when they clash or come in competition with these two Great Commandments The Love of God And the Love of our Neighbour We see what is become of the Purifications Vows Sabbaths Sacrifices Feasts New-Moons c. they are all since the bringing in of a better Covenant de facto done away all that Forest of Laws was cut down by this Novum Mandatum this New Commandment of our Lord's Behold a New Commandment I give unto you That ye love one another And not only Shadows and Figures gave way to this Divine Law but many real and Substantial Vertues vail to this Eternal and never-to-be-out-dated Vertue of Love or Charity Whether there be Prophecies they shall cease whether there be Knowledge it shall vanish away Nay when Faith and Hope are no more Charity abideth for ever The Noblest Vertues I may say are without Vertue the most heroick Acts of Religion are without Religion if performed without Love or Charity for where this Grace is wanting they are but Acts of Ostentation Hypocrisie or Compliance with mens own humours That which is therefore the chief Scope of the Law ought to be the chief Scope of our Lives and what we see to be the main Drift of God's Precepts ought to be likewise the main Aim of our Actions To God the Father Son and Holy Ghost be ascribed all Honour Glory Worship and Thanksgiving this Day forth and for evermore Amen THE Twenty Second Sermon LAMENT iii. 39 40. Wherefore doth a living man complain a man for the punishment of his Sins Let us search and try our ways and turn again unto the Lord. THIS Book is styl'd the Lamentations of Jeremiah representing of and grieving for the Miseries of Judah under the Captivity of Babylon and so far 't is justifiable For who can deny to them that are in Affliction the only Consolation of Affliction which is to ease themselves by complaining to evaporate their Sufferings by the breathings-out of a Sorrowful Spirit This is natural to all men and it would shew an affected Piece of Stoicism to quarrel at it the Prophet's Temper had been of Iron and his Bowels of Brass if he could have look'd upon the Calamity of his Country with dry Eyes and an unwounded heart if I say he could have beheld the People of God fallen into the Displeasure of God the City that was call'd by his Name and the Glory of all Cities sunk to be the By-word and Scorn of the Heathen the Land that so abounded with Inhabitants to be solitary and desolate that was the Stage of Miracles and Divine Favours to be ruined and accursed His breaking-out in the first Chapter upon contemplation of so Sad a Change in this admiring Commiseration How is she become a Widow She that was great among the Nations a Princess among the Provinces how is She become tributary was but a just Passion But the Prophet in the prosecution of his Complaints teaches us a better Remedy of our Evils than empty and idle Complaining viz. to consider them as Punishments as well as Evils as the Effects of God's wrath for our Sins as well as Miseries to join Repentance to our Lamentations and amendment of Life to our Uneasiness under God's correcting hand for the sense of Sufferings without Contrition for Sin shews only a love of our Selves and Earthly things but nothing that is praise-worthy Our Prophet therefore like a good Physician that amuses not himself with the Groans or Exclamations of his Patient but sets himself to find out the Cause of his Distemper as the readiest way to give him Ease passes by or reproves the Unseasonable Wailings and Lamentations of those that are in Misery and lets them know that the Root of all their Mischiefs and Misfortunes are their Trangressions against God's Laws and to wring their hands and fill the Air with Cries was Womanish and Childish when their business was to try and search their Ways and turn to the Lord whom they had forsaken by their Iniquities Wherefore doth a living man complain a man for the punishment of his Sins Let us search and try our ways and turn again to the Lord. What one says of a good Author he was expounding Whereas in the obscure places of many Writers 't is hard to make out any tolerable Sense the difficulty I find is in the multiplicity of excellent Senses to know which to chuse may more deservedly be affirmed of doubtful places in Scripture That 't is more difficult to resolve which Sense to prefer than to find a good one Many are the Interpretations of my Text and all tending to Edification Some Expositors because the Hebrew has no more than Why doth a living man complain a man of his Sins and makes no mention of the Punishment of them interpret the Words after this manner Why do men pretendingly or really sorrow excessively for their Sins and rest there why do they not rather proceed from Confession to Dereliction and from Dereliction to Amendment But though this be a good Admonition there is no reason here to decline the Translation of our Bible and to leave out Punishment it being common in the Hebrew to put Sin for the Punishment of Sin If thou doest well says God to Cain Gen. 4.7 shalt thou not be accepted and if thou doest not well Sin lieth at the door i. e. the Punishment of Sin is at hand to seize thee Others there are who observing the Prophet to vary his terms in the first Clause to say Why does a living man complain and in the second only Why does a Man complain put a weight and Emphasis in living as if his meaning were Why does he that has yet Life and Time complain and not rather hope But a living man in this place imports no more than a man or any man this form of Speech being not only usual in Scripture but among our selves who say No living man can endure this when we mean no more than no man can endure it Others understand the words thus Why does any Mortal Man complain i. e. murmur as if God were cruel and dealt harder measure to him than he deserved when none ever yet bore the full Burden of his Sins but God always in judgment remembers mercy applying justly to such Repiners what Solomon says Prov. 19.3 The foolish man perverteth his way and his heart fretteth against the Lord. And not much unlike unto this is their Interpretation who say Why does a living man complain i. e. afflict himself for his Afflictions annoy himself for his Annoyances when Troubles and Molestations are the common Lot of Mankind When as Job says Man is born to trouble as the Sparks fly upwards Such Wailing and bemoaning speaks only an over-fondness and tenderness of our selves as if we thought we were fit to be exempted from what our whole Race is obnoxious to or else a mutinous discontented Spirit against the Sovereign of the World and his Providence The wiser Heathen may reproach
