men or rather as much as the advantages of Christianity out-went those of Philosophy For this man is not only improved by humane discourse but raised by divine revelation and governed by the wisedom of God is not under the faint and fluctuating hopes which reason can suggest but under the assurances of faith is not only eminent for some one or more vertues but being inflamed by the love of God and the prospect of Heaven he breaths nothing but greatness and glory wherever he goes God is in his heart Heaven is in his eye joy in his countenance and he spreads the sweet odours of piety and casts a lustre upon Religion FOR in the first place he is sanctified throughout the image of God is restored upon him and Christ Jesus formed in him All the maims of his fall are cured the confusion of his powers rectified the tyranny of custom vanquished his Conscience is inlightned his reason raised his passions subdued his will set right and all the inferiour powers obedient Vertue is made natural easy and delightfull to him and it is his meat and drink to doe the will of his Heavenly Father FURTHERMORE to assure his station he is confirmed by the grace of God and upheld by divine power he is the peculiar care of God's providence the special charge of the holy Angels and the Temple of the blessed Spirit all God's dispensations provide for his safety consider his strength and work for his good The Devil is so restrained that he shall not tempt him above what he shall be able to bear and hath not so little wit with his great malice to attempt where he is sure to be foiled Persecutions may assault him and flatteries may undermine him prosperity may indeavour to blow him up or adversity to crush him down raillery may goe about to shame him out of his course or buffonry to laugh him out of it but his race is as certain as that of the Sun or the Stars in the Firmament and his foundation sure as the Mountains for he knows whom he hath believed AGAIN he is adopted a Son of God and sealed by the Holy Ghost to the day of redemption he feels himself quickned by his vital presence warmed with his motions and assured by his testimony This erects the hands that would hang down and strengthens the feeble knees this lifts up his head with joy because he knows his redemption draweth nigh Every day he walks he finds himself a days journey nearer Heaven therefore he sets his face thitherwards he puts on the habit the mein the joy the very heart of Heaven he goes up by contemplation and views it he ravishes his heart with the sight of it he falls into a trance with admiration and when he comes to himself again cries out Come Lord Jesus come quickly He needs nothing he fears nothing he despises the world life is tedious death is welcome to be dissolved and to be with Christ is best of all WHAT can trouble him that hath peace in his Conscience what can disturb him that hath Heaven before him what can dismay him that is secure of immortality what can affright him whom death cannot hurt and what can deject him that is sure of a crown of glory AND lastly no wonder if after all this such a man be active and vigorous for God if he be used by God and become his Embassadour beseeching men in Christ's stead to be reconciled to God For all those comforts and incouragements afore mentioned inlarge his Soul like an Angel put wings upon him like a Cherub and set him on fire like one of the Seraphim with holy zeal of God's glory and the good of men Therefore with David he tells the unbelieving world what God hath done for his Soul and with his Lord and Master Christ Jesus he goes about doing good and in this flame of holy love is contented to offer up himself a sacrifice of a sweet smell to God HERE is adulta virtus Religion and Piety at their highest pitch and fullest maturity that is attainable in this world the next step is Heaven one degree more commences Glory Let the envious world now if they dare reproach Religion as hypocrisy or as meer pretences and great words when they observe that this glorious state is the design and the attainment of it whenever it is wisely and worthily prosecuted or let them say all this is impossible who as Tully well expresses it Ex sua ignavia inertia non ex ipsa virtute de virtutis robore existimant These things are no Romances nor have I dressed up any Legendary Hero the things are true and real Thus shall it be done to the man whom God delights to honour All this hath been attained and might be attained again would men but cease to take up an opinion of their own goodness from the extream badness of others and take their measures rather from the rules and motives and assistances of the Gospel then from the examples and customs of the world then without doubt others besides St. Paul might be able to say I have fought the good fight I have finished my course I have kept the faith from henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord the righteous Judge shall give me at that day and not to me only but to all them also that love his appearing 2 Tim. 4. 7 8. And that brings me to the last instance of the Father's kindness and the top of that glory which God bestows upon truely good men CHAP. V. The splendid Entertainment or the joys of Heaven St. Luk. Chap. 15. Vers 23. And bring hither the fatted Calf and kill it and let us eat and be merry THE CONTENTS § I. The peculiar intendment of this passage of the Parable That by the feast upon the fatted Calf are represented the joys of Heaven § II. The several figurative expressions which the joys of Heaven are set out by in holy Scripture viz. Paradise Rest a City a Kingdom a Feast § III. A more plain and literal account of the felicities of the other world especially in four particulars 1. The resurrection of the Body 2. Provision of objects fit to entertain and satisfy all the powers both of Soul and Body 3. The eternity of that state of life and happiness 4. The blessed presence of God and our Saviour and the happy society of Angels and Saints § I. IT was thought to be a just civility amongst the more soft and voluptuous Nations especially those of the East that those who were to be the Guests at a Feast should be as curious in the preparation of themselves for the solemnity as he that made the entertainment was for their accommodation and for that cause usually a considerable time of notice was given them before-hand that they might be in such circumstances as should both do honour to him that invited them and also render them
