to sue out prohibitions in the Court of Heaven to hinder the effects of Iustice there Do they design to out-wit infinite Wisdom or to find such flaws in Gods government of the World that he shall be contented to let them go unpunished All which imaginations are alike vain and foolish and only shew how easily wickedness baffles the reason of mankind and makes them rather hope or wish for the most impossible things than believe they shall ever be punished for their impieties If the Apostate Spirits can by reason of their present restraint and expectation of future punishments be as pleasant in beholding the follies of men as they are malicious to suggest them it may be one of the greatest diversions of their misery to see how active and witty men are in contriving their own ruine To see with what greediness they catch at every bait that is offered them and when they are swallowing the most deadly poyson what arts they use to perswade themselves that it is a healthful potion No doubt nothing can more gratifie them than to see men sport themselves into their own destruction and go down so pleasantly to Hell when eternal flames become their first awakeners and then men begin to be wise when it is too late to be so when nothing but insupportable torments can convince them that God was in earnest with them that he would not always bear the affronts of evil men and that those who derided the miseries of another life shall have leisure enough to repent their folly when their repentance shall only increase their sorrow without hopes of pardon by it 3. But if there were any present selicity or any considerable advantage to be gained by this mocking at sin and undervaluing Religion there would seem to be some kind of pretence though nothing of true reason for it Yet that which heightens this folly to the highest degree in the last place is that there can be no imaginable consideration thought on which might look like a plausible temptation to it The covetous man when he hath defrauded his neighbour and used all kinds of arts to compass an Estate hath the fulness of his baggs to answer for him and whatever they may do in another world he is sure they will do much in this The voluptuous man hath the strong propensities of his Nature the force of temptation which lies in the charms of beauty to excuse his unlawful pleasures by The ambitious man hath the greatness of his mind the advantage of authority the examples of those who have been great before him and the envy of those who condemn him to plead for the heights he aims at But what is it which the person who despises Religion and laughs at every thing that is serious proposes to himself as the reason of what he does But alas this were to suppose him to be much more serious than he is if he did propound any thing to himself as the ground of his actions But it may be a great kindness to others though none to himself I cannot imagine any unless it may be to make them thankful they are not arrived to that height of folly or out of perfect good nature lest they should take him to be wiser than he is The Psalmists fool despises him as much as he does Religion for he only saith it in his heart there is no God but this though he dares not think there is none yet shews him not near so much outward respect and reverence as the other does Even the Atheist himself thinks him a Fool and the greatest of all other who believes a God and yet affronts him and trifles with him And although the Atheists folly be unaccountable in resisting the clearest evidence of reason yet so far he is to be commended for what he says that if there be such a thing as Religion men ought to be serious in it So that of all hands the scoffer at Religion is looked on as one forsaken of that little reason which might serve to uphold a slender reputation of being above the beasts that perish nay therein his condition is worse than theirs that as they understand not Religion they shall never be punished for despising it which such a person can never secure himself from considering the power the justice the severity of that God whom he hath so highly provoked God grant that the apprehension of this danger may make us so serious in the profession and practice of our Religion that we may not by slighting that and mocking at sin provoke him to laugh at our calamities and mock when our fear comes but that by beholding the sincerity of our repentance and the heartiness of our devotion to him he may turn his anger away from us and rejoyce over us to do us good SERMON III. Preached at WHITE-HALL LUKE VII XXXV But Wisdom is justified of all her Children OF all the Circumstances of our Blessed Saviours appearance and preaching in the World there is none which to our first view and apprehension of things seems more strange and unaccountable than that those persons who were then thought of all others to be most conversant in the Law and the Prophets should be the most obstinate opposers of him For since he came to fulfil all the Prophesies which had gone before concerning him and was himself the great Prophet foretold by all the rest none might in humane probability have been judged more likely to have received and honoured him than those to whom the judgement of those things did peculiarly belong and who were as much concerned in the truth of them as any else could be Thus indeed it might have been reasonably expected and doubtless it had been so if interest and prejudice had not had a far more absolute power and dominion over them than they had over the rest of the people If Miracles and Prophesies if Reason and Religion nay if the interest of another World could have prevailed over the interest of this among them the Iewish Sanhedrin might have been some of the first Converts to Christianity the Scribes and Pharisees had been all Proselytes to Christ and the Temple at Ierusalem had been the first Christian Church But to let us see with what a jealous eye Power and Interest looks on every thing that seems to offer at any disturbance of it how much greater sway partiality and prejudice hath upon the minds of men than true Reason and Religion and how hard a matter it is to convince those who have no mind to be convinced we find none more furious in their opposition to the person of Christ none more obstinate in their infidelity as to his Doctrine than those who were at that time in the greatest reputation among them for their authority wisdom and knowledge These are they whom our Saviour as often as he meets with either checks for their
we are able to consute their infidelity and to confirm our own faith Therefore we have some common concernment with them and ought on that account to be sensible of their miseries Is it nothing then to you that God hath dealt so severely with them from whom you derive so great a part of your Religion But if that be nothing consider the terms upon which you enjoy these mercies you have and they are as the latter clause of the text assures us no other than the bringing forth the fruits thereof If we prove as obstinate and incorrigible as they God may justly punish us as he hath done them It is but a Vineyard that God lets us it is no inheritance God expects our improvement and giving him the fruits of it or else he may justly take it away from us and give it to other Husbandmen Let us never flatter our selves in thinking it impossible God should make us as miserable and contemptible a people as he hath done the Jews but we may be miserable enough and yet fall short of them Have we any such promises of his favour as they had how great were their priviledges while they stood in favour with God above all other nations in world But we see though they were the first and the natural branches they are broken off by unbelief and we stand by faith Nothing then can be more reasonable than the exhortation of the Apostle be not high minded but fear Boast not of your present priviledges despise not those who are broken of for consider if God spared not the natural branches we ought to take heed lest he also spare not us 3. Is it nothing to us what the Jews suffer since our sins are in some senses more aggravated than theirs were For though there can be no just excuse made for their wilful blindness yet there may be much less made for ours For what they did against him was when he appeared in the weakness of humane flesh in a very mean and low condition before the great confirmation of our faith by his resurrection from the dead But our contempt of Christ is much more unpardonable not only after that but the miraculous consequences of it and the spreading and continuance of his doctrine in the world after the multitudes of Martyrs and the glorious Triumphs of our Religion over all the attempts of the persecutors and betrayers of it after the solemn vows of our Baptism in his name and frequent addresses to God by him and celebrating the memory of his death and passion What can be more mean and ungrateful what can shew more folly and weakness than after all these to esteem the blood of Christ no otherwise than as of a common malefactor or at least to live as if we so esteemed it Nay we may add to all this after so severe an instance of Gods vengeance already upon the Jews which ought to increase our care and will therefore aggravate our sin What the Jews did they did as open and professed enemies what we do we do as false and perfidious friends and let any man judge which is the greater crime to assault an enemy or to betray a Friend 4. Can this be nothing to us who have so many of those Symptoms upon us which were the fore-runners of their desolation Not as though I came hither like the son of Anani in the Jewish story who of a sudden 4. years before the war cryed out in the Temple a voice from the East a voice from the West a voice from the 4. Winds Woe to Jerusalem Woe to the Temple Woe to all this people and this he continued crying saith Iosephus for 7. years and 5. months till at last being upon the Walls of the City he cryed Woe to my self also and immediately a stone come out from one of the Roman Engines and dispatched him God forbid we should be so near a desolation as they were then but yet our Symptoms are bad and without our repentance and amendment God knows what they may end in There were these following remarkable forerunners of desolation in the Jewish state I am afraid we are too much concerned in 1. A strange degeneracy of all sorts of men from the vertues of their Ancestors This Iosephus often mentions and complains of and that there was no sort of men free from the highest to the meanest they had all degenerated not only from what they ought to be but from what their Ancestors were And there can be nothing which bodes worse to a people than this doth for the decay of vertue is really the loss of strength and interest And if this be not among us at this day in one sense it must be in another or else there would never be such general complaints of it as there are It is hard to say that there hath ever been an Age wherein vice such as the very Heathens abhorred hath been more confident and daring than in this wherein so many have not barely left vertue but have bid defiance to it and are ashamed of their Baptism for nothing so much as because therein they renounced the Devil and all his works These are the Zealots in wickedness as the Jews were in faction The flaming sword the voice in the Temple the terrible Earthquakes were not greater Prodigies in nature among them than men are in Morality among us nor sadder presages of future miseries 2. A general stupidity and inapprehensiveness of common danger every one had a mighty zeal for his little party and faction he was engaged in and would venture his life for that never considering that by this means there was no more left to do for the Romans but to stand by and see them destroy one another I pray God that may be never said of the Romans in another sense concerning this Church of ours We cannot but be sensible how much they are pleased at our divisions and they have always hay and stubble enough not only to build with but thereby to add fuel to our flames How happy should we be if we could once lay aside our petty animosities and all mind the true interest of our Church and the security of the Protestant Religion by it which ought to be dearer to to us than our lives But that is our misery that our divisions in Religion have made us not more contemptible than ridiculous to forrain nations and it puzleth the wisest among our selves to find out expedients to keep us from ruining one of the best Churches of the Christian world 3. An Atheistical contempt of Religion for Iosephus who was apt enough to flatter his Country-men tells us there never was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a more Atheistical Generation of men than at that time the leaders of the factions were for they contemned the Laws of men and mocked at the Laws of of God and derided the Prophetick Oracles
rules of Religion and goodness and are ready to yield our selves to whatever hath got retainers enough to set up for a custom we may know where we begin but we cannot where we shall make an end For every fresh assault makes the breach wider at which more enemies may come in still so that when we find our selves under their power we are contented for our own ease to call them Friends Which is the unhappy consequence of too easie yielding at first till at last the greatest slavery to sin be accounted but good humour and a gentile compliance with the fashions of the world So that when men are perswaded either through fear or too great easiness to disuse that strict eye which they had before to their actions it oft-times falls out with them as it did with the Souldier in the Roman History who blinded his eye so long in the time of the Civil Wars that when he would have used it again he could not And when custom hath by degrees taken away the sense of sin from their Consciences they grow as hard as b Herodotus tells us the heads of the old Egyptians were by the heat of the Sun that nothing would ever enter them If men will with Nebuchadnezzar herd with the beasts of the field no wonder if their reason departs from them and by degrees they grow as savage as the company they keep So powerful a thing is Custom to debauch Mankind and so easily do the greatest vices by degrees obtain admission into the souls of men under pretence of being retainers to the common infirmities of humane nature Which is a phrase through the power of self-flattery and mens ignorance in the nature of moral actions made to be of so large and comprehensive a sense that the most wilful violations of the Laws of Heaven and such which the Scripture tells us do exclude from the Kingdom of it do find rather than make friends enough to shelter themselves under the protection of them But such a protection it is which is neither allowed in the Court of Heaven nor will ever secure the souls of men without a hearty and sincere repentance from the arrest of divine justice which when it comes to call the world to an account of their actions will make no defalcations at all for the power of custom or common practice of the world 3. The Impossibility of the Command or rather of obedience to it When neither of the former pleas will effect their design but notwithstanding the pretended necessity of humane actions and the more than pretended common practice of the World their Consciences still fly in their faces and rebuke them sharply for their sins then in a mighty rage and fury they charge God himself with Tyranny in laying impossible Laws upon the sons of men But if we either consider the nature of the command or the promises which accompany it or the large experience of the world to the contrary we shall easily discover that this pretence is altogether as unreasonable as either of the foregoing For what is it that God requires of men as the condition of their future happiness which in its own nature is judged impossible Is it for men to live soberly righteously and godly in this world for that was the end of Christian Religion to perswade men to do so but who thinks it impossible to avoid the occasions of intemperance not to defraud or injure his neighbours or to pay that reverence and sincere devotion to God which we owe unto him Is it to do as we would be done by yet that hath been judged by strangers to the Christian Religion a most exact measure of humane conversation Is it to maintain an universal kindness and good will to men that indeed is the great excellency of our Religion that it so strictly requires it but if this be impossible farewell all good nature in the world and I suppose few will own this charge lest theirs be suspected Is it to be patient under sufferings moderate in our desires circumspect in our actions contented in all conditions yet these are things which those have pretended to who never owned Christianity and therefore surely they never thought them impossible Is it to be charitable to the poor compassionate to those in misery is it to be frequent in Prayer to love God above all things to forgive our enemies as we hope God will forgive us to believe the Gospel and be ready to suffer for the sake of Christ There are very few among us but will say they do all these things already and therefore surely they do not think them impossible The like answer I might give to all the other precepts of the Gospel till we come to the denying ungodliness and worldly lusts and as to these too if we charge men with them they either deny their committing them and then say they have kept the command or if they confess it they promise amendment for the future but in neither respect can they be said to think the command impossible Thus we see their own mouths will condemn them when they charge God with laying impossible Laws on mankind But if we enquire further then into the judgements of those who it may be never concerned themselves so much about the precepts of Christian Religion as to try whether they had any power to observe them or not nay if we yield them more than it may be they are willing to enquire after though they ought to do it viz. that without the assistance of divine grace they can never do it yet such is the unlimited nature of divine goodness and the exceeding riches of Gods Grace that knowing the weakness and degeneracy of humane Nature when he gave these commands to men he makes a large and free offer of assistance to all those who are so sensible of their own infirmity as to beg it of him And can men then say the command is impossible when he hath promised an assistance suitable to the nature of the duty and the infirmities of men If it be acknowledged that some of the duties of Christianity are very difficult to us now let us consider by what means he hath sweetned the performance of them Will not the proposal of so excellent a reward make us swallow some more than ordinary hardships that we might enjoy it hath he not made use of the most obliging motives to perswade us to the practice of what he requires by the infinite discovery of his own love the death of his Son and the promise of his Spirit And what then is wanting but only setting our selves to the serious obedience of them to make his commands not only not impossible but easie to us But our grand fault is we make impossibilities our selves where we find none and then we complain of them we are first resolved not to practise the commands and then nothing more easie
than to find fault with them we first pass sentence and then examine evidences first condemn and then enquire into the merits of the Cause Yet surely none of these things can be accounted impossible which have been done by all those who have been sincere and hearty Christians and God forbid we should think all guilty of hypocrisie who have professed the Christian Religion from the beginning of it to this day Nay more than so they have not only done them but professed to have that joy and satisfaction of mind in the doing of them which they would not exchange for all the pleasures and delights of the world These were the men who not only were patient but rejoyced in sufferings who accounted it their honour and glory to endure any thing for the sake of so excellent a Religion who were so assured of a future happiness by it that they valued Martyrdoms above Crowns and Scepters But God be thanked we may hope to come to Heaven on easier terms than these or else many others might never come thither besides those who think to make this a pretence for their sin that now when with encouragement and honour we may practise our Religion the commands of it are thought impossible by them Thus we have made good the general Charge here implyed against wicked men in that they are called Fools by examining the most plausible pretences they bring for themselves I now come to the particular impeachment of their folly because they make a mock at sin And that I shall prove especially by two things 1. Because this argues the highest degree of wickedness 2. Because it betrays the greatest weakness of judgement and want of consideration 1. Because it argues the highest degree of wickedness If to sin be folly to make a mock at it is little short of madness It is such a height of impiety that few but those who are of very profligate consciences can attain to without a long custom in sinning For Conscience is at first modest and starts and boggles at the appearance of a great wickedness till it be used to it and grown familiar with it It is no such easie matter for a man to get the mastery of his conscience a great deal of force and violence must be used to ones self before he does it The natural impressions of good and evil the fears of a Deity and the apprehensions of a future state are such curbs and checks in a sinners way that he must first sin himself beyond all feeling of these before he can attain to the seat of the scorners And we may justly wonder how any should ever come thither when they must break through all that is ingenuous and modest all that is vertuous and good all that is tender and apprehensive in humane nature before they can arrive at it They must first deny a God and despise an immortal soul they must conquer their own reason and cancel the Law written in their hearts they must hate all that is serious and yet soberly believe themselves to be no better than the beasts that perish before men can come to make a scoff at religion and a mock at sin And who now could ever imagine that in a Nation professing Christianity among a people whose genius enclines them to civility and religion yea among those who have the greatest advantages of behaviour and education and who are to give the Laws of civility to the rest of the Nation there should any be found who should deride religion make sport with their own prosaneness and make so light of nothing as being damned I come not here to accuse any and least of all those who shew so much regard of religion as to be present in the places devoted to sacred purposes but if there be any such here whose consciences accuse themselves for any degrees of so great impiety I beseech them by all that is dear and precious to them by all that is sacred and serious by the vows of their Baptism and their participation of the Holy Eucharist by all the kindness of Heaven which they either enjoy or hope for by the death and sufferings of the Son of God that they would now consider how great folly and wickedness they betray in it and what the dreadful consequence of it will be if they do not timely repent of it If it were a doubt as I hope it is not among any here whether the matters of Religion be true or no they are surely things which ought to be seriously thought and spoken of It is certainly no jesting matter to affront a God of infinite Majesty and Power and he judges every wilful sinner to do so nor can any one in his wits think it a thing not to be regarded whether he be eternally happy or miserable Methinks then among persons of civility and honour above all others Religion might at least be treated with the respect and reverence due to the concernments of it that it be not made the sport of Entertainments nor the common subject of Plays and Comedies For is there nothing to trifle with but God and his service Is wit grown so schismatical and sacrilegious that it can please it self with nothing but holy ground Are prophaneness and wit grown such inseparable companions that none shall be allowed to pretend to the one but such as dare be highly guilty of the other Far be it from those who have but the name of Christians either to do these things themselves or to be pleased with them that do them especially in such times as ours of late have been when God hath used so many ways to make us serious if any thing would ever do it If men had only slighted God and Religion and made a mock at sin when they had grown wanton through the abundance of peace and plenty and saw no severities of Gods justice used upon such who did it yet the fault had been so great as might have done enough to have interrupted their peace and destroyed that plenty which made them out of the greatness of their pride and wantonness to kick against Heaven but to do it in despight of all Gods judgements to laugh in his face when his rod is upon our backs when neither Pestilence nor Fire can make us more afraid of him exceedingly aggravates the impiety and makes it more unpardonable When like the old Germans we dance among naked swords when men shall defie and reproach Heaven in the midst of a Cities ruines and over the graves of those whom the arrows of the Almighty have heaped together what can be thought of such but that nothing will make them serious but eternal misery And are they so sure there is no such thing to be feared that they never think of it but when by their execrable oaths they call upon God to damn them for fear he should not do it time enough for them Thus
