of Faith And in as much as he does not at all Presume is very apt to apprehend he does not sufficiently Believe whereas his seemingness of Despair is a real Argument of his Faith whilst attended with an hatred of former sins and fear of falling into the like For whilst he thinks he has not Faith he does at least desire to have it And whilst he desires 't is plain he loves it And because of just nothing there can be no love at all He that loves must needs believe that the object of his Love has a real Being And if he desires what he wants and truly loves what he desires and by consequence believes what he truly loves Then sure the sequel is unavoidable That this falsifying Despair is an excellent good mark of a True Believer And to This alone it is I would fain drive Others because to This I would fain be driven But now the Murdering Despair is another Thing and often issues from the Preaching of unconditional Reprobation when whosoever thinks himself of the Hopeless Number is apt to hold it so vain a Thing to catch at an Interest in Heaven that he resolves to enjoy his good Things upon the Earth And as nothing is so daring as a Desperate Coward when he finds no way to obtain his safety by his escape and thence is made by his Despair a most insufferable fighter from whence ariseth the common saying That when an Enemy is flying 't is good to make him a Golden Bridge so there is nothing more jovial at least by Intervals and fits than the Desperate Sinner which now I speak off whose Famous Character we meet with in the second Chapter of Wisdom where the Despairer of Immortality in an extreamly better world does make an hearty resolution of living merrily in This. This is that desperate Despair which is as mischievous as Presumption in that it placeth the sinner beyond Repentance And so the objection notwithstanding my Doctrine seems to stand firm and unremoveable That the Terrors of the Almighty do make up one of his choicest Methods for the bringing of Sinners to true Repentance § 7. Having briefly thus insisted upon the proof of the Doctrine methinks our manifold Experience should save me the Labour of Application whether we fall under a publick or a private consideration We must confess as to the publick That our sins have been as clamorous as those of Israel and God hath us'd the same Method for our Amendment We have many years felt the effects of War and now are exercised afresh with the Fear of Scarceness The very Perfection of our Spring hath as it were been swallow'd up by a Second Winter The late Abuses of our Plenty have been the Heralds of a Dearth And the Deluge of our Impieties hath been so rebuked by that of Waters That God does seem to have alter'd the course of Nature as 't were to try if we will alter our course of Sin 'T is true the Season began to mend upon its very first sense of our Humiliation And God hath only said to Us as to the People in my Text Ideo sic faciam Therefore thus will I do All is hetherto but a Threat and That suspended with a Condition Through the Bowe in the Cloud which was set as a sign betwixt God and Us he is pleas'd to shoot comfort throughout our dwellings But then the ground of its continuance doth stand conditionally in This That we do all at this Instant Prepare to meet Him § 8. As to our private Consideration perhaps there is hardly any man here whom God hath not terrefied one way or other and sent his Rod for an Ambassador to speak his Will As either by the loss of a Darling Child or of a most endeared Wife or else by some pungent and grievous sickness or by some eminent miscarriage in point of Honour or Estate or if by none of all These yet at least he has been threatned by the woful Examples of other men Nam tua Res agitur Paries cum proximus ardet The Rod that is brushing but in the Aire may we cannot tell how soon be sharply beating upon our shoulders The very weather which now is better may soon be worse than it was before And though the Immoderation of Rain is pass'd yet the consequences of it are still remaining And the Remembrance of the Threat should be present with us Nay since 't is clear from that difficult but useful Text Mark 9. 49. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That we must every one be Season'd with Salt or Fire That our putrid Affections must be eaten out here or else our Persons destroy'd hereafter there being no medium betwixt the one and the other blessed be He who shall preserve us in Tears of Brine that he may not consume us in Fire of Brimstone We ought to smile on those stripes which are meant to drive us to Immortality § 9. Let us not think our selves too wise to be thus Instructed or too old to be thus Educated or too great to be thus Corrected Perhaps the Robbins of our Schools are in the School of Jesus Christ no more than humble ABC darians They that are Aged enough by Nature may have hardly yet attain'd to be Babes in Grace And they who brandish the Sword of Justice are themselves under God's Lash And since we cannot ever enter into the Kingdom of Heaven unless we receive it as little Children Let us therefore as little Children down on our Knees before our Father Let us confess that we have sin'd Let us ask him Forgiveness and promise never to do the like He will not cast away his Rod until he see 's that we have Kiss'd it And that we can say with the Prophet David It is good for us to have been afflicted For whom his Menaces do not better they accidentally make worse And if we harden our Hearts we do but weighten his Hand The shewing of which will be the work of my Second Doctrinal Proposition That God's Severer sort of Iudgments is a fit Remedy for Those whom his milder Chastisements will do no good on § 1. I cannot shew you this better than by Example nor by a better Example than what this Chapter does here afford us For when the Kine of Bashan on the Mountains of Samaria the Schismatical Tribes of the People Israel whom God did therefore stigmatize with so disgraceful a Periphrasis had oppress'd the poor and crush'd the needy ver 1. when they had greatly transgress'd at Bethel and multiplied Transgressions at Gilgal ver 4. God was pleas'd to proceed against them by several steps and degrees of his Indignation that if a lesser corrosive would not cure them a sharper might For first he sent them cleanness of Teeth as his Embassadour or Herald to fetch them in There was a want of Bread in all their places which was the first part of Famine and yet for all this they would not return
in the Torments of their Erebus than in the Pleasures of their Elizium They told them of Minos and Radamanthus as the grim Judges of Offenders of Haggs and Furies as Executioners of the Sentence of such as Ixion and Prometheus as sad Examples of the Condemn'd All which saith Diodorus were but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so many Bugs or Mormo's to fright the People into Morality § 2. So great an Influence had Fear on the False Religions of the World And to discover as great an Influx which it had also upon the True Let me lead you forth a little out of the Forrest into the Garden wherein the very first Precept was fens't with Terror It was not said unto the Protoplast Thou shalt surely live if thou eatest not But as a method of greater force In the day that thou eatest thou shalt surely dye If we look into the Bible from the Beginning to the End This we shall find to have been the Method of each Person in the Trinity First of all it was the Method of God the Father when he deliver'd his Law from a Burning Mountain even with Thundering and Lightning with Blackness and Darkness with smoke and Tempest with the sound of a Trumpet and the voice of words which voice they that heard intreated that they might not hear it and so terrible was the sight that Moses said I exceedingly fear and quake This again was the Method of God the Son who said he came not to destroy but fulfil the Law his word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to fill it up He did endeavour to Preach his Hearers into the High-way of Heaven even by setting before them the pains of Hell He threatn'd them with Weeping and Gnashing of Teeth with a Worm that dyeth not and with a Fire that is not quenched We hear him saying It is Impossible that is to say exceeding Hard for a Rich man enter into the Kingdom of Heaven He saith the way to it is streight and the Gate Narrow and the Travellers that find it extreamly Few He bids us strive to enter in and never leave striving until we Conquer Nay this was the Method of the Comforter even of God the holy Ghost who taught St. Paul to constrain his Scholars by shewing the Terrors of the Lord. Nay to deliver them up to Satan for the Destruction of the Flesh that their Spirits might be saved in the Day of the Lord Iesus § 3. And indeed if we consider How many poor Souls have been debauch'd in these Times by the false Apprehensions of Christian Liberty and Conscience of Faith without Love Justification without Honesty and Repentance of Sins without Amendment so as the stales of those Heresies which had been brew'd in ancient Times are freshly broach'd in our Dayes and given for Drink to the giddy People we cannot but wish that all our Clergy would now become Boanerges or Sons of Thunder at least by shewing the strict necessity of Impartial obedience unto the Gospel that is to say unto the Statutes or Laws of Christ A living in Holiness and Righteousness in Piety and Probity in Godliness and Honesty in the Duties of the First and the Second Table without the which saith the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews no man living shall see the Lord. § 4. This we see is so peculiar to that