of the Messias They had formed to themselves mighty expectations of an external pomp and secular greatness wherewith their Messias should enter upon his Office and which he should communicate to the whole Nation They thought not of spiritual Blessings reformation of Manners removal of Errors proposal of a pure and rational Religion and assurance of a spiritual Happiness in another Life but mighty Armies and continual Triumphs wide Conquests and inesâ—…imable Spoils They expected to be freed from the Roman Yoke by the Victorious Arms of the Messias and by an uninterrupted success at last be inabled to give Laws to the whole World These fond conceits were now entertained by the whole Jewish Nation and tenaciously maintained by the Apostles who all along believed indeed their Master to be the true and great Messias but withal even to his Ascension continued to believe that he had not yet entered upon the execution of this glorious Office Not all the premonitions of his future Sufferings not the experience of his present Poverty and Disgrace or the sight of his Crucifixion and Burial could remove this inveterate Error from their minds or create in them a right apprehension of our Saviours Doctrine and Office But after all when he was ready to Ascend up into Heaven they asked him by common consent Lord wilt thou at this time restore again the Kingdom to Israel Wilt thou now commence that glorious Reign which we have so long expected The want of this external Pomp and appearance in a State of such extraordinary humility totally hindred his Brethren that is his Kindred from believing on him as is expressed St. John VII 5. and could not divert the Apostles who believed him to be the Messias from nourishing vain hopes of a future greatness in this World Insomuch as immediately after Christ had foretold them in the X. of St. Mark that he should be betrayed delivered to the Gentiles Buffeted Scourged and Crucified the two Sons of Zebedee not discouraged by all these calamities which they imagined to be the entrance into a greater Temporal glory requested of him That One might fit on his right hand the other on his left in his Kingdom And the Disciples of Emmaus far from considering the past sufferings of Christ and reflecting on the circumstances of his Passion and precedent admonitions of it which might justly have refuted and defeated their foolish expectations began to suspect this was not the true Messias since he had not brought the hoped for external redemption to the Jews We trusted that it had been He which should have redeemed Israel but those hopes are vanished and he yet continues in his Grave Since then the Apostles continued to retain these prejudices preconceived Errors and were thereby hindred from conceiving the spirituality of Christs Kingdom which is the first and greatest principle of the Christian Religion it was impossible they should rightly understand the Doctrine of Christ until these prejudices were removed and true Notions of the nature of his Kingdom introduced Till then they could not but grosly mistake the meaning of all those many Revelations which he imparted to them and constantly wrested them to their own false notions and apprehensions This not only disabled them from understanding the true sense of what Christ was pleased to reveal to them but also hindred them while continuing in that State from receiving any more clear and express Revelation This our Saviour plainly tells them John XVI 12 13. I have yet many things to say unto you but you cannot bear them now Howbeit when he the Spirit of Truth is come he will guide you into all Truth I have yet greater Mysteries to reveal to you and which will seem more astonishing to you but the indisposition of your understanding at present clouded with Prejudices and Errours would defeat the benefit of them These therefore I leave to be revealed by the Holy Ghost whom I shall send unto you who by an extraordinary operation assisting your understanding will prepare it for a ready reception of all those Truths A Third reason of this Ignorance of the Apostles at that time when our Saviour spoke these words of my Text to them may be that the greatest and most Illustrious Actions of our Saviours Life the Mysteries of which created in them the greatest perplexity remained yet to be performed I mean his Crucifixion Resurrection and Ascension Before they saw these things effected they could not imagine that he whom they had represented to themselves as a Triumphant Messias and Earthly King should undergo them and therefore all our Saviours premonitions concerning them were no less dark and obscure than surprizing to them but afterwards the real performance of them awakened their attention and gave them occasion to reflect more seriously upon the reasons of these things They then plainly perceived the true meaning of every prediction of Christ when they saw the event of the thing foretold and viewing the circumstances of all these Actions could not but discover that they were all manifestly foretold of the Messias by the Prophets and were consequently to be necessarily perform'd by him Not to say that the Resurrection being the far greatest and most Illustrious Miracle might reasonably be supposed to have produced a greater effect upon their minds than any precedent Action And how the subsequent performance of Actions and Mysteries foretold by Christ contributed in the Apostles to a right understanding of the predictions and Mysteries themselves appears from the whole History of the Gospel more especially from those two passages which I before produced John II. 22. When therefore he was risen from the dead his Disciples remembred that he had said this unto them and they believed the Scriptures and again John XII 16. These things understood not his Disciples at the first but when Jesus was glorified then remembred they that these things â—…ere written of him Nay so much did Christ himself attribute to the cogency of the proof which might be drawn from the Miracle of his Resurrection that to the Jews desiring a convictive proof of his divine Mission he assigned no other than that as Jonas was in the Whales Belly three Days and three Nights so the Son of Man should continue no longer a space of time in the Heart of the Earth And however his other Miracles and the Testimony of the Prophets abundantly demonstrated the Divinity of his Mission to unprejudiced Persons yet in some places he seems willing to pardon their suspension of assent till they should see this grand and final Miracle performed Thus in the words preceding my Text assuring his Apostles that though he departed for a while he should Live again He tells them that at that Day the Day of his Resurrection ye shall know that I am in my Father and you in me and I in you And John VIII 28. Disputing with the incredulous Jews and not being able to convince their obstinate stupidity he saith unto
to be founded by the Messias or expected from him which so long clouded the Understandings of the Apostles and hindred them from entertaining true Notions of that Mystery although having the Happiness to be brought up in a Christian and Orthodox Church we suck in true Notions of the Christian Religion in general even from our Infancy yet the prejudices which arise from our Passions and corrupt Affections are no less violent and betray us to no less fatal mistakes These not only defeat the Benefit of that assistance of the Holy Ghost in the Inquisition of truth which God hath promised to all well disposed Persons who rightly ask it of him but also directly introduce the foulest and most pernicious Errours by prompting us to form such Notions of Religion as may be most adapted and favourable to those corrupt Inclinations And this diligence in the Inquiry and Examination of our Religion will be so much the more necessary if we consider that God had indeed provided an effectual remedy for all the mistakes of the Apostles by the plentiful Effusion of the Holy Ghost upon them but hath left us to the ordinary Emanations and Assistance of the Divine Spirit which will lead us into all necessary Truths if our own Endeavours be not wanting but upon defect of those or any other due disposition of the mind will not only not produce this happy Effect but also depart from us II. The Sense of this great and inestimable Benefit conferred this day upon the Apostles and then upon the whole Church and our selves in particular ought to excite us to the utmost gratitude and engage us to endeavour not to render our selves unworthy of it at least not permit our selves to be ungrateful for it For this Benefit was not confined to the persons of the Apostles it brings down with it many great and inestimable advantages to the Church which continue till this day By this we are assured that the Christian Religion hath received the last degree of Confirmation by this we know that Christ hath really ascended into Heaven and there taken possession of his Kingdom that however he hath removed his corporeal Presence he still continues to be present with us by the Influences and Operations of the Holy Ghost that he ceased not at his Ascension to govern and take care of the Church but abundantly provided for the necessity and convenience of it by sending the third Person of the ever Blessed Trinity who might actuate and direct it and performing the Office of a Paraclet teach exhort comfort and intercede for every single Member of it By this the drooping Spirits of the Apostles were erected their Fears dispelled and their Minds enlightened by this the truth of the Christian Religion was put past all Dispute and the Church invigorated with such an assurance of Divine assistance as might secure it from all Dangers and place it beyond the rage of men or fury of Tyrants We also at this day partake of the blessed Effects of this great Benefit we share in the Joys of the Apostles and experience the Influences of that Divine Spirit By this they were inabled to convey down to us infallibly the Christian Religion and found a Church of which to be Members we esteem our greatest Happiness By this Spirit we are united to the Body of the Church to Christ our Head and to one another By this we are excited to vertue and the practice of our Duty are assisted in the search of Truth are comforted in Afflictions and upheld in Dangers This Spirit our Saviour promised ver 16. should abide with us for ever not in that measure indeed and abundance which was conferred on the Apostles but according to the proportion of our necessities and the Improvement of that present Portion which is already conferred on us Let us endeavour by an exact discharge of our Duty and daily improvement in Piety to augment our Interest in the benefits of this Day and favour of the Holy Ghost at least let us take care least by our negligence and degenerate Behaviour we forfeit our Title to them both Lastly as we are obliged to admire and celebrate the infinite Goodness of God in bestowing upon the Church the diffusive Presence of the Holy Ghost by his Mission as upon this Day so are we no less engaged to be thankful for his particular Presence in the Holy Sacrament since this not only gives us a firm assurance of the continuance of that Presence which was at first granted as so great a Blessing to the Apostles but also derives down upon all worthy Communicants as far as is necessary to them the same Gifts and Graces which the first Descent of it procured to the Apostles By this means we may not only commemorate but act anew and experience in our selves all the Glories of this day by receiving into our Souls a plentiful Effusion of the same Spirit But then as several previous Dispositions were required in the Apostles to qualifie them for the reception of so great a Benefit so must we prepare our selves for the Participation of so great a Mystery with no less diligence and caution that as they firmly believed and constantly expected the Promises of our Saviour although he had removed his Corporeal Presence from them so we should without any Fluctuation believe the certain performance of all those Graces which are promised to all worthy Communicants and that however his natural Body is absent from us yet he is really present in the Elements by the Efficacy and Operation of the Holy Spirit that as they prepared themselves for the reception of the Holy Ghost by an intire Resignation of their Wills to his influence and direction so we should fit our Souls for the Entertainment of all those Graces conferred in the Sacrament by a perfect Resignation of our selves to God and steady Resolution of performing his Commands And that as they in order to obtain the promised Mission of a Comforter met all together with one accord in one house so we in order to receive the mighty Benefits of this Sacrament should be united in perfect Charity to one another If any of these due Qualifications be wanting we shall be so far from obtaining any share in the Benefits of this Day or Commemorating as we ought the wonderful Mission of the Holy Ghost that we shall forfeit our Title to all the Benefits of the Gospel and do despight to the Spirit of Grace Now to God the Father God the Son c. The Second SERMON PREACH'D Septemb. 16th 1688. At LAMBETH CHAPEL Philip. II. 5. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus OUR blessed Saviour hath not only revealed to us the whole Will of God in relation to Mankind and thereby given to us a most excellent and truly Divine Religion but also set us a most perfect Example of Holiness and universal Righteousness in the whole Conduct of his Life therein exceeding all other Lawgivers
of Heathen Philosophers tended to no other End than to foment their Pride and create in them a vain Opinion of their own Wisdom and Merits They referred it not to God nor employed it as a Principle of obedience to him It abated not their Passions reformed not their Lusts and had no visible influence upon their Lives save in making them haughty and supercilious the constant Character of those Philosophers In opposition to this the Apostle Wills that we express the Divinity of our Reâ—…igion in the Holiness of our Lives that we be not puft up with Pride nor imagine it to be the product either of our own merit or understanding that we acknowledge to have received it from God and profess that we expect either to be saved or damned by our obedience to the Rules of it that we perpetually maintain an awful regard of the Commands of our Almighty Lawgiver and set our selves to the performance of them with the most profound Humility and Submission that we be not affrighted from the profession of our Faith by the greatest threats or Terrours nor be betrayed to the Omission of our Duty by supine Negligence and want of Consideration But this in a word That we be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh us a reason of the hope that is in us with meekness and fear In Discoursing of these words I shall insist upon these two Heads which naturally offer themselves to our Consideration I. That the Christian Religion is agreeable to the Principles of Reason and carrieth sufficient Evidence along with it II. That it is the Duty of every Christian not wanting the means of sufficient Instruction to enable himself to give a Reason of his Faith I. That the Christian Religion c. For the Apostle commanding us To be always ready to give a reason of the hope that is in us plainly intimates that a Reason may be given of it For that by this term of the hope that is in us is to be understood the whole System of our Faith appears as well from the Context as from the frequent Acceptation of those words in the same Sense in divers places of the New Testament This Religion as it carrieth eminent Marks of its Divinity on many other Accounts so chiefly in the reasonableness and evidence of it and that either 1. In respect of the Nature of it and the Rules prescribed by it Or 2. In respect of the undoubted certainty of its having been revealed by God I. If we respect the Nature and Constitution of the Christian Religion and the Rules of Life and Worship proposed by it we shall find it exactly rational and attended with the greatest Evidence This might be proved by many Considerations But at present I shall insist on no more than two As I. Christianity proposeth a Divine Worship most consentaneous to the Nature of God and tendeth most effectually to secure his Honour among men The Brimary end of all Religion is the Worship of God and is intended cither to pay to God that tribute of Adoration and Thanks which his infinite Majesty and right of Creation Redemption and other benefits require or to implore his Favour in pardoning our sins supplying our Necessities or conferring his Graces on us All these Actions ought to be directed in that way which is most sutable to his Nature and may best express the perfection of it God is a Spirit and therefore requireth to be worshipped in spirit and truth Our Soul alone is