of those who dare pass sentence where it is neither in their power to understand the reason of his actions nor if it were to call him in question for his proceedings with men But so great is the pride and arrogance of humane Nature that it loves to be condemning what it cannot comprehend and there needs be no greater reason given concerning the many disputes in the world about Divine Providence than that God is wise and we are not but would fain seem to be so While men are in the dark they will be always quarrelling and those who contend the most do it that they might seem to others to see when they know themselves they do not Nay there is nothing so plain and evident but the reason of some men is more apt to be imposed upon in it than their senses are as it appeared in him who could not otherwise confute the Philosophers argument against motion but by moving before him So that we see the most certain things in the world are lyable to the cavils of men who imploy their wits to do it and certainly those ought not to stagger mens faith in matters of the highest nature and consequence which would not at all move them in other things But at last it is acknowledged by the men who love to be called the men of wit in this Age of ours that there is a God and Providence a future state and the differences of good and evil but the Christian Religion they will see no further reason to embrace than as it is the Religion of the State they live in But if we demand what mighty reasons they are able to bring forth against a Religion so holy and innocent in its design so agreeable to the Nature of God and Man so well contrived for the advantages of this and another life so fully attested to come from God by the Miracles wrought in confirmation of it by the death of the Son of God and of such multitudes of Martyrs so certainly conveyed to us by the unquestionable Tradition of all Ages since the first delivery of it the utmost they can pretend against it is that it is built upon such an appearance of the Son of God which was too mean and contemptible that the Doctrine of it is inconsistent with the Civil Interests of men and the design ineffectual for the Reformation of the World For the removal therefore of these cavils against our Religion I shall shew 1. That there were no circumstances in our Saviours appearance or course of life which were unbecoming the Son of God and the design he came upon 2. That the Doctrine delivered by him is so far from being contrary to the Civil Interests of the World that it tends highly to the preservation of them 3 That the design he came upon was very agreeable to the Infinite Wisdom of God and most effectual for the reformation of Mankind For clearing the first of these I shall consider 1. The Manner of our Saviours appearance 2. The Course of his Life and what it was which his enemies did most object against him 1. The Manner of our Saviours Appearance which hath been always the great offence to the admirers of the pomp and greatness of the World For when they heard of the Son of God coming down from Heaven and making his Progress into this lower world they could imagine nothing less than that an innumerable company of Angels must have been dispatched before to have prepared a place for his reception that all the Soveraigns and Princes of the World must have been summoned to give their attendance and pay their homage to him that their Scepters must have been immediately laid at his feet and all the Kingdoms of the earth been united into one universal Monarchy under the Empire of the Son of God That the Heavens should bow down at his presence to shew their obeysance to him the Earth tremble and shake for fear at the near approaches of his Majesty that all the Clouds should clap together in one universal Thunder to welcome his appearance and tell the Inhabitants of the World what cause they had to fear him whom the Powers of the Heavens obey that the Sea should run out of its wonted course with amazement and horror and if it were possible hide it self in the hollow places of the earth that the Mountains should shrink in their heads to fill up the vast places of the deep so that all that should be fulfilled in a literal sense which was foretold of the coming of the Messias That every Valley should be filled and every Mountain and Hill brought low the crooked made straight and the rough ways smooth and all flesh see the salvation of God Yea that the Sun for a time should be darkned and the Moon withdraw her light to let the Nations of the Earth understand that a Glory infinitely greater than theirs did now appear to the World In a word they could not imagine the Son of God could be born without the pangs and throws of the whole Creation that it was as impossible for him to appear as for the Sun in the Firmament to disappear without the notice of the whole World But when instead of all his pomp and grandeur he comes incognito into the World instead of giving notice of his appearance to the Potentates of the Earth he is only discovered to a few silly Shepherds and three wise men of the East instead of choosing either Rome or Hierusalem for the place of his Nativity he is born at Bethleem a mean and obscure Village instead of the glorious and magnificent Palaces of the East or West which were at that time so famous he is brought forth in a Stable where the Manger was his Cradle and his Mother the only attendant about him who was her self none of the great persons of the Court nor of any fame in the Country but was only rich in her Genealogy and honourable in her Pedigree And according to the obscurity of his Birth was his Education too his youth was not spent in the Imperial Court at Rome nor in the Schools of Philosophers at Athens nor at the feet of the great Rabbies at Ierusalem but at Nazareth a place of mean esteem among the Iews where he was remarkable for nothing so much as the Vertues proper to his Age Modesty Humility and Obedience All which he exercises to so high a degree that his greatest Kindred and acquaintance were mightily surprized when at 30. years of age he began to discover himself by the Miracles which he wrought and the Authority which he spake with And although the rayes of his Divinity began to break forth through the Clouds he had hitherto disguised himself in yet he persisted still in the same course of humility and self-denyal taking care of others to the neglect of himself feeding others by a Miracle and fasting himself to one
they found this so gainful and withall so easie a trade among the people when with a demure look and a sowre countenance they could cheat and defraud their Brethren and under a specious shew of devotion could break their fasts by devouring Widows houses and end their long Prayers to God with acts of the highest injustice to their Neighbours As though all that while they had been only begging leave of God to do all the mischief they could to their Brethren It is true such as these were our Saviour upon all occasions speaks against with the greatest sharpness as being the most dangerous enemies to true Religion and that which made men whose passion was too strong for their reason abhor the very name of Religion when such baseness was practised under the profession of it When they saw men offer to compound with Heaven for all their injustice and oppression with not a twentieth part of what God challenges as his due they either thought Religion to be a meer device of men or that these mens hypocrisie ought to be discovered to the World And therefore our Blessed Saviour who came with a design to retrieve a true spirit of Religion among men finds it first of all necessary to unmask those notorious hypocrites that their deformities being discovered their ways as well as their persons might be the better understood and avoided And when he saw by the mighty opinion they had of themselves and their uncharitableness towards all others how little good was to be done upon them he seldom vouchsafes them his presence but rather converses with those who being more openly wicked were more easily convinced of their wickedness and perswaded to reform For which end alone it was that he so freely conversed with them to let them see there were none so bad but his kindness was so great to them that he was willing to do them all the good he could And therefore this could be no more just a reproach to Christ that he kept company sometimes with these than it is to a Chyrurgion to visit Hospitals or to a Physician to converse with the sick 2. But when they saw that his Greatness did appear in another way by the authority of his Doctrine and the power of his Miracles then these wise and subtle men apprehend a further reach and design in all his actions Viz. That his low condition was a piece of Popularity and a meer disguise to ensnare the people the better to make them in love with his Doctrine and so by degrees to season them with Principles of Rebellion and disobedience Hence came all the clamours of his being an Enemy to Caesar and calling himself the King of the Iews and of his design to erect a Kingdom of his own all which they interpret in the most malicious though most unreasonable sense For nothing is so politick as malice and ill will is for that finds designs in every thing and the more contrary they are to all the Protestations of the persons concerned the deeper that suggests presently they are laid and that there is the more cause to be afraid of them Thus it was in our Blessed Saviours case it was not the greatest care used by him to shew his obedience to the Authority he lived under it was not his most solemn disavowing having any thing to do with their civil Interests not the severe checks he gave his own Disciples for any ambitious thoughts among them not the recommending the doctrine of Obedience to them nor the rebuke he gave one of his most forward Disciples for offering to draw his sword in the rescue of himself could abate the fury and rage of his enemies but at last they condemn the greatest Teacher of the duty of Obedience as a Traytor and the most unparallel'd example of innocency as a Malesactor But though there could be nothing objected against the life and actions of our Blessed Saviour as tending to sedition and disturbance of the Civil Peace yet that these men who were inspired by malice and prophesied according to their own interest would say was because he was taken away in time before his designs could be ripe for action but if his doctrine tended that way it was enough to justifie their proceedings against him So then it was not what he did but what he might have done not Treason but Convenience which made them take away the life of the most innocent person but if there had been any taint in his doctrine that way there had been reason enough in such an Age of faction and sedition to have used the utmost care to prevent the spreading it But so far is this from the least ground of probability that it is not possible to imagine a Religion which aims less at the present particular interests of the embracers of it and more at the publick interests of Princes than Christianity doth as it was both preached and practised by our Saviour and his Apostles And here we have cause to lament the unhappy fate of Religion when it falls under the censure of such who think themselves the Masters of all the little arts whereby this world is governed If it teaches the duty of Subjects and the authority of Princes if it requires obedience to Laws and makes mens happiness or misery in another life in any measure to depend upon it then Religion is suspected to be a meer trick of State and an invention to keep the world in awe whereby men might the better be moulded into Societies and preserved in them But if it appear to inforce any thing indispensably on the Consciences of men though humane Laws require the contrary if they must not forswear their Religion and deny him whom they hope to be saved by when the Magistrate calls them to it then such half-witted men think that Religion is nothing but a pretence to Rebellion and Conscience only an obstinate plea for Disobedience But this is to take it for granted that there is no such thing as Religion in the World for if there be there must be some inviolable Rights of Divine Soveraignty acknowledged which must not vary according to the diversity of the Edicts and Laws of men But supposing the profession and practice of the Christian Religion to be allowed inviolable there was never any Religion nay never any inventions of the greatest Politicians which might compare with that for the preservation of civil Societies For this in plain and express words tells all the owners of it that they must live in subjection and obedience not only for wrath but for Conscience sake that they who do resist receive unto themselves damnation and that because whosoever resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God Than which it is impossible to conceive arguments of greater force to keep men in obedience to Authority for he that only obeys because it is his interest to do so will have the same
God and the Power of God Here the Iew might find his Messias come and the Promises fulfilled which related to him here the Greek might find his long and vainly looked for certainty of a life to come and the way which leads to it here the Roman might see a Religion serviceable to another world and this together Here are Precepts more holy Promises more certain Rewards more desireable than ever the wit or invention of men could have attained to Here are Institutions far more pious useful and serviceable to mankind than the most admired Laws of the famous Legislators of Greece or Rome Here are no popular designs carried on no vices indulged for the publick interest which Solon Lycurgus and Plato are charged with Here is no making Religion a meer trick of State and a thing only useful for governing the people which Numa and the great men at Rome are lyable to the suspicion of Here is no wrapping up Religion in strange figures and mysterious non-sense which the Aegyptians were so much given to Here is no inhumanity and cruelty in the sacrifices offer'd no looseness and profaneness allowed in the most solemn mysteries no worshipping of such for Gods who had not been fit to live if they had been men which were all things so commonly practised in the Idolatries of the Heathens But the nature of the Worship is such as the minds of those who come to it ought to be and as becomes that God whom we profess to serve pure and holy grave and serious solemn and devout without the mixtures of superstition vanity or ostentation The precepts of our Religion are plain and easie to be known very suitable to the nature of Mankind and highly tending to the advantage of those who practise them both in this and a better life The arguments to perswade men are the most weighty and powerful and of as great importance as the love of God the death of his Son the hopes of happiness and the fears of eternal misery can be to men And wherein is the contrivance of our Religion defective when the end is so desireable the means so effectual for the obtaining of it 2. Which is the next thing to be considered There are two things which in this degenerate estate of man are necessary in order to the recovery of his happiness and those are Repentance for sins past and sincere Obedience for the future now both these the Gospel gives men the greatest encouragements to and therefore is the most likely to effect the design it was intended for 1. For Repentance for sins past What more powerful motives can there be to perswade men to repent than for God to let men know that he is willing to pardon their sins upon the sincerity of their Repentance but without that there remains nothing but a fearful expectation of judgement and fiery indignation that their sins are their follies and therefore to repent is to grow wise that he requires no more from men but what every considerative man knows is fitting to be done whenever he reflects upon his actions that there can be no greater ingratitude or disingenuity towards the Son of God than to stand at defiance with God when he hath shed his blood to reconcile God and Man to each other that every step of his humiliation every part of the Tragedy of his life every wound at his death every groan and sigh which he uttered upon the Cross were designed by him as the most prevailing Rhetorick to perswade men to forsake their sins and be happy that there cannot be a more unaccountable folly than by impenitency to lose the hopes of a certain and eternal happiness for the sake of those pleasures which every wise man is ashamed to think of that to continue in sin with the hopes to repent is to stab a mans self with the hopes of a cure that the sooner men do it the sooner they will find their minds at ease and that the pleasures they enjoy in forsaking their sins are far more noble and manly than ever they had in committing them but if none of these arguments will prevail with them perish they must and that unavoidably insupportably and irrecoverably And if such arguments as these will not prevail with men to leave their sins it is impossible that any should 2. For Holiness of Life For Christ did not come into the World and dye for us meerly that we should repent of what is past by denying ungodliness and worldly lusts but that we should live soberly righteously and godly in this present world And what he doth expect he hath given the greatest encouragements to perform by the clearness of his precepts the excellency of his own example the promise of his Grace and the proposition of eternal rewards and punishments whereby he takes off all the objections men are apt to make against obedience to the Commands of Christ the pretence of ignorance because his Laws are so clear the pre tence of impossibility by his own example the pretence of infirmity by the assistance of his Grace the pretence of the unnecessariness of so great care of our actions by making eternal rewards and punishments to depend upon it Let us then reflect upon the whole design of the Gospel and see how admirably it is suited to the end it was intended for to the condition of those whose good was designed by it and to the honour of the great contriver and manager of it And let not us by our impenitency and the unholiness of our lives dishonour God and our Saviour reproach our Religion and condemn that by our lives which we justifie by our words For when we have said all we can the best and most effectual vindication of Christian Religion is to live according to it But oh then how unhappy are we that live in such an Age wherein it were hard to know that men were Christians unless we are bound to believe their words against the tenour and course of their actions What is become of the purity the innocency the candour the peaceableness the sincerity and devotion of the Primitive Christians What is become of their zeal for the honour of Christ and Christian Religion If it weâ—e the design of men to make our Religion a dishonour and reproach to the Iews Mahumetans and Heathens could they do it by more effectual means than they have done Who is there that looks into the present state of the Christian World could ever think that the Christian Religion was so incomparably beyond all others in the world Is the now Christian Rome so much beyond what it was while it was Heathen Nay was it not then remarkable in its first times for justice sincerity contempt of riches and a kind of generous honesty and who does not though of the same Religion if he hath any ingenuity left lament the want of all those things there now Will
not the sobriety of the very Turks upbraid our excesses and debaucheries and the obstinacy of the Iews in defence and practice of their Religion condemn our coldness and indifferency in ours If we have then any tenderness for the honour of our Religion or any kindness for our own Souls let us not only have the Name but let us lead the lives of Christians let us make amends for all the reproaches which our Religion hath suffered by the faction and disobedience of some by the Oaths and Blasphemies the impieties and profaneness of others by the too great negligence and carelesness of all that if it be possible Christianity may appear in its true glory which will then only be when those who name the Name of Christ depart from iniquity and live in all manner of holy conversation and godliness SERMON IV. Preached at WHITE-HALL ROMANS I. XVI For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ for it is the Power of God unto salvation to every one that believes to the Jew first and also to the Greek THese words are uttered by one who was himself a remarkable instance of the truth of the Doctrine contained in them Viz. of that Divine Power which did accompany the Gospel of Christ. For what can we imagine else should make him now not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ who not long before was not ashamed to persecute all those who professed it One whose spirit was fermented with the leaven of the Pharisees and inraged with fury against all who owned the name of Christ is of a sudden turned quite into another temper to the confusion of those who employed him and the amazement of them whom he designed to persecute Nay so great was the change which was wrought in him that from a Bigot of the Iewish Religion he becomes an Apostle of the Christian and from breathing flames against the Christians none more ready than he to undergo them for Christ. If he had only given over his persecution it might have been thought that he had meerly run himself out of breath and grown weary of his former fury as greater persons than he did afterwards but to retain the same fervour of spirit in preaching Christ which he had before in opposing him to have as great zeal for making Christians as he had for destroying them must needs proceed from some great and unusual cause Whilest the Iews thought he had too much learning and interest to become their enemy and the Christians found he had too much rage and fury to be their friend even then when they least expected it instead of continuing an Instrument of the Sanhedrin for punishing the Christians he declared himself an Apostle and servant of Jesus Christ. And that no ordinary one neither for such was the efficacy of those divine words Saul Saul why persecutest thou me that they not only presently allay his former heat but quicken and animate him to a greater zeal for the honour of him whom he had persecuted before And the faster he had run when he was out of his way the greater diligence he used when he found it there being none of all the followers of Christ who out-stript him in his constant endeavours to advance the Christian Religion in the World And if an unwearied diligence to promote it an uncessant care for preserving it an universal concern for all who owned it and an undaunted spirit in bearing the affronts and injuries he underwent for it be any perswasive arguments of the love a man bears to his Religion there was never any person who made a clearer demonstration than St. Paul did of the truth of his Religion and his sincerity in embracing it For his endeavours were suitable to the greatness of his spirit his care as large as the Horizon of the Sun of righteousness his courage as great as the malice of his enemies For he was neither afraid of the malice of the Iews or of the Wisdom of the Greeks or of the Power of the Romans but he goes up and down preaching the Gospel in a sphere as large as his mind was and with a zeal only parallel with his former fury He encountred the Iews in their Synagogues he disputed with the Greeks in their most famous Cities at Athens Corinth Ephesus and elsewhere and everywhere raising some Trophies to the honour of the Gospel nothing now remained but that he should do the same at Rome also And for this he wants not spirit and resolution for he even longed to be there vers 11. nâ—y he had often purposed to go thither but waited for a convenient opportunity v. 13. But while God was pleased otherwise to dispose of him he could not conceal the joy which he had for the ready entertainment of the Christian Religion by those to whom he writes and that their saith was grown as famous as the City wherein they dwelt v. 8. First I thank my God through Iesus Christ for you all that your Faith is spoken of throughout the whole World and he further manifests the greatness of his affection to them that without ceasing he made mention of them always in his Prayers v. 9. And among the rest of the blessings he prayed for for himself and them he was sure not to forget his coming to them v. 10. Not out of an ambitious and vain-glorious humour that he might be taken notice of in that great and Imperial City but that he might be instrumental in doing them service as he had done others v. 11. 13. And to this end he tells them what an obligation lay upon him to spread the Doctrine of Christ in all places and to all persons v. 14. I am debtor both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians to the wise and to the unwise So that neither the wisdom of the Greeks nor the the ignorance of the Babarians could hinder St. Paul from discovering to them the contrivances of infinite wisdom and the excellent methods of divine Goodness in order to mens eternal welfare And although Rome now thought it self to be the seat of Wisdom as well as Empire and Power yet our Apostle declares his readiness to Preach the Gospel there too v. 15. for which he gives a sufficient reason in the words of the Text for I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ for it is the Power of God to Salvation c. Wherein we have considerable these two things 1. The Apostles boldness and freeness in declaring the doctrine of Christ For I am not ashamed c. 2. The ground of it in the following words for it is the Power of God to Salvation c. 1. The Apostles boldness and freeness in declaring the doctrine of Christ. It was neither the gallantry of the Roman Court nor the splendor of the City not the greatness of her Power or wisdom of her Statesmen could make St. Paul entertain the meaner opinion
