Christian Religion will permit us to believe and hope well of them and rather be contented to err a little on the favourable and charitable part than to be mistaken on the censorious and damning side And for this reason perhaps it is that our B. Saviour thought fit to frame his Parables with so remarkable a Byass to the charitable side Partly to instruct us to extend our charity towards all Christian Churches and Professors of the Christian Religion and our good hopes concerning them as far as with reason we can And partly to reprove the uncharitableness of the Jews who positively excluded all the rest of Mankind besides themselves from all hopes of Salvation An odious temper which to the infinite Scandal of the Christian Name and Profession hath prevail'd upon some Christians to that notorious degree as not only to shut out all the Reform'd Part of the Western Church almost equal in number to themselves from all hopes of Salvation under the notion of Hereticks but likewise to un-church all the other Churches of the Christian World which are of much greater extent and number than themselves that do not own subjection to the Bishop of Rome And this they do by declaring it to be of necessity to Salvation for every Creature to be subject to the Roman Bishop And this Supremacy of the Bishop of Rome over all Christian Churches Bellarmin calls the Sum of the Christian Religion So that the Roman Communion is plainly founded in Schism that is in the most unchristian and uncharitable Principle that can be namely that they are the only true Church of Christ out of which none can be saved which was the very Schism of the Donatists And in this they are so positive that the Learned men of that Church in their Disputes and Writings are much more inclinable to believe the Salvation of Heathens to be possible than of any of those Christians whom they are pleas'd to call Hereticks The Faith of the Church of Rome is certainly none of the best but of one of the greatest and most essential Vertues of the Christian Religion I mean Charity I doubt they have the least share of any Christian Church this day in the World Secondly I observe not from any particular circumstance but from the main Scope and design of this Parable How very apt a great part of Christians are to neglect this great concernment of their Souls viz a careful and due preparation for another World and how willing they are to deceive themselves in this matter and to depend upon any thing else how groundless and unreasonable soever rather than to take the pains to be really good and fit for Heaven And this is in a very lively manner represented to us in the description of the foolish Virgins who had provided no supply of Oyl in their Vessels and when the Bridegroom was coming would have furnish'd themselves by borrowing or buying of others vers 8 9 10. They contented themselves with having their Lamps lighted at their first setting out to meet the Bridegroom that is with their being admitted into the Profession of Christianity by Baptism but either were not stedfast in this Profession or were not careful to adorn it with the Graces and Vertues of a good life And the true Reason why men are so very apt to deceive themselves in this matter and are so hardly brought to those things wherein Religion mainly consists I mean the fruits of the Spirit and the practice of real Goodness I say the true reason of this is because they are extremely desirous to reconcile if it were possible the hopes of eternal happiness in another World with a liberty to live as they list in this present World They are loth to be at the trouble and drudgery of mortifying their lusts and governing their passions and bridling their tongues and practising all those duties which are comprehended in those two great Commandments of the Love of God and of our Neighbour They would fain gain the favour of God and make their calling and election sure by some easier way than by giving all diligence to add to their Faith and Knowledge the Graces and Vertues of a good life For the plain truth of the matter is men had rather that Religion should be any thing than what indeed it is viz the thwarting and crossing of their vicious inclinations the curing of their evil and corrupt affections the due care and government of their unruly appetites and passions the sincere endeavour and the constant practice of all holiness and virtue in their lives And therefore they had much rather have something that might handsomely palliate and excuse their evil inclinations and practices than to be obliged to retrench and renounce them and rather than amend and reform their wicked lives they would be contented to make an honourable amends and compensation to Almighty God in some other way This hath been the way and folly of Mankind in all ages to defeat the great end and design of Religion and to thrust it by by substituting something else in the place of it which as they think may serve the turn as well having the appearance of as much devotion and respect towards God and really costing them more money and pains than that which God requires of them Men have ever been apt thus to impose upon themselves and to please themselves with a conceit of pleasing God full as well or better by some other way than that which he hath prescribed and appointed for them By this means and upon this false Principle Religion hath ever been apt to degenerate both among Jews and Christians into external and little observances and into a great zeal for lesser things with a total neglect of the greater and weightier matters of Religion and in a word into infinite Superstitions of one kind or other and an arrogant conceit of the extraordinary righteousness and merit of these things In which some have proceeded to that height as if they could drive a strict bargain with God for eternal life and happiness and have treated Him in so insolent a manner by their Doctrine of the Merit of their Devotions and good Works as if God were as much beholden to them for their service and obedience as they are to Him for the reward of them which they are not afraid to say they may challenge at God's hands as of right and justice belonging to them Nay so far have they carried this Doctrine in the Church of Rome as not only to pretend to merit eternal life for themselves but likewise to do a great deal more for the benefit and advantage of others who have not righteousness and goodness enough of their own Which was the silly conceit of the foolish Virgins here in the Parable as I shall have occasion to shew more fully by and by And it is no great wonder that such easy ways of Religion and pleasing God are very grateful to the corrupt nature of Man
of their time and heat about things doubtful that they have no leisure to mind the things that are necessary And are so concern'd about little Speculative Opinions in Religion which they always call fundamental Articles of Faith that the Practice of Religion is almost wholly neglected by them And they are so taken up in spying out and censuring Error and Heresy in others that they never think of curing those Lusts and Vices and Passions which do so visibly reign in themselves Deluded people that do not consider that the greatest Heresy in the World is a wicked life because it is so directly and fundamentally opposite to the whole design of the Christian Faith and Religion And that do not consider that God will sooner forgive a man a hundred defects of his Understanding than one fault of his Will Secondly Another great mischef which attends this temper is that men are very apt to interpret this zeal of theirs against others to be great Piety in themselves and as much as is necessary to bring them to Heaven and to think that they are very Religious because they keep a great stir about maintaining the Out-works of Religion when it is ready to be starv'd within and that there needs no more to denominate them good Christians but to be of such a Party and to be listed of such a Church which they always take for granted to be the only true one and then zealously to hate and uncharitably to censure all the rest of Mankind How many are there in the World that think they have made very sure of Heaven not by the old plain way of leaving their sins and reforming their lives but by a more close and cunning way of carrying their Vices along with them into another Church and calling themselves good Cathliques and all others Heretiques And that having done this they are in a safe condition as if a mere Name would admit a man into Heaven or as if there were any Church in the World that had this phantastical Privilege belonging to it that a wicked man might be saved for no other reason but because he is of it Therefore as thou valuest thy Soul take heed of engaging in any Faction in Religion because it is an hundred to one but thy zeal will be so employed about lesser things that the main and substantial parts of Religion will be neglected Besides that a man deeply engag'd in heats and controversies of this nature shall very hardly escape being possess'd with that Spirit of uncharitableness and contention of peevishness and fierceness which reigns in all Factions but more especially in those of Religion V. The due care of our Souls consists in the even and constant practice of the several Graces and Vertues of a good life or as the Apostle expresseth it in exercising our selves always to have a conscience void of offence towards God and men For herein is Religion best seen in the equal and uniform practice of every part of our Duty Not only in serving God devoutly but in demeaning our selves peaceably and justly kindly and charitably towards all men Not only in restraining our selves from the outward act of sin but in mortifying the inward inclination to it in subduing our Lusts and governing our Passions and bridling our Tongues As he that would have a prudent care of his health and life must not only guard himself against the chief and common diseases which are incident to men and take care to prevent them but must likewise be careful to preserve himself from those which are esteemed less dangerous but yet sometimes do prove mortal He must not only endeavour to secure his Head and Heart from being wounded but must have a tender care of every part there being hardly any disease or wound so slight but that some have dyed of it In like manner the care of our Souls consists in an universal regard to our Duty and that we be defective in no part of it Though we ought to have a more especial regard to those Duties which are more considerable and wherein Religion doth mainly consist as Piety towards God Temperance and Chastity in regard of our selves Charity towards the poor Truth and Justice Goodness and Kindness towards all men But then no other Grace and Vertue though of an inferiour rank ought to be neglected by us And thus I have endeavour'd as plainly and briefly as I could to declare to you in what Instances the due care of Religion and our Souls doth chiefly consist And I would not have any man think that all this is an easy business and requires but little time to do it in and that a small degree of diligence and industry will serve for this purpose To master and root out the inveterate Habits of Sin to bring our Passions under the command and government of our Reason and to attain to a good degree of every Christian Grace and Vertue That Faith and Hope and Charity Humility and Meekness and Patience may all have their perfect work and that as St. James