is capable of Is it nothing to neglect the favour of a Prince the kindness of Great Men the offers of a large and plentiful Estate but these are nothing to the neglect of the favour of God the love of his Son and that salvation which he hath purchased for you Nay it is not a bare neglect but it implies in it a mighty contempt not only of the things offered but of the kindness of him who offers them If men had any due regard for God or themselves if they had any esteem for his love or their own welfare they would be much more serious in Religion than they are When I see a person wholly immersed in affairs of the World or spending his time in luxury and vanity can I possibly think that man hath any esteem of God or of his own Soul When I find one very serious in the pursuit of his Designs in the World thoughtful and busie subtle in contriving them careful in managing them but very formal remiss and negligent in all affairs