of the doctrine he hoped to preach among them Had Christ come 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with a great deal of pomp and state into the World subduing Kingdoms and Nations under him had St. Paul been a General for the Gospel instead of being an Apostle of it the great men of the World would then allow he had no cause to be ashamed either of his Master or of his employment But to preach a crucified Saviour among the glories and triumphs of Rome and a Doctrine of so much simplicity and contempt of the world among those who were the Masters of it and managed it with so much art and cunning to perswade them to be followers of Christ in a holy life who could not be like the gods they worshiped unless they were guilty of the greatest debaucheries seems to be an employment so lyable to the greatest scorn and contempt that none but a great and resolved spirit would ever undertake it For when we consider after so many hundred years profession of Christianity how apt the greatness of the world is to make men ashamed of the practice of it and that men aim at a reputation for wit by being able to abuse the Religion they own what entertainment might we then think our Religion met with among the great men of the Age it was first preached in when it not only encountered those weaker weapons of scoffs and raillery but the strong holds of interest and education If our Religion now can hardly escape the bitter scoffs and profane jests of men who pawn their souls to be accounted witty what may we think it suffered then when it was accounted a part of their own Religion to dispise and reproach ours If in the Age we live in a man may be reproached for his piety and virtue that is for being really a Christian when all profess themselves to be so what contempt did they undergo in the first Ages of the Christian World when the very name of Christian was thought a sufficient brand of infamy And yet such was the courage and magnanimity of the Primitive Christians that what was accounted most mean and contemptible in their Religion viz. their believing in a crucified Saviour was by them accounted the matter of their greatest honour and glory For though St. Paul only saith here that he was not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ yet elsewere he explains that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is contained in these words when he saith God forbid that I should glory in any thing save in the Cross of Christ by whom the World is crucified to me and I unto the World Gal. 6. 14. i. e. Although he could not but be sensible how much the world despised him and his Religion together yet that was the great satisfaction of his mind that his Religion had enabled him to despise the World as much For neither the pomp and grandeur of the World nor the smiles and flatteries of it no nor its frowns and severities could abate any thing of that mighty esteem and value which he had for the Christian Religion For in his own expression he accounted all things else but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Iesus his Lord Phil. 3. 8. Which words are not spoken by one who was in despair of being taken notice of for any thing else and therefore magnifies the Profession he was engaged in but by a person as considerable as most of the time and Nation he lived in both for his birth and education So that his contempt of the World was no sullen and affected severity but the issue of a sober and impartial judgement and the high esteem he professed of Christianity was no fanatick whimsey but the effect of a diligent enquiry and the most serious consideration And that will appear 2. By the grounds and reasons which St. Paul here gives why he was not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ 1. From the excellent end it was designed for and that is no less than salvation 2. From the effectualness of it in order to that end it is the Power of God to Salvation 3. From the necessity of believing the Gospel by all who would attain that end to every one that believes the Iew first and also to the Greek 1. From the excellent End it was designed for the recovery and happiness of the souls of men both which are implyed in the term salvation For considering the present condition of humane Nature as it is so far sunk beneath it self and kept under the power of unruly passions whatever tends to make it happy must do it by delivering it from all those things which are the occasions of its misery So that whatever Religion should promise to make men happy without first making them vertuous and good might on that very account be justly suspected of imposture For the same reasons which make the acts of any Religion necessary viz. that we may please that God who commands and governs the World must make it necessary for men to do it in those things which are far more acceptable to him than all our sacrifices of what kind soever which are the actions of true vertue and goodness If then that accusation had been true which Celsus and Iulian charged Christianity with viz. that it indulged men in the practice of vice with the promise of a future happiness notwithstanding I know nothing could have rendred it more suspicious to be a design to deceive Mankind But so far is it from having the least foundation of truth in it that as there never was any Religion which gave men such certain hopes of a future felicity and consequently more encouragement to be good so there was none ever required it on those strict and severe terms which Christianity doth For there being two grand duties of men in this world either towards God in the holiness of their hearts and lives or towards their Brethren in a peaceable carriage among men which cannot be without justice and sobriety both these are enforced upon all Christians upon no meaner terms than the unavoidable loss of all the happiness our Religion promises Follow peace with all men and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. Heb. 12. 14. This is then the grand design of Christianity to make men happy in another world by making them good and vertuous in this It came to reform this world that it might people another so to purifie the souls of men as to make them meet to enjoy the happiness designed for them This is that great Salvation which the Gospel brings to the world Heb. 2. 3. and thence it is called the Word of Salvation Acts 13. 26. the way of salvation Acts 16. 17. the Gospel of salvation Ephes. 1. 13. So that though Christianity be of unspeakable advantage to this world there being no Religion that tends so much to the peace of mens minds and
his Soveraign and that all passions are to be destroy'd that pain and grief are nothing that vertue in all conditions is a sufficient reward to it self Which are so contrary to the common sense of mankind that the only way to perswade men to believe them is first to perswade them they are not men So that he was certainly the wisest man among the Heathens who concluded that we ought to expect a higher Master to teach us these things and to acquaint us with the happiness of a future life And hereby an answer may be given to Porphyries grand objection against Christian Religion viz. If it were so necessary for the good of Mankind why was it so long before it was discovered Because God would thereby discover the insufficiency of all the means the wit of man could find out to reform the world without this That not only the Iews might see the weakness of that dispensation they were under but the Gentile world might groan with an expectation of some more powerful means to goodness than were yet among them For when Philosophy had been so long in its height and had so little influence upon Mankind it was time for the Sun of righteousness to arise and with the softening and healing influence of his beams to bring the World to a more vertuous temper And that leads to the Second thing implyed which is the peculiar efficacy of the Gospel for promoting mens salvation for it is the Power of God to salvation and that will appear by considering how many ways the power of God is engaged in it These three especially 1. In confirmation of the Truth of it 2. In the admirable Effects of it in the World 3. In the diviue Assistance which is promised to those who embrace it 1. In confirmation of the Truth of it For the World was grown so uncertain as to the grand foundations of Religion that the same power was requisite now to settle the World which was at first for the framing of it For though the Precepts of Christian Religion be pure and easie holy and suitable to the sense of mankind though the Promises be great and excellent proportionable to our wants and the weight of our business though the reward be such that it is easier to desire than comprehend it yet all these would but seem to baffle the more the expectations of men unless they were built on some extraordinary evidence of divine power And such we assert there was in the confirmation of these things to us not only in the miraculous birth of our Saviour and that continual series of unparallel'd miracles in his life not only in the most obliging circumstances of his death nor only in the large effusion of divine gifts upon his Apostles and the strange propagation of Christian Religion by them against all humane power but that which I shall particularly instance in as the great effect of divine power and confirmation of our Religion was his Resurrection from the dead For as our Apostle saith Rom. 1. 4. Christ was declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of Holiness by the Resurrection from the dead No way of evidence could be more suitable to the capacities of all than this it being a plain matter of fact none ever better attested than this was not only by the unanimous consent of all the witnesses but by their constant adhering to the truth of it though it cost almost all of them their lives and no greater evidence could be given to the World of a divine power since both Iews and Gentiles agreed in this that such a thing could not be effected but by an immediate hand of God So far were they then from thinking a resurrection possible by the juyce of herbs or an infusion of warm blood into the veins or by the breath of living Creatures as the great martyr for Atheism would seem from Pliny to perswade us when yet certainly nothing can be of higher concernment to those who believe not another life than to have try'd this experiment long ere now and since nothing of that nature hath ever happened since our Saviours resurrection it only lets us know what credulous men in other things the greatest Infidels as to Religion are But so far were they at that time from so fond an imagination that they readily yielded that none but God could do it though they seem'd to question whether God himself could do it or no. As appears by the Apostles Interrogation Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that God should raise the dead Act. 26. 8. This was therefore judged on both sides to be a matter of so great importance that all the disputes concerning Christian Religion were resolved into this Whether Christ were risen from the dead And this the Apostles urge and insist on upon all occasions as the great evidence of the truth of his Doctrine and this was the main part of their Commission for they were sent abroad to be witnesses of his Resurrection Which was not designed by God as a thing strange and incredible to puzle mankind with but to give the highest assurance imaginable to the World of the truth and importance of Christianity Since God was pleased to imploy his power in so high a manner to confirm the certainty of it 2. Gods power was seen in the admirable effects of Christian Religion upon the minds of men which was most discernable by the strange alteration it soon made in the state of the world In Iudea soon after the death of Christ some of his Crucifiers become Christians 3000. Converts made at one Sermon of St. Peter's and great accessions made afterwards both in Hierusalem and other places Yea in all parts of the Roman Empire where the Christians came they so increased and multiplyed that thereby it appeared that God had given a Benediction to his new Creation suitable to what he gave to the first So that within the compass of not a hundred years after our Saviours death the World might admire to see it self so strangely changed from what it was The Temple at Hierusalem destroy'd and the Iews under a sadder dispersion than ever and rendred uncapable of continuing their former Worship of God there the Heathen Temples unfrequented the Gods derided the Oracles ceased the Philosophers puzled the Magistrates disheartned by their fruitless cruelties and all this done by a few Christians who came and preached to the World Righteousness Temperance and a Iudgement to come whereof God had given assurance to the World by raising one Iesus from the dead And all this effected not by the power of Wit and Eloquence not by the force and violence of rebellious subjects not by men of hot and giddy brains but by men sober just humble and meek in all their carriages but withal such as might never have been heard of in the world had not this Doctrine
made them famous What could this then be imputed to less than a Divine Power which by effectual and secret ways carries on its own design against all the force and wit of men So that the wise Gamaliel at whose feet St. Paul was bred seem'd to have the truest apprehensions of these things at that time when he told the Sanhedrin If this counsel or this work be of men it will come to nought but if it be of God ye cannot overthrow it least haply ye be found to fight against God Act. 5. 38 39. 3. In the Divine Assistance which is promised to those who embrace it in which respect it is properly the power of God to salvation and therein far beyond what the Philosophers could promise to any who embraced their opinions For the Gospel doth not only discover the necessity of a Principle superiour to Nature which we call Grace in order to the fitting our souls for their future happiness but likewise shews on what terms God is pleased to bestow it on men viz. on the consideration of the death and passion of our Lord and Saviour Not by works of righteousness which we have done but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost which he shed on us abundantly through Christ our Saviour Titus 3. 5. There being nothing in humane nature which could oblige God to give to Mankind that assistance of his grace whereby they are enabled to work out this salvation the Gospel is designed for with fear and trembling The whole tenor of the Gospel importing a divine power which doth accompany the preaching of it which is designed on purpose to heal the wounds and help the weakness of our depraved and degenerate nature Through which we may be kept to salvation but it must be through Faith 1 Pet. 1. 5. 3. Which is the last particular of the words the necessity of believing the Gospel in order to the partaking of the salvation promised in it it is the power of God to salvation to every one that believes to the Iew first and also to the Greek An easie way of salvation if no more were required to mens happiness but a fancy and strong opinion which they will easily call Believing So there were some in St. Augustin's time I could wish there were none in ours who thought nothing necessary to salvation but a strong Faith let their lives be what they pleased But this is so repugnant to the main design of Christian Religion that they who think themselves the strongest Believers are certainly the weakest and most ungrounded For they believe scarce any other proposition in the New Testament but that Whosoever believeth shall be saved If they did believe that Christ came into the world to reform it and make it better that the wrath of God is now revealed from Heaven against all unrighteousness as well as that the just by Faith shall live that the design of all that love of Christ which is shewn to the World is to deliver them from the hand of their enemies that they might serve him in righteousness and holiness all the days of their lives they could never imagine that salvation is entailed by the Gospel on a mighty confidence or vehement perswasion of what Christ hath done and suffered for them And so far is St. Paul from asserting this that as far as I can see he never meddles with a matter of that nicety whether a single act of Faith be the condition of our justification as it is distinguished from Evangelical obedience but his discourse runs upon this subject whether God will pardon the sins of men upon any other terms than those which are declared in the Christian Religion the former he calls Works and the latter Faith I know the subtilty of later times hath made St. Paul dispute in the matter of justification not as one bred up at the feet of Gamaliel but of the Master of the Sentences but men did not then understand their Religion at all the worse because it was plain and easie and it may be if others since had understood their Religion better there would never have needed so much subtilty to explain it nor so many distinctions to defend it The Apostle makes the same terms of justification and of salvation for as hesaith elsewhere We are justified by Faith he saith here the Gospel is the power of God to salvation to every one that believes if therefore a single act of Faith be sufficient for one why not for the other also But if believing here be taken in a more large and comprehensive sense as a complex act relating to our undertaking the conditions of the Gospel why should it not be taken so in the subsequent discourse of the Apostle For we are to observe that St. Paul in this Epistle is not disputing against any sort of Christians that thought to be saved by their obedience to the Gospel from the assistance of divine grace but against those who thought the Grace and indulgence of the Gospel by no means necessary in order to the pardon of their sins and their eternal happiness Two things therefore the Apostle mainly designs to prove in the beginning of it First the insufficiency of any other way of salvation besides that offer'd by the Gospel whether it were the light of Nature which the Gentiles contended for but were far from living according to it or that imaginary Covenant of Works which the Iews fancied to themselves for it will be a very hard matter to prove that ever God entred into a Covenant of Works with fallen Man which he knew it was impossible for him to observe buâ—t hey were so highly opinionated of themselves and of those legal observations which were among them that they thought by vertue of them they could merit so much favour at Gods hands that there was no need of any other sacrifice but what was among themselves to expiate the guilt of all their sins And on that account they rejected the Gospel as the Apostle tells us that they being ignorant of Gods righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God Against these therefore the Apostle proves that if they hoped for happiness upon such strict terms they laid only a foundation of boasting if they did all which God required but of misery if they did not for then Cursed is every one that continues not in every thing written in the Law to do it i. e. if they sailed in any one thing then they must fail of all their hopes but such a state of persection being impossible to humane Nature he shews that either all mankind must unavoidably perish or they must be saved by the Grace and Favour of God which he proves to be discovered by the Gospel and that God will now accept of a
of Religion neither inquisitive about them nor serious in minding them what can we otherwise think but that such a one doth really think the things of the World better worth looking after than those which concern his eternal salvation But consider before it be too late and repent of so great folly Value an immortal Soul as you ought to do think what Reconciliation with God and the Pardon of sin is worth slight not the dear Purchase which was bought at no meaner a rate than the Blood of the Son of God and then you cannot but mind the great salvation which God hath tendered you 2. Consider on what terms you neglect it or what the things are for whose sake you are so great enemies to your own salvation Have you ever found that contentment in sin or the vanities of the World that for the sake of them you are willing to be forever miserable What will you think of all your debaucheries and your neglects of God and your selves when you come to die what would you give then if it were in your power to redeem your lost time that you had spent your time less to the satisfaction of your sensual desires and more in seeking to please God How uncomfortable will the remembrance be of all your excesses oaths injustice and profaneness when death approaches and judgement follows it What peace of mind will there then be to those who have served God with faithfulness and have endeavoured to work out their salvation though it hath been with fear and trembling But what would it then profit a man to have gained the whole World and to lose his own soul Nay what unspeakable losers must they then be that lose their Souls for that which hath no value at all if compared with the World 3. Consider what follows upon this neglect not only the loss of great salvation but the incurring as great damnation for it The Scripture describes the miseries of the life to come not meerly by negatives but by the most sensible and painful things If destruction be dreadful what is everlasting destruction if the anguish of the soul and the pains of the body be so troublesom what will the destruction be both of Body and Soul in Hell If a Serpent gnawing in our bowels be a representation of an insupportable misery here what will that be of the Worm that never dies if a raging and devouring fire which can last but till it hath consumed a fading substance be in its appearance so amazing and in its pain so violent what then will the enduring be of that wrath of God which shall burn like fire and yet be everlasting Consider then of these things while God gives you time to consider of them and think it an inestimable mercy that you have yet time to repent of your sins to beg mercy at the hands of God to redeem your time to depart from iniquity to be frequent in Prayer careful of your Actions and in all things obedient to the will of God and so God will pardon your former neglects and grant you this great salvation SERMON VI. Preached on GOOD-FRYDAY before the Lord Mayor c. HEBREWS XII III. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself lest ye be weary and faint in your minds IT hath never yet been so well with the World and we have no great reason to hope it ever will be so that the best of things or of men should meet with entertainment in it suitable to their own worth and excellency If it were once to be hoped that all Mankind would be wise and sober that their judgements would be according to the truth of things and their actions suitable to their judgements we might then reasonably expect that nothing would be valued so much as true goodness nothing so much in contempt and disgrace as impiety and profaneness But if we find it much otherwise in the Age we live in we have so much the less cause to wonder at it because it hath been thus in those times we might have thought would have been far better than our own I mean those times and ages wherein there were not only great things first spoken and delivered to Mankind but examples as great as the things themselves but these did so little prevail on the stupid and unthankful world that they among whom the Son of God did first manifest himself seem'd only solicitous to make good one Prophesic concerning him viz. That he should be despised and rejected of men And they who suffer'd their malice to live as long as he did were not contented to let it dye with him but their fury increases as the Gospel does and wherever it had spread it self they pursue it with all the rude clamors and violent persecutions which themselves or their factors could raise against it This we have a large testimony of in those Iewish Christians to whom this Epistle was written who had no sooner embraced the Christian Religion but they were set upon by a whole army of persecutions Heb. 10. 32. But call to remembrance the former days in which after ye were illuminated ye endured a great fight of afflictions As though the great enemy of souls and therefore of Christians had watched the first opportunity to make the strongest impression upon them while they were yet young and unexperienced and therefore less able to resist so sharp an encounter He had found how unsuccessful the offer of the good things of this World had been with their Lord and Master and therefore was resolved to try what a severer course would do with all his followers But the same spirit by which he despised all the Glories of the World which the Tempter would have made him believe he was the disposer of enabled them with a mighty courage and strange transports of joy not only to bear their own share of reproaches and afflictions but a part of theirs who suffer'd with them v. 33 34. But lest through continual duty occasion'd by the hatred of their persecutors and the multitude of their afflictions their courage should abate and their spirits saint the Apostle finds it necessary not only to put them in mind of their former magnanimity but to make use of all arguments that might be powerful with them to keep up the same vigour and constancy of mind in bearing their sufferings which they had at first For he well knew how much it would tend to the dishonour of the Gospel as well as to their own discomfort if after such an early proof of a great and undaunted spirit it should be said of them as was once of a great Roman Captain Ultima Primis cedebant that they should decline in their reputation as they did in their years and at last sink under that weight of duty which they had born with so much honour before Therefore as a
several passages of Scripture utterly overthrow it for how could Solomon have said Where the word of a King is there is power and who may say unto him what dost thou If by the constitution of their Government the Sanhedrin might have controlled him in what he said or did But have not several of the modern Iews said so Granting that some have yet so they have spoken many unreasonable and foolish things besides but yet none of these have said that it was in the power of the Sanhedrin to depose their Kings or put them to death all that they say is that in the cases expressed by the Law if the Kings do transgress the Sanhedrin had the power of inflicting the penalty of scourging which yet they deny to have had any infamy in it among them But did not David transgress the Law in his murder and adultery did not Solomon in the multitude of his wives and Idolatry yet where do we read that the Sanhedrin ever took cognisance of these things And the more ancient Iews do say that the King was not to be judged as is plain in the Text of the Misna however the Expositors have taken a liberty to contradict it but as far as we can find without any foundation of reason and R. Ieremiah in Nachmanides saith expresly That no creature may judge the King but the holy and blessed God alone But we have an Authority far greater than his viz. of Davids in this case who after he hath denied that any man can stretch forth his hand against the Lords Anointed and be guiltless In the very next words he submits the judgement of him only to God himself saying As the Lord liveth the Lord shall smite him or his day shall come to die or he shall descend into battel and perish He thought it sufficient to leave the judgement of those things to God whose power over Princes he knew was enough if well considered by them to keep them in awe We have now dispatched the first consideration of the words of the Text as they relate to the fact of Corah and his company 2. We ought now to enquire whether the Christian Doctrine hath made any alteration in these things or whether that gives any greater encouragement to faction and sedition than the Law did when it is masked under a pretence of zeal for Religion and Liberty But it is so far from it that what God then declared to be displeasing to him by such remarkable judgements hath been now more fully manifested by frequent precepts and vehement exhortations by the most weighty arguments and the constant practice of the first and the best of Christians and by the black character which is set upon those who under a pretence of Christian Liberty did despise dominion and speak evil of dignities and follow Corah in his Rebellion however they may please themselves with greater light than former ages had in this matter they are said to be such for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever It would take up too much time to examine the frivolous evasions and ridiculous distinctions by which they would make the case of the Primitive Christians in not resisting Authority so much different from theirs who have not only done it but in spight of Christianity have pleaded for it Either they said they wanted strength or courage or the countenance of the Senate or did not understand their own Liberty when all their obedience was only due to those precepts of the Gospel which make it so great a part of Christianity to be subject to Principalities and Powers and which the Teachers of the Gospel had particularly given them in charge to put the people in mind of And happy had it been for us if this Doctrine had been more sincerely preached and duly practised in this Nation for we should then never have seen those sad times which we can now no otherwise think of than of the devouring Fire and raging Pestilence i. e. of such dreadful judgements which we have smarted so much by that we heartily pray we may never feel them again For then fears and jealousies began our miseries and the curse so often denounced against Meroz fell upon the whole Nation When the Sons of Corah managed their own ambitious designs against Moses and Aaron the King and the Church under the same pretences of Religion and Liberty And when the pretence of Religion was broken into Schisms and Liberty into oppression of the people it pleased God out of his secret and unsearchable judgements to suffer the Sons of Violence to prevail against the Lords Anointed and then they would know no difference between his being conquered and guilty They could find no way to justifie their former wickedness but by adding more The consciousness of their own guilt and the fears of the punishment due to it made them unquiet and thoughtful as long as his life and presence did upbraid them with the one and made them fearful of the other And when they found the greatness and constancy of his mind the firmness of his Piety the zeal he had for the true interest of the people would not suffer him to betray his Trust for the saving of his life they charge him with their own guilt and make him suffer because they had deserved to do it And as if it had not been enough to have abused the names of Religion and Liberty before they resolve to make the very name of Iustice to suffer together with their King by calling that infamous company who condemned their Soveraign A High Court of Iustice which trampled under foot the Laws both of God and men But lest the world should imagine they had any shame left in their sins they make the people witnesses of his Murther and pretend the Power of the People for doing that which they did detest and abhor Thus fell our Royal Martyr a sacrifice to the fury of unreasonable men who either were so blind as not to see his worth or rather so bad as to hate him for it And as God gave once to the people of the Iews a King in his Anger being provoked to it by their sins we have cause to say that upon the same account he took away one of the best of Kings from us in his wrath But blessed be that God who in the midst of judgement was pleased to remember mercy in the miraculous preservation and glorious restauration of our Gratious Soveraign let us have a care then of abusing the mercies of so great a deliverance to quite other ends than God intended it for lest he be provoked to say to us as he did of old to the Iews But if ye shall still do wickedly ye shall be consumed both ye and your King And if we look on this as a dreadful judgement let us endeavour to prevent it by a timely and sincere reformation of
