unfit to ingage themselves in any Religious Exercises Good Hezekiah as pious and excellent a Prince as he was was able in his sickness to do no more than chatter as a Crane Tho' none at other times knew better how to pray yet now it seems he can but chatter and is obliged by reason of his Infirmity to beg the prayers of the Prophet Esay And as it was with Hezekiah so it happens unto other holy Men which occasioned that advice of St. Iames Chap. 5. 14. Is any Sick among you let him call for the Elders of the Church and let them pray over him And if good men if such as Hezekiah be rendred by sickness unfit for Prayer and the other exercises of Religion how must sickness indispose the wicked who never were acquainted with these Religious Exercises before They of all men are most unfit to set about such Duties as these For besides those exquisite Pains they labour under besides all those indispositions both of Body and Mind which they have common with other men the sad remembrances of their former sins and the more dreadful apprehensions of an incensed Deity will now inhaunce their troubles they will fill their Souls with unspeakable horrors and even deter them from endeavouring to make their peace with Heaven And besides all this Satan we may be sure will be busie at this time to draw these sinners to despair Tho' he used to tell them in the time of their health that it was too soon to Repent yet this malicious Fiend will now suggest that it is too late he will tell them the Door of Mercy is now shut upon them and that God whom they refused to hear all their life long will now be as backward to hear them All these considerations laid together will I believe make a late Repentance a thing most dangerous if not in some sort impossible 3ly a late Death-bed Repentance will appear a thing most dangerous if not in some sort impossible if we consider what is required to the compleating and perfecting of Repentance Now Repentance doth denote our ceasing to do evil and our learning to do well Our rooting out all the inveterate habits of Vice and planting in our Souls the contrary habits of Vertue And this sure must be a work of great difficulty and consequently of time For sin as it grows up by degrees and gains strength by custom and continuance so it must be conquered by degrees abate by a long series and succession of contrary Acts. Every step we made forward must be repeated backward the Web we formerly spun must now all be unravelled And believe it we will find it a work of time and difficulty too to correct our impetuous inclinations to render our sensual Appetites obsequious to Reason our Passions regular and steddy and cleanse our Souls from vanity sloth perversness and all vitious distempers It takes good men many months and years to conquer one impetuous Lust and subdue one unreasonable Passion and do these presumptuous Sinners expect to conquer all their Lusts in a trice to blow them away with a little breath a Lord have mercy upon us and the like And as Vice is not easily conquered so neither is Virtue so easily obtained It is not like Ionahs Gourd which grows up in a night no it is a tender and delicate Plant it grows but slowly it needs much pains to cultivate it much care to guard it much time to mature it especially in the untoward Soil of corrupt Nature and the unkindly weather of this wicked World And if it be so hard a matter to obtain one single Vertue what pains what time is required to get the whole circle of them to add as St. Peter speaks to our Faith Virtue to Virtue Knowledge to Knowledge Temperance and so on Is this think ye the work of a dying hour the business only of a day or the short time of sickness The whole time of our life seems too little for it and would in truth be so if God were not so Merciful as to crown our imperfect Endeavours with his gracious assistance and render them in some sort perfect by his favourable Acceptance One thing more I shall add unto this Head which you may learn from Rom. 2. 7. where St. Paul tells us that we must by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality It seems we cannot expect Eternal life unless we conquer Sin and gain the contrary habits of Vertue yea which is more yet we must patiently continue in well-doing All this will certainly make a Death-bed Repentance a thing most dangerous if not in some sort impossible as the Prophet Ieremiah represents it Chap. 13. 23. Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the Leopard his spots Then may you also do good who are accustomed to do evil 4ly A late Repentance will yet farther appear to be a thing most dangerous if not in some sort impossible if we consider how little it is such a Presumptuous Sinner is able to do in the Time of Sickness I grant such a person may express some Grief and Sorrow for Sin but since this Sorrow proceeds more from fear of Punishment than any real love of God and Vertue it cannot be that Godly Sorrow which worketh Repentance to Salvation never to be repented of I grant yet farther that such a sinner may with great earnestness beg pardon for his sins restore perhaps his Ill-gotten Goods and which is the most he can do make solemn Resolutions of Amendment and better Obedience if God should restore him to his former Health This is all such a sinner can possible do at the Hour of Death but will all this amount to a sincere and hearty Repentance Pray let it be consider'd what I told you the last Lord's Day namely that Experience has frequently declared these dying Resolutions to be but forc'd and feign'd and such Penitents when by God's Mercy they have been restor'd to their former Health notwithstanding all their Protestations have with the Dog returned to their Vomits and with the Sow to their wallowing in the Mire And have we any reason then to look on such Resolutions as these to be hearty Repentances Besides a Resolution to repent and amend is not properly to Repent and Amend Apply this to other Cases and you 'l easily find the falsity of it Suppose a man resolves to learn the Art of Sailing does this Resolution presently make him a skilful Mariner No more does a Resolution to repent and amend make a true Penitent or honest Christian Such a Change as this is not so easily wrought such a Reformation is not so suddenly produc'd The Mathematicks or any other Art may more easily be learned than the Art of Living-well because all Arts must be acquired by repeated Acts and since Corrupt Nature is more opposite to the Art of Living-well than to any other it is impossible it should be attained by a bare unactive
Resolution Now tho' all this do abundantly shew a late Death-bed Repentance to be a thing most dangerous and in some sort impossible and yet seeing this is a Subject of most serious importance 5ly I will in the Fifth place add one Consideration more which will shew it yet to be more dangerous and in some sort impossible And pray let it be Consider'd that the Day of Grace may be lost before the Day of Death come Sure it is not possible that such sinners should repent without the assistance of God's Grace and yet before their death they may sin to such an height as to forfeit this assistance of God's Grace It is the vain fancy of such presumptuous sinners that the Day of Grace and the Day of Life run parallel and that as long as the one lasts the other will last too and therefore they encourage themselves in their wickedness thinking they shall have time enough to repent when they come to dye But if this Fancy of theirs be vain the delaying of Repentance till the Hour of Death must needs be a thing most dangerous and in some sort impossible Now it is very plain from Scripture that God has set bounds to his Patience and limits to his Mercy Tho' he bears very much with sinners and waits a long time to be gracious yet he has told us expresly Gen. 6. 3. My Spirit shall not always strive with Men We find in the following Verse that God allowed the Anti-Deluvians or Old World a long Day of Grace he promised to bear with them 120 Years now during this time he sent unto them Noah a Preacher of Righteousness Besides those Admonitions and frequent Calls the Holy Man gave them to repent his very building the Ark was a constant daily Sermon to them but when they would not hearken unto this Preacher but scoffed at his Discourses God did not tarry for the time of their death but with a dreadful Deluge swept them all away In Luc. 19. 41 42. we find our Saviour weeping over Ierusalem and declaring their wretched Condition in such like doleful Accents as these O that thou hadst known even thou at least in this thy Day the things which belong unto thy Peace but now are they hid from thine Eyes It seems the Day of Grace has an Evening before the Night of Death approaches The things of Peace were hid from the Eyes of Ierusalem before they were closed by the Hand of Death To this we may add what we read in Prov. 1. 28. Then shall they call upon me but I will not answer they shall seek me early but shall not find me There is a certain measure of Iniquity God is said in Scripture to allow Sinners to fill up and when this Measure is full they may call upon him in vain they may seek him early and late but he will not hear them And as is it thus plain from these Texts that the Day of Grace may be lost before the Day of Death so the same Truth may be evidenced by sundry Scripture Examples God allowed Cain a Day of Grace and during the Time of this Day Cain tho' he sinned again and again yet he heard nothing but this Still Voice if thou dost well shalt not thou be accepted but if thou dost ill Sin lieth at the door But when all the Means of Grace were lost upon him when notwithstanding the frequent Admonitions of his Father and solemn Remembrances of Heaven he added sin to sin till at last he fill'd up the Measure of his Iniquity by murdering Righteous Abel His season