Text but the People of whom he was King For though a wicked King shall certainly bear the burden of his Sins and though the Judgment here denounced by Samuel was after a King was anointed in Israel yet 't was denounced against the Sin of the People committed before there was a King Neither had Saul as yet displeased God he affected not the Kingdom though Israel affected to have a King They are the Israelites therefore that are threatned in the Person and misfortune of their King whom God declares he will involve in their destruction even when he is not involved in their sins and a good King is sooner cut off for the provocation of a Land than a bad but then though he falls 't is the Land that is punished though he be untimely snatcht away 't is the Nation that is judged and condemned But if ye shall still do wickedly ye shall be consumed both ye and your King The Words consist of a Commination or Threat Ye shall be consumed both ye and your King And the Case wherein the Commination or Threat shall take place If ye shall still do wickedly I begin with the Commination or Threat Ye shall be consumed both ye and your King The Commination runs high a greater cannot well be denounced 't is only to be fear'd it may suffer the fate of the vain menaces and Rhodomantadoes of men which are most despised when they sound loudest and affect to carry most terrour Ye shall be consumed both ye and your King Why certainly men will say This is some Figurative Hyperbolical Speech which carries not so much danger in it to be feared as difficulty to be understood and sends us to an Interpreter and not an Asylum or Sanctuary Was it ever known that a whole Nation was destroyed as one man Dathan and his Complices 't is true went down into the Bowels of the Earth and it clos'd its mouth upon them but they were not a whole Nation but a seditious Party only Pharaoh and the Egyptians were overwhelmed in the Sea and not one of them escaped but they again were not a King and his People but a King and his Host. The seven Nations of the Canaanites were adjudged to utter extirpation but by reason of the Sins of God's own People the Sentence was not executed with that rigour it was denounced and they were not utterly destroyed Let us see therefore how we are to understand the Commination in my Text How a King and People may be said to be totally consumed A thing may be totally consumed or destroyed two ways simul semel altogether and in a moment as Fire consumes Flax or Gunpowder so that nothing remains but the Place of them Or gradually and by degrees when 't is wasted by little and little as Liquor consumes over the Fire or as a Body is extenuated by Sickness Now though God perhaps through the greatness of his Mercy has never consumed a whole Nation in the fullest and strictest sense of either of these two Ways yet so dreadful have been his Judgments and so universal the Destruction he has wrought that there will be no cause to say There is an Hyperbole in the Commination in my Text. The first way God practised when he caused the ten Tribes and their King to be carried away captive by Shalmanezer into Assyria with a swift destruction and the other two Tribes and their King by Nebuchadnezzar into Babylon This way also God practised when he gave this Nation up to the Conquest of the Normans Or as the Tragedy on this Day should rather prompt us to remember when he permitted the Bloud of our righteous Sovereign after the slaughter of many thousands of his Loyal Subjects to be spilled by the hands of execrable Villains and together with that sacred Sluce broke-up all the Floud-Gates of Impiety and suffered it to overwhelm the Land with wickedness and ruine as the World was once overwhelmed with a Deluge of Water At which time we may affirm Death or a change like Death past upon all the Rich became poor and the Poor rich the Nobles were debased and the Scum of the People exalted the Loyal were accounted Traytors and Traytors Loyal Oppression and Cruelty sat in the Seats of Justice Hypocrisie and Blasphemy in the Chair of Religion and an abject Villain in the Throne of Majesty And when the Kingdom was reduced to this State may we not say it was destroyed simul semel altogether and at once both King and People and that nothing remained of what had been but the Place and Memory The Scripture says Adam dyed on the Day he eat of the forbidden Fruit though he survived nine hundred and thirty Years after because he fell then into an evil condition and forfeited all his happiness Again the Scripture calls Damnation Eternal Death not because the Bodies and Souls of Sinners shall be extinguish'd but eternally tormented Life consisting not so much in duration as in felicity And in this sense when a Kingdom has lost its Felicity and Glory its Laws and Liberty its King and Religion though a Remnant of the People be left it may deservedly be said To be totally and utterly destroyed God practised