truly capable of Religon can alone entertain the Idea of God and form an Act of Worship All outward Ceremonies and corporeal Modes of Worship are no otherwise Holy or to be accounted of than as they tend to shew the inward Devotion of the Soul which is wont to declare its Thoughts and Motions when vehement and intense by external Indications All other voluntary external Acts of Worship which are not the natural Effects and Signs of an inward Zeal and warmth of Devotion serve only to gratifie a foolish Superstition and relate no more to the Worship of God than any other irregular Motions of the Body If we really imploy the Faculties of our Soul as we ought to do in admiring the perfections of the Divine Nature in adoring his Majesty loving his Goodness and fearing his Justice these affections of the Mind will naturally discover themselves in outward Acts and Gestures and cannot be suppressed These external Actions declare to others the inward Sense of our Minds and thereby tend to manifest the Honour of God and publish his Glory but deserve no otherwise to be regarded either by God or Man than as they are the Signs and Effects of an inward Piety And hence we may judge of the Excellency of our Religion without considering the Evidence of its Revelation If it be chiefly employed in external Shews and Ceremonies and makes the performance of them without any inward Motion of the Soul an Act of Worship if it represents the Divine Attributes and Perfections by corporeal Symbols rather than noble Conceptions of the Soul and desires God to accept of that mean and imperfect Service instead of a near Conformity to himself by the Exercise of Holiness and Vertue Such a Religion may perhaps be true but neither agrceable to the Excellency of God nor answering to the Dignity of our own Nature God may accept it or even Command it for a time in Compassion to the Blindness and infirmity of Mankind not capable under some Circumstances of a more noble and spiritual Religion but could never intend to continue it any longer than till he should please to make a more full and open Revelation of himself And this was the Case of the Jewish Religion For the Heathens deserve not here to be considered among whom religious Worship consisted wholly in external Rites and Actions and those oft-times such as were in their own Nature unlawful The Religion of the Jews however instituted by God was chiefly employed in outward Rites and Observances in Washings and Abstinence from certain Meats in Observation of times and tedious Ceremonies which although they served to typefie the coming of the Messias and with him the Revelation of a more perfect Religion Yet did not directly signifie any inward Acts of Reverence Piety or Devotion nor were necessarily accompanied by them The perpetual offering of carnal Sacrifices alone argued the imperfection of their Worship Since therein the Sacrificers desired of God to accept the Lives of Beasts instead of a more holy and reasonable Sacrifice the devoting their own Wills and Affections to his Service 'T is the peculiar Honour of the Christian Religion to worship God in a manner agreeable to the simplicity of his Nature in Spirit and Truth In this the Affections of the Soul are alone respected no Ceremonial Observances imposed on us nor indeed any external Acts of Worship save only those Foederal Rites I mean the two Sacraments of Baptism and the
of it to all Persons without Distinction the most learned as well as ignorant is no less apparent For however these Philosophers might please themselves with the false Opinion of a perfect Knowledge it is too notorious that their Pretences were vain and trifling They professed indeed a Science of Divine Matters but such as included only unuseful and oft-times absurd Notions which were as various as their several Sects and those as numerous as the Whimsies of ambitious Men and all derided by a powerful and learned Sect which denied any truth to be in things Or if any of them entertained right Notions of a Deity and Religion yet was it rather by way of Conjecture than Certainty which therefore had no influence upon their Lives nor afforded any other hopes of a future State than what were founded only on faint Wishes and uncertain Desires such as would never induce them to forego their Lives or any part of their temporal Happiness rather than renounce it or give them intire assurance of any Reward or Punishment in another Life If to pretend that Revelation is unnecessary and unuseful to them was frivolous and irrational in these Heathen Philosophers much more absurd was it to arraign the Christian Religion of its simplicity which fitted it for the Reception of all the members of Mankind not appropriating it to the Benefit of Philosophers only by proposing abstruse Contemplations and nice Subtilties beyond the ordinary reach of unlearned Persons This was the chief Reason why Christianity was by them accounted Folly as being hereby become the Portion of reputed Fools as well as the Science of those who flattered themselves with the Title of Wisdom And this is none of the least Reasons why we ought to esteem it the most excellent of all Religions and condemn the intolerable Pride and Superciliousness of such Men who either then did endeavour to engross the Knowledge of Divine Matters or now do true Belief and Salvation to themselves only Religion was intended by God to procure the Happiness of the whole Race of Mankind not of any Sect or Denomination of Men much less of a small inconsiderable Party who by appropriating to themselves the greatest Blessings of Heaven make themselves unworthy of the least of them Nothing therefore contributes so much to declare the Mercy of God or is so befitting the Holiness and Beneficence of his Nature as the generous Spirit of the Christian Religion which equally admitteth all Men and acknowledgeth no other distinction in Persons than what ariseth from their more or less perfect Obedience to the Law of God To this end it is admirably fitted by the Simplicity of it imposing no necessary Duties of Life and Conversation but what are commanded even by the Law of Nature and observing no other Sacraments or Ceremonies than what are easie and significant few and instructive And if this must be accounted a Prejudice against the Truth of Christianity to what a deplorable Condition hath the Reason of Mankind degenerated disliking Divine Truths because rational plain and obvious It hath indeed been a common mistake to despise all Doctrines recommended with these excellent Qualities and because lying level with the Capacity of the unlearned multitude and to pronounce them foolish as the Greek Philosophers in the Text accounted the Gospel to be Foolishness because of its Simplicity But this is such a Prejudice as nothing less than the most invincible Ignorance of the Nature of Truth and Religion can excuse A mistake however to which the corrupted Inclination of humaneNature is so prone that it hath not only affected the Greek Philosophers but also great numbers of Christians in all Ages who disdaining the Profession of a simple and easie Religion either added abstruse and sometimes incredible Articles to it or turned it into an artificial Science involved in the most perplex and intricate Subtilties or affected to propose and deliver it in an Enthusiastick stile in wild and undigested Conceptions It remains that I confider our Obligation notwithstanding all these Objections and the Scandals derived from them to believe and openly to profess the Faith of Christ. For however it be to the Jews a stumbling-block and to the Greeks foolishness we still preach Christ crucified and as it appears from what hath been said have Reason so to do being neither scandalized at the Contradiction and Opposition of the Jews and Gentiles nor deluded by the same Prejudices with them Which two Heads I will briefly speak to First then If the Christian Religion be to the Jews a Stumbling-block and to the Greeks Foolishness if a great part of the World continue not only in Ignorance of it but in Opposition to it if the Mysteries of it appear to some incredible and the manner proposing it ridiculous this ought not to scandalize us or induce us to believe the Truth of our Religion to be either less plain or less certain We all know Mankind to be subject to Errour and experience the weakness of humane Understanding We cannot be ignorant how prone all Men are to follow the direction of their Lusts and Passions and then if we consider that Christianity opposeth and restraineth these unruly Passions we shall cease to wonder at its Rejection and Contradiction God hath indeed set his revealed Truths in as clear a light as is sufficient for the Conviction of men but still leaveth our Will in its full Liberty to embrace or reject them that so he may leave place either for Reward of Belief or Punishment of the contrary Not that God requireth us to believe any thing incredible or extraordinary not that we merit any thing at the hands of God by being more credulous than the rest of Mankind or believing those things which other Men reject as foolish or monstrous Our Faith is no otherwise capable of a Reward than as it is just and rational as it is the result of the right Exercise of our Faculties and a Demonstration of readiness to obey the Will of God and acknowledge his Attributes of Veracity and Dominion over us It was therefore a strange Expression of an ancient Writer That the Mysteries of the Christian Faith are for that very reason certain credible and meritorious to be believed because they are foolish incredible and impossible that in this consists the merit of Christian confidence and that God therefore chose this way that he might as it were retaliate to Men the impudence of Idolatry in which they had voluntarily engaged themselves by the impudence of Faith which he imposed on them If things were so justly might Christianity be a Scandal to the Jews and Folly to the Greeks But blessed be God and blessed be that Holy Religion which we profess nothing is required of us to be believed but what is entirely Conformable to the Laws of Nature and Reason and which would be our Duty to assâ—…nt to although no Reward attended the Assent In the next place if we ought not to
to shew you that no objection to the Justice and Impartiality of God can be deduced from his conduct in relation to them Which not only tendeth to vindicate his Honour and to create in us a just esteem of his infinite Perfections not only restrains us from passing uncharitable censures upon our fellow Servants or conceiving amiss of those immutable Rules which God hath fixed to the exercise of his Mercy and Judgment but also teaches us that Salvation depends not so much upon any external Relation or Denomination as upon the eternal Obligations of Righteousness and Holiness This was the Second Head proposed to be Treated of namely the Conditions of the Divine Favour expressed in the latter part of the Text. But in every Nation he that feareth him and worketh Righteousness is accepted with him The favour of God is not now as it seemed to be under the Jewish dispensation annexed to a Family or a Nation to external Badges and ritual Observations but to the more noble and universal obligations of Fear and Righteousness offered and dispensed unto all Men upon the same Conditions Conditions from which none can plead exemption even although no Revelation had enforced them They had then been Duties even without a Reward but are now conditions of a Reward which manifesteth the infinite Mercy and Goodness of God which is also enhanced by the universality of it for that in eve y Nation he that worketh Righteousness is accepted by him For after all the Title to a Reward must be grounded upon the Divine acceptance not on any merit of the Work But the time will not permit me to Discourse farther of these things I will only exhort you to make a just use of what you have already Learned That God is no respecter of Persons This cannot but be a mighty encouragement to you to use your utmost diligence to attain that Reward which God hath rendered equally possible to you with those who are now the greatest Saints in Heaven that whatever your condition or circumstances may be here below God respecteth not that in distribution of his Favour but only what is in your own power On the other side if you neglect these possible these easie conditions offearing God and working Righteousness flatter not your selves with the thoughts of being exempted by any peculiar Favour from undergoing that universal Sentence of Condemnation which is indifferently pronounced against all Sinners Which is also the conclusion drawn by St. Peter from this very consideration 1 Pet. I. 17. And if ye call on the Father who without respect of Persons judgeth according to every Mans work pass the time of your Sojourning here in fear The Thirteenth SERMON PREACH'D Easter-Day 1689. At LAMBETH CHAPEL Coloss. III. 1. If ye then be risen with Christ seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God THE Resurrection of our Blessed Saviour from the Dead hath by the Church in all Ages been deservedly celebrated with a greater Solemnity than any other Festival whatsoever as being instituted in remembrance of the most signal Act of our Lord here on Earth and the final Completion of our Redemption by it Other Actions indeed prepared the Minds of his Followers to expect Salvation from him but this alone gave them infallible assurance of the performance of it Till then they retained Doubts and Scruples were meanly instructed in the Nature of his Office and Design of his Coming were confounded at his Ignominious Crucifixion and began to suspect that they had been mistaken in the Person of the Messias All their glorious hopes of a temporal Kingdom to be founded by their Lord and Master were laid aside and in a little time they began to doubt whether it were he that should have redeemed Israel The Church then was not only dispersed but destroyed and none left who would own their Belief in a Crucified Saviour The Apostles were fled The Women prepared Spices for his Body now lying in the Grave as not expecting it should rise again and the Jews triumphed over his afflicted Disciples as having defeated their hopes and overthrown their Pretences At this time in this State of things our Lord rose from the Dead and by his Resurrection demonstrated the Divinity of his Person dispelled the Anxiety of his Disciples and confounded his Enemies By this he retrieved the lost Faith of his Followers and put it beyond all possibility of being subject to any more Fluctuations Hereby he not only gave the last and most infallible Confirmation to the truth of his Doctrine by a Miracle unheard of in former Ages but also established in Mankind the glad assurance of a future Resurrection He had before indeed promised it but now gave an earnest of it in his own Person and manifested it to be possible by the actual effecting of it No wonder then that as the Church did at first receive our Lord from the Dead with unspeakable Joy and Triumph so it always continued to renew the remembrance of that Triumph by extraordinary Solemnities that the Apostles urged the Miracle of his Resurrection as the highest Argument of Conviction to Jews and Gentiles and admonished their Disciples to comfort one another with the Remembrance of it And not only so but also drew continual Arguments of Instruction and Motives of Holiness from it and made all the Mysteries and Sacraments of the Christian Religion to be in some measure subservient to it An Action of so great importance was not barely to strike the Senses and to satisfie the doubtful or convince the incredulous but to affect the Soul and become a Foundation of Practice as well as Belief to all Christians Our Lord raised not his natural Body from the Grave to leave us his Mystical Body groveling on the Ground he resumed not his bodily Life to leave us in a spiritual Death but taught us thereby to raise our Thoughts and Affections from the Earth to free our selves from the Power of Darkness and enter into the Regions of Light For we are risen with Christ if we be true Christians as the Apostle assureth us in my Text and if so the natural consequence will be That we seek those things which are above and act agreeably to the new state of Life into which we are entred If then ye be risen with Christ seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God The words therefore will oblige me to treatFirst of our Resurrection with Christ and Secondly of the Conclusion drawn from thence by the Apostle that we ought therefore to seek those things which are above That we shall hereafter rise and bewith Christ is the most firm Belief of all Christians but that we are already risen may not perhaps be so easily conceived especially by those who experience not in themselves any Effects of this Blessed Resurrection We are therefore said to rise with Christ even in this Life either by similitude or by
