the strength of Sin is the Law 1 Cor. 15. 56. The Law does thunder out a Curse as well as a Rigid Obligation the one from Mount Ebal as well as the other from Mount Sinai upon every Soul of man who shall but fail in the least Iota For it is written saith St. Paul who only saith it out of the Law Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the Book of the Law to do them Or to consider it yet more distinctly admit Aeternal Life had been expected from the Law by this Inquirer yet sure it may sooner be ask't than answer'd To which of the Laws he should have had recourse for it Certainly not to the Ceremonial for That was but a shadow of things to come whereof the Body is Christ Coloss. 2. 17. The very Sacrifice of the Law was not able to expiate but only to commemorate the Peoples Sins Heb. 10. 3. Therefore in vain would he have sought to the Ceremonial Law And as vainly to the Iudicial For that was a Politick Constitution peculiar only to the Iews and reaching no farther than to a Civil Iurisdiction Much less yet could he seek to the Moral Law of Moses for Life Eternal For the Moral Law exacted so Universal an obedience and also denounced so great a Curse as I said before on the least omission that he could look for nothing thence but the justest matter of Despair For first our Nature is so corrupt and our Persons so much corrupter since our having found out many Inventions that if we say we have no sin we deceive our selves and the Truth is not in us 1 John 1. 8. And secondly if Righteousness come by the Law then is Christ dead in vain Gal. 2. 21. What then remain'd to this inquisitive Iew but that the Law should be his Schoolmaster to bring him unto Christ Gal. 3. 24. The Law being adapted by the infinite Wisdom of God's oeconomy either to lead or to drive him thither For requiring more from him than he was able to perform and yet denouncing a Curse on his Non-Performance it could not but make him stand affrighted at the ugly Condition he was in I mean his desperate Impossibility of ever attaining to Life Eternal by the meer perfection of his obedience Hence he saw it concern'd him to seek somewhere else He found it clear by Demonstration and by the woful Demonstration of sad Experience he stood in need of a Saviour and of such a Saviour too as might deliver him from the Curse and from the Rigour of the Law by being made both a Curse and a Ransom for him Again he saw both by the Doctrins and by the Miracles of Christ that He was most likely to be That Saviour to wit a Saviour from whom he was to look for such a Clue as might be able to conduct him out of the Labyrinth he was in And therefore just as this Saviour was gone forth into the way This kind of Neophyte in my Text came running to him and asked him meekly kneeling upon his Knees Good Master what shall I do that I may inherit Eternal Life Now if Christ was His Oracle who only liv'd under the Law How much more must he be ours who were born and bred under the Gospel Shall men of our Dignity and Profession of our Proficiency and Growth in the School of Christ an holy Generation a Royal Priesthood a Peculiar People shall such as We go in Inquest of Life Eternal to such deceivable Oracles as either Zuinglius or Calvin Piscator or Erastus or Iohn of Leyden to the Sepulchres of Martyrs to the Discipline of Monasteries to daily Ave Maries and Masses to Papal Indulgences or Bulls or to the outward Scarrifications and Buffettings of the Flesh shall we lean upon such Reeds as will but run through our Elbows or shall we inlighten our selves by Candles when behold the Sun of Righteousness is long since Risen in our Horizon or to fly for Refuge to the Saints when behold a Saviour Christ is called very fitly the Sun of Righteousness Mal. 4. 2. to whom the Apostles are but as Stars in the Firmament of the Gospel which only shine forth with a borrowed light and have no other brightness than what He lends them Now all the Stars in the Firmament cannot make up one Sun or afford us one Day without his Presence Just so All the learned and the good men on Earth All the Angels Saints in Heaven cannot make up one Saviour or but light us the way to Eternal Life without the Influence and Lustre of Jesus Christ. Iairus a Ruler of the Synagogue a man that wanted no worldly means whereby to Cure his only Daughter did yet despair of her Recovery until he fell down at the Feet of Christ Luke 8. 41. And so the Woman who had been sick of a bloody Flux no less than twelve years together and had spent all she had in Physicians Fees was not the better but the worse until she crowded towards Christ and touch't the Hemm of his Garment Luke 8. 43. That we are every one sick of a bloody Flux too appears by our scarlet and crimson Sins Which Flux and Fountain of our Sins can never possibly be cur'd unless by Him who is the Fountain for Sin and for Uncleanness Zach. 13. 1. For as Red wine is good for a bloody Flux in the Body so is That which gushed out of our Saviour's Body who called himself The True Vine the only Good thing for this Disease in the Soul And of this Wine we drink in the Cup of Blessing which we Bless in the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ. To him alone must we fly as to the Physician of our Souls who saith to us under the Gospel as once to Israel under the Law I am the Lord God that healeth thee Exod 15. 26. He alone saith St. Peter is the Head-stone of the Corner nor is there Salvation in any other Acts 4. 11 12. It pleased the Father that in him should all Fulness dwell Coloss. 1. 19 And of his Fulness have all we received Grace for Grace John 1. 16. All things necessary to life and to life Eternal are delivered to him of the Father Matth. 11. 27. And this 't will be easy out of Scripture for I am speaking to Believers I should not else produce a Text to make apparent by an Induction For first if we are hungry He alone is the Bread of Life which whoso eateth shall live for ever John 6. 58. Next if we are thirsty He alone is the living Water which whoso drinketh shall never thirst John 4. 13. Thirdly if we are foul He alone has that Blood by which we may be cleansed from all our Sins 1 John 1. 7. Fourthly if we are foolish He is the Wisdom of the Father who hath laid up in Him all the Treasures of Knowledge Coloss. 2. 3. He is Doctor Catholicus and only He.
in Churches are no Swearers or Sabbath-Breakers they have therefore discharged their Duty towards God notwithstanding their dishonouring of Publick Parents their Killing their Cousening and their bearing False-witness Such as these must be taught by the Answer of this Master to this Inquiry that their chiefest Duty towards God is their Duty towards their Neighbour and that their Godliness is but Guile whilst they acknowledge the true God and yet disown his Vicegerent Abhor Idols and yet commit Sacrilege Scruple at vain or common Swearing but yet dissemble and lye and enter into Solemn Covenants against their many most sacred and praevious Oaths whilst they are strict Sabbatizers but disorderly walkers six days in the week ever putting on the Form but ever denying the Power of Godliness The Good Master in the Text will not thus be serv'd by us for he expects good Servants too And to our being good Servants there is nothing more needful than that we be honest and upright men In this especially saith our Saviour consists the way to Eternal Life So that the Liberty and Freedom so much spoken of in the Gospel is a Manumission from Satan and not from Christ who did not live our Example that we might not imitate him or praescribe us Praecepts that we might not obey them No the Liberty of the Gospel doth only make us the more his Servants And though his Service is perfect Freedom yet doth it not cease to be a Service For as he that is called in the Lord being a Servant is the Lord's Free-man so is He the Lord's Servant who is called being free 1 Cor. 7. 22. We are not said with greater Truth to be infranchiz'd by the Gospel than to have made an exchange of Masters We were before Servants to Sin But now to Righteousness Before to Satan but now to Christ. We did before serve an Hard Master but now a Good one And this I come to shew at large upon My second Doctrinal Proposition That our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is not any severe Egyptian Master But a Master full of Mercy and Loving kindness And this he is in two Respects In respect of the Work which he requires which is not foesible only but pleasant And of the Wages which he promiseth Aeternal Life He is for each of these Reasons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Good Master § 1. That he is a good Master and a good Master in perfection we may discern by the particulars of which a perfect good Master must be compos'd For He who exacts no more Duty than we are able to discharge and yet affords a greater Recompence than we are able to deserve He who sets us such a Task as is not only always possible but most times easy nor only easy to be perform'd but also pleasant in the performance He who treateth his Servants as Friends and Brethren as if he were their Fellow-Servant or indeed his Servants Servant He who when he takes upon him the most of Mastership and Empire commands his Servants no meaner things than he Himself in his Person hath done before them He who when he is affronted is very easily reconcil'd and even sues to his Servants for Reconcilement He whose work is worth the doing because to do it is a Reward and yet rewards it when it is done above all that we are able to ask or think He is sure a good Master and a good Master in perfection even as good as we are able to wish or fancy And just such a Master is Iesus Christ. He is the Master that makes us Free Gal. 5. 1. the Master whose Service is perfect Freedom Rom. 6. 18 22. The Master that frees us from all other Masters besides Himself The Master that bids us call no man Master upon Earth For one is our Master and He in Heaven Matth. 23. 10. § 2. Indeed if Moses were our Master and none but He Our Case were then very hard For He requireth more Service than we are able to perform and pronounceth a Curse in case we do not perform it and yet affords not any strength whereby to adapt us for the performance But yet however he is an hard Master he is not a Cruel or an Unjust one because he is an hard Master in order to a just and a gracious End That is he drives us from Himself to make us look out for a better Master He gives us a Law by which we cannot be justified Gal. 2. 16. that we may seek to be justified by somewhat else He pronounceth a Curse to as many as are of the works of the Law that he may fright us into His Arms who hath redeemed us from the Curse by being made a Curse for us Gal. 3. 13. In a word he is our Schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ that being under Christ we may be no longer under a Schoolmaster Gal. 3. 24 25. And thus having ascended from Moses to Christ from the hard Master to the mild One we are no longer under the Tyranny and Exactions of the Law but under the Kingdom and State of Grace Rom. 6. 14. no longer in bondage under the Elements of the World Gal. 4. 3. but have received the Adoption of Sons v. 5. We are no longer under a Master who can only forbid Sin but we are now under a Master who can forgive it No longer under a hard Master who the longer we serve him keeps us in bondage so much the more But we are now under a Good one who turns our Service into Sonship translating us into Heirs and Coheirs with Himself v. 7. § 3. But here it cannot be deny'd That if we look upon Christ as nothing more than a Master who came not to abrogate but to fill up the Law Matth. 5. 17. our Condition is not better but rather worse than it was before For Christ is stricter in his Precepts than Moses was and seems to have set us an harder Task He commands us to forgive and to love our Enemies Not to look upon a Woman with the Adultery of the Eye to rejoyce in Persecutions and to leap for Ioy when we are Mourners He commands us to fight with all that is in the World and not to give over fighting until we conquer I therefore say with all that is in the World because as the Sublunary World was divided of old before the Times of Columbus and Americus Vesputius into these three parts Europe Asia and Africa to wit the parts of That World which was created by God alone so St. Iohn in his first Epistle hath divided the World of Sin and Wickedness the World created by Men and Devils For as he tells us in one place That the whole World lyeth in wickedness like a Net cast into the Sea so he tells us in another That All that is in the World is the lust of the flesh the lust of the eye and the pride of life And methinks This Trichotomy hath
