Example suffering the vengeance of Eternal fire Indeed these are most certain consequents of not being imployed Quaeritâ—r AEgysthus is too known an instance and great holy David is another But it s dire influence is sufficiently visible in that which it rain'd down upon those Cities Since it did fulfil the guilt of Sodome and made Heaven furnish Hell for it and God himself turn Executioner of fire and brimstone to revenge it this shall serve to prove it is one of the Devil's Master-pieces 3. Next succeed his fiery dâ—rts as S. Paul calls them namely Persecutions or Calamities of any kind Which he manageth either by inflicting pressures and he was so confident of the force of these that he did tell God he would make Job curse him to his face with them Or if he find men in necessities and pressures then by tempting them to get from under them by methods which he shall direct and he had such affurance of the strength of this Temptation that by it he tryed our Saviour to find out whether he were the Son of God or no believing none but he that was so would be able to resist it Indeed the trials are severe which this Temptation does present to draw men from their Duty and to overcome their Constancy Whether it solicite by inflicting punishment as on the mother and her Children 2 Maccab. 7. or by offering to withdraw it if they will submit to their unlawful terms and so they tried her youngest Son there vers 24. or at leastwise by some feigned act some ambiguous words or practices will pretend compliance so they dealt with Eleazar Chap. 6. 21. whom they would have had to bring flesh of his own provision such as he might use without offence and so onely seem to eat forbidden meat Each of which is as great a trial also and to stand against them reckon'd up amongst as vigorous acts of Faith as those that held out in the greatest tortures persecuting malice could invent Heb. 11. 37. They were stoned sawn asunder were tempted Now to fetch an instance of the sad successe of these I shall not need to go so far as to those Persecutions of Antiochus nor those of the primitive times of christianity when they had no other choices but these to deliver up their Bibles or their Lives either to sacrifice to Idols or at least procure a Ticket which should certifie that they had done it or to be themselves an Holocaust and give those Idols a Burnt-offering with their martyr-flames Which made the Traditores Lapsi the Thurificati and the Libellatici to be so numerous Through Gods blessed mercie there is no use of such instances as there is no fear of such a trial 't is not death to be a Christian now For if the Son of Man or Satan's self should come to try us at those rates 't were a great doubt whetherthe one or other would find Faith upon the Earth whether they would sacrifice a life to our Religion who are not content to sacrifice a little interest or pleasure to it whether they are likely to resist unto blood fighting against sin who will not resist to tears nor sober resolutions Alas what Religion should we be of if God should raise a Diâ—clesian come to tempt us with the fiery trial Martyrs as we are to nothing but our Passions and our lusts Nor shall I produce more known and near experiences when by reason of such storms of Persecution men made shipwreck if not of their Faith yet of good Conscience When by order or permissions of Providence they were brought to such a streight that either they must let go their possessions or their honesty acting against Principles and Conscience of Duty I shall not remember how when God did shake his angry hand thus over them they fled to the Devils kindnesse and made Hell their refuge to save them from their Fathers rod how they grew so Atheistical as to believe a Perjury or other crime greater security that would preserve their selves and their condition better than all God had promis'd were such Infidels that they did rather trust their being here to the commission of a sin than to the Providence and the Engagements of the Almighty For indeed what need I instance in these greater cases where the trial was so sharp as not to offer any easier choice than this either to part with Conscience or with all they had God knows we find lesse Interests will do The Devil by no more than this driving the Gadarens swine into the Sea was able to drive Christ out of their Coasts You have the story Mat. 8. from the 28. vers A legion of those evil spirits did possesse two men and finding Christ would cast them out and by that Miracle so far shew sorth his power that in probability the whole Countrey would believe on him they fall upon this project to prevent it they besought him if he would cast them out to suffer them to go into an herd of Swine there feeding hoping by destroying them to incense the owners against Christ And to try them he permitted this The possessed Swine ran violently down into the Lake and perished Now a man would think the virulency of these Devils which were so destructive when they were at liberty and not restrained would have endeared the mercy that had cast them out of the poor men and came to dispossess the Countrey of them and that their astonishment at so great a miracle would possess them all with Reverence and belief of him and that they would therefore seise and possess him also and not let the mercy go But on the contrary the whole City and Countrey came out to meet Jesus and in consideration of the loss of their swine desire him to depart cut of their Coast. Lo here an equal Enemy to Christ and all his Miracles that was indeed too hard for them The Senate of Hell had no project to keep out Religion like to this to make Religon thwart an Interest Rather no Christianity than lose an Earthly satisfaction by it Rather have the Swine than Christ himself 4. But if he chance to fail in this Assault as by our Saviour he was beaten off he hath yet a reserve in which he places his last strongest confidence with which he ventured to charge Christ when it is probable he knew he was the Son of God He takes him up into an high mountain and shews him all the Kingdoms of the Earth in the twinkling of an eye and the glory of them and says All these things will I give thee He thought it was impossible for such a prospect not to make impression on the appetite raise some desire or stir one Covetous or Ambitious thought which if it could but doe he made no scruple then to clog the Gift with such conditions as that there All these things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me
all diligence exprest by words that import all strife imaginable as Running Wrestling Fighting Warring And persevere also by patient continuance in well doing Rom. 2. 7. and he hath nothing else but vengeance for all others 2 Thes. 1. 8. and we have neither Christ nor Gospel nor Religion but with these terms But I shall wave all this and bound my self within the present words Greater love hath no man than this that a man lay down his Life for his Friends Ye are my Friends if ye do what I command you When Christ is boasting of his love making comparisons and vying friendships with mankind nay more contriving heights and depths of Mercy such as Man hath no comprehension nor fathom for when he was preparing to do an act of compassion almost equal to his Divinity when he had resolutions of so much kindness as to give his life that he might shew kindness Yet could he not then find in his heart to offer or declare one jot of kindness to the men that will not do what he commands but in the midst of such agonies of compassion he thought of nothing but infinite indignation and eternal vengeance to the disobedient I have but now given my Body and my Blood even to the Traitor Judas to one who is a Devil I am going to give my life even for my Enemies for the World But I will give no love to any have no friendship with any but the virtuous no though they be my own Disciples ye are my Friends ye my companions and Apostles are my Friends onely on this condition if ye do what I command you And then is it not matter of Astonishment to see men fancy they have a right in all Christ's Actions and Sufferings presume upon his favour and their own happy condition though they do nothing or but very little towards this and the main of their life be disobedience as if all Christ's commands appointed them to do no commands and Christianity were but a liberty from virtue To pass by those that do nothing but Evil that which the Devil does suggest or their flesh dictate and to consider the Demurer sort of Christians that pretend a respect to Christ and to Religion and see what they will do Why sometimes you may find them troubled at their vices and themselves and those troubles breath out in Sighs and in warm wishes that they could do that which Christ prescribes to will is sometimes strongly present with them but to perform they know not how Alas Christ does not tell you that you are his Friends if you wish well to him and his Commands but he requires that you shall do them These are but vapours of a troubled Soul which howsoever they may chance rise warm catch a strong suddain heat breath up in flashing thoughts They are but meteors little shooting flames that onely do catch fire and fall and dye shew fair but they warm nothing And so these thoughts do never heat the heart into Devotions and holy resolutions the fire is not strong nor does it live enough to melt and work away the filthinesses of the Soul No though they grow to aversations For you may find such men when wearied with the pursuite of their sins hating their customes and the engagements to the practise of them complaining thus I know 't is ill and 't is against my heart that I obey the motions of my passions or Lusts The incitations of my Appetite the usance of the World the obligations of civility or mistaken honour do indeed prevail upon me but 't is with great reluctancy of mind that I yeild to them but I cannot avoid it There are not few that satisfie themselves with this condition Now sure Christ does not say Ye cannot be my Friends except you sin against me and against your Knowledge and your Conscience too 'T is strange that men should think the Heathen instance of a Witch that cryed Video meliora proboque Deteriora sequor I know and do approve of better things but cannot choose but follow these that are the worser strange that this Fury that had the Devil for Familiar should make Christ a friend that this should be the state of Gospel Saints and of Gods favourites 'T is possible some therefore go yet further to good purposes towards Obedience and have holy Intentions but this is not sufficient neither if to do his Commands be necessary for to purpose and intend to do them is not certainly to do them Yet where are any that do aim at doing any more and there is none of these but does presume upon his interest in Christ and satisfies himself and is secure Yet is it hard to find a ground of this their confidence unlesse it rise from the unhappy use they make of Gods preserving Mercies and his kindness to them in the concernments of this life They see without their cares and upon very weak intreaties indeed against all provocations both of God and danger yet his protections secure them although they neither mind the asking them nor mind the walking worthy of them The man whose Sins not Prayers prepare him for his Bed he sleeps well perhaps more soundly than he who at his Bedside throws himself on his face into Gods arms and there bequeaths himself to the Securities of the Almighty And he whose Sleeps onely refresh him for returns to Sin does often live as long as safely and as merrily as he that daily most Religiously does beg Protections from above And others that afford the Lord some little homages themselves some Prayers when their pleasures or occasions permit God hath a care of them and their desires flow into them all does succeed well with them Now they take confidence hence to conclude these are the tokens of Gods friendship and all his mercies will come in at the like easie rates that such a short petition as committed them to the refreshments of the night and after which they wak't into renewed strengths and pleasures such another shall lay them down in safety to the sleeps of that long night that afterwards will break in happy Resurrection For why God will not sure fail his own mercies but be as friendly to their Souls as he is to their Bodies And thus God's Preservations here in meer defiance of our provocations which are the arts of his long suffering his strivings of Compassion meerly to give us opportunities of being reconciled to him and to invite us to be so while we make them occasions of carelesness and security they are so far from being pledges of his Friendship that they have all the aggravations of affronted goodnesse become temptations and degrees of Ruin 'T were fine indeed if Christ's eternal preparations for his Friends would come in to us without care or doing any thing as an accession to our pleasures if when we had lived many years as in a Garden our dayes all flower'd with delight we might expire into