Amazing Lover of Souls that he does not only set Hell before us and sad Examples too behind but Temporal Crosses on either side And however surrounded thus with Terrors we find them All little enough For first it being not the greatness but the presentness of Danger which most affrights us He does not threaten his Rod only but often layes it upon our Backs And then because like common Mariners we would not Pray though in a Tempest were it impossible to be drown'd or to suffer Shipwrack He does not Punish only at present and for a Time But also threatens he will do it to all Eternity For if after this Life is swallow'd up of Immortality He should only have an Heaven for Loyal Subjects and never a Hell for his Rebellious ones men would be readier to say at the last period of their lives Let us eat and drink for to morrow we dye Than Let us fast and pray for to morrow we shall be happy § 5. If any â—iduciary shall say That Terrors work not a filial but servile Fear and rather cause an hypocriticall than Godly sorrow the Answer to it is very Easy That as Gods severity speaks his Power and That his Excellence so many times a servile Fear begets a Fear of Admiration And Admiration is apt to end in a Fear of Reverence and Reverence is a Compound which has Love as well as Fear for a chief Ingredient § 6. And if again it shall be objected that John and James are but uncomfortable Preachers enough to blast a mans Faith and Thunderstrike him into Despair I Answer to it by these degrees First that for here and there one who possibly falls into Despair Thousands rise to Presumption and Millions lye down in carnal Security Again The Sin of Despair is not so commonly understood as it is dangerously mistaken and that by some who Domineer in our open Pulpits There is a kind of Despair which is only the effect of a broken heart and the manifest sign of a tender Conscience The mark of such a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Repentance never to be repented There have been Persons in the world who have been so very passionately in Love with God and so amorous of his Purity that they have hated themselves extreamly because they have suspected they have not lov'd him And have been easily betray'd into such suspicion by their sense of some things which are unavoidable even the natural Infirmities of Flesh and Blood Every small Mote in anothers Eye hath seem'd a Beam in their own They have look'd upon their Sins through a kind of Microscope for such is the Glass of an holy Jealousie which hath made a little Ignorance to look as bigg as an Infidelity an human Frailty to seem as monstrous as an Apostacy from Grace Thence come those Syncopes of Spirit by which they are made to cry out with Christ Himself upon the Cross although 't is quite in another sense My God my God why hast thou forsaken me An evident Argument and sign not that God hath forsaken Them but rather that They have forsaken Sin So when Peter cry'd out and even to that very Saviour on whom he depended for his Salvation Depart from me ô Lord for I am a sinful man He drew Christ to him by his intreating him to Depart The more a Saint in Christs Eyes for being a Sinner in his own As there are many silly Shepherds who mistake a Repenting for a Despairing Sheep so there is oftentimes an Innocent but silly sheep which mistakes his own Weakness for want
is to be cherisht though never so gâ—â—sly out of Tune but to be broken if it be false because incapable of amendment Some are so scandalous that we must not receive them into our Houses nor bid them God speed For to bid them God speed is to partake of their Evil deeds 2 Joh. 10. 11. But there is nothing more Barbarous than not to hold from the breaking a bruised reed or from the quenching a smoaking flax Nothing but Pardon belongs to Penitents although they may have sin'd against us no less than seventy times seven It is an excellent passage in Herodotus that whilst Croesus was brewing Vengeance against the Murderer of his Son Adrastes being the man that had kill'd the Son threw himself down at the Fathers feet and in the bitterness of his Soul pass'd such a sentence upon himself as even melted the very bowels of an inraged King who straight brake forth into this expression 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Friend saith he I am reveng'd thy severity to thy self hath made me kind And I think it fit that thou shouldest live for thinking it fit that thou shouldest dye If we have failed heretofore in so great a duty let us learn from that Heathen to love our enemies for the future And since it is dangerous not to love them in as much as our God is a consuming fire let us love them at least in our own defence Have they persecuted us when it was in Their power Let us the rather not hurt them when 't is in Ours For to Imitate their courses is to