he observe the most weak and imperfect essays of the new birth or as the Apostle expresses it when Christ is beginning to be formed in men I saw thee saith our Saviour to Nathanael S. Joh. 1. 48. when thou wast under the fig-tree when thou wast reasoning about me whether I was the Messias or not I was privy to that conflict of thy thoughts between the report of the miracles wrought by me and the prejudicate opinion concerning the supposed place of my nativity I was not so much offended with thy objections as pleased with thy sincerity in that thou didst diligently inquire honestly debate and proceed to resolution upon rational satisfaction Most apposite to this purpose is that passage of the Prophet Jeremiah Chap. 31. vers 18 19 20. I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus Thou hast chastised me and I was chastised as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke Turn thou me and I shall be turned for thou art the Lord my God Surely after that I was turned I repented and after that I was instructed I smote upon my thigh I was ashamed yea even confounded because I did bear the reproach of my youth And after he had thus passionately described the first kindlings of repentance in the hearts of the people of Israel he then introduces God taking notice and expressing his compassions in the next words Is Ephraim my dear Son is he a pleasant child for since I spake against him I do earnestly remember him still therefore my bowels are troubled for him I will surely have mercy upon him saith the Lord. By all which we see that God despiseth not the day of small things NOW the consideration of this affords mighty incouragement to sinners to begin their motion to God-ward who would not put himself upon the way when the first attempt of returning shall be taken notice of If a man do but consider if he doe but pray if but breathe and pant after God there is a gracious eye upon him it is not altogether lost labour Nay saith our Saviour A cup of cold water given to a disciple in the name of a disciple shall not lose its reward And if such mean performances pass not unrewarded much less doth any thing of good escape God's notice and observation And upon the same consideration there is great reason of caution and that men take heed of discouraging any though never so small hopes of good and buddings of reformation in others for seeing God takes notice of beginnings he must needs be offended with those that obstruct them and will be sure severely to resent it Let therefore those that scoff at prayer and devotion as preciseness at seriousness and self-reflection as melancholy degeneracy of spirit that either press men forward into the same excess of riot with themselves and labour to divert or stifle all workings of Conscience by the means of sensual entertainments or treat those with contumely who boggle at their extravagancies and begin to take up and reform let all such I say consider well what they doe when God's eye is upon such beginings of good lest they be found fighters against God And let all that have any sense of goodness themselves or but so much as a reverence of God's all-seeing eye think it becomes them to incourage such beginnings to indeavour to kindle such sparks and blow them up into a flame of love to God and goodness to which purpose I take liberty to apply a passage of the Prophet Isaiah Chap. 65. vers 8. Thus saith the Lord as the new wine is found in the cluster and one saith Destroy it not for there is a blessing in it q. d. The wise Master of the Vineyard especially in an unfruitfull time takes special notice of those few Grapes in a cluster that have good juice in them and will neither permit them to be carelesly crushed with the hand nor cast away amongst refuse So will the God of Israel do by his Vineyard the House of Israel he will take notice of the few that are good in the midst of a bad generation and not destroy all together And in like manner he will not despise the first essays of emergency from former vice and wickedness But thus I am led to the second parallel § III. 2. The Father as soon as he saw his Son had compassion so hath God to mankind especially when he sees them on their way homeward He had always good will towards them as they were his Creatures made in his own image designed for his service and for the enjoyment of himself and upon all these accounts hath a propension to do them good But so long as any man continues in a course of rebellion against him all the issues and expressions of this good will are obstructed which nevertheless as soon as ever he begins to relent and come to himself break out again and discover themselves For as the Psalmist tells us Like as a Father pitieth his Children so the Lord pitieth them that fear him Psal 103. 13. NOT that we are to imagine the Divine Majesty to be subject to the weakness of humane passion in a strict and proper sense so as to feel any pain or trouble upon the account of his concern for mankind for that the spirituality of his nature the perfection of his understanding and his self-sufficiency will by no means admit of But he is pleased in Holy Scripture to represent himself after that manner to the intent that we may be incouraged to hope and to indeavour since we are assured that he is not a meer spectator of the conflicts and agonies of a Penitent but hath a real inclination to do him good and would by no means have him perish To this purpose Ezek. 33. 11. he swears As I live saith the Lord God I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that the wicked turn from his way and live Turn ye turn ye from your evil ways for why will ye die O house of Israel What greater passion can any Father express towards his beloved Son then God here condescends to and what greater assurance can God give of his earnestness and reality then that of an Oath by himself WHILEST men are at the worst the divine goodness finds out some arguments of pity for he considers he made them fallible Creatures that he gave them not the bright and piercing intellects of Angels he joyned matter and spirit together in their composition by means whereof there is a continual contest between sense and reason a constant dispute betwixt bonum utile and jucundum that their transgression is not like that of Devils who sinned proprio motu without a tempter he knows the power of example the prejudices of education the long follies of Child-hood and therefore as I have shewed before is not implacable towards mankind whilest the state of life and this world lasts But when he takes notice that any man begins to