Opiniastres and so violent in their way as to deny humanity to those that would not joyn with them they would not grant the Civilities of Passage to one that intended for Jerusalem to Worship They refuse it to our Saviour here because his Face was thitherward v. 53. A Schismatick will reject a Christ if his Face be fromward their new Establishment if he but look towards the Antient Worship At this the Sons of Zebedee are offended zealous for their Master as being most particularly concern'd in him two of his neerest intimates and their zeal would needs break out into flame And why not a rudenesse to Eli jah was reveng'd by him with Fire from Heaven which consumed twice fifty Souldiers and their Captain though they came to do the King's Command And shall these hated Schismaticks be rude to Thee and reject the Messiah and yet go unpunished Lord shall we command fire to come down from Heaven to consume them even as Elias did Which our Saviour answers with this sharp rebuke Ye know not what manner of Spirit ye are of Not to divide but to explain my Text and so instead of parts present you with some Subjects of Discourse By Spirit here is meant that disposition and complexure of Christian Piety and Vertues that course and Method of Religion which the Spirit does prescribe to Christ's Disciples and does guide them in or in a word the temper of the Gospel is so called And this in opposition to the Law the difference of these being exprest by a diverse manner of Spirit the one is called Spirit of Bondage the other Spirit of Adoption so here Ye know not of what Spirit ye are ye do not judge aright if you believe the temper of the Gospel is like that of the Law The course that I prescribe to my Disciples differs much from that of Prophets under the old Testament you must be guided by another Spirit than Elija's was in calling for Fire if my Spirit dwell in you For I came not to destroy â—â—ens lives on any such account In this sense it affords these propositions First To destroy Mens lives or other temporal rights on this account meerly because they are Apostates Schismaticks or otherwise reject the true Religion or Christ himself is inconsistent with the temper of the Gospel This is that which Christ reproves here telling them that would do so Ye know not what manner of Spirit ye are of Secondly Because the Spirit of Elias which the Gospel Christian Spirit here is set in opposition to oppos'd the Magistrate destroy'd those that came commission'd from the Prince and Christ designedly does say ye must not do now what Elias did therefore to attempt upon or against the Magistrate on the account of Christ or of Religion is inconsistent with the Spirit of the Gospel First of the first that to destroy mens lives c. But here I must observe that since these fiery Disciples that did give occasion for our Saviours rebuke here were no Magistrates nor did Christ himself that gave the rebuke assume but renounce openly all such Authority therefore no observation grounded on these words can controul the Magistrates just power in punishing offences done against his Laws although pretences of Religion and Conscience give colour to those offences the Gospel does diminish no rights of the secular Powers Now Supreme Magistrates though as such they have no right to judge in Articles of Faith to define what is true Religion what not for then the Pagan Princes who had never heard of Christ and yet are as much Magistrates as any would have right to judge what Doctrines Christ delivered down to be believed But certainly when Christ Commission'd his Faith to run through all the World not onely independently from all the powers of it but in perfect opposition to them they can have no right to judge in that which whatsoever they shall Judge we are a like bound to receive the Faith of Christ without any the least difference to their judgment But though they have no right to judge of this they have Authority to determine what Faith shall have the priviledges of their State and what shall not which shall be publiquely profest and which they will inhibit with Penalties For sure the Priviledges of the State and power of Penalties are the proper rights of the Supreme Power and therefore none but that can judge and determin of them In a word since it is most evident that the tranquility of a State does depend upon nothing more than the profession and priviledging of Religion it follows that those Powers to whose Judgment and Decrees the care and Tranquility of the State is committed must have the power to judge and to determine what Faith shall be publiquely profest and priviledg'd by the State In which Judgment and administration if they erre and priviledge a false Faith and inhibit the true they use their Powerill and are responsible to God for doing so but they do not invade or usurp a Power that is not their own Rather 't is most certain if the Principles of any Sect or else if not they yet the pursuance of any Principles do tend directly towards or are found to work Commotions and Treasonable enterprises the Supreme Power hath as much right to restrain yea and Punish them although with Death according to their several merits as he hath to punish those effects in any other instances wherein they do expresse themselves Nor must Religion secure those practises which it cannot sanctifie but does envenome For by putting an everlasting concern into mens opinions and actions their undertakings are made by it more desperate and unreclaimable What wounds and what Massacres must the State expect from them that stab and murder it with the same Zeal that the Priest kills a Sacrifice that go to act their Villanies with Devotion and go to their own Execution as to Martyrdom 'T were easie for me to deduce the practise of this Power from the best Magistrates in the best times if that were my businesse who had onely this temptation to say thus much that I might not seem to clash with the Magistrates Power of coercion in Religious causes when I did affirm that to destroy mens Lives or other temporal Rights on this account meerly because they are Apostates Schismaticks or otherwise reject the true Religion or Christ himself is inconsistent with the temper of the Gospel If you would discover what the temper of the Gospel is you may see it in its Prophecy and Picture in the Prophet Isay The Wolf shall dwell with the Lamb and the Leopard shall lye down with the Kid the sucking Child shall play on the hole of the Asp and the weaned Child shall put his hand on the Cockatrice den and the Serpent shall eat the dust Whatever mischief these have in themselves there 's nothing of devouring or of hurt to one another in this state 't is like Paradise
restor'd the prospect of the Garden of the Lord. Rather whereas there these Creatures onely met here they lye down and dwell together And the Aspe and Serpent that could poyson Paradise it self have now no venomous tooth to bite no not the heel nor spightful tongue to hiss But to speak out of figure the Gospel in it self requires not the Life of any for transgression against its self it calls all into it and waits their coming those that sin against it it useth methods to reform hath its Spiritual Penalties indeed whereby it would inflict amendment and Salvation on offendors But because final impenitence and unbelief are the onely breaches of the Covenant of this Religion therefore it does wait till life and possibilities of Repentance are run out and then its Punishments indeed come home with interest but not till then The Law 't is true was of another temper it required the life of an Apostate to Idolatry whether tweâ—e a single person or a City 13. Deut. To the Jew that was a Child as S. Paul sayes and so not to be kept in awe by threats of future abdication things beyond the prospect of his care but must have present punishments the Rod still in his eye and was a refractory Child that seem'd to have the Amorite and Hivite derived into him a tincture of Idolatry in his Constitution that was as ready to run back into the superstitions as the Land of AEgypt as eager for their Deities as their Onyons and had the same appetite to the Calf and to the fleshpots to make the one a God the other a Meale to such a People Death that was the onely probable restraint was put into the Law by God who was himself Supreme Magistrate in that Theocraty against whom 't was exact Rebellion and Treason to take another God and therefore was by him punisht with Death But the Spirit whom Christ sends breaths no such threats for he can come on no Designs but such as Christ can joyn in but saith Christ I came not to destroy mens lives Secondly The temper of the Gospel is discovered in its Precepts I shall name but one Mat. 5. 43 44. Ye have heard that it hath been said Thou shalt love thy Neighbour and hate thine Enemy But I say unto you love your Enemies c. Where if Enemy did not mean the man whom private quarrell had made such and Him it could not mean it being said to them that they must love that Enemy Exod. 23. 4 5. But as the Jews neighbour was every one of his Religion and he liv'd neer him that lived in the same Covenant with him so enemy being oppos'd to that must signifie one not of his Religion an Alien an Idolater with any of which they were indeed to have no exercise of love or friendship no commerce and to some Enemies the Canaanites no mercy but they were to hate them to destruction Deut. 7. If so then our Saviours addition here But I say unto you love your Enemies does say that we must love even these the Christian hath no Canaanites but the most profligated adversaries of his Religion he must love and pray for them although they persecute him Which makes appear it does at least include Enemies of Religion for Persecutions seldome were on any other ground and Religion which should have nothing else but Heaven in it as if it had the malice and the Flames of Hell breaths nothing else but Fire and Faggot to all those that differ in it But whether it be an addition and mean thus or no since it is sure that both they and we are bound to love the Neighbour and Christ hath prov'd Luc. 10. that the Samaritane he whom our two Disciples would consume that Schismatick and rejecter of Christ is yet a Neighbour therefore him also we must love and pray for Now 't is a strange way of affection to destroy them to love them thus to the death to get admission to their hearts with a Swords poynt to pray for them by calling for Fire down from Heaven to consume them S. Greg. Nazian calls the founder of that Faction that began this practise in the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and if so we know well of what Spirit he is that does call for fire to devour those that differ from him in Religion 't is sure one of this Legion or it rather is the leader of them that did dwell in Tombs and does in flames things which he loves so to inflict one that was the first Rebell too which leads me to my second observation That Secondly To attempt upon or against the Prince on the account of Christ or of Religion is most inconsistent with the Spirit of the Gospel For it was the Spirit of Elias who destroyed those whom the Magistrate did send that Christ opposes here the Spirit of the Gospel to in this severe rebuke ye know not what manner of Spirit ye are of The other warm Apostle meets a greater check in the like case S. Peter's zeal that they say made him chief of the Apostles as it made him promptest to confesse the Lord so it did heat him to be readiest to defend him as fiery to use his Sword as his Tongue for his Master But his Master will not let a Sword be drawn in his own cause put up again thy Sword into his place The God of our Religion will not be defended from Treason and from Murder by the wounding of another nor will his Religion suffer a Sword out of the sheath against the Power of the Magistrate no not in behalf of Christ himself but goes beyond its proper bounds to threaten things that are not Gospel punishments even excision in this life to them that do attempt it They that take the Sword shall perish with the Sword Here the Gospel becomes Law and turns zealot for the Magistrate though persecuting Christ himself Our Saviour does not think it sharp enough to tell S. Peter that he did not know what Spirit he was of for when this Disciple would have kept these sufferings from his Master onely by his counsel he replyes to him get thee behind me Satan He was then of that manner of Spirit therefore now that he does so much worse when he attempts to keep them from him with a Sword and drawn against the Power as if Christ did not know how to word what Spirit such attempts did favour of he does not check and rebuke now but threaten and denounce And 't is obvious to observe that this same Peter who would needs be fighting for his Master in few hours with most cursed imprecations forswears him And so irregular illegal violences for Religion usually flame out into direct opposition to that they are so zealous for fly in the face of that Religion they pretend to strive for to let us see they do not rise from Divine Zeal and from true Piety but from Hypocrisie Ambition