says we may be perfect and entire wanting nothing nothing that belongs to the perfection of a good man and of a good Christian And this whenever we come to make the trial we shall find to be a great and a long work Some indeed would make Religion to be a very short and easy business and to consist only in believing what Christ hath done for us and relying confidently upon it Which is so far from being the true Notion of Christian Faith that if I be not much mistaken it is the very Definition of Presumption For the Bible plainly teacheth us that unless our Faith work by Charity and purify our hearts and reform our lives unless like Abraham's Faith it be perfected by works it is but a dead Faith and will in no wise avail to our Justification and Salvation And our B. Saviour the great Author and finisher of our Faith hath no where that I know of said one word to this purpose That Faith separated from obedience and a good life will save any man But He hath said very much to the contrary and that very plainly For he promiseth Blessedness to none but those who live in the practice of those Christian Graces and Vertues which are particularly mention'd by Him in the beginning of his excellent Sermon upon the Mount of Humility and Repentance and Meekness and Righteousness and Mercifulness and Purity and Peaceableness and Patience under persecution and sufferings for Righteousness sake And afterwards in the same Sermon Not every one saith He that saith unto me Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdom of heaven but he that doth the Will of my Father which is in heaven And again Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doth them I will liken him unto a wise man which built his house upon a Rock And afterwards He tells us that whosoever builds his hopes of eternal happiness upon any other
a great deal more in Innocence And the more any man considers this the truer he will find it and when-ever we are serious we our selves cannot but acknowledge it When a man examines himself impartially before the Sacrament or is put in mind upon a Death-bed to make reparation for Injuries done in this kind he will then certainly be of this mind and wish he had not done them For this certainly is one necessary qualification for the Blessed Sacrament that we be in love and charity with our neighbours with which temper of mind this quality is utterly inconsistent Thirdly There is yet a more specious Plea than either of the former that men will be encouraged to do ill if they can escape the tongues of men as they would do if this Doctrine did effectually take place Because by this means one great restraint from doing evil would be taken away which these good men who are so bent upon reforming the World think would be great pity For many who will venture upon the displeasure of God will yet abstain from doing bad things for fear of reproach from Men Besides that this seems the most proper punishment of many Faults which the Laws of Men can take no notice of Admitting all this to be true yet it does not seem so good and laudable a way to punish one Fault by another But let no man encourage himself in an evil way with this hope that he shall escape the censure of men When I have said all I can there will I fear be evil-speaking enough in the World to chastise them that do ill And though we should hold our peace there will be bad tongues enow to reproach men with their evil-doings I wish we could but be persuaded to make the Experiment for a little while whether men would not be sufficiently lash'd for their Faults though we sate by and said nothing So that there is no need at all that good Men should be concern'd in this odious Work There will always be Offenders and Malefactors enow to be the Executioners to inflict this punishment upon one another Therefore let no man presume upon Impunity on the one hand and on the other let no man despair but that this business will be sufficiently done one way or other I am very much mistaken if we may not safely trust an ill-natur'd World that there will be no failure of Justice in this kind And here if I durst I would fain have said a word or two concerning that more publick sort of Obloquy by Lampoons and Libels so much in fashion in this witty Age. But I have no mind to provoke a very terrible sort of men Yet thus much I hope may be said without offence that how much soever men are pleas'd to see others abused in this kind yet it is always grievous when it comes to their own turn However I cannot but hope that every man that impartially considers must own it to be a fault of a very high nature to revile those whom God hath placed in Authority over us and to slander the footsteps of the Lord 's Anointed Especially since it is so expressly written Thou shalt not speak evil of the Rulers of thy People Having represented the great evil of this Vice it might not now be improper to say something to those who suffer by it Are we guilty of the evil said of us Let us reform and cut off all occasions for the future and so turn the malice of our Enemies to our own advantage and defeat their ill intentions by making so good an use of it And then it will be well for us to have been evil spoken of Are we innocent We may so much the better bear it patiently imitating herein the Pattern of our Blessed Saviour Who when he was reviled reviled not again but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously We may consider likewise that though it be a misfortune to be evil-spoken of it is their fault that do it and not ours and therefore should not put us into Passion because another man's being injurious to me is no good reason why I should be uneasie to my self We should not revenge the injuries done to us no not upon them that do them much less upon our selves Let no man's Provocation make thee to lose thy Patience Be not such a fool as to part with any one Virtue because some men are so malicious as to endeavour to rob thee of the Reputation of all the rest When men speak ill of thee do as Plato said he would do in that case Live so as that no body may believe them All that now remains is to reflect upon what hath been said and to urge you and my self to do accordingly For all is nothing if we do not practise what we so plainly see to be our Duty Many are so taken up with the deep Points and Mysteries of Religion that they never think of the common Duties and Offices of humane Life But Faith and a good Life are so far from clashing with one another that the Christian Religion hath made them inseparable True Faith is necessary in order to a good Life and a good Life is the genuine product of a right Belief and therefore the one never ought to be press'd to the prejudice of the other I foresee what will be said because I have heard it so often said in the like case that there is not one word of Jesus Christ in all this No more is there in the Text. And yet I hope that Jesus Christ is truly preach'd when-ever his Will and Laws and the Duties injoyn'd by the Christian Religion are inculcated upon us But some men are pleased to say that this is mere Morality I answer that this is Scripture-Morality and Christian-Morality and who hath any thing to say against that Nay I will go yet further that no man ought to pretend to believe the Christian Religion who lives in the neglect of so plain a Duty and in the practice of a Sin so clearly condemn'd by it as this of evil-speaking is But because the Word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than a two-edged Sword yea sharper than Calumny it self and pierceth the very Hearts and Consciences of men laying us open to our selves and convincing us of our more secret as well as our more visible Faults I shall therefore at one view represent to you what is dispersedly said concerning this Sin in the Holy Word of God And I have purposely reserved this to the last because it is more persuasive and penetrating than any Humane Discourse And to this end be pleas'd to consider in what company the Holy Ghost doth usually mention this Sin There is scarce any black Catalogue of Sins in the Bible but we find this among them in the company of the very worst Actions and most irregular Passions of men Out of the heart says our Saviour proceed evil thoughts murders adulteries fornications false-witness
God and That He will reward those that serve him Because unless a man do first believe these there would neither be ground nor encouragement for any such thing as Religion And this knowledge of the necessary Principles of Religion our B. Saviour calls eternal Life because it is so fundamentally necessary in order to our attaining of it This is life eternal says He to know thee the only true God and Him whom thou hast sent Jesus Christ that is to be rightly instructed in the knowledge of the only true God and of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord Under which two general Heads are comprehended all the necessary Principles both of the Natural and of the Christian Religion And to the attaining of this knowledge which is absolutely necessary to Salvation no such extraordinary pains and study is requir'd but only a teachable disposition and a due application of mind For whatever in Religion is necessary to be known by all must in all reason be plain and easie and lye level to all capacities otherwise we must say that God who would have all men to be saved hath not provided for the Salvation of all men And therefore now that the knowledge of the true God and the light of Christianity are shed abroad in the world all that enjoy the Gospel are or may be sufficiently instructed in all things necessary to their happiness unless such care be used as is in the Church of Rome to take away the key of knowledge and to lock up the Scriptures from the People in an unknown Tongue and this as they pretend upon a very charitable consideration only it is to be hop'd that it is not true that the generality of Mankind are mad and have need to be kept in the dark But supposing men to be allowed those means of knowledg which God affords and hath appointed for us the great difficulty doth not commonly lie in mens Understandings but in their Wills Only when men know these things they must attend to them and consider them that the light which is in their Understandings may warm their Hearts and have its due influence upon their Lives II. The due care of our Souls consists in the frequent Examination of our lives and actions and in a sincere Repentance for all the errors and miscarriages of them In a more particular and deep humiliation and repentance for deliberate and wilful sins so far as we can call them to our remembrance and in a general repentance for sins of Ignorance and Infirmity and Surprize In the exercise whereof we are always to remember that the nature of true Repentance doth not consist only in an humble confession of our sins to God and a hearty trouble and contrition for them but chiefly in the stedfast purpose and resolution of a better life and in prosecution of this resolution in actual reformation and amendment By the constant exercise hereof we are put into a safe condition provided that we persevere in this holy resolution and course But if we still retain the love and practice of any known sin or if after we have taken up these good resolutions we return again to an evil course this is a clear evidence either that our Repentance was not sincere at first or that we are relaps'd into our former state And then our Souls are still in apparent danger of being