abandoned him my youthfull heat and folly precipitated me upon my own ruine but as he hath more wisedom then I so perhaps the affections of a Father are more strong then those of a child and the more he sees my foolishness the more arguments will he find to shew me mercy At least I will make trial of his clemency I will humbly prostrate my self before him I 'le embrace those knees that educated me I 'le lick the dust of that threshold which I contemptuously forsook I 'le own my fault and take shame to my self and so both magnify his mercy if he receive me and justify his proceedings if he reject me I know my Father is subject or obnoxious to no body who shall blame him for pardoning or set limits to his mercy nay who can tell the measure of a Father's bowels It may be too there is irresistible eloquence in misery and the spectacle of a sons adversity may have rhetorick enough in it to carry the cause where a Father is Judge Or if he provoked by my folly at first and extravagancy since will no more own me as a son perhaps he may receive me as a servant for if my rebellion hath extinguished in him the peculiar affections of a Father yet it hath not destroyed the common passions of humanity mercy and pity If he will receive me in that lower quality I am now broken to the condition of a servant and shall think his yoke easy hereafter having been inured to so sharp and heavy an one I will chearfully submit my ear to be bored to his door-post and be his servant for ever Or lastly if he will not trust a runnagate nor believe that he will ever prove a constant and perpetual servant that hath once deserted his station let him be pleased to take me as an hired servant whom he may turn off at pleasure make trial of me and admit me only upon good behaviour But if all fail and he should utterly cast me off which yet I hope he will not I can but perish and that I doe however Well this being resolved he casts a longing look towards his Fathers house and puts himself on his way thither But no sooner was he on his way though yet a great way off but his Father spies him those lean and wan cheeks and the hollow sunken eyes his extremity had reduced him to had not so disfigured him nor those rags unable to cover his nakedness so disguised him but his Father knew him and the memory of his former disobedience had not so cancelled the interests of a son or shut up the bowels of a Father but that the sight of his present misery kindled his compassion And whilest the son partly through that weakness which his vices and his sufferings had conspired to bring upon him and partly through a combination of shame and just fear of his Fathers indignation with difficulty makes towards him the Father prompted by paternal affection and transported between joy and pity runs to meet him falls on his neck and kisses him The Son though astonished at this condescension and surprized with the unexpected benignity of such a reception yet could not but remember what his Fathers joy made him forget namely his former disingenuity and rebellion And therefore humbly falls on his knees again and with shame and remorse makes his contrite acknowledgement after this manner Father for so this admirable goodness of yours gives me incouragement to call you more then the bloud and life which I derived from you I have I confess forfeited all the interest the priviledges of my birth might have afforded me in your affection having become a rebel both towards God and you had I not first neglected him I am sure I had never grieved you and having forsaken you I have not onely violated the greatest obligation I had upon me save that to his divine Majesty but also despised and affronted a goodness like to his whatsoever therefore I have suffered was but the just demerit of my folly and contumacy and whatsoever sentence you shall pass upon me further I submit to and here expect my doom from you I condemn my self as no more worthy to be called your Son be pleased to admit me but into the condition of your meanest servant and I have more then my miscarriages give me reason to hope for Whilest the Son was going on at this rate the Fathers bowels yearned too earnestly to admit of the delay of long Apologies and therefore chooses rather to interrupt him in his discourse then to adjourn his own joys or the others comfort And because he thought words not sufficient in the case he makes deeds the interpreters of his mind commanding his servants forthwith to bring out the best robe and to put it upon his Son together with a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet i. e. in all points to habit him as his Son and as the Son of such a Father by all which he maketh the full demonstration of a perfect reconciliation And not content herewith to give vent to his own joy that it might not overpower him whilest he confined it to his own bosom and perhaps also that those who had shared with him in his sorrows for the loss of a beloved Son might participate also in the joy of his recovery he goes on Bring out also the fatted calf and kill it and let us eat and be merry for this my Son was dead and is alive again was lost and is found and they began to be merry In the midst of this extraordinary jollity it happens the Elder Son who as we said before had always continued in his duty towards his Father comes out of the fields where he had been negotiating his Fathers affairs and wonders at the unusual Jubilee And when demanding the occasion they of the family had made him acquainted with the whole matter he takes it ill and interpreting this marvellous transport of joy at his Brothers return to be in derogation from himself as if his Father was too easy and inclinable towards him but severe to himself and unmindfull of the long and faithfull service he had done him begins to expostulate the matter somewhat warmly with his Father But the good old man mildly replies Son I am very sensible of and set a just value upon the long course of your obedience and I have it both in my power and in my will to reward you 't is true I have not hitherto made such solemn expressions of my love to you as I have now done upon this occasion for the case did not require it you as you have been always dutifull to me so you have had my house and all I have constantly to accommodate you as you have never rebelled against me so you have never felt the hardships your poor Brother hath undergone by his foolishness and as you that have never offended me never could distrust my favour nor need such