of Grace was then gone and God tells him in plain terms that he was then accursed from the Earth Now this hapned unto him some hundreds of years before his death Another Instance we have in Esau whom the Apostle styles a Prophane Person He was an idle unprofitable Fellow one who spent too much of his time in Gaming and impertinent Recreations and to all his other sins he added the felling of his Birthright on which were entailed all the Blessings of Heaven and this indeed shewed him to be a Prophane Person with a witness one that preferr'd his Sports and Recreations before God and his Religion Now this great sin fill'd up the Measure of his Iniquity so that his Day of Grace expir'd some 50 years before his death as Divines compute And tho' now he endeavour'd to regain his Birth-right tho' he sought the Blessing earnestly and with Tears yet he was rejected there was no place found for Repentance Heb. 12. 17. I shall add but one Instance more and it shall be the Example of wicked Saul God had striven with Saul many ways and many times He had given him Riches and Honours yea all the Glories of a Kingdom and which were more than all the gifts of his Spirit but when Saul multiplied his Transgressions and notwithstanding such signal Tokens of his Favour rebelled against the Lord God then cast him off yea he sent an Evil Spirit to torment him and would no longer hearken to his Cries as he sadly confesses to the Witch of Endor Now this Rejection hapned 36 years before he died according to Iosephus's Chronology Thus God does withdraw the Assistance of his Spirit from sinners long before they dye In their Life time he delivers them up to a Spirit of slumber and of giddiness He hardens their Hearts and sears their Consciences and gives them over to a Reprobate sense And since these things are so it will be too late for the Clinicks of the Age to Repent when they come to dye If they will obstinately go on in a Course of wickedness and multiply their Transgressions till the measure of their Iniquity be full then they are beyond the possibility of Salvation they have then forfeited the Assistance of God's Grace without which it is impossible they should repent It will therefore be safe for sinners to follow St. Pauls Advice To day if you will hear his Voice harden not your Hearts As the Prophets Exhorts Seek the Lord while he may be found call upon him while he is near Let not this present Discourse this present Opportunity be lost upon you for as the Apostle speaks Now is the accepted time now is the day of salvation Begin this very moment to resolve against thy sins come this day to the Holy Sacrament and there vow and swear that thou wilt hereafter keep all Gods Righteous Iudgments I shall conclude all with the excellent Advice of the Son of Sirach Say not God's Mercy is great and he will be pacified for the multitude of thy Sins For Mercy and Wrath is with him he is mighty to forgive and to pour out Displeasure and as his Mercy is great so are his Corrections also Therefore make no long tarrying to turn to the Lord and put not off from day to day For suddenly shall the Wrath of the Lord come forth and in thy security thou shalt be destroyed Humble thy self
justly for we receive the due reward of our deeds but this man hath done nothing amiss And he said unto Iesus Lord remember me when thou comest into thy Kingdom And Iesus said unto him Verily I say unto thee to day thou shalt be with me in Paradise AS Repentance is owned by all sorts of Christians to be a Duty of absolute necessity and consequently most seasonable to be performed at all times so they do not deserve the Name of Christians who refuse to set about a Duty of such great importance in this time of Lent I have already pressed this Duty on you by several Arguments One you may remember was taken from that Obedience which we owe to our Lawful Superiours He has not the least spark of Loyalty in him who does not acknowledge our Obedience is due to those Commands of our Superiours which concern indifferent things And sure then he must not pretend the least tittle to Loyalty who lives in actual disobedience to the known Commands of his Superiors when they require things of the greatest importance and most absolute necessity Now we all know that our Superiours call upon us to Repent in this season of Lent and I hope we will all acknowledge that Repentance is a Duty of greatest importance and most absolute necessity Where then is that Loyalty we use to boast of Will he think you obey his Superiors in smaller matters who denies obedience in matters of greatest concernment and of Eternal importance to his own Soul But because I know it is easie for some to boast of their Loyalty when in truth they either know not what it means or at least are unwilling to give the truest demonstrations of it I have urged other Arguments drawn from the consideration of that Glorious Prize God proposes unto sincere Penitents