Approve them But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Arrian speaks not to be like them in what is evil is the most generous kind of revenge and conquest Now then if you please hear the sum of the whole matter We must demonstrate to our enemies by the most practical way of arguing That the night of sin is far spent and that the day of our Amendment begins to dawn that the Day-star in St. Peter is arising in our hearts that we are followers of Christ and resolv'd to do sincerely as he hath given an Example Which was not to call down Fire from Heaven much less to conjure it up from Hell but to call Iudas Friend whilst he was Executing his Treason as well as Devil whilst he design'd it nay to lay down his Life even for them that took it away Now since He is what he calls himself the light of the World and as well our armour as our apparel St. Paul did fitly explain his Precept for putting on the armour of Light by that of putting on the Lord Iesus Christ. This is the use we are to make of the Nights going away and the dayes approach if I may not rather say its presence with us This is our practical and vital not verbal Oratory which next to the pleading of the Spirit who helpeth our infirmities and maketh intercession for us with groans which cannot be uttered is the only Oratory with God that will be powerful to perswade him to pass our Hopes into Fruitions to Crown our Fruitions with an Increase to bless that Increase with a long Continuance and so to Sanctifie unto us our Temporal things as that we may not fall short of the things Aeternal This is the rational importance of the word Therefore in my Text as 't is a particle of connexion betwixt our Duty and our Deliverance Now that the Duty of keeping close to the Commandments of Christ by casting off All our works of Darkness and by putting on the whole armour of light should be inforced upon our Souls from the consideration of the Time a Time of Peace and Prosperity succeeding a Time of Persecution a very bright Day after a very Dark Night I shall the rather proceed to prove by the several Reasons of the thing because the Reasons making for it will be also the Motives inducing to it They will not only clear the Truth but advance the practice of my Assertion The first Reason is Because it is generous and noble to amend our lives with our conditions and rather out of gratitude than fordid fear It will be ever the greatest glory of Titus Vespasian above the rest of the Roman Emperours that he was moulded by his Empire from the worse to the better from having been a very cruel and a very proud person to be as eminently mild and humble too as if he had listen'd to the Precept in Ecclesiasticus and made his Practice an Answer to it My Son the greater thou art humble thy self so much the more Happy is the Man that can say with David It is good for me that I have been in trouble But He is the Man of a rarer happiness who is inwardly the better for having prosper'd 'T is very much worthier of a Christian to be led by Gods favour then to be driven into duty by his severity A well natur'd people upon the receiving of a blessing will be apt to bethink themselves with David by what expressions of their gratitude they may signifie their sense of their Obligation Quid retribuemus what shall we render unto the Lord for all his benefits bestowed upon us Psal. 116. 12. which of his greatest enemies shall we make a sacrifice to his wrath what monstrous sin shall we mortifie what darling lust shall we subdue how shall we honour him with our lives and give him thanks by our Reformation shall we despise the Riches of his forbearance because he is willing that his forbearance should allure us to Repentance and not that his Iudgments should fright us to it shall we presume to be evil because he is good And offend the more boldly because his Grace does so much abound No we will not for shame abuse his Love and corrupt our selves with his Indulgence Nor will we in pity to our Souls pollute our selves with his gifts or sin away his graces and mercies to us by making them serve to incense his Iustice. But by how much the greater his Mercies are by so much the more will we tremble to provoke the eyes of his glory Because we find by so late experience He is a God ready to pardon swift to shew mercy and slow to wrath we will indeavour to let him see we are a people ready to serve him swift to ask him forgiveness but slow to sin Thus ye have the first Reason of the word Therefore in my Text as 't is a particle of connexion betwixt the Duty and the Deliverance The second Reason is because he will otherwise Repent of his favours to us and will punish us the more for sinning against such Obligations We ought to look upon our priviledge with Fear and Trembling for that which heightens our dignity whilst we attend to Gods service does also aggravate our doom whilst we neglect it The very things which make us capable of greater happiness than