dayes there shall come scoffers walking after their own lusts Now the men of our dayes have the luck to obey Scripture thus far as to make that Prophecy to come to passe for those scoffers are come in power and great glory The Psalmist tells us of a Chair of Scorners as if these were the onely men that speak ex cathedra And sure scoffs and taunts at Religion are the onely things that may be talk'd with confidence aloud They imprint an Authority on what is said and conversations that are most insipied on all other scores get accompt as they come up towards this practise Hence they gain degrees commence ingenious as they border on these Atheistical and irreligious Blasphemies and when it is pure scorn then it is in the Chair But it stayes not there For Secondly Upon the same account of strictnesse of Religion men will fall off from and openly renounce both Christ and his Religion This is that our Saviour himself found Light saith he is come into the World and men loved Darknesse rather than the Light because their deeds were evil And he said of the Pharisees They repented not that they might believe as knowing it impossible that they could venture to believe that Doctrine which condemn'd those courses that they would not repent of And if I should affirm that it is nothing else but mens unwillingnesse to be obliged to those things which if there be a God and a Religion which this Child was set to institute they must account themselves obliged to nothing else I say but this which makes them so unwilling to believe a God or Christ yea openly renounce them both and their Religion I should have for proof of this not only the late instance of a Nation in the Indies which by institution of the Portugals was easily perswaded to embrace the Christian Creed and was Baptized into our Faith but when they were required to lead their lives according to Christs Precepts and renounce their Heathen Licences they chose rather to renounce their Creed and Saviour and returned instantly to their indulgent Heathenisme But to this experience give me leave to add this Reason that it is not the Difficulty of the Misteries of Faith and their being above our Comprehension which makes them not to be receiv'd because there are as great difficulties in things that we are certain of For in the very Sphere of Reason within the lines and measures of her own Infallibility in things of which she does assure her self by diagrams and sense yet she is as much amaz'd as at those objects in the highest and remotest Regions of Faith and Mathematicks hath her Paradoxes that stand in as great danger of a contradiction as any of Religions Mysteries while Reason cannot cape what she demonstrates but is to seek how those things can be possible which she proves most certain and they are incomprehensible to her even when they are most evident And then sure if we can think there is a God we must needs think He can do things which we cannot comprehend when it is plain our Reason cannot comprehend what she her self does find out and creat It is not therefore contradiction to Reason but to Appetite that makes things of Religion so incredible which I thus demonstrate to the Atheist Those very difficulties to avoid which he denies a God to wit Those of an Eternal Being that is of himself those very things he must and does acknowledge in the being of the World if that either be it self Eternal as the Atheist of the Peripatetick Tribe will have it or else if its atomes out of which it was concreted were As those of Epicurus herd assert In a word if they say the World or its materials were made they grant a God that made it If they say they were not made they assert then an Eternal Being of its self that is they allow those difficulties for which they pretend to deny a God There being therefore the same difficulties Greater I could prove them from the diverse natures of corporeal and spiritual beings for we are sure in bodies that are still in motion and so subject to succession those things are impossible but if there be a Being that is not in motion and by consequence not subject to the laws of our time all these knots unty themselves those difficulties vanish and have no place But to say no more than I have shewed there being the same Difficulties in the Atheist's hypothesis as in the other 't is apparent not the difficulties of belief but practise make him fix upon his own against the common notions of the World So that 't is not his understanding but his Appetite frames his hypothesis and without figure 't is his Will that he believes with And it is most evident that because men do not love the Precepts of Religion would not have them be their duty therefore they would have the Doctrines of it not be truths and in this they are the Disciples onely of their Lusts and because they cannot resolve to be otherwise therefore they resolve not to be Christ's Disciples but reject him for his holy Doctrines sake And so this Child is for the fall of many But it were strange if upon this account Christ should be for the fall of any of us who have learnt a trick to reconcile his severe Doctrines and our Sins together Where Vice most abounds though it be wilful and men persevere in it they are so far from finding any reason to fall off from him or from his Gospel for this that they therefore take the faster hold of it rely upon Him with the bolder stronger confidence As if good old Simeon were mistaken when he thought because men would not leave those sins which Christ so threatned therefore they would leave him Because they could not bear those his hard sayings to pull out the lust and the Eye too cast away the treasures of unrighteousnesse and the right hand that receives them also therefore they would cast off him For for this reason they betake themselves to him more eagerly devolve and cast themselves upon him with assurance T is possible indeed that the new Christian'd Indians might believe themselves oblig'd to lead their lives according to the Vow that they had made in Baptisme knew not how to live a contradiction to be Christian Pagans therefore they thought it absolutely necessary to renounce the one and to reject Christ and his strict Religion was easier they thought Our Saviour also might suppose that when he brought Light into the World men would not receive that Light because their deeds were evil But our modern wickednesses that are of the true Eagle kind are educated bred up to endure and to defie the Light Our deeds of Night have learnt to face both Sun and Men yea and face the Sun of Righteousnesse and the light of those flames that are to receive them Our Saviour told
with which the World assaults us in our course of Duty Thus the Crosse of Christ first shews us the necessity we have to renounce and Crucifie the World But to encourage and enable us to do so it does also shew us Secondly the certainty of a good issue in the doing it assures us that those who deny themselves forbidden satisfactions here that will be vertuous maugre all the baits and threats of Earth will embrace duty when it is laden with a Cross although so heavy as to crush out life and kill the body assures us that those lose not but exchange their lives shall save their Souls and that there is another World wherein their losses shall be made up to them and repaired with all advantage To the truth of this the Crosse of Christ is a most pregnant and infallible testimony For as by multitudes of Miracles Christ sought to satisfie the world that he was sent from God to promise all this and justified his Power to perform it by experiment raising some up from the dead so when they said he did his Miracles by Beelzebub he justified it further with his Life affirming that he was the Son of God now 't is impossible but he must know whether he were or no and consequently sent and able to do all he promised and resolv'd to do it also for our more assurance in himself that he would raise himself up from the dead within three dayes and saying this when he was sure he should be Crucified for saying so and sure that if he did not do according to his words he must within three dayes appear a meer Impostor to the world and his Religion never be receiv'd Now 't is impossible for him that must needs know whether all this were true or no to give a greater testimony to it than his Life For this that Blood and Water that flowed from his wounded side upon the Crosse which did assure his Death is justly said to bear witnesse to his being the Son of God and consequently to the truth of all this equal to the testimony of the Spirit whether that which the Spirit gave when he came from Heaven down upon him in his Baptisme or the testimony which he gave by Miracle for there are three that bear witnesse upon Earth the Spirit the Water and the Blood Thus by his Death Christ did bring Life and Immortality to light his choosing to lay down his own life for asserting of the truth of all this was as great an argument to prove it as his raising others from the dead and Lazarusâ—â— empty Monument and walking grave-cloathes were not better evidence than this Crosse of Christ. 3. Once more this Crosse not onely proves the certainty of a future state but does demonstrate the advantage of it and assures us that it is infinitely much more eligible to have our portion in the life to come than in this life That to part with every thing that is desirable in this World rather than to fail of those joyes that are laid up in the other that to be poor here or to be a spoyl to renounce or to disperse my wealth that so I may lay up treasures for my self in Heaven and may be rich to God never to taste any one of these puddle transient delights rather than to be put from that right hand where there are pleasures for ever more to be thrown down from every height on Earth if so I may ascend those everlasting Hills and mount Sion that is above that this is beyond all proportion the wisest course it does demonstrate since it shews us him who is the Son of God who did create all these advantages of Earth and prepare those in Heaven and does therefore know them both Who also is the Wisdom of the Father and does therefore know to value them yet for the joyes that were set before him choosing to endure the Crosse and despising the shame On that Beam he weigh'd them and by that his choice declar'd the Pomps of this World far too light that exceeding and eternal weight of Glory that the whole Earth was but as the dust upon the Ballance and despis'd it and to make us do so is both the Design and direct influence of the Cross of Christ. But as at first the Wise men of this World did count the Preaching of the Crosse meer folly to give up themselves to the belief and the obedience of a man that was most infamously Crucifyed and for the sake of such an one to renounce all the satisfactions suffer all the dire things of this Life and in lieu of all this onely expect some after Blessednesses and Salvations from a man that they thought could not save himself seemed to them most ridiculous So truly it does still appear so to the carnal reasonings of that sort of men who have the same objections to the Crosse of Christ as it would crucify the World to them and them to it as it would strip them of all present rich contents and give them certain evils with some promises of after good things which they have no tast for nor assurance of Now this being in their account folly then the contrary to this they must think wisdom as it is indeed the Wisdom of this World which Wisdom since it does design no further than this World and hath no higher ends than Earth and its Felicities it must needs put men upon minding the acquist and the enjoyment of these Earthly things for that is onely to pursue and to atchieve their ends to catch at and lay hold on their felicity and accordingly we see it does immerse them wholly in those cares So that it is no wonder if their God and Religion can get no attendance from them it being most impossible they should when Mammon hath engaged them in the superstitious services of Idolatry and when they sacrifice their whole selves to pleasure and make their bodies the burnt offerings of their Lusts and when Ambition even while it makes them stretch and climb and mount causes them also to fall low prostrate make their temper nature stoop lye down to every humour and to every vice they think themselves concern'd to court and please And though a man would think these so great boundlesse cares are very vain and foolish upon several accounts for common sense as well as Scripture does assure 〈◊〉 that this life and the Contents of it do not consist in the abundance of the things that we possess that it is all one whether my draught come out of a small Bottle or an Hogshead 〈◊〉 the one of these indeed may serve excesse and sicknesse better but the other serves my appetite as well the one may drown my Vertue but the other quenches thirst alike And every dayes experience also does convince us that the least crosse accident pain or affliction on our persons or some other that is seated neer our hearts or the least
and favour and the happy consequences of it as to counterpoise all the danger of such enmity you may joyn hands with them But if His be the safer and more advantageous then hearken to his Propositions and beseechings for He does beg it of you As he treated this reconciliation in his Blood so he does in Petitions too For saith S. Paul We are Ambassadours for Christ as if God did beseech you by us we pray you in Christ's stead Be you reconciled and then be Generous towards your GOD and Saviour and having brought him as it were upon his knees reduc'd him to entreaties be friends and condescend to him and your own Happiness If He be for you take no care then who can be against you His Friendship will secure you not onely from your Enemies but from Hostility it self for when a man's wayes please the Lord he will make even his Enemies to be at peace with him Prov. 16. 7. He will reconcile all but Vices And afterwards see what a blessed throng of Friends we shall be all initiated into Heb. 12. 