all other Beings are such as are suitable to their natures how come those in mankind to be such as must be supposed to be not only above but contrary to them if an immortal soul be not granted If men had no principle within them beyond that of sense nothing would have been more easie than to have shaken off the notion of a Deity and all apprehension of a future State But this hath been so far from easie that it is a thing utterly impossible to be done all the wit and arts all the malice and cruelty all the racks and torments that could yet be thought on could not alter mens perswasions of the Christian Religion much less raze out the Foundations of Natural Religion in the world But what imaginable account can be given of the joys and pleasures which the Martyrs of old expressed under the most exquisite torments of their bodies if their minds were not of a far nobler and diviner nature than their bodies were Although a natural stupidity and dulness of temper may abate the sense of pain although an obstinate resolution may keep men from complaining of it yet not only to bear the Cross but to embrace it to be not only patient but pleasant under tortures nay to sing with greater joy in the flames than others do when they are heated with wine doth not only shew that there is something within us capable of pleasure distinct from the body but that the pleasures of it may be so great as to swallow up the pains of the body But I need not have recourse to such great and extraordinay instances although sufficiently attested by such who saw and heard them for every good man hath that inward pleasure in being and doing good which he would not part with for all the greatest Epicurism in the world And where there is or may be so great pleasure no wonder if there be likewise a sense of pain proportionable to it witness those gripes and tortures of Conscience which wicked men undergo from the reflection upon themselves when their own evil actions fill them with horror and amazement when the cruelties they have used to others return with greater violence upon their own minds when the unlawful pleasures of the body prove the greatest vexation to their souls and the weight of their evil actions sinks them under despair and the dreadful apprehensions of future misery These are things we need not search histories or cite ancient authors for every mans own Conscience will tell him if he hath not lost all sense of good and evil that as there is a real pleasure in doing good there is the greatest inward pain in doing evil Having thus shewed that the soul of man is capable of pleasure and pain in this present state distinct from the body it thence follows that it is capable of rewards and punishments when it shall be separated from it 2. That the souls of men have a power of determining their own actions without which there could be no reasonable account given of the rewards and punishments of another life Were I to prove liberty in man from the supposition of Religion I know no argument more plain or more convincing than that which is drawn from the consideration of future rewards and punishments but being now to prove a capacity of rewards and punishments from the consideration of Liberty I must make use of other means to do it by And what can be imagined greater evidence in Beings capable of reflecting upon themselves than the constant sense and experience of all mankind Not that all men are agreed in their opinions about these things for even herein men shew their liberty by resisting the clearest evidence to prove it but that every man finds himself free in the determining his moral actions And therefore he hath the same reason to believe this which he hath of his own Being or understanding For what other way hath a man to know that he understands himself or any thing else but the sense of his own mind and those who go about to perswade men that they think themselves free when they are not may in the next place perswade them that they think they understand when they do not Nay they might hope in the first place to perswade men out of their understandings for we are not so competent judges of the more necessary and natural acts for men understand whether they will or no as of the more free and voluntary for in this case every man can when he pleases put a tryal upon himself and like the confuting the arguments against motion by moving can shew the folly of all the pleas for fatal necessity by a freedom of action But if once this natural liberty be taken away wisdom and folly as well as vice and vertue would be names invented to no purpose no men can be said to be better or wiser than others if their actions do not depend on their own choice and consideration but on a hidden train of causes which it is no more in a mans power to hinder than in the earth to hinder the falling of rain upon it If therefore sense and reason may prevail upon mankind not to fancy themselves under invisible chains and fetters of which they can have no evidence or experience we may thence infer the souls capacity of rewards and punishments in another life since happiness and misery are set before them and it must be their own voluntary choice which brings them to either of them When either by their own folly they run themselves upon everlasting ruine or by making use of the assistance of divine grace they become capable of endless Joy But since men have not only a power of governing themselves but are capable of doing it by considerations as remote from the things of sense as Heaven is from Earth it is not conceivable there should be such a power within us if there were not an immortal soul which is the subject of it For what is there that hath the shadow of liberty in meer matter what is there of these inferiour creatures that can act by consideration of future things but only man Whence comes man to consider but from his reason or to guide himself by the consideration of future and eternal things but from an immortal principle within him which alone can make things at a distance to be as present can represent to it self the infinite pleasures and unconceivable misery of an eternal state in such a manner as to direct the course of this present life in order to the obtaining of the one and avoiding of the other And thus much concerning the supposition here made of the loss of the soul and its immortality implied therein I come to consider the hazard of losing the soul for the gain of this world Fâ—r although our Saviour puts the utmost supposable case the better to represent the folly of losing
with removing these and such like prejudices against all the Discourses of Religion which are spoken and published by us But in these matters which we conceive to be of so high concernment to Mankind we desire nothing may be considered besides the force of reason and weight of argument and surely none that own themselves to be men will despise that by whomsoever it is brought It is not every ridiculous story or vulgar prejudice or common infirmities or different opinions in smaller things which ought to render Religion ridiculous or make the Practice of it be thought mean and contemptible But however they are resolved to think of Us let not Religion suffer for our sakes Indeed if they did as truly love Religion as they despise us we might then have reason to suspect our selves but when we suffer meerly upon her account we have cause to rejoyce in our dishonour and ought to suspect our selves if such persons did speak well of Us. Madam The main design of these following Discourses is to recommend the great matters of Religion from their Truth and Certainty their Power and Efficacy the Benefit and Advantage which comes by them and to disswade from the Practice of Sin from the folly and reproach the present dissatisfaction and suture punishment which attends it If they may be of Use to the World and any wayes serviceable to Your Ladiship in Your retirements I have the end I aimed at And I have therefore presumed to dedicate them to Your Ladiship not only because of the great Obligations which I have to Your Self and Family which were first laid upon me by that Excellent Person the late Lord Treasurer Your Father but likewise because You have so well followed so worthy an Example in joyning Greatness and Goodness together Were it my design to publish Your just and due Character I should not need to find fault with the Age to give the greater advantage to Your Vertue All the harm I wish the Age is that there were many more Persons of Your Condition that did as little need and as much despise the meanness of Flattery I am Madam Your Ladiships most obliged and humble Servant ED. STILLINGFLEET SERMON I. At S t. Margarets Westminster before the Honourable House of COMMONS Octo. 10. 1666. AMOS IV. XI I have overthrown some of you as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and ye were as a firebrand pluckt out of the burning yet have ye not returned unto me saith the Lord. IT is but a very little time since you met together in this place to lament the remainders of a raging pestilence which the last year destroyed so many thousand inhabitants of the late great and famous City and now God hath given us another sad occasion for our faâ—â—â—ng and humiliation by suffering a devouring fire to break forth and consume so many of her habitations As though the infected air had been too kind and partial and like Saul to the Amalekites had only destroyed the vile and refuse and spared the greatest of the people as though the grave had surfeited with the bodies of the dead and were loth to go on in the execution of Gods displeasure he hath imployed a more furious Element which by its merciless and devouring flames might in a more lively manner represent unto us the kindling of his wrath against us And that by a Fire which began with that violence and spread with that horror and raged with that sury and continued for so long a time with that irresistible force that it might justly fill the beholders with confusion the hearers of it with amasement and all of us with a deep and humble sense of those sins which have brought down the judgements of God in so severe a manner in the midst of us For whatever arguments or reasons we can imagine that should compose the minds of men to a sense of their own or others calamities or excite them to an apprehension of the wrath of God as the cause of them or quicken them to an earnest supplication to him for mercy they do all eminently concurr in the sad occasion of this daies solemnity For if either compassion would move or fear awaken or interest engage us to any of these it is hard to conceive there should be an instance of a more efficacious nature than that is which we this day bewail For who can behold the ruines of so great a City and not have his bowels of compassion moved towards it Who can have any sense of the anger of God discovered in it and not have his fear awakened by it Who can as we ought all look upon it as a judgement of universal influence on the whole Nation and not think himself concerned to implore the mercy of Heaven towards us For certainly howsoever we may vainly flatter and deceive our selves these are no common indications of the frowns of Heaven nor are they meeâ—ly intended as the expressions of Gods severity towards that City which hath suffered so much by them but the stroaks which fall upon the head though they light upon that only are designed for the punishment of the whole body Were there nothing else but a bare permission of Divine Providence as to these things we could not reasonably think but that God must needs be very angry with us when he suffers two such dreadful calamities to tread almost upon each others heels that no sooner had death taken away such multitudes of our Inhabitants but a Fire follows it to consume our habitations A Fire so dreadful in its appearance in its rage and fury and in all the dismal consequences of it which we cannot yet be sufficiently apprehensive of that on that very account we may justly lie down in our shame and our confusion cover us because God hath Covered the daughter of Sion with a cloud in his anger and cast down from Heaven to earth the beauty of Israel and remembred not his footstool in the day of his anger For such was the violence and fury of the flames that they have not only defaced the beauty of the City and humbled the pride and grandeur of it not only stained its glory and consumed its Palaces but have made the Houses of God themselves a heap of ruines and a spectacle of desolation And what then can we propose to our selves as arguments of Gods severe displeasure against us which we have not either already felt or have just cause to fear are coming upon us without a speedy and sincere amendment If a Sword abroad and Pestilence at home if Fire in our Houses and Death in our Streets if Foreign Wars and Domestick Factions if a languishing State and a discontented People if the ruines of the City and poverty of the Country may make us sensible how sad our condition at present is how much worse it may be if God in his mercy prevent it not we shall all
world that cannot over-reach his Brother and not be discovered or however in the multiplicity and obscurity of our Laws cannot find out something in pretence at least to justifie his actions by But if appeal be made to the Courts of Iudicature what arts are then used either for concealing or hiring witnesses so that if their Purses be not equal the adverse party may overswear him by so much as his Purse is weightier than the others I heartily wish it may never be said of us what the Orator once said of the Greeks Quibus jusjurandum jocus testimonium ludus they made it a matter of jest and drollery to forswear themselves and give false testimonies But supposing men keep within the bounds of justice and common honesty yet how unsatiable are the desires of men they are for adding house to house and land to land never contented with what either their Ancestors have left them or the bountiful hand of Heaven hath bestowed upon them Till at last it may be in the Prophets expression for their covetousness the stone cry out of the wall and the beam out of the timber answer it i. e. provoke God to give a severe check to the exorbitant and boundless desires of men as he hath done by this days calamity Thus while the City thought with Babylon to sit as a Lady for ever while she dwelt carelsly and said I am and there is none else beside me evil is come upon her and she knows not from whence it comes and mischief is fallen upon her and she hath not been able to put it off and desolation is come upon her suddenly which she did not foresee 3. Contempt of God and his Laws That we read of v. 4. where the Prophet speaks by an Irony to them Come to Bethel and transgress c. he knew well enough they were resolved to do it let God or the Prophet say what they pleased For these Kine of Bashan were all for the Calves of Dan and Bethel and some think that is the reason of the title that is given them These great men of Samaria thought it beneath them to own Religion any further than it was subservient to their civil interests They were all of Ieroboams Religion who looked on it as a meer politick thing and fit to advance his own designs by I am afraid there are too many at this day who are secretly of his mind and think it a piece of wisdom to be so Blessed God that men should be so wise to deceive themselves and go down with so much discretion to Hell These are the Grave and retired Atheists who though they secretly love not Religion yet their caution hinders them from talking much against it But there is a sort of men much more common than the other the faculties of whose minds are so thin and aiery that they will not bear the consideration of any thing much less of Religion these throw out their bitter scoffs and prophane jests against it A thing never permitted that I know of in any civilized Nation in the world whatsoever their Religion was the reputation of Religion was always preserved sacred God himself saith Iosephus would not suffer the Iews to speak evil of other Gods though they were to destroy all those who tempted them to the worship of them And shall we suffer the most excellent and reasonable Religion in the world viz. the Christian to be profaned by the unhallowed mouths of any who will venture to be damned to be accounted witty If their enquiries were deeper their reason stronger or their arguments more perswasive than of those who have made it their utmost care and business to search into these things they ought to be allowed a fair hearing but for men who pretend to none of these things yet still to make Religion the object of their scoffs and raillery doth not become the gravity of a Nation professing wisdom to permit it muche less the sobriety of a people professing Christianity In the mean time such persons may know that wise men may be argued out of a Religion they own but none but Fools and mad men will be droll'd out of it Let them first try whether they can laugh men out of their Estates before they attempt to do it out of their hopes of an Eternal happiness And I am sure it will be no comfort to them in another world that they were accounted Wits for deriding those miseries which they then feel and smart under the severity of it will be no mitigation of their flames that they go laughing into them nor will they endure them the better because they would not believe them But while this is so prevailing a humour among the vain men of this Age and Nation what can we expect but that God should by remarkable and severe judgements seek to make men more serious in Religion or else make their hearts to ake and their joints to tremble as he did Belshazzars when he could find nothing else to carouse in but the Vessels of the Temple And when men said in the Prophet Zephany chap. 1. 12. that God neither did good nor evil presently it follows therefore their goods shall become a booty and their houses a desolation the day of the Lord is near a day of wrath a day of trouble and distress a day of wastness and desolation as it is with us at this time Thus we see how sad the parallel hath been not only in the judgements of Israel but in the sins likewise which have made those judgements so severe 4. The severity of the Judgement appears not only from the Causes but from the Author of it I have overthrown some of you as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah God challenges the execution of his Justice to himself not only in the great day but in his judgement here in the world Shall there be evil in a City and the Lord hath not done it When God is pleased to punish men for their sins the excution of his justice is agreeable to his nature now as it will be at the end of the world We all know that he may do it if he please and he hath told us that he doth and will do it and we know withal that without such remarkable severities the world will hardly be kept in any awe of him We do not find that Love doth so much in the World as Fear doth there being so very few persons of tractable and ingenuous spirits It is true of too many what Lactantius observes of the Romans Nunquam Dei meminerunt nisi dum in malis sunt they seldom think of God but when they are afraid of him And there is not only this reason as to particular persons why God should punish them but there is a greater as to Communities and Bodies of men for although God suffers wicked men to escape punishment here as he
commanded the power of Heaven When God of a sudden like one highly provoked drew forth the sword of his destroying Angel and by it cut off so many thousands in the midst of us Then we fell upon our knees and begg'd the mercy of Heaven that our Lives might be spared that we might have time to amend them but no sooner did our fears abate but our devotion did so too we had soon forgotten the promises we made in the day of our distress and I am afraid it is at this day too true of us which is said in the Revelations of those who had escaped the several plagues which so many had been destroyed by And the rest of the men which were not killed by these Plagues yet repented not of the work of their bands For if we had not greedily suckt in again the poyson we had only laid down while we were begging for our lives if we had not returned with as great fury and violence as ever to our former lusts the removing of one judgement had not been as it were only to make way for the coming on of another For the grave seemed to close up her mouth and death by degrees to withdraw himself that the Fire might come upon the Stage to act its part too in the Tragoedy our sins have made among us and I pray God this may be the last Act of it Let us not then provoke God to find out new methods of vengeance and make experiments upon us of what other unheard of severities may do for our cure But let us rather meet God now by our repentance and returning to him by our serious humiliation for our former sins and our stedfast resolutions to return no more to the practice of them That that much more dangerous infection of our souls may be cured as well as that of our bodies that the impure flames which burn within may be extinguished that all our luxuries may be retrenched our debaucheries punished our vanities taken away our careless indifferency in Religion turned into a greater seriousness both in the profession and the practice of it So will God make us a happy and prosperous when he finds us a more righteous and holy Nation So will God succeed all your endeavours for the honour and interest of that people whom you represent So may he add that other Title to the rest of those you have deserved for your Countries good to make you Repairers of the breaches of the City as well as of the Nation and Restorers of paths to dwell in So may that City which now sits solitary like a Widow have her tears wiped off and her beauty and comeliness restored unto her Yea so may her present ruines in which she now lies buried be only the fore-runners of a more joyful resurrection In which though the body may remain the same the qualities may be so altered that its present desolation may be only the putting off its former inconveniences weakness and deformities that it may rise with greater glory strength and proportion and to all her other qualities may that of incorruption be added too at least till the general Conflagration And I know your great Wisdom and Iustice will take care that those who have suffered by the ruines may not likewise suffer by the rising of it that the glory of the City may not be laid upon the tears of the Orphans and Widows but that its foundations may be setled upon Justice and Piety That there be no complaining in the Streets for want of Righteousness nor in the City for want of Churches nor in the Churches for want of a settled maintenance That those who attend upon the service of God in them may never be tempted to betray their Consciences to gain a livelihood nor to comply with the factions humours of men that they may be able to live among them And thus when the City through the blessing of Heaven shall be built again may it be a Habitation of Holiness towards God of Loyalty towards our Gratious King and his Successors of Iustice and Righteousness towards Men of Sobriety and Peace and Unity among all the Inhabitants till not Cities and Countries only but the world and time it self shall be no more Which God of his infinite mercy grant through the merits and mediation of his Son to whom with the Father and Eternal Spirit be all Honour and Glory for evermore SERMON II. Preached before the KING MARCH 13. 1665 9. PROV XIV IX Fools make a mock at Sin WHEN God by his infinite Wisdom had contrived and by a power and goodness as infinite as his Wisdom had perfected the creation of the visible world there seemed to be nothing wanting to the glory of it but a creature endued with reason and understanding which might comprehend the design of his wisdom enjoy the benefits of his goodness and employ it self in the celebration of his power The Beings purely intellectual were too highly raised by their own order and creation to be the Lords of this inferiour world and those whose natures could reach no higher than the objects of sense were not capable of discovering the glorious perfections of the great Creator and therefore could not be the fit Instruments of his praise and service But a conjunction of both these together was thought necessary to make up such a sort of being which might at once command this lower world and be the servants of him who made it Not as though this great fabrick of the world were meerly raised for man to please his fancy in the contemplation of it or to exercise his dominion over the creatures designed for his use and service but that by frequent reflections on the author of his being and the effects of his power and goodness he might be brought to the greatest love and admiration of him So that the most natural part of Religion lyes in the grateful acknowledgements we owe to that excellent and supream Being who hath shewed so particular a kindness to man in the creation and Government of the world Which was so great and unexpressible that some have thought it was not so much pride and affectation of a greater height as envy at the felicity and power of mankind which was the occasion of the fall of the Apostate spirits But whether or no the state of man were occasion enough for the envy of the Spirits above we are sure the kindness of Heaven was so great in it as could not but lay an indispensable obligation on all mankind to perpetual gratitude and obedience For it is as easie to suppose that affronts and injuries are the most suitable returns for the most obliging favours that the first duty of a Child should be to destroy his Parents that to be thankful for kindnesses received were to commit the unpardonable sin as that man should receive his being and all