consists not in puncto but is estimated according to men's diligence or neglect of improving those means and advantages which have been afforded them For as there is the same proportion between 1. and 2. as between 5. and 10. so he that having but half suppose of the advantages which another man enjoyed proves to be as good as that other is really much better Whereas he that having double the advantages is not better then he whom he this way so much excells is not good at all nor will be acceptable to God when he shall be weighed in the balance of the Sanctuary Because whosoever had been furnished with true internal probity of mind and was of an obedient temper and had a sincere love of godnesse would most certainly have advanced in the measures of vertue proportionably to the opportunities he had of so doing i. e. in the words of our Saviour He that was faithfull in little would have been so in much And on the contrary he that under great advantages hath not been proportionable in the improvements of his temper and life it may truely be said of such a man God hath been very good to him but he for his part is not good at all Which consideration will be of use both to make us more wary in pronouncing concerning the final estate of other men and also enable us to passe a better judgment of our own actions and state forasmuch as it hereby appears that it is not the bare conformity or inconformity of our actions to a Law or Rule from whence their value or their guilt arises but respect is had to the knowledge or knowablenesse of that Rule And so we have the second ingredient of sin § III. 3. LASTLY to render sin compleat and perfectly criminal it is neither enough that for the matter of it it be against some Law nor that such Law be known but the act or omission must be voluntary that is not what a man was overborn into by some fatal necessity or compelled to by the force of some violent impression not what he could neither help nor hinder but what was so far subject to his own free choice that he willingly did what he did and could have done otherwise or omitted doing if he had been so pleased For whatsoever is not of this nature is not properly an humane act and therefore cannot involve him in the guilt of sin no more then the effects and productions of natural causes can be esteemed vicious And though men have understanding which those other causes are destitute of yet that being onely the Criterion or Test of truth and falshood not of moral good and evil therefore vertue and vice are not imputable to the understanding but to the will which being the Helm of the soul determines all its motions and accordingly is accountable for them For the more clear understanding of which and of whatsoever I may have occasion to say hereafter touching this matter I think it usefull to precaution these three things 1. THAT it is not to be doubted but that notwithstanding the liberty which the will of man hath to chuse evil yet it is not so uncontrollable in its elections but that it is subject to the power of God's grace to be checked and controlled by him at his pleasure for the divine wisedom may well be supposed to have a thousand ways of diverting man from his course without offering any direct violence to his faculties some of which might easily be instanced if it were needfull nay there is no reason to question but divine omnipotence may if it so please irresistibly incline move and determine it to that which is good of which some instances also may be assigned though these last must be expected to be very rare partly because that ordinarily to invert the nature of things and put his creation out of course makes not so much for his wisedom as it may seem to doe for the demonstration of his power and partly also because thus taking away the natural and evident reason of rewards and punishments would obscure that justice which he designs to glorifie But this is all that is asserted at present that whatsoever God may please to doe either for the hindring of evil or the effecting of good he doth not necessarily determine or over-rule the wills of men to that which is evil but therein they are left to themselves 2. AS some excellently good men may arrive at such a perfection such a new nature and such habits of goodnesse as that it shall be morally impossible they should chuse evil of which I shall treat more at large hereafter so on the other side it is neither impossible nor unusual for evil men to forfeit the freedom of their wills so far as to bring not onely a biass upon their spirits but a kind of fatal propension to evil and render it in a manner necessary that they sin Namely by long custome and inveterate habits of sin they lose the aequilibrium and balance of their souls and thenceforth wholly incline to evil But forasmuch as this wherever it comes to passe is onely the effect of their own choice it contradicts not what we are asserting for whereas the habits were voluntarily contracted the effects are interpretably so too And therefore as we noted before under the former Head that the reason why ignorance of the Law did not excuse a default was because the Law being once sufficiently promulged such ignorance must needs be supine and affected that is voluntary for the same reason such men as we now speak of cannot excuse their miscarriages by laying the blame upon their present necessity or impotency because having first crippled themselves voluntarily their actual halting afterwards is so too in as much as it was free in its causes though not in the special instances 3. BUT that which is principally to be considered is that there is a vast difference betwixt the power or capacity of doing good or of avoiding evil or willing so to doe on the one side and of doing or willing that which is evil on the other For to the former of these there is a necessity of the concurrence of divine grace and assistance which no man can deny without falling in with the Pelagians and therefore when a man is said to have it in his power to doe good that which is true is no more but this that such grace and assistance which is necessary is always ready and at hand which jointly concludes for God's goodness and man's liberty making the actions of man punishable when he doth evil because grace was ready to have assissed him otherwise if he had not refused it and rewardable when he doth well because when he might have refused God's help he did not and in short gives God the glory of what-ever is good because it could not be done without him and leaves no man without incouragement of his diligence and industry because God will