and those Dreadful Punishments which are threatned the Impenitent Hope and Fear are the great Hinges on which Human Nature is made to move And one would think Arguments which alarm two such powerful Passions of the Soul should not want success but prevail with sinners of what size soever to ingage themselves in this important Duty And yet experience sadly informs us that neither Heaven nor Hell neither the Hopes of the one nor the Fears of the other can perswade the generality of Men to repent of their sins Sure then there is some considerable Stumbling block in the way something more than ordinary that makes men so careless and negligent in the performance of this Duty And indeed there is a very great Stumbling-block in the way For tho' all Christians acknowledge Repentance to be a work of absolute necessity yet they believe it may be done sufficiently when they are a dying They think they may safely dedicate the fair Blossoms of their Youth to Sin and Satan provided they are careful to bequeath their Souls to God in their last Will and Testament and they are highly incouraged to this vain and most dangerous belief by the Example of the penitent Thief in the Gospel For this Reason I have chosen this portion of Scripture at this time all the Parts of which I do not intend to examine at this time but only shew you from them these two things First That there is no encouragement at all for a late Death-bed Repentance in the Example of the penitent Thief And Secondly From the Example of the Impenitent Thief shew you that a late Repentance is a thing most dangerous if not in some sort impossible First Let us Enquire what little encouragement there is for a late Death-Bed Repentance in the Example of this penitent Thief Indeed this famous Story of the penitent Thief seems at first view to give great encouragement to a late Death-bed Repentance It is I confess a Relation of a Dying-man one laden with many and great sins Sins of such an heinous Nature as deserved by his own Confession the greatest of Punishments to wit that of the Cross. As he had spent his whole Life in Robbing and Stealing sins which seldom want the company of other Enormities so when he was upon the Cross he joyned also at the first with the other Thief in reviling our Saviour hence the other Evangelists tells us in the Plural Number that the Thieves reviled him So great so notorious a sinner was this poor Thief and yet upon his turning to God at the last gasp upon his humble Confession of his Faults and expressing his sorrow for them his Pardon is sealed the Arms of Mercy open themselves wide to embrace him and Christ gives him a Promise that his Soul should be with him that very day in Paradise And since these things are so who dares now bode ill to the Clinicks of our Age those I mean who add drunkenness to thirst and thirst to drunkenness who labour daily to swear God Almighty out of Heaven who with Solomon's Young-man rejoyce all the days of their Youth walk in all the ways of their own Hearts and in the sight of their own Eyes Why should we say they disturb our Mirth and Jollity with the melancholy Thoughts of Religion It is time enough to think of Heaven when we shall be allowed to stay no longer upon Earth A few salt Tears at the Hour of Death a little Confession to a Priest attended with sighs and groans will be a sufficient atonement for our former Miscarriages God's Mercy which was sufficient for this penitent Thief will also serve our turns at the last and therefore Ministers shall never make us out of love with our darling Lusts we are not such Fools as to be cheated so easily of all our Pleasures Let them if they can impose upon Vulgar Hearers we are too Learned ever to be perswaded to begin so soon to think of Heaven and Eternity But how sadly how fatally are such Presumptous sinners mistaken Tho' the Text be a Relation of a Dying man returning from great sins to God yet it is attended with extraordinary Circumstances such as will make even the boldest Sinner to tremble and I hope be so wise as to make more early Provisions for his Immortal Soul For in some things this Example is vastly different from their Condition and in many others it is above their imitation so that if they will but seriously consider all Circumstances they will find them so remarkable and so extraordinary that this Example can be no safe Rule for them to walk by For 1st Let us consider that in all probability this was the first Call that was given this Thief to repent it was the first opportunity that was offer'd him to be acquainted with Christ. The Scripture says nothing at all to the contrary and Ecclesiastical History may confirm us in this belief Hear what account St. Austin gives of this penitent Thief Ad consequendam fidem non fuit illi extrema hora sed prima Nec Religionem ante nec Christum scivit Non remedia status sui in momenta ultima