the blessings which attend it from God and not be bound to the most universal obedience to him And as the reflection on the author of his being leads him to the acknowledgement of his duty towards God so the consideration of the design of it will more easily acquaint him with the nature of that duty which is expected from him Had man been designed only to act a short part here in the world all that had been required of him had been only to express his thankfulness to God for his being and the comforts of it the using all means for the due preservation of himself the doing nothing beneath the dignity of humane nature nothing injurious to those who were of the same nature with himself but since he is designed for greater and nobler ends and his present state is but a state of tryal in order to future happiness and misery the reason of good and evil is not to be taken meerly from his present but from the respect which things have to that eternal state he is designed for From whence it follows that the differences of good and evil are rooted in the nature of our beings and are the necessary consequents of our relation to God and each other and our expectations of a future life And therefore according to these measures the estimation of men in the world hath been while they did preserve any veneration for God or themselves Wisdom and folly was not measured so much by the subtilty and curiosity of mens speculations by the fineness of their thoughts or the depth of their designs as by their endeavours to uphold the dignity of mankind by their piety and devotion towards God by their sobriety and due Government of their actions by the equality and justice the charity and kindness of their dealings to one another Wisdom was but another name for goodness and folly for sin then it was a mans glory to be religious and to be prophane and vitious was to be base and mean then there were no Gods worshipped because they were bad nor any men disgraced because they were good Then there were no Temples erected to the meanest passions of humane nature nor men became Idolaters to their own infirmities Then to be betrayed into sin was accounted weakness to contrive it dishonour and baseness to justifie and defend it infamy and reproach to make a mock at it a mark of the highest folly and incorrigibleness So the Wise man in the words of the Text assures us that they are Fools and those of the highest rank and degree of folly who make a mock at sin It is well for us in the Age we live in that we have the judgement of former ages to appeal to and of those persons in them whose reputation for wisdom is yet unquestionable For otherwise we might be born down by that spightful enemy to all vertue and goodness the impudence of such who it is hard to say whether they shew it more in committing sin or in defending it Men whose manners are so bad that scarce any thing can be imagined worse unless it be the wit they use to excuse them with Such who take the measure of mans perfections downwards and the nearer they approach to beasts the more they think themselves to act like men No wonder then if among such as these the differences of good and evil be laughed at and no sin be thought so unpardonable as the thinking that there is any at all Nay the utmost they will allow in the description of Sin is that it is a thing that some live by declaiming against and others cannot live without the practice of But is the Chair of Scorners at last proved the only chair of Infallibility Must those be the standard of mankind who seem to have little left of humane nature but laughter and the shape of men Do they think that we are all become such fools to take scoffs for arguments and raillery for demonstrations He knows nothing at all of goodness that knows not that it is much more easie to laugh at it than to practise it and it were worth the while to make a mock at sin if the doing so would make nothing of it But the nature of things does not vary with the humours of men sin becomes not at all the less dangerous because men have so little Wit to think it so nor Religion the less excellent and advantagious to the world because the greatest enemies of that are so much to themselves too that they have learnt to despise it But although that scorns to be defended by such weapons whereby her enemies assault her nothing more unbecoming the Majesty of Religion than to make it self cheap by making others laugh yet if they can but obtain so much of themselves to attend with patience to what is serious there may be yet a possibility of perswading them that no fools are so great as those who laugh themselves into misery and none so certainly do so as those who make a mock at sin But if our authority be too mean and contemptible to be relyed on in a matter wherein they think us so much concerned and so I hope we are to prevent the ruine of mens souls we dare with confidence appeal to the general sense of mankind in the matter of our present debate Let them name but any one person in all the monuments of former ages to whom but the bare suspicion of Vice was not a diminution to an esteem that might otherwise have been great in the world And if the bare suspicion would do so much among even the more rude and barbarous Nations what would open and professed wickedness do among the more knowing and civil Humane nature retains an abhorrency of sin so far that it is impossible for men to have the same esteem of those who are given over to all manner of wickedness though otherwise of great sharpness of wit and of such whose natural abilities may not exceed the other but yet do govern their actions according to the strict rules of Religion and Vertue And the general sense of mankind cannot be by any thing better known than by an universal consent of men as to the ways whereby they express their value and esteem of others What they all agree on as the best character of a person worthy to be loved and honoured we may well think is the most agreeable to humane nature and what is universally thought a disparagement to the highest accomplishments ought to be looked on as the disgrace and imperfection of it Did ever any yet though never so wicked and prosane themselves seriously commend another person for his rudeness and debaucheries Was any mans lust or intemperance ever reckoned among the Titles of his honour Who ever yet raised Trophies to his vices or thought to perpetuate his memory by the glory of them Where was it ever known that sobriety and
reason to disobey when there is an apprehension that may make more for his advantage But when the reason of obedience is derived from the concernments of another life no hopes of interest in this world can be thought to ballance the loss which may come by such a breach of duty in that to come So that no persons do so dangerously undermine the foundations of civil Government as those who magnifie that to the contempt of Religion none so effectually secure them as those who give to God the things that are Gods and by doing so are obliged to give to Caesar the things that are Caesars This was the Doctrine of Christianity as it was delivered by the first author of it and the practice was agreeable as long as Christianity preserved its primitive honour in the world For so far were men then from making their zeal for Religion a pretence to rebellion that though Christianity were directly contrary to the Religions then in vogue in the world yet they knew of no other way of promoting it but by patience humility meekness prayers for their persecutors and tears when they saw them obstinate So far were they then from somenting suspicions and jealousies concerning the Princes and Governours they lived under that though they were generally known to be some of the worst of men as well as of Princes yet they charge all Christians in the strictest manner as they loved their Religion and the honour of it as they valued their souls and the salvation of them that they should be subject to them So far were they then from giving the least encouragement to the usurpations of the rights of Princes undeâ— the pretence of any power given to a head of the Church that there is no way for any to think they meant it unless we suppose the Apostles such mighty Politicians that it is because they say nothing at all of it but on the contrary bid every soul be subject to the higher powers though an Apostle Evangelist Prophet whatever he be as the Fathers interpret it Yea so constant and uniform was the doctrine and practice of Obedience in all the first and purest ages of the Christian Church that no one instance can be produced of any usurpation of the rights of Princes under the pretence of any title from Christ or any disobedience to their authority under the pretence of promoting Christianity through all those times wherein Christianity the most flourished or the Christians were the most persecuted And happy had it been for us in these last ages of the World if we had been Christians on the same terms which they were in the Primitive times then there had been no such scandals raised by the degeneracy of men upon the most excellent and peaceable Religion in the world as though that were unquiet and troublesom because so many have been so who have made shew of it But let their pretences be never so great to Infallibility on one side and to the Spirit on the other so far as men encourage faction and disobedience so far they have not the Spirit of Christ and Christianity and therefore are none of his For he shewed his great wisdom in contriving such a method of saving mens souls in another world as tended most to the preservation of the peace and quietness of this and though this wisdom may be evil spoken of by men of restless and unpeaceable minds yet I will be still justified by all who have heartily embraced the Wisdom which is from above who are pure and peaceable as that Wisdom is and such and only such are the Children of it 3. I come to shew That the design of Christs appearance was very agreeable to the infinite Wisdom of God and that the means were very suitable and effectual for carrying on of that design for the reformation of Mankind 1. That the design it self was very agreeable to the infinite Wisdom of God What could we imagine more becoming the Wisdom of God than to contrive a way for the recovery of lapsed and degenerate Mankind who more fit to employ upon such a message as this than the Son of God for his coming gives the greatest assurance to the minds of men that God was serious in the management of this design than which nothing could be of greater importance in order to the success of it And how was it possible he should give a greater testimony of himself and withal of the purpose he came about than he did when he was in the world The accomplishment of Prophesies and power of Miracles shewed who he was the nature of his Doctrine the manner of his Conversation the greatness of his Sufferings shewed what his design was in appearing among men for they were all managed with a peculiar respect to the convincing mankind that God was upon terms of mercy with them and had therefore sent his Son into the world that he might not only obtain the pardon of sin for those who repent but eternal life for all them that obey him And what is there now we can imagine so great and desireable as this for God to manifest his wisdom in It is true we see a great discovery of it in the works of Nature and might do in the methods of Divine Providence if partiality and interest did not blind our eyes but both these though great in themselves yet fall short of the contrivance of bringing to an eternal happiness man who had fallen from his Maker and was perishing in his own folly Yet this is that which men in the pride and vanity of their own imaginations either think not worth considering or consider as little as if they thought so and in the mean time think themselves very wise too The Iews had the wisdom of their Traditions which they gloried in and despised the Son of God himself when he came to alter them The Greeks had the wisdom of their Philosophy which they so passionately admired that whatever did not agree with that though infinitely more certain and useful was on that account rejected by them The Romans after the conquest of so great a part of the World were grown all such Politicians and Statesmen that few of them could have leisure to think of another world who were so busie in the management of this And some of all these sorts do yet remain in the World which makes so many so little think of or admire this infinite discovery of divine Wisdom nay there are some who can mix all these together joyning a Iewish obstinacy with the pride and self-opinion of the Greeks to a Roman unconcernedness about the matters of another life And yet upon a true and just enquiry never any Religion could be found which could more fully satisfie the expectation of the Iews the reason of the Greeks or the wisdom of the Romans than that which was made known by Christ who was the Wisdom of
the world in order to the reformation of it For some very few persons either through the goodness of their natures the advantage of their education or some cause of a higher nature may have led more vertuous lives than others did but it is necessary that what aims at the general good of Mankind must be suited to the capacities of all and enforced with arguments which may prevail on any but the most obstinate and wilful persons But when we consider the state of the World at that time when Christianity was first made known to it we may easily see how insufficient the common Principles of Religion were from working a reformation in it when notwithstanding them mankind was so generally lapsed into Idolatry and Vice that hardly any can be instanced in in the Heathen World who had escaped both of them And there was so near an affinity between both these that they who were ingaged in the rites of their Idolatry could hardly keep themselves free from the intan glements of vice not only because many of their villanies were practised as part of their Religion and there was little hopes certainly of their being good who could not be Religious without being bad but because the very Gods they worship'd were represented to be as bad as themselves And could they take any better measure of Vertue than from the actions of those whom they supposed to have so divine an excellency in them as to deserve their adoration So that if there were a design of planting wickedness in the world which need not be for it grows fast enough without it it could not be done more successfully than by worshipping those for Gods who did such things which good men would abhorr to think of And yet this was the state of the world then when the Gospel was preached and not only of the more rude and barbarous Nations but of the most civilized and knowing people as the Romans themselves as our Apostle at large proves in the remainder of this chapter wherein he shews that though they had means enough of knowing the Eternal God and Providence yet they were so fallen into Idolatry and the most vicious practices that there was no means of recovering them but by a fuller discovery both of the justice and goodness of God I know it will be here objected that though the generality of men were bad then as when were they otherwise yet the Heathens had a kind of Apostles among them viz. the Philosophers who sought to amend the manners of men by the moral instructions they gave them so that if men were bad it was not for want of good counsel but for not observing it which is all they say we have to say for our selves when we are charged with the great debaucheries of the Christian world To which I answer That our business is not now to enquire whether there hath not been an incomparably greater advantage to the world by Christianity in the reforming mens lives than ever was by any of the Heathen Morals but whether these taking them in the fairest dress were so sufficient for the bringing men to eternal happiness that there needed not any such Doctrine as Christianity be published for that end And there are two great things we may charge the best of their discourses with an insufficiency in for the accomplishment of this end which are Certainty and Motives or the want of Arguments to believe and Encouragements to practise 1. They were destitute of sufficient certainty for what a man ventures his eternal state upon he ought to be well assured of the truth of it But how was it possible for the World to be reformed by such wise Apostles if they must be called so who were perpetually disputing among themselves about those things which were the most necessary foundations of all Vertue and Religion As though the best Arguments they had to prove their Souls immortal was because their disputes about them were so And those seemed among them to gain the greatest reputation for wit who were best able to dispute against common Principles and they managed their business with greatest advantage who only shewed the weakness of others principles but established none of their own which was an unavoidable consequence of the way they proceeded in for offering at no such way of proof as Christianity doth they rather taught men to dispute than to live eternally Besides their discourses were too subtile and intricate for the common capacities of men how long might a man live before an Entelechia would make him know the nature of his soul the better or an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 perswade him to believe its immortality Insomuch that it is hard to determine whether the arguments used by them did not rather hinder assent than perswade to it and it seems probable that the honest minded illiterate Heathens believed those things more firmly than the greatest Philosophers For plain truths lose much of their weight when they are rarified into subtilties and their strength is impaired when they are spun into too fine a thread The arguments which must prevail with Mankind must be plain and evident easie and yet powerful The natural sense of good and evil in men is oft-times dulled by disputes and only awakned by a powerful representation of an infinite being and a future Judgement and that by such a way of proof as all persons are equal Judges of the truth and validity of it such as the Resurrection of Christ is in the Gospel 2. But let us suppose the arguments certain and suitable yet what sufficient motives or encouragements could they give to lead a holy and vertuous life who after all their endeavours to perswade others remained so uncertain themselves as to a future happiness So Tully tells us of Socrates himself when he was just dying That he told his friends that only the Gods knew whether it was fitter for men to live or die but he thought no man did And although some would excuse this as his usual way of disputing yet of all times one would think it was fittest for him then to declare his mind in the most express terms not only for the full vindication of himself but for the comfort and encouragement of his friends We are sure Christianity proceeds on those terms that if a future happiness be supposed uncertain it declares expresly there can be no sufficient reason given for men to part with the conveniencies of this present life nay it supposes the best men to be the most miserable of all others if there be not a future reward 1 Cor. 15. 19. 32. Again what probability was there they should ever perswade the World to vertue and goodness when the severest of the Philisophers made it lye in things so repugnant to humane nature as goodness is agreeable to it As when they made it an equal fault for a man to be angry and to murder
continuing their lives and making them miserable but let them live and they will sin yet further must it be by utterly destroying them that to persons who might have time to sin the mean while supposing annibilation were all to be fear'd would never have power enough to deterr men from the height of their wickedness So that nothing but the misery of a life to come can be of force enough to make men fear God and regard themselves and this is that which the Gospel threatens to those that neglect their salvation which it sometimes calls everlasting fire sometimes the Worm that never dies sometimes the wrath to come sometimes everlasting destruction all enough to fill the minds of men with horror at the apprehension and what then will the undergoing it do Thence our Saviour reasonably bids men not fear them that can only kill the body but are not able to kill the soul but rather fear him which is able to destroy both body and soul in hell Thus the Gospel suggests the most proper object of fear to keep men from sin and as it doth that so it presents likewise the most desireable object of hope to encourage men to be good which is no less than a happiness that is easier to hope to enjoy than to comprehend a happiness infinitely above the most ambitious hopes and glories of this world wherein greatness is added to glory weight to greatness and eternity to them all therefore call'd a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory Wherein the Joys shall be full and constant the perception clear and undisturbed the fruition with continual delight and continual desire Where there shall be no fears to disquiet no enemies to allarm no dangers to conquer nothing shall then be but an uninterrupted peace an unexpressible Joy and pleasures for evermore And what could be ever imagined more satisfactory to minds tired out with the vanities of this world than such a repose as that is What more agreeable to the minds and desires of good men than to be eased of this clog of flesh and to spend eternity with the fountain of all goodness and the spirits of just men made perfect What more ravishing delight to the souls that are purged and made glorious by the blood of the Lamb than to be singing Hallelujahs to him that sits upon the Throne and to the Lamb for ever and ever How poor and low things are those which men hope for in this world compared with that great salvation which the Gospel makes so free a tender of What a mean thing is it to be great in this world to be honourable and rich i. e. to be made the object of the envy of some the malice of others and at last it may be an instance of this worlds vanity and after all this to be for ever miserable But O the wisdom of a well-chosen happiness that carries a man with contentment and peace through this life and at last rewards him with a Crown of everlasting felicity Thus we see the Gospel proposes the most excellent means to make men happy if they be not guilty of a gross neglect of it and if they be that is their own act and they must thank none but themselves if they be miserable 2. But I pray what reason can be given since God is so tender of our happiness that we should neglect it our selves which is the next thing to be spoken to There are three sorts of things we think we have reason to neglect Such as are too mean and unworthy our care such as are so uncertain that they will not recompence it such as our own Interest is not at all concerned in but I hope there are none who have an immortal soul and the use of their understandings can ever reckon their salvation under one of these 1. Is it too mean an employment for you to mind the matters of your eternal welfare Is Religion a beggarly and contemptible thing that it doth not become the greatness of your minds to stoop to take any notice of it Hath God lost his honour so much with you that his service should be the object of mens scorn and contempt But what is it which these brave spirits think a fit employment for themselves while they despise God and his Worship Is it to be curiously dressed and make a fine shew to think the time better spent at the Glass than at their Devotions These indeed are weighty imployments and fit in the first place to be minded if we were made only to be gazed upon Is it meerly to see Plays and read Romances and to be great admirers of that vain and frothy discourse which all persons account wit but those which have it This is such an end of mans life which no Philosopher ever thought of Or is it to spend time in excesses and debaucheries and to be slaves to as many lusts as will command them This were something indeed if we had any other name given us but that of Men. Or lastly is it to have their minds taken up with the great affairs of the World to be wise in considering careful in managing the publick interest of a Nation This is an employment I grant fit for the greatest minds but not such which need at all to take them off from minding their eternal salvation For the greatest wisdom is consistent with that else Religion would be accounted folly and I take it for granted that it is never the truly wise man but the pretender that entertains any mean thoughts of Religion And such a one uses the publick Interest no better than he doth Religion only for a shew to the world that he may carry on his own designs the better And is this really such a valuable thing for a man to be contented to cheat himself of his eternal happiness that he may be able to cheat the world and abuse his trust I appeal then to the Consciences of all such who have any sense of humanity and the common interest of mankind setting aside the considerations of a life to come whether to be just and sober vertuous and good be not more suitable to the design of humane Nature than all the vanities and excesses all the little arts and designs which men are apt to please themselves with And if so shall the eternal happiness which follows upon being good make it less desireable to be so No surely but if God had required any thing to make us happy which had been as contrary to our present Interest as the Precepts of Christianity are agreeable to it yet the end would have made the severest commands easie and those things pleasant which tend to make us happy 2. Are these things so uncertain that they are not fit for a wise man to be solicitous about them if they will come with a little care they will say they are destreable