23. To an innumerable company of Angels to the general Assembly and Church of the First-born that are written in Heaven to God the Judge of all and to the Spirits of Just men made perfect and to Jesus the Mediator of the new Covenant c. And of this blest Corona we our selves shall be a noble and a glorious part inflamed all with that mutual love that kindles Seraphims and that streams out into an heavenly glory filling that Region of immortal love and blessednesse and being Friends that is made one with Father Son and Holy Ghost that Trinity of Love we shall enjoy what we do now desire to ascribe to them All Honour Glory Power Majesty and Dominion for evermore Amen SERMON V. VVHITE-HALL Third Wednesday in LEN. EZECH XXXIII 11. Why will ye Dye THe Words are part of a Debate which God had with the sinful House of Israel in which there are three things offer themselves to be considered First The Sinners Fate and choyce He will Dye That 's his End yea 't is his Resolution he will dye Secondly Gods inquiry for the Ground of this he seems astonished at the Resolution and therefore reasons with them about this their so mad choyce and questions Why will ye dye Which words are also Thirdly The debate of his Affections the reasoning of his Bowels and a most passionate Expostulation with them on account of that their Resolution Why will ye dye Which as it is adrest by God directly to the House of Israel so it would fit a Nation perverse as that which Mutinies against Miracles and Mercies is false to God Religion and their own Interests led by a Spirit of giddyness and srenzy unsteddy in all things but resolutions of Ruine that would teare open their old Wounds to let out Life and they will dye And though the Lord be pleased to work new prodigies of mercy for us and to say unto us in despite of all our Enemies both Forreign and Domestick Live The use we make of all is onely to debauch the Miracles and make Gods Mercies help to fill the measure of our Judgment live as if we would try all the wayes to Ruine and since God will thus deliver us from dangers we would call for them some other way But to prescribe to these is above the attempt of my endeavours May the blessed Spirit of Wisdom and Understanding the Spirit of Holynesse and Peace and Order breath on their Counsels whom this is committed to I shall bend my Discourse to the Conviction of Sinners in particular and treat upon the words as if they had been spoke to us under the Gospel The first thing which my Text and God supposeth is the Sinners Fate and Choyce He will dye Even the second Death for it is appointed for all men once to dye and then cometh the Judgment which shall sentence him to another death that is immortal in which he and his misery must live for ever that is he must dye Everlastingly Such is first his fate That Sin and Death are of so near so complicated a relation as that though they were Twins the birth and Issue of one Womb and moment yet they are also one anothers Ofspring and beget each other while Sin bringeth forth Death as S. James saith and is the Parent of Perdition and yet the Man of Sin is the Son of Perdition as S. Paul saith and Iniquity is but destruction's birth onely it self derived And that this Death and Perdition is Eternal in the most sad sense of the word there are a thousand Texts that say This is the Message of God in the mouth and Blood of his Son who useth all the artifice of Words affirmative and negative to tell us so as if on purpose to preclude all doubt and subtersuge calls it Eternal fire and Eternal punishment where their worm dieth not their fire is not quenched Torment for ever and ever and the like Your Faith and certainty of which is as strong as your Christianity and therefore by attempting any farther proof of this to imply there is reason and necessity for doing so were to suppose my Hearers infidels But then this being granted that such is the sinners fate to lay down positively that it is his Choyce and that he doth resolve for Death is to suppose them worse than Infidels more than irrational and brutish Beasts cannot so desire against the possibilities of appetite break all the forces and instincts of Nature as to will destruction and choose misery Yet that the sinner does so is the ground of Gods Expostulation here Why will you dye David inquires as if it were a prodigy to find What man is he that lusteth to Live And sure the vicious man does not for Wisdome that is Virtue sayes He that sinneth against me woundeth his own Soul and all they that hate me love death Prov. 8. 36. And 't is most evident that they who eagerly and out of vehement affection pursue and seize those things to which they know destruction is annext inseparably they love and choose destruction though not for it self yet for the sake of that to which it clings He that is certain such a Potion howsoever sweetned and made palatable is compounded with the juice of deadly Nightshade if notwithstanding he will have the Poysonous draught it is apparent he resolves to dye And that I may evince this is a setled obstinate incorrigible resolution in him and by what wayes and steps it comes to be so I will lay before you the violent courses he does take to break through difficulties and obstructions that would trash and hinder him And when the avenues to Death are strongly guarded how he storms and forces them overcomes all resistance possible that he may seize on Sin and Death And First When such persons have entred the Profession of Christianity in Baptisme and
thrust themselves into the mind and the advantages that do attend them and by constant importunacy stirr and work desires and serve them too then we are in that state in which the World hath those advantages I told you of whereby it does not onely war against the Principles of Reason and Religion in us but it also leads the Will into Captivity and enslaves her to it self For it is plain the world hath got possession of the heart and hath a strong party of heady passions which whensoever a temptation does alarm them presently are up raise a mutiny and with the heat of Fancy and commotion of affections they disorder the Understanding so that it cannot rally up considerations against the assault but either it concludes or disputes very faintly If it do make an effort and struggle it is but with a slender company of thin weak notions of things afar off which the man hath had no proof of nor hath any great confidence in which while it is in recollecting and enforcing the world hath its powers ready seizes on the Will by the means of a corrupted fancy that does give it earnest foretast even the possession of the well-known pleasures that it does invite to and so melts him down into the sin Now while the present Profits Pleasures Honours that I have from the World fill me while they feed and cloath me and provide me all that my necessity or wantonnesse can wish and furnish me in hand with whatsoever any of my natural or my forc't Appetites does gape for and lull me with that constant variety of those delights which it procures the use of which hath so drunk up my Spirits and my Soul hath so imbib'd the joyes that I know not how to retrench from them nor from that which is to furnish them Must I leave all these for things that I have had no tast nor rellish of leave all in present for some future hopes which I have no great confidence of compassing if I should try and which I also see that very few venture for Whereas Mankind is swallowed up in the pursuit of these and to be stor'd with them does not onely serve my needs and Luxuries but it is the onely state of Reputation and Honour 'T is not from a rich stock of vertuous qualifications nor from great and glorious Actions that Esteem and Dignities do generally grow but from worldly advantages these constitute conditions and these are their onely Characters And being it is so they that are in a Sphere above the ordinary ranks of people must contrive those things that are become essential to their condition and they must have worldly Pomps although with the expence of Piety or Charity and Justice yea of every Christian Duty of Morality indeed and Heathen vertue of Humanity it self They will extort be ravenous and cruel will be false and treacherous cheat and betray to get and purchase at the price of the most difingenious sneaking and unmanly sins To undermine another they will dig to Hell as if they meant to give fire to their Mine with the flames of that place whence they have the malice and the arts to do it And as if they did not care to sink him thither who stands in their way to stop their rise they are content to dye their purple with their own most guilty blushes and the blood of any one that is their Rival or Competitor Add to this that when these pretences of condition have got footing in the heart besides those passionate desires which they stirr for themselves they work out most unquiet Emulations Envyes Discontents at others In whatsoever any other does exceed me his Abundance is my want straight I am in necessity not from my own needs but from his possessions and I suffer his enjoyments I labour fret and sink under the burden of his Honours and his greatnesse is inflicted on me Nor can I ever be at rest till I am got from under the sad pressure of that deep necessity of having what I see another have And thus it will be till Ambition have no further object till there be no greater heights to mount And now this Lust is in its pride and the victorious World in its Triumphal Chariot Not that I dare pretend that I have shewed you all the Chains by which it drags captive Souls after it or all the Arts of Tyranny that it does execute I could name many more but he alone is able to discover all that in the twinkling of an Eye did once shew all the Kingdoms of the World and all the beauty of them and who promised to bestow them all for but one single act of Worship and whose gift the Glorys of it are for the most part and purchased by those very means My business is to pull it down from this great height and shew you how to triumph o're these Conquests which my Text sayes is done by Faith for this is the Victory that over cometh the World even our Faith Which how it does is my second next Enquiry It seems a prejudice to this Assertion of my Text that the great pretenders to Faith the men that lay the whole stresse of their Everlasting Being on believing onely have been branded to be very Worldly and the Factions of Godlinesse were the mysteries and arts of Thriveing as if their Faith laid hold indeed upon the Promises of that Life and if it over came the World it was for them to seize and be possessours of But this is not the Victory my Text seeures a Conquest for the Faith onely of Maâ—oâ—et to make And while Christian Votaries do onely mind such Conquests and are candidates of Turcisme do they not call it in and make way for their Sword and their Religion But the Faith that layes hold on Christ's Promises cannot confist with any such affections For since Christ's Promises are made onely to those that overcome all such desires and that do it to the end and none other can be safe It is impossible for him that does not overcome to trust upon those Promises and to apply them to himself by Faith For at once to believe I shall be saved and yet believe those sayings which affirm none such can be saved these are most inconsistent It being then as easie to make contradictions be at peace as Faith and Worldlinesse they cannot suffer one the other it follows He that hath this Faith in sincerity must needs overcome the World And to shew you in a word how it is done you need not but to consider that Faith is as S. Paul saith the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen Heb. 11. 1. Which as the Syriach translates does say that Faith is such a certainty of those things that we hope for as if we actually had them and it is the revelation of those things are not seen it hath so strong a confidence in God that the Believer assures himself
Revenge or Interest and that warm shine that kindles there pretended Angels of Light is but a flash of Hell a glory about a fiend Therefore afterwards none was more forward than S. Peter was to presse submission to the Magistrate though most unjustly persecuting for Religion talks of no Fire but the fiery trial then in Epist. 1. Cap. 4. and If ye suffer for the Name of Christ the Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you he knows what manner of Spirit such are of When they are in the place of Dragons then the Holy Ghost and God is with them when the darknesse of the shadow of death is on their Souls even then the Spirit of glory resteth on them Accordingly the after-Fathers urge the same not onely towards Heathen Emperours but relapst Hereticks and Apostates As Julian and Constantius Valens Valentinian and upon the same account S. Ambrose sayes Spiritus Sanctus id locutus est in vobis Rogamus Auguste non Pugnamus The Holy Spirit spake these words in you we beg O Valentinian we oppose not And S. Greg. Nazianzen sayes to do so was the Christian Law most excellently ordained by the Spirit of God who knew best to temper his Law with the mixture of what is profitable to us and honest in it self They knew what manner of Spirit that of Christianity was It does assume no power to inflict it self 'T is not commission'd to plant it self with violence or destroy those that refuse or oppose it It wages War indeed with vices not with men And in the Camp of our Religion as once in Israel there is no Sword found but with Saul and Jonathan his Son only the Princes Sword Our Spirit is the Dove no Bird of prey that nor indeed of gall or passion If Christian Religion be to be writ in Blood 't is in that of its own confessors only if mens false Opinions make no parties nor mischiess in the State we are not to make them Martyrs to their false opinions and if they be not so happy as to be Orthodox send them down to Hell directly tear out one anothers Souls to tear out that which we think an error Sure they must not root out smutted Corn that must not root out Poppy we may let that which is a little blasted grow if we must let the Tares and Darnel grow The Souldiers would not crucifie Christ's Coat nor make a rent there where they could find no seame But now men strive so for the Coat that they do rent his Flesh to catch it and to gain an inclosure of the name of Christians tear all other members from the Body of Christ care not to sacrifice a Nation to a supposed Error will attempt to purge away what they call drosse in a Furnace of consuming flame The Christian Spirit 's fiery tongues must kindle no such heats but his effusions call'd Rivers came to quench such fires Effusions that were mistaken for new wine indeed but never lookt like Blood Nor are they that retain to this Spirit those that have him call'd down on them in their Consecration impowered for such uses When Christ sent his Disciples to convert the World Behold saith he I send you forth as Lambs among Wolves And sure that does not sound like giving a Commission to tear and worry those that would not come into the Flock The Sheep were not by that impowered to devour the Wolves Our Lords directions to his Apostles when a City would not receive their Doctrine was shake off the dust of your feet let nothing of theirs cleave to you have no more to do with them cast off the very dust that setled on your Sandals as you past their Streets