of singular instances of Providence in reward of the good and Punishment of the bad And related not only particular Examples of this kind but also from the frequency of them formed and delivered general Rules that Wickedness never escapeth unpunished or Innocence unrewarded In short it is the indispensable Duty of Man to Act cheerfully and submissively in that Station on in those Circumstances wherein the supreme Author of Life hath placed him to receive not only without murmuring but also with Reverence all Dispensations proceeding from him He hath just ground to believe that God will not forsake him if sincerely putting his Trust in him nor suffer his Innocence to pass unregarded which is a sufficient Motive of relying on his Providence and a necessary one of submitting to it But the certain and infallible assurance of these Hopes the exact knowledge of the methods of Providence in this matter and the unerring experience of the Divine Justice and Goodness herein is to be found only in the Christian Religion And that it is abundantly found there I come next to shew by considering in the second place II. What force and weight the Christian Religion hath superadded to the natural or precedent Reasons and ' grounds of Trust and reliance in God and therein of Consolation in Dangers and Afflictions In the Natural or under the Mosaick Law the apparent hopes of Mankind were terminated in this Life and although the common Notions of the perfection of the Divine Justice and the visible experience of the great Disproportion in the distribution of Rewards and Punishments in this Life induced many to believe that a more equal and impartial Survey of the Actions of Men would be taken after Death and the Soul of Man which is not capable of Dissolution receive then the merits or demerits of its Actions as considering Men could not but esteem this as most rational in it self so not unlikely yet the perswasions of it were in the Gentiles little more than some faint Hopes and Wishes and in the Jews wrapt up in obscure Prophecies or uncertain Interpretations But in the Christian Religion these Conjectures being advanced into certainty these Hopes into assurance the reliance and trust in God consequent to them which in the former could not but be faint and weak became now lively and vigorous To a Christian who professeth himself a stranger and Pilgrim in the earth who disowns the placing of his hopes on this side Heaven it seems not strange that God should suffer him to labour under Difficulties and Calamities since these affect not his grand Concern hinder not his real Happiness and many times tend highly to promote it In taking that Profession on him he renounced the immoderate Love of the World the gratifying his Lusts and the ease of his Body professed himself a Citizen of another Countrey and listed himself under the Banner of a Crucified Saviour and in Vertue of these Resolutions proceeds in a steady course of Vertue and Holiness to attain his end is not amazed at any Terrours or Disasters which may meet him in the way declines them indeed as farr as Prudence will permit but will not forsake the right way to avoid them A natural consequence to a firm Belief in God and Christ and that Opinion which is rooted in all true Christians that the real Happiness and perfection of Man is to be expected in another Life that Crosses and Afflictions in this world hinder not the Acquifition of this supreme Good and oft-times promote it If publick Calamities invade the Church if private Miseries affect himself a sincere Christian is neither scandalized at the one nor Despairs through the other He considers that if he suffers for the name of Christ he is happy if upon any other account without his own fault his Affliction may be of use to him may correct his wandring thoughts and fix his hope upon God alone but that in no Case it tends to deprive him of his chief and ultimate End the Fruition of God in another Life The exceeding Happiness of that Fruition so infinitely surpasseth all the Petty satisfactions of this World and the Duration of it the continuance of this Life that no Affliction no Calamity so grievous can happen to any one which will not seem light under the apprehension of those Blessed Hopes Men may lessen our Enjoyments here below but yet notwithstanding the Rage or Envy of Men it is in our Power to augment and improve them above For so the Fathers do generally expound the Promise of our Saviour following the Text In my Fathers house are many Mansions that is in Heaven are many and different Degrees of Glory prepared for you to be distributed according to your greater or less perfection in Holiness This is the only Ambition worthy of a Christian to aim at an eminent Station in that Blessed place where Preference will be no Injury to another nor diminish another's Happiness contrary to the proceedings of this World where the greatness or estate of one Man can be raised no otherwise than upon the Ruins or Decay of another It can scarce be hoped indeed nor is it expected by God that Man should free himself absolutely from all concern for things here below Such impassibility will be one of our chief Perfections when our Nature shall be raised above this corruptible Condition and become spiritualized but to aim at it in this Life may perhaps be an impossible Design but certainly not our Duty We are here Citizens of the whole World and as such bound to seek the good of Mankind in general Members of a Civil Society and as such obliged to promote the Peace and Welfare of our Countrey Members of a Christian Church and as such commanded to Labour for the external Peace and Prosperity of Jerusalem Lastly in our own private Capacities God designed at least some sort of Happiness even in this Life for Man when he placed him in the World and this we may lawfully pursue and improve as far as the Rules of Justice Sobriety and Religion will permit To be unconcerned in all these is so far from being a Duty or required by God that in most Cases it may become a Crime But the Exhortation of our Saviour in this place and the Precepts of the Christian Religion in general require us not to be anxious and sollicitous about any Contingencies on this side Heaven Not to suffer our selves to be so transported with Passions arising from either the Sense or the prospect of unhappy Accidents in this World as may embroil our minds disturb our thoughts and hinder the performance of more noble and Divine Duties much less to conclude our selves unhappy to despond and murmur to repine at the publick Government of the World and distract the Soul with Melancholy thoughts of private mis-fortunes Such a Perturbation of mind would be most unworthy a rational Man much moâ—…e a knowing Christian who cannot but be convinced that it
Thirty first Year of his Age on the 5th of March that sad day whereon that never sufficiently to be lamented Princess our most incomparable QUEEN was interr'd about Three of the Clock in the Morning he with an humble Patience submitted to the stroke of Death cheerfully resigning his departing Soul into the most Holy hands of his gracious Redeemer The loss of so extraordinary a Person in the Flower of his Age and one from whom the learned World had justly conceiv'd such great Expectations of most admirable Performances from his indefatigable Labours for the advantage of it was very much lamented by Learned Men both at home and abroad The Clergy in particular as a Testimony of that value which they had for him did in great Numbers attend at his Funeral Here ought by no means to be past by in silence that singular Honour which was paid to him by the Right Reverend the Bishops Many of which and among the rest the most Reverend Archbishop himself and the Right Reverend Bishop of Litchfield who had both of them visited him in his last Sickness being present at it while another of that venerable Order the Right Reverend the Bishop of Rochester performed the Funeral Office All sorts of Persons were willing to shew their Respect for him in the best manner they were able The Reverend the Dean and Prebendaries of Westminster not only caused the Kings Schollars to attend him to his Grave an uncommon respect and the highest they can shew on such an occasion but did also each for himself remit their Customary Dues for Interment in their Church as the last and most proper Testimony they could then give of the high Esteem in which they held Mr. Wharton and his learned Labours The Quire likewise committing his Body to Rest with Solemn and Devout Anthems compos'd by that most ingenious Artist Mr. Henry Purcel He lyes Buried in the South side of the Cathedral Church of Westminster towards the West end Near whereunto in the Wall is erected a small but decent Monument of White Marble whereon is the following Inscription H. S. E. HENRICUS WHARTON A. M. ECCLESIAE ANGLICANAE PRESBYTER RECTOR ECCLESIAE DE CHARTHAM NECNON VICARIUS ECCLESIAE De MINSTER IN INSULA THANATO IN DIAECESI CANTUARIENSI REVERENDISSIMO AC SANCTISSIMO PRAESULI WILHELMO ARCHIEPISCOPO CANTUARIENSI A SACRIS DOMESTICIS QUI MULTA AD AUGENDAM ET ILLUSTRANDAM REM LITERARIAM MULTA PRO ECCLESIA GHRISTI CONSCRIPSIT PLURA MOLIEBATUR Obiit 30. Non. Mart. A. D. MDCXCIV Aetatis suae XXXI THE CONTENTS SERMON I. On Whit-Sunday JOhn XIV 25 26. These things have I spoken unto you being yet present with you But the Comforter which is the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my Name he shall teach you all things and bring all things to your Remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you Pag. 1 SERMON II. Philip. II. 5. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus p. 51 SERMON III. and IV. 1 Pet. III. 15. Be ready always to give an answer â—…to every Man that asketh you a reason of the hope that 's in you with Meekness and Fear p. 108 144 SERMOM V. Rom. II. 4. Not knowing that the Goodness of God leadeth thee to Repentance p. 172 SERMON VI. 1 Corinth I. 23. We preach Christ crucified unto the Jews a Stumbling-block and unto the Greeks Foolishness p. 227 SERMON VII Hebr. IX 27. It is appointed unto Men once to die but after this the Judgment p. 261 SERMON VIII 1 Tim. I. 17. Now unto the King Eternal Immortal Invisible the only wise God be Honour and Glory for ever and ever Amen p. 287 SERMON IX Psal. XCV 7 8. To day if ye will hear his Voyce harden not your hearts p. 313 SERMON X. and XI Luk. XIII 5. Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish p. 337 365 SERMON XII Acts X. 34 35. Then Peter opened his mouth and said of a Truth I perceive that God is no respecter of Persons But in every Nation he that feareth him and worketh Righteousness is accepted with him p. 394 SERMON XIII Coloss. III. 1. If ye then be risen with Christ seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God p. 417 SERMON XIV John XIV 1. Let not your bearts be troubled ye believe in God believe also in me p. 439 The First SERMON ON WHITSUNDAY Prâ—…ach'd at Lambeth Chapel John XIV 25 26. These things havé I spoken unto you being yet present with you But the Comforter which is the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my Name he shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you THese words being part of the Gospel for this Day â—…o not only contain the Promise of that infinite and wonderful benefit the completion of which we this Day commeâ—…orate But also declare the nature and intention of it and thereby most fitly not only excite us to a grateful remembrance of the Divine beneficence but also teach us to form true apprehensions and a just veneration of so great a Mystery A Mystery which was promis'd by Christ to his Apostles as the greatest of all Benefits Which might alone supply the otherwise irreparable loss of his Presence and intirely dispel their grief arising from the melancholy apprehensions of his approaching departure A Mystery which was reserved for the ultimate consummation of the Christian Religion and Divine dispensation of the Gospel Which being designed by the Father and Founded by the Son was at last brought to perfection by the Mission and Descent of the Holy Ghost No wonder therefore if the promise of so great a benefit was so mightily insisted on by Christ as a sufficient remedy to his Disciples for all afflictions and the last and greatest Legacy which he could bequeath unto them If the performance of it was so earnestly expected by the Apostles and the remembrance of it with an uninterrupted solemnity Celebrated by the Church in all Ages more especially by the Antient Church in which all Christians used to stand continually in time of Divine Service from Easter to Whitsunday thereby testifying the impatient expectation wherewith they attended the Descent of the Holy Ghost as upon this Day The declaration of this promise made in the words of my Text was occasioned by the great anxiety which the Apostles expressed at the news of our Saviours departure and their wonderful ignorance of the true nature and design of the Christian Religion after so long and so excellent instruction from their Divine Master The former is related in the end of the preceding Chapter which therefore Christ endeavours to remove by a vehement exhortation to a steady Faith in the beginning of this Let not your heart be troubled ye believe in God believe also in me Assuring them that his departure was for no other end than to prepare a place for their reception
wonderful Miracles should be wrought by him And some such extraordinary Actions were required to excite the Jews to a serious consideration of the Quality and Character of the Person who wrought them If the Actions of Christ had been deficient in any one point of Conformity to the precedent Prophesies it had been irrational as well as unlawful for the Jews to have admitted his Revelations altho' confirmed by the greatest Miracles imaginable Since they must have owned thereby the falsity of those Prophesies of the truth of which they were abundantly convinced as being confirm'd to them by an equal Authority of Miracles But not only doth the Reason and Nature of things demonstrate this Truth The Practice and Example of Christ and his Apostles evidently manifest it The first while yet on Earth constantly asserted his Divine Mission and Quality of Messias from the Scriptures of the Old Testament which had Testified of him And his Disciples after his Death carryed on the same Argument He perform'd indeed greater Miracles than any ever had done before him But in Disputing with the Jews he commonly waved that Argument and appealed to the Scripture As well knowing That if they would not hear Moses and the Prophets neither would they be perswaded though one rose from the Dead By which words he plainly infinuates that the greatest of his Miracles his Resurrection was a less valid proof and inferiour to the Testimony of Moses and the Prophets This he often thought alone sufficient to propose as a necessary motive of belief to the Jews And such a motive as could not be rejected without disowning and destroying the Authority of the Old Testament For thus he Disputes in the Vth. of St. John Verses 39 46 47. Search the Scriptures for in them ye think ye have eternal life and they are they which Testifie of me For had ye believed Moses ye would have believed me For he wrote of me But if ye believed not his writings how shall ye believe my words No other Method did he make use of to convince his Disciples walking to Emmaus that all those Calamities which had befallen his Person ought necessarily to be inflicted on the Messias All those Glorious Miracles of which themselves had been witnesses proved unsuccessful and could not secure their Faith from a shameful fluctuation Until Christ beginning at Moses and all the Prophets expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself and opened their understanding that they might understand the Scripture that it was thus written and that it thus behoved Christ to suffer and to rise from the Dead the Third Day If the constant Companions of our Saviours Life could be drawn to the true knowledge of him by no other Argument than a full and plain Interpretation of the Prophesies of the Old Testament In vain do we hope that any other Arguments could convince the remaining Jews who were less acquainted with the Holiness of his Life and greatness of his Miracles In the next place we may observe that the Apostles were chosen by Christ and used as the inseparable Companions of his Life Not so much to be instructed in the Mysteries of the Christian Faith or trained up in the necessary qualifications of Preachers who might propagate the Gospel after the departure of their Master As to be Witnesses and Spectactors of his Actions and Conversation which they might afterwards Testifie to the World and thereby convince Mankind that they were intirely conformable to the Antient predictions of the Prophets That the former could not be the end or intention