been sweeten'd and made delicious by nothing else but the Foretasts of Life Eternal Were Life Eternal nothing better than a kind of perpetual Youth an unmovable station upon the point of One-and-twenty we may guess how much admir'd and how much coveted it would be by the Care which People take of their Embonpoint How many use their Thrid of Life as prudent Penelope did her Web when being wound up to a Real Age they unravel it again to a seeming Youth So very willing they are to live and yet so very unwilling to outlive Beauty that they will needs court Eternity by a Nursery of Colours So that when fifty or threescore years begin to be legible in their Faces characters there dug by the Plough of Time A Dash or two of their Pencil will strike off Twenty And therefore the years which they have liv'd though scarce the Childhood of Life Eternal may yet assist them in its Discovery as far as a little imperfect Guess They who fain would never dye can tell me best how sweet is life And They who fain would ne're be old can best inform me of Eternity § 17. But I must not here make a Panegyrick of Life Eternal as well because I insisted on it in considering the nature of the young man's Inquiry as because I must hasten to make Advantage of what already hath been deliver'd Since therefore Christ is so much a Master as to beget our greatest Reverence And yet a Master so full of goodness as to merit our greatest Love a Master to challenge our obedience and a Good Master to invite it A Master to keep us from Contempt and yet withal a good Master whereby to give us Familiarity A Master to set us on work and a good Master to reward us Since I say he is so good as to be willing to Allure what he is so much a Master as to be able to compel Since our Imployment is not only very proportionable to our strength but very conformable to our Nature not only tending to our Interest but even agreeable to our Desires Since our Master is Goodness it self our Service Freedom as well as Pleasure and our Wages Eternal Life Let us not serve him only for fear but let us fear him only for love Rather as a Good Master who will Reward than as a Master who can punish Let not our obedience be meerly servile and only paid to the Law of a Carnal Commandment Heb. 7. 16. But filial rather and ingenuous to the Law that is Spiritual Rom. 7. 14. Iob was objected against by Satan that he serv'd God for something and that the source of his obedience was but a mercenary Devotion Now though we cannot but have something for serving God yet that Hell may not upbraid us let us serve him for nothing more than the honour and happiness to serve him Shall we serve our Good Master from the same base Principle from which the very worst Servants will serve an ill one For shame let us not serve him as vanquish't People do serve their Tyrants or as some poor Indians do serve the Devil only to the end that he may not hurt us Will he accept of our Service think ye when we do make him our shelter but not our choice a kind of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a meer Plank after a shipwrack He is little beholding to such a Proselyte whom only his Enemy hath made his Friend and may rather thank Hell for our Obedience when we come to him but in a Fright I would not with the Woman who was met in the way by Bishop Ivo with a Firebrand in one hand and a Bucket of Water in the other either burn up the Joys of Heaven or extinguish the Fire of Hell But so much I am of that Woman's mind that if I might have mine own wish I would have all Christian Servants to love This Master a great deal more than the Ioys of Heaven And I would have them fear his Anger a great deal more than the Pains of Hell If He did empty himself of Glory and as it were go out of Himself to give us Grace How should we empty our selves of all that is dear unto us and even go out of our selves too by Self-denials to advance his Glory O let us therefore be such generous and disinteressed Servants as to vye Obedience with his Commands In an humble kind of Contention let us indeavour to out-do and if occasion ever serve to out-suffer what he commands us Since Heaven it self is the Merchandize which in the Parable of our Lord must be sold for sweat let us more out-bid the Pharisees than the Pharisees did the Law And that our Master may say to us in his Kingdom of Glory Well done good Servants Say we to him in this of Grace Good Master what shall we do Let us not admit of Ignobler Motives for the present exciting us to our Duties than the bare doing them in this world and an Inheritance in the next A good life here and hereafter an Eternal Now the Earnest of our Service and then the Wages The very Earnest of such an Estimate but so inestimable the Wages that 't is not so fit to be describ'd as to be press'd and urg'd home on a Congregation For the Knowledge of This unlike That of other things dwells in the Heart not in the Head The way to understand the Joys of Heaven with St. Paul is with St. Paul to be rapt up thither Rapt up in zeal and affection not in fancy and speculation In the yerning of the Bowels not in the working of the Brains Let the Scepticks therefore dispute themselves to Heaven whilst we in silence are walking thither Let the Schoolmen take it in subtilty and we in deed Let the Pelagians or Socinians try to purchase Eternal Life whilst we inherit it Let the Sanguin Fiduciary possess himself of Bliss whilst we contend for it Let the Philosopher injoy it as well as he can in his Contemplations we shall best contemplate it in our Injoyment Which God of his Mercy vouchsafe unto us even for the Glory of his Name and for the worthiness of his Son our great and good Master the Lord Jesus Christ. To whom with the Father in the Unity of the Spirit be Honour and Glory both now and for ever THE INHERITANCE OF ETERNITY IS God's Free Gift After all our WORKING MARK X. 17. Good Master what shall I do that I may Inherit Aeternal Life A Quaestion set forth in such happy Terms that I conceive it will be easy to resolve it out of it self For the way to inherit Eternal Life is to receive and own Christ both as a Master and as a Good Master to obey him as the first and to love him as the second and to revere him as both together and when All is done still to ask what we shall do to believe he will reward us according to our Doings and
fill it up with as good a Zographesis as I am able § 10. First then to strengthen our Resolutions of accustoming our selves to Law and Discipline And not to wear the Yoke of Christ just as the Ox wears his Master's meerly for fear of being goaded but from a principle of Love to the Yoke it self let us consider how those Commandments which do make up the Law or the Yoke of Christ do but exact the things of us which are agreeable to our Reason and therefore suitable to our Nature and therefore consonant to our Desires I mean our Rational Desires which we Injoy as we are Men though not our brutish ones which we suffer as we are Animals and which without any difference are common unto us with the Beasts that perish It should be natural for us as Men indued with Reason to Love the Beauty of our Lord and to fear his Power Because we naturally incline to the Means of Safety at least as far as we do know them or believe them to be such Now all that tends unto our Safety may be reduc't to two Heads Seeking God and Eschewing Evil. And Rational Nature does incline as well to the first as to the Second Nay as Things which are good and have a Tendency to our Safety are more or less excellent and useful to us so Nature whilst it is Rational must needs incline to That of the Higher more strongly than to That of the Lower Value And that which saves a man for ever being of much an higher value than that which saves him but for a Time 'T is plain that Nature being Rational does most incline towards the former And all the Commandments of our Lord having a Tendency unto That are by consequence agreeable to human Nature Especially when our Nature is also rectified by Grace which does not fail to work with any who do not fail to work with It And however insufficient to make us Sinless is yet abundantly sufficient to make us single and sincere Less than which in our Service our Master's Iustice cannot exact And the Equity of his Gospel exacts no more § 11. The Truth of which may be evinced from the Absurdity which would follow its being supposed to be False For the Moral Commands of Christ like the Moral commands of Moses must be acknowledged to be Holy Iust and Good Which yet I know not how they could be were they not adequate to the Faculties of Grace and Reason For what Goodness can there be in an Impossibility of doing the Good that is required or what holiness can there be in unavoidable transgressions for want of strength Or what Iustice can it be that any Rational Agent should be accomptable for the Things he could never help To command Impossibilities is not agreeable to Reason in Him who threatens an Endless Punishment for not performing what is commanded And therefore no such hard Yoke can be imposed by our Lord on the Neck of Any No such heavy and grievous Burden can be laid by a Saviour on any Shoulder For though 't is true that the Reprobates both men and Devils being left and forsaken and finally given over by the Iudge of all the world are under a sad Impossibility of doing Good yet it is as true too that they drew upon themselves such a deplorable Necessity of doing evil They were not created in That Condition For God created them upright and made them capable of Duty But they found out and follow'd their own Inventions whereby to lose the Capability which God had given them Eccles. 7. 29. If men are so wilful in using the Liberty of their Wills as to make an absolute Covenant with Death and with Hell to be at Agreement if they will Sin with both hands as one Prophet words it and draw Iniquity as with a Cart-rope as it is in Another No wonder if in the words of the Book of Wisdom they pull Destruction upon Themselves with the work of their hands And in These considerations All who are Lovers of Christ indeed and think ingenuously of him and are not grosly injurious to him nor have an evident pique at him must either say that he commands us in proportion to our Talents of Grace and Reason or will not punish us for the Not doing what is impossible to be done Thus as the Antinomian Error may be sufficiently confuted by Arguments leading ad Absurdum so the Truth of Christ's Doctrin is as sufficiently confirmed by the Absurdity which would follow its being supposed to be false § 12. Again if we are not out of our Wits nor have cast off the Gentleness and Humanity of our Nature we are not able to give an Instance in any one of Christ's Commands which is truly grievous we cannot pitch on That precept which is not agreeable to our Nature For what other is the Sum of all his Commandments put together than that we do to all others as we would that all others should do to us And what is That but the Law of Nature not only written by Severus a meerly Heathen Emperour in all his Plates and publick works But by the invisible finger of God in the natural Heart and Conscience of man as man till Tract of Time and Evil Custom in some depraved persons have raz'd it out Let us keep but This precept and break the rest if we are able For what does our Lord require of us in any one or more parts of his Royal Law which is not easily reducible to this one Head Deal we as righteously with men as by men we would be dealt with And let us do the Will of God with as much singleness and Zeal as we desire that God himself will be pleas'd to do ours And then we have at once fulfill'd the Law of Nature and of Christ too § 13. Now if the Yoke of Christ's Precepts is thus easy in it self how smooth and easy is it to Them who have inur'd themselves to it by their Obedience an Argument taken from Experience will be as cogent as any can be David found after a great and a long Experience that the Commandments of God were sweeter to him than the Hony and Hony-comb Psal. 19. 10. where the word Hony being us'd by a kind of a Proverb among the Hebrews for all imaginable objects of Sensual Pleasure 't is plain the meaning of the Prophet must needs be This that the Pleasure arising to him from the Rectitude of his Actions and an uniform obedience to Gods Commands was as much greater than any pleasure which he had ever yet injoy'd in the Breaches of them as the Pleasure which smites the Soul is greater than That which affects the Body Betwixt which two there is so signal and wide a Difference that by an obvious Antimetabole the Pleasure of the Soul is the Soul of Pleasure to which the pleasure of the Body is in comparison nothing more than a
are able to run apace And let us kneel as He did before our Knees are grown stiff And having kneeled down to Christ let us call him Good Master with our Inquirer And let the Subject of our Inquiry be only This What shall we do that we may be sav'd If no man can enter into the Kingdom of Heaven unless it be as a little Child what then shall We do who are stricken in years and have long since outliv'd our littlechildhood that We also may Inherit Aeternal Life This is the use we are to make of the first Qualification of our Inquirer and These are the Reasons on which it stands Next our Rich men must learn from the example of this Inquirer that the greater their Riches are the greater Necessity lyes upon them to fly for Sanctuary to Christ. It being as difficult for a Rich man to enter Heaven as for a Camel to find a passage through the Eye of a Needle And so there is need that they run to Christ that Christ may shew them the Danger of being Rich and by his Counsel defend them from it That he may teach them the Christian Method whereby they may safely attain to Riches or how they may honestly possess them or how they may usefully put them away How they may profitably be rid of those pleasant Enemies unlade themselves of such heavy thick Clay as the Prophet calls it and run to Christ so much the nimbler for being light for being emptied and disburden'd of so much white and red Earth How they may reap the greater Harvest by casting their Bread upon the waters How they may make themselves Friends of the Mammon of Unrighteousness and help to save themselves by That which helps to damn so many others How they may lay up a Treasure in Heaven and provide themselves Bags which wax not old where the Worm of Time doth not corrupt nor the Thief of Sequestration break through and steal If there are any amongst our selves who have Riches in possession either dishonestly acquir'd or uncharitably kept we ought to start away from them like a man who unaware hath chanced to tread upon a Serpent and to fling them far enough from us like the Emperour Sigismund and to go running after Christ like the Rich Votary in my Text saying What shall we do who are men of great Plenty and so are tempted more strongly than others are and therefore every day walk in greater Ieopardy of our Lives We for whom it is so hard to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven even as hard as for a Camel to enter through a Needle 's Eye what shall such as We do that We also may Inherit Aeternal Life This is the use we are to make of the second Qualification of our Inquirer and This is chiefly the reason on which 't is built Lastly our Great men must learn from the Example of This Inquirer to lay their Greatness at Christ's Feet and to tread it under their own Or to express it in the words of the Son of Sirach the greater he is to humble himself so much the more Ecclus. 3. 