but too much will unfit them for greater business But do men believe these things to be true or not when they say thus if they be true why need they fear their uncertainty if they be certain what pains and care can be too great about them since a little will never serve to obtain them Let but the care and diligence be proportionable to the greatness of the end and the weight of the things and you never need fear the want of a recompence for all your labour But suppose you say if you were fully convinced of their certainty you would look more after them What hinders you from being so convinced Is it not a bad disposition of mind which makes you unwilling to enquire into them examine things with a mind as free as you would have it judge seriously according to the reason of things and you will easily find the interests of a life to come are far more certain as well as more desireable than those of this present life And yet the great uncertainty of all the honours and riches of this world never hinder the covetous or ambitious person from their great earnestness in pursuit of them And shall not then all the mighty arguments which God himself hath made use of to confirm to us the certainty of a life to come prevail upon us to look more seriously after it Shâ—ll the unexpressible love of the Father the unconceiveable sufferings of the Son of God and the miraculous descent and powerful assistance of the Holy Ghost have no more impression on our minds than to leave us uncertain of a future state What mighty doubts and suspicions of God what distrusts of humane Nature what unspeakable ingratitude and unaccountable folly lies at the bottom of all this uncertainty O fools and slow of heart to believe not only what the Prophets have spoken but what our Lord hath declared God himself hath given testimony to and the Holy Ghost hath confirmed 3. But is not your Interest concerned in these things Is it all one to you whether your souls be immortal or no whether they live in eternal felicity or unchangeable misery Is it no more to you than to know what kind of Bables are in request at the Indies or whether the customs of China or Iapan are the wiser i. e. than the most trifling things and the remotest from our knowledge But this is so absurd and unreasonable to suppose that men should not think themselves concerned in their own eternal happiness and misery that I shall not shew so much distrust of their understandings to speak any longer to it 3. But if notwithstanding all these things our neglect still continues then there remains nothing but a fearful looking for of judgement and the fiery indignation of God For there is no possibility of escaping if we continue to neglect so great salvation All hopes of escaping are taken away which are only in that which men neglect and those who neglect their only way to salvation must needs be miserable How can that man ever hope to be saved by him whose blood he despises and tramples under foot What grace and favour can he expect from God who hath done despight unto the Spirit of Grace That hath cast away with reproach and contempt the greatest kindness and offers of Heaven What can save him that resolves to be damned and every one does so who knows he shall be damned if he lives in his sins and yet continues to do so God himself in whose only pity our hopes are hath irreversibly decreed that he will have no pity upon those who despise his goodness slight his threatnings abuse his patience and sin the more because he offers to pardon It is not any â—elight that God takes in the miseries of his Creatures which makes him punish them but shall not God vindicate his own honour against obstinate and impenitent sinners He declares before hand that he is far from delighting in their ruine and that is the reason he hath made such large offers and used so many means to make them happy but if men resolve to despise his offers and slight the means of their salvation shall not God be just without being thought to be cruel And we may assure our selves none shall ever suffer beyond the just desert of their sins for punishment as the Apostle tells us in the words before the Text is nothing but a just recompence of reward And if there were such a one proportionable to the violation of the Law delivered by Angels how shall we think to escape who neglect a more excellent means of happiness which was delivered by our Lord himself If God did not hate sin and there were not a punishment belonging to it why did the Son of God die for the expiation of it and if his death were the only means of expiation how is it possible that those who neglect that should escape the punishment not only of their other sins but of that great contempt of the means of our salvation by him Let us not then think to trifle with God as though it were impossible a Being so merciful and kind should ever punish his Creatures with the miseries of another life For however we may deceive our selves God will not be mocked for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he reap for he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flâ—sh reap corruption but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting I shall only propound some few Considerations to prevent so great a neglect as that of your salvation is 1. Consider what it is you neglect the offer of Eternal Happiness the greatest kindness that ever was expressed to the World the foundation of your present peace the end of your beings the stay of your minds the great desire of your Souls the utmost felicity that humane Nature is capable of Is it nothing to neglect the favour of a Prince the kindness of Great Men the offers of a large and plentiful Estate but these are nothing to the neglect of the favour of God the love of his Son and that salvation which he hath purchased for you Nay it is not a bare neglect but it implies in it a mighty contempt not only of the things offered but of the kindness of him who offers them If men had any due regard for God or themselves if they had any esteem for his love or their own welfare they would be much more serious in Religion than they are When I see a person wholly immersed in affairs of the World or spending his time in luxury and vanity can I possibly think that man hath any esteem of God or of his own Soul When I find one very serious in the pursuit of his Designs in the World thoughtful and busie subtle in contriving them careful in managing them but very formal remiss and negligent in all affairs
excellent a Religion If any malice and revenge any humour and peevishness any pride or hypocrisie any sensuality and voluptuousness any injustice or too much love of gain have made others despise that Religion which so many pretend to and so few practise If we have been in any measure guilty of this as we love our Religion and the honour of our Saviour let us endeavour by the holiness and meekness of our spirits the temperance and justice of our actions the patience and contentedness of our minds to recover the honour of that Religion which only can make us happy and our Posterity after us 2. What Encouragement we have from the sufferings of Christ to bear our own the better because we see by his example that God deals no more hardly with us than he did with his own Son if he laies heavy things upon us Why should we think to escape when his own Son underwent so much if we meet with reproaches and ill usage with hard measure and a mean condition with injuries and violence with mockings and affronts nay with a shameful and a painful death what cause have we to complain for did not the Son of God undergo all these things before us If any of your Habitations have been consumed that you have been put to your shifts where to lodge your selves or your Families consider that though the Foxes have holes and the Birds of the Air have nests yet the Son of Man had not whereon to lay his head If your condition be mean and low think of him who being in the form of God took upon him the form of a servant and though he was rich yet for your sakes he became poor that through his poverty ye might be made rich If you are unjustly defamed and reproached consider what contumelies and disgraces the Son of God underwent for you If you are in pain and trouble think of his Agony and bloody sweat the nailing of his hands and feet to the Cross to be a sacrifice for the expiation of your sins Never think much of undergoing any thing whereby you may be conformable to the Image of the Son of God knowing this that if ye suffer with him ye shall also be glorified together And you have never yet set a true estimate and value upon things if you reckon the sufferings of this present life worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed Which Glory ought always to bear up our minds under our greatest afflictions here and the thoughts of that will easily bring us to the thoughts of his sufferings who by his own blood purchased an eternal redemption for us Therefore consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself lest ye be weary and faint in your minds SERMON VII Preached before the KING JANUARY 30. 1668 9. JUDE V. II. And perished in the gainsaying of Corah AMong all the dismal consequences of that fatal day wherein the Honour of our Nation suffered together with our Martyr'd Soveraign there is none which in this Place we ought to be more concerned for than the Dishonour which was done to Religion by it For if those things which were then acted among us had been done among the most rude and barbarous Nations though that had been enough to have made them for ever thought so yet they might have been imputed to their ignorance in matters of Civility and Religion but when they were committed not only by men who were called Christians but under a pretence of a mighty zeal for their Religion too men will either think that Religion had which did give encouragement to such actions or those persons extremely wicked who could make use of a pretence of it for things so contrary to its nature and design And on which of these two the blame will fall may be soon discovered when we consider that the Christian Religion above all others hath taken care to preserve the Rights of Soveraignty by giving unto Caesar the things that are Caesars and to make resistance unlawful by declaring that those who are guilty of it shall receive to themselves damnation But as though bare resistance had been too mean and low a thing for them notwithstanding what Christ and his Apostles had said to shew themselves to be Christians of a higher rank than others they imbrue their hands in the blood of their Soveraign for a demonstration of their Piety by the same figure by which they had destroyed mens Rights to defend their Liberties and fought against the King for preservation of his Person But the actions of such men could not have been so bad as they were unless their pretences had been so great for there can be no higher aggravation of a wicked action than for men to seem to be Religious in the doing of it If the Devil himself were to preach sedition to the world he would never appear otherwise than as an Angel of Light his pretence would be Unity when he designed the greatest Divisions and the preservation of Authority when he laid the seeds of Rebellion But we might as well imagine that the God of this world as the Devil is sometime called should advance nothing but Peace and Holiness in it as that Christianity should give the least countenance to what is contrary to either of them Yet the wickedness of men hath been so great upon earth as to call down Heaven it self to justifie their impieties and when they have found themselves unable to bear the burden of them they would sain make Religion do it Such as these we have a description of in this short but smart Epistle viz. men who pretended inspirations and impulses for the greatest villanies who believed it a part of their Saintship to despise Dominions and speak evil of Dignities who thought the Grace of God signified very little unless it served to justifie their most wicked actions These in all probability were the followers of Simon Magus the Leviathan of the Primitive Church who destroyed all the natural differences of good and evil and made it lawful for men in case of persecution to forswear their Religion The great part of his Doctrine being that his Disciples need not be afraid of the terrours of the Law for they were free to do what they pleased themselves because Salvation was not to be expected by good works but only by the Grace of God No wonder then that such as these did turn the Grace of God into lasciviousness And when it proved dangerous not to do it would deny their Religion to save themselves For they had so high opinions of themselves that they were the only Saints that as Epiphanius tells us they thought it the casting Pearls before Swine to expose themselves to danger before the Heathen Governours by which they not only discovered what a mighty
as is here mentioned 1. That the things attributed to the Apostles could not arise from any meerly natural causes It is not my present business to prove the truth of the matters of fact viz. that the Apostles did those things which were accounted miracles by those who saw them or heard of them and that on the day of Pentecost they did speak with strange tongues for these things are so universally attested by the most competent witnesses viz. persons of the same age whose testimony we can have no reason to suspect and not only by those who were the friends to this Religion but the greatest enemies Jews and Heathens and by all the utmost endeavors of Atheistical men who have not set themselves to disprove the testimony but the consequence of it by saying that granting them true they do not infer the concurrence of a divine spirit that on the same grounds any person would Question the truth of these things he must question the truth of some other things which himself believes on the same or weaker grounds than these are Supposing then the matters of fact to be true we now enquire whether these things might proceed from any meerly natural causes which will be the best done by examining the most plausible accounts which are pretended to be given of them And thus some have had the confidence to say that whatever is said to be done by the power of miracles in the Apostles might be effected by a natural temperament of body or the great power of imagination and that their speaking with strange tongues might be the effect only of a natural Enthusiasm or some distemper of brain 1. That the power of miracles might be nothing but a natural temperament or the strength of imagination 1. An excellent natural temper of body they say may do strange and wonderful things so that such a one who hath an exact temperament may walk upon the waters stand in the air and quench the violence of the fire and by a strange kind of sanative contagion may communicate healthful spirits as persons that are infected do noisom and pestilential These are things spoken with as much ease and as little reason as any of the calumnies against Religion which are so boldly uttered by men who dare speak any thing as to these things but reason and do any thing but what is good 1. But can these men after all their confidence produce any one person in the world who by the exquisiteness of his natural temper hath ever walked upon the waters or poised himself in the air or kept himself from being singed in the fire If these things be natural how comes it to pass that no other instances can be given but such as we urge for miraculous We say indeed that Christ walked on the Sea but withal we say this was an argument of that divine power in him which as Iob saith alone spreadeth out the heavens and treadeth upon the waves of the Sea We say that Elijah was carried up into Heaven by a Chariot of fire and a whirlewind but it was only by his power who maketh the winds his messengers and flames of fire his Ministers as some render those words of the Psalmist We say that the three Children were preserved in the fiery fornace that they had no hurt and even Nebuchadnezzar was hereby convinced that he was the true God which was able to preserve his servants from the force of that devouring element which was therefore so much worshipped by those Eastern people because it destroyed not only the men but the Gods of other nations But is this enough to satisfie any reasonable men that these things were done by natural causes because they were done at all For that is to suppose it impossible there should be miracles which is to say it is impossible there should he a God which is an attempt somewhat beyond what the most impudent Atheists pretended But in this case nothing can be reasonably urged but common experience to the contrary if these were things which were usually done by other causes there would be no reason to pretend a miraculous power but we say it is impossible that such things should be produced by meer natural causes and in this case there can be no confutation but by contrary experience As we see the opinion of the Ancients concerning the uninhabitableness of the the torrid Zone and that there were no Antipodes are disproved by the manifest experience to the contrary of all modern discoverers Let such plain experience be produced and we shall then yield the possibility of the things by some natural causes although not by such an exact temperament of body which is only an instance of the strong power of imagination in those who think so whatever that may have on others Such a temperament of body as these persons imagine considering the great inequality of the mixture of the earthy and aërial parts in us being it may be as great a miracle it self as any they would disprove by it 2. But supposing such a temperament of body to be possible how comes it to be so beneficial to others as to propagate its vertue to the cure of diseased persons We may as well think that a great beauty may change a Black by osten viewing him or a skilful Musitian make another so by sitting near him as one man heal another because he is healthful himself Unless we can suppose it in the power of a man to send forth the best spirits of his own body and transfuse them into the body of another but by this means that which must cure another must destroy himself Besides the healthfulness of a person lies much in the freedom of perspiration of all the noxious vapours to the body by which it will appear incredible that a man should preserve his own health by sending out the worst vapors and at the same time cure another by sending out the best 3. Supposing we should grant that a vigorous heat and a strong arm may by a violent friction discuss some tumor of a distempered body yet what would all this signifie to the mighty cures which were wrought so easily and with a word speaking and at such great distance as were by Christ and his Apostles Supposing our Saviour had the most exact natural temper that ever any person in the world had yet what could this do to the cure of a person above twenty miles distance for so our Saviour cured the Son of a Nobleman who lay sick at Capernaum when himself was at Cana in Galilee So at Capernaum he cured the Centurions servant at his own house without going thither Thus we find the Apostles curing though they did not touch them and that not one or two but multitudes of diseased persons And nothing can be more absurd than to imagine that so many men should at the same time
he will not do it when he hath declared that he will is instead of bringing peace to his own mind to set God at variance with himself For nothing can be more plainly revealed more frequently inculcated more earnestly pressed than that there is a day of wrath to come wherein the righteous judgement of God shall be revealed and wherein God will render to every man according to his deeds wherein tribulation and anguish and wrath shall be upon every soul of man that doth evil wherein the secrets of all hearts and actions shall be disclosed when the graves shall be opened and they that have done good shall come forth to the resurrection of life and they that have done evil to the resurrection of damnation For the Lord Iesus himself even he who dyed for the salvation of all penitent sinners shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty Angels in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God and obey not the Gospel of Christ who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and the glory of his power Then shall that dreadful sentence be passed upon all impenitent sinners depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels Which words are so full of horrour and astonishment as might not only disturb the sinners peace and security but awaken him to such a sense of his sins as to loath abhorr and forsake them and thereby flie from the wrath to come 3. But after all this is it possible to suppose that any should think their present pleasures would countervail all the miseries of another life which is the last imaginable foundation for a sinners peace while he continues in his wickedness The most professed Epicureans that ever were made this one of their fundamental maxims that no pleasure was to be chosen which brought after it a pain greater than it self on which account they made temperance and sobriety necessary to a pleasant life because excesses and debaucheries leave far more of burden than of ease behind them But what would these men have said if they had believed the intolerable anguish of a tormented mind the racks of an enraged conscience the fire of everlasting vengeance to be the consequent of all the pleasures of sin they must upon their own principles have concluded that none but madmen and fools would ever venture upon them And that not only because the after pain would so much exceed the present pleasure but because the fears of that pain to come must abate proportionably of the pleasure which might otherwise be enjoyed Suppose a man certainly knew that upon the pleasing his palat with the most excellent wine and gratifying his appetite with the most delicate food he must be racked with the stone and tormented with the Gout as long as he should live can we imagine such a person could have any pleasure in his mind whatever his palat had in the emjoyment of them while he did consider the consequent of them But what are these miseries compared with the insupportable horrour of a conscience loaden with guilt sunk under despair having a gnawing worm and unquenchable flames the wrath of an almighty God and the fury of his vengeance to encounter with without the least hopes of conquering I do not now ask what the sinner will then think of all his Atheism and Infidelity when the greatness of his miserie shall convince him that it is an Almighty hand which lays it upon him nor what pleasure he can have in the thoughts of his former excesses when not one drop can be procured for the mitigation of his flames nor what satisfaction those lusts have given him the very thoughts of which pierce his soul and if it were possible would rend him in pieces with the torment of them but that which I demand is what peace of mind a sinner can have in this world who knows not how soon he may be dispatched to that place of torment can he bind the hands of the Almighty that he shall not snatch him away till he doth repent or can he reverse the decrees of heaven or suspend the execution of them can he abrogate the force of his Laws and make his own terms with God can he dissolve the chains of darkness with a few death-bed tears and quench the flames of another world with them O foolish sinners who hath bewitched them with these deceitful dreams will heaven-gates fly open with the strength of a few dying groans will the mouth of hell be stopt with the bare lamentation of a sinner Are there such charms in some penitent words extorted from the fear of approaching misery that God himself is not able to resist them Certainly there is no deceit more dangerous nor I fear more common in the world than for men to think that God is so easie to pardon sin that though they spend their lives in satisfying their lusts they shall make amends for all by a dying sorrow and a gasping repentance As though the unsaying what we had done or wishing we had done otherwise since we can do it no longer for that is the bottom of all putting off repentance to the last were abundant compensation to the justice of God for the affronts of his Majesty contempt of his Laws abuse of his patience and all the large indictments of wilful and presumptuous sins which the whole course of our lives is charged with The supposal of which makes the whole design of Religion signify very little in the world Thus we have examined the foundations of a sinners peace and found them very false and fallacious 2. we are now to shew that those things do accompany a sinners course of life which certainly overthrow his peace which are these two 1. The reflections of his mind 2. The violence of his passions 1. The reflections of his mind which he can neither hinder nor be pleased with No doubt if it were possible for him to deprive himself of the greatest excellency of his being it would be the first work he would do to break the glass which shews him his deformity For as our Saviour saith every one that doth evil hateth the light lest his deeds should be reproved not only the light without which discovers them but that light of conscience within which not only shines but burns too Hence proceeds that great uneasiness which a sinner feels within as often as he considers what he hath done amiss which we call the remorse of conscience and is the natural consequent of the violence a man offers to his reason in his evil actions It was thought a sufficient vindication of the innocency of two Brothers by the Roman Judges when they were accused for Parricide that although their Father was murthered in the same room where they lay and no other person was found on whom they could fasten the
dens who seemed to be designed rather to destroy than to conquer So sudden so numerous so irresistible in most places were the incursions they made But what was it which gave them so strange success was it their long practice and skill in military affairs No they were rude and unexperienced was it their mighty courage No they were despised by the Romans as great cowards and begged for peace when it was denyed them But as Salvian tells us who lived in those times and knew the manners of both sides the Goths and Vandals were of a very severe chastity among whom fornication was punished sharply and adultery a crime scarce heard of whereas all manner of uncleanness and licentiousness did abound among the Romans who yet were then called Christians The Goths were devout and pious acknowledging divine providence making their solemn supplications to God before their victories and returning him the praise of them afterwards but the Romans were fallen into that degree of irreligion and Atheism that nothing was more common among them than to droll upon Religion A nostris omnia fermè religiosa ridentur as Salvian speaks they thought all things managed by chance or fate and ascribed very little to God And where these sins abounded most they were carried up and down as by a divine instinct as they confessed themselves and where they conquered as he particularly speaks of the Vandals in Africa they purged all the stews of uncleanness and made so great a reformation by the severity of their Laws that even the Romans themselves were chast among them Thus we see how those great and mighty Empires have been broken to pieces by the weight of their impieties falling upon them May the consideration then of these things move us in time to a reformation of our lives before our iniquities grow full and ripe for vengeance We have seen many revolutions and God knows how many more we may see if that should be true of us which the same Author saith of the Romans in the midst of all their changes Sola tantum vitia perdurant their vices remained the same still Thanks be to God that things have a fairer appearance at present than they have had and never so good a time to amend as now but if men flatter themselves with present security and their sins increase as their fears abate the clouds which seem dispersed may soon gather again and the face of the Heavens will change if we do not And if it be not in our power to reclaim others from their sins let us endeavour to preserve the honour of our Church by amending our own and convince our enemies by living better than they And give me leave to say and so I conclude that among all the expedients which have been thought of for the peace of this Church and Nation that of leaving off our sins and leading vertuous and exemplary lives will at last prove to be the most successful SERMON XI Preached at WHITE HALL MRRCH 27. 1672. II CORINTH V. II. Knowing therefore the terrour of the Lord we perswade men IF ever any Religion was in all respects accomplished for so noble a design as the reformation of mankind it was the Christian whether we consider the Authority of those who first delivered it or the weight of the arguments contained in it and their agreeableness to the most prevailing passions of humane nature Although the world was strangely degenerated before the coming of Christ yet not to see great a degree but that there were some who not only saw the necessity of a cure but offered their assistance in order to it whose attemps proved the more vain and fruitless because they laboured under the same distempers themselves which they offered tâ—… cure in others or the method they prescribed was mean and trivial doubâ—ful and uncertain or else too nice and subtle to do any great good upon the world But Châ—istianity had not only a mighty advantage by the great holiness of thoâ—e who preached it but by the clearness and evidence the strength and efficacy of those arguments which they used to perswade men The nature of them is such that none who understand them can deny them to be great their clearneâ—s such that none that hear them can chooâ—e but understand them the manner of recommending them such as all who understood themselves could not but desire to hear them No arguments can be more proper to mankind than those which work upon their reason and consideration no motives can stir up moâ—e to the exercise of this than their own happiness and misery no happinoss and misery can deserve to be so much considered as that which is eternal And this eternal state is that which above all other things the Christian Religion delivers with the greatest plainnes confirms with the strongest evidence and enforces upon the consciences of men with the most powerful and perswasive Rhetorick I need not go beyond my text for the proof of this wherein we see that the Apostles sesign was to perswade men i. e. to convince their judgements to gain their affections to reform their lives that the argument they uâ—ed for this end was no less than the terrour of the Lord not the frowns of the world nor the fear of men nor the malice of Devils but the terrour of the Almighty whose Majesty makes even the Devils tremble whose power is irresisistible and whose wrath is insupportable But it is not the terrour of the Lord in this world which he here speaks of although that be great enough to make us as miserable as we can be in this State but the terrour of the Lord which shaâ—l appear at the dreadful day of judgement of which he peaks in the verse before the text For we must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad This is the terrour here meant which relates to our final and eternal State in another world whâ—n we must appear before the judgement seat of Christ c. And of this he speaks not out of Poetical Fables ancient traditions uncertain conjectures or probable arguments but from full assuâ—ance of the truth of what he delivers Knowing therefore the terrour of the Lord we perswade men In which words we shall consider these particulars 1. The argument which the Apostle makes choice of to perswade men which is the terrour of the Lord. 2. The great assurance he expresseth of the truth of it knowing therefore the terrour of the Lord. 3. The efficacy of it in order to the convincing and reforming mankind knowing therefore c. we perswade men 1. The argument the Apostle makes choice of to perswade men by viz. the terror of the Lord. In the Gospel we find a mixture of the highest