that he may not consume How he mercifully indeavours to whip the Sinner into a Saint destroying the Beast in us to save the Man How his Wisdom does sometimes suffer us to be intangl'd with Temptations that so his Goodness may deliver us and help us out And that we may be able to say with David Thou ô Lord of very faithfulness hast caused us to be troubled That many times his severities are Mercies to us will be intelligible to any who shall but consult their own experience I mean the experience of their lesser in prevention of greater Punishments As the loss of some Chattels to save a Limb or the loss of a Limb to preserve the whole Body or the loss of that Body to save the Soul Now if God shall deprive us of one or two Parts of all we Have or of all we Are when All of Both are confiscate for our Treasons committed against his Majesty shall we not think our selves bound to be glad and thankful that even so he hath been pleas'd to reprieve the rest Admit a Friend should be falling from off a Tower and we in the snatching of him back should put his Arme out of joynt would he impute his Deliverance to our unkindness because it cost him some pain in the purchase of it And if in our violent Career of Sin when we are rushing as it were headlong into the bottomless Pit of Hell God is pleas'd to pull us back with a stronger violence be it by Poverty or Disgrace by the Plague of Pestilence or of Famine be it by any other purgent or dreadful means yet let us thankfully consider 't is but to snatch us from a Precipice And again let us consider with as much thankfulness unto God as our hearts can hold That if Amendment is the End of his Threats and Terrors Then that which frustrates his Threats must needs fulfil them Which I proceed to shew at large in my last Doctrinal Proposition That God desiring antecedently the timely Repentance of a Sinner and only by way of consecution the final destruction of the Impenitent 't is plain his Menaces are fulfilled by their never coming to pass most fully satisfied and accomplish'd not when they confound but convert a sinner § 1. For the better Elucidation of what may seem a dark Point and for the prevention of such objections as may be made by those men who are either so unconsidering as not to think of Gods Methods or so unlearned as not to know them or so prophane as to murmur and quarrel at them we shall do well to take notice of those two sorts of Menaces which do occur to us in Scripture under two several Notions Some we find under God's Oath and others only under his Word The first of which are positive the second suppositive The former are purposed as Revenges but the later only as Remedies The Menaces under his Oath he does evermore execute whereas Those under his Word only He does many times Retract § 2. But now it being not consistent with the simplicity of the Almighty that either his Oath or his Retractation should differ really from his Will the Eighth Council of Toledo will give us the Ground of this Distinction Iurare Dei est à seipso ordinata nullatenus convellere Poenitere vero eadem ordinata cum voluerit immutare When God will Execute his Sentence he is then said to Swear And when he will alter or remit it he is said to Repent God's Repentance saith Tertullian is nothing else but a simple Resuming his former Purpose And his Oath saith learned Philo is nothing else but his Word exerting it self into Effect So that the Promises and the Threats which are deliver'd under his Oath are That indeed which was but said of the now Antiquated Laws of the Medes and Persians Irreversible and peremptorie and incapable of a Repeal I shall make them both plain by a few Scriptural Examples And § 3. First of the Promises under his Oath the Prophet David gives us an Instance in the 89 Psalm at the 34 verse where first he positively pronounceth My Covenant will I not break nor alter the thing that is gon out of my lips And then the reason of it follows I have sworn by my Holiness that I will not fail David Another Instance of it we have in the 7. of Deuteronomy at the 8. verse where God is said to love Israel more than any other Nation even for this very reason and this alone because he would make good the Oath which he had sworn unto their Fathers Secondly of the Threats which God delivers under his Oath we have a very pregnant Instance in the 95 Psalm at the 11 verse where speaking of the Israelites to whom the Holy Land was promis'd saith He I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my Rest. Nor did one of them enter excepting Caleb and Ioshua who were exempted from the Sentence Num. 14. 