of their accompanying Christ through the whole discharge of his Prophetick Office appears plainly from their Ignorance both of the Mysteries of Religion and their own Duty at the time of our Saviours Crucifixion Yet can we not suppose but that Christ obtain'd his chief aim which he proposed to himself in selecting certain Persons for the Companions of his Life This end therefore could indeed be no other than that which I have already assigned of witnessing and publishing to the World the Actions of Christ whose reasonableness and agreement to the predictions of the Mosaick Law was to be judged and determined by every private Man For we no where find that the Apostles from the Authority of their Miracles which were not inferiour to those of Christ himself pretended to set up themselves for infallible Judges or exercise an arbitrary command over the judgments of other Men. They might indeed much more justly have claimed such a priviledge than any ever since their times As being personally infallible and endued with the power of working Miracles Yet they never endeavoured to command the assent of their hearers before they had informed and satisfied their Understandings But proceeded in a more rational method and following the example of their Master chose rather to convince their judgment with Arguments whose attention they had before excited by Miracles These Arguments when directed to the Jews were chiefly taken from the Old Testament Whose Prophecies they demonstrated to have plainly soretold and described the Actions and Sufferings of Christ of which Actions themselves were witnesses Thus we find St. Peter in his Sermon made to the Jews upon this Day to have used no other Method And not so much to have urged the Illustrious Miracle of the gift of Tongues newly conferred on them as the conformity of that and all other Actions of Christ to the Antient Predictions of the Prophets His Sermon in the following Chapter proceeds from the same Foundation And St. Stephen in the VII Chap. St. Paul in the XIII use no other Argument when Disputing against the Jews From a clear Interpretation of the Prophecies in Scripture concerning the Messias Philip convinced the Eunuch who was a Jewish Proselyte of the Divinity of Christ Acts VIII and Acts XVIII Apollos is said to have mightily convinced the Jews and that publickly shewing by the Scriptures that Jesus was Christ. St. Paul pleading before King Agrippa endeavoured before all things to prove that he stood there to be judged for the hope of the Promise made by God unto the Fathers Acts XXVI 6. And ver 27. appealed to the Prophets and asked Agrippa whether he believed not them insinuating that if he truly believed the Prophets and understood their genuine Sense he could not but embrace the Christian Religion Lastly to say no more his Disputes with the Jews at Rome were employed in expounding and Testifying the Kingdom of God Perswading them concerning Jesus both out of the Law of Moses and out of the Prophets from Morning till Evening Acts XXVIII 23. It appears then That the chief reason of the choice of the Apostles to a familiar conversation with our Saviour before his Ascension was no other than that they might thereby be enabled to Testify and publish to the World his Actions Miracles and Sufferings which being received from them might then by every private Man be examined and compared with the
those which are revealed by God supposing them to have been indeed revealed but only that any such Revelation is really made can appear no otherwise than by Arguments of probability Thirdly a perfect knowledge of all the Mysteries of Religion might have been extraordinarily obtained by the Apostles before the Ascension of our Saviour by conferring on them the same Gifts of the Holy Ghost as were afterwards poured on them on the day of Pentecost But neither was this convenient to the design of the Gospel nor the Wisdom of God Not to the former For the plentiful Effusion and Mission of the Holy Ghost was an Act of the Regal power of Christ which he commenced not till after his Ascension when he first began to exercise that Authority which he had obtained to himself by the obedience of Death And therefore our Saviour tells the Apostles S. Joh. XVI 7. Nevertheless I tell you the truth it is expedient for you that I go away For if I go not away the Comforter will not come unto you but if I depart I will send him unto you And in another place this is assigned as the Reason why the Holy Ghost was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified The Wisdom of God also was no less engaged which might justly have been arraigned if he had used so wonderful and signal a Miracle as was the Mission of the Holy Ghost for the extraordinary instruction of the Apostles before the Ascension of our Lord since no such Instruction was yet necessary which was the second Point I proposed to prove Namely II. That a perfect and infallible Information of the Apostles was not absolutely necessary till after the Ascension of Christ. For this was required in the Apostles for no other cause than that they might thereby be inabled to teach the Doctrines of our Saviour to the whole world and at last deliver them down in writing to succeeding Ages infallibly and without danger of any intermixed Enrour to the suspicion of which the Christian Religion would ever have been subjected if they had not been indued with such clearness of apprehension concerning every Point of it and attended by such an extraordinary assistance as might secure them from all possible danger of mistaking the Sense of that Doctrine which they were to deliver to the rest of Mankind To create this clear apprehension in the Apostles and convey down this assistance to them was the chief intention of sending the Holy Ghost as upon this day and the principal effect of that Mission at least as far as I am at present concerned So that since the sending of the Holy Ghost was designed purely to enable them to the due execution of their Office of preaching and propagating the Doctrine of Christ to the whole world which Office was not to be commenced till after his Ascension it manifestly follows that an exact and infallible knowledge of the Mysteries of the Christian Religion was not absolutely necessary to the Apostles before that time A perfect knowledge would have been useful indeed to them even before that time but useful to them only as private Persons not as bearing the publick Office and Character of Apostles whose Office before the Ascension of our Saviour consisted as we before observed in taking notice of the Actions Sufferings and Miracles of Christ that they might be able afterwards to testifie them to the whole world This Office of observing the Actions of Christ required no exact and perfect knowledge of all the Reasons of his Actions and Mysteries of his Doctrine but might be sufficiently discharged by any Persons who were not devoid of common Sense and Honesty The Mission of the Holy Ghost was necessary upon Reasons of another nature and would have continued necessary although the Apostles had perfectly understood all the Doctrine of our Saviour before his Ascension For however they might then sufficiently understand it nothing less than a perpetual extraordinary assistance of the Holy Ghost could infallibly secure them from all future Errour in delivering it to others or create such a degree of probability as might deserve the Assent and Belief of Mankind in all future Ages Thus I have shewn the Reasons of that Ignorance of the Apostles which is so remarkable through all the History of the Gospels and for which our Saviour promiseth so extraordinary a remedy in the words of my Text and withal demonstrated that there is nothing in all this Conduct of the Apostles continuing under that Ignorance till the Ascension and of our Saviour permitting it till that time disadvantageous to the Truth and Divinity of the Christian Religion It remains that I draw some few Conclusions from what hath been said which was the third and last Proposal First then if as we before shewed our Saviour and the Apostles who were unquestionably infallible never set up themselves for infallible Judges nor required from their Hearers a blind Assent to their Dictates if they submitted their Doctrines to the Examination of Scripture and Judgment of all private men in vain do any at this day pretend in vertue of an Authority derived from them to set up themselves for infallible Judges of Controversie from whom lyeth no Appeal either to Scripture or Reason and thereby exercise a Jurisdiction which they never claimed But I wave that Particular and choose rather to insist on some more practical Considerations Of which The first is That if the knowledge of the Christian Religion was so difficult to the Apostles who enjoyed so many and so great advantages under the Instruction and Government of their Divine Master the Author of this Religion if after the sight of his Miracles the Enjoyment of a triennial Conversation and the constant hearing of his Divine Discourses they continued ignorant of the true Spirit and Nature of Christianity this ought to excite us to great diligence in learning and studying the Mysteries of our Religion and enquiring the true Sense of those Revelations which our Saviour conveyed to the world It is indeed the peculiar Excellency and Glory of the Christian Religion that its admirable simplicity hath fited it to the Understandings and Capacity of all men that it is not such an abstruce Science as surmounts the ordinary reach of Mankind and must intirely be confined to the Discipline of the Schools and knowledge of Learned men the acquisition and understanding of it is possible and even easie to all men But then God in proposing this Religion intended not purely to supercede the Labours of men and consult their ease Some Conditions are also necessary on our side that we diligently search the Truth examine the Scriptures hearken to the instruction of our Pastors carefully weigh the Reasons of things and bring a mind ready disposed to assent to any Truths which shall evidently appear to us how contrary soever they may be to our Passions and Inclinations For although we labour not with those prejudices of a temporal Kingdom
priviledges of Nature and derogates not in the least from the Rules of Justice but forbids Men to be transported by Passion against their Adversaries and not to seek revenge for revenge sake that is it does not forbid to repair the loss of this Injury or prevent the like Injustice to himself or others for the future but to return the Injury and gratifie his anger in creating a like Inconvenience to his Adversary or maintaining an inward Hatred to him And herein the Spirit of Christianity most eminently discovers it self For to preserve the common Rights of Justice is no extraordinary matter for a revealed Religion to perform This the Dictates of Nature the Sense of our own temporal Interest and the Rules of civil Society may effect But to conquer those violent Passions of Hatred Anger and desire of Revenge to retain a quiet and undisturbed Mind amidst provoking Injuries and Affronts to entertain the insults of an Enemy rather with Pity than Resentment and manifest how little we were affected with them by a constant readiness to forgive them These are the proper Characters and most certain Marks of a Soul filled with the Love of God and plac't above the reach of humane things which hath an intire Command of the inferiour Faculties of the Body and doth in earnest pursue the ends of a Divine Religion These chiefly rendred the Life of Christ admirable and extraordinary and will make us the not unworthy Disciples of so great a Master Lastly the Charity of our Lord was correspondent to all the other perfections of his Mind that is most intense and of the highest degree Indeed this seems to have been the darling Vertue of the Blessed Jesus Which he studiously cultivated above all others to promote which all his designs did in some measure tend and his Example most directly lead All the Actions of his Life were almost so many Demonstrations of his Love to Mankind Even his Miracles which were primarily wrought to testifie his Divine Power bore eminent Characters of this Loving kindness being employed in healing the Diseases and supplying the wants of Men upon account of which the Apostle saith That he went about doing good and even his Enemies were forced to confess Mark VII 37. He hath done all things well he maketh both the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak But the highest Testimony of the Charity of our Saviour was his inestimable Love in the Redemption of Mankind his descent from Heaven ignominious Life upon Earth and at last most painful Death upon the Cross to rescue his own Creatures who had rebelled against him from the Power of Satan and the consequences of their own sins Hereby perceive we the love of God because he laid down his life for us 1 John III. 16. And greater love than this hath no man A Love so stupendious that it no less confounds the Apprehension than exceeds the imitation of finite Men. To this the highest Expressions of our Charity are but faint attempts and imperfect shadows A perfect imitation of it is beyond our Capacity and therefore not required but whatsoever is possible to us can be but a mean return to so vast an Obligation St. John therefore makes this easie and natural inference from it Beloved if God so loved us we ought also to love one another 1 John IV. 11. If our Creator loved us his Creatures who had nothing in us worthy his Love but had many ways offended and deserved his extreme Displeasure if he loved us to so wonderful a degree surely we ought to love our Fellow Creatures who have in them no less excellent Perfections than our Selves with all possible affection which however to the utmost of our power is yet infinitely beneath the Love wherewith he loved us Especially since our Saviour chiefly imposed this Condition on us in return of his infinite Kindness and that also in respect to his own Example John XIII 34 35. A new commandment I give unto you That ye love one another as I have loved you that ye also love one another By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye love one another So that in this consisteth the very Life of Christianity without this no man can pretend to be the Disciple of our Lord. By this in the Apostolick times Christians were eminently distinguished from the rest of the world when they devoted all their Possessions to the Offices of Charity and had all things common An excess of Charity which however no longer Practicable than while the number of Disciples continued to be small and was therefore laid aside when the Church became numerous as being neither necessary nor convenient nor even possible yet clearly shews what was the primitive Genius of Christianity how exactly they followed the Footsteps of their Blessed Master and with what fervour of Charity they were indued A fervour which expired not with the disuse of that Apostolick Custom of sharing their Possessions in common but continued to exert it self for some Ages after in all possible Demonstrations of a real Charity Insomuch that the Heathens used to cry out in admiration See how these Galileans love one another If then we be unwilling to be accused of having disobeyed the great Commandment of our Saviour forsaken his Example and intirely lost the genuine Spirit of Christianity we must retreive that admirable Charity which was by him so mightily enjoyned practiced and bequeathed to his Disciples Thus I have considered the Example of our Lord in some of the greater lines and strokes of it and shewn it to have been in all respects the most excellent which could possibly be proposed to Mankind It remains that I urge the imitation of it in some few words First then the imitation of this Divine Example is the Duty of every Christian considered in the Notion of a Disciple which includes not only an Obligation of yielding an intire Obedience to the commands of Christ but also of following his Example as near as possible and that in the first place To assent to and obey the Divine Precepts is properly the Notion of a Believer but of a Disciple to imitate the Actions and Conduct of his Master And therefore the Patriarchs and Jews might well be called Believers in God but not the Disciples of God Precepts only were given to them the Divine Example was not proposed as a Rule unto them The Apostles of our Lord are also by way of eminence called his Disciples Because they were the constant Witnesses and Attendants of his Life who did partake of the same manner of living and were supposed to be his Companions as well in moral as natural Actions Although this Title is not so far appropriated to them as to be denied to us if we take the same care to follow the Example of our Lord and Master as they did We may follow it though at a distance we may pursue it though we cannot attain to it And that