men as any thing else is But here men think they may justly plead with God and talk with him of his judgements what proportion say they is there between the sins of this short life and the eternal misery of another which objection is not so great in it self as it appears to be by the weak answers which have been made to it When to assign a proportion they have made a strange kind of infinity in sin either from the object which unavoidably makes all sins equal or from the wish of a sinner that he might have an eternity to sin in which is to make the justice of Gods punishments to be not according to their works but to their wishes But we need not strain things so much beyond what they will bear to vindicate Gods justice in this matter Is it not thought just and reasonable among men for a man to be confined to perpetual imprisonment for a fault he was not half an hour in committing Nay do not all the Laws of the world make death the punishment of some crimes which may be very suddenly done And what is death but the eternal depriving a man of all the comforts of life And shall a thing then so constantly practised and universally justified in the world be thought unreasonable when it is applyed to God It is true may some say if annihilation were all that was meant by eternal death there could be no exception against it but I ask whether it would be unjust for the Laws of men to take away the lives of offenders in case their souls â—urvive their bodies and they be for ever sensible of the loss of life if not why shall not God preserve the honour of his Laws and vindicate his Authority in governing the world by sentencing obstinate sinners to the greatest misery though their souls live for ever in the apprehension of it Especially since God hath declared these things so evidently before hand and made them part of his Laws and set everlasting life on the other side to ballance everlasting misery and proposed them to a sinners choice in such a manner that nothing but contempt of God and his grace and wilful impenitency can ever betray men into this dreadful State of eternal destruction 2. Thus much for the argument used by the Apostle the terrour of the Lord I now come to the assurance he expresseth of the truth of it Knowing therefore the terrour of the Lord we perswade men We have two ways of proving Articles of faith such as this concerning Christs coming to judgement is 1. By shewing that there is nothing unreasonable in the belief of them 2. That there is sufficient evidence of the truth and certainty of them In the former of these it is of excellent use to produce the common apprehensions of mankind as to a future judgement and the several arguments insisted on to that purpose for if this were an unreasonable thing to believe how come men without revelation to agree about it as a thing very just and reasonable If the conflagration of the world were an impossible thing how came it to be so anciently received by the eldest and wisest Philosophers How came it to be maintained by those two Sects which were St. Paul's enemies when he preached at Athens and always enemies to each other the Epicureans and the Stoicks It is true they made these conflagrations to be periodical and not final but we do not establish the belief of our doctrine upon their assertion but from thence shew that is a most unreasonable thing to reject that as impossible to be done which they assert hath been and may be often done But for the truth and certainty of our doctrine we build that upon no less a foundation than the word of God himself We may think a judgement to come reasonable in general upon the â—…sideration of the goodness and wisdom and justice of God but all that depends upon this supposition that God doth govern the world by Laws and not by Power but since God himself hath declared it who is the Suprem Judge of the world that he will bring every work into judgement whether it be good or evil since the Son of God made this so great a part of his doctrine with all the circumstances of his own coming for again this end since he opened the commission he received from the Father for this purpose when he was upon earth by declaring that the Father had committed all judgement to the Son and that the hour is coming in which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice and shall come forth they that have done good to the resurrection of life and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation Since this was so great a part of the Apostles doctrine to preach of this judgement to come and that God hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained whereof he hath given assurance to all men in that he hath raised him from the dead No wonder the Apostle speaks here with so great assurance of it knowing therefore c. And no persons can have the least ground to question it but such who wholly reject the Christian doctrine upon the pretences of infidelity which are so vain and trifling that were not their lusts stronger than their arguments men of wit would be ashamed to produce them and did not mens passions oversway their judgements it would be too much honour to them to confute them But every Sermon is not intended for the conversion of Turks and Infidels my design is to speak to those who acknowledge themselves to be Christians and to believe the truth of this doctrine upon the Authority of those divine persons who were particularly sent by God to reveal it to the world And so I come to the last particular by way of application of the former viz. 3. The efficacy of this argument for the perswading men to a reformation of heart and life knowing the terror of the Lord we perswade men For as another Apostle reasons from the same argument Seeing all these things shall be dissolved what manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness There is great variety of arguments in the Christian Religion to perswade men to holiness but none more sensible and moving to the generality of mankind than this Especially considering these two things 1. That if this argument doth not perswade men there is no reason to expect any other should 2. That the condition of such persons is desperate who cannot by any arguments be perswaded to leave off their sins 1. There is no reason to expect any other argument should perswade men if this of the terror of the Lord do it not If an almighty power cannot awaken us if infinite justice cannot affright us if a
judgement to come cannot make us tremble and eternal misery leave no impression upon us what other arguments or methods can we imagine would reclaim us from our sins We have been too sad an instance our selves of the ineffectualness of other means of amendment by the mercies and judgements of this present life have ever any people had a greater mixture of both these than we have had in the compass of a few years If the wisest persons in the world had been to have set down beforehand the method of reforming a sinful nation they could have pitched upon none more effectual than what we have shewed not to be so First they would have imagined that after enduring many miseries and hardships when they were almost quite sunk under dispair if God should give them a sudden and unexpected deliverance meer ingenuity and thankfulness would make them afrid to displease a God of so much kindness But if so great a flash of joy and prosperity instead of that should make them grow wanton and extravagant what a course then so likely to reclaim them as a series of smart and severe judgements one upon another which might sufficiently warn yet not totally destroy These we have had experience of and of worse than all these viz. that we are not amended by them For are the Laws of God less broken or the duties of Religion less contemned and despised after all these What vices have been forsaken what lusts have men been reclaimed from nay what one sort of sin hath been less in fashion than before Nay have not their number as well as their aggravation increased among us Is our zeal for our established Religion greater Is our faith more firm and setled our devotion more constant our Church less in danger of either of the opposite factions than ever it was Nay is it not rather like a neck of land between two rough and boysterous seas which rise and swell and by the breaches they make in upon us threaten an inundation By all which we see what necessity there is that God should govern this world by the considerations of another that when neither judgements nor mercies can make men better in this life judgement without mercy should be their portion in another O the infatuating power of sin when neither the pity of an indulgent Father nor the frowns of a severe Judge can draw us from it when neither the bitter passion of the Son of God for our sins nor his threatning to come again to take vengeance upon us for them can make us hate and abhorr them when neither the shame nor contempt the diseases and reproaches which follow sin in this world nor the intollerable anguish and misery of another can make men sensible of the folly of them so as to forsake them Could we but represent to our minds that State wherein we must all shortly be when the bustle and hurry the pleasures and diversions the courtships and entertainments of this world shall be quite at an end with us and every one must give an account of himself to God what another opinion of these things should we have in our minds with what abhorrency should we look upon every temptation to sin how should we loath the sight of those who either betrayed us into sin or flattered us when we had committed it Could men but ask themselves that reasonable question why they will defie God by violating his known Laws unless they be sure he either cannot or will not punish them for it thy would be more afraid of doing it than they are for supposing both to do it is perfect madness to question his power who is Almighty or his will who hath declared it and is immutable is the height of folly 2. The condition of such is desperate whom no arguments can perswade to leave their sins For there can be no breaking prison in that other State no escaping tryal no corrupting the Judge no reversing the sentence no pardon after judgement no reprieve from punishment no abatement or end of misery How canst thou then hope O impenitent sinner either to fly from or to endure that wrath of God that is coming swiftly upon thee to arrest thee by death and convey thee to thy tormenting prison canst thou hope that God will discharge thee before that dreadful day comes when he hath confined thee thither in order to it Canst thou hope that day will never come which the vindication of Gods justice the honour of Christ the happiness of the blessed as well as the punishment of the wicked make so necessary that it should come or canst thou hope to defend thy self against an all seeing eye a most righteous Judge and an accusing conscience when that day doth come when all the mercies thou hast abused the judgements thou hast slighted the motions of grace thou hast resisted the checks of conscience thou hast stifled and the sins of all kinds thou hast committed shall rise up in judgement to condemn thee O that we had all the wisdom to consider of these things in time that the terror of the Lord may perswade us to break off all our sins by a sincere repentance and to live so that we may dye with comfort and be for ever with the Lord in his eternal Joy SERMON XII Preached at WHITE HALL FEBRUARY 18. 1672. MATTHEW XVI XXVI For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul or what shall he give in exchange for his soul IF we look into the twenty fourth verse of this Chapter we shall find our Saviour there laying down such hard conditions of mens being his Disciples as were to all appearance more likely to have driven away those which he had already than to have drawn any others after him For he requires no less than the greatest readiness to suffer for his sake and that to no meaner a degree than the loss of what is most precious to men in this world in their lives which is implyed in those words If any man will come after me let him deny himself and take up his Cross and follow me If our Saviour had only designed to have made himself great by the number of his followers if he had intended a Kingdom in this world as the Jews imagined he would have made more easie conditions of being his Disciples He would have chosen another way to have attained his end and made use of more pleasing and popular arguments to have perswaded the people to follow him When the Eastern Impostor afterwards began to set up for a new Religion he took a method as contrary to our Saviours as his Religion and design was he knew the Greatness and Honour the pleasures and the pomp of this world were the things most passionately loved and admired by the generality of mankind and therefore he fitted his Religion to the natural
inclinations of men and proposed such means of advancing it as were most like to make men great by undertaking them And men are never so willing to be cheated by any Religion as that which complies with their present interests and gratifies their sensual inclinations In this case there need not many arguments to court persons to embrace that which they were so strongly inclined to before and the very name of Religion does them great service when it allows what they most desire and makes them sin with a quiet Conscience But that is the peculiar honor of Christianity that as it can never be suspected to be a design for this world so it hath risen and spread it self by ways directly contrary to the Splendor and Greatness of it For it overcame by sufferings increased by persecutions and prevailed in the world by the patience and self-denial of its followers He that was the first Preacher of it was the greatest example of suffering himself and he bids his Disciples not to think much of following their Lord and Saviour though it were to take up the Cross and lay down their lives for his sake We may easily imagine how much startled and surprized his Disciples were at such discourses as these who being possessed with the common opinion of the temporal Kingdom of the Messias came to him with great expectations of honour and advancement by him and no less would content some of them than being his highest Favourites and Ministers of State suting at his right hand and at his left hand in his Kingdom they had already in their imaginations shared the preferments and dignities of his Kingdom among themselves and were often contending about preheminence who should be the greatest among them Insomuch that when Christ now the time of his suffering approaching began more plainly to discourse to them of his own sufferings at Hierusalem v. 21. St. Peter either out of his natural forforwardness and heat or being elevated by the good opinion which our Lord had expressed of him before v. 17. takes upon him very solemnly to rebuke him for ever thinking to submit himself to so mean a condition Be it far from thee Lord this shall not be unto thee v. 22. upon which Jesus not only reproves Peter with great smartness and severity as savoring more of the pomp and ease of the world than of the nature and design of his Kingdom v. 23. but takes this occasion to tell his Disciples that they must no longer dream of the Glories and Splendor of this world nor entertain themselves with vain Fancies of the Pleasures and contentments of this life but if they would shew themselves to be truly his Disciples they must prepare for persecutions and Martyrdoms they must value their Religion above their lives for the time was now coming on they must part with one or the other and if they were not prepared beforehand by self-denial and taking up the Cross they would run great hazard of losing their souls for the love of this world and therefore our Saviour shews 1. The great advantage that would accrue to them if they were willing to suffer for his sake Whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it v. 25. i. e. instead of this short and uncertain life which would spend it self in a little time he should have one infinitely more valuable and therefore no exchange could be better made than that of laying down such a life as this for one of eternal Happiness and Glory for so our Saviour elsewhere explains it he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal St. John 12. 25. 2. The great folly of losing this eternal state of happiness for the preservation of this present life or the enjoyment of the things of this world which he first lays down as a certain truth v. 25. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it and then discovers the folly of it in the words of the text by comparing such a mans gain and his loss together supposing he should obtain the utmost that can be hoped for in this world For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul Wherein we may consider these three particulars 1. The possibility supposed of losing the soul though a man should gain the whole world 2. The hazard implied of the loss of the soul for the sake of the gain of the world 3. The folly expressed of losing the soul though it be for the gain of the whole world 1. The possibility supposed of the loss of the soul in another world For the force of our Saviours argument depends wholly on the supposition of the certainty of the souls Being in another state and its capacity of happiness or misery therein For setting that aside there can be no argument strong enough to perswade any man to part not only with what he hath or hopes for in this life but with life it self He that is so great a Fool to be an Athiest would yet be much more so to be a Martyr for his opinion What is there could recompence the loss of life to a man that believes that there is nothing after it But supposing there should be a life to come as it is impossible to give any demonstration to the contrary what madness would it be for a man to run himself into the miseries of another world with a design to prove there is none If all that our Saviour had meant were only to represent the folly of a person that would lay down his life for the purchase of an estate for so the soul is often taken for the life that would not have reached the scope and design of his discourse And no instances can be produced of such a kind of folly which would be as great as for a man to lose his head for a wager or to purchase the lease of his life by destroying himself But supposing this to be a Proverbial speech yet the folly of losing a mans life for the gain of the whole world is not brought in by our Saviour meerly for it self but as it doth much more represent the unspeakable folly of such who for the love of this world will venture the loss of an eternal endearing life and all the misery which is consequent upon it If that man would gain nothing by his bargains but the reputation of a Fool that for the possession of the whole world for one moment would be content to be killed in the next how much greater folly are they guilty of that for the sake of this world and the pâ—eservation of their lives here expose themselves to all the miseries of another life which God hath threatned or their souls can undergo It is such a loss of the soul which is here spo ken of as is consistent with
the preservation of this present life for whosoever saith Christ will save his life shall lose it and to those words before these of the text have a particular reference and therefore must be understood not of losing this life but of the loss of the Soul in a future state And this loss cannot be understood of the souls annihilation or ceasing to be as soon as the life is gone for that being supposed he would be the happiest man that had the most of this world at his command and enjoyed the greatest pleasure in it So St. Paul himself determines that if there were no future state the Epicureans argument would take place Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die and he reckons those among the most miserable of all mankind who ventured the loss of all that is accounted desirable in this world and of their lives too if there were not a better life to come For if in this life only we have hope in Christ saith he we are of all men the most miserable So that the strength of our Saviours discourse depends upon the supposition of the immortality of the soul and its capacity of being happy or miserable in a future state And it is the great commendation of the Christian Religion that the particular duties required in it are established on the same Foundations that natural Religion is which are the belief of a Deity and the immortality of the Soul For he that comes unto God must believe that he it and that he is a rewarder of them that seek him which being spoken with a respect to one who for being good was translated out of this world must refer to the rewards of a future life And we desire no more than these common principles of Religion to make the most difficult duties of Christianity appear reasonable to mankind For it is upon the account of this future state of the soul that it is our most just and necessary care to look after the welfare of our souls in the first place to seek the Kingdom of God the and righteousness thereof before the concernments of this present life because a state that endures for ever ought to be preferred before a short and uncertain abode in this world It is this which makes it reasonable to please God though to the displeasing our selves and the crossing our natural inclinations because eternal happiness and misery depends upon his favor or displeasure It is this which obliges men to the greatest care of their actions because their future state in another world will be according to their lives here for every man shall then receive according to his works It is this which ought to keep men from all fleshly lusts not meerly because they are inconvenient for their bodies but because they war against their souls It is this which makes the love of this world so dangerous a thing because it draws away the hearts and affections of men from things that are above and fixes them upon things below It is this which makes it necessary for us to subdue our passions to conquer temptations to forgive injuries to be patient under afflictions and to lay down our lives for Religion because there will be a reward for the righteous and the happiness of another state will make abundant recompence for all the difficulties of this So that in the Gospel the doctrine of the souls immortality is not spoken of as the nice speculation of subtile and contemplative men nor meerly supposed as a foundation of all Religion but it is interwoven in the substance of it and adds strength to all its parts For herein we find the immortality of the soul not barely asserted nor proved by uncertain arguments nor depending on the opinion of Philosophers but delivered with the greatest authority revealed with the clearest light and confirmed by the strongest evidence If any one can make known to mankind the state of souls in another world it must be God himsēlf if ever it was made known plainly by him it must be in the Gospel whereby life and immortality are brought to light if ever any arguments were proper to convince mankind of it they are such as are contained therein For it is not barely the resurrection of our Lord which is a manifest evidence of the truth of the souls subsisting after a real death but the whole design of his doctrine and the Christian Religion is built upon it So that if we suppose the immortality of the soul the Christian Religion appears more reasonable by it but if we suppose the doctrine of Christ to be true there can be no doubt left of the immortality of the soul and whatever arguments we have to prove the truth of this doctrine by the same do of necessity prove the certainty of the souls immortality I confess many subtile arguments have been used by those who never knew any thing of divine revelation to prove the soul to be of such a nature that it was not capable of dying with the body and some of them such as none of their Adversaries were ever able to answer For the most common acts of sense are unaccountable in a meer Mechanical way and after all the attemps of the most witty and industrious men I despair of ever seeing the powers of meer matter raised to a capacity of performing the lowest acts of perception and much more of those nobler faculties of memory understanding and will But although the arguments from hence are sufficient to justifie the belief of the souls immortality to all considering men yet the far greatest part of mankind was never so and a matter of so great consequence as this is ought to be proposed in the most plain most certain and most effectual manner While these disputes were managed among the Philosophers of old though those who asserted the immortality of the soul had the better reason of their side yet their Adversaries spake with greater confidence and that always bears the greatest sway among injudicious people And some men are always fond of a reputation for wit by opposing common opinions though never so true and useful especially when they serve a bad end in it and do thereby plead for their own impieties But it cannot be denied that those who were in the right did likewise give too great advantage to their enemies partly by their own diffidence and distrust of what they had contended for partly from the too great niceness and subtilty of their arguments partly from the ridiculous fopperies which they maintained together with that of the souls immortality as the transmigration of them into the bodies of Brutes and such like But the main disadvantage of all to the world was that the immortality of the soul was rather insisted on as a Principle of Philosophy than of Religion Some of the best of their arguments were such as made the souls of