lost and will continue in that dangerous state till we have renew'd our Repentance and made it good in the following course of our lives III. The due care of our Souls consists in the constant and daily exercise of piety and devotion both in private and in publick if there be opportunity for it especially at proper times and upon more solemn occasions By fervent prayer to God and by hearing and reading the Word of God with reverence and godly fear By frequenting his publick Worship and demeaning our selves in it with that solemnity and seriousness which becomes the presence and service of the great and glorious Majesty of God who observes our behaviour and sees into our hearts And by receiving the B. Sacrament as often as we have opportunity with due preparation and devotion of mind For these are not only outward testimonies of our inward piety but they are means likewise appointed by God to improve and confirm us in holiness and goodness And whoever neglects these Duties of Religion or performs them in a flight and superficial manner doth plainly shew that he hath neither a due sense of God nor care of himself For in vain does any man pretend that he does in good earnest design the End when he neglects the best and most proper means for the attainment of it IV. The due care of our Souls consists also in avoiding those things which are pernicious to our Salvation and whereby men do often hazard their Souls Such in general is the practice of any known Sin By this we do as it were run upon the swords point and do endanger our Salvation as much as a deep wound in our Body would do our Life And tho such a wound may perhaps be cur'd afterwards by Repentance yet no man that commits any wilful Sin knows the dismal consequence of it and whither by degrees it may carry him at last For upon such a provocation God may leave the Sinner to himself and withdraw his grace from him and give him up to a hard and impenitent heart to proceed from evil to worse and from one wickedness to another till he be finally ruin'd So dangerous a thing is it knowingly to offend God and to commit any deliberate act of Sin More particularly an inordinate love of the World is very pernicious to the Souls of men because it quencheth the heavenly life and fills our minds with earthly cares and designs it tempts men to forsake God and Religion when their worldly interests come in competition with them and betrays them to fraud and falshood and all kind of injustice and many other hurtful lusts which drown the Soul in perdition But besides these dangers which are more visible and apparent there is another which is less discernible because it hath the face of Piety and that is Faction in Religion By which I mean an unpeaceable and uncharitable zeal about things wherein Religion either doth not at all or but very little consist For besides that this temper is utterly inconsistent with several of the most eminent Christian Graces and Vertues as humility love peace meekness and forbearance towards those that differ from us it hath likewise two very great mischiefs commonly attending upon it and both of them pernicious to Religion and the Souls of men First that it takes such men off from minding the more necessary and essential parts of Religion They are so zealous about small things the tithing of mint and anise and cummin that they neglect the weightier things of the Law Faith and Mercy and Judgment and the Love of God They spend so much
over let us say Peace be within thee For the House of the Lord our God for the sake of our Holy Religion and of that excellent Church whereof we all are or ought to be Members let every one of us say I will seek thy good And what greater good can we do to the best Religion how can we better serve the interest of it in all parts of the World than by being at peace and unity among our selves here in England upon whom the eyes of all the Protestants abroad are fixed as the Glory of the Reformation and the great bulwark and support of it That so under the Providence of Almighty God and the conduct of two such excellent Princes as He hath now bless'd us withal The One so brave and valiant and Both of them so wise so good so religious we may at last arrive at a firm establishment and become like mount Zion that cannot be moved the perfection of Beauty and Strength and the admiration and joy of the whole Earth which God of his infinite goodness grant for his mercies sake in Jesus Christ To whom with thee O Father and the Holy Ghost be all honour and glory dominion and power thanksgiving and praise both now and ever Amen A Conscience void of Offence towards God and Men. IN A SERMON Preached before the QUEEN AT WHITE-HALL February the 27 th 1690 1. A Conscience void of Offence towards God and Men. ACTS xxiv 16 And herein do I exercise my self to have always a Conscience void of offence towards God and towards men THese words are part of the Defence which St. Paul made for himself before Faelix the Roman Governour In which he first of all vindicates himself from the charge of Sedition ver 12. They neither found me in the Temple disputing with any man neither raising up the People neither in the Synagogue nor in the City that is they could not charge him with making any disturbance either in Church or State After this he makes a free and open profession of his Religion ver 14. But this I confess that after the way which they call Heresie so worship I the God of my Fathers believing all things which are written in the Law and the Prophets Here he declares the Scriptures to be the Rule of his Faith in opposition to the Oral Tradition of the Pharisees More particularly he asserts the Doctrine of the Resurrection which was a principal Article both of the Jewish and the Christian Religion ver 15. And I have hope also towards God that there shall be a Resurrection both of the just and the unjust And having made this declaration of his Faith he gives an account of his Life in the words of the Text ver 16. And herein do I exercise my self to have always a conscience void of offence towards God and towards men Herein 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is in this work do I employ my self or as others render it in the mean time whilst I am in this World or as others I think most probably for this cause and reason 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for this reason because I believe a Resurrection therefore have I a conscientious care of my life and all the actions of it The Discourse I intend to make upon these words shall be comprized in these following Particulars I. Here is the extent of a good man's pious practice to have a conscience void of offence towards God and towards men II. Here is his constancy and perseverance in this course to have always a conscience void of offence III. Here is his earnest care and endeavour to this purpose I exercise my self IV. Here is the principle and immediate Guide of his Actions which St. Paul here tells us was his Conscience V. I shall lay down some Rules and Directions for the keeping of a good Conscience VI. Here is the great motive and encouragement to this which St. Paul tells us was the belief of a Resurrection and of a future State of Rewards and Punishments consequent upon it for this cause because I hope for a Resurrection both of the just and unjust I exercise my self to have always a conscience void of offence towards God and towards men I shall speak but briefly to the three first of these Particulars that I may be larger in the rest I. Here is the extent of a good man's pious practice It hath regard to the whole compass of his Duty as it respects God and Man I exercise my self says St. Paul to have a conscience void of offence towards God and towards men And this distribution of our Duty under these two general Heads is very frequent in Scripture The Decalogue refers our Duty to these two Heads And accordingly our Saviour comprehends the whole Duty of Man in those two great Commandments the love of God and of our Neighbour Matth. 22.38 Vpon these two Commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets that is all the Moral Precepts which are dispers'd up and down in the Law and the Prophets may be referr'd to these two general Heads II. Here is his constancy and perseverance in this course St. Paul says that he exercised himself to have always a conscience void of offence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 continually at all times in the whole course of his life We must not only make conscience of our ways by fits and starts but in the general course and tenour of our lives and actions without any balks and intermissions There are some that will refrain from grosser Sins and be very strict at some Seasons as during the Time of a Solemn Repentance and for some days before they receive the Sacrament and perhaps for a little while after it And when these devout Seasons are over they let themselves loose again to their former lewd and vitious course But Religion should be a constant frame and temper of mind discovering it self in the habitual course of our lives and actions III. Here is likewise a very earnest care and endeavour to this purpose Herein do I exercise my self says St. Paul The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is here render'd exercise is a word of a very intense signification and does denote that St. Paul applied himself to this business with all his care and might and that he made it his earnest study and endeavour And so must we we must take great care to understand our duty and to be rightly informed concerning good and evil that we may not mistake the nature of things and call good evil and evil good We must apply our minds in good earnest to be thoroughly instructed in all the parts of our Duty that so we may not be at a loss what to do when we are call'd to the practice of it And when we know our Duty we must be true and honest to our selves and very careful and conscientious in the discharge and performance of it I proceed in the IV th