18. And the Reason There is though other reasons are to be given because the Mysteries of God are only revealed unto the Meek v. 19. The humble Soul is God's Temple if not his Heaven too For what was said heretofore by the Heathen Oracle in Hierocles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that God delights himself as much in a pious Soul as to dwell between The Cherubim in Heaven it self may be evinced to be True from out the Oracles of Iehovah who saith by the Mouth of his Prophet Esa that the man upon whom he delights to look and in whom he is pleas'd to dwell is the man of a poor and a contrite Spirit who even trembles at his word And what said St. Paul to his Corinthians Ye see your Calling Brethren how that not many Wise men after the Flesh not many Mighty not many Noble men are called But the foolish and base and despised things of the World and the things which are not are made choice of by God to bring to naught things that are and that as for other so for This reason also that no flesh may glory in His presence This is That Nobleness indeed wherewith the Nobleness of the World cannot be worthy to be compar'd unless as the Child or the Parent of it For Secular Nobleness or Nobility consider'd simply and in it self has ever been reckon'd to arise from one or more of These Three Grounds 'T is either merited by Prudence Secular Wisdom and Erudition or purchased by Wealth or earn'd by Courage I mean the Courage which is exerted in a generous defense of ones King and Country But He is a man of the Noblest Courage who is afraid of the fewest Things Only afraid of an impious Act or indeed afraid of Nothing unless of not fearing God The vitious Warrier or Dueller who seems to breath nothing but Courage such Courage as is common to the stout Horsman with his Horse when carrying Thunder in his Throat he madly rusheth into the Battel I say a man of such an Animal or Brutal Courage who will rather be Damn'd than be thought a Coward is yet for all his brave Pretences most cowardly afraid of Reproach and Obloquie and of Twenty other objects of carnal Fear Whereas a man that fears God fears nothing else fears not what man can do unto him Psal. 56. 11. And He who does not fear God is not a Valiant but stupid Sinner To meet with Nobleness indeed we must not consult the Herald's Book unless we take along with it the Book of The Acts of the Apostles Chap. 17. vers 11. where the People of Beroea are said to be Nobler than those of Thessalonica Not because they were descended from greater Parents nor because they were advanced to greater Places But because with greater readiness they heard the Word of God preach't that is because they were meeker and of more Teachable Dispositions That alone is true Nobleness which is sometimes The Daughter and still the Mother of Humility That 't is sometimes the Daughter is very evident for 'T was the Lowliness of Mary which made her the Mother of our Lord. And so when Abigail made David That winning Complement from the heart of her being The humble Handmaid to wash the feet of the Servants of her Lord Her Humility did so advance her in David's Mind that he made her his Queen if not his Mistress The King was so captivated and charm'd by the powerful Magick of so much meekness as he could not have been more by any Philtrum to be imagin'd Thence St. Peter thought fit to call it The Ornament of a meek and a quiet spirit as being That that does dress and set off a Beauty more than any Recommendations of Art or Nature Nor is True Nobleness more the Daughter than 't is the Mother of Humility For as the
lovely Rank of Graces may we observe to march forth such as are Faith and Humility Chastity and Sobriety Mercifulness and Iustice and other Couples of the like nature Quae utique omnia non onerant nos sed ornant as somewhere Salvian is pleas'd to word it That is our Duty is so much our ornament our Labour so much our ease and our Burden so much our prop That our good Master in effect requires no more of us than This That at least for his sake if not our own we will do so much as be at Liberty that we will gratisie him so far as to take our ease and that in love to so good a Master we will vouchsafe but to be happy § 13. But to pass a little farther to other Instances of a good Master Our Master Christ doth command us no meaner things than He Himself in his person hath done before us He suffer'd a Birth that he might be under the Law and indur'd a Life that he might fulfil it Like the Emperour Hadrian in Spartianus who underwent as much Service as the meanest Soldier in his Army our Master thought it not below him to wash and wipe his Disciples Feet Call'd Iudas Friend in the same Instant that he betray'd him He emptied himself of Glory became of no reputation not only prayed for his Persecutors but laid down his Life even for them that took it away In every Action of his converse he set us a Copy of Obedience as well to facilitate our Transcript as to commend it that we might neither think it much nor find it difficult § 14. It is another great point of our Master's Goodness That he does not break with us for every fault Although we run away from him as God know's we do too often yet he does not in his displeasure presently turn us out of his Service but desires that his Goodness may lead us back unto Repentance And as he is not soon offended so when he is he is quickly pleas'd We shall be sure to find mercy at the price of shewing it For Luke 6. 37. we are promis'd an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for a cheap 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 'T is but forgive and ye shall be forgiven Nay so vehemently Good is our Master Christ that he sends and sues to us for our consent to be forgiven We are Embassadours for Christ saith St. Paul by the Spirit in his Epistle to the Corinthians as if God himself did beseech you by us we pray you in Christ's stead be ye reconciled unto God 2 Cor. 5. 20. Is not this a strange height of Condescension That God in Christ should beseech us and that Christ by his Ambassadours should pray unto us for a Pacification That being neglected He should court us That being repulsed He should covet us That being buffetted He should bless and most unworthily affronted he should intreat Nay consider what it is which he intreats to have granted Not that He may be invited to be reconcil'd to us but that we will be so gracious as to be reconcil'd to Him implying God to be already reconciled unto us And so his Intreaty is only This That having done him a thousand wrongs we will at last be friends with him That how many Injuries soever we have offer'd him for the time pass't we will not aggravate them All by our Contempt of that Pardon he offers to us That having offended against his Iustice we will not sin-away his Love and his Mercy too But that after the many Breaches which we alone have made wide betwixt Him and Us we will finally admit of a Reconcilement Thus it appears by the Ingredients of which a perfect Good Master may be compos'd that Jesus Christ is a Good Master and a Good Master in perfection § 15. Last of all if to the work which our Lord requires to wit obedience unto his Praecepts we add the wages which he promiseth Eternal Life we must confess him as good a Master as his Servants are able to wish or fancy Do but compare him with the Masters of greatest Note amongst the Heathen Epicurus taught his Scholars that the greatest Happiness they could aim at was the Pleasure of the Mind Aristippus and Eudoxus were for that of the Body Diodorus went no higher than to the Absence only of Pain Herillus thought rather the Perfection of knowledge The Stoicks gave the preference to an Unpassionateness of Life The Peripateticks made it of three Ingredients The first whereof was Vertue which they call the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or great Essential The second Ingredient was a Compound comprehending all the Goods both of Body and Fortune and those as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not as Parts but Subservients to the Foelicity of Man The third was Pleasure and that they were pleased to express by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not as a part or a subservient but a meer Consequent of Bliss Thus the great Masters amongst the Heathen did direct their Disciples by the Dimm light of Nature But Christ alone is the good Master who has both taught us as his Disciples and also promis'd us as his Servants Eternal Life § 16. And the least Measure of such Wages as Life added to Eternity and to Both the Fruition of God himself is transcendently greater than the greatest measure of our Obedience A Christian's Vails are more worth than his Service comes to The very Earnest our Master gives if we compare it with our work might very well suffice for our Wages too But his final Reward which is express'd by Life Eternal does amount to so huge and unconceivable a value that the Case stands with us as heretofore with Simonides when demanded by Hiero the Definition of God the longer we study to sum it up the more we shall find it unconceivable And what we cannot conceive we can much less utter It is not only the greatest that we can have nor only the greatest that can be had but even the greatest we are able to ask or think the greatest we are able to wish or fancy The very Hope and Expectation of Life Eternal although at many years distance and wrapt up in Futurity does carry with it the greatest Pleasure of which we are capable whilst we are here not to mention those Pleasures which it will ravish us with hereafter For That is sure the greatest wages and carries with it the greatest pleasure whose very hope and expectation is apt to soften the hardest work and able to alleviate the heaviest Burden But the hope and expectation of Life Eternal and the Glory to be reveal'd is apt to soften the hardest work and to lighten the heaviest Burden therefore That is the greatest wages and carries with it the greatest Pleasure The Assumption is to be prov'd by an Induction of particulars I mean the admirable Experiments which have been made in this life by Saints and Martyrs whose very Torments have
it is to Command and Rule us then must we pay him a strict obedience in as much as we are his Subjects or as being his Soldiers and Servants too Such as promised in our Baptism to fight manfully under his Banner Secondly If he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which properly signifies a Master whose property it is to instruct and teach us then do we owe him obedience too as being his Followers and Disciples placed under his Discipline and trained up in his School Thirdly It follows by way of Inference from two expressions in the Text towit the first and the last that he is not only to be called our Lord and Master but to be seriously received and own'd as such For mark the manner in which he speaks Ye call me Lord and ye call me Master and in that ye say well because what ye call me I truly am But to say well is one thing and to do well another And therefore because I truly am what ye call me be you as truly what you pretend If I your Lord and your Master have washed your feet remember then to do as ye have me for an Example and see that ye wash oneanothers feet If they have called me Belzebub who am the Master of the House how much more should such as You who are but some of my Houshold be content to be called as bad or worse In the two first of these Particulars we have the Doctrin of the Text and in the last we see the Use. Not an Use of my framing but such as the Author of the Text was pleas'd himself to draw from it for our Instruction § 4. The Result of the Doctrin is briefly this That we must not expect to live as Libertines under Christ who is not only our Elder Brother to make us partakers of his Inheritance but our Lord and our Master to make us obedient to his Commands Not our Lord only to Save us but especially our Lord to be served by us Nor our Master only to teach us by the Veracity of his Doctrin but more especially to reform us by the convincingness of his Life Our Lord and Master in the Text hath such a twofold Importance as comes to one and the same end in the Application We may distinguish the Notions but must not separate or divide them They must be coupled in my Discourse as here they are in the Subject of it For as Scholars of Christ we ought to imitate his Example which how can we do unless as Servants of Christ we obey his Will When Iesus began both to do and to teach he taught according to what he did As were his Precepts and his Doctrin such exactly was his Life and his Conversation He led his Life by the Rule of the Moral Law by his perfect obedience unto which he was pleased to blunt the edge and to abate the Rigour of it So that 't is absolutely Impossible for us to follow his Example unless by yielding our Obedience to his Commands We cannot embrace him as a Master unless we receive him as a Lord too § 5. And with this I am desirous to fill my Readers so much the rather because I take it to be a point concerning which as it is dangerous so it is easie for us to err And so much the easier because it is acceptable and pleasant to the natural Appetites of the flesh to look on Christ as a Redeemer but nothing else To entertain him as a Lamb fit to be fed upon at his Table whereby we may be nourished to Life Eternal But not at all as a Shepherd to guide and govern us and by the strictness of his Discipline to keep us from straying out of his Pastures For let us look a little within us and examin our own hearts by our own experience Do we not naturally esteem it an happy Thing to have as much of this World as we know what to do with as much as we can sacrifice to all our Senses to live in as great a superfluity of Sports and Pleasures as a Tiberius can in joy or a Petronius think of And when we are deeply run in debt by our expenseful Sensualities to have all our Debts paid out of Another man's purse all our recknings made even Acquittances put into our hands and nothing more required to be done on our parts than to believe we owe nothing and that if by continuing in our Exorbitant