of the Soul otherwise it would be vain and trifling to found Piety and Religion in the internal Acts of the Mind and appropriate either Rewards or Punishments to them only Again Christianity directeth all our Actions to their natural end the Supreme Good the Enjoyment of God and Obedience to him It is but too apparent and hath been plainly confessed by many of them that all the refined Morality of the Heathen Philosophers was founded upon a Principle of Vanity and directed rather to the Acquisition of Praise and Glory than the discharge of their Duty to God Themselves and their Neighbours Whereas the Christian Faith directs us to perform all in obedience to the Divine Laws to ascribe all our good Deeds to God the Author and Fountain of them and preserve an awful Sense of our own unworthyness in respect of the Divine Majesty and Goodness Hereby it addeth to all other excellent Perfections and Crowns them with Humility a Vertue almost unknown to any other System of Religion yet naturally arising from the Principles of Christianity Lastly This Religion is most pure and simple equally adapted to all Orders and Ranks of men and thereby may justly be accounted most agreeable to their Nature since it equally concerneth and includeth all The Precepts of it are plain and easie laying level with the meanest Capacity and placed beyond the Power of none such as carry their Conviction along with them and need no other Argument than to be proposed The Principles and Mysteries of it are perspicuous and significant such as may create a right Sense and esteem of the Divine Attributes and afford powerful Arguments to Men of manifesting their obedience to God In a word nothing can be found or discovered in it unworthy of God or not agreeable to Men nothing which doth not proclaim it self owing to a Divine Original Which brings me to the second Consideration Namely II. That the Christian Religion is rational and evident in respect of the undoubted certainty of its having been revealed by God To evince this we have already made no inconsiderable advance in shewing it to be most worthy of God and fitted to the Nature and Necessity of Mankind For hereby all Objections which can be formed against it are prevented and the Proofs of its Revelation left in their full force Whereas no one System of false Religion hath ever obtained in the World which hath not taught somewhat contrary to Reason and upon that account ought to have been rejected without inquiring into the truth of those Proofs and Arguments whereby it pretended to Revelation The falfeness of the Pagan Religion discovered it self in proposing the Worship of many Gods in giving extravagant and undecent Notions of them representing them as Murderers Adulterers and Criminals of the like Nature in practising Childish and oft-times brutish Superstitions and confining all Religion to external Worship To come to our own Times the falseness of the Mahometan Religion appears in the most absurd and extravagant Fables which it relates of God unworthy the petulancy of an Infant much more the Majesty of an all-wise Being But chiefly in placing the Supreme and eternal Happiness of Man after this Life in an open Violation of the Laws of Nature by the continual Practice of unbridled Lusts and indulging a brutish Appetite in all sensual Pleasures I will not add to these a corrupt part of the Christian Church which teacheth Doctrines contrary both to Sense and Reason But from the whole we may draw a convincing Argument of an All-wise Providence presiding over the World and directing all things to the good of Mankind In that it never suffered any false Religion to obtain which did not carry along with it most evident Marks of its falseness and consequently into which none could enter but by betraying their Reason and wilfully shutting their Eyes upon the Truth Hereby the Plea of Ignorance and involuntary Errour is taken from all For the existence of One only God may be easily discovered by the light of Nature The Laws of Nature are known to all and the meanest Ideots may judge of sensible things by their Senses So that to fall into any Errours contradicting the light of Nature or the report of our Senses may justly be accounted wilful and inexcusable Thus all erroneous Religions discover themselves by the falseness of their Doctrines whereas Christianity recommends it self to the Understandings of all Men by the reasonableness and Divinity of its Doctrines To this we may add that some Revealed Religion was plainly necessary to Mankind overwhelmed with an universal corruption of Ignorance and Superstition and miserably subjected to the Dominion of the Devil and their own Lusts. But as none more excel-cellent Religion than this could be proposed so none could be founded upon better Proofs For since all Revelation must be made at some certain time to some certain Persons and in some certain place However it might to them be attested with the greatest and most uncontestable Miracles yet the report of it could be conveyed to Persons distant in place and time no otherwise than by the Testimony of those who had been Eye-witnesses of it and consequently to them the Proofs of it could be no other than the Nature of the thing would admit Not Demonstrative and excluding all Doubt but Moral and excluding all just Doubt No general and universal Revelation such as is Christianity can be made in any other manner and therefore to expect any other Proofs of it would be highly unreasonable although these it possesseth in the highest and most eminent manner which I proceed in the next place briefly to shew Miracles are by all acknowledged to be the peculiar effects of God and to exceed the Power of a finite Being That wonderful and unaccountable Actions may be and often have been performed by the sleight of Men or concurrence of evil Spirits must be Confessed but these fail not to carry some Evidence of deceit and imposture along with them and may easily be discerned by judicious and attentive Persons from those which proceed from the finger of God and are the real works of Omnipotence Now it cannot be imagined that God will exert his Almighty Power in working Miracles upon slight and trivial occasions much less in Confirmation of a Lye or any pretended Revelation If therefore any Prophet appears invested with the Power of Miracles and we be satisfied that the Miracles are true and real and that his Revelations neither contradict the light of Nature nor any precedent Revelation we must own his Divine Commission and submit to his Revelations which in that Case will truly carry along with them a Divine Authority This was the Case of Moses whose Miracles were unexceptionable and his Revelations in no respect contrary to Reason nor yet to any precedent Revelation for no precedent one was yet made This also was the Case of our Saviour Christ but in a more eminent manner His Revelations far from opposing
the natural reason and sense of Mankind are most perfective of it as hath been already in some measure shown Neither are they contrary to any precedent Revelation For although they tend to abolish and destroy the Mosaick Institution This doth not in the least derogate from the truth of it The Mosaick Law by the very Nature of it was fitted only for the Nonage of Revelation and to continue no longer than till the times of Reformation should come But which cleareth the matter beyond all doubt God had expressly foretold to the Jews that he would put an end to their Dispensation and institute a new and more perfect Covenant Infinite places to this purpose might be alledged out of the Old Testament I shall name but one In the aforementioned passage of Jeremy God tells them Behold the days come that I will make a new Covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah Not according to the Covenant which I made with their Fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt But this shall be the Covenant which I will make with the house of Israel The Christian Religion doth not only not contradict the Jewish Revelation but also receive infinite Confirmation from it God by foretelling the coming of the Messias with all the Circumstances of it had abundantly provided that when he should come unless a fatal Blindness and Stupidity intervened he should not be rejected by those for whose sake he came God had promised his coming to our first Parents had assured Abraham That in him all the Nations of the carth should be blessed had revealed to Jacob That before the departure of the Scepter from Judah Shiloh should come and had declared to the Jews by the mouth of Moses That he would raise up a Prophet from among them like unto him whom they should be bound to hear in all things But all this is inconsiderable in respect of that full and more clear Manifestation given by God in after Ages The most Wise God choosing to prefigure him by more express Characters according as the time of his coming drew more near In the Psalms and Prophets the manner and place of his Birth the Nature of his Office the meanness of his Condition the manner and bitterness of his Sufferings the Triumphs of his Resurrection in a word all the Circumstances of his Life and Death are so plainly pointed out and related that nothing less than a perverse Blindness could doubt of the Person designed by them Among the latter Prophets Daniel foretold that he should come at the end of seventy weeks of years and Malachi the last of all that he should come before the Second Temple was destroyed and honour it with his Presence So that all the Miracles which were wrought in Confirmation of the Jewish Religion tend most effectually to establish the Christian Faith Not only because all the Characters assigned by the Prophets to denote the future Messias met most exactly in the Person of our Saviour but because they can meet in no one else For the time prefixed for the Accomplishment of the Prophecies concerning the Messias is plainly expired and yet no other Person hath yet appeared to whom the Characters of the Messias can with any shew of Reason be applied So that either the Jewish Religion is wholly false or the Christian infallibly true Then as for the Miracles of our Saviour it is impossible to imagine any more wonderful in their Operation more beneficial in their Nature more Convictive of their Divine Original or better attested than they were So great and stupendious that they forced even his Adversaries to confess That no man ever did such works as he convinced the multitude That even when the Messias should come he could not do greater works than those and induced the Roman Centurion watching at his Cross even at the lowest ebb of his Fortunes and after he had lost his Life by an ignominious Punishment to acknowledge him to be the Son of God They were not performed once or twice but frequently upon all occasions and for many years together by himself and his Apostles Not in Corners or before a few Confidents but in the Face of the world in the publick Streets before vast multitudes and in all parts of the Earth They tended not so much to raise the amazement and astonishment of Spectators as all false Miracles do as to relieve the Infirmities cure the Diseases and procure the benefit of some part at least of Mankind and therein by a wonderful mixture of Wisdom served no less to declare the Goodness than the Power of God That the History of the Miracles and Life of our Saviour as it is delivered to us in the Books of the New Testament is true we have all the Reason in the world to believe These Books were written by Persons who were Eye-witnesses of what they relate or at least who received Instructions from such They had all the advantages which could possibly be required of knowing the truth of them And so could not be mistaken in their Relations and that they should wilfully deceive us we have no reason to believe We might with as much reason call in doubt and dis-believe all the Relations of former Histories which depend upon no other Authority than that of their Writers yet should we justly esteem him Mad who should doubt whether there were ever such Persons as Caesar and Alexander in the world and we daily regulate our Actions and found our Concerns upon matters attested with no better Proofs But to our comfort and entire conviction Christianity hath yet much greater Evidence The Writers of these Books are known to have been Persons of unquestioned Integrity who far from managing any worldly design or interest in this matter quitted all the Conveniences of Life underwent the most toilsome Labours and Miseries suffered Punishments Contempt and Scorn and at last laid down their Lives in Attestation of the truth of what they had related Not to say that they confirmed the truth of their report by Miracles while alive and that their Holiness Sincerity and miraculous Power was in like manner attested for some Ages after by many pious and learned Persons who laid down their Lives in Testimony of their veracity and wrought Miracles in Confirmation of it until a great part of Mankind being by these convincing Proofs converted to the belief of Christianity and the truth of them fully made known to the world Miracles became no longer necessary All these things happened in a learned and inquisitive Age and were Matters of the greatest moment concerning no less than the eternal Happiness or Misery of Mankind So that on both these Accounts if the least ground of Forgery or Imposture could have been discovered in the Christian Religion it would have been impossible for it to have gained any Success or made any progress in the World Especially if
we consider with how great Zeal and Vehemency both the Magistrates and Philosophers of those times opposed it and undertook the Extirpation of it They applied themselves to this design with the utmost Diligence and Fervour and left no stone unturned whereby they might either discover any Imposture in it or stop the Progress of it But the Evidence of its truth assisted with the Divine Providence bore down all opposition The blood of the Martyrs became the seed of the Church and its learned Adversaries were forced to Confess its Doctrines to be Divine and the Founder of it an extraordinary Person Lastly that the Writings of the Apostles and Evangelists were the same which we now possess under their Names and were conveyed uncorrupted through all Ages appears not only from the constant Tradition of Christians and their great care to preserve those sacred Monuments intire and uncorrupted in which their eternal welfare was so nearly concerned But also from the several Translations made of them immediately after the times of the Apostles some of which are now extant from written Copies preserved even to this day written not long after the Apostolick times and from the Citations of antient Writers in all Ages Thus I have briefly proposed to you the Proofs upon which the Christian Religion depends to which I might have added many more as the exact Completion of all our Saviours Prophesies more particularly in that remarkable Destruction of Jerusalem within the time prefixed by him the Constancy Resolution and Number of Christian Martyrs in those ancient times when they had certain means of infallibly knowing the truth of these Matters the Conquest which under so many disadvantages it made over the feircest opposition of the Roman Empire and Heathen Philosophy and those many extraordinary Interpositions of Divine Providence in favour of it which have signally appeared in all Ages of the Church but these shall at present suffice The Fourth SERMON PREACH'D November 1688. At LAMBETH CHAPEL 1 Pet. III. 15. Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear IN Discoursing on these Words I did propose to insist on these two Heads I. That the Christian Religion is agreeable to the Principles of Reason and carrieth sufficient Evidence along with it II. That it is the Duty of every Christian not wanting the means of sufficient Instruction to enable himself to give a Reason of his Faith The former of these I dispatched in the foregoing Sermon I now proceed to the Second Head of Discourse Namely II. That it is the Duty of every Christian not wanting the means of sufficient Instruction to enable himself to give a Reason of his Faith That this not the constant resolution of professing the Faith at all times without Fear or Cowardice was the Primary intent of the Apostolick Precept in my Text appeareth in that the Apostle willeth us to do this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which our Translators have not so exactly rendred by way of Apology or in Confutation of the Calumnies and Objections brought against our Religion by the Adversaries of it I will not say that such a perfect and compleat knowledge is absolutely the Duty of every private Christian so that he cannot be saved without it God requireth of no Man any thing beyond his natural strength or capacity or which he had no Opportunities nor means to attain unto We know how great a part of the Christian Church over-run with Tyranny and Oppression hath insensibly fallen into a deplorable Ignorance These we cannot in Reason condemn as wanting all means of better Instruction but rather applaud their Constancy and pray for their Delivery We know also how great a Society of Christians labours under miserable Ignorance and the consequence of its gross Erroâ—…s by the artifice and contrivance of their Guides who deny to them the use of the Seriptures and teach them to content themselves with an implieit Faith These also we will not in Charity condemn To their own Master they either stand or fall Lastly we are not insensible how many Members of our own Communion either through want of leisute or natural imbecillity of understanding through default of Education or other accidental defects un-foreseen and unprovided for are but meanly instructed in the Mysteries of the Christian Faith But to us who want neither means of Instruction nor Capacity of receiving them no excuse is left if we do not improve them to a full Comprehension of the Mysteries of our Faith whereby we may both obtain a rational Conviction of the truth of it in our selves and be enabled to vindicate the honour of our Lord and Saviour from the Contradiction of foolish and unreasonable Men. Christianity indeed iâ—… not in our Age opposed with that open and barefac't Confidence wherewith it was in the Apostles time when it was forced to wrestle with Principalities and Powers and spiritual wickedness in high places the united force of a Victorious and learned Empire Yet we want not secret impugners of our most Holy Faith who if by the natural Light of Reason and remorse of Conscience they he restrained from professing their secret Atheism and denying the Existence of a God yet stick not to oppose all revealed Religions and especially Christianity because most contrary to their beloved Lusts in defence of which only they maintain their impious Opinions It is the interest of these Men that Christianity should be false that so the licencious practice of their Lusts and Passions may not be abbridged to them and the Expectation of eternal Punishments imbitter all their Pleasures For to the Honour of Christianity be it said that in these latter Ages it hath had no Enemies but Men of profligate and debauched Lives who either denyed the Being of a God or lived as without God in the world However the Conviction of these Men is far more difficult than antiently of the Heathen Philosophers Of whom many sincerely searched after the Truth which commonly ended in the discovery of it and embracing the Christian Religion whereas these dispute only for the Love of their Lusts and sensual Pleasures are thence transported with violent Prejudices willfully shut their Eyes against the Truth cast the words of Convicton behind them and hate to be reformed To vindicate the Honour of God of Christ and our Religion against the Blasphemies of such men is the Duty of every Christian in his place and station and as opportunities are ministred to him Nor are there wanting those among us who openly and with great excess of apparent Zeal seek to withdraw us from our most Holy Religion endeavouring to impose upon us the belief of pernicious Errours and Superstitions They oppose not directly indeed the Faith of Christ but corrupt it with Errours and false Opinions rend in sunder the Unity of the Church by promoting and perswading a Schifmatical departure from it and openly impugn the
tendeth no less effectually to the Honour and Glory of God than a due Command of our Will For God is no less dishonoured by mean and unworthy Apprehensions of him by Idolatry and Superstition by denying his Existence or debasing his Attributes which are the effects of misguided Reason than by an open Violation of his known Precepts which proceeds from the Corruption of the Will And thus it appears that a full Enquiry into the Reasons and Arguments of the Christian Religion and a perfect knowledge of the truth of them not only contributes exceedingly but in Persons having means to attain it is absolutely necessary to beget a true and perfect Faith and secure to us the reward of it III. A distinct and clear knowledge of the Mysteries of our Faith and Rules of our Religion will afford to us many and great Motives to the practice of our Duty and direct us in the performance of it It is the peculiar Prerogative of the Christian Religion that the more we search into the Reasons and Constitution of it the more fully the Divinity of it will appear Every new Discovery will give us fresh occasions to admire the Wisdom Goodness and Justice of God eminently conspiring in the Revelation of it This will excite in us if we be not insensible a profound Veneration of the Divine Majesty an ardent Love of his Excellencies and the most intense degree of Gratitude It will manifest to us the Misery of Man and his lost Condition without the Sacrifice of the Cross which might expiate for his Sins and mediate his Pardon and hereby will increase our Sense of the Divine Mercy will enhance the value of that inestimable Sacrifice teach us to adore love and devote our selves to our Saviour to resign up our belief to his Revelations as to our Prophet to depend wholly upon the Expiation of our sins once made and Intercession for us always continued by him as of our High Priest to yield an intire Obedience to his Commands and Precepts as to our King Can we view the Love and Mercy of God manifested in our Redemption the wonderful Contrivances of Providence both to secure the Divine Justice and Honour and yet give Pardon to sinful Man and not be wound up into an Extasie of Love and Admiration Can we consider the most wise Methods whereby God brought this wonderful design to perfection and trace the footsteps of it through all Ages can we think upon the Majesty of him who condescended to suffer for us and the unworthiness of Man to receive so great a Favour without filling our Understandings with awful and reverent Conceptions of him our Wills with a passionate desire of Union with him and enlarging all the Faculties of our Souls to approach his Presence and receive his influence Or can we hope to raise our Souls to a worthy Sense of the Divine Favours and Benefits and carry up our Affections to a gratitude not inferiour to the Greatness of them without a perfect knowledge of their Design and Excellency Surely the Admonitions of the Prophets Apostles and even our Blessed Saviour were not in vain which so earnestly press us to the study of Divine Truths command us to search the Scriptures assure us That they were written for our instruction and which is to be observed commend those who were conversant in them above all other Persons Yet how small a part of the Holy Scripture are those things which are absolutely necessary to be believed The infinitely greater part of it serveth only to declare the extraordinary Acts of his Providence to the Church and Testimonies of his Love to Mankind to celebrate his Mercy and Goodness and induce us by manifold Arguments to our Duty Yet these also hath the Divine Wisdom thought necessary to the knowledge and instruction of Men and surely not without Reason For what can be more worthy of Man more perfective of his Nature or conducing to enstate him in the greatest Happiness than to comprehend the Riches of the Divine Goodness to entertain noble Conceptions of his Creator and by a constant Meditation and exalted Knowledge raise his Affections to a vehement Love of him By this we anticipate the Joys of Heaven and begin to possess them even before we are received into them For both Reason and Revelation assureth us that the Fruition of Celestial Happiness consists in a constant and unwearied Contemplation and Love of the Divine Perfections The study of these sacred Matters was esteemed the best indication of a pious Mind and the most certain method of attaining the utmost degree of Happiness upon Earth even under the Old Law when God had not yet made a full Manifestation of himself and the Reasons of the Divine Oeconomy were obscure and hid under a veil of Ceremonies and Ritual Observations For proof of this to go no farther than the CXIX Psalm wherein such inimitable strains of Piety Devotion and an ardent Love of God appear The Holy Psalmist every where ascribes his Proficiency in Vertue and the inward satisfaction and Happiness of his mind to the assiduous study of the Divine Laws I will thank thee with an unfeigned heart when I shall have learned the judgments of thy righteousness Open thou mine eyes that I may see the wondrous things of thy law For I remembred thine everlasting judgments O Lord and received comfort Lord what love have I unto thy law all the day long is my study in it O how sweet are thy words unto my throâ—… yea sweeter than honey unto my mouth Thy word is a lantern unto my feet and a light unto my paths For thy testimonies are my delight and my Counsellours See all the Marks of a Soul big with Devotion and filled with transports of Joy from the Consideration of the Divine Goodness and Excellency manifested under the Mosaick Law But alas how inconsiderable is this if compared to that greater Light which Christianity hath brought into the world What satisfaction and advantage may not we now hope for from the study and Contemplation of the more perfect Law of Christ that hath revealed to us the Mystery which hath been hid from Ages and represents to us the Divine Goodness not under a veil and shadow but in its full Dimensions The antient Christians were truly sensible of this who placed their Happiness on this side Heaven in this Holy study chose rather to part with their Lives than Bibles and branded those who delivered them up to their Persecutors although in exchange for their dearest Blood with the name of Traditores or Traitors And in the last Age our Forefathers gave eminent Instances of the same perswasion and resolution when great numbers of them ventured their Lives to enjoy the advantage of reading the Scriptures in their Mother tongue and rather than forego that Benefit chose to forfeit their Lives to the Persecution of a Church whose interest it was that those Divine Truths should not be known It is our
if it teacheth Doctrines contrary to Reason and refuseth to give any account of them we may infallibly conclude it to be erroneous and to have departed from the true Faith Yet we know a Church that hath wholly evacuated the Apostles Precépt by inhibiting to private Christians the use of Reason in Divine Matters and setting up an infallible Judge to whom all ought blindly to submit that useth her utmost endeavours to disable private Christians from giving a Reason of their Faith by forbidding them to read the Scripture that hath made Christianity irrational by adding to it absurd and contradictive Doctrines For what reason can be given that men should not use their Reason What Reason can be assigned for Transubstantiation which is directly contrary both to Sense and Reason What reason for a blind Submission to a pretended infallible Judge which defeats all use of Reason But these things are too apparent I omit them and pass to the second and last Branch of Application That 2. We ought to adorn this most rational and Holy Religion of our Saviour with a correspondent Holiness and Purity of Life The Apostle draws this inference in the words immediately preceding and following my Text But sanctifie the Lord God in your hearts and having a good conscience and indeed most naturally For if it be the highest Perverseness to reject the Gospel after so clear a Demonstration of the Divinity of it what a degree of Folly and Impiety must it be in those who are perswaded of the truth of it to contradict the Evidence and Design of it by the wickedness of their Lives and live as if they believed it to be most false The Apostle urgeth it as the utmost Aggravation of the sin of the wiser Heathens that they held the truth in unrighteousness and surely with much more force will the Argument fall upon immoral Christians For the Heathen Sages dissembled their Opinions from the world and so no wonder that they directed not their Actions by them whereas these publickly profess their belief of Christianity and yet live in open Contradiction to it And indeed it is a most astonishing Consideration that rational Creatures should deliberately violate those Laws upon which they acknowledge the hopes of Eternity to depend Do we really believe the Christian Religion to be Divine and yet go on without remorse to trample under foot its Laws and Precepts Are we perswaded that infinite Rewards in another world attend the performance of our Duty in this and yet preferr the Temptations and Pleasures of the World to the Attainment of them Do we profess our Belief of eternal Punishments and yet are not affrighted from the Commission of any pleasing sin by the terror of them However we may pretend a firm Assent to all these Articles yet certainly it will be impossible to perswade a considering Man that the belief of them can be reconciled with the Practice of the contrary And after all if we should be allowed to be what we pretend Believers in Christ Can faith save us No Shew me thy faith by thy works If a sober Heathen should come among us and compare the Rules of Christ with the Lives of Christians the exercise of Piety Temperance and Chastity and all moral Vertues commanded by the one in the higest degree and upon the severest Penalties and Impiety Intemperance Lust and all enormous Vices openly and greedily practised by the other he would be tempted to believe that the Religion of Christ were no more than a pleasing Fable wherewith Christians sometimes entertained themselves An ancient Father who lived in the declining times of Christianity tells us how the Heathens in his Age formed dishonourable thoughts of Christ from the scandalous Lives of his Disciples Quomodo bonus est Magister cujus tam malos videmus Discipulos How can he be a good Lawgiver that hath no better Followers how can his Laws be excellent that do not reform the Lives of their Professours And then proceeds to deplore this Scandal In nobis Christus opprobrium patitur Thus we defame our most excellent Religion dishonour our Saviour and blaspheme him in our Lives Let us live up to the Rules of our Religion and by a Conscientious practice of them manifest that we are perswaded of the truth of it otherwise it will be in vain to be ready always to give an answer to every one that asketh us a reason of the hope that is in us This were unanswerably to refute our Arguments by our Practice and add to our own Condemnation Let us demonstrate the Divinity of our Religion by the influence it hath upon our Lives and profess an intire Belief of it by a constant Obedience to it that so we may not fall short of the Promises annexed to it and others seeing our good works may glorifie our Father which is in heaven The Fifth SERMON PREACH'D December 2d 1688. At LAMBETH CHAPEL Rom. II. 4. Not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance THE infinite and wonderful Love of God towards Mankind is in nothing more visible and conspicuous than in the various methods which he makes use of to draw us to himself The Faculties and Passions of our Soul are not more numerous and different than are the means which he hath employed to render us happy and oblige us to the performance of our Duty inducing us by all those Motives and Arguments which in other moral Actions are wont to make impression on us He hath engaged our Understandings by proposing to our belief and practice a reasonable and holy Religion attended with the greatest Evidence and in all things highly agreeable to the Nature of Mankind and first Principles of Reason He hath assured our Wills by presenting such Objects to it as employ every single Passion of it If the desire of obtaining the greatest good can move us he hath allured us by the Promise of an infinite and eternal Happiness If fear of Misery hath any influence upon our minds he hath deterred us from the Violation of his Laws by affixing to it the most severe and terrible Punishments If hope can excite us he hath given to us an infallible assurance of more than we can conceive If Love can affect us he hath obliged us by the greatest Benefits Lastly If reason and the sense of our Duty if Rewards and Punishments if Favours and Benefits can together engage us he hath united all in one most holy and excellent Religion And in this appears the wonderful Goodness of God that whereas any one of these methods were alone sufficient to oblige Mankind to the practice of our Duty he hath chose to employ them all that so that Attribute of Mercy wherein he most delights might be more conspicuous and the impemtence of Mankind in opposition to it might not only become irrational but even monstrous It had been sufficient as to the Obligation of it to have proposed a reasonable Religion without annexing to it
God in the day when I chose Israel and lifted up my hand unto the seed of the house of Jacob and made my self known unto them in the land of Egypt when I lifted up my hand unto them saying I am the Lord your God In the day that I lifted up my hand unto them to bring them forth of the land of Egypt into a land that I had espied for them flowing with milk and honey which is the glory of all lands Then I said unto them Cast ye away every man the abomination of his eyes and defile not your selves with the Idols of Egypt I am the Lord your God To say no more this appears evidently from the name of JEHOVAH under which God was constantly worshipped from the giving of the Law till the coming of Christ. For this name imported no more than the Immutability of the Divine Nature and Constancy in effecting his Promise the Completion of which should necessarily as often return into their Minds as that most Holy Name was taken into their mouths And therefore at that moment in which the Promises were compleated God made himself known unto the Jews by this name Jehovah saying unto Moses Exod. VI. 3. And I appeared unto Abraham unto Isaac and unto Jacob by the name of El Shaddai or God Almighty but by my name Jehovah was not I known unto them As if he should say I was known indeed unto your Forefathers by my Attributes of Greatness and Omnipotence whereby they were intirely satisfied that I was able in due time to conferr upon them all those Benefits which I had promised to them but my Attributes of Veracity and Immutability were not sensibly made known to them by the Completion of those Promises These now you see performed and consequently are convinced that I am a God true to my Promise and invariable to my Resolutions By this Name or under this Notion will I be henceforward worshipped by you The exceeding Care which God took to perpetuate the Memory of these Benefits among the Jews does manifest it to have been the best means of preserving Religion and the true Worship of himself among them To this all the Rites and Ceremonies of the Law in some mea sure tended but especially the grand Festival of the Passover was instituted for no other Purpose than to continue the remembrance of their Deliverance out of Egypt Annual repetitions of the History of those Benefits were enjoyned and Parents commanded to teach them to their Children on the severest Penalties The greatest part of the Book of Deuteronomy which was in more frequent use among the Jews than any other Book of the Old Testament is employed in repeating the Favours of God and urging the Duty of gratitude arising from them And as if the whole Duty of that People consisted in retaining the Memory of those Favours Moses in one place seems to require nothing else of them Who after he had described the Excellency of that Law and Religion which God had revealed to them subjoyns Only take heed to thy self and keep thy soul diligently least thou forget the things that thine eyes have seen and least they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life but teach them thy sons and thy sons sons Deut. IV. 9. He was sufficiently assured That if this grateful remembrance were preserved among them it would draw along with it an universal Obedience to the whole Law And therefore as our Savioâ—…r summed up the whole Duty of Man in the Love o God and our Neighbour so he comprized all in a thankful remembrance of the Divine Benefits Afterwards when the deplorable Idolatry of the Jews for which God caused them to be led into Captivity had almost effaced the Memory of their miraculous Deliverance out of Egypt and by a new Prodigy of Mercy God had brought them out of Captivity and replaced them in their ancient Possessions he tells them he would not any longer be worshipped by them as the Author of that almost forgotten Benefit of their Deliverance out of Egypt the Memory of which was grown faint among them but as the Author of the late Restitution the remembrance of which was yet fresh in their Minds and might therefore be supposed to produce a greater Sense of gratitude in them For thus he bespeaks them Jerem. XVI 14 15. Therefore behold the days come saith the Lord that it shall no more be said the Lord liveth that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt But the Lord liveth that brought up the children of Israel from the land of the North and from all the lands whither he had driven them and I will bring them again into their Land that I gave unto their fathers The same words he repeats in the XXIII 7th and 8th Verses So studiously did God indeavour to oblige the Jews to pursue their own Happiness in the true Worship of him by heaping new Benefits upon them and inculcating the Memory of them in all solemn Acts of Worship Under the Gospel also God continues to be worshipt as the Author of some signal Benefits as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ by whom we obtained Redemption from our sins and Deliverance out of the spiritual Egypt the bondage of Sin and the Devil In every Act of our Christian Worship the Memory of this Benefit is presented to us while we are taught to direct our Prayers to him and to worship him in the Notion of the Father which cannot be without recalling to mind his infinite Mercy manifested in our Redemption which was designed by him and effected by his only begotten Son All the Sacraments and external Worship of the Christian Religion tend no less to preserve the Memory of this Benefit than did the Rites of the Jewish Law to Commemorate their Deliverance out of Egypt particularly the Holy Eucharist which was intended for the constant and most solemn Act of the Christian Worship was instituted to this very Purpose to preserve a lively Memory of that great and final Act of our Redemption to represent to us the Death of our Saviour and continue the Memory of those stripesby which we were healed and of that blood by which we were cleansed If by the degeneracy of latter Ages it hath in great measure failed to produce that Effect for which it was at first intended that is to be ascribed to that deplorable disuse of the Celebration of it which crept into latter Ages and is continued in our times That universal decay of Religion and Piety which we all acknowledge and lament cannot with so much Reason be attributed to any other cause as to this the Memory of our Saviours Passion and with that of our Redemption sensibly decayed in the minds of Men when that venerable Mystery began to be discontinued which was instituted on purpose to continue for ever a lively Representation of it in the Church Men perhaps may retain an Historical remembrance of
who set upon the work without any Preparation of Learning or Interest proceeded in it with quiet and simplicity and in treating with the Jews chose rather to convince the Judgment than amaze their Senfes rather to argue from the Agreement of the antient Prophecies concerning the Messias to the Person of our Saviour than from the Performance of wonderful Miracles although those were not wanting upon just occasions Such were the Prejudices conceived by the Jews against Christianity which occasioned and continued their Illusion They knew very well that super-natural Revelation was the ordinary means by which Man should arrive to Happiness that it was agreeable to the Majesty and former Revelations of God to propose Matters of Belief and Practice not exceeding the capacity of the meanest Persons and thus far they proceeded in the right way but then the aforementioned Prejudices were a stumbling-block in their way which occasioned their Fall and hindered any farther Progress The Gentile Philosophers for against them and not the more unlearned sort of Heathens the Apostle here argues conceived yet deeper Prejudices against Christianity accounting it Foolishness and deriding the whole Design of it They were puffed up with an Opinion of their own perfect knowledge or at least Ability to obtain the perfection of it believing it therefore unnecessary for God to reveal the Truth to them which they could discover by their own Wit and Industry Or if God should put himself to this unnecessary trouble they vainly supposed that no Persons were so fit to be employed in it as themselves who were indued with extraordinary Assistances of acquired Learning Or at least not the Apostles of all Men who confessed themselves to be unacquainted with Secular Learning and appeared so to be and which mightily added to their Prejudice were by Birth and Education Barbarians whom the Greeks were wont to treat as the most vile and contemptible part of the Creation devoid of Reason and not much Superiour to Brutes And then as to theRevelation it self the Christian Religion seemed to them to be naked and homely and which they accounted a great indecency fitted for the Reception of all Men not the Contemplation of themselves only as not consisting of abstruse Mysteries and subtil Distinctions which by their Intricacy and Difficulty might Intitle themselves to Sublimity and a Divine Original but made up of easie natural and unaffected Truths equally obvious to the understanding of all Men equally concerning all and dispensing the Knowledge of her Mysteries to all Such were the Reasons and such were the Prejudices which caused the Christian Religion to become a Scandal to the Jews and Folly to the Greeks To these the Apostle giveth one general Answer in the 25. Verse Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men An Answer which invincibly overthrows the Plea of these Opposers of Christianity as who proceeded upon an arrogant Opinion of their Knowledge and Comprehension whereas the experience of many Ages might have convinced them how unsuccessfully Mankind hath ever endeavoured to obtain the knowledge of Divine Matters by its own Power Matters of Natural Religion were almost universally mistaken and how should we hope that the Mysteries of a Revealed Religion can be fully discovered by us We all find in our selves the defects of knowledge we acknowledge our Errours by changing our Opinions daily and may discover the imperfection of our Understandings even from the increase of Knowledge for every Degree added to it manifesteth a precedent Degree of Ignorance and that somewhat was still wanting to render our Knowledge compleat So difficult nay even impossible is it for Man to discover the Counsels of God in Relation to himself or to pass a Judgment on them He may easily perceive indeed whether any thing which pretends to carry that Sacred stamp be contrary to Sense and includeth a Contradiction and may thence certainly conclude it to be false and counterfeit but may not by any means be admitted to judge of the Conveniency or Inconveniency of the Divine Dispensations This is too high a Presumption and intrencheth upon the Majesty of God who being of infinite Wisdom knoweth always what is most convenient and knowing it doth effect it It is no hard matter to put plausible Colours upon this or that Model of Religion recommend it with abundant Arguments and pompously describe the Convenience of it But as the Apostle assureth us 1 Cor. III. 19. The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God or in comparison of his greater and infinite Wisdom who seeth all things and their Tendency or Subservience to procure the end he designeth so that to be taught or commanded by him is the most certain Argument of convenience which can be proposed Not only doth the Excellency of the Christian Religion in general appear from this Argument the Reasonableness of the whole Design and Revelation of it in those Matters which are before objected against is no less manifest For first As to the Spirituality of it this is so far srom prejudicing the truth of it that if justly considered it ought rather to recommend it to the Reception of all considering Persons being the most express Character of Divinity which can be conferred on any System of Religion whatsoever as bearing thereby a greater resemblance to God the Author and Object of it This the Jews themselves did not deny only they pretended that this spiritual Worship opposed their own more gross and corporeal Worship which was acknowledged on both sides to have been revealed by God and defeated their hopes of a promised Messias whom they expected would deliver them from the Slavery of other Nations and by force of Arms settle them in a quiet and perpetual Possession of all temporal Happiness It seemed to them absurd that the glorious Messias should live an obscure despised and ignominious Life and at last die a shameful and a painful Death An Errour indeed into which the Genius of their Religion depending upon temporal Promises and Rewards did almost naturally lead them but which might easily have been discovered if they would have wisely considered either the Nature of God or Condition of Man From the first they might easily be convinced that a spiritual way of Worship was far more noble pleasing and agreeable to the Divine Nature And if their former Religion induced them to different Sentiments God had taken abundant Care to prevent their mistake by frequent foretelling to them in the Prophets his intention of changing their Religion dis-burthening them of the imposition of their Rites and Ceremonies and reâ—…ining it into a spiritual Worship by describing the Condition and Office of the Messias That he should be a man of sorrows acquainted with grief bear the sins of the people heal them by his stripes and be reckoned among the Transgressours Then as to the Nature of the thing it self it was no other than a childish Fancy to
be scandalized at the Dissent and Opposition of the Jews and Greeks Much less ought we to suffer our selves to be led away by the same Prejudices with them Men perhaps professing Christianity may imagine this to be impossible while they continue in the open Profession of it and so take no Care to prevent it But if we examine our selves I fear we shall find our selves obnoxious to the same Prejudices and to have been often seduced by them if not to a Desertion of our Religion yet to a Violation of it Was the Christian Faith a Stumling-block to the Jews because defeating their hopes of a temporal Messias and worldly Happiness And are not we often tempted by the Pleasures of this World to withdraw our Obedience from the Laws of God and thereby in effect to deny him As often as Men preferr their worldly Interest to the least Duty of Religion as often as by too anxious a Diligence about the Affairs of this Life they neglect the care of another they give just Reason to others to suspect them Guilty of the same Errour of placing all their Happiness on this side Heaven and dis-believing the Joys of Paradise Did the Jews often unseasonably and importunately require a Sign And are not we often induced to distrust Providence and murmur against the Divine Goodness as often as God deferrs to rescue us from imminent Dangers and Calamities and immediately ingageth not his miraculous Power in our Assistance Do not Men call in question the Justice of the Divine Dispensation because God refuseth to violate the established Laws of his Government and sometimes permitteth the good to pass unrewarded and the wicked to escape unpunished in this life Was the Christian Religion Foolishness to the Greeks because proposed by mean and unlearned Persons And have not the Effects of spiritual Pride been deplored in all Ages of the Church and continue to this day while Men puffed up with a vain Opinion of their own extraordinary Knowledge in Divine Matters refuse to hear the Voice of their ordinary Pastor Scorn to be instructed by him and rudely turn their backs upon him Did the Greek Philosophers despise Christianity because plain and simple easie to be understood and not difficult to be performed And are not we often betrayed by a like Pre judice to neglect our Duty and lay aside the Study of Divine Things How many Christians are at this day displeased with a sober and rational Form of Worship either because it is not fraught with pompous and unuseful Ceremonies or because it is devoid of Enthusiastick Raptures and unintelligible Impertinencies So that we must acknowledge our selves to be no less concerned in the words and meaning of my Text than were formerly either Jews or Greeks To conclude if the most certain Truths and most Holy Religion be notwithstanding liable to the contradiction of foolish and unreasonable Men if the Prejudices against Christianity be found to be unjust and false let us neither be offended at the Opposition of her Enemies nor drawn into like Mistakes with them either by Passion or Inadvertency Let us give most humble and hearty Thanks to God for sending his Son as at this time into the World to redeem us and reveal to us his Will and Pleasure Let us adore his Wisdom and Goodness who hath contrived such excellent Methods whereby the knowledge of this Mystery and Revelation may with sufficient certainty be transmitted