for their Friends and begin a new Score and from that time forwards may put the Surplusage of their good Works as a Debt upon God to be laid up in the Publick Treasury of the Church as so many Bills of Credit which the Pope by his Pardons and Indulgences may dispense and place to whose account he pleases And out of this Bank which is kept at Rome those who never took care to have any Righteousness of their own may be supplied at reasonable rates To which they have added a further supply of Grace if there should be any need of it by the Sacrament of extreme Vnction never heard of in the Christian Church for many Ages but devised as it were on purpose to furnish such foolish Virgins with Oyl as are here described in the Parable And thus by one Device or other they have enervated the Christian Religion to that degree that it hath almost quite lost its true virtue and efficacy upon the hearts and lives of men And instead of the real fruits of Goodness and Righteousness it produceth little else but Superstition and Folly or if it produce any real Virtues yet even the virtue of those Virtues is in a great measure spoil'd by their arrogant pretences of Merit and Super-erogation and is render'd insignificant to themselves by their insolent carriage and behaviour towards God Sixthly and lastly if we could suppose any Persons to be so overgrown with Goodness as to have more than needs to qualify them for the Reward of eternal Life yet there can be no assigning and transferring of this over-plus of Grace and Virtue from one man to another For we see that all the ways that could be thought on of begging or borrowing or buying Oyl of others did all prove ineffectual because the thing is in its own nature impracticable that one Sinner who owes all that he hath and much more to God should have any thing to spare wherewithal to merit for another Indeed our B. Saviour hath merited for us all the Reward of eternal Life upon the Conditions of Faith and Repentance and Obedience But the infinite Merit of his Obedience and Sufferings will be of no benefit and advantage to us if we our selves be not really and inherently righteous So St. John tells us and warns us to beware of the contrary Conceit Little children let no man deceive you he that doth righteousness is righteous even as He is righteous If we do sincerely endeavour to please God and to keep his commandments in the general course of a holy and virtuous Life the Merit of Christ's perfect Obedience and Sufferings will be available with God for the acceptance of our sincere though but imperfect Obedience But if we take no care to be righteous and good our selves the perfect righteousness of Christ will do us no good much less the imperfect righteousness of any other man who is a Sinner himself And the holiest man that ever was upon Earth can no more assign and make over his Righteousness or Repentance or any part of either to another that wants it than a man can bequeath his Wisdom or Learning to his Heir or his Friend No more than a sick man can be restored to Health by virtue of the Physick which another man hath taken Let no man therefore think of being good by a Deputy that cannot be contented to be happy and to be saved the same way that is to go to Hell and to be tormented there in Person and to go to Heaven and be admitted into that Place of Bliss only by Proxy So that these good Works with a hard name and the making over the Merit of them to others have no manner of foundation either in Scripture or Reason but are all mere Fancy and Fiction in Divinity The Inference from all this shall be the application which our Saviour makes of this Parable Watch therefore for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh as if he had said the design of this Parable is to instruct us that we ought to be continually vigilant and always upon our guard and in a constant readiness and preparation to meet the Bridegroom because we know not the time of his coming to Judgment nor yet which will be of the same consequence and concernment to us do any of us know the precise time of our own Death Either of these may happen at any time and come when we least expect them And therefore we should make the best and speediest provision that we can for another World and should be continually upon our watch and trimming our Lamps that we may not be surprized by either of these neither by our own particular Death nor by the general Judgment of the World Because the Son of man will come in a Day when we look not for Him and at an hour when we are not aware More particularly we should take up a present and effectual resolution not to delay our Repentance and the reformation of our Lives that we may not have that great Work to do when we are not fit to do any thing no not to dispose of our temporal Concernments much less to prepare for Eternity and to do that in a few moments which ought to have been the care and endeavour of our whole Lives That we may not be forced to huddle up an imperfect and I fear an insignificant Repentance and to do that in great haste and confusion which certainly does require our wisest and most deliberate thoughts and all the consideration in the world And we should provide store of Oil in our Vessels wherewith to supply our Lamps that they may burn bright to the last I mean we should improve the Grace which we received in Baptism by abounding in the fruits of the Spirit and in all the substantial Virtues of a good Life that so an entrance may be ministred to us abundantly into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ By this means when we are called to meet the Bridegroom we shall not be put to those miserable and sharking shifts which the foolish Virgins were driven to of begging or borrowing or buying Oyl which will all fail us when we come to depend upon them And though the Dying man may make a hard shift to support himself with these false Comforts for a little while yet when the short Delusion is over which will be assoon as ever he is stepp'd into the other World he will to his everlasting confusion and trouble find the door of Heaven shut against him and that notwithstanding all his vast Treasure of Pardons and Indulgences which have cost him so much and are worth so little he shall never see the Kingdom of God And lastly we should take great care that we do not extinguish our Lamps by quitting the Profession of our Holy Religion upon any temptation of advantage or for fear of any loss or suffering whatsoever This Occasion will
call for all our Faith and Patience all our Courage and Constancy Nunc animis opus Aenea nunc pectore firmo When it comes to this Trial we had need to gird up the loins of our minds to summon all our forces and to put on the whole armour of God that we may be able to stand fast in an evil day and when we have done all to stand And now my Brethren to use the words of St. Peter I testify unto you that this is the true Grace of God wherein ye stand The Protestant Reformed Religion which we in this Nation profess is the very Gospel of Christ the true ancient Christianity And for God's sake since in this hour of Temptation when our Religion is in so apparent hazard we pretend to love it to that degree as to be contented to part with any thing for it let us resolve to practise it and to testify our love to it in the same way that our Saviour would have us shew our love to Him by keeping his commandments I will conclude all with the Apostle's Exhortation so very proper for this purpose and to this present Time Only let your conversation be as it becometh the Gospel of Christ that is chiefly and above all take care to lead lives suitable to the Christian Religion And then as it follows stand fast in one Spirit with one Mind striving together for the Faith of the Gospel And in nothing terrified by your Adversaries which to them is an evident token of perdition but to you of Salvation and that of God Now unto Him that is able to stablish you in the Gospel and to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before the presence of his Glory with exceeding joy To the only wise God our Saviour be Glory and Majesty Dominion and Power both now and ever Amen A Thanksgiving-Sermon FOR Our Deliverance by the P. of Orange Preached at Lincolns-Inn-Chappel January 31. 1688. To the Worshipful the Masters of the BENCH And the rest of the GENTLEMEN Of the Honourable Society of Lincolns-Inn THough I was at first very unwilling to Expose to the Publick a Sermon made upon so little Warning and so great an Occasion yet upon second thoughts I could not think it fit to resist the Unanimous and Earnest Request of so many Worthy Persons as the Masters of the Bench of this Honourable Society to whom I stand so much indebted for your great and continued respects to me and kind acceptance of my Labours among you for now above the space of Five and Twenty Years In a most grateful acknowledgment whereof this Discourse such as it is in mere Obedience to your Commands is now humbly presented to you by Your most Obliged and Faithful Servant JOHN TILLOTSON Feb. 28. 1688 9. A Thanksgiving-Sermon FOR Our Deliverance by the P. of Orange EZRA ix 13 14. And after all that is come upon us for our evil deeds and for our great trespass seeing that thou our God hast punished us less than our Iniquities deserve and hast given us such a deliverance as this Should we again break thy Commandments and join in affinity with the people of these Abominations wouldst not thou be angry with us till thou hadst consumed us so that there should be no remnant nor escaping I Am sufficiently aware that the particular occasion of these Words is in several respects very different from the Occasion of this Day 's Solemnity For these Words were spoken by Ezra at a time appointed for Publick and Solemn Humiliation But I shall not now consider them in that relation but rather as they refer to that Great Deliverance which God had so lately wrought for them and as they are a Caution to take heed of abusing great mercies received from God and so they are very proper and pertinent to the great Occasion of this Day Nay these Words even in their saddest aspect are not so unsuitable to it For we find in Scripture upon the most solemn Occasions of Humiliation that good Men have always testified a thankful sense of the goodness of God to them And indeed the Mercy of God doth then appear above measure merciful when the Sinner is most deeply sensible of his own Vileness and Unworthiness And so Ezra here in the depth of their sorrow and Humiliation hath so great a sense of the greatness of their Deliverance that he hardly knew how to express it And hast given us such a Deliverance as this And on the other hand we find that good Men in their most solem Praises and Thanksgivings have made very serious reflections upon their own unworthiness And surely the best way to make Men truly thankful is first to make them very humble When David makes his most solemn acknowledgments to God for his great Mercies to him how doth he abase himself before Him But who am I and what is my people And so likewise after he had summoned all the powers and faculties of his Soul to join in the praises of God he interposeth this seasonable meditation He hath not dealt with us after our sins nor rewarded us according to our iniquities The greater and more lively sense we have of the goodness of God to us the more we shall abhor our selves in dust and ashes nothing being more apt to melt us into tears of Repentance than the consideration of great and undeserved Mercies vouchsafed to us The goodness of God doth naturally lead to repentance Having thus reconciled the Text to the present Occasion I shall for the more distinct handling of the Words take notice of these two Parts in them First Here is a Case supposed should we after all that is come upon us for our evil deeds and since God hath punished us less than our iniquities deserve and hath given us such a deliverance as this should we again break his Commandments Secondly Here is a sentence and determination in the Case Wouldst thou not be angry with us till thou hadst consum'd us so that there should be no remnant nor escaping This is not spoken doubtfully though it be put by way of question but is the more vehemently positive the more peremptorily affirmative as if he had said it cannot otherwise be in reason expected but that after such repeated provocations God should be angry with us till he had consumed us First Here is a Case supposed should we after all that is come upon us for our evil deeds and for our great trespass and since God hath punish'd us less than our iniquities deserve and hath given us such a deliverance as this Should we again break his commandments and join in affinity with the People of these abominations In which Words these following Propositions seem to be involv'd which I shall but just mention and pass to the Second Part of the Text. 1. That Sin is the cause of all our sufferings after all that is come upon us for our evil deeds and for