expences we plunge our selves in new Debts they shall all be discharged out of the very same Treasure Nay is it not yet a more pleasing Error a more delicious kind of mistake and madness to think our Debts were all remitted before we were able to contract them And then with a greater force of Reason Are we not apt to look on Them I do not say as the most rational but as the most comfortable Preachers who bring us Tidings even from Heaven that all our Duties are done already by Another man's obedience in our behalf that all our Sins are discounted by Another man's Sufferings all our Punishments inflicted upon Another man's Shoulders And that 't is safe for us to Sin upon condition we despair not of being pardon'd but believe without doubting that we were justified from Eternity and that our Sins were all forgiven before they could possibly be committed not only all the Sins that are but all that shall be § 6. I need not say who they are by whom this Carnal Christianity is preach't and printed Nor can we choose but confess that to the men who have embraced this present world as did Demas the men who are afraid there is a Heaven because it infers there is a Hell too the men who live after the flesh and most pretend unto the Spirit the men who pray and despise dominion the men who praise God and defraud their Neighbour it is an admirably pleasant and gladsom Doctrin And this I take to be the Reason why so much of the Libertine doth shew it self with bare face in the Christian world For what the Sons of Disobedience do think most pleasant they do passionately desire to have most true All their Wits are set on work to find our Arguments and Reasons whereby to evince it and make it good What soever they feed upon is so exceedingly fermented by this four Leven that the wholsomest of meats is made to nourish their Disease and none so much as the Bread of Life Even Sermons and Sacraments are most perverted to their destruction And therefore the Tendency of Opinions ought to be diligently Weigh'd For when men's Opinions in Religion are gratifications to the Flesh and when they are Servants to those Opinions and transported with the pleasure of being Such there is hardly any passage in all the Scriptures which they will not prevail with to sound that way But seeing the Ioy and Contentment which is wont to arise from a pleasing Falshood is but like the Ioy of Hypocrites exceeding
that we might live in obedience to Him that bought us Sin was the object of his Hatred for being the subject of his Dishonour And therefore the Scope of our Saviour's Purchase was rather to purifie than to forgive us although it was to forgive us too To forgive in the second place thô to purifie in the first According to the Method St. Peter us'd in his Preaching Repent and be converted that your Sins may be blotted out Acts 3. 19. Without Repentance and Conversion no such Blessing as Forgiveness can ever be § 10. But neither is This the greatest Title our Saviour hath to his being our Lord and Master For as he hath not only hired but bought us out-right so neither hath he bought us with any Corruptible things as Silver or Gold or pretious Stones but with his own most pretious Blood 1 Pet. 1. 18 19. Now had we been People never so lovely or been worth never so much he could not have bought us with more expense He could not have paid at a Deerer Rate even Almightiness itself could not have given more for Us. For he that bought us was the Word the Word that was in the Beginning the Word that was with God the Word that was God the Word by whom all things were made John 1. 3. And sure the Word that was God was Almightiness itself Add He it was who gave himself for us Tit. 2. 14 And more than Himself he could not give For of him and through him and to him are all things Rom. 11. 36. Heb. 2. 10. § 11. Lord by how many Rights and Titles may He pretend to our obedience when he commands us All the Relations of sub and supra are made use of in Scripture for our Conviction Not only here in This Text is he said to be our Lord and we his Servants He our Master and we his Scholars But he is every thing to us in other passages of Scripture which may oblige us to the Love and the Service of him He for Example is our Head and we his Members He our Bridegroom and we his Spouse He is our Shepherd and we the Sheep of his Pasture He our Everlasting Father and we his Children He our King and we his Subjects He is our God and we his People He our Potter and we his Clay He our Creator and we the work of his hands And as if all this together were hardly enough to indear him to us He is also our Redeemer and we the Price of his Blood Now to what purpose or for what reason should our Saviour be said to be All this to us throughout the Scriptures unless it were to afford us this general Lesson That whatsoever can be due in any measure from any Inferiour to a Superiour of any Quality or Degree the same is due in perfection and out of all measure from Us to Christ. In one Capacity our Love our Fear in another our veneration in a third our meek submission in a fourth our delectation in a fift our admiration in a sixt our perfect dependence in a seventh and our absolute obedience in every one 'T would be a profitable Impertinence if an Impertinence to insist on this Last from every one of our Saviour's Relations to us But not to run out beyond the time which is allow'd for this Service I shall press it no farther than the Text and the Context will give me warrant § 12. First then let us consider that seeing our Saviour is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Master to Teach and to Instruct us nor only so but also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Lord to Command and Govern us It is not only our Duty to learn the knowledge of his Doctrin as his Disciples but withal as his Servants we must yield obedience to his Commands For if we follow him as a Master sent to principle and teach us and nothing else so that as Scholars of his School we hold his sentiments or tenets and entertain his Propositions as sure and certain but go no farther what then do we more by way of Reverence to Christ than the several Sectaries of the world to the several Authors of their Opinions whether their opinions are true or false shall we be followers only of Christ as they of Geneva are of Calvin or as they of Helvetia do follow Zuinglius or as they of Saxony follow Luther or as the brethren of Scotland do follow Knox shall we be factious only for Christ as the Franciscans are for Scotus and the Dominicans for Aquinas Nay shall we follow Christ no otherwise than as the Stoicks did Zeno or the Academicks Plato or as Iulian did Iamblicus and the old Magi Zoroastres shall we think we are Christians good enough to serve turn for having been baptiz'd in the name of Christ and for historically believing his holy Gospel the very Scholars of Pythagoras were most exactly of his Creed and great Admirers of his Philosophy and perfectly led by his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 His Mouth was their Oracle his words their Text what he said they were sworn to because He said it And shall we who are Christians give no more Reverence unto Christ than the old Pythagoreans were wont to give unto Pythagoras or than the Turks at this day do give to Mahomed shall we live as if we believ'd that Christianity is but a Sect if not a Faction And that nothing is to be done but to be orthodox Professors embracing the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Heathen call'd it that is the Doctrin or Tenet or Faith of Christ whilst at the very same time we do abjure him by our neglects revile him by our Oaths spit upon him by our uncleanness buffet him by our Blasphemies strip him by our Sacriledge and even Murder him by our Rage methinks the Blindness of the Heathen may be of some vertue to clear our Eyes For the Disciples of Pythagoras did not only give assent to their Master's Dictates but also did imitate his Example and were obedient to his Commands Just as Alexander's Soldiers did so ambitiously affect to be like their General that they were loath to speak plainly because He stutter'd Or as the Scholars of Plato were so exceedingly concern'd to have a similitude with their Master that they espoused his Deformities and prided themselves in his Imperfections They would have Cushions under their Dublets because he was Gibbous or too thick Back't So devoted they were to their Master Plato that because he was not strait they would reckon none hansom who were not Crooked § 13. Lord what a shame it is for Christians to be less conformable to a Master who is infinitely fairer than the Children of men most accomplished and perfect in every kind And yet we know without Obedience we cannot possibly be conformable either to his Precepts or his Example For notwithstanding he was a Son yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffer'd Heb. 5. 8. And
being made perfect through suffrings he thereupon became the Author of Eternal Salvation not to them that believe him only but to them that obey him also v. 9. not to any Believing Rebels not to Treacherous Believers of which the world is too full but to them who have Faithfulness as well as Faith who so believe as to serve him and do his Will He is not the Author of Salvation to them that know it but do it not or to them who do promise but not perform it For almost All do know his Will and all do promise to perform it not only in their Baptism but over and above on their Bed of Sickness No to Them and Them only is he the Author of Salvation who live according to what they know and justifie their Promise by their Performance Our Saviour intimates by a parable Matth. 21. 28 29 30 31. that the obedient Churl is much better than the mealymouth'd Rebel It is a vain thing to say we are Sons of God and Servants of Christ unless we practically Shew as well as Say it A Son honoureth his Father and a Servant his Master said God heretofore by the Prophet Malachi If I then be a Father where is mine honour if I be a Master where is my Fear Now what was thus said to others by God the Father under the Law is as effectually said to us by God the Son under the Gospel Why call ye me Lord Lord and do not the things that I say To say Sir your Servant is either a Complement or a Ieer when we say it with our Lips but without our Actions And this doth seem to be intended by the words of my Text if we compare it with the Inference deduced from it Ye call me Lord and Master and ye say well But to say very well is not sufficient For the Devils said well in saying that Christ was the Son of God And the Worldling said well in that he said unto our Saviour of the Commandments of the Law All these things have I kept from my Youth But not every one that saith unto me Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven for the Life of Christianity consists in Practice And therefore the Inferences are These which are drawn from the Text by Him that spake it If I then your Lord and Master have washed your feet ye also ought to wash oneanother's feet v. 14. If ye know these things happy are ye if ye do them v. 16. And by the same Logick he argues in the very next Chapter which is another part of his Farewell-Sermon If any man love me he will keep my words v. 23. and He that loveth me not keepeth not my words v. 24. which is as if he should have said He that loves me will obey me and do the Things that I appoint him which if any man does not let him say what he will he does not Love me For no good Tree can bear ill Fruit that 's an Aphorism of Christ Matth. 7. 18. there is not any thing more impossible than that sincere Love and a solid Faith should ever bring forth Rebellion and Disobedience Or so much as consist with that which does No no more than a Vine can bring forth Thorns or no more than a Fig Tree can bring forth Thistles From whence the Sequel is Unavoidable That if we do not justly Obey our Master we neither heartily Love him nor do we cordially believe him For let our Faith and our Love be what they can be they are no more than a Couple of Trees which must be known by their Fruit. That 's the great Diagnostick commended to us by our Saviour whereby to judge of ourselves and others Matth. 7. 20. If the Fruit is Disobedience to the Commandments of our Lord then the Love that is pretended is but a Thorn and the Faith so much talk't of an arrant Thistle Let the Lover or the Believer be commonly call'd what he will either a Vine or a Fig Tree A Godly man or a Saint And let the Leaves or the Branches be never so specious to the Eye I mean Professions and Shews and Forms of Godliness Yet our Master's Affirmation is still as true as it is Terrible Every Tree without exception which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the Fire Matth. 7. 19. Lord what a change of men's manners would this one word produce were it but throughly Understood or but sufficiently consider'd had it the happiness to be taken as well into the Hearts as the Ears of men behold the only sure way whereby to judge without Sin of our selves or others If we are fraudulent persons or Drunckards if we are Schismaticks or Rebels if we are Slanderers or Railers or fals Accusers or any otherways abounding in the fruits of the Flesh Gal. 5. 19. 't is plain that God when he cuts us down will also cast us into the Fire I say he will and must do it because of his Iustice and Veracity unless Repentance step in timely 'twixt Us and Death And still by Repentance I mean Amendment Not an empty confession that we have sin'd nor yet a cheap wishing we had not sin'd no nor expressions of Attrition for having sin'd but a bringing forth fruits meet for Repentance A Renovation of the outward and inward man such a thorow Reformation as does make a New Creature A Change of mind and of manners even the fruits of the spirit Gal. 5. 22. In a word If we are not our own but are bought with a Price and bought out right by our Lord and Master and that as to the whole of us both Soul and Body Then as St. Paul does well infer let us glorify him that bought us both in our Bodies and in our Souls because they are not truly ours but his that bought them 1 Cor. 6. 20. § 14. But there is yet another Lesson to be derived from this Doctrin and such as our Master in the Text has taught us how to draw from it by his Example For it being to be praemised that the Disciple is not above his Master nor the Servant above his Lord we must not only do as our Master did But when God shall call us to it it is our Duty also to suffer as he hath suffer'd First we must do as our Master did For 't is his own way of arguing in the next verse after my Text If I your Lord and Master have washed your feet ye ought also to wash oneanother's feet for I have given you an example that ye should do as I have done Here he argues from his being our Lord and Master the obligation lying upon us to give an active obedience to his example and by way of consecution to his Command And this being so what manner of men ought we to be in the course of our Lives and conversations we ought to Love oneanother as