And surely then we must be far from animating to give ruine to and seize the Sword the Scepter and the Thrones of Kings if they refuse to receive Christ or his Kingdom or his Reformation or his Vicar If I must not have the dust of any such upon my feet I must not have their Land in my possession their Crowns on my head their Wealth in my Coffers their Blood upon my hands nor their Souls upon my Sword It will be ill appearing so when we come to give an account how we have executed our Commission and shall be askt did I send you to inflict the Crosse or preach it to save mens Souls or to destroy their lives yea and Souls too And when in those Myriads of Souls that have perisht in the desolations which such occasions have wrought their Blood shall cry from under the Altar as being sacrific'd to that duty and Religion which was the utmost that they understood it so be that there were no Treason to discolour it and they that did inflict all this appear but Christian Dioclesians and stand at that sad day in the train of the Persecutions on the same hand O then those Fires which these Boutefeus called for and kindled shall blaze out into everlasting burnings And now it may seem strange that they who most of all pretend the Spirit of Christ are yet of the most distant temper in the world from that of Gospel alwayes endeavouring to do that which our Saviour here checks his Disciples for proposing and did threaten Peter for attempting There are among ourselves that seem to live by Inspiration that look and speak as in the frame of the Gospel as if every motion were impulse from Heaven and yet as if Christ had fulfilled his promise to them without metaphor baptized them with the Holy Ghost and fire only that they might kindle fire and the unction of the Spirit did but add oyl to those flames as if the cloven Tongues of fire in which the Spirit did descend were made to be the Emblems of Division and to call for fire these mens life their garb their very piety is faction they pray rebell and murder and all by the Spirit 'T is true indeed they plead now what we seem to say that they should not be persecuted for not being satisfied in their Conscience so they mince their breaking of the Laws for which they suffer But do these know themselves what manner of Spirit they are of or are we bound not to remember when they had the Power how they persecuted all that would not do at once against their King their Conscience and the Law And we do thus far know what Spirit they are of that if they have not yet repented of all that then it is plain if they can get an opportunity they will do it all again nay they must by their Spirit think themselves obliged to do it But these are not all those that above all the World pretend to the Infallible assistance of the Spirit our Church is bold in her offices of this day to say do turn Religion into Rebellion she said it more severely heretofore and the attempts of this day warrant the saying when not
yet as if it were not full of Earth nor had been satisfied with it in the Sepulchre they gape still like the Grave that never can be satisfied And we see others who as if this Resurrection were but a start out of a sleep or lucid interval of former madnesse have their hands ready not onely to tear off the hair the unessential accessary beauties of the Body of the Church and State but to scratch the Face pull out the Eyes and tear open those Wounds which their last fit of Fury did inflict so to let Life out again And as for the Community of the Nation 't is true we are as it were risen from the Grave but have we not brought up with us the Plague sores are not the Spots upon us still the venome ulcer and infection about us Yea more contracted Stench and Putresaction such as Death and the Grave do add and coming from the dead we will not yet part with these but dresse our selves in those infected and defiled grave-clothes and rise into corruption and so confute Gods Method of a Refurrection 't were happier if we would so far confute the Text that coming our selves from the dead we would renounce communion with all Deaths adherencies begin the incorruptible which shall be consummated when we shall rise again a Church triumphant when Death shall be swallowed up in Victory and neither Sin nor Repentance shall be any more but Holinesse and Life and Glory too shall be Immortal and unchangeable To which c. SERMON XII CHRIST-CHURCH IN OXFORD Decemb. 31. 1665. LUKE II. part of the 34. vers Behold this Child is set for the Fall and Rising again of many in Israel and for a sign which shall be spoken against AND Simeon Blessed them and said c. A Benediction sure of a most strange importance If to bring forth one that is to be a large Destruction if to be delivered of a Child that must be for the Fall of many and the killing of the Mother's self be blessed if Swords and Ruins be Comforts then my Text is full of these But if this be to Blesse what is it to forespeak and abode ill Yet however ominous and fatal the words are they give us the event and the design too of the Blessed Incarnation of the Son of God the Child of this Text and of this Season A short view of Gods Counsel in it and the Effects of it The Effects in these particulars 1. This Child is for the Fall of many 2. For the Rising again of many 3. For a Sign With the quality of that sign he is for a sign that shall be spoken against 2. The Counsel and Design of this is signifyed in the word here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he is set and preordain'd to be all this First of the first Effect This Child is for the Fall of many And here I shall but onely name that way whereby many men set this Child for their own Fall while they make his holy Time to be but a more solemn opportunity of sinning We know many celebrate this great Festival with Surfeits and Excesses the usual appendages of Feasting Oaths and Curses the ingredients of Gaming Dallyance and Lasciviousnesse the attendants of Sporting of all which this seems as it were the Anniversary a set time for their return Thus indeed the Israelites did solemnize the Birth of their Idol-Calf They sate down to Eat and Drink and rose up to Play And must we celebrate this Child too like that Calf because he was born among Brutes And must his Votaries also be of the Herd And he live and be worship'd alwayes in a Stable Because God became Man must Men therefore become Beasts Is it fit to honour that Child with Iniquity and Loosnesse that did come into the World upon designs of Holinesse to settle a most strict Religion Nothing can be more incongruous than this and certainly there is nothing of Gods Counsel in it But to you whose time seems nothing else but a constant Festival always hath the Leisure and the Plenties and the Sports of one who as to these things keep a Christmass all your life this Season as it does not seem to challenge those things to it self peculiarly so I shall not now insist on them but proceed to those ways by which Simeon did Prophecy This Child would be for the fall of many in Israel And they are three 1. This Child whom I but now declar'd God had prepar'd to be the Glory of his People Israel yet his Birth was so inglorious and his Life answerable to it shall be so mean and poor and his Death so full of shame and curse that these shall prove a scandal to his People who shall be offended at them and being prepossest with prejudices of a Pompous Royal Messiah they will not believe in this but reject a Saviour that comes upon those disadvantages which will therefore prove occasions of falling to them That it was so is expresly said Behold I lay in Sion a Chief Corner-stone a stone of stumbling and a Rock of offence And that it was so upon this account is clear the Great ones cry out of him This fellow we know not whence he is They that seem'd to know whence did upbraid him with it Is not this the Carpenter And therefore with a deal of scorn they question Do any of the Rulers or the Pharisees believe in him Yea Christ himself knew this would be so great a Scandal that in the 11 Chapter of S. Mathew in the close of many Miracles which he wrought on purpose to demonstrate he was the Messiah he adds vers 6. and blessed is he that shall not be offended in me As if he thought his mean condition would prove a greater argument against him than his mighty Works were for him And it were a vaster Prodigy to see the Saviour of the World the promised Messiah poor and abject than to see one cure the Blind and heal the Lame and raise the Dead and they might think they had a stranger Miracle to confirm their unbelief than any he would work to make them believe in him And really that the Kingdom of the Messiah which the Prophets did expresse in terms as high as their own Extasies and Raptures in transported words as if it vied with Gods Dominion both for extent and for duration should prove at last an Empire onely over twelve poor Fishermen and Publicans and one of them a Traytor too And that He that was born this King should be born in a Stable while he liv'd that he should not have an hole to put his Head in nor his Corps in when he died but his Grave too must be Charity this would startle any that did wait for the Redemption of Israel in those glorious expresses which the Prophets trac't it out in To you indeed that are Votaries to this Child are confirmed Christians these seeming disadvantages can give no prejudice
However mean and abject his condition were that cannot make you to despise him who from that must needs reflect how dear you were to God when for your sakes meorly he became so mean and abject He became poor saith S. Paul that you through his poverty might be made rich He was made the Child of Man that you might be made Sons of God it was to pay the price of your Redemption that he so emptied himself thus he valued you and men do not despise meerly because and by those measures that they are esteem'd these are not the returns of love its passionate obliging ravishing effects do not use to be thus requited this his great descent cannot occasion your fall who know he descended only to assume you up to glory But 't is worth inquiry why since it was certain that for this this Child should be the fall of Israel that for this they would reject him and the meannesse of his condition would prove an unremoveable obstruction to their belief as it is to this day Why yet he would choose to be born in a condition so in the utmost extream to his own nature so all contradiction to his Divinity and so seemingly opposite to the very end of his coming The Jew indeed will find no excuse for his Infidelity from this condition For whatever that were yet those Miracles that made the Devils to confesse him brought conviction enough to make Jews inexcusable And it was obvious to observe that He who fed five thousand with five Loaves and two Fishes till they left more than was set before them needed not to be in a condition of want or meanness if it were not otherwise more needful he should not abound God that when be brought this first begotten Son into the World said Let all the Angels of God worship him might have put him into an estate which all Mankind most readily would have done homage to As easily have drest his Person with a blaze of Pomp and Splendor as his Birthday with a Star if there had not been necessity it should be otherwise And such there was For when the fulnesse both of Time and Iniquity was come when Vice could grow no further but did even cry for Reformation and when the Doctrine that must come to give the Rules of this Reformation was not onely to wage War with Flesh and Blood with those desires which Constitution gives but which perpetual universal Custom had confirmed and which their Gods also as well as Inclinations did contribute to which their Original sin and their Religion equally fomented for Vice was then the Worship of the world Sins had their Temples Theft its Deity and Drunkennesse its God Adultery had many and to prostitute their bodies was most sacred and their very Altar-fires did kindle these foul heats whence Uncleannesse is so often call'd Idolatry in Scripture And besides all this when all the Philosophy and all the power of the world were ingag'd in the belief and practise of this and resolv'd with all their wit and force to keep it so When it was thus the Doctrine that must come to oppose controul reform all this must come either arm'd with Fire and Sword design to settle it self by Conquest or come in a way of Meeknesse and of suffering The first of these Religion cannot possibly design because it cannot aim to settle that by violence which cannot be forc't and where 't is force is not Religion One may as well invade and hope to get a Conquest over thoughts and put a Mind in Chains and force a man to will against his will All such motives are incompetent to demonstrate Doctrines for however successful their force proves yet it cannot prove the Doctrines true for by that Argument it proves that Religion that it settles true it proves that which it destroyes was true before while it prevail'd and had the Power Had this Child come so he had onely given such a testimony to the truth of Christianity as Heatbenifave had before and Turcisme hath since He might indeed have drown'd the wicked World again in another Deluge of their own Blood But sure never had reform'd it thus Therefore that Religion that must oppose the Customes and the Powers of the World upon Principles of Reason and Religion must do it by Innocence and Patience by doing good and which was necessary then by consequence as the world stood by suffering evil parting with all not only the Advantages but the Necessaries of this life and life it self too where they stood in competition and were inconsistent with mens duties and their expectations And by this means they must shew the world that their Religion did bring in a better hope than that which all the profits pleasures glories of this World can entertain and flatter Thus they did and thus they did prevail For the first Ages of the Church were but so many Centuries of Men that entertained Christianity with the Contempt of the World and Life it self They knew that to put themselves into Christ's Service and Religion was the same thing as to set themselves aside for spoyl and Rapine dedicate themselves to Poverty and Scorn to Racks and Tortures and to Butchery it self Yet they enter'd into it did not only renounce the Pomps and Vanities of the World in their Baptism when they were new born to God quench their affections to them in those waters but renounc'd them even to the death drown'd their affections to them in their own heart blood ran from the world into flames and fled faster from the satisfactions and delights of Earth than those flames mounted to their own Element and Sphere In fine they became Christians so as if they had been Candidates of death and onely made themselves Apprentises of Martyrdom Now if it were not possible it should be otherwise than thus as the world stood then it was necessary that the Captain of Salvation should lead on go before this noble Army of Martyrs if it were necessary that they must leave all who followed him then it was not possible that he should be here in a state of Plenty Splendor and Magnificence but of Poverty and Meannesse giving an Example to his followers whose condition could not but be such To give which Example was it seems of more necessity than by being born in Royal Purple to prevent the fall of many in Israel who for his condition despis'd him I am not so vain as to hope to perswade any from this great Example here to be in love with Poverty and with a low condition by telling them this Birth hath consecrated meannesse that we must not scorn those things in which our God did choose to be install'd that Humility is it seems the proper dresse for Divinity to shew it self in But when we consider if this Child had been born in a condition of Wealth and Greatnesse the whole Nation of the Jews would have received him