the soul for the sake of the world yet he doth imply the danger may be as great although a mans ambition never comes to be so extravagant as to aim at the possession of the whole world The whole world can never make amends for the loss of the soul yet the soul may be lost for a very inconsiderable part of it although all the wealth and treasures of the Indies can never compensate to a man the loss of his life yet that may be in as great danger of losing upon far easier terms than those are It is not to be thought that those whom our Saviour speaks to could ever propose such vast designs to themselves as the Empire of the whole world was but he tells them if that could be supposed it were far more desirable to save a soul than to gain the world yet such is the folly of mankind to lose their souls for a very small share of this present world For the temptations of this world are so many so great so pleasing to mankind and the love of life so natural and so strong that inconsiderate men will run any hazard of their souls for the gain of one or preservation of the other The highest instance of this kind is that which our Saviour here intends when men will make shipwrack of faith and a good conscience to escape the danger of their lives or with Iudas will betray their Saviour for some present gain although very far short of that of the whole world And if I be not much mistaken it is upon this account that our Saviour pronounces it so hard for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven because in such difficult times of persecution on the account of Religion as those were such men would be shrewdly tempted to venture the loss of their souls in another world rather than of their estates in this For it was the young mans unwillingness to part with his great possessions to follow Christ which gave him occasion to utter that hard saying It is on this account St. Paul saith the love of money is the root of all evil which while some have coveted after they have erred from the faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows It was on this account that Demas forsook Paul having loved this present world and that the friendship of this world is said to be enmity with God and that our Saviour saith no man can serve two Masters for either he will hate the one and love the other else he will hold to the one and despise the other ye cannot serve God and Mammon Which doth suppose that these two do require two contrary things at the same time for if a hundred Masters did all require the same thing a man might in doing that be said to serve them all But when Religion requires that we must part with all for that and the world requires that we must part with Religion to preserve our interest in it then it is impossible to serve God and Mammon together for we must hold to the one and dispise the other But what then Is there no danger of the loss of the soul for the sake of this world but only in the case of persecution then some may say we hope there is no fear now of mens being too rich to go to Heaven Thanks be to God that we live in times free from such dangerous tryals as those of persecution are and wherein men may quietly enjoy their Estates and the best Religion in the world together but although there be no danger of splitting upon the rocks there may be of sinking with being overcharged or springing too great a leak within us whereby we let in more than we can be able to bear And supposing the most prosperous and easie condition men can fancy to themselves here yet the things of this world are so great occasions of evil so great hindrances of good that on these accounts men always run a mighty hazard of their souls for the sake of this world The Devil knew well enough where his greatest strength lay when he reserved the temptation of the glories of this world to the last place in dealing with Christ himself when nothing else would prevail upon him he was yet in hopes that the Greatness and Splendour of this world would bring him to his terms And surely if the Devil had not a mighty opinion of the power of these charms of the Kingdoms and glory of this world he would never have put such hard terms to them which were no less than falling down and worshipping him which we do not find he ever durst so much as mention before till he held this bait in his hand And although our Saviour baffled him in this his strongest temptation yet he still finds that far less than what he here offered will bring men in subjection to him How small a matter of gain will tempt some men to all the sins of lying of fraud and injustice who pawn their souls and put them out at interest for a very small present advantage although they are sure in a very little time to lose both their interest and the Principal too How many for the sake of the Honours and preferments of this World are willing to do by their consciences as the Indian did by his letter lay them aside till their business be done and then expect to hear no more of them What poor and trifling things in this world do men continually venture their souls for As though all were clear gains which they could put off so dead a commodity as the Salvation of their Souls for How apt are such to applaud themselves for their own skill when meerly by a little swearing and lying and cheating things which cost them nothing but a few words they can defeat the designs of their enemies and compass their own But how low is the rate of souls fallen in the esteem of such persons as these are If they had not been of any greater value they had not been worth any ordinary mans much less the Son of Gods laying down his life for the redemption of them Is this all the requital men make him for the travail of his soul the wounds of his body the bitterness of his passion to sqâ—ander away those souls upon any trifling advantages of this world which he shed his most pâ—ecious blood for the redemption ofâ— When ever men are tempted to sin with the hopes of gain let them but consider how much they undervalue not only their own souls but the eternal Son of God and all that he hath done and suffered for the sake of the souls of men If theâ—e had been no greater worth in our souls silver and gold would have been a sufficient price of redemption for them for if men lose their souls for these things it is a sign they set a higher
govern those who were yet under the night of Ignorance Why may not the Firmament being in the midst of the Waters imply the erection of the Jeâ—…ish State in the midst of a great deal of trouble since it is confeâ—â—ed that Waters are often taken in Scripture in a Metaphorical sense for troubles and afflictions and the Earth appearing out of the Waters be no more but the settlement of that state aftâ—â—â—tâ— troubles and particularly with great elegancy aâ—ter 〈◊〉 pâ—…age through the Red Sea And the production of Herbs and living Creatures be the great encrease of the People of all sorts as well those of a meaner rank and therefore called herbs as those of a higher that were to live upon the other and sometimes trample upon them and therefore by way of excellency called the Living Creatures And when these were multiplied and brought into order which being done by steps and degrees is said to be finished in several days then the State and the Church flourished and enjoyed a great deal of pleasure which was the production of Man and Woman and their being placed in Paradise for a perfect Man notes a high degree of perfection and a Woman is taken for the Church in the Revelations But when they followed the Customs of other Nations which were as a forbidden tree to them then they lost all their happiness and pleasure and were expelled out of their own Country and lived in great slavery and misery which was the Curse pronounced against them for violating the rules of Policy established among them Thus you see how small a measure of wit by the advantage of those ways of interpreting Scripture which the subtilest of our adversaries make use of will serve to pervert the clearest expressions of Scripture to quite another sense than was ever intended by the Writer of them And I assure you if that rule of interpreting Scripture be once allowed that where words are ever used in a Metaphorical sense there can be no necessity of understanding them in a proper there is scarce any thing which you look on as the most necessary to be believed in Scripture but it may be made appear not to be so upon those terms for by reason of the paucity and therefore the ambiguity of the Original words of the Hebrew language the strange Idioms of it the different senses of the same word in several Conjugations the want of several modes of expression which are used in other Languages and above all the lofty and Metaphorical way of speaking used in all Eastern Countries and the imitation of the Hebrew Idioms in the Greek translation of the Old Testament and Original of the New you can hardly affix a sense upon any words used therein but a man who will be at the pains to search all possible significations and uses of those words will put you hard to it to make good that which you took to be the proper meaning of them Wherefore although I will not deny to our adversaries the praise of subtilty and diligence I cannot give them that which is much more praise worthy viz. of discretion and sound judgement For while they use their utmost industry to search all the most remote and Metaphorical senses of words with a design to take off the genuine and proper meaning of them they do not attend to the ill consequence that may be made of this to the overthrowing those things the belief of which themselves make necessary to salvation For by this way the whole Gospel may be made an Allegory and the Resurrection of Christ be thought as metaphorical as the Redemption by his Death and the sorce of all the Precepts of the Gospel avoided by some unusual signification of the words wherein they are delivered So that nothing can be more unreasonable than such a method of proceeding unless it be first sufficiently proved that the matter is not capable of the proper sense and therefore of necessity the improper only is to be allowed And this is that which Socinus seems after all his pains to pervert the meaning of the places in controversie to rely on most viz. That the Doctrine of satisfaction doth imply an impossibility in the thing it self and therefore must needs be false nay he saith the infallibility of the Revealer had not been enough in this Case supposing that Christ had said it and risen from the dead to declare his own Veracity unless he had delivered it by its proper causes and effects and so shewed the possibility of the thing it self And the reason he saith why they believe their Doctrine true is not barely because God hath said it but they believe certainly that God hath said it because they know it to be true by knowing the contrary Doctrine to be impossible The controversie then concerning the meaning of the places in dispute is to be resolved from the nature and reasonableness of the matter contained in them for if Socinus his reason were answerable to his confidence if the account we give of the sufferings of Christ were repugnant not only to the Justice Goodness and Grace of God but to the nature of the thing if it appear impossible that mankind should be redeemed in a proper sense or that God should be propitiated by the Death of his Son as a Sacrifice for sin if it enervate all the Precepts of Obedience and tends rather to justifie sins than those who do repent of them I shall then agree that no industry can be too great in searching Authors comparing places examining Versions to find out such a sense as may be agreeable to the nature of things the Attributes of God and the design of Christian Religion But if on the contrary the Scripture doth plainly assert those things from whence our Doctrine follows and without which no reasonable account can be given either of the expressions used therein or of the sufferings of Christ if Christs death did immediately respect God as a sacrifice and were paid as a price for our Redemption if such a design of his death be so far from being repugnant to the nature of God that it highly manifests his Wisdom Justice and Mercy if it assert nothing but what is so far from being impossible that it is very reconcileable to the common principles of Reason as well as the Free-Grace of God in the pardon of sin if being truly understood it is so far from enervating that it advances highly all the purposes of Christian Religion then it can be no less than a betraying one of the grand Truths of the Christian Doctrine not to believe ours to be the true sense of the places in controversie And this is that which I now take upon me to maintain For our clearer proceeding herein nothing will be more necessary than to understand the true state of the Controversie which hath been rendred more obscure by the mistakes of some who have
same Chapter and so it imports a rest after some commotion and in that sense is very proper to Atonement or that whereby God makes his anger to rest so Aben Ezra upon that place expounds the Savour of rest to be such a one which makes God cease from his anger Thence in Hiphil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies to appease or to make peace in which sense it is used by R. Solom upon Isa. 27. 5. Munster tells us the sense is Deus nunc quievit ab ira placatus fuit and to the same purpose Vatablus which sense is most agreeable to the design of the following words in which God expresseth his great kindness and the Lord said in his heart I will not again curse the ground any more for mans sake which are words highly expressing how much God was propitiated by the Sacrifice which Noah offered and therefore Iosephus doth well interpret this to be a proper Expiatory Sacrifice that God would now be aioned and send no more such a deluge upon the world which he saith was the substance of Noahs prayer when he offered this Burnt-offering and that God would receive his Sacrifice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That he would no more receive such displeasure against the earth So that the first time ever this expression was used it is taken in the proper sense of an Expiatory Sacrifice And by that the second enquiry may be easily resolved viz. What kind of Sacrifices it doth belong to which we see in the first place is to expiatory which Crellius denies by a great mistake of the sense of the phrase and of the nature of the Offerings concerning which this expression is most used viz. Holocausts as though those were not Expiatory Sacrifices But if we can make it appear that the Holocausts were Expiatory Sacrifices then it will follow that this phrase doth most properly agree to a Sacrifice designed for Expiation But Crellius here speaks very confusedly concerning Sacrifices opposing Holocausts and Freewil-offerings to Expiatory Sacrifices whereas the Freewil-offerings might be Expiatory as well as Eucharistical that denomination not respecting the end the Sacrifices were designed for but that the precise time of offering them was not determined by the Law as in the stated and solemn Sacrifices For the general distribution of Sacrifices seems most proper into Propitiatory and Encharistical which distinction is thought by some to hold from the first time we read of Sacrifices in Scripture because the Sacrifice of Cain was of the fruits of the ground and of Abel of the Firstlings of his flock Although there seems to be nothing meant by this difference of Sacrifices but the diversity of their imployments either of them Sacrificing according to them and I cannot say what some do that the reason of Gods rejecting Cains Sacrifice was because it was not designed for expiation But the practice of after ages wherein we have a fuller account of the grounds of the several Sacrifices makes it appear that the Expiatory Sacrifices before the Law were all Burnt-offerings and of all those who were not under the particular obligation of that Law As is plain in the Expiatory Sacrifices of Iob for his sons and for his friends which were Burnt-offerings and among the Iews all the Sacrifices that were offered up before the Levitical Law were as the Iews themselves tell us only Burnt-offerings And after the setling of their Worship among themselves they did receive Burnt-offerings for expiation from strangers as Mr. Selden at large proves from the Iewish Writers It seems then very strange that since Burnt-offerings before the Law were Expiatory and under the Law they continued so for strangers they should be of another nature for the Iews themselves But what reason is there for it in the text not the least that I can find but expresly the contrary For in the beginning of Leviticus where the Law for Burnt-offerings is delivered the words are And he shall put his hand upon the head of the Burnt-offeringâ— and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him which is as much as is ever said of any Expiatory Sacrifices And in the Verse before where we render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of his own voluntary will it is by the vulgar Latin rendred Ad placandum sibi Dominum by the Syriack Version Ad placationem sibi obtinendam à Domino and to the same purpose by the Chaldee Paraphrast but no one Version considerable that so renders it as to make Burnt-offerings to be Freewil-offerings here which are spoken of distinctly and by themselves afterwards And the Chaldee Paraphrast Ionathan thus explains This is the Law of the Burnt-offering i. e. Quod venit ad expiandum pro cogitationibus cordis but although the Iews be not fully agreed what the Burnt-offerings were designed to expiate yet they consent that they were of an Expiatory nature Which might make us the more wonder that Crellius and others should exclude them from it but the only reason given by him is because they are distinguished from Sacrifices for sin as though no Sacrifices were of an Expiatory nature but they and then the Trespass-offerings must be excluded too for they are distinguished from Sin-offerings as well as the other The ignorance of the Iews in the reason of their own customs hath been an occasion of great mistakes among Christians concerning the nature of them when they judge of them according to the blind or uncertain conjectures which they make concerning them So that the Text is oft-times far clearer than their Commentaries are Setting aside then the intricate and unsatisfactory niceties of the Iewish Writers about the several reasons of the Burnt-offerings and Sin and Trespass-offerings and the differences they make between them which are so various and incoherent I shall propose this conjecture concerning the different reasons of them viz. That some Sacrifices were assumed into the Jewish Religion which had been long in use in the world before and were common to them with the Patriarchs and all those who in that age of the world did fear and serve God and such were the Burnt-offerings for expiation of sin and the fruits of the earth by way of gratitude to God Other Sacrifices were instituted among them with a particular respect to themselves as a people governed by the Laws of God And these were of several sorts 1. Symbolical of Gods presence among them such was the daily Sacrifice instituted as a testimony of Gods presence Exod. 29. from v. 38. to the end 2. Occasional for some great mercies vouchsased to them as the Passover and the Solemn Festivals c. 3. Expiatory for the sins committed against their Law And these were of three sorts 1. Such as were wholly consumed to the honor of God which were the Burnt-offerings 2. Such of which some part was consumed upon the Alâ—ar and some part
the preservation of civil Societies as this doth yet all this it doth by way of subordination to the great end of it which is the promoting mens eternal happiness And the more we consider the vast consequence and importance of this end to mankind the greater reason we shall find that St. Paul had why he should not be ashamed of the Gospel of Christ. For can we imagine any end more noble that any doctrine can aim at than this Supposing the common principles of all Religion to be true viz. the Being of God and Immortality of our Souls there can be nothing more becoming that God to discover or those Souls to be imployed about than the way to a blessed immortality And if we admire those discourses of the Heathen Philosophers wherein they speak more darkly and obscurely concerning those things what admiration doth the Gospel deserve which hath brought life and immortality to light If we commend the vertuous Heathens who according to those short and obscure notices which they had of God and themselves sought to make the world any thing the better for their being in it what infinitely greater esteem do those blessed Apostles deserve who accounted not their own lives dear to them that they might make even their enemies happy If those mens memories be dear to us who sacrifice their lives and fortunes for the sake of the Country they belong to shall not those be much more so who have done it for the good of the whole world Such who chearfully suffered death while they were teaching men the way to an eternal life and who patiently endured the flames if they might but give the greater light to the world by them Such who did as far out-go any of the admired Heroes of the Heathens as the purging the World from sin is of greater consequence than cleansing an Augaean Stable from the filth of it and rescuing men from eternal flames is a more noble design than clearing a Country from Pyrats and Robbers Nay most of the Heathen Gods who were so solemnâ—y worshipped in Greece and at Rome owed their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to such flenâ—er benefits to mankind that sure the world was very barbarous or hugely grateful when they could think them no less than Gods who found out such things for men If a Smiths forge and a Womans distaffe if teaching men the noble arts of fighting and cheating one another were such rare inventions that they only became some of the most celebrated Deities which the grave and demure Romans thought fit to worship sure St. Paul had no cause to be ashamed of his Religion among them who had so much reason to be ashamed of their own since his design was to perswade them out of all the vanities and fooleries of their Idolatrous Worship and to bring them to the service of the true and ever living God who had discovered so much goodness to the world in making his Son a propitiation for the sins of it And was not this a discovery infinitely greater and more suitable to the nature of God than any which the subtilty of the Greeks or wisdom of the Romans could ever pretend to concerning any of their Deities Thus we see the ex cellent end of our Religion was that which made St. Paul so far from being ashamed of it and so it would do all us too if we did understand and value it as St. Paul did But it is the great dishonour of too many among us that they are more ashamed of their Religion than they are of their sins If to talk boldly against Heaven to affront God in calling him to witness their great impieties by frequent oaths to sin bravely and with the highest confidence to mock at such who are yet moâ—e modest in their debaucheries were not to be ashamed of the Gospel of Christ we might find St. Pauls enough in the Age we live in and it would be a piece of gallantry to be Apostles But this is rather the utmost endeavour to put Religion out of countenance and make the Gospel it self blush and be ashamed that ever such boldfaced impieties should be committed by men under the profession of it as though they believed nothing so damnable as Repentance and a Holy life and no sin so unpardonable as Modesty in committing it But to use St. Pauls language when he had been describing such persons himself Hob. 6. 9. We are perswaded better things of you and things that accompany that salvation the Gospel was designed for though we thus speak For certainly nothing can argue a greater meanness of spirit than while wicked and profane persons are not ashamed of that which unavoidably tends to their ruine any should be shy of the profession and practice of that which conduces to their eternal happiness What is become of all that magnanimity and generous spirit which the Primitve Christians were so remarkable for if while some are impudent in sinning others are ashamed of being or doing good If we have that value for our immortal souls and a future life which we ought to have we shall not trouble our selves much with the Atheistical scoffs and drollery of profane persons who while they deride and despise Religion do but laugh themselves into eternal misery And thus much for the first ground of St. Pauls confidence viz. The excellent end the Gospel was designed for 2. The effectualness of it in order to that end It is the power of God to salvation Wherein two things are implyed 1. The inefficacy of any other doctrine for that end 2. The effectualness of the Gospel in order to it 1 The inefficacy of any other Doctrine for this end of promoting the eternal salvation of Mankind If the world had been acquainted with any doctrine before which had been sufficient for the purposes the Gospel was designed for there would have been no such necessity of propagating it among men nor had there been reason enough to have justified the Apostles in exposing themselves to so great hazards for the preaching of it If the notion of an eternal God and Providence without the knowledge of a Saviour had been sufficient to reform the World and make men happy it had not been consistent with the wisdom or goodness of God to have imploy'd so many persons with the loss of their lives to declare the Doctrine of Christ to the World So that if Christianity be true it must be thought necessary to salvation for the necessity of it was declared by those who were the instruments of confirming the truth of it I meddle not with the case of those particular persons who had no means or opportunity to know Gods revealed will and yet from the Principles of Natural Religion did reform their lives in hopes of a future felicity if any such there were but whether there were not a necessity of such a Doctrine as the Gospel is to be discover'd to