and conducted the Wise Men of the East to the Son of Righteousness At his Resurrection all the Graves were opened and those Patriarchs which had slept for many years had a Goal-delivery and graced the solemnity of our Saviours Resurrection The Holy Martyr Ignatius has left it upon Record that those very Saints who were with our Saviour at Easter had a share also in his Ascention upon Holy-Thursday What wonder then if we find one Penitent Thief converted in a miraculous manner to grace his Crucifixion Christ was now triumphing over Principalities and Powers he was now making a shew of them openly on the Cross That therefore he should bear off the Field the prey which he had taken out of the Jaws of the Enemy was no more than was due to the solemnity of his Triumphs Very pretty is St. Austin's Remark upon this passage Christ saith he in rescuing the poor Thief upon the Cross was but quits with the Devil for the Devil took Man from God out of the midst of Paradise Christ takes this poor Man from Satan when he was no less than in the very Jaws of Hell Satan ruin'd Man on the Forbidden Tree and Christ saves him on the Cursed Tree How proper for this occasion was such an Experiment of this Sovereign Balsom There is then no question to be made but this Conversion of the Thief was an extraordinary Act of Grace Novae insolitae quaedam Divinae Virtutis Efficacia it was saith Grotius an unusual Ray of Divinity which darting at this time into the Thiefs heart wrought such strange and wonderful Repentance in him And indeed the Conclusion will run thus high if we lay all the premised circumstances together that the Grace of God should work in this Thief such a deep sense of his sin such an open confession of it such wonderful Charity for his Neighbour such a miraculous Faith yea such a compleat change all on a sudden and that without means yea as you have heard against means and amidst the greatest Temptations to the contrary All these shew the Conversion of this Thief to have been perfectly extraordinary and such as was designed to Grace the Crucifixion of our Saviour And now I pray what comfort can this example afford to the Clinicks of the Age Do they think that God Almighty is obliged to work Miracles for their Conversion And yet it is a known Rule in Divinity that extraordinary Cases must not be made a Rule Because God did once translate Enoch into Heaven must any of us expect the same Honour and Dignity Because some Saints arose with Christ and ascended with him into Heaven is this any ground for our Faith that we shall rise before the General Resurrection So because God did once in a wonderful manner Convert a poor Thief at the hour of Death we must not presume upon such extraordinary Mercy It will better become us to be terrified at the example of the other Thief We read he was left unconverted and his Soul dropt into Hell sooner than his Carcase was taken from the Cross. If thou dost reject the ordinary means of Grace which God does plentifully afford thee thou canst not promise thy self extraordinary mercy at the hour of Death in all probability it will fare with thee as it did with the Unconverted Thief SERMON VII Luke xxiii 39 43. And one of the Malefactors which were hanged railed on him saying If thou be Christ save thy self and us But the other answering rebuked him saying Dost thou not fear God seeing thou art in the same condemnation And we indeed justly for we receive the due reward of our deeds but this man hath done nothing amiss And he said unto Iesus Lord remember me when thou comest into thy Kingdom And Iesus said unto him Verily I say unto thee to day thou shalt be with me in Paradise I Told you the last Lords Day that I did not design to examine all the parts of so large a Text but only take occasion from them to shew you two things First That there is no encouragement at all for a late Death-bed Repentance in the Example of the Penitent Thief And Secondly Take occasion from the Example of the Impenitent Thief to shew you that a late Death-bed Repentance is a thing most dangerous if not in some sort impossible First I shew'd you at large the last Lords day that there is no encouragement at all in the Example of the Penitent Theif for a late Death-bed Repentance For this example in many things is vastly different from the condition of presumptuous Sinners in our times This in all probability was the first Call that was ever given to this poor Thief the first opportunity that was ever offer'd him to be acquainted with Christ whereas the Clinicks of the Age have had the means of Grace plentifully afforded them they have had Line upon Line and Precept upon Precept publick and private Admonitions to Repent I shew'd you further how wonderful and extraordinary his Repentance was We find here in the Text his deep sense of his sins his humble and publick Confession of his Faults his great Charity and Compassion for the Soul of the other Thief a Faith also strange and Prodigious such as pronounc'd Christ a just and innocent Person when the great Sanhedrim had condemn'd him for a Malefactor such as own'd Christ to have a Kingdom and that a Kingdom of another World such as made him address to Christ for Mercy own him in his lowest degree of Humiliation when all the World revil'd him and his own Disciples forsook him Such a change as this so sudden and so perfect could not be wrought without a Miraculous Power and was design'd as I shew'd you to grace the Passion and Crucifixion of our Saviour but not to encourage presumptuous sinners to delay their Repentance As therefore we cannot think God obliged to work Miracles for the Conversion of bold daring Sinners so we cannot administer any solid comfort to them at the hour of Death from this example of the Penitent Theif All the kindness the Text will allow us to shew unto bold presumptuous sinners is only to awaken them in the time of their health to a serious and timely Repentance from the Dreadful example of the Impenitent Thief This wicked Malefactor as he had lived a most wicked Life so he dies a most miserable Death his Body was not sooner buried in Golgotha than his Soul was hurried to the place of Torments All the Charity of the Penitent Thief is lost upon him all his Admonitions prove ineffectual he dies Reviling and Blaspheming his Saviour and consequently could not be long from receiving the just but dreadful rewards of such final impenitency I come therefore in the next place to shew you from this Example Secondly That a late Repentance is a thing most dangerous if not in some sort impossible The generality of Mankind are ready enough to acknowledge the absolute Necessity of
and hinder the Execution of his wicked Designs Tho' he can strike the Sinner with a Thunderbolt into Hell before he accomplishes his mischievous Enterprises yet having made Man a free Agent as I said before he allows him to act according to the liberty he has implanted in his Nature Ratio non est absque libertate Arbitrii saith Damascen there can be no Reason where there is no liberty to act But tho' God does permit the heart of man freely to devise and accomplish its ways yet still by his Providence he rules and directs his Steps Indeed the wicked themselves are far from designing any good but yet God makes their blackest designs subservient to his glory They do at best but resemble those monstrous People in Pliny whose Feet stood contrary to their Faces or if you please to take a more familiar comparison like Watermen they are made by Providence to row one way whilst they look another To this purpose is the known observation of St. Austin Bonus Deus non sineret fieri mala nisi Omnipotens ex malis bona elicere potuisset God who is good saith he would never permit sin but that being Omnipotent he is able to extract Good out of the greatest Evils The Rod of Moses whilst it lay upon the Earth was an ugly dreadful and poysonous Serpent but in the Hand of God and Moses an Instrument of great and glorious wonders Such is the Power and Wisdom of God that he is able to bring Light out of Darkness and work great and glorious ends out of the most black devices and machinations of sinful Men. Some few Instances of this I shall give you in these following particulars 1st God does often take occasion from sin to glorifie the Riches of his Goodness and Mercy It is the Tradition of the Antients that the Skull of Adam was found on Mount Calvary the very place of our Saviours Crucifixion And there is not less Comfort in St. Ieroms Note on Mat. 1. Namely that no holy Women but such Notorious Sinners as Thamar Raab and Bathsheba are mentioned in the Genealogy of the Blessed Jesus and all this to denote thus much unto us that sin was the Cause which brought our Saviour into the World and gave God an opportunity to magnifie his Free Grace and Mercy unto Sinners So that now we may take up the ranting language of St. Gregory O felix culpa quae talem meruit Redemptorem O happy sin happy sure upon this account that it has through Gods good Providence obtained so great and so glorious a Redeemer The Whole saith our Saviour needs not the Physitian and where there is no Misery there is no need of Mercy Had there been no bitterness in the Waters of Marah Moses had not needed Sweet wood to have thrown into them So had there been no sin there had not needed the Tears of Repentance and consequently there had been no need of the Wood of the Cross to sweeten these bitter Waters 2dly As God has thus taken occasion from Sin to commend his Free Grace and Infinite Mercy to the World so he has also taken occasion from hence to glorifie his Holiness and Justice If bold sinners shall dare to run upon the Bosses of his Buckler and bid defiance to the great Majesty of Heaven If neither the Threats of his Law can drive them to Obedience nor yet the Promises of the Gospel invite them to their Duty there remains then nothing but a fearful looking for of Iudgment