rescue sin from that contempt and throw the Crosse and shame upon Religion it self while they exult in their commissions as in commendable things and too truely verifying the Apostles aggravations against wilful sinners Crucifie to themselves the Son of God afresh and put him to an open shame while they put scorns on that contempt he suffered For the Agonies and Contumelies he endured on that account of sin must needs be most ridiculous to them who count Sin gay and Honourable Thus they trample and insult upon his Passion thus tread underfoot the Son of God even on his Crosse and upon that footstool they exalt themselves by putting sin in countenance and credit with the Age. For it is plain it is so when men once can glory in it For our actions raise a glorying in us onely in relation to the sentiments of others that growing from a confidence of having praise and value for them in the world So that they must assure themselves that most men or the most considerable will applaud their vices otherwise they could not glory in them but would be ashamed And such a judgment we may safely passe upon an Age or Nation where great Crimes not only have impunity but Reputation and men glory in them Had it been so in the Heathen World when Christ and his Crosse first appeared there Christianity had wanted one of its convincing pleas Tertullian in his Apology for our Religion to them that blasted it with all imaginable imputations of impiety discourses thus Omne malum aut timore aut pudore Natura perfudit Nature hath dasht every vice with fear or shame all Malefactors labour to lye hid and if they are laid hold upon they tremble and deny when they are accus'd hardly confesse it to the Rack and when they are found guilty they bewail upbraid themselves and aggravate confessions of their Crimes Christianus verò quid simile but what does the Christian like this None of us is asham'd of his Religion or repents except it be because he was not sooner of it If he be branded for it he rejoyceth if you accuse him of it he does own it triumphs in it if he be condemned for it he calls his Execution his Martyrdom his sufferings his Crown Quid hoc mali est quod naturalia mali non habet Now what strange kind of impiety is this that hath none of the natural affections of it not the shame nor fear tergiversations or repentance or deplorings of it Quid hoc mali est cujus reus gaudet cujus accusatio votum est poena foelicitas What a kind of evil's this which he that is found guilty of is glad to be accus'd of it is his ambition to suffer for it is his happinesse Alas the world hath taught vice now adayes to use this plea with a much greater confidence and he that would apply this argument to our experiences might plead thus for the Religion of sin For now they are but pitteous puisny sinners who feel those things which in Tertullians dayes were natural and essential to sin to blush and be ashamed and have regrets Men do not onely own it as those primitive persons did their Christianity but they out-vie the Martyrs heats for they accuse themselves and boast of their performances in villany yea falsify belye themselves in sin and usurpe Vice steal the glorious Reputation of exceeding sinfulnesse as if the impiety were meritorious And truly as that Christian Confidence and Magnanimity brought in the world as Proselytes to the Crosse so this other confidence brings Sholes of Votaries to Vice For when once there is no need to be asham'd of it there are but very few but will venture to commit it And indeed this sort of men do manage their hostility so dexterously as to use those very weapons Christianity was successful with against it self 'T was by a discipline of shame for that was the great strength of the Church Censures that our Religion did at first prevail almost to the exterminating Vice out of the World The temporal Sword was never so victorious as this weapon of our Spiritual Warfare was which yet in those times drew no blood unlesse it were into the face in blushes But since men have found or made pretexts to glory in iniquity and several Crimes are become honourable Vertues are drest up as mean poor spirited sneaking qualities some look melancholick sad are hypocondriacke some pedantick some unmanly some irrational and worse so that men are now asham'd of Duty 't is a disparagement to own the doing it Thus they have as it were excommunicated Religion It is accounted a contemptible or at best foolish thing which is the very sentence of the third sort of Enemies the Wise men of this World those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that mind earthly things the fourth sort in which all their wisdom lies Which two last sorts of Enemies I shall attaque together The Crosse of Christ amongst its other ends was set to be an instrument whereby the World is to be Crucified to us and we unto the World to be the means whereby we are enabled to prevail upon and overcome our worldly lusts and inclinations and to sleight yea and detest all the temptations of its Wealth Delights and Heights when they attempt to draw us into sin or take us off from Duty Now to this it works by these three steps First shewing us the Authour and the finisher of our Faith nailed himself to that Crosse his joynts rackt on it his whole Body stript and nothing else but Vinegar and bitter potions allow'd his thirst and thus convincing us that if we will be his Disciples we must take up his Crosse and follow him at leastwise we must have preparednesse of mind to take it up when ever it is fixt to Duty to renounce all profits honours and delights of this World that are not consistent with our Christian profession This is the Doctrine of the Cross of Christ it being otherwise impossible to be Disciples of a Crucifyed Master And when this great Captain of our Salvation was himself consecrated by his sufferings and had for his Standard his own Body lifted up upon the Crosse we that are listed under him and with that very badge the Crosse too crucis Consecranei Votaries and fellow Souldiers of that Order if we shall avoyd our duty when it is attended with a Crosse or straitned any wayes and the provisions of this World are cut off from it and betake our selves rather to the contents of Earth we do not only shamefully fly from our Colours fugitives and cowards Poltrons in the Spiritual warfare but are renegadoes false and traytours to our selves too such as basely ran away not onely from our Officer but from Salvation which he is the Captain of and which we cannot possibly attain except we be resolv'd to follow him and charge through whatsoever disadvantages attend Religion vanquishing all those temptations
only asserted boldly but prov'd nothing As if argument and reason never had place in the Jewish or the Christian Religion only those who were the institutors of each Religion did deliver it others had no more to do but to believe it that is to receive it as a little Child Whether these reproaches and the oath of these known enemies may go for proofs that it was so I shall not now enquire But it is certain on the other side S. Paul requires of his new Christian Corinthians that they be not children in understanding that they be in malice Children but in understanding Men. Now a man and a child differ not in this that the one hath an understanding reasonable soul and the other hath not but in that the one cannot use his understanding or his reason and the other where he acts as man does So that our Religion in requiring that we be in understanding men does require of us that we use our reason in it And since assenting to a thing as truth is an act of the highest faculty of the soul of man as it is properly and truly reasonable namely as it understands and judges it is not possible a man should really believe a thing unlesse he fatisfie himself that he hath reason for so doing Yea whether that be true or not which many men so eagerly contend for that the will though free is bound and cannot choose but will that which appears best at that time it wills yet it is sure that he who with his understanding which is not free in her apprehensions and judgments but must necessarily embrace that which hath most evidence of truth He I say who really assents to any proposition does satisfie himself that he hath better and more cogent reasons for that then the contrary And therefore it is impossible that any man can verily believe a thing which he is throughly convinc't is contrary to clear and evident right reason for he cannot have a better reason for the thing that is so And were it possible for any man to believe so there could be neither grounds nor rules for such a ones belief for there is nothing in the world so false and so absur'd although he were assur'd it were so but he might assent to it for whatever demonstrations could be offer'd why he should not yet it seems he might believe against acknowledg'd evident truth and reason but this were onely wish or fancy and imagination not belief And to prevent such childish weak credulity was the great work and care of Christ so far is he from requiring we should be as Children in this kind For when he was ascended up to heaven he gave some Apostles some Evangelists some Pastors and Teachers he shed down the Holy Spirit and his gifts that we might not be as Children tossed to and fro and carried about with every winde of Doctrine Eph. 4. 14. First For want of rationall grounds instable in our Faith as Children are in body and in judgement also taking all appearances for truths If men were only to believe there must needs be as great variety of Religions as of teachers And though God hath appointed that some Church should be as perfectly infallible as that of Rome pretends to be yet since there are so many Churches and the true one therefore could be known no otherwise then by some marks there must be disquisition before Faith and men must reason and examine ere they can believe upon good grounds for were they to receive Religion as a little Child be nurst up with the Doctrine as with milk a Child we know may suck infection from the poyson'd breast of an unwholesome mother or some other person for it knows not to distinguish And so may be nurst to death A soul like theirs that is but rasa tabula white paper is as fitted to receive the mark of the beast as the inscription of the living God just as the first hand shall impresse Therefore we are bid not to believe every Spirit not every Teacher though he come with gifts pretend and seem to be inspir'd but try them and our Saviour forewarn'd the Jews of false Christs that should come with signes and wonders Something therefore must be known first and secur'd before the understanding can be thus oblig'd to give up its assent And Captivate every thought into obedience as S. Paul directs Now what that was here to the hearers in the Text is easily collected namely that he was the Christ that does require it And S. Paul expresses it in the forecited place where he says we must bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ to wit of that Christ who as he does himself professe that if he had not done among them the works which no other had done they had not had sin John 15. 24. If his demonstrations had not convinc't them it had been no fault not to believe So when he had made appear he was that person whom their prophesies had poynted out the Messiah the Son of the living God and this not only his Disciples had acknowledg'd but the multitudes yea when his miracles had made one of the Pharisees confesse Rabbi we know thou art a Teacher come from God for no man can do these miracles except God be with him Then if the Pharisees dispute against his Doctrine of Divorce urge the authority of Moses and Gods Law and the Disciples presse the inconveniences that will happen If the case of a man be such with his wife he may answer them He that will not receive my Doctrines without dispute that is to say He that will not receive the Kingdom of God as a little Child shall not enter therein This King that cometh in the name of the Lord may well determine how we shall receive the Kingdom of God If he propose strange precepts to our practise It appears that he is sent from God and Gods commands are not to be disputed but obey'd if his revelations present dark unintelligible Mysteries to our faith his promises offer seeming impossibilities to our hope why yet he hath made proof he comes from God and surely we are not so insolent as to doubt that God can discover things above our understanding and do things above the comprehension of our reason Therefore since we are as Children to all these it is but just we should receive them even as little Children With a perfect resignation of our understandings and of our whole souls Here 't is most true what S. Austin says Those are not Christians who deny that Christ is to be believ'd unlesse there be some other certain reason of the thing besides his saying Si Christo etiam credendum negant nisi indubitata ratio reddita fuerit Christiani non sunt For to them that are convinc't of that 't is such a reason that he is the Christ. There is indeed no other name now under heaven to whom we are oblig'd to give