serve him with fear but with Familiarity Thence they commonly do so startle at the legal obedience of the Iews the mo ral honesty of the Gentiles and the pretendedly meritorious good works of the Romanists as to fortifie themselves against these with the naked Faith of the Antinomians And so like him in Spartianus who poyson'd himself with too much antidote not considering that there is poyson as well in the Quantity of the best meats as in the Quality of the worst they prevent a less Disease with a greater and kill themselves with their Preservative For men to sweeten their malady and make their sickness pleasant to them they think it better than to cure it and so the Humor be not painful it is no matter how peccant ' t is They think they have met with the great Purchace Timotheus brag'd of in Athenaeus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All the Fortunate I stands are caught forsooth in their Net They dream they have found the new skill of the old Athletae 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to conquer the Devil without a Combat And though St. Paul poor man was fain to work out his Salvation with fear and trembling to beat down his Body and bring his Flesh into subjection to crucify the world unto himself and himself unto the world always bearing about in his Body the dying of the Lord Jesus lest whilst he preached unto others He himself might become a Castaway yet the Professors I allude to are so much happier than St. Paul in their own opinion that their Victories cost Them neither Dust nor Sweat They imagin they have got a peculiar knack of being sav'd and without any more ado can so believe themselves to Heaven that it seems to Them as easy to Dye like the Thief on our Saviour's Cross as it is to Live like him For they have set up a New Faith upon Mount Sion as Manasses and Sanballet did erect a New Temple upon Mount Ierezim that the most Scandalous Malefactors who have been any way obnoxious for breach of Law may Fly for Refuge to That Asylum and so become of their Party Their Vices many times do so border upon Vertue or appear at least in that Visard that conceiving they are Sanctified with that Unclean Spirit with which indeed they are possest mistaking the corruptions of Common Nature for the secret suggestions of Special Grace an hypocritical Sigh for a sincere Repentance a sturdy Presumption for an unshaken Faith and a carnal Security for an assurance of Salvation they make no doubt but to enter at the very striat Gate meerly by walking in the very broad way supposing that the chiefest reason why so very few do find it is their seeking to acquire it with too much Pains And therefore for their own parts That they may not be in danger to put their Trust in good works they live as if they took care to have them bad enough Hence they swallow the greatest Camels and never feel them going down Sacriledge and Schism and the Sin that is as bad as the Sin of Witchcraft Deposing of Kings and Subversion of Kingdoms For if say They they are once Regenerate none of these things can ever hurt them Humbly supposing it the priviledge of Freeborn Christians not to need the common honesty of Moral men These especially are the Persons who stand in need of a conviction that to be such as they would be thought they must be some of God's Servants as well as Sons And withal they must be shew'd wherein The Service is to consist For most agree upon the word but many differ about the thing Our Saviour tells us of certain Jews who took the killing of his Apostles to be doing God Service And Saul did seek to serve God by madly blaspheming against his Son How many Professors of Christianity within our knowledge and observation have thought it a Service to the Bridegroom to offer violence to the Bride most inhumanly to deprive her of all her Ornaments and Jewels and to expose her stark naked to the derision of her Enemies on every side How many Refiners upon Religion have verily thought to serve God by shedding the Blood of his Vicegerent just as certain old Heathens did worship Hermes by throwing Stones at the Image of him It is not therefore so much my business to prove that God is to be serv'd As to shew what we must do whereby to serve him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so far forth as to please him by it and so as our Service may be accepted The single word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is of Invaluable Importance It seems to be one of the main Hinges on which the Door of our Hope and Salvation turns It concerns us more than the World is worth to know exactly how much it means And so to be able to demonstrate at least to our selves if not to others what kind of Service it is to be which God will reckon to be sufficient For considering those words of our blessed Saviour Seek to enter in at the strait Gate for many shall seek and shall not enter how can we quiet our Understandings or safely set our Hearts at rest before we know what it is which will please our Master and when our Service will be accepted Now a Service only consisting of naked Orthodoxy and Faith as it is an Assent of the Understanding is not the acceptable Service commended to us in the Text. But as appears by the Context The chiefest requisite is obedience to the Commandments of our Master whereof our Faith is a special Instance 'T is an Employing of our selves in our Master's business a careful observance of his Will in whatsoever he commands us to do or suffer Our Saviour tells us the way to life is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not only narrow but craggy too for that 's imported by the Original though not exprest in our English Bibles A way so incumber'd with Christian Precepts and so block't up with strict Commands that as nothing but Faith can open the Door so nothing but Obedience can clear the way So that Faith and Obedience are to a Christian as the two Comets to a Mariner whereof the one is call'd Castor the other Pollux never auspicious but in conjunction By Faith indeed we may have the Gospel but we hold it not fast without Obedience Without them both in conjunction we cannot have Grace as the Text injoyns For naked faith without obedience like either of those Comets without the other is apt to raise up a Tempest of God's displeasure enough to shipwrack the Soul of man I cannot set them both off with a better colour than if I compare them to Iacob's two Wives whereof the One was very beautiful but barren too the other was fruitful but yet deform'd For as Faith like Rachel is wholly barren without obedience so Obedience like Leah is but deform'd without Faith Again as that without this is void of Eyes so this
Reason at once for the Matter and Manner of it First here is something to be done by every Follower of Christ and that because He is a Master It is not Master what shall I say or Master what shall I believe but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Master what shall I Do Here is Secondly observable in this Candidate of Heaven a meek Resignedness of mind to any Command of Christ imaginable and that because he is a Good or a Gracious Master The Servant presumes not to choose his work He does not bargain for Life Aeternal at such a Rate as he thinks fit with a Master I will do this or that but indefinitely asks with an humble kind of Indifference 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what shall I do These are Particulars more than enough not only to exercise and entertain our Attentions but perhaps to distract them too And therefore it cannot be taken ill if I shall gather their whole Result into Four Doctrinal Propositions First that the Son of God Incarnate who at present is our Advocate and will hereafter be our Iudge and who purposely came to save us from the Tyranny of our Sins is not only A Saviour to propose Promises to our Faith But also A Master to challenge obedience to his Commands We must not only believe him which is but to have him in our Brains nor must we only confess him which is but to have him in our Mouths no nor must we only love him though That is to have him in our Hearts but farther yet we must obey him and do him Service which is to have him in our Hands and our Actions too 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Master what shall I do And yet Secondly Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is not any way a Severe or Aegyptian-like Master who looks to reap where he never sow'd and exacts store of work without allowing any Materials but a Master full of Mercy and Lovingkindness And this he is in two respects To wit of the work which he requires which is not foesible only but pleasant and of the wages which he promiseth Aeternal Life For each of these reasons which do arise out of the Text he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A good Master And therefore Thirdly We must in gratitude unto so Good a Master as This behold our selves as obliged to two Returns to wit a Readiness of Obedience and a Resignedness of Wills First a Readiness of obedience even because he is our Master next a Resignedness of wills because he is our Good Master Our Christian Tribute to both together to wit his Authority and his Goodness must not only be Universal but Unconstrain'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what shall I do that is to say I will do any thing I am ready to perform whatever Service thou shalt appoint be it never so harsh or be it never so difficult Eternal Life is such a Prize as for which I can never do enough I say not therefore what I will do but humbly ask what I shall Yet Fourthly and lastly When we have done the most we can we are Unprofitable Servants Our Obedience is not the Cause but the aequitable Condition of our Reward And we finally arrive at Eternal Life not by way of Purchase as we are Servants but of Inheritance as we are Sons It is not here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wee seek not to merit or to deserve as some gross Christians pretend to do but meerly to Inherit Eternal Life I now have done with the Introduction wherein is included the Explication and Division of the Text. But as 't is easy for an Artist to design more work in a little Time than he is able to accomplish a long time after so however I have already drawn the Monogram or Scheme of my well-meant Project yet to fill it with the Zographesis by making it practical and easy not only useful to the most knowing but also familiar to the most Ignorant of those that read me will be the Business not of one but of several Essays And this the rather because Before I find Access to the four Doctrinal Propositions I must direct to several Lessons from Those three Preliminary Subjects the Text affords us To wit the Quality of the Person who here inquires The excellent Nature of his Inquiry and The Condition of the Oracle inquired of First the Person here inquiring had three remarkable Qualifications Youth Wealth and Honour And yet for all that he did not ask as a young man How shall I purchase the sweetest Pleasures nor yet as a Rich man How shall I compass the greatest wealth no nor yet as a Ruler How shall I climb to the highest Pinacle of Preferment But notwithstanding his three Impediments pulling him down towards the Earth he seemed wholly to be solicitous How he might come by a place in Heaven And therefore hence we are to take out a threefold Lesson one for Young men another for Rich men a third for Rulers And I suppose of these three this particular Congregation does now consist First our Young men must learn from the example of this Inquirer to remember their Creator in the days of their youth whilst the evil days come not nor the years draw nigh when they shall say We have no pleasure in them Prov. 12. 1. And that especially for these three Reasons First the younger any one is he came the more lately out of the Hands of his Creator and has had the less time to grow forgetful of the Rock out of which he was hewn It is with mens Souls as with their Bodies and with their Bodies as with their Cloaths The newer commonly the better and the older so much the worse A little evil Communication is enough to ferment the greatest Mass of good manners And if the whole World does lye in wickedness as St. Iohn affirms it does how can we look to be the purer by growing old and decrepit in so much Dirt no the longer we converse with Pitch or Birdlime to which the wickedness of the World may very happily be compar'd It is by so much the harder to make us clean Besides we ought to run after Christ like this Inquirer in the Text not go to him like a Torpedo as if we did not affect but fear him or tanquam Bos ad Cerâ—ma as if we were afraid to be baited by him But now the younger any man is he can run so much the faster whereas grown old he will hardly go It was therefore the Blessing of God to Enoch that he took him away speedily and even hasten'd to cut him off to the end that wickedness might not alter his Understanding nor deceipt beguile his Soul Wisd. 4. 11 14. This was That that gave occasion to the young mans Inquiry which lyes before us For having heard our Saviour say Suffer little Children to come unto me for of such is the Kingdom of God v. 14.