the second way of destroying a whole Nation when he consumed the Israelites in the Wilderness by such slow and lingring paces that a new Generation was grown up by the time that the old was expired and the Children were ready to enter into the Land of Canaan as soon as their Fathers Graves were made in the Wilderness God thus punishing them after the manner they had transgressed as they had grieved him forty Years he consumed them for forty Years together And when ever a Nation is seen to decline in Piety Vertue Policy Wealth Reputation the Number of its People and the like when private interest takes place in mens hearts before the Publick when Trade Vigour and Industry languish then this lingering Curse works and ferments I may seem both ill-affected and also to intrude into a Secret that cannot be known if I should pronounce that this Kingdom lay at this present under this slow and lingering destruction as it has been more than once a miserable Instance of the other quick and total destruction But it may become me and all that hear me this day to fear and endeavour to prevent so dreadful a Judgment especially when so many and sad Symptoms of it seem to appear For not to name our Consumptions of late Years by War by Pestilence and by Fire we see the Moral and Spiritual Consumptions of Piety and Vertue and as fearful an encrease of Riot Prophaneness and Irreligion Popery gains upon the true Religion on one side and Fanaticism on the other and Atheism the Vorago of all other Sects and Schisms daily swallows up Popery and Fanaticism Again we hear plentiful Years complain'd of that the People are impoverished by the great encrease of the Land Abundance cry'd out against
Moloch and the Queen of Heaven So these ascribe to Chance or Fortune to Good and Bad Seasons to Humane Prudence or Folly all their Prosperity and Adversity and not to Divine Providence When I say the Goodness of God is thus injured his Benefits over-seen or denied his Judgments contemned his Righteousness hated and his Deity set at naught what wonder is it if his Love be also turned into Detestation and Hatred When Men hate they wish the Person hated may perish they wish it I say because their Power does not always answer their Anger but God to whom it is as easie to destroy as to be angry when he hates he sends certain Ruine and Destruction on the Offenders he punishes with the same Facility as he says in my Text I will punish you for all your iniquities And now to hang our Ancestors Picture in our Gallery if I may so allude to set the Actions of Israel by ours that we may draw some Instructions from them I could almost wish that this Proposition Whatever People God has blessed above others if they sin against him he will also punish above others were not so great a Truth so Ominously it sounds For if there be a Nation upon the Earth that God has Known i. e. distinguish'd by his Singular and Signal Favours from all others it is this of ours S t Paul reckons it among the highest Priviledges of Israel that they had the Oracles of God though we may say of them they were Oracles indeed if their Darkness be compared with the Clear Light of the Gospel revealed to us Christ was preached to them and not preached but if to any of us he be hid 't is through wilful and affected blindness and as the Apostle says He is hid only to those that perish And when through the Inundation of Barbarians and Ignorance and the worse Inundation of Corrupt Manners Errours and Superstition over-spread the Face of the whole Christian World upon the first Dawning again of the Light of the Gospel and the shaking off of this Darkness while the Abominations of Rome were yet seen and detested by all Discerning and Conscientious Believers and the Fermentation of the Truth in mens hearts was not settled again upon the Lees of Secular Policy and Interest we were rescued by God's Goodness from the Yoke of Anti-Christ But not to look back to the Benefits of remote Ages but only to those we our selves have been immediate Partakers of and are accountable for What Mercy was ever more Glorious than the Restauration of our King and Church in these our Days not to name our later though Signal and Illustrious Deliverances But as God has known us in all our Distresses and Adversities and wrought such Miracles of Mercy for us how have we received them What Miracles of Thanksgivings and Duty have we returned to him We have wrought Miracles indeed but Miracles in an Untoward Sense Miracles of Impiety and Ingratitude As God restored our King and Kingdom to their former Splendour and Glory and all of us to our forfeited Peace and Prosperity multitudes have endeavoured by their Atheistical Opinions to depose God from his Kingdom in Heaven and Government over the World As God brought us out of the Saddest and Darkest Night of Adversity into the bright Sun-shine of Felicity by a Power and Goodness like that by which he brought Light out of Darkness at the Creation there are those that have turned Light into Darkness i. e. denied and obscured all the Light of Divine Truth and Revelation again that have turned Darkness into Light made the Sins of Darkness become Sins of Light and Noon-day those Sins which were reproachful and crept into Corners in all Ages to be of Credit and Reputation in this These together with the rendering things Venerable and Sacred ridiculous and contemptible are the Miracles of these times Saint Peter says In the last days shall come Scoffers walking after their own Lusts. These two Sins Walking after their own Lusts and Scoffing at things Holy go together and 't is no wonder that this dissolute and profligate Age should mock at Religion and at all things Serious mock at their Reason and degrade it below their Sense mock at the Immortality of