such deference for however the modern Doctrines dare assert that Christ hath given the very same infallibility which himself had to all S. Peters succcessors as often as they speak ex Cathedrâ And that in matters both of right and of particular fact yet not to countenance this monster by admitting combate with it nor to put my self into the circle which these men commit who talk of the Authority of the Church to which they require us to resign our Faith I shall not stay to rack them on that their own wheel This I dare affirm it is impossible for any person or assembly to produce a delegation of authority in more ample terms then the great Councel of the Jews could shew sign'd both by God and Christ. According to the sentence of the Law which they shall teach thee and according to the Judgement which they shall tell thee thou shalt do thou shalt not decline from the sentence which they shall shew thee to the right hand nor to the left saith God Deut. 17. 11. compar'd with 2 Chron. 19. 8 9 10 11. And our Saviour says They sit in Moses Chair all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe that observe and do Mat. 23. 2. Let them of Rome produce a better and more large commission Yet did not this suppose that Councel was infallible either in the interpreting the Law or in attesting of tradition or in judging of a Prophet or that the Jews were blindly to give up their assent and their obedience to their sentence God did not mean the people should imagine that when he prescrib'd a Sacrifice for expiation of their errors in their Judgement when they found it out Lev. 4 13. As their own Doctors do expound it Therefore God suppos'd that they might erre and we know that their Traditions did evacuate the Law Mat. 23. 15. They judg'd and slew true Prophets v. 37. They declar'd the Messiah an impostor Mat. 27. 63. and blasphemer and for that condem'd him Mat. 26. 65. and decreed what the Apostles told them they must not obey Act. 5. 25. But though there be no such Authority that 's absolute over the Faith of Men now upon Earth yet if this Jesus did acquire such by his Works if by the Miracles he wrought his raising others from the dead his own Death and his Resurrection he sufficiently justified the Divinity of his Doctrine And if those Miracles were true they were no doubt sufficient and if those that did pretend they were eye-witnesses and ministers of all this his Apostles and the Seventy Disciples and those others that accompanied him who conversed with him continually and could not therefore be deceived if they professe they heard and saw all this and Preacht it in the face of those that would have contradicted if they could and rather than their lives have proved all false yea Preacht it every where the Lord working with them and confirming the Word with signs following If they consign'd that Word in Writing also which they Preacht to be a measure and a Standard of that Doctrine to futurity which Word so Preacht and Written by agreeing would in after-times give mutual illustrious evidence to one another and if any Heterodoxies should at any time creep by degrees into the Articles or the external practice of the Church they might be easily discovered by those Records And if the multitudes that heard and saw and did receive all this and which were grown extreamly numerous almost in every Nation of the then known World while those Apostles and Disciples liv'd if these deliver'd what they must needs know whether 't were true or not deliver'd both that Doctrine and those Books of it as most certain truth by Preaching and by Writing and by Living to it and by Dying for it and engaging their Posterity to do so and they also did that to all Ages if all this I say be true then it is easie to conclude that we are to receive the Doctrine of that Jesus and this Book the Records of it with the resignation of a little Child and absolutely to submit our Faith to them But that it was thus first as sure as any of us here who have not seen the thing can be that Christianity is now profest the Bible now received in all the Regions round about us throughout Europe or indeed that there are such Regions and places so sure we may be for we have the testimony of the World that for example in the dayes of Dioclesian 't was over the World profest both with their mouths and lives owned in despite of Spoyl of Torments and of Death and they did value the Records of this Doctrine so much dearer than their Lives or their Estates that in prosecution of those Edicts wherein the Christians were required to deliver up their Bibles to be burnt in one Month 17000. were put to death And the Persecution lasted at that rate for ten years time so that in AEgypt only it is said there were slain 144000 and 70000 banisht The Laity it seems were allowed Bibles then Or put the case higher in Adrian's or Trajan's time who both lived within an hundred years of Christ who Martyr'd them till wearinesse slackned the Execution and they gave off onely as it were that so they might cease to persecute themselves and we have the Officers engaged attesting this all which must needs be as notorious as the Light Now Secondly 't is most impossible those so vast multitudes of every Nation should have met together forg'd a Code of Doctrines and agreed so uniformly in professing a Religion and in dying for it for we may as easily believe that there were never any men before this Age we live in but that these began the king as that those of that Age began the Christian Religion Thirdly 't is as impossible that their immediate Ancestors who lived in the Apostles Age who heard their Preaching received their Writings saw the Miracles they did if they did any and many of them must have seen Christ also after he was risen if it were so yea multitudes of them were themselves parties in the gifts of Tongues and Miracles if there were any and so could not be impos'd on but must necessarily know whether they were truths or forgeries It is as impossible I say so many should agree together to betray all their Posterity into the profession of a Religion from which they could look for no advantage but the certain total Ruin of themselves and their posterity it was not possible they could have done this if they had not thought all this was true and since they did know whether it were true or not if they thought it was true they did know it was and if they knew it was then it is certain that it was so and these Scriptures and the Doctrines Christians deliver so far as they have not varied since that time from these Authentical Records they have the Seal of God Miracles to attest
of their vicious worships had more force with them then miracle and reason And while the Christian disposest their Deities he was himself turned out of all his own possessions and although he made their God confess himself a Devil yet still poor he was made to suffer as a malefactour And 't is not strange if men now stick as closely to their vices as those did to the Gods that patronized them and it be as hard to exorcise the Devil out of their affections and practices as it was then out of Heathen Votaries or Temples They are as fierce against the Christian Religion for their lusts sake as those for their Venus and the very same account that made those Heathen customs or the lying wonders of false Christs or Pharaoh's Magicians signs be more persuasive then the other more real miracles namely because they sided with their inclinations and interests This very account makes little difficulties which Almighty God hath left in our Religion as he suffered signs and lying wonders heretofore for trials yea makes cavils mere exceptions pass for reasons most invincible be disputed urg'd with great concern and passion against all those methods of conviction which God hath afforded Christianity Now if this be to receive Religion as a little Child 't is with the frowardnesse of Children when they are displeas'd or ill at ease who resist and quarrell with the thing that is to make them well or please them and returne the Parents cares to ease and quiet them with little outrages and vexing And do ye thus requite the Lord O foolish people and unwise Is not he thy Father that hath bought thee Hath he not made thee and establisht thee Ask thy Father and he will shew thee thy Elders and they will tell thee Deâ—t 32. 6 7. Now have Children any other way to know their Parents then to let their Father shew them and their Elders tell them Or should we cast off the relation and tenounce all the obedience due to it because we are not sure of it our selves For ought we know those may not be our Parents we have only testimony for it Thus we serve our God on that account and yet Hath he not made thee and establisht thee As he began us so did he not nurse and bear us in his arms and carry us in all our weaknesses and difficulties till he brought us up to a full strength Till by a miraculous and signal providence he had establisht settled us and after all these cares bestowed upon us do we prove a generation of vipers onely such as do requite the bowels that did bear and nourish them by preying on them and consuming them Or like the of-spring of a Spider who when he hath spent himself with weaving nets and working of them into labyrinths to be the granaries and the defences of his brood to catch them prey and to secure them then the strongest of his young ones when he is by these his cares establisht and grown ripe to destroy makes those threads fatal to his parent which he spun out of his bowels to be thread of life to him And shall we be such children to our Father that establisht us make all his plenties turn to poison in us and invenome us against himself make his miraculous mercies furnish us for the abuse and provocation of him his blest Providence serve onely to afford us arguments against it self help to confute it self because it hath so prospered doth still suffer us But after all this is he not thy Father that hath bought thee who to all his titles to us his endearing obligations notwithstanding our despites and provocations of them yet did give the life of his own Son to purchase o're again the same relation to us that we might have right to the inheritance of his Kingdom And then however we have hitherto affronted let us be content now to be bought and hir'd to receive that Kingdom of God as his children for if children then heirs heirs of God and joynt heirs with Christ who died to make us Kings and Priests to God and his Father To whom be glory c. A SERMON PREACHED IN S. PETERS WESTMINSTER ON Sunday Jan. 6. 1660. at the Consecration of the Right Reverend Fathers in God GILBERT Lord Bishop of Bristoll EDWARD Lord Bishop of Norwich NICHOLAS Lord Bishop of Hereford WILLIAM Lord Bishop of Glocester BY RICHARD ALLESTRY D. D. Canon of Christ Church in Oxford and one of His Majesties Chaplains LONDON Printed by Thomas Roycroft for James Allestry at the Rose and Crown in Saint Paul's Church-yard 1669. TO THE Right Reverend Father in GOD GILBERT LORD Bishop of LONDON and Dean of His Majesties Chappel Royal. My LORD WHEN I consider with what reluctancies I appear thus in publick I have all reason to suspect and fear lest this offering which like an unwilling Sacrifice was dragg'd to the Altar and which hath great defects too will be far from propitiating either for its self or for the votary But I must crave leave to add that how averse soever I was to the publishing this rude Discourse I make the Dedication with all possible zeal and ready cheerfulness For I exspect your Lordship to be a Patron not only to my Sermon but to my Subject Such a separate eminence of virtue and of sweetness mixt together may hope to ingratiate Your Function to a Generation of men that will not yet know their own good but resist mercy and are not content to be happy And for my self Your Lordships great goodness and obligingness hath encourag'd me not only to hope that you will pardon all the miscarriages of what I now present but also to presume to shelter it and my self under your Lordships Name and Command and to honour my self before the world by this address and by assuming the relation of My Lord Your Lordships most humbly devoted and most faithful Servant RICH. ALLESTRY SERMON XVI IN St. PETERS WEST MINSTER January 6. 1660. ACTS XIII 2. The Holy Ghost said Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them AND as they ministred to the Lord and fasted the holy Ghost said Although that ministring to God by prayer and fasting be the indicted and appropriate acts to preface such Solemnities as this and that not Sermons but Litanies and intercessions are the peculiar adherents of Embers and of Consecrations and those vigorous strivings with Almighty God by Prayer are the birth-pangs in which Fathers are born unto the Church Yet since that novv this Sacred Office is it self oppos'd and even the Mission of Preachers preach'd against and the Authority that sends despis'd as Antichristian vvhilst separation and pretence unto the Holy Ghost set up themselves against the strict injunction of the Holy Ghost to separate the Pulpit that othervvhiles hath fought against it must novv attone its errours by attending on the Altar and the bold ungrounded claimes of Inspiration that false teachers