Fortunes are our Conversation will be above 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. we shall behave our selves as men who are free of God's City Our Hearts will evermore be There unless our Treasure is somewhere else If the Kingdom of Heaven is that Pearl of great Price to which our Lord in his Parable thought fit to liken it And if we are those Merchants that traffick for it we cannot choose but be busy in our Inquiries after the Price still resolving upon the Purchase at any Rate that can be ask't and ever asking what we shall give or as here what we shall do that we may any ways inherit Eternal Life So it follows again on the other side That if we are commonly looking downwards and behave our selves here as men at home as if we did not intend any farther Iourney If the Burden of our Inquiries is such as This What shall we do to live long upon the Earth and not see the Grave or what shall we do to escape going to Heaven 'till such time as we are pass't the pleasant Injoyments of the Earth how shall we put the evil Day afar off how shall we be saved without Repentance or repent without Amendment or amend no more than will serve our turn what shall we do to be good enough and yet no better than needs we must what shall we do to serve two Masters and reconcile the two Kingdoms of God and Mammon and so confute what is said by our blessed Saviour in the Sixteenth of St. Luke what for a Religion wherein to live with most pleasure and one to dye in with greatest safety what shall we do to live the Life of the sensual'st Epicure and yet at last dye the Death of the strictest Saint If I say our Affections are clinging thus unto the Earth It is an absolute Demonstration that all our Treasure is here below and that we are men of the present world in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds For our Saviour's famous Rule is at once of universal and endless Truth Wheresoever the Carkass is there the Eagles will be gathered together wheresoever our Treasure is there our Hearts will be also And whither our Hearts are gone before the Case is evident and clear our Tongues and our Actions will follow after § 7. Now since these are the Inquiries of several Seekers to wit of Them who do affect to dwell here and of them that look out for a better Country that is an heavenly And since we may judge by their Inquiries to which kind of Master they do belong to God or Mammon 'T is plain the Lesson or the Use we are to take from it is This that when we find our selves beset with a twofold evil the one of Sin and the other of Affliction in so much as we know not which way to turn there being on the right hand a fear of Beggery or Disgrace and on the left hand a fear of Hell when I say we are reduced to such an hard pinch of our Affairs we must not carnally cast about and tacitly say within our selves what shall we do to keep our Livelyhoods or what shall we do to hold fast our Lives But what shall we do to keep a good Conscience and to hold fast our Integrity And since 't is nobler to be led by the hope of a Reward than to be frighted into our Duties by the fear of being punish't if we neglect them let us not ask like the Children of Hagar in the spirit of Bondage which is unto fear what shall we do that we may not inherit a Death Aeternal But as the Children of Sarah in the spirit of Adoption which is unto hope what shall we do that we may inherit Aeternal Life Which Life being hid with Christ in God as St. Paul speaks to the Colossians for God's sake whither should we go either to seek it when it is absent or to find it when it is hid or to secure it when it is found unless to Him who hath the words of Eternal Life that is the words which are the means by which alone we may attain to Eternal Life The words which teach us how to know it the words which tell us where to seek it the words which shew us how to find it the words which afford us those Rules and Precepts by our conformity unto which we cannot but take it into possession There is no other Name to make us Inheritors of Eternity but only the Name of our Lord Iesus Christ Acts 4. 12. And considering what is said by our blessed Saviour That This and this only is Life Eternal to know the only true God with a practical knowledge and Iesus Christ whom he hath sent John 17. 2. we should religiously resolve not to know any thing else Not I mean in comparison of Iesus Christ and him crucified nor yet to any other end than to serve and assist us in that one knowledge Look what carking and caring any Covetous man useth to get his wealth look what industry and labour an Ambitious man useth to get his Honour look what vigilance and solicitude any Amorous man useth to get his Idol the same solicitude and diligence is each Religious man to use for the getting of an Interest in Iesus Christ. Which gives me a passage from the second to the third Observable I proposed from the Nature and Quality of the young man's Inquiry to the condition of the Oracle inquired of As he sought for nothing less than Eternal Life so did he seek it from Him alone who is the way to that Life and the Life it self He did not go to take Advice from the Witch of Endor for the madness of Saul had made him wiser or more at least in his wits than to knock at Hell-door for the way to Heaven Nor did he ask of Apollo Pythius or go to Iupiter Ammon to be inform'd about the way to Eternal Life for all the Oracles of the Heathen were put to silence by our Messias as Plutarch and others of their own great Writers have well observ'd and should they speak never so loudly he very well knew they could not teach him Nor did he go to Aaron's Ephod to ask the Urim and Thummim about the means of his Salvation for he knew that That Oracle was now grown Dimm and that in case it had been legible it could not help him Nor did he betake himself to Moses the Iewish Law-giver much less to the Scribes the learned Interpreters of the Law for he found Mysterious Moses had still a Veil upon his Face which the Scribes and Pharisees were not able to Remove much less durst he go to the Law it self for a Relief there being nothing more plain than that the Law worketh wrath Those Tables of Stone are as the Hones or the Grindstones at which the Sting of Death is whetted and made more sharp For as the sting of Death is Sin so
For when he was transfigur'd upon Mount Tabor a bright Cloud overshadow'd him and behold a voice out of the Cloud This is my beloved Son Hunc Audite Hear Him Matth. 17. 15. It is the Top of that Wisdom which we are capable of on Earth to sit with Mary at his Feet and to hear his Word Luke 10. 39 42. Fifthly if we inquire for the only true way which leadeth unto life and to life Eternal He alone is the Way the Truth and the Life John 14. 6. Are we affrighted at the Law He alone hath redeemed us from the Curse of the Law being made a Curse for us Gal. 3. 13. In a word He is the true Noah's Ark whereby to escape the Inundations of Sin and Hell He hath broken the Ice and made way for us that we may enter into the Gate Micah 2. 13. He is our Ionathan after the Spirit who first hath scaled in his Person the heavenly Mountain that we the Bearers of his Armour may follow after 1 Sam. 14. 1. The Ministration of his Word is the Spiritual Chariot by which he carries us with himself into the outward Court of the Temple and thence at last within the Veil into the Sanctum Sanctorum He alone is the Gate both of Grace and Salvation None can go unto the Father unless by Him John 14. 6. He alone is the Iacob's Ladder whose Top reacheth into the Heavens that is to say the True 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which as by a Bridge or Isthmus Heaven and Earth are tyed together Angels and Men pass to and fro Angels to Men and Men to Angels By Him hath the Father reconciled all things unto Himself Coloss. 1. 20. He it is that invites us when we are weary and heavy laden to come unto him for a Refreshment Matth. 11 28. From Him the Spirit and the Bride say Come And let him that heareth say Come And let him that is athirst Come And whosoever will let him come and take freely of the water of life Rev. 22. 17. All which being consider'd we thus may Argue within our selves If the great Queen of Shebah did choose to take so long a Iourney as from Shebah to Ierusalem and all to hear a wise man speak Matth. 12. 42. Or if Socrates though an Heathen was such a Lover of Wisdom as to travel for his Improvement through several Countries and put himself to learn of every great Master that he could hear of with how much a greater force of reason should we travel far and near to find out the Wisdom of the Father to learn of that Good as well as Great Master who alone hath the words of Eternal Life But some perhaps may here object That the Man in the Text met with Christ in the way whilst here on Earth How shall we find him out since his Ascension into Heaven The Psalmist tells us He is in Heaven and in Hell too If we go up into Heaven he is there And if we go down into Hell he is there also But to Heaven we cannot and to Hell we dare not go To which the Answer is very obvious That if Christ is in Hell because he is every where by the necessity of his Godhead he is by consequence here on Earth too for the very same reason And that we may not say with Seneca Qui ubique nusquam that he who is every where is no where for that he is every where invisible and so as difficultly found as if he were not The Righteousness which is of Faith speaketh on this wise Say not in thine heart who shall ascend into Heaven that is to bring Christ down from above Or who shall descend into the Deep that is to bring up Christ again from the Dead For Christ in his word is very nigh thee even in thy Mouth and in thine Heart that is the word of Faith which we preach We need not go to Compostella or travel in Pilgrimage to other places where they pretend at least to shew us his Seamless Coat and his Cross and his Crown of Thorns We need go no farther than to his Word and his Sacraments his Ministers and his Members And having thus found him out we must not content our selves with Herod to gaze upon him in Curiosity but with Zachaeus out of Devotion Nor must we grow old in our setting out but rather hasten to him betimes and as fast as we can run too And as humbly as it is possible we must go kneeling to him and ask him Good Master what shall we do or with the Disciples upon the Sea Master Master we perish That is we perish of our selves without thy stretched out Hand to support and save us And therefore lift we up our voices with those Ten Lepers in the way Iesus Master have Mercy on us For indeed he will never have Mercy on us unless we have mercy upon our selves that is to say unless we take him upon his own most righteous Terms not only as a Iesus who came to save us but withal as a Master who does expect to be served by us And this does lead me to consider the Compellation of our Inquirer concerning which I shall discourse upon the next Opportunity Now to the King Eternal Immortal Invisible the only wise God be Honour and Glory for ever and ever THE Goodness of Christ AS A LEGISLATOR MARK X. 17. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Good Master what shall I do that I may Inherit Aeternal Life § 1. HAving done with the Person who here inquires and with the excellent Nature of his Inquiry and with the only true Oracle inquired of It now remains that I proceed to the significant Compellation wherewith the Person who here inquires praepares the way to his Inquiry The Compellation as hath been said does consist of two Parts first the Subject 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Master next the Adjunct or Qualification 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Good § 2. From the first being compared with the matter of the Question that is to say with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 't is very obvious to draw forth this Doctrinal Proposition That the Son of God Incarnate who at present is our Advocate and will hereafter be our Iudge and who purposely came to save us from the Tyranny of our Sins is not only a Saviour to offer Promises to our Faith but also a Master to exact Obedience to his Commands We must not only believe him which is but to have him in our Brains nor must we only confess him which is but to have him in our Mouths no nor must we only love him which were it possible to be done were only to have him in our hearts But farther yet we must Obey him and do him Service which is to have him in our Hands and our Actions too 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Master what shall I do § 3. A Proposition of such Importance to all that are Candidates for