their Souls and level themselves with the Beasts mock the Kingdom of Heaven into a Dream and the Torments of Hell into a Fable the Creation of the World into a piece of Non-sence and Impossibility and why Because 't is more rational to believe the Doctrine of Atoms that the orderly and beautiful Frame of Heaven and Earth and all that is in them were produced by the casual shuffling together of I know not what little Particles than by the Contrivance of an Infinitely Wise and Powerful God Or again that the World was from all Eternity and that Men and all other Creatures grew at first like Plants out of the Earth and the like rather than that they were created No certainly these things are not so easie to be conceived and digested by Reason as the Doctrines that are rejected but the most Monstrous Opinions are easier to be embrac'd by Wicked men than such Truths as cannot be held together with their Vicious Lives as the Apostle says They live without God in the World and they cannot endure to hear that he made it and will judge it that their Bodies should dye and their Souls survive their Pleasures come to an End and their Guilt remain that there should be a Resurrection to Punishment and not for the Execution of their Lusts. Julian the Apostate to justifie his revolt from the Faith said of the Gospel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have perused it I have understood it I have despised it Alas if he had approved it he must have condemned himself if he had acknowledged the Gospel to be Divine and the Way to Bliss he must have confess'd himself a Monster and the most Accursed of Mankind But that which is so great a Prodigy is that the least Night or Darkness of Atheism should be seen in this Kingdom where the Gospel shines in its Meridian that Apostasie should be found where so many glorious Manifestations of God's Power and Goodness are found We have heard that the Ungratefully Wicked the Wicked after much Good done for them are in greater Danger of God's Wrath and Displeasure than the Simply Disobedient What then can we expect our Portion should be when after so many Unparallell'd Benefits we have shew'd our selves not only Unthankful but Atheistical not only Transgressors of God's Laws but Renouncers of them Says our Prophet Verse the 5 th Will a Lion roar in the Forest when he has no Prey i. e. will he roar to no purpose when nothing provoketh him when he designs nothing by it So when God threatens Sinners does he mean nothing are the Dreadful Denunciations of his Judgments mere Empty Noise Again in the Verse before my Text says the Prophet Can two walk together
except they be agreed i. e. can it be expected that God should go along with men and bless them unless they be righteous that he should Favour them if they live in Rebellion against him If we will not have God our Enemy after he has been our Friend and therefore our Enemy because he has been our Friend if we will not have him send Evils on us because he has sent Blessings on us so long in vain we must rise in our Duty to him as he exceeds in his Mercies to us improve in our Obedience as he enlarges in his Bounty And then he will adde Grace to Grace and Blessing to Blessing till he has brought us to the Perfect State of Blessedness even to the Unspeakable Joys and Glory of his Heavenly Kingdom Whither God of his infinite Mercy through our Lord Jesus Christ bring us all To whom be ascribed all Honour Glory c. The Twelfth Sermon PSALM CV 44 45. And he gave them the lands of the Heathen and they inherited the labours of the people That they might observe his Statutes and keep his Laws THIS long Psalm is nothing but an Enumeration or Recital of the Favours and Benefits conferr'd by God on Israel even before it was Israel beginning with the first Promise of the Land of Canaan made to their Fathers when they were yet but a Family and not a Nation Wanderers from one Kingdom to another People Sojurners in all places where they found admittance but Inhabitants of none In which fleeting weak Condition and obnoxious to many Evils God greatly preserved them as we read ver 4. He suffered no man to do them wrong yea he reproved Kings for their sakes And he delivered them not only from the Violences and Outrages of Men but exempted them from the Judgments which himself sent on the Nations where they sojourned For when a Dearth as 't is said Gen. 41. was on all Lands i. e. the adjacent Countries Canaan Syria Arabia and Idumea by a Gracious Providence he sent a Man before them to introduce them into Egypt where he had made Provision of Bread for them And though he suffered them in this place of Sojourners to be made Bond-men yet when the determined Time of such his Counsel was expired he raised up another Man even Moses who by ten Miraculous Judgments made the stubborn Heart of Pharaoh stoop and let them go free And thus he brought them out of Egypt with a Mighty Hand they being but imbellis turba an unwarlike Troop a mixt Multitude of Men Women and Children and conducted them with a Supernatural Cloud which was a Shadow by Day and a Light and Bulwark by Night and when the Host of Pharaoh pursu'd them he open'd them a Passage through the midst of the Sea but overwhelmed the Egyptians presuming to follow them Their Way then lying through the Wilderness a place by Nature barren of all Provisions he made it fruitful by Miracles spread a Table for them with Dainties not afforded from the Earth but from the Clouds commanded a River to flow out of the Stony Rock and to journey with them forty Years to refresh them and their Cattel And when they drew near unto the Borders of the Promis'd Land he inspired a third Heroick Person to be their Military Leader and by his Prowess and Conduct cast out the Heathen before them and to