contain a Duty prescrib'd and the Authority prescribing it the Prescription and the Authority in these words I say unto you the Duty in the rest where it is set down 1. in general Love your enemies and that to be consider'd under a double prospect 1. As it is plao't in opposition to something that was before indulg'd the Jews or presum'd so to be by them signified here by the particle But and then as it stands by itself in its own positive importance love your enemies And secondly this Duty is particulariz'd in several exercises of the Act commanded love in relation to several sorts of the Objects of that Act enemies as 1. Those that curse you you must bless 2. Those that hate you you must doe good to 3. Those that use you despitefully and persecute you you must pray for These I shall treat of in their given order beginning with the general Duty and viewing that at once in both the lights that it doth stand in that one may clear and fortifie the other But I say unto you Love your enemies Of all the Points of Christian Religion those which did most stagger the faith of some and check their acceptation of it or adherence to it saith Marcellinus writing to St. Austin were these 3 The incarnation of our Lord The meanness of his Miracles which they thought the works of Apolloniâ—s equall'd and thirdly the prescriptions in the Text It seems they lookt upon these Duties as the mysteries of Practice that spoke as loud a contradiction to their active principles and inclinations as the other appear'd to doe so those of Speculation and Discourse a God made flesh and flesh and bloud made so lame and passive sweetned so being alike impossible to their belief as if no flesh could certainly be so except that of which God was made and the Word incarnate onely could fulfill these words here in my Text they lookt upon this as a much-more mighty work than any of his Miracles as if 't were easier to snatch one out of the arms of Fate from the embraces of the Grave than to receive an enemy into ones own As if Christ had done more when he pray'd for his Crucifiers then when he prayed Lazarus out of his grave for their Magicians they say vied Miracles with him but none of their Religions or Gods did ever aim at this Prescription ut quae sit propria bonitâ—s nostra saith Tertullian this being a sort of Piety peculiar to the Christians Nor did they onely think it unpracticable but unreasonable as carrying opposition to all Government to the prosperity and peace of every Polity for he that does require that I shall have no return of injuries but for a wrong makes me in debt a kindnesse not onely supersedes judiciary proceedings but does secure Rapine by Law and encourage it by Reward and truly if it were impossible for him that does affect a person to dislike his evil actions and to desire he may have condigne punishment such as by Gospel-measures may be satisfaction equal to his fault and warning to himself and others these men had reason but if a Father can at once love and correct his Child if when I am with indignation displeas'd at my offences against God and by severities revenge them on my self I do then love my self most passionately and if I can pray with all the vigour of my soul for that false Traytor-bosom-enemy my flesh while it lies goading me to sin with temptation perfecuting me to everlasting death then no reason of State or of my own Requires I should not doe all these acts of kindness to my Adversary In that thou hast an exact pattern for thy enmity to them that wrong thee and thou shalt hate thine enemy as thy self is a most perfect Gospel-Rule that being most consistent with and directive of this Duty love your enemies But yet there is so great a difference indeed betwixt this Act here and its object Enemy being constituted such by enmity that is aversion and hate that love and that seem strangely coupled things that can be put together onely for a contest just as heat and cold to weaken one another that both the love and enmity may be refracted into a lukewarmnesse Therefore I shall divide them handling Love first by its self viewing the import of that as it is sincere lest the enemy appearing with it make it shrink into a very slender Duty and having done that secondly see whether an others enmity and thirdly whether enmity with that appropriation here your enemies can take off from the Obligation of that Duty Love Now Love shews fairest to our purposes in those dresses which S. Paul present her in 1 Cor. 1. 13. and 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 v. 4. and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 v. 5. it suffers long if not the dammage yet the malice of repeated injuries as knowing it is bound to forgive till 70 times 7 times and 't is not easily provok't not apt for sudden violent heats instantly all on fire quick as lightning Such heats are from another passion which though sometimes they do but flash and die yet oft they have their Thunder-bolt and most-what do forerun a storm whereas the heats of Charity are calm as sun-shine such as do not consume but cherish for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the same verse Love is kind and gracious full of humanity This Vertue is a kind of universal friendship hath nothing of reserv'd morose or sour an humour that makes solitude in the midst of Society and makes men onely their own company their Rule and soope and such a person Aristotle sayes must be either a God who can enjoy nothing beside himself is his own blessed and immortal entertainment or a wild beast whose nature is unsociable because 't is savage whereas Love is a pious complaisance to all 't is condescention too for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the 5. v. does not think any thing unseemly how contemptible soever nor unworthy of him so he may do his Neighbour good he will debase himself to meanest Offices to work a real kindnesse Thus Christ because he lov'd his own knowing the Father had given all things into his hand he took a Towel and girâ—ed himself and put water in a Baâ—â—n and washt his Disciples feet making the lowest act of servitude be his Expression and our Example that is but slender Charity that will keep State Heaven could not unite Majesty and Love but to exercise this God did descend from Glory into the extremity of Meannesse 'T is Bowels that expresse compassion and tender kindnesse Now those we know of all parts of the Body are employed in the most low ignoble Offices and to such Love condescends where 't is true Again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it covers all the naked with a garment and the deformed the leproâ—s Sinner with a covering too for Charity covers a multitude of sins hides his own
wrong From his own eyes this Love too like that in the Poets cannot see yea covers all that is not fit for light suffers onely the graces to be naked near him and not to name all which you may find there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ver 7. believeth all things however incompatible to love and to be wise have been accounted yet this Love is 8. James his Wisdome that came down from Heaven Cap. 3. 17. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 apt to inâ—erpret any thing to the most favourable sense and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 easie to be persuaded still believes the best and where it cannot yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hopes the best Affection while it lives cannot despair for then it must deposite its desires which are onely the warmth of Love and till it die cool not but if all do not answer hopes yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he does wait for it is not discourag'd with relapses and the repetitions of injuries but still expects and suffers all the contradictions of spite and wrong Now if all these acts and the many other there are essential to Love and all be under Obligation and S. Paul says there they are so much Duty that without these performances all Faith and all Graces profit nothing the preaching Rhetorick of men and Angels would be nothing else but tinkling and working Miracles but shewing tricks It follows then these acts must necessarily have a certain object there must be some body that we are bound to love thus and if that Object be our Neighbour as that is most sure 't is clear my Neighbours injury or hate or enmity to me cannot take off nor yet diminish in the least that obligation I have to all those acts but I must love him though he be mine enemy in every of those instances For it is plain his having wrong'd me does not make him cease to be my Neighbour nay more that enâ—ity does formally dispose and quallifie my Neighbour for the object of my love and many of its acts cannot relate but to a man that injures me it must be in respect to provocations that love is said to cool into such a temper as is not easily provokt For men are not provokt with kindnesses I cannot suffer any thing but wrong nor suffer long except there be continuation and frequency of wrongs Nor is it possible I should forgive unlesse it be offences done against me And so for divers of the rest Now it were strange the Enemy should supersede the obligation of that Duty which cannot be a Duty but in order to an Enemy that injury should give me a release from doing that which I can never have cause or occasion to do but in the case of injury that I should have leave not to obey the Command for that meer reason which alone makes it possible to obey it and which alone makes the Command whereas indeed because I must needs love in these expresses therefore he must needs be my Enemy whom I must love But if he be without all provocation very unjustly so if his hate be his sin so that he hath offended God too in it may I not then espouse Gods quarrel thus farre not to love his Enemy if I must mine own not to love the injurious the sinner Vice certainly is the most hatefull thing that is and therefore it must needs render the subject not to be belov'd accordingly 't is said that the ungodly and his ungodliness are both alike hatefull unto God Wisd. 14. 9. and David does comply with God in this Psalm 139. Do not I hate them O Lord that hate Thee yea I hate them with perfect hatred I count them mine enemies And when I reflect on mine under this Noâ—on or if mine be such as set themselves against Religion and the peace and quietnesse of the Church am I bound to love them if so then I may be allow'd to do it with a little regret sure But yet if we consider how these in the Text are designated by that Appropriation your enemies which means those that hate you my Disciples those that in the last words of my Text will persecute you even for your being mine and yet those they are bid to love we may conclude in the next place we may not hate our enemies as Sinners nor yet does enmity with God his Church or his Religion qualifie a person for our aversation or mischiefs I except here Apostacy and utter obduration in it a state that incapacitates for mercy and by consequence for love and kindnesse There is a sin which S. John would not say that we should pray for and the Church thought that there was such a sinner Julian but as to lesse degrees they that are suppos'd to persecute Disciples and in doing so persecute Christ himself may well be granted sinners enemies to God and Christianity but yet says he I say unto you love these your enemies Tertullian understood this so and writing to the Governour of Carthage who threatned all the Christians of that Province with Excision that he might persuade him from his purpose thus began his Proposals We do not write as fearing for our selves or dreading any thing that we are like to suffer for we did enter our Religion on the condition of suffering we covenanted to endure and staked our lives when we began our profession but 't is for you we fear for you our enemies whom our Religion does command us to love and to do good to And though we must hate Vice and do our best to root out Infidelity and Atheisme destroy Profanenesse irreligion and Heresie and Schism these are fit objects for the zeals of Hate and for the feavers of our Passion and if our enemies be such we may meetly endeavour they may have appropriate restraints yet not to exercise the acts of Charity and kindnesse to them we have no allowance no sins can make it lawfull for us to ruine or not to do good to the Sinners In fine the onely persons that the Jews pretended to have ground to hate were Enemies and enemies indeed to their Religion the Idolatrous Gentile-world therefore that being now forbid to us there is no sort of men nor any man whom it is lawfull for a Christian not to love and all the reasons urg'd here by our Saviour do prove that all mankind whether good or bad is the object of a Christians love because God does good to all his methods of Mercies are universall he makes his Clouds drop fatnesse even upon them that consume the encrease on their Lusts and sacrifice it to their Riots making their belly be their God he gives abundance of his good things unto those that love them onely as they advantage Vanity and Sin and that turn Gods store into provision for Vice and for Destruction He gives gold to them that make gold their Idol and bestows large portions of earth on them that are Children of Hell and them who