30. Nay they did not enter in though God had sworn they should enter From whence ariseth an objection How it can stand with God's Veracity to Swear they shall and they shall not For Num. 14 23 Surely saith God they shall not see the Land which I sware unto their Fathers And vers 30. Doubtless ye shall not come into the Land concerning which I sware to make you dwell therein First he swore they should inhabit in the Land and yet afterwards He swore they should not see it much less should they enter or dwell within it This objection seems hard but yet the Answer is very easie and may be rationally drawn from the same verse with the objection For the Promise was not made to the Individuals but to the Nation not to the Persons but People Israel So as both these Oaths were most inviolately accomplished the Negative in the Parents and the Affirmative in their Posterity The Negative in the Provokers and the Affirmative in the Obedient So that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does still stand good The Oath of God does still imply the Immutability of his Decree Heb. 6. 17. § 4. But for the Menaces under his Word only the Case is different He had much rather they should be frustrated than severely fulfil'd upon us And perhaps I may say with more propriety of speaking that to frustrate such Menaces is most perfectly to fulfil them So very signal is the Indulgence and Love of God that he will imitate and follow his very Creatures For no sooner can it Repent us of the evil of Sin which we have don but He as suddenly repents him of the evil of punishment which he intended It is his own Affirmation Ier. 18. 8. If that Nation against whom I have pronounced turn from their evil I will repent of the evil which I thought to do unto them And again in the same Chapter Behold saith God I frame evil against you when
meeknesse as we have Christ for an Example paying Obedience from without us to publick Sanctions where none from within us is strictly due Every Christian like Christ Himself is to be actively Obedient in many things though not as necessary yet as conventent though not for conscience yet for the benefit of conformity though not for private yet for publick satisfaction though not to avoyd Sin in Himself yet not so much as to occasion it in other men But however this Reason may passe for good methinks 't were easy to give a better To wit that our Saviour being laden with the Iniquity of us all to use the words of the Prophet Esay was in all our behalfes to stand in need of a purification Being made Sin for us as St. Paul speaks to the Corinthians 2 Cor. 5 2. and at last numbred with the Transgressors and so made subject to the Levitical as well as the Moral Law of Moses born as he was of a Iewish parent a branch sprung forth from the Root of Iesse He was first to fulfil and then to abrogate the law of Rites or rather to abrogate whilst he fulfil'd it And this may help us to give a Reason besides the Poverty of his Parents why they offered not a Lamb but a pair of Doves For what needed the Type where the Antitype was present What place could there be for a Lamb out of the Fold when behold the Lamb of God that came down from Heaven The Lamb to expiate for our Souls as well as the Shepherd to direct them § 8. The Thought of which should sâ—â—ve to fill us not with Gratitude only and Love but even with wonder and admiration That the Lawgiver himself would be obedient unto the Law thereby to free us from the Law as the strength of Sin and so to free us from Sin as the sting of Death and so to free us from Death as 't is the Victory of Hell That the Holy of Holies and King of Kings would meekly take upon him the Form as well of a sinner as of a servant and become legally unclean whereby to take away from us our great uncleanness for according to the Hebraisme by which the Hellenisticks are wont to speak nothing worse can be meant by the legal uncleanness of a Iew than that external obligation to the performance of a Duty which by an arbitrary Law is incumbent on him And to This our blessed Saviour without the least stain of guilt did submit himself not at all for himself but for Us alone For Us it was that he descended from out the Bosom of the Father for Us he poured out himself so far forth as to be emptiâ—d of all his Glory that we might drink of his Fulness Grace for Grace For Us it was that he was cloyster'd in Marie's Womb for Us that he was folded in Marie's Armes for Us that he was put upon several Iournies whilst yet he could not either go or with ease be carryed To wit from Nazareth to Bethleem and from Bethleem to Ierusalem and that upon more accounts than one not only to be purified but presented unto the Lord. This as I said in the Beginning was the second Action of the Day and so deserves the second Place in the consideration of the Text. § 1. To give you the History of the Action from that which gave it its Original I must goe back to take my Rise from as