crown all his foregoing Mercies he put them into actual Possession of the Land of Canaan a Land that was the Glory of Lands ready till'd and cultivated built and furnisht to their hands with all manner of rich Moveables and Commodities Dominis parantur ista serviunt vobis Provisions made for the Canaanites but enjoyed by the Israelites And now if any ask Why was all this Munificence and Bounty showred on this People what was the Design of the Almighty in making such a Profusion both of natural and supernatural Favours The Declaration of that is reserved to the last place suspended to the End of the Recital of the Benefits that it might look back to all that went before and make a deeper and more lasting Impression in the hearts of the Receivers and it was naturally this That they might observe his Statutes and keep his Laws All the Families of the Earth had corrupted themselves again after the Floud before God and were either fallen into Atheism or Idolatry but God determining in his Mercy never utterly to destroy Mankind again resolved to take a contrary Course to woo and soothe them to Vertue and Righteousness by his Favours to add Benefits to the authority of his Commands Blessings to the Obedience of his Laws Blessings I say and Benefits not only in the ordinary secret Course of his Providence but as Occasion required Openly and Miraculously that Men might see 't was wiser to worship the Living God than to be Idolaters or Atheists more advantageous to do his Will than to bow to Stocks and Stones or to be Slaves to wicked Spirits And he made Election of Abraham and his Seed after him to experiment this his Gracious Method on but with the Design that as he revealed his Power Wisdom and Goodness to them they should be as a Nation of Prophets Holy in themselves and Preachers of Righteousness to the rest of the World The Israelites thought all the Wonders that were wrought for them were only to pleasure and profit them but they were principally to make known the Glory of God and were Sermons as well as Benefits designed not so much to gratifie their Carnal Affections as to train them up in the Obedience of God's Laws And he gave them the lands of the Heathen and they inherited the labour of the People that they might observe his Statutes and keep his Laws I shall observe in the Words these two things I. How or which Way God did confer the Lands and Labours of the Canaanites on the Israelites viz. He gave them II. Why or for what End he gave them it was for this one Great End That they might observe his Statutes and keep his Laws In the handling of the first of these The Manner or Way of God's conferring the Lands and labour of the Canaanites there being many collateral Circumstances in it which highly magnifie his Gift I shall not only reflect on the bare Donation but also on the concomitant Circumstances I. He Gave the Lands In the Translation we use in the Common-Prayer-Book 't is said they took the lands and labours of the Heathen in possession But the Expression of their taking them in one Translation and God's giving them in the other amounts to the same thing for a thing may be taken two ways by Force or by Gift and Reception Now Israel took the lands and labours of the Canaanites the second of these two Ways by Gift from God 'T was not their own Sword as 't is said or their own Bow that subdued their Enemies but God that fought their Battels They took
he spared not the Natural Branches take heed lest he spare not you 'T is not so much the Contingency that is in the Nature of the things of this World as the Sins of Men that make them unstable the Fortunes of Kingdoms are not tost like the Waves of the Sea lift up one while to the Clouds and then carried down again to the Center by the force of Winds but according to their Righteousness or Unrighteousness God pulls down one and sets up another Neither are they governed by the Power of Stars The Jews have an excellent Saying Non est Planeta Israeli Israel has no Planet i. e. though God gave up the Heathen oft-times to be governed like the Plants of the Earth by the Influences of Stars because they trusted in such Vain things yet he orders and disposes the Affairs of his faithful People immediately himself And 't is a mere Vulgar Conceit that Comets cause Wars and Changes of States Divine Philosophy tells us Mens Sins occasion God to send Comets and to fill the Sky with Prophetick Prodigies We affect to look as far beyond our selves as we can for the Causes of our Evils but they are to be found nearer at Home and arise out of our own Breasts the Heavens are not the Authors of our Misfortunes i. e. the Conjunctions or Revolutions of the Celestial Bodies but our own Wicked Lives and the surest Prognosticks are to be made from the Innocence or Guilt of a Nation and not from the Face of the Sky Let no Man think I cast a Cloud upon the Glory of this Day Illustrious in the Birth Illustrious in the Restoration of our most Gracious King that instead of exciting I affect to damp the Publick Joy by Ill Bodings unless he also supposes that the Blessings of a Nation cannot be rightly commemorated and celebrated without Noise and Inconsideration Tumult and Riot Excess and Debauchery setting-light by Sin and forgetfulness of Religion A sad and severe Reflection on our Unthankfulness to God for the Singular Mercies of this Day with a serious Resolution of our better Acknowledging them by a future Holy Life will add more Lustre and true Joy to it than the Bravery and Feasts the Bells and Bonfires and all the other Pomps that solemnize it For let us consider That every Wise Agent works to some End or other and that not only the Words we have heard this Day explain'd but the whole Tenour of Scripture concurs in this That the End and Purpose of