as our thoughts but as the Heavens are high above the Earth so are his ways above our ways and his thoughts above our thoughts And the best way to keep our selves from despairing of GOD's Mercy and Forgiveness to us is to be easy to grant Forgiveness to others And without this as GOD hath reason to deny Forgiveness to us so we our selves have all the reason in the World utterly to despair of it It would almost transport a Christian to read that admirable Passage of the Great Heathen Emperour and Philosopher M. Aurelius Antoninus Can the Gods says he that are Immortal for the continuance of so many ages bear without impatience with such and so many Sinners as have ever been and not only so but likewise take care of them and provide for them that they want nothing And dost thou so grievously take on as one that can bear with them no longer Thou that art but for a moment of time yea Thou that art one of those Sinners thyself I will conclude this whole Discourse with those weighty and pungent Sayings of the wise Son of Syrach He that revengeth shall find vengeance from the Lord and he will certainly retain his Sins Forgive thy neighbour that hath hurt thee so shall thy Sins also be forgiven when thou prayest One man beareth hatred against another and doth he seek pardon of the Lord He sheweth no mercy to a man like himself and doth he ask forgiveness of his own Sins Enable us O Lord by thy Grace to practise this excellent and difficult Duty of our Religion And then Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us For thy mercies sake in Jesus Christ to whom with Thee O Father and the Holy Ghost be all Honour and Glory Adoration and Obedience both now and ever Amen The care of our Souls the One thing needful A SERMON Preached before the KING and QUEEN AT Hampton-Court April the 14 th 1689. The care of our Souls the One thing needful LUKE X. 42 But one thing is needful IN the accounts of Wise men one of the first Rules and Measures of human actions is this To regard every thing more or less according to the degree of its consequence and importance to our happiness That which is most necessary to that End ought in all reason to be minded by us in the first place and other things only so far as they are consistent with that great End and subservient to it Our B. Saviour here tells us that there is one thing needful that is one thing which ought first and principally to be regarded by us And what that is it is of great concernment to us all to know that we may mind and pursue it as it deserves And we may easily understand what it is by considering the Context and the occasion of these Words which was briefly this Our Saviour as He went about preaching the Kingdom of God came into a certain Village where He was entertain'd at the house of two devout Sisters The elder who had the care and management of the Family and the Affairs of it was imployed in making entertainment for such a Guest The other sate at our Saviour's feet attending to the Doctrine of Salvation which he preach'd The elder finding her self not able to do all the business alone desires of our Saviour that he would command her Sister to come and help her Upon this our Saviour gives her this gentle reprehension Martha Martha Thou art careful and troubled about many things but one thing is needful And what that is he declares in the next words And Mary hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken away from her that is she hath chosen to take care of her Salvation which is infinitely more considerable than any thing else Our Saviour doth not altogether blame Martha for her respectful care of Him but cmmends her Sister for her greater care of her Soul which made her either wholly to forget or unwilling to mind other things at that time So that upon the whole matter He highly approves her wise choice in preferring an attentive regard to his Doctrine even before that which might be thought a necessary civility to His Person From the Words thus explain'd the Observation which I shall make is this That the care of Religion and of our Souls is the one thing necessary and that which every man is concern'd in the first place and above all other things to mind and regard This Observation seems to be plainly contain'd in the Text. I shall handle it as briefly as I can and then by way of Application shall endeavour to persuade You and my self to mind this one thing necessary And in speaking to this serious and weighty Argument I shall do these two things First I shall endeavour to shew wherein this care of Religion and of our Souls does consist Secondly To convince men of the necessity of taking this care I. I shall shew wherein this care of Religion and of our Souls doth consist And this I shall endeavour to do with all the plainness I can and so as every one that hears me may understand and be sufficiently directed what is necessary for him to do in order to his eternal Salvation And of this I shall give an account in the five following Particulars in which I think the main business of Religion and the due care of our Souls does consist First In the distinct knowledge and in the firm belief and persuasion of those things which are necessary to be known and believed by us in order to our eternal Salvation Secondly In the frequent Examination of our lives and actions and in a sincere Repentance for all the errours and miscarriages of them Thirdly In the constant and daily exercise of Piety and Devotion Fourthly In avoiding those things which are pernicious to our Salvation and whereby men do often hazard their Souls Fifthly In the even and constant practice of the several Graces and Vertues of a good Life I. The due care of Religion and our Souls does consist in the distinct knowledge and in the firm belief and persuasion of those things which are necessary to be known and believ'd by us in order to our eternal Salvation For this knowledge of the necessary Principles and Duties of Religion is the foundation of all good Practice wherein the life of Religion doth consist And without this no man can be truly Religious Without faith saith the Apostle to the Hebrews it is impossible to please God For he that cometh to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him Now these two expressions of pleasing God and seeking Him are plainly of the same importance and do both of them signify Religion or the Worship and Service of God which doth antecedently suppose our firm belief and persuasion of these two fundamental Principles of all Religion That there is a
foundation than the Faith of the Gospel and the Practice of its Precepts doth build his house upon the Sand which when it comes to be tryed by the Rain and the Winds will fall and the fall of it will be great And elsewhere If ye know these things happy are ye if ye do them And he does very severely check the vain confidence and presumption of those who will needs rely upon Him for Salvation without keeping his commandments Why call ye me says He Lord Lord and do not the things which I say Does any man think that he can be saved without loving God and Christ And this saith St. John is the love of God that we keep his commandments and again He that saith I know him and by the same reason he that saith I love him and keepeth not his commandments he is a lyar and the truth is not in him If ye love me saith our B. Lord keep my commandments And again He that hath my commandments and keepeth them he it is that loveth me Does any man think that any but the children of God shall be heirs of eternal Life Hear then what St. John saith Little children let no man deceive you he that doth righteousness is righteous even as He is righteous And again In this the children of God are manifest and the children of the Devil he that doth not righteousness is not of God In a word this is the perpetual tenour of the Bible from the beginning of it to the end If thou dost well saith God to Cain shalt thou not be accepted And again Say ye to the righteous it shall be well with him for they shall eat the fruit of their doings Wo unto the wicked it shall be ill with him for the reward of his hands shall be given him And in the Gospel when the young man came to our Saviour to be instructed by Him what good thing he should do that he might inherit eternal life our Lord gives him this short and plain advice If thou wilt enter into life keep the commandments And in the very last Chapter of the Bible we find this solemn declaration Blessed are they that do his commandments that they may have right to the Tree of Life and enter in through the Gates into the City that is into Heaven which the Apostle to the Hebrews calls the City which hath foundations whose builder and maker is God So vain and groundless is the imagination of those who trust to be saved by an idle and ineffectual Faith without holiness and obedience of life II. I proceed now in the Second place to convince us all if it may be of the necessity of minding Religion and our Souls When we call any thing necessary we mean that it is so in order to some End which cannot be attained without it We call those things the necessaries of Life without which men cannot subsist and live in a tolerable condition in this World And that is necessary to our eternal happiness without which it cannot be attain'd Now happiness being our chief End whatever is necessary to that is more necessary than any thing else and in comparison of that all other things not only may but ought to be neglected by us Now to convince men of the necessity of Religion I shall briefly shew That it is a certain way to happiness That it is certain that there is no other way but this And that if we neglect Religion we shall certainly be extremely and for ever miserable First That Religion is a certain way to happiness And for this we have God's express Declaration and Promise the best assurance that can be He that cannot lye hath promised eternal life to them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honour and immortality All the happiness that we can desire and of which the nature of man is capable is promised to us upon the terms of Religion upon our denying ungodliness and worldly lusts and living soberly and righteously and godlily in this present world A mighty reward for a little service an eternity of happiness of joys unspeakable and full of glory for the diligence and industry of a few days A happiness large as our wishes and lasting as our Souls Secondly 'T is certain also that there is no other way to happiness but this He who alone can make us happy hath promised it to us upon these and no other terms He hath said That if we live after the flesh we shall die but if by the spirit we mortify the deeds of the flesh we shall live That without holiness no man shall see the Lord And that he that lives in the habitual Practice of any Vice of Covetousness or Adultery or Malice or Revenge shall not enter into the kingdom of God And we have reason to believe Him concerning the terms of this happiness and the means of attaining it by whose favour and bounty alone we hope to be made partakers of it And if God had not said it in his Word yet the nature and reason of the thing doth plainly declare it For Religion is not only a condition of our happiness but a necessary qualification and disposition for it We must be like to God in the temper of our minds before we can find any felicity in the enjoyment of him Men must be purged from their Lusts and from those ill-natur'd and devilish Passions of Malice and Envy and Revenge before they can be fit company for their heavenly Father and meet to dwell with him who is love and dwells in love Thirdly If we neglect Religion we shall certainly be extreamly and for ever miserable The Word of Truth hath said it that indignation and wrath tribulation and anguish shall be upon every soul of man that doth evil Nay if God should hold his hand and should inflict no positive torment upon sinners yet they could not spare themselves but would be their own Executioners and Tormentors The guilt of that wicked Life which they had led in this World and the Stings of their own Consciences must necessarily make them miserable whenever their own Thoughts are let loose upon them as they will certainly be in the other World when they shall have nothing either of pleasure or business to divert them So that if we be concern'd either to be happy hereafter or to avoid those Miseries which are great and dreadful beyond all imagination it will be necessary for us to mind Religion without which we can neither attain that Happiness nor escape those Miseries All that now remains is to perswade you and my self seriously to mind this one thing necessary And to this end I shall apply my Discourse to two sorts of Persons those who are remiss in a matter of so great concernment and those who are grosly careless and mind it not at all First To those who are remiss in a matter of such vast concernment Who