farr as Exodus Where after Sundry dismal miracles for the freeing of Israel out of Aegypt the last and greatest was shewn at midnight When the sword of the Lord did cut off all the first-born among the Children of the Egyptians from the first-born of Pharoah that sate on his throne to the first-born of the Captive that lay in the dungeon But the first-born of Israel being miraculously preserv'd were immediately claimed by their preserver who besides the common Interest which he had in them as his Creatures did farher devote them unto Himself by a peculiar right of Redemption too And though by way of Commutation He took the Levites unto Himself in stead of all the first born of the Children of Israel Yet were not the Levites so full a Ransome but that they were farther to be ransom'd by the summ of five Shekels § 2. Now put all this together and it will prove an Adumbration of the holy Child Iesus who though the Lord and the Redeemer was yet presented unto the Lord and Redeemed this Day with a piece of Silver For He was sure the Fist-born who is expressed so in Scripture by way of Eminence and whom the First-born of Israel were but intended to represent He presented Himself as our Elder Brother and so again the first-born to redeem us from the Fury of the Destroying Angel He as the First-born or Heir of all things was presented this day to receive his right of Primogeniture by claiming the Heathen for his Inheritance and the uttermost part of the earth for his possession He again was the first-born who presented Himself unto as many as would receive him that he might give them power to be the Sons of God To sum up all in a word He is call'd the First-Born of every Creature Col. 1. 15. who was begotten of the Father before all Time And the first-born of his Mother brought forth into the world in the fulness of Time He was again the first-born by vertue of his office as Mediator The first that was born of a pure Virgin the first that ever was born without the least stain of Sin the first and last that was born both God and Man Many wayes the first-born he was brought on this day to be presented unto the Lord not as a Servant only or Sacrifice but as a King and a Priest too on whom his Brethren depended for Life and Fortune so to claim his own Right and so to communicate it to Us that whether Paul or Apollo whether Cephas or the World whether life or Death whether things present or things to come All might be ours as we are Christ's as Christ is God's § 3. From the whole History of the Action so farr at least as our Lord was concerned in it it will be easy enough to gather These usefull Considerations § 4. First that the Dayes being accomplish't when both the Mother and her Babe might have the freedom to goe abroad The first Journy they took was not to Nazareth but Ierusalem She brought Him to God's House before her own Implying this Caveat to Christian Parents that they suffer not the Devil to take the first Hansel of their Children but acquaint them with God in their very Nonage and so present them unto Him by a Religious Education That they devote them to his Service even as early as Hannah devoted Samuel That their enmity to Sin be as soon bespoken as the Child Hanibal at the Altar was bespoken by his
Father to hate the Romans That they suffer them not to lisp in the Language of Egypt but as Children put to Nurse in the Land of Goshen make them Suck in good manners as soon as Milk That they permit them not to enter within the Breath of the Prophane from whose unâ—avory communication like the New-landed Spaniard they can many times Swear when they cannot speak That they put so fit a difference betwixt themselves and Brute-Beasts as to become unto their children not only carnal but spiritual Parents and so beget them to God by a second Birth as not to afford them any reason to Curse their first This is the Use we are to make of our first Consideration the Mother's seasoning of her Babe not at Nazareth but Ierusalem § 5. Secondly let us consider That as of all the Iewish off-spring not the Females but the Males were to be offer'd unto the Lord as it were intimating unto us that They alone may expect to be admitted into God's Presence who Captivate the Lusts of the effeminate Flesh by the masculine power of a controuling spirit so of all the Males too none but the best or the first-born were set a part for God's Portion For when I say the first-born I mean the Might of the Parents and the beginning of their strength the excellency of Dignity and the excellency of Power as Iacob said of his Eldest Son Reuben They were not then like the Parents of our last and worst Times who when their children are Blind or Crooked or in a word nothing worth do fly for refuge to the Temple and make them Deodates God is little beholding to such a Parent who when his Son is too