Mouths to confess him our Heads to believe him our Hands and Feet to serve him our Wills to be ruled and our Wits to be captivated by him our Hearts to love him and our Lives to dye for him All which though it is All is still too little if we impartially consider the Disproportion of our Reward that blessed Parallel drawn out for us by God's own Compass Life and Aeternity A man you know would do any thing whereby to find Life though in our Saviour's Oxymôron it is by losing it Matth. 10. 39. And as a man will part with any thing to save his life so with life too to eternize it If therefore our Saviour does bid us follow him let us not venture to choose our way And if we can but arrive at Heaven it matters not much though we go by Hell For comparing his Goodness with his Mastership his Promises with his Precepts and the Scantling of our Obedience with the Immenfity of our Reward we shall find that our work hath no proportion with our wages but that we may inquire when all is done Good Master what shall we do And this does prompt me to proceed to my last Doctrinal Proposition That when all is done that can be we are unprofitable Servants Our Obedience is not the Cause but the meer Condition of our Reward And we arrive at Eternal Life not by way of Purchase as we are Servants but of Inheritance as we are Sons It is not here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not to deserve but to inherit Eternal Life As Christianity like Manhood hath its several steps and degrees of growth so the Soul as well as the Body doth stand in need of Food and Raiment And agreable to the Complexion of immaterial Beings she is not only bedeck't but sustain'd with Righteousness Now as none can inherit Eternal Life but He that is born of the Spirit And as he that is born of the Spirit must also be nourished with the Spirit before he can possibly live an holy and spiritual Life so it is only God the Spirit that gives us Birth God the Son that gives us Breeding and God the Father that gives us the privilege of Adoption The Spirit feedeth us as his Babes the Son instructs us as his Disciples the Father indows us as his Heirs It is the Spirit that fits us for our Inheritance the Son that gives us a Title to it And 't is especially the Father who doth invest us with the Possession But now of all God's External and Temporal Blessings which have any Resemblance unto his Spiritual methinks the Manna that fell from Heaven is the liveliest Embleme of his Grace Of which though some did gather more and some less yet they that gather'd most had nothing over and they that gather'd least had no lack Thus as Manna like Grace is the Bread of Heaven so Grace like Manna is also measur'd out by Omers For even they that have least of the Grace of God have enough if well us'd to inherit Heaven and even they that have most have not enough to deserve it But still the Parallel goes on For the reason why the Manna which God sent down to the People Israel would not indure above a Day was saith Philo upon the Place lest considering the Care by which their Manna was preserv'd more than the Bounty by which 't was given they might be tempted to applaud not God's Providence but their own Thus if God had bestow'd so full a measure of his Grace as to have left us altogether without our Frailties perhaps our very Innocence might have been our Temptation We might have found it an Inconvenience to have been dangerously Good Like those once happy but ever-since unhappy Angels whose very excellency of Nature did prove a kind of Snare to them even the purity of their Essence did give occasion to their defilement Their very Height and Eminence was that that helpt to pull them down and one reason of their falling was that they stood so firmly For though they were free from that Lust which is the Pollution of the Flesh yet they were lyable to Ambition which is the Filthiness of the Spirit As if their Plethory of Goodness had made them Wantons or the Unweildiness of their Glory had made them Proud 't was from a likeness to their Creator that they aspir'd to an Equality and so they were the first of all the Creatures as well in their Fall as their Perfections Now adding to this the consideration that Ingratitude does gather Increase of Guilt from a greater abundance of Obligations so as the Angels falling from Heaven could not fall less than as low as Hell we may perhaps find a reason for which to congratulate to our selves that Dimensum or Pittance of God's free Grace which hath left us our Infirmities as fit Remembrancers to Humility That being placed in a condition rather of Trembling than of Security every Instance of our defect may send us to God for a Supply God hath given us our Proportion that we may not grumble or despair but not such a Perfection as once to Adam and the Angels before their Fall that we may not like Them be either careless or presume So that making a due comparison of that faint measure of Goodness which now we possibly may have by the Grace of God with that full measure of Glory which now at least we hope for we must be fain to acknowledge when all is done that the greatest measure of our obedience is far from deserving the least of Bliss For as the Sun appears to us a most glorious Body and yet is look't upon by God as a spot of Ink so though the Righteousness of men doth seem to men to be truly such yet compar'd with our Reward it is no more than as filthy Rags That other promise of our Lord Never to see or to taste of Death had been sufficiently above our merits But to inherit Eternal Life too though I cannot affirm it above our wishes yet sure it is often above our Faith Had we no more than we deserv'd we should not have so great Blessings as Rain and Sunshine and God had still been Iust to us had he made our best wages to be as negative as our work For as the best of us all can boast no more than of being less guilty than other men so we can claim no other Reward than to be somewat less punish't that is to be beaten with fewer stripes As the Ox amongst the Iews being unmuzzl'd upon the Mowe by the special appointment of God himself at once did eat and tread the Corn whereby he received his Reward at the very same Instant in which he earn'd it so the Protection of such a Soveraign is Reward enough for our Allegiance and the present Maintenance of a Servant is the usual Recompence of his labour Whatsoever God
whilst we are told that as our Iourney is long so our Time is little and yet Eternity depends on the usage of it Must we needs be still coveting another's House another's Land another's Servant another's Wife or somewhat else which is anothers and that at the Instant of our abounding in two whole worlds which are our own No let us rather bespeak our Tempter as Ioseph did his kind Mistress How can we do so great a wickedness which way shall we be able to set about it Had Potiphar been a jealous man or a cruel Master Ioseph might have done much at the frequent Intreaties of a Mistress But He considering how his Master had withheld nothing from him besides his Wife and intrusted him too with Her as well as with his whole Substance could not in Gratitude to his Master accept the Favour of his Mistress He could not sin against so manifold and great a Trust. So if God had been a Wilderness to any of us tyed us up from All Comforts or left but few things lawful for us we might then have sin'd against him with more excuse But considering his Bounty and Goodness towards us his leaving it in our power to pick and choose our Contentments in great Variety and his withholding nothing from us but what will hurt us in the Possession we ought to stir up his Grace as well as our own good Nature in us to an effectual Resistance of the most powerful Temptations which shall at any time indeavour to debauch us into Rebellion and say with Ioseph How can we do so great a wickedness against a Deity so obliging How can we possibly be so ingrateful § 19. Having therefore briefly weigh'd the Rival-objects of our choice and seen the very vast Difference between the Things of this praesent and future world yea between the same Things of this present world as they are differently offer'd by God and Satan by God on the one side as they are sanctified into Blessings and on the other side by Satan as they are turn'd into a Curse by God as of Right and by Satan as of Sufferance by God in such a Measure as has a Tendency to our Good and by Satan in such an extravagance as is in order to our undoing by God to satisfie our Appetites and by Satan to inlarge them by God as obligations to Love and Gratitude and by Satan as excitements to Pride and Luxury By God as Directives to the great End of our Creation and by Satan as Amusements to keep us from it we cannot take a better course when Satan tempts us as he did Christ with the Greatness of the World and the Glory of it than to reflect upon our Solemn Baptismal Vow and by consequence to fight against the Prince of this World and utterly to forsake its Pomps and Vanities Not to walk according to the Course of this world to fear its Friendship to hate its Wisdom to suspect its Power and to scorn its Glory to crucifie the world unto our selves and our selves unto the world to keep our selves unspotted and undefiled from the world And whilst our vile Bodies are here on Earth to have our Conversations at least in Heaven § 20. These are the Lessons we are to learn from the First observable in the Text and such as prompt me to proceed to the consideration of the Second For of the many and cogent Arguments whereby to make our selves think meanly of the Things which we admire This is none of the least That they are not only in God's Gift by a natural Right But many times by His leave in the Devil 's also For thus rnn the words of The next Particular in the Division That all the Goods of This world however lovely they may appear to the misty Eye of Carnality are yet by God's Patience and wise Permission at least successively though not at once in the Devil's Proffer and Disposal First I must evidence that so it Is. Next I must guess at the Reasons why And last of all I must proceed to shew the manifold Advantage and Use of Both. § 1. That so it is may be evinced more ways than one From Scripture from Reason and from Experience It is so evident from Scripture wherein our Saviour calls Satan The Prince of this World St. Paul the Ruler and the God too that the Devil in one sense said not amiss unto our Saviour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the power of this world is deliver'd to me as That does signifie by an Hebraism that God does suffer or permit him to rob the Innocent and to heap Riches upon the Guilty and so to dispose of whole Kingdoms to the Sons of Violence and Oppression who call their strength the Law of Iustice. 'T is true the words of the Devil as St. Luke sets them down are clearly spoken as by a Sophister who according to his Custom being aequivocal or homonymous in what he says does cunningly mix a little Truth with the greatest falshood to be imagin'd For if he means that God Almighty has put the world into his hands and intrusted him as a Deputy to pass a Right of Possession on whom He pleaseth there is nothing more false than his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which will be made to appear in its proper place But if his meaning is only This That God is pleas'd to let him alone in his Course of wickedness for a Time and permits him to be mischievous as far as his Fetters and Chain will reach nothing is truer than That Assertion from the Father of Lyes And nothing can shew its Truth better than such a Scriptural Example as That of Iob. § 2. He we know was a perfect and upright man A man fearing God and eschewing Evil. As to the purity of his Life he had not his Equal in all the Earth In so much that God upbraided and vexed Satan with his Integrity Yet even All that Iob had and we know he had a world was left by God in the Devil's Power For no sooner had Satan said Put forth thine Hand now and touch all he hath And he will curse thee to thy face but God return'd him this Answer All that he hath is in thy Power only upon Himself do not put thine Hand forth 'T is plain the Devil is God's Pris'ner for there we have the length of the Chain that holds him It did not reach to Iob's Person but only to his Possessions And to Them so universally that the Devil dispos'd of All to his prime Instruments upon Earth The Sabaeans the Chaldaeans the Fire and the Whirlwind He sent his Journey-men the Sabaeans to plunder Iob of his Oxen to take his Asses into Possession and slay his Servants with the edge of the Sword Employed the Fire to kill his Sheep and his Shepherds To the Chaldaeans he bequeathed Iob's stock of Camels together with the Lives of those that