and learned a man as Origen was should be positive in an Opinion for which there can be no certain ground in Reason especially for the punctual and precise term of a thousand years and for which there is no ground at all that I know of from Divine Revelation But upon the whole matter however it be be it for a thousand years or be it for a longer and unknown term or be it for ever which is plainly threatned in the Gospel I say however it be this is certain that it is infinitely wiser to take care to avoid it than to dispute it and to run the final hazard of it Put it which way we will especially if we put it at the worst as in all prudence we ought to do it is by all possible means to be provided against So terrible so intolerable is the thought yea the very least suspicion of being miserable for ever And now give me leave to ask You as St. Paul did King Agrippa Do you believe the Scrâ—ptures And I hope I may answer for you my self as he did for Agrippa I know you do believe them And in them these things are clearly revealed and are part of that Creed of which we make a solemn profession every day And yet when we consider how most men live is it credible that they do firmly believe this plain Declaration of our Saviour and our Judge That the wicked shall go away into everlasting Punishment but the righteous into Life eternal Or if they do in some sort believe it is it credible that they do at all consider it seriously and lay it to heart So that if we have a mind to reconcile our belief with our Actions we must either alter our Bible and our Creed or we must change our Lives Let us then consider and shew our selves men And if we do so can any man to please himself for a little while be contented to be punish'd for ever and for the shadow of a short and imperfect happiness in this life be willing to run the hazard of being really and eternally miserable in the next World Surely this consideration alone of the extreme and endless misery of impenitent Sinners in another World if it were but well wrought into our minds would be sufficient to kill all the temptations of this World and to lay them dead at our feet and to make us deaf to all the Enchantments of Sin and Vice Because they bid us so infinitely to our loss when they offer us the enjoyment of a short Pleasure upon so very hard and unequal a condition as that of being miserable for ever The eternal Rewards and Punishments of another Life which are the great Sanction and Security of God's Laws one would think should be a sufficient weight to cast the Scales against any Pleasure or any Pain that this World can tempt or can threaten us withal And yet after all this will we still go on to do wickedly when we know the terrors of the Lord and that we must one day answer all our bold violations of his Law and contempts of his Authority with the loss of our immortal Souls and by suffering the vengeance of eternal Fire What is it then that can give men the Heart and Courage but I recall that Word because it is not true Courage but fool hardiness thus to out brave the Judgment of God and to set at nought the horrible and amazing consideration of a miserable Eternity How is it possible that men that are awake and in their wits should have any ease in their minds or enjoy so much as one quiet hour whilst so great a danger hangs over their heads and they have taken no tolerable care to prevent it If we have any true and just sense of this danger we cannot fail to shew that we have it by making haste to escape it and by taking that care of our Souls which is due to immortal Spirits that are made to be Happy or Miserable to all Eternity Let us not therefore estimate and measure things as they appear now to our sensual and deluded and deprav'd Judgments but let us open our eyes and look to the last issue and consequence of them Let us often think of these things and consider well with our selves what apprehensions will then probably fill and possess our minds when we shall stand trembling before our Judge in a fearful expectation of that terrible Sentence which is just ready to be pronounced and as soon as ever it is pronounc'd to be executed upon us When we shall have a full and clear sight of the unspeakable Happiness and of the horrible and astonishing Miseries of another World When there shall be no longer any Veil of Flesh and Sense to interpose between them and us and to hide these things from our eyes And in a word when Heaven with all the Glories of it shall be open to our view and as the expression is in Job Hell shall be naked before us and Destruction shall have no covering How shall we then be confounded to find the truth and reality of those things which we will not now be persuaded to believe And how shall we then wish that we had believed the terrors of the Lord and instead of quarrelling with the Principles of Religion and calling them into question we had lived under the constant sense and awe of them Blessed be God that there is yet hope concerning us and that we may yet flee from the wrath to come and that the Miseries of Eternity may yet be prevented in Time And that for this very end and purpose our most Gracious and Merciful God hath so clearly revealed these things to us not with a desire to bring them upon us but that we being warned by his Threatnings might not bring them upon our selves I will conclude all with the Counsel of the Wise Man Seek not Death in the error of your Life and pull not upon your selves destruction with the works of your own hands For God made not death neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of the Living But ungodly men with their works and words have called it down upon themselves Which that none of us may do God of his infinite Goodness grant for his Mercies sake in Jesus Christ To whom with Thee O Father and the Holy Ghost be all Honour and Glory Dominion and Power Thanksgiving and Praise both now and for ever Amen Success not always answerable to the probability of Second Causes A FAST-SERMON Preached before the House of COMMONS ON Wednesday April the 16th 1690. Jovis 17. die April 1690. Ordered THat the Thanks of this House be given to Dr. Tillotson Dean of St. Pauls for the Sermon Preached before this House Yesterday And that he be desired to Print the same And that Sir Edmund Jenings do acquaint him therewith Paul Jodrell Cler. Dom. Com. Success not always answerable to the probability of Second Causes Ecclesiastes IX 11 I
to be better inform'd A proud and conceited temper of mind is very likely to run into mistakes because pride and fulness of a man's self does keep out knowledge and obstructs all the passages by which wisdom and instruction should enter into men Besides that it provokes God to abandon men to their own follies and mistakes for God resisteth the proud but the meek will he guide in judgment and will give more grace and wisdom to the humble When men are once come to this to think themselves wiser than their Teachers and to despise and cast off their Guides no wonder if then they go astray Lastly Let us be sure to mind that which is our plain and unquestionable duty the great things of Religion wherein the life and substance of it doth consist and the things likewise which make for peace and whereby we may edify one another And let us not suffer our disputes about lesser matters to prejudice and hinder our main duty But let it be our great care not to fail in those greater things which are comprehended under the two great Commandments of the Law the Love of God and of our Neighbour Let us be strict and constant in our piety and devotion towards God chast and temperate in reference to our selves just and honest kind and charitable humble and meek patient and peaceable towards all men submissive and obedient to our Superiours Natural Civil and Spiritual A due regard to these great Vertues of the Christian life is the way to keep a conscience void of offence towards God and towards men And surely the best means to have our doubts cleared about matters of lesser moment in Religion is heartily to set about the practice of the great and unquestionable Duties of it So our Blessed Saviour hath assur'd us that if any man will do the will of God he shall know of his Doctrine whether it be of God I come now in the VI th and Last place to consider the great Motive and Encouragement to this conscientious care of our Lives and Actions which St. Paul here tells us was his belief of a Resurrection and of the Rewards and Punishments consequent upon it I have hope says he towards God that there shall be a Resurrection both of the just and unjust For this cause therefore I exercise my self to have always a conscience void of offence toward God and toward men If we believe the Resurrection of the dead and a future Judgment we ought to be very careful to discharge a good Conscience now in order to the rendring of a good Account hereafter that we may be sincere and without offence with respect to the day of Christ as the Apostle expresseth it For when that great Day of Recompences shall come we shall most assuredly find that nothing will then raise our hearts and make us to lift up our heads with joy like the witness of a good Conscience And therefore we should make that our constant care and companion now which will then be our great comfort and rejoycing a good Conscience and the testimony of it that in all simplicity and godly sincerity we have had our conversation in the world And on the contrary when we come to appear before the Great Judge of the World nothing will fill our minds with so much terrour and our faces with so much confusion as the clamorous accusations of a guilty Conscience which will be more than a thousand witnesses against us and will anticipate our condemnation and pass almost as severe a Sentence upon us as the Judge himself can This is that which will make the sinner to droop and to hang down his head for ever And one of the principal ingredients of his misery and torment will be the perpetual regret and remorse of his own mind for his wilful wickedness and folly which will kindle