dull for either the Shop or the Exchange does straight present him unto the Lord by devoting him to serve in his dreadful House and as a Minister to wait at his holy Table Does give him over to the Pulpit because too old for the Grammar School And if he cannot Write or Read does therefore teach him to Pray extempore As if to the office of a Workman who needeth not to be asham'd there were nothing required but lungs and Impudence From the beginning I am sure it was not so For Kings and Princes in time of Yore were thought most proper to be the Priests And when the Priesthood was Entail'd on the Tribe of Levi it was by way of Prerogative and in reward of a special Service The Best by Pedegree by Sex by Primogeniture They that were every way the Best and the Choisest Persons were set apart in the Beginning for the peculiar Service of the most High § 6. From whence 't is obvious to infer That as of the fruit of a man's Body so by consequence of the Fruit of his Labour too of the fruit of his Substance and of the fruit of his Soul of every thing that he calls His He is not to offer up to God but the best and choisest We must not sacrifice to Pleasure with the strength and Beauty of our Age and think that God will be content with a noysome Carkass like the false Votary in the Apologue who vow'd to consecrate unto Iupiter Half of the All that he went to find and presently finding a Bagg of Nuts made no doubt but he should bravely perform his Vow by giving the shells unto his God and taking the Kernels unto Himself This were at best to forsake the world because the world forsakes Us And only to keep our Baptismal Vow because we know not any longer which way to break it Will God accept of our Presenting our selves unto him not as Christ on this Day when newly come into the world But as the Clinicks of old at our going out Will he accept of our coming when we come to him but in a Fright not of choise but necessity not at all as to our best but rather as to our last and our only Refuge Will he receive us when we shall choose him as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not as the greatest Good Thing but the lesser Evil not as better and more desirable than the Injoyments of the Earth but as preferrable at least to the Pains of Hell It cannot possibly be our vertue to be forsaken of our Sins or rather bereaved of our strength whereby to be vigorously Sinfull and without which we can no longer be sturdy Sinners So again in proportion to this Discourse 'T is not enought that we present him with the Labour of our Lipps and that a little towards Night to make our Time the more supportable which is to make our better Actions a meer Divertisement to our worse But we must Sacrifice to our God the very best of our Day which is our Morning the very best of our Years which is our Youth the very best of our Body which is our Heart the very best of our Being which is our Soul Our Body must be the Temple our Heart the Altar our Sincerity the Priest our Devotion the Fire our blessed Saviour must be the God and our Soul the Sacrifice § 7. But then withal like a sacrifice it must be pure and unpolluted pure as the Virgin who was this Day Purified And unpolluted as the Babe who was presented this day in the holy Place And yet because we cannot other wayes be purified as the Virgin much less perfect as the Babe who yet hath commanded us to be perfect even as our Father in Heaven is perfect Mat. 5. ult and to purifie our selves as Himself is pure 1 Joh. 3. 3. Because I say we cannot otherwise be pure and perfect Let us do like the Virgin as well this day as from this day forwards Take the Babe into our Hearts as she now did into her Armes And so together with our Saviour present our selves unto the Lord. For as the Man that was condemn'd by the Roman Senate procured Love as well as Pardon by representing the Scars in his naked Bosome which were the Monuments of his Sufferings for the honour and Service of his Country so to obtein at once our Pardon and Acceptance also at Gods Tribunal not only Pardon of our Sins but Acceptance of our Persons we must recount the many sufferings of our Elder Brother in our behalf pleading the Scars and the Bloodshed sustein'd by the Captain of our Salvation To such objections as may be made by an Injur'd Iustice we must present an injur'd Iesus as our only Answer and Apologie To every Arrow levell'd at us by God's Displeasure we have but Christ and Him Crucified for our Shield or Helmet to intercept it Though with our Prayers and our Tears our only warrantable Weapons we humbly venture to contend with the Lord of Hosts hoping the Pungency of our sorrow will make him yield yield I mean to his own Resentment yet may we not hope to prevaile upon him unless we stand behind Christ and as the Virgin this Day hold him up as our Buckler our only Armour