for deliberation there could be no perfect judgment and consequently but an imperfect consent AGAIN whilest a man is bending himself with all his might against some one extreme which he knows to be evil and therefore carefully declines he may perhaps in detestation of that incline too much to the other or whilest a man endeavours diligently to carry on both the affairs of this life and the concerns of Religion too it may happen that the solicitude and cares of the former may sometimes unseasonably crowd in and disturb him in the latter Nay once more through the infirmity of memory compared with the multiplicity of affairs which a wise and good man's care extends to it may not infrequently fall out that such a person for the present forgets or omits some duty of Religion Now it cannot be said that any of these cases are perfectly involuntary because it was not impossible but that extraordinary diligence and watchfullness might have provided against them nevertheless they are not deliberate sins nor was there any full consent of the will to them as is evident both by what we have said already and also by this that such persons we speak of very quickly feel remorse for them their hearts smite them upon the first reflexion upon what hath past and they presently recover themselves and double their watch and guard where they have thus found themselves overtaken These therefore and all other of the nature of these are properly called sins of infirmity BUT now on the other side when the matter of fact is notorious and palpable that it can admit of no dispute whether it be evil or no when a man is not surprized but makes his election doth not insensibly slip awry whilest he was in his right way but takes a wrong course is not overborn by an huge fear but is allured by the pleasures of sense when he hath time to consider and yet resolves upon that which is forbidden him here is little or nothing to extenuate the fact or mitigate his guilt it is a voluntary and therefore a presumptuous sin Such a distinction as this David seems to make Psal 19. 12 13. when he prays that he may understand his errours to the intent that with holy Joh where he had done iniquity he might doe so no more but earnestly begs that he may be kept from presumptuous sins i. e. from such voluntary and wilfull miscarriages as we have but now spoken of so saith he shall I be innocent and free from the great transgression For though sins of infirmity in the most proper sense are not without guilt at least if God should proceed in rigour with men yet in consideration of the goodness of God together with the evident pitiableness of their own circumstances they leave no horrour upon the mind no stain or ill mark upon the person much less a scar or a maim but the other besides their great guilt either terribly afflict or lay waste and stupify the Conscience they harden the heart break the powers of the soul and quench the Spirit of God as we shall have occasion to speak more at large hereafter AT present I think it may be very pertinent to observe that whereas S. John Ep. 1. Chap. 3. vers 4. seems to give a brief and compendious description of sin in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render Sin is a transgression of the Law it is not altogether improbable but that the Apostle intended to express something more then is commonly understood by those words in English for besides that it seems a flat saying he that sinneth transgresseth the Law for sin is a transgression of the Law it is noted moreover by Learned men that the Apostle calls not sin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which had been the most proper word to denote a meer breach or transgression of the Law but uses the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies a great deal more namely lawlesness and dissoluteness the living without or casting off the yoke of the Law for so we find it elsewhere used in Scripture particularly 1 Tim. 1. 9. where we have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lawless and disobedient or ungovernable joyned together And thus the phrase of the Apostle before us will import not so much the meer matter of sin viz. the violation of a Law but the aggravation of it as a presumptuous sin namely the wilfullness and stubbornness of the sinner And if this gloss may be allowed we shall with much ease be able to understand a following passage in this Apostle which hath not a little exercised the heads of Divines nor less perplexed the Consciences of many serious persons Viz. vers 9. of this Chapter he writes thus he that is born of God doth not commit sin for his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God Now if we take sin strictly and rigorously here for every thing that is contrary to the perfection of the Divine Law then it will be absolutely necessary that by the phrase he that is born of God we can understand none but our Saviour himself which is altogether besides the business forasmuch as he only was without sin in that sense but if we take the phrase in the latitude before intimated that is for voluntary wilfull and deliberate sins then the sense is both easie and comfortable namely that the man who is truely a Christian having not only the profession but the new nature temper and spirit of the Gospel though being a man and so incompassed with temptations and difficulties as every one is in this world he cannot avoid all surreptions yet the powerfull principles of Christianity setled in his heart will not fail to preserve him at least ordinarily from rebellion and wilfull disobedience AND this way of interpreting these and the like passages of the New Testament is strongly countenanced by what we find Luk. 1. 6. where it is said of Zachary and Elizabeth that they were both of them righteous before God walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless That is they were sincerely good and vertuous persons their hearts were principled with the fear and love of God and though they were not without the errours and failings incident to humanity yet they strictly made Conscience of their duty and did not deliberately depart from the way of God's commandments And that passage concerning David 1 King 15. 5. seems sufficient to put the matter out of doubt where it is said David did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord and turned not aside from any thing he commanded him all the days of his life save only in the matter of Vriah the Hittite Notwithstanding the Scripture reckons up several failings of David his passion for Absalom his numbring the People his approaching too near the Lord 's Annointed when he cut off the skirt of Saul's Garment for which his heart smote him his despondency