God's bestowing Benefits on a Nation is to make them Righteous and Holy and that the only Expedient on our part to secure a Continuation of them is to have a strict regard to our Duty that Obedience is the best Preserver of our Happiness and the Means always to keep God's Favour is always to keep his Laws The Thirteenth Sermon MARK viii 2 3. I have Compassion on the Multitude because they have now been with me three days and have nothing to eat And if I send them away fasting to their own houses they will faint by the way for divers of them came from far THESE Words were the Introduction to that Illustrious Miracle by which our Lord fed four thousand Souls with seven Loaves and a few small Fishes made the bare and spare Allowance of seven Persons as some suppose sufficient to satisfie the Hunger of so great a Multitude A Miracle that baffled one of the clearest and most irrefragable Principles in Natural Reason namely That the Part is less than the Whole making it appear that when the Lord of Nature will have it so a Part shall as many times exceed the Whole as he pleases as the Bread and Fishes here encreased by being eaten and consumed multiplied by being dol'd and distributed about and the Fragments which remained exceeded seven times seven fold the Provision which at first was set before them that eat Our Lord wrought this Miracle as himself declares to relieve the Hunger of the Multitude but his principal Design here as in all his other Miracles was to create Faith in such as received Benefit by them to teach those whom he healed that he was the great Physician of the Soul and whom he fed that he was the true Bread that came down from Heaven And if We at this great Distance of time by our Meditations and Reflections on this Miracle shall make it also nourish our Souls refresh our Faith relieve and sustain our fainting Spirits ready to sink under the continual Opposition of Sin and the length of Duties we shall add yet to the Glory of it and in a Spiritual Sense make these Words spoken to us I have Compassion on the Multitude because they have now been with me three days and have nothing to eat c. This Portion of Scripture is part of a larger Narrative and I shall take that Way in handling it which those do who make Remarks and Observations upon Notable Occurrents and Events in History reflect and descant on the Principal Passages in it as I conceive they may be most edifying and useful And in order to this I shall observe in the Words three things 1. Our Lord 's tender and compassionate Spirit I have Compassion 2. The Object of his Compassion the Persons to whom he shew'd it the Multitude I have compassion on the Multitude 3. The Motives of his Compassion which are exprest to be two Their present Distress they were Hungry and had nothing to eat And their future feared Danger in case they were so dismiss'd they will faint by the way I begin first with Christ's tender and compassionate Spirit I have Compassion The Great Preacher our Blessed Lord had ended his Sermon to the People and as the antient custom of the Church was at the End of the first Service to dismiss the Poenitentes and Catechumeni all such as were not qualify'd to receive the Sacrament with these Words Ite missa est Depart and void the Church So the Disciples might very fairly here have pronounc'd an Ite missa est to the Multitude Ye may be gone there is nothing more at this time to be expected the Prophet has no further words of Instruction to impart to you For as for their want of Bread whether it proceeded from Negligence or Necessity it was not chargeable on the Preacher he that ministred Spiritual things was not also to minister Temporal but in these to be ministred to But our Lord had no purpose to shift off a Work of Mercy when 't was seasonable and in his power though he might never so fairly have done it he cast not therefore in his thoughts how he might plausibly Excuse his not relieving the peoples Hunger but which way he might do it best for the Glory of God and their Comfort and Edification There were a Sort of Preachers in this Kingdom in the days of its late Troubles who when they had usurp'd the whole Revenues of the Church grudg'd to allow
be as Mount Sion which shall not be removed but standeth fast for ever And the truth is that which is said of Temporal Kingdoms Justitia Thronum firmat Justice supports the Throne may be affirmed of God's Spiritual Kingdom in the World his Justice and Goodness establishes his Dominion in the Hearts of Men. For if it were not so That the Lord regarded the Righteous this great Incongruity would produce another great Incongruity and Irregularity The Righteous as the Psalmist says would put their hand to Iniquity i e. they would be no longer Righteous they would make Justice and Piety no more their Business and Concern if there were no Regard in Heaven for these things and so God would lose his Obedience when he neglected Good Men. Let us therefore be careful of our Duty and we need not be solicitous for our Safety let us firmly rely upon God in well-doing and believe that our Trust in our Divine Invisible Foundation is not merely Chimerical or Imaginary and while we fail not it it will never fail us but the Business of this Day shall be the business of the Year round viz. to praise and magnifie our Foundation for protecting and preserving our Foundations and these Lauds and Thanksgivings if they be Cordial and Real will create us new Occasions of Lauds and Thanksgivings even daily Mercies and Blessings I say if they be Cordial and Real not only Verbal and Vocal not only express'd in Bells and Bonfires Noises and Excesses but in true Piety and Devotion as our Prayer of General Thanksgiving teaches us In shewing forth God's Praise not only with our Lips but in our