Advantage as well as Duty to do in this case as he would be done by to pay as much Reverence and Submission to such as are over him in Authority as he expects from his own Servants his Wife and Children It being pity that any Subject who is a Rebel to his Prince should meet with any thing but Rebellion from All that owe Service or Duty to him For why should any man expect to have a dutiful Wife an obedient Son or a faithful Servant who is neither of the Three to his Native Soveraign but is undutiful and false to his Publick Parent not to the People's but God's Vicegerent There can be nothing more apposite than that a Boutefeux a Kindle-coal a Make-bate in the City should have his House full of Tumults that He who is hissing at publick Government should carry a Serpent in his own Bosom that as he Sows so he should Reap that his own Wickedness should correct him that he should suffer what he has done and that with the measure he metes to others who are exceedingly above him others exceedingly below him should duly measure to him again Nor should it otherwise be of pleasant but as 't is of profitable Remarque that Women did never here in England so affect Mastery over their Husbands Never were Children here in England so disaffected so disobedient so quite unnatural towards their Parents Never were Servants here in England so false and treacherous towards their Masters as since our English-mens Revolt from The God of Order since their being too proud to be under God or at least no farther willing that God himself should reign over them than upon This Condition only that he will do it Their way either without any Vicegerent or with one of Their choosing What I now have said last I should have taken for a Digression had not the Evils now mentioned been all the Fruit of the same Plant which had taken some Root in the Heart of Baruch I mean The Itch of a man's seeking Greater Things for himself than God sees fit or has been pleased to allow to such as seek them § 14. Now in order to the learning so great and good a Lesson as This which I have been hitherto describing we must attend to those Things which are the Means of and the Motives to it In order to the former we must not only addict our selves to all the usual Means of Grace such as Prayer and Giving of Alms Reading and Hearing the Word of God frequent Perceptions of the Lord's Supper private Conferences with Casuists or Ghostly Fathers and the like But we must use our best Wit and our soundest Reason and as St. Paul exhorts Timothy we must duly stir up the Gift of God which is in us whereby to find out such Means as are perhaps the least thought of thô perhaps the most effectual to reach the End we aim at We know an Archer not to be short of the Mark before him will use his indeavour to shoot beyond it As Demosthenes of a Stammerer attain'd to an excellent Pronunciation by speaking with Pebbles in his Mouth and so He facilitated his Conquest of a Natural Impediment by adding and subduing an Artificial one Have we sincerely a Desire to be the better for being Rational to make a right use of the Light within us to free our selves from a Disease the most tormenting in all the World to be as happy as is possible in a Valley of Tears we must not only not seek Great Things for our selves but must not suffer Great Things to grow upon us in Excess We must never once indure to have as much of this World as we are able nor yet as much as is lawful for us but only as much as is expedient We must not dare to make Trials as too many are wont to do through a most sinful Curiosity what store of Riches may be attain'd to within the Compass of one Man's Life There being nothing more inhuman more unbecoming or more unworthy of a Rational Agent than for a man to be condemn'd by his own Consent to be digging all his days in the Mine or Quarry to be so much below a Bruit as not to know when he has enough Enough to make use of enough to keep enough to care for enough to lose enough to leave behind him enough to give accompt of in the day of Judgment There can be nothing more disgraceful to a man's Reason and Understanding than not to know when he has enough in these six Points I now have mentioned Not only Christ and his Apostles but Horace himself and his Oppidius and many other Heathen Writers have taught us a Lesson of human Prudence which men as men must needs confess 't is a Shame and Misery not to learn Denique sit finis quaerendi finite Laborem Incipias parto quod avebas We ought to fix on a Proportion of Worldly Goods to which our Industry and Prudence with due regard to our Quality and the Necessities of our Family may safely and innocently reach And having once attain'd That must say as resolvedly to our Appetites and by consequence to our Indeavours as God once said to the Swelling Waters of the Sea Thus far shall ye go and no farther We are at an end of our Desires We will not be troubled with any more We will not be evermore adding to the dead weight of our Possessions but only to the right use and injoyment of Them As for Surplasages of Fortune if any happen we will employ them in Christian Projects and not in Philosophical but Theological Experiments suggested to us by God himself in several parts of his holy Word as How we may draw Bills of Credit upon Him who inhabits the New Ierusalem How we may lend unto The Lord thô The Proprietary of All and be paid by Him again an hundred sold for the forbearance How we may feed and cloath our Saviour thô in his State of Glorification How redeem our very Redeemer by contributing what we can to the Redemption of Christian Captives from the Tyranny of the Turks and lay up in store a good Foundation for our selves upon a Project of attaining Eternal Life Thus to stint all our Appetites and to limit our Desires is to antedate the Happiness we hope and pray for 'T is to create unto our selves by the help of God's Grace an humble Degree of Self-sufficience on this side Heaven It was the Saying of a wise Heathen which no wise Christian will scorn to learn Nihil Nos magis ab animi fluctibus vindicaverit quà m aliquem semper figere incrementis Terminum There is nothing can more exempt us from all inquietudes of Mind from the Rack of Expectation and the Strappado of Disappointments than our putting a certain period to our Increase a certain Boundary or Butt to our Acquisitions Our best Successes being so slippery and our Appetites so strong that for Both
Heaven and solicitous for the way which will lead us thither that truly a Sermon on such a Subject should be as long as a man's life We cannot touch on that string either too often or too much by which we are taught to bear a part in the Quire of Heaven And therefore if at present I only touch upon it in short I would be known so to do for these two Reasons First because I must consider it in the second Doctrinal Proposition it being impossible to consider that Christ is a Good Master and not to consider at the same time that he is a Master Next because I shall resume it upon a sitter passage of Scripture which I shall handle either in this or in a Neighbouring Congregation § 4. It shall therefore suffice me to say at present That almost All the Appellatives which are any where given to Christ in Scripture do either express or imply his Empire He is A Prince in the Prophet Esa and has a Government on his shoulders A Ruler in Micah A Sun of Righteousness in Malachi In as much as we are Soldiers he is the Captain of our Salvation As the Sheep of his Pasture he is our Shepherd As fellow Members of a Body he is our Head He is a King and a Lord in the Revelations Nor is he only as other Kings The Lord 's Anointed or The Lord 's Christ But by way of Supereminence Christ the Lord. The Lord of Life he is in one place and The Lord of Glory in another Every Tongue must confess that Iesus Christ is THE Lord Phil. 2. 11. § 5. Farther yet he is a Lawgiver as well as a Lord. For so we read in two Prophets who plainly speak it of our Messias Out of Zion shall go forth a Law Isa. 2. 3. Mic. 4. 2. and our Apostle tells us expresly That however we are free from the Law of Moses yet still we are under the Law to Christ 1 Cor. 9. 21. To understand which the better we must know the Moral Law imports a threefold Obligation One as being the Law of Nature And so 't is obliging to all Mankind Another as being the Law of Moses And so 't is obliging in special manner unto the Iews A third as being the Law of Christ And so 't is obliging unto as many as do call upon the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Who did not come to make the Law of none effect through Faith As many thought in St. Paul's Days and more in Ours but by Faith to establish the Law Rom. 3. 31. That 't is indeed the Law of Christ and the Law to be fulfill'd is very evident from the words of St. Paul to the Galatians Bear ye one anothers Burdens and so fulfil the Law of Christ Gal. 6. 2. § 6. Thus we see by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which here relates to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is meant a Master to Command as well as Teach For Moses himself was somewhat more than a Teaching Master who yet did humbly submit and do obeysance unto Christ As when a King enters a City The Maior of the Town yields up his Mace Moses verily was faithful in all his house as a Servant But Christ as a Son and as a Son over his own house whose house are we Heb. 3. 5 6. When I say that Master Moses did submittere Fasces as it were yield up his Mace to Christ I speak as prompted by Himself in the Eighteenth of Deuteronomy at the Fifteenth Verse where saith Moses to the People by a Divine and Prophetick Spirit The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee of thy Brethren like unto Me unto Him shalt thou hearken that is to Him shalt thou be obedient A Text so plainly understood touching the Mastership of Christ or of his being a Legislator that 't is cited by St. Peter in the Third Chapter of the Acts and by St. Stephen Acts the Seventh and by both to the purpose at which I drive To which agreeth this Observation That as at the close of our Saviour's Sermon which he deliver'd upon the Mount he is said to have taught the astonish't People as one having authority and not as the Scribes Matth. 7. ult so in the close of that Commission with which he shut up all his Sermons and sent his Preachers into the world he gave them charge to preach his Gospel as that in which was contained his Royal Law All Power is given unto me in Heaven and in Earth go ye therefore and teach all Nations to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you Matth. ult ult In a due discharge of which Commission we find St. Paul Rom. 13. and St. Iames Chap. 2. and St. Peter and St. Iohn in several parts of their Epistles requiring absolute obedience to the Commandments of Christ that is to Christ as a Legislator The words of St. Paul are most remarkable 1 Cor. 7. 19. Circumcision is nothing and Uncircumcision is nothing but the keeping of the Commandments As if the Apostle should have said Let us not please our selves too much with our being of This or That Religion embracing such or such a Sect. For no man living shall be sav'd for being of this or that Profession a Iew or a Gentile an Unbeliever or a Believer a Papist or a Protestant a Presbyterian or a Prelatist But men are better or worse and in a more savable or unsavable Condition as they are more or less obedient to the Commandments of Christ. This I take to be the meaning of that Expression in St. Paul which is so far only difficult as it is spoken by an Ellipsis Circumcision is nothing and Uncircumcision is nothing but the keeping of the Commandments is all in all That is it must do us good in the Day of Wrath because 't is That that Christ requires as the Condition of the Covenant 'twixt Him and Us. And without which it is impossible that we receive him as a Lord. But there is nothing more pertinent to prove the Mastership of Christ as here we have it in the Text than his own resolution of the young mans question as we find it set down in St. Matthew's Gospel where no sooner was it ask't by our Inquirer Good Master what good thing shall I do that I may inherit Eternal Life but straight the Master return'd this answer If thou wilt enter into life keep the Commandments Matth. 19. 17. And being presently ask't which our Saviour passed by the first and only instanced in those of the second Table To shew that Faith will not avail us without Obedience Nor Obedience to the first Table without Obedience unto the second Whereby 't is intimated unto us That They are desperately Erroneous who think they are lovers of their God whilst they are haters of their Neighbour And that because they do not worship more Gods than One have no Images