he to give both thanks and reward to him that cures our bodily infirmities though he do it not without some pain and trouble to us and why should we not rather love God's methods as the Physician of Souls there is no passion nor much less revenge in his proceedings with us he neither cuts and lances us cruelly nor uses any other sharpness then the case necessarily requires he doth nothing with intention to hurt or grieve us but proceeds with art and care designing our greatest good and in a word is in all his actions agreeable to the goodness and benignity of his own nature The summe of all which and of what we intend further to say is that of the Apostle God is good and the goodness of God leadeth to repentance Rom. 2. 5. For the consideration of that is the spring of hope and of all motion by way of return THERE are indeed some men who having entertained very crude notions of the Divine Majesty do sometimes assert on the one hand that vindictive justice is essential and natural to God so that he is bound up to require strict satisfaction and without it cannot properly pardon any transgression And others on the other hand talk at the same wild rate of his mercy and goodness as if all the instances he makes thereof were also natural and necessary and that he could not insist upon his own right but must make all the expressions of kindness that are possible towards his Creatures But both these notions are equally false and mischievous the former of them representing God a rigid Majesty and tending to desperation the other an easy and soft Deity and tempting men to presume upon him the one making him an object of horrour and the other of contempt for who can love him that cannot pity and who can reverence him who hath it not in his power to do otherwise The truth is therefore that all particular instances both of the one kind and of the other are subject to his wisedom that he can exercise either mercy or severity as he sees occasion for after this manner the Scripture speaks of him that sometime he hath mercy because he will have mercy and that when he will he hardeneth sinners for destruction AND to think otherwise of God especially in the case of mercy and pardon as if he could not dispense it as he pleases is to bring in a rigid fatality with the Stoicks instead of a God and is so far from aggrandizing the Divine Majesty that it is the greatest diminution of his power and glory and renders him less then a man for we can recedere à nostro jure remit of our own rights and give mercy a triumph over strict justice And although the sinner when he offends against God forfeits himself into the divine hand and gives God just cause to punish him if he will yet certainly he cannot by any act of his put a Law upon God or oblige him to punish or if he think fit to shew mercy AND then for the interest of God's Rectourship and government of the world it is not a necessity of punishment that conserves that but the power or freedom of punishing or remitting accordingly as it shall seem good to his own wisedom Whereby when men are both provoked to amendment by the hopes of pardon and restrained from disobedience by the fear of punishment For the liberty of dispensing either of these at pleasure is that which produces a reverence towards the Divine Majesty that is a complication of love and fear wherein the very notion of Religion consists It is not an impertinent passage to this purpose which we have in the Historian when the young Gentlemen in the new Roman Common-wealth had a design to restore the Kingly Government in the Family of the Tarquins they had Speeches made amongst them to this effect To be bound up by the rigour of Laws which had no compassion nor made allowance for contingency was very harsh and unsafe considering humane infirmity But under Kingly Government there was power of dispensation possibility of indulgence liberty of interpretation room for mercy and pardon a man that fell did not necessarily there miscarry For there was place for intercession repentance might relieve him and the prerogative of the Prince was the security of the Subject NOW that repentance is available with God we have all the assurance that can be desired for besides what we have said already from the consideration of the perfections of the Divine Nature and the interest of his Government Repentance is the great and principal Doctrine of the Gospel which the Son of God himself came to proclaim by his Preaching to confirm by his Miracles to make way for and to procure acceptance to by his Death and Sacrifice and to render throughly effectual and successfull by his Intercession at God's right hand in Heaven Wherefore as Manoah's wife reasoned when her Husband had dreadfull apprehensions of the Majesty of God who had appeared to them and concluded they should die Because they had seen God No saith she if God intended to destroy us he would not have appeared to us or much less have accepted a Sacrifice at our hands So assuredly if God had not great compassion to mankind and did not design to accept them upon repentance he would never have given his own Son to be a Sacrifice for sin Can any man suspect that God is indifferent whether men be saved or no when he hath sent his Son to save them Can any man imagine him implacable towards those whose nature he sent his Son to assume and thereby to make an union betwixt the divine and humane Natures Will any man think him inexorable to sinners who pitied them healed them conversed with them and died for them Let Devils despair who have not only no promise and no Saviour but nothing pitiable in their case having had no tempter to abuse them no flesh or body to clog them no infirmity to extenuate their presumption they are without hope and therefore incapable of repentance and so go on eternally to hate and blaspheme the God that will not pardon them But there is no cause man should do so who as he hath all the arguments of pity in his case so hath all the assurances of pardon from God upon his repentance TO say no more the very constant experience of all Ages and the common sense of all mankind leaves us without all doubt that this method of repentance pacifies the Almighty insomuch that when he hath most exprest his angry resentments and seems to have been most peremptory and decretal in his threatnings yet all but mad and desperate persons have incouraged themselves to hope for impunity upon repentance even then when there hath not been the least intimation of any such condition in his denunciations for thus when the Prophet Jonas had from the mouth of God proclaimed expresly Yet forty days and