Lives by giving up our selves to his Service and so forth For though 't is impossible to solemnize Publick Joy and Thanksgiving without Publick Expressions of them yet these Publick Expressions should be but the Outward Signs and Significations of the Inward Sence we have of God's Benefits and the Gratitude that dwells in our Hearts and which ought chiefly to be shew'd in the Duties of Religion in the Acts of Mercy and Charity in a Day of Mercy and Deliverance in the Reformation of whatsoever is contrary to the Divine Will in us and the like 'T is not enough therefore that our Streets resound with Festivity and Joy or yet that we celebrate God's great Mercies in Psalms and Hymns sung to the Organ by Asaph and other Chief Musicians but every Faithful Person must be a Musician and every Grateful Heart that has been delivered an Instrument of God's Praise To God the Father Son and Holy Ghost be ascribed all Honour Glory Worship and Thanksgiving this Day forth and for evermore Amen The Sixteenth Sermon JOHN xvi 23 Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my Name he will give it you THESE Words are part of our Lord's Farewel-Speech to his Disciples when he was to leave the World the unexpected News of which did so afflict them that they had not the power as himself takes notice ver 5. so much as to ask him any Question concerning it But now I go to him that sent me and none of you ask Whither goest thou but because I have said these things unto you Sorrow hath filled your heart And very deservedly for what more amazing more Ominous Tidings could they have heard than that he for whom they had forsaken all they had should after that forsake them than that he that had put Enmity between them and the World should abandon them to the World he in whom they had plac'd all their Ambition all their Hope should at last leave them in a Riddle A little while and ye shall not see me and again a little while and ye shall see me To raise therefore their drooping and disconsolate Spirits he promises them a double Advantage by his Departure and which could only arrive to them by his Departure 1. That they should receive the Holy Ghost who would establish their Faith and wonderfully rejoice their Hearts by assuring them of the truth of the Doctrines he had taught them and of their own Divine Mission 2. That they should be under the immediate Care of the Father by reason of whose Almighty Protection they would have no Cause to deplore his Absence or in the least to wish for his Corporal Presence again for they would find their Dependance on the Father much more happy than the following his Steps through the Cities of Palestine The Words of my Text relate to the latter of these two Advantages Their being under the immediate Care and Protection of the Father While our Lord abode with his Disciples he supply'd all their Wants solv'd all their Doubts stopt the mouths of all their Maligners but he let them know that his Father was Greater than he and would perform all these things in a more uncontroul'd and unlimited manner than he had done when he acted only in the Flesh by his Commission that the Using only of his Name to the Father would be more Beneficial to them than his Person had formerly been for though in many things he had been kind to them there was nothing so Precious nothing so Difficult nothing so Wonderful but if they pray'd for it in his Name the Father would bestow it on them Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my Name he will give it you In this Singular Priviledge and Prerogative promised by our Lord to his Disciples there are three things very remarkable I. The Person with whom they are to have it The Father he will give it you II. The Measure in which they were to have it it is a Measure indeed unlimited and without Measure Whatsoever ye shall ask ask what you will he will give it you III. By what Means they are to obtain it by asking in Christ's Name Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my Name I begin with the first of these The Person with whom they are to have this Singular Priviledge The Father This was a comfortable Promise of our Lord 's to his Disciples if they had then understood it as they afterwards did but when the Words were spoken they were but as a Parable or Proverb to them as 't is ver 25. These things have I spoken unto you in Proverbs the time will come that I shall speak no more unto you in Proverbs but I shall shew you Plainly of the Father How was that in what fashion did he afterwards shew them plainly of the Father By his Charismata the miraculous Gifts of the Holy Ghost which they received from him and which bore the very Character of the Father stampt upon them For every Good and perfect Gift as S t James says is from above and cometh from the Father of Light And thus he shew'd them more plainly and convincingly of the Father than he did to Philip when he said Have I been so long time with you and yet hast thou not known me Philip he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father For he