and fiery Indignation to devour these Adversaries Hence Solomon tells us ver 4 of this Chapter that God has made all things for himself yea even the wicked has he made for the day of Evil Tho' he may endure with much Long-suffering the Vessels of Wrath and employ them as Rods for the Chastisement of others yet at the last he casts these Rods into the Fire and magnifies his Power and Justice upon them when once they are ripe for destruction It is very observable that the first Hallelujah which we find in the Old Testament is in the Psalms where mention is made of the destruction of Gods Enemies and the first Hallelujah which is mention'd in the New Testament is where the overthrow of Antichrist is foretold in the Revelations Should God suffer sinners still to go unpunish'd it would reflect upon his Holiness and cast a stain upon his Justice Men would be apt to think God a Patron of Wickedness and would be very much encourag'd in the ways of Ungodliness God therefore to vindicate his Honour and deter Men from sin is pleased very frequently in this World to send signal Judgments upon the Workers of Iniquity Thus when proud Pharaoh had a long time withstood all the Miracles of Moses and wrought his Heart at last to the highest degree of hardness God did then resolve to glorifie himself in his ruin and destruction And that he might leave some signal Monuments of his Wrath to succeeding Generations Orosius an Ancient Author tells us that the prints and footsteps of their Chariots were a long time after to be seen on the shoar and in the bottom of the Red Sea We may do well also to remember that Fire and Brimstone which was rained from Heaven on Sodom and Gomorrha Brochardus and other sacred Geographers inform us that that very Land does still mourn in Dust and Ashes and such dismal Clouds of Smoak continually ascend from it as make it represent nothing so much as the very Mouth and Entrance of Hell Nay farther yet that God might make abundant provisions for the Honour of his Justice as some have computed this one single Judgment is mention'd in Scripture above twenty times God's Providence so ordering it that these wicked Sodomites might be set forth for an Example suffering the vengeance of Eternal Fire And this is the second End to which Gods Providence direct sin namely the glorifying of his Justice 3dly God's Providence does farther make use of sin to humble his own People When David had murther'd his loyal Subject Vriah and committed Folly with his Wife God does afterwards make use of these sins to keep his Servant humble To this end we find Shimei one a kin to Vriah sent by a secret impulse of Providence first to Curse David as a Bloody Man and so to remind him of the murther and then to make him sensible of his Adultery by casting Stones at him a Punishment under the Law appointed to the Adulterer Now what Influence this piece of Providence had upon David we learn from 2 Sam. 16. 9 10. where when the Sons of Zerviah would have slain Shimei according to his deserts David returns a Negative Answer in these passionate words What have I to do with you ye Sons of Zerviah And then see his Humility in the next words Let him Curse because the Lord has said unto him Curse David He knew God by this piece of Providence had a design to call
us VVhat Plots and Descents has he detected and defeated How has he baffled the profoundest Policy of the subtilest Achitophel and made him prove according to his name in Hebrew no better than the Brother or Cousin-Germain to a Fool Oh then let us praise our God according to his excellent Greatness and being wonderfully delivered from the hands of our Enemies let us serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all the dayes of our life This God of his infinite Mercy grant for the merits of his dearest Son c. SERMON XII Preached November 27. 1692. the Sunday before the Author died Heb. ii 3. How shall we escape if we neglect so great Salvation SAint Paul in the former Chap. displays the excellent Glory and Majesty of our Saviour He styles him ver 2. the Son of God the Heir of all things and Maker of the Worlds He tells us us farther ver 3. that He is the brightness of his Fathers Glory the express Image of his Person and the upholder of all things In the following part of the Chapter he shews how far Christ transcends all the Holy Angels These he says are but Servants and Ministring Spirits but Christ he is the Eternal and only begotten Son of God These are all commanded to fall down and worship Christ but He has á Throne a Scepter a Scepter of Righteousness yea the Scepter of his own Heavenly Kingdom Thus great thus glorious a Person is Christ Heaven it self has nothing greater and yet as great as glorious as He is his Father thought fit to employ him in the work of Mans Salvation O the wonderful Condescentions of Heaven We may be sure God is most willing to save poor Sinners seeing he sends to them and that his