formerly a great sinner himself and hath known by sad experience the deplorableness of that condition and found mercy at God's hands methinks such a person should with warm affections and tender bowels awaken that man into an apprehension of his danger who is in the condition he himself hath escaped and incourage him to try those mercies of God which he himself hath experimented For if either a righteous man that never needed repentance i. e. such a change of his whole state as we have been speaking of should be less sensible of such a man's case or especially if a proud self-applauding Pharisee despise him yet it will by no means become a Convert to be without compassion For besides all other arguments to this purpose it may be such a man may have just cause to consider whether his own example when he did goe on in the way of sin had not that pernicious contagion as to infect or confirm this man in his wickedness which he sees him now lie under and then it will not be only charity but justice which will oblige him to this duty IT was the opinion if I remember rightly of St. Basil that in Hell the torments of the damned are daily increased in proportion as the evil seed of their corrupt doctrine or the evil example which they sowed whilst they were alive fructifies upon earth but whether that be so or no it is certain men's sins are aggravated by the mischief they do to others as well as by other circumstances and therefore every such Penitent as we speak of must think it his duty and concern to indeavour to hinder the propagation of sin and to stop the infection in others as well as to destroy the malignity of it in himself § II. NOW there are many ways which an honest heart will find out of doing this we are recommending without taking upon him to be a Preacher Solomon tells us A wicked man speaketh with his feet and teacheth with his fingers that is though he say nothing with his lips all his life and actions do teach and instruct the world in wickedness and there is no question but that holy men may most effectually recommend vertue to others by their own practice and example Example insinuates gently works insensibly but powerfully as almost all great Engines do it relieves men's modesty and yet shames their sloth it kindles emulation presses upon ingenuity recommends the excellency convinces the necessity demonstrates the possibility of vertue Besides that there are a great many of the most curious lines thereof that are not to be described by the pencil or that can be expressed by words but are to be observed in the life and conversation of good men For this reason amongst others it pleased God to send our Saviour not only to preach the divine life to the world but to live and converse with men that by his example he might more plainly convince them of it and for this cause also we solemnly thank God for the examples of all holy men that have gone before us AND besides example there are many opportunities and advantages which good men have of propagating a sense of piety and Religion such as the authority of Parents influence of benefactours interest of relations convenience of travelling together society of commerce and all other bonds of conversation Every of which a mind inflamed with the love of God and compassion to the Souls of men will find usefull to this purpose And this was the course Moses advised Israel for the keeping up a sense of God and his Laws in their minds and the propagation of it to posterity Deut. 6. 6 7. These words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart and thou shalt teach them diligently to thy Children and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house and when thou walkest by the way and when thou liest down and when thou risest up c. And for the incouragement of all good men in this business besides the great honour it is to be subservient to God in so important an affair and besides the unspeakable comfort to our own Consciences If by converting a sinner from the evil of his way we save a Soul from death and cover a multitude of sins Jam. 5. 20. and that by such an act of zeal we have also the happiness to efface our own former miscarriages Besides all this I say in present we shall also advance our own glory and crown hereafter for in the words of the Prophet Daniel They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the Firmament and they that turn many to righteousness as the Stars for ever and ever Daniel 12. 3. IT were very easy to inlarge on this subject but that which is most pertinent and the peculiar consideration of this place is to shew the particular aptness of those that have themselves been converted from a wicked life to be instrumental of recovering others which I will briefly give account of in the following particulars and so dismiss this point And in order to this § III. IN the first place it is considerable that those that are of sickly constitutions are generally observed to be more pitifull and compassionate to the infirm then those robust and healthy persons that scarce ever knew what sickness meant and those that have long languished under any painfull infirmity and at last have recovered are both the best able and most willing to give advice to others under the same distemper Upon which account it hath been the custom of some Nations who had no professed Physicians to bring their sick out into the Market-place where all persons that came were obliged by Law to take notice of them that by this means the experience of one that had escaped a disease might afford a relief to him that now laboured under it And so it is reasonable to think that those who have been sick in sin and of sin heretofore must needs by their own experience know the baits that allure men the charms that bewitch them the fallacies of Sathan that impose upon them the folly and perverseness that defixes men in that unhappy estate the workings of passion the regret of Conscience the thoughts and reasonings the objections the prejudices and the very inside of other men in that condition And therefore as God commands Israel Exod. 23. 9. Thou shalt not oppress a stranger for ye know the heart of a stranger seeing ye were strangers in the land of Aegypt i. e. they knew what injuries oppressions insolencies and affronts a stranger was exposed to and what fears anxieties and jealousies he must needs be always under and therefore it having been their own case they ought to think it reasonable to pity such so in the present case the Convert is furnished both with more observations to render him serviceable to the conversion of Souls and more compassion to apply and make use of his experience to