a fire within him as hot as that without him and as hard to be quench'd This consideration ought to have a mighty Operation upon us to make us very careful to have Consciences void of offence now that they may be free from torment and anguish hereafter That when we shall come into the other World we may not be eternally displeas'd with our selves and enrag'd at our own doings but may carry with us thither Consciences clear of all guilt either by Innocency or by Repentance The firm belief of a future state of eternal Happiness or misery in another World is the great weight or spring that sets a going those two powerful Principles of humane Activity the Hopes and the Fears of men and is in its Nature so fitted to raise these Passions to that degree that did not experience shew us the contrary one would think it morally impossible for humane Nature to resist the mighty force of it All men are sensible more or less at one time or other of the true force of these Arguments but the mischief is that in some persons they work quite the wrong way and instead of leading men to Repentance they drive them to Infidelity They cannot deny the force of these Arguments if they were true but that they may avoid the force of them they will not believe them to be true And so far they are in the right that granting these things to be true they cannot but acknowledge that they ought to live otherwise than they do But here is their fatal miscarriage that being resolv'd upon an evil course since they cannot reconcile their practice with such Principles as these they will fit their Principles to their practice and so they will believe nothing at all of the Rewards and Punishments of another World lest this should disturb them in their course Vain men as if Heaven and Hell must needs vanish and disappear because some witty but wicked men have no mind to believe them These men are Infidels in their own defence and merely for the quiet of their own minds that their Consciences may not perpetually rate them and fly in their faces For a right belief and an evil Conscience are but unsuitable companions they are quarrelsome Neighbours and must needs live very uneasily by one another He that believes the Principles of Religion and yet is conscious to himself that he hath liv'd contrary to them and still continues to do so how can he possibly have any peace and quiet in his mind unless like Jonah he can sleep in a storm and his conscience be as it were seared with a hot iron For if his Conscience be awake and in any degree sensible the evident danger of eternal ruine continually hanging over him must in reason either drive him to repentance or to despair If so forcible and violent an Argument can make no impression upon us we are stupid and bewitch'd we are lost and undone we are wretched and miserable for ever But besides the future Reward of a holy and conscientious course which is unspeakable and full of glory it hath also this
passages we may easily understand wherein these Monthly Fasts of the Jews were defective and what was the fault that God finds with them when he expostulates so severely in the Text When ye fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh Month even these seventy years did ye at all fast unto me even unto me In the general the fault which God finds with them was this that these Solemnities did not serve any real end and purpose of Religion but fail'd in their main design which was a sincere repentance and reformation of their lives For which reason he tells them that they were not at all acceptable to Him nor esteem'd by Him as perform'd unto Him because they did not answer the true intention and design of them My work at this time shall be First to consider in general what it is to fast unto God that is to keep a truly Religious Fast Secondly to bring the matter nearer to our selves I shall consider more particularly what the Duty of this Day appointed by their Majesties for a solemn Humiliation and Repentance throughout the Nation does require at our hands I. I shall consider in general what it is to fast unto God that is to keep a truly Religious Fast And of this I shall give an account in the following particulars First a truly Religious Fast consists in the afflicting of our Bodies by a strict abstinence that so they may be fit and proper instruments to promote and help forward the grief and trouble of our minds Secondly in the humble Confession of our Sins to God with shame and confusion of face and with a hearty contrition and sorrow for them Thirdly in an earnest deprecation of God's displeasure and humble supplications to Him that he would avert his Judgments and turn away his Anger from us Fourthly in Intercession with God for such spiritual and temporal Blessings upon our selves and others as are needful and convenient Fifthly in Alms and Charity to the poor that our Humiliation and Prayers may find acceptance with God I do but mention these particulars that I may more largely insist upon that which I mainly intended and proposed to consider in the next place namely II. What the Duty of this Day appointed by their Majesties for a solemn Humiliation and Repentance throughout the Nation doth require at our hands And this I shall endeavour to comprize in the following particulars First that we should humble our selves before God every one for his own personal Sins whereby he hath provoked God and increased the publick Guilt and done his part to bring down the judgments and vengeance of God upon the Nation Secondly that we should likewise heartily lament and bewail the Sins of others especially the great and crying Sins of the Nation committed by all Ranks and Orders of men amongst us and whereby the wrath and indignation of Almighty God hath been so justly incensed against us Thirdly we should most importunately deprecate those terrible Judgments of God to which these our great and crying Sins have so justly exposed us Fourthly we should pour out our earnest prayers and supplications to Almighty God for the preservation of their Majesties Sacred Persons and for the establishment and prosperity of their Government and for the good success of their Arms and Forces by Sea and Land Fifthly our Fasting and Prayers should be accompanied with our Charity and Alms to the poor and needy Lastly we should prosecute our Repentance and good Resolutions to the actual Reformation and Amendment of our lives Of these I shall by God's Assistance speak as briefly and as plainly as I can and so as every one of us may understand what God requires of him upon so solemn an Occasion as this First We should humble our selves before God every one for his own personal Sins and Miscarriages whereby he hath provoked God and increased the publick Guilt and done his part to bring down the Judgments and Vengeance of God upon the Nation Our Humiliation and Repentance should begin with our selves and our own Sins because Repentance is always design'd to end in Reformation but there cannot be a general Reformation without the Reformation of particular Persons which do constitute and make up the generality And this Solomon prescribes as the true Method of a National Reformation and the proper effect of a publick Humiliation and Repentance in that admirable Prayer of his at the Dedication of the Temple If there be says he in the Land famine if there be pestilence blasting mildew locust or if there be caterpillar or if their Enemy besiege them in the Land of their Cities what-ever plague what-ever sickness there be what prayer or supplication soever be made by any man or by all thy People Israel WHO SHALL KNOW EVERY MAN THE PLAGUE OF HIS OWN HEART and spread forth his hands towards this House Then hear thou in Heaven thy dwelling-place and forgive and do and give to every man according to his way whose heart thou knowest for thou even thou only knowest the hearts of all the children of men that they may fear thee all the days which they live in the Land which thou gavest to their Fathers You see here that in case of any publick Judgment or Calamity the Humiliation and Repentance of a Nation must begin with particular Persons What prayer or supplication so-ever be made by any man or by all thy People Israel WHO SHALL KNOW EVERY MAN THE PLAGUE OF HIS OWN HEART Then hear thou in Heaven thy dwelling-place and forgive Particular persons must be convinced of their personal Sins and Transgressions before God will hear the Prayers and forgive the Sins of a Nation And because we cannot perform this part of confessing and bewailing our own personal Sins and of testifying our particular Repentance for them in the publick Congregation any otherwise than by joining with them in a general Humiliation and Repentance therefore we should do well on the Day before the publick Fast or at least the Morning before we go to the publick Assembly to humble our selves before God in our Families and especially in our Closets confessing to Him with great shame and sorrow all the particular Sins and Offences together with the several Aggravations of them which we have been guilty of against the Divine Majesty so far as we are able to call them particularly to our remembrance and earnestly to beg of God the pardon and forgiveness of them for his Mercies sake in Jesus Christ And so likewise after we return from the Church we should retire again into our Closets and there renew our Repentance with most serious and sincere Resolutions of reforming in all those particulars which we have confessed and repented of And if we would have our Resolutions to come to any good we must make them as distinct and particular as we can and charge it upon our selves as to such and such Sins for which we have declared our sorrow and repentance that we
found that which gave more joy and gladness to his heart the favour of God and the light of his countenance This gave perfect rest and tranquillity to his mind so that he needed not to enquire any further For so it follows in the next words I will both lay me down in peace and rest for thou Lord only makest me to dwell in safety The Hebrew word signifies confidence or security Here and no-where else his mind found rest and was in perfect ease and security I shall now only make two or three Inferences from this Discourse and so conclude First This plainly shews us the great unreasonableness and folly of Atheism which would banish the belief of God and his Providence out of the World Which as it is most impious in respect of God so is it most malicious to Men because it strikes at the very foundation of our happiness and perfectly undermines it For if there were no God Man would evidently be the most unhappy of all other Beings here below because his unhappiness would be laid in the very frame of his nature in that which distinguishes him from all other Beings below him I mean in his Reason and Understanding And he would be so much more miserable than the Beasts by how much he hath a farther reach and a larger prospect of future evils a quicker apprehension and a deeper and more lasting resentment of them So that if any man could see reason to stagger his belief of a God or of his Providence as I am sure there is infinite reason to the contrary yet the belief of these things is so much for the interest and comfort and happiness of Mankind that a Wise man would be heartily troubled to part with a Principle so favourable to his quiet and that does so exactly answer all the natural desires and hopes and fears of Men and is so equally calculated both for our