own Son to beseech and entreat them to accept of Salvation Hence is that of St. Paul in the beginning of this Epistle God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the Fathers by the Prophets hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son Had God spoken to us by the meanest of his Prophets it had been strange and wonderful Condescension but that he should send his own Son to preach the Gospel and intreat Rebel sinners to be reconciled to Heaven and accept of Eternal Happiness this is such an instance of stupendious Love and Mercy as does as much exceed our imaginations as it does our Deserts St. Paul having thus dispiayed the Excellent Majesty of Christ and the infinite Riches of Gods Free Grace and Mercy in that he sent his Eternal Son to be the first Preacher of the Gospel and tender Salvation to lost and undone sinners he begins the 2d Chapter with a serious and passionate Admonition We therefore saith he ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard lest at any time we should let them slip If God had conveyed the Gospel to Christians as he did the Law unto the Jews by the Ministry of Angels we could not have slighted it without gross ingratitude and our Disobedience as we are told ver 2. would have received a just recompence of reward Of how much sorer punishment shall we now he thought worthy seeing the Eternal Son of God condescended to be of the Order of Predicants seeing Christ Jesus himself vouchsafed to be the first Preacher of the Gospel how should we then honour and value this Gospel What earnest heed should we give to the things contained in it or preached from it Whatever Admonitions Exhortations or Reproofs Ministers give us out of these Sacred Oracles should not be look'd upon as the Words of frail Men but as they are in truth the Words of God and Christ. Christians therefore will be most inexcusable They of all men will deserve the severest Punishments if they shall neglect so great Salvation And because the danger is thus great our Apostle is the more earnest and passionate in his Exhortation He employs all his Divine Rhetorick to make Christians sensible of their greater Priviledge and consequently of their greater Obligations to obey the Gospel How shall we escape if we neglect so great Salvation Having by this short Preface led you into the very Bowels of the Text I shall fetch from thence these Three Observations First That the Salvation which is published by the Gospel is exceeding great Secondly That those Christians which neglect this great Salvation must expect the severest Punishments in Hell Thirdly That Ministers may very well be allowed to be mighty earnest and passionate in their Exhortations of Obedience to the Gospel First I begin with the first of these namely to shew you that the Salvation which is published by the Gospel is exceeding great It is called Great Salvation in the Text yea the Apostle puts an Emphasis upon it and calls it So great Salvation Learned Men render it Eximiam ut mire magnam salutem i. e. Most admirable and most excellent Salvation And it will appear at large to be so from these following Considerations 1st The greatness of this Salvation will appear if we consider the greatness of the Price that was paid for it The worth and excellency of a thing is usually measur'd by the greatness of its price Now how great was that price which was paid for this Salvation St. Peter tells us we were not redeemed with such corruptible things as Silver and Gold but with the precious Blood of the Son of God Had we offer'd a thousand Rams and ten thousand Rivers of Oil Had we given the fruit of our Bodies for the sin of our Souls yea had it been possible for us to have sacrificed whole Hecatombs of Angels to the Justice of Heaven they would not all have been sufficient to atone for our Sins and purchase this Salvation Nothing could purchase it but the Blood of Iesus and that not only as he was Man but as he was God too Hence we are said expresly to be purchas'd with the Blood of God Act. 20. 28. We see an Infinite price was paid Heaven to purchase this Salvation And therefore we may well allow the Apostles Emphasis of so great Salvation 2ly The greatness of this Salvation will yet further appear if we consider the greatness of those evils it delivers us from It is an excellent saying of Seneca Lenocinium est gaudii antecedens metus the greatness of the danger uses to commend and inhance the greatness of the deliverance Now how great was the danger we were in how great those Evils we were exposed to The Prophet Esay gives us a most Tragical Description of the Infernal Tophet which was to be the Portion of the Rebellious Sinner Chap. 30. 31. Tophet saith he is prepared of old the Pile thereof is Fire and much Wood and the Breath of the Lord like a stream of Brimstone doth kindle it continually See how each word is arm'd with Terror It seems there is an eternal Tophet prepared for all