the entertainments of sense are to us now as the pleasures of a man are beyond those of a beast or the faculty of reason is above the powers of the Body And although it be too observable that in this world men are commonly more taken with the latter then with the former it is not because this is greater then that or comparable to it but because the generality of men have drowned themselves in the Body and so lost all relish of intellectual pleasures therefore when the Body is refined and reason hath recovered thereby its just pre-eminence and become a true test and citerion of good and evil there will an unspeakable pleasure flow in this way NOR will the delight of the will in the close embraces of true and indubitable goodness be less ravishing then that of the mind in the apprehension of truth forasmuch as the former is as natural to and as peculiarly the entertainment of the one as the latter is of the other faculty and must most certainly afford so much a greater pleasure as he will which hath a kind of infinity in it self must consequently be able to take in more largely of the pleasure of its object And now that the man is delivered from the juggling and sophistry of Sathan and the false light of sense and carnal interest so that he apprehends true good in its native beauty it cannot be but he must be more taken with it then ever he was heretofore with the empty and guilded Pageantry of corporeal delights for it cannot be doubted but God hath taken care to reconcile every man's duty with his happiness and made that best for man which he doth most peculiarly require of him and every man will find it so when once temptation being removed he singly and sincerely applies himself to the experiment AND then for Conscience or the comfortable reflexion upon what hath been done well and vertuously I need say the less of that in regard every man in this life hath experience of the happy effects of it But alas in this world oftentimes melancholy of Body so much abates the comforts of it and either dark thoughts of God or the just sense of our own demerits by many miscarriages in time past do so much either disturb its reasonings or weaken its conclusions that few men know rightly the force of it and fewer live under the constant consolations thereof But when men come to Heaven and see God a God of love and goodness find their sincerity accepted and their sins done away have no cloud of ignorance nor melancholick panick fear upon them then they recount with triumph all the difficulties they have conquered the temptations they have resisted the afflictions they have sustained the self-denial they have used the vertuous choice they have made the manly prosecution they have performed the brave examples they have left behind them and the many evil ones they despised and escaped in short the good they have done and the evil they have eschewed and by all together the demonstration they have given of sincere love and loyalty to God which affords them a continual feast within themselves and then rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory AND then in the last place since as we have shewed the Body it self shall be raised again and glorified the meaning is not surely that it shall only become an accession to the felicity of the Soul or be happy by reflection only but doubtless all such bodily powers as are fit to be restored in this glorified state of a spiritual Body shall be accommodated with their proper and peculiar entertainments that so as that hath been denied and mortified in subserviency to the interest of the Soul in its former state it may now have its amends here And whereas it is certain some of the more gross powers of the Body shall be laid aside in this renovation of things because our Saviour hath told us that in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are as the Angels of God Mat. 22. 30. and the Apostle S. Paul expresses himself thus 1 Cor. 6. 13. Meats for the belly and the belly for meats but God shall destroy both it and them It seems therefore not improbable that as some of those offices shall cease so others more generous and excellent shall then be discovered in their stead And for all those that are restored with the Body they shall not be in vain but have their use their objects and their delights The Eyes shall probably please themselves with delightfull prospects the Ears be entertained with harmonies there shall be a kindly and delicious motion of the Spirits the whole Fabrick shall shine with light and beauty and shall have a wonderfull agility and vigorous motion so as to be able to mount the Heavens as we know the Body of our Saviour did after his Resurrection All this and whatsoever else is good or desirable or glorious or possible shall be the portion of good men in the other world TO which add that as that happiness shall be of the whole man and of all his powers and capacities and with the highest gratifications so that it may be meer sincere and perfect happiness indeed there shall be no allay or mixture of any thing that may give the least trouble or disturbance there shall be all the instances of joy all the ingredients of felicity and nothing else to the contrary No sad circumstance to imbitter his delights nothing to divert him or call him off from his enjoyments no weariness to interrupt his prosecutions nor satiety to make the fruition loathsom and tedious no fear or solicitude to abate his delight no temptation to disturb or molest him no danger of excesses to check and restrain him Here the former Prodigal may now swim in the highest and most generous pleasures without riot or intemperance without danger of exhausting either himself or them in a word here there is no fatal interchanges and vicissitudes of good and evil bitter and sweet as is usual in this world but simple unmixt constant joy and happiness IT was a rare and unparalleled happiness of Quintus Metellus of whom it is said that he had such a benign gale of prosperity constantly attended him that in all the tedious and perillous voyage of a very long life he never met with storm nor calm rock nor shelf but arrived at his Port in peace full of days and laden with blessings For saith the Historian he lived in the greatest honour and affluence having had the glory of being Consul the highest Magistracy of being General of a Roman Army the highest trust and of a triumph the greatest honour and felicity He lived to see his three Sons all arrive at the highest dignities and preferments that magnificent State of Rome could yield them his three Daughters all married to the best Families and by all these he had a numerous and hopefull progeny of