great distance and the Sinner has leave to execute his Wickedness so that the Terrours of Religion work only upon the Good and Faithful while the Worst and most of men despise them But even the boldest and most daring in their Impiety who count Heaven and Hell only the Parables of Scripture and the Fictions of Preachers will boggle in the Cariere of their Sins at the remembrance of a severe Judge and an unrelenting Humane Law and consider whether they can escape if they commit them and will not run on madly to transgress when they see nothing is to be had but Vengeance the Attempt and their Miscarriage their Sin and their certain Death Thus we see Severity is not contrary to the Rules of Charity the Sword in the hand of Justice less instrumental to mens Good than the Scales that the fear of Punishment is a kind of Grace and Principle of Obedience in the Hearts of Wicked men which restrains them from Vice even when it wins them not to the Part of Vertue But then though Severity and Punishment are Noble and necessary Branches of Charity they are not the Natural and Genuine they relate to it but as the Prophet Isaiah says they do to God They are his Works his strange Works his Acts his strange Acts. The Works which Charity delights most in are those that are mild and gentle which not only produce Good but which in themselves are Good which shew Mercy by the Ways of Mercy and are no less beneficial in their Progress than their End And these are the Operations of Charity which our Apostle chiefly recommends here to us and that we may not erre in so Divine a Grace or come short in so important a Duty our best way will be to set before us the Perfectest Exemplar of it that ever was our Lord and Saviour and himself commands us John 15.12 to do this As I have lov'd you says he so love one another thus making his Love to us the Rule or Pattern of our Affection to those of our own Kind And the first Instance of Christ's Love which I shall propose for Imitation is this That as he lov'd us Before we lov'd him lov'd us without any Merit or Invitation on our part lov'd us when we could not love him when we were wholly benumm'd and dead to all heavenly Affections So likewise that we love one another expect not Obligations and Invitations from our Brethren to quicken our Charity towards them but rather delight to begin and be before-hand in our Expressions of Kindness and to have it seen that they come from our selves A natural Spring flows of its own Impulse unbid unprovoked and makes its Way through all Oppositions if it meets a hollow in its Course it fills it up if a light Obstacle it bears it away with its Stream if a great one it swells and passes over it at least pours out still its free Source till it finds or makes a Passage And thus our Charity must take its Rise and flow from its self shew it depends on nought beside that it cannot be obstructed by the want of any Qualifications or yet by any Disobligations of our Brethren Atticus the charitable Bishop of Constantinople when he sent Money to relieve the Poor in the City of Nice commanded that no enquiry should be made in the Distribution of it of what Sect in Religion the Poor were but what their Wants were He that confers his Benefits upon Consideration only of mens agreeing with him in Opinion of their Merit Neighbourhood former Obligations or the like may be just prudent or Grateful but he cannot be said to be Charitable for this is a free unbiass'd disinterested Vertue and if it regards ought in the Good it does beside the Opportunity and Power it has to do it it changes its Nature becomes another thing and assumes a New Name Let no man therefore think he has absolved the Duty of Charity if he be Kind only where his Honour is courted and comply'd with ready to entertain Friendship when he is sought to to be reconcil'd when full Amends is made him But if he will shew this Grace he must first break the Ice and lead the way to Concord Kindness and Beneficence And none think this so hard a Saying as those who would hugely stomach and disdain in case their Neighbour should precede or take place of them upon any Meeting or Encounter as if it were Disparagement to them to sit lower than another at the Table and not to be below him in Vertue to go after him at a Door and not to come behind him in all Goodness If we cannot part with our Passions and Evil Affections for the sake of our Brethren as well as our Money for go our Pride and Animosities as well as our Goods we are Charitable but in part Merciful but in a Case and possibly the Vertue may not be only Imperfect and lame in us but we may be wholly destitute of it for S t Paul says We may bestow all our Goods to feed the Poor give our Bodies to be burnt and yet not have the Grace of Charity Because these things may be done out of Ostentation and not only so but without any Profit or Benefit For put the Case our Brother be not low in Fortune but weak of Undestanding not indigent of outward things but of Instruction and Advice stands in need to be born with not to be reliev'd what Good will our Money do him in these his Infirmities It were as seasonable to apply it to a broken Arm or fester'd Wound to give it to one starving in a Desart where no Food is to be bought If we will be Charitable we must compassionate our Brothers Necessities of what Nature soever they be supply his Wants not gratifie our own Temper The second Instance of Christ's Love which I recommend to our Imitation is this That as he lov'd us not only first and before we lov'd him but lov'd us when we were Enemies to him when we were not only Strangers but Rebels to Heaven when we exercised all the acts of hatred and hostility against it So that we love one another and not think the Obliging and Good Natur'd only worthy of our Kindness but the Discourteous and Injurious Some men are contentious with their Neighbours outrageous to their Children tyrannical to their Inferiors insupportable to their Equals irreconcileable to their Enemies implacable upon every Colour of a Wrong But the Charitable on the other side can Excuse and pardon the most design'd and study'd Injuries see something to commiserate and pity even in mens Injustice can look upon their Malice as their Mistake or Misfortune pray for their Enemies as our Lord did in the very Article of the Death which they have brought upon them Father forgive them for they know not what they do And if we consider rightly Sinners are Ignorant and Mistaken in what they do Fools as the Scripture