comfort in this World and for our happiness in the other For when a man's thoughts have ranged and wandered as far as they can his mind can find no rest no probable foundation of happiness but God only no other reasonable no nor tolerable Hypothesis and Scheme of things for a Wise man to rely upon and to live and die by For no other Principle but this firmly believed and truly lived up to by an answerable practice was ever able to support the generality of Mankind and to minister true consolation to them under the calamities of life and the pangs of death And if there were not something real in the Principles of Religion it is impossible that they should have so remarkable and so regular an effect to support our minds in every condition upon so great a number of persons of different degrees of understanding of all ranks and conditions young and old learned and unlearned in so many distant Places and in all Ages of the World the Records whereof are come down to us I say so real and so frequent and so regular an effect as this is cannot with any colour of reason be ascribed either to blind Chance or meer Imagination but must have a real and regular and uniform cause proportionable to so great and general an effect I remember that Grotius in his excellent Book of the Truth of the Christian Religion hath this observation That God did not intend that the Principles of Religion should have the utmost evidence that any thing is capable of and such as is sufficient to answer and bear down all sorts of captious Cavils and Objections against it but so much as is abundantly sufficient to satisfie a sober and impartial Enquirer after Truth one that hath no other interest but to find out Truth and when he hath found it to yield to it If it were otherwise and the Principles of Religion were as glaring and evident as the Sun shining at Noon-day as there could hardly be any vertue in such a Faith so Infidelity would be next to an impossibility All that I would expect from any man that shall say that he cannot see sufficient reason to believe the Being and the Providence of God is this That he would offer some other Principles that he would advance any other Hypothesis and Scheme of things that is more agreeable to the common and natural Notions of Men and to all Appearances of things in the World and that does bid more fairly for the comfort and happiness of Mankind than these Principles of the Being of a God and of his watchful Providence over the children of men do plainly do And till this be clearly done the Principles of Religion which have generally been received by Mankind and have obtain'd in the World in all Ages cannot fairly be discarded and ought not to be disturbed and put out of Possession And this I think puts this whole matter upon a very fair and reasonable Issue and that nothing more needs to be said concerning it Secondly From what hath been said in the foregoing Discourse it naturally follows That God is the only Object of our trust and confidence and therefore to him alone and to no other we ought to address all our Prayers and Supplications for mercy and grace to help in time of need But now according to the Doctrine and Practice of the Church of Rome the Psalmist here puts a very odd and strange Question Whom have I in Heaven but thee To which they must give a quite different answer from what the Psalmist plainly intended namely that God was the sole Object of his hope and trust and that upon Him alone he relied as his only comfort and happiness But to this Assertion of the Psalmist the Church of Rome can by no means agree They understand this matter much better than the Psalmist did namely that besides God there are in Heaven innumerable Angels and Saints in whom we are to repose great trust and confidence and to whom also we are to address solemn Prayers and Supplications not only for temporal good things but for the pardon of our Sins for the increase of our Graces and for eternal Life That there are in Heaven particular Advocates and Patrons for all exigencies and occasions against all sorts of dangers and diseases for all Graces and Vertues and in a word for all temporal spiritual and eternal Blessings to whom we may apply our selves without troubling God and our Blessed Saviour who also is God blessed for evermore by presuming upon every occasion to make our immediate Addresses to Him For as they would make us believe though Abraham was ignorant of it and David knew it not the blessed Spirits above both Angels and Saints do not only intercede with God for us for all sorts of Blessings but we may make direct and immediate Addresses to them to bestow these Blessings upon us For so they do in the Church of Rome as is evident beyond all denial from several of their Prayers in their most publick and authentick Liturgies They would
the accidental Ornaments of our Fortune If they descend upon us they are the Privilege of our Birth not the effect of our wisdom and industry and those things in the procurement whereof we had no hand we can hardly call our own And if they be the fruit of our own prudent industry that is no such matter of glorying because men of much slower understandings do commonly out-do others in diligence and drudging their minds lying more level to the low design of being rich At the best Riches are uncertain Charge them says St. Paul that are rich in this world that they be not high-minded nor trust in uncertain riches Men have little reason to pride themselves or to place their confidence in that which is uncertain and even next to that which is not So the wise man speaks of Riches Wilt thou set thine heart upon that which is not for riches certainly make themselves wings and fly as an Eagle towards heaven He expresses it in such a manner as if a rich man sate brooding over an Estate till it was fledg'd and had gotten it self wings to fly away But that which is the most stinging consideration of all is that many men have an evil eye upon a good Estate so that instead of being the means of our happiness it may prove the occasion of our ruin So the same Wise man observes There is a sore evil which I have seen under the Sun namely riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt And it is not without example that a very rich man hath been excepted out of a general Pardon both as to Life and Estate for no other visible reason but his vast and over-grown Fortune So Solomon observes to us again Such are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain which taketh away the life of the owners thereof And why should any man be proud of his danger of that which one time or other may be the certain and only cause of his ruin A man may be too rich to be forgiven a fault which would never have been prosecuted against a man of a middle Fortune For these reasons and a great many more Let not the rich man glory in his riches II. I proceed to consider What it is that is matter of true glory But let him that glorieth glory in this that he understandeth and knoweth me that I am the Lord which exercise loving-kindness and judgment and righteousness in the Earth For in these things I delight saith the Lord. That he understandeth and knoweth me Here are two words used to express the thing more fully understanding and knowledge which seem not only to import right apprehensions of the Being and Providence and Perfections of God but likewise a lively sense of these things and affections suitable to these apprehensions That he understandeth and knoweth me that I am the Lord that is the Creator and the Sovereign Governor of the World Which exercise loving-kindness and judgment and righteousness in the Earth The best Knowledge of Religion and that which is the foundation of all the rest is the Knowledge of the Divine Nature and Perfections especially of those which are most proper for our imitation and such are those mentioned in the Text loving-kindness and judgment and righteousness which we may distinguish thus Loving-kindness comprehends God's milder Attributes his Goodness and Mercy and Patience Judgment signifies his severer dealings with men whether in the chastisement of his People or in the remarkable Punishment of great Offenders for example and warning to others Righteousness seems to be a word of a larger signification and to denote that universal Rectitude of the Divine Nature which appears in all the Administrations of his Providence here below for the Text speaks of the Exercise of these Perfections in this World which exercise loving-kindness and judgment and righteousness in the Earth Several of the Perfections of the Divine Nature are incommunicable to a Creature and therefore cannot be thought to be proposed to us for a Pattern as self-existence independence and all-sufficiency the eternity and the immensity of the Divine Being to be the original Cause of all other things and the Sovereign Governour of the whole World For God only is sufficient for that and to be a Match for all the World a nec pluribus impar is not a Motto fit for a mortal man A Creature may swell with pride till it burst before it can stretch it self to this pitch of Power and Greatness It is an insufferable Presumption and a sottish Ignorance of the necessary Bounds and Limits of our Being to think to resemble God in these Perfections This was the Ambition of Lucifer to ascend into Heaven and to be like the most High In our imitation of God we must still keep within the station of Creatures not affecting an independency and sovereignty like God and to be omnipotent as he is Hast thou an arm like God and canst thou thunder with a voice like Him as God himself argues with Job For in these things I delight saith the Lord. God takes pleasure to exercise these Perfections himself and to see them imitated by us and the imitation of these Divine Perfections is our perfection and glory in comparison of which all humane wisdom and power and riches are so far from being matter of glory that they are very despicable and pitiful things Knowledge and Skill to devise mischief and power to effect it are the true Nature and Character of the Devil and his Angels those Apostate and accursed Spirits who in temper and disposition are most contrary to God who is the Rule and Pattern of all perfection I shall only make two Observations or Inferences from what hath been said and then apply the whole Discourse to the great Occasion of this Day And they are these First That the wisest and surest Reasonings in Religion are grounded upon the unquestionable Perfections of the Divine Nature Secondly That the Nature of God is the true Idea and Pattern of Perfection and Happiness First That the wisest and surest Reasonings in Religion are grounded upon the unquestionable Perfections of the Divine Nature Upon those more especially which to us are most easie and intelligible such as are those mentioned in the Text. And this makes the Knowledge of God and of these Perfections to be so useful and so valuable Because all Religion is founded in right Notions of God and of his Perfections Insomuch that Divine Revelation it self does suppose these for its foundation and can signify nothing to us unless these be first known and believed For unless we be first firmly persuaded of the Providence of God and of his particular care of Mankind why should we suppose that he makes any Revelation of his Will to us Unless it be first naturally known that God is a God of Truth what ground is there for the belief of his Word So that the Principles of Natural Religion are