to all Ages improving the Happiness of our Knowledge by securing to our selves the Rewards of it in a careful Practice of our Duty that so we may here with Comfort hold fast and hereafter with Glory obtain the Promises of everlasting Life To which God of his infinite Mercy bring us all for the sake of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The Seventh SERMON PREACH'D January 20th 1689. At LAMBETH CHAPEL Hebr. IX 27. It is appointed unto Men once to die but after this the Judgment I Intend not from these words to prove the Mortality of Mankind or shew that all the Members of it are subject to that fatal Doom The experience of almost Six Thousand Years may abundantly convince us of this And least we should imagin our selves to be particularly exempted from the common calamity of Mankind that decay which we find in our Bodies and those frequent Infirmities to which we are all subject permits us not to entertain any hopes of such an extraordinary priviledge The necessity of ending this Life is so apparent that it would be trifling to endeavour to demonstrate it however the consideration of that necessity is a matter of the greatest Moment and which may justly require the most serious reflections of our Mind But that is not my present purpose nor the design of the Apostle in these words wherein is expressed the divine Determination in relation to the Mortality and future Judgment of Men and the Order of them namely that God hath decreed that all Men shall once Die and that after Death they shall receive either the reward or punishment of their Actions Now however the secret Decrees of God be unsearchable and his ways past finding out however a curious desire of knowing the Nature and Reasons of them may be rash and fruitless yet in these which so immediately and universally concern Mankind and are in effect the great object of our Religion no enquiry can be unnecessary or unuseful the reasons of them are obvious and satisfactory such as may not only be discovered by us but even ought not to be unknown to us and surely not without reason For nothing tends more effectually to secure the Honour of God and induce us to acquiesce in his Decrees than an intire satisfaction of the Justice and Wisdom of them And if this be necessary in relation to all the divine Decrees which respect us how much more will it concern us to have a perfect knowledge of the reasons of those grand Decrees of Death and Judgment which the Apostle hath comprehended in the words of my Text And from whence I shall take occasion to Discourse upon these two Heads I. The Justice of the Divine Decreâ—… of Death to all Men. It is appointed unto Men once to die II. The Justice and Wisdom of the Divine Decree of Judgment to be executed after Death and not in this Life But after this the Judgment First then if we consider only the light of Reason nothing can appear more just than the Divine Decree which imposeth a necessity of Dying upon all Men. God being the Author of our existence and the Lord of Life and Death might justly dispose of or dispense either according to his Good Pleasure It was a sufficient obligation to Man to have received the benefit of Existence without expecting a perpetual and invariable conservation of that Existence The very Nature and Constitution of Man declares him to be Mortal and then surely it could neither be unjust or unreasonable in God to permit
hope by mortifying and changing our former vicious Course of Life into a new and Heavenly Life or by conceiving firm hopes and assurance of the Divine Promises concerning our own Resurrection by the Example of our Lords Resurrection The former manner indeed is purely Allegorical but an Allegory as well most natural in its self as most familiar to the Apostle who treats of it often and largely and inculcates it in almost all his Epistles As in the Chapter preceding my Text he tells the Colossians Col. II. 12 20. Ye are buried with him in Baptism wherein also ye are risen with him and ye are dead with Christ from the Rudiments of the world Galat. II. 20. I am Crucified with Christ. Philip. III. 10. That I may know him and the power of his Resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his Death 2 Cor. IV. 10. Alwayâ—… bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body But more especially in the III. and IVth Chapters of 1 Pet. and Rom. VI. this Conformity between our Lord and us in dying and rising again is at large explained We were baptized into his death therefore we are buried with him by Baptism into death that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the Glory of the Father even so we also should walk in newness of life c. These Allegorical Conclusions were not the mere products of Fancy but the designs of the Divine Wisdom which so admirably contrived the Christian Religion that all the Actions of our Saviours Life tend no less to our Instruction than his Precepts and could not but have exceeding influence upon the Minds of Christians whose thoughts were then and ought now to be chiefly employed about our Saviours Resurrection They were excellently fitted to the Genius of the World at that time when both Heathen Philosophers and Jewish Doctors employed themselves almost wholly in Allegorical Explications of Natural or Divine Truths and were more particularly adapted to the Religion of the Jews and the Writings of the Old Testament concerning the Messias consisting in Types shadows and symbolical Representations of things to come And lastly least we should conceive any unreasonable prejudice against these Allegorical inferences besides that they are recommended by the Authority of the Divine Pen-man the present Allegory drawn from our Saviours Resurrection doth most excellently describe to us the Nature and Duties of our spiritual Regeneration as it will appear if we consider it more fully The design of the Christian Religion was to recover Mankind from his lost Condition free him from the Subjection of the Devil reform his Life and fit him for the Reception of those infinite Benefits which God had designed for him in another Life To this end a total Desertion of that corrupted state of Life wherein he was before engaged was absolutely necessary As well in the Nature of the thing it being wholly impossible that a vicious Soul should receive that Reward as by the Appointment of God who had determined not to grant the Reward on any other Condition And therefore our Saviour had assured his Followers That unless a man be born again he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven It was required that every one should relinquish all those temporal Enjoyments and Satisfactions which were contrary either to right Reason or the express Command of God and because the greatest part of Mankind placed the whole Satisfaction of their Life in these unlawful Enjoyments whoever renounced the use of them might well be said to die unto the world And this was it which all Christians were obliged to Promise at their Baptism solemnly to renounce the World the Flesh and the Devil and give themselves wholly to a new Life instituted by God which was excellently represented in the antient Form of Baptism to which the Apostle in all the places before mentioned referrs wherein the Person baptized was wholly immerged in the water so that the Immersion represented his Resolution of dying to the World and imitation of our Lord who was by Death taken from the World and then his Emersion presently following signified his entrance into a new state of Life and the Resurrection of our Saviour reviving and appearing after Death It is not sufficient therefore to mortifie one single Lust or to give up this or that sinful Affection in exchange for eternal Rewards and retain the rest This is not to die in imitation of our Saviour whose Soul was fully separated from his Body and continued in a separate state till the Resurrection He satisfied not himself to have endured Scourgings Reproaches and Buffettings he descended not from the Cross after he had endured most bitter Torments till he had completed his Sufferings by Death and laid down his Life as a Sacrifice to God which it could not be till it were destroyed It being the necessary Condition of all Sacrifices to be annihilated If then we be really baptized into his Death if we resolve to offer up our selves a Sacrifice to God we must yield up all our Pretences to the Pleasures of this World and enjoy no more of them than God permitteth to us we must absolutely free our selves from the Slavery of Sin and Satan and devote our selves intirely to the Divine Pleasure To die unto the World supposeth a full Conviction that the true Interest of a Christian is not placed on Earth and that his great Concern here is only to improve his short term of Life to the Acquisition of a more excellent and more durable Happiness hereafter From this perswasion it will easily follow that different Interests from this are not to be pursued in this Life which ought to be no other than a Preparation for a better And herein a Christian truly imitates the Death of his Lord and Saviour who best of all manifested that his Kingdom was not of this world by laying down his Life willingly that his Designs were far from founding an Empire and procuring to himself worldly Advantages when he submitted to undergo the Pains of Death Thereby teaching us that we are not truly Crucified with him until we as absolutely forsake all Desires and Inclinaons to our former sinful Life as if we were deprived of Life it self that we retain not the least Claim or Title to our former vicious Satisfactions but by a total relinquishing of them even put it out of our Power to recal and re-establish them In the next place if we view the dreadful Horrour and Anxiety under which our Saviour laboured while he bore the Sins of Mankind upon the Cross if we reflect on the Melancholy state of the Church his ignominious Condition and the Triumphs of the infernal Powers while he was detained in the Grave we may perceive the desperate and deplorable State of Man while yet detained in Sin labouring under the just Displeasure of an angry God
all along experienced my Affection to you and if you do still doubt I do now give you fresh Assurances For if it were not so I would have told you Verse 2. And if ye shall ask any thing in my nâ—…e I will do it Verse 14. Even my Crucifixion is for your sake for to purchase Redemption for you and after that my return into Heaven is for your sake also to secure your Reward and prepare you Mansions there For in my Fathers house are many Mansions As it followeth in the second Verse I go not to take possession of the Joys of Heaven for my self alone but in your Name also and in your behalf Let not your hearts therefore be troubled neither he distracted with the Afflictions that may fall upon you For whatsoever Shocks you may meet with in this World although you be persecuted injured and oppressed let not this afflict you or cause you to despair this is not your abiding place your Mansion is in Heaven let this be your Consolation This was abundantly sufficient to dispel the Anxiety and raise the drooping Spirits of the Apostles and not only so but also in some manner to support all faithful Christians in difficult Emergencies to all Ages This was spoken indeed to the Apostles but written for our Instruction whom it doth no less concern For the Church succeeding the Apostles was not by any peculiar Priviledge exempted from Difficulties and Disasters The Promises made unto her were not to take place in this Life and therefore if she were assaulted with Tempests and oppressed by the Malice of Men or Devils she suffers no more than her Lord and Master did before her than her Founders and his beloved Disciples also did A greater Calamity cannot befall the Church than what befell the Apostles at this time Nay all that ever the Church suffered all that it can suffer come farr beneath it and yet our Saviour thought this Consideration a sufficient Remedy to their Affliction Much more therefore will it suffice to remove our lesser Troubles and continue a constant quiet and tranquility in our Minds who are Followers of the same Faith and Heirs of the same Hopes And that it may do so I will take occasion from the Text to Discourse of these two Heads I. What reason and ground Natural Religion or the Mosaick Dispensation giveth us to trust in God and receive Comfort from thence in all Difficulties and the apprehension of Calamities insinuated in those words Ye believe in God II. What force the Christian Religion hath superadded to these Reasons of Trust and Consolation Believe also in me First then What Reason c. I joyn Natural Religion and that of the Jews herein together because no certain hopes or promise of Happiness in another Life were given to either and upon that account the Reasons of depending upon God in this Life were common to both The Jews indeed had stronger reason to relye upon the Divine Providence as having had more frequent and apparent Experience of it but it was a Reason of the same kind with that common to Natural Religion which proceedeth no farther with any certainty than the consideration of the Divine Government of the world in this present Life Let us then enter into the same Consideration where the first thought which presents it self will be that since God created Man by his own good Pleasure and continueth to govern him and all other parts of the Creation according to his own Primary Decrees it is but reasonable that Man should acquiesce in the Laws of his Government For if God bestowed on him the benefit of Existence and continueth it by a constant Preservation he may justly expect that Man should thankfully receive that Benefit without repining that it was no greater All other parts of the Creation perform their Duties without variance in their several Stations and Capacities and if Man alone desires that his Station may be changed his Post removed he shews himself unworthy even of the first Benefit I mean that of Existence much more of any extraordinary Acts of Favour to be wrought by God in his behalf The meanest and most miserable Member of Mankind excluding his Sins which are the product of his own Choice is farr more Happy than any other part of the visible World as enjoying a noble and capacious Soul which is capable of receiving true Happiness if directed aright or at least pleasing it self with a mistaken Happiness a Priviledge which is denied to the irrational part of the Creation which however many of them have more exquisite and accurate Organs of sense than Men yet thence receive neither real nor imaginary Happiness because not reflecting on any Perceptions of sense After all let the Afflictions of any private Man be never so heavy yet it cannot be denied that the more noble part of him the Soul is still at Liberty to improve its more real Happiness and not subject to any of those Calamities any farther than it shall immerge or interest it self in the Concerns of the Body And even this is no small Consolation that in all the mis-fortunes of this Life we perform the Will of God in executing that Station which his Providence hath appointed us in the World And that this Station is fittest for us we must believe if we reflect on the perfection of the Divine Wisdom if not fittest for us simply and in its own Nature yet in Conjunction with all other Circumstances it being not reasonable that we should at all times expect the interruption of the publick Government of the World for our private Concerns Indeed it must be acknowledged that as God is the absolute Governour of the world so he is also infinitely Just and Holy which may encourage Men who have no knowledge of Rewards or Punishments in another Life to expect that he should in an extraordinary manner in this Life interpose in behalf of good Men and against bad Men. So that however the former Consideration may remove the Anxiety of Men yet nothing less than an assured Belief of this latter will ever perswade them to trust in God which supposeth the hopes of some extraordinary Assistance or proceeding in the World And therefore such extraordinary influences were actually conferred upon the Jews whose Obedience or Dis-obedience was commonly attended with temporal Rewards or Punishments But this was in Vertue of a particular Covenant which admitting no better hopes confined it felt to the Concerns of this Life and after all received frequent Exceptions and Variations many wicked Men among them living in Plenty and dying in Peace and othâ—…rs of eminent Sanctity persecuted oppressed and at last unjustly Slain So that only probable Motives of trust in God remained in that Dispensation under the Law as because Peace or Misery did for the most part accompany Virtue or Vice and this even those who followed the Dictates only of natural Religion in some measure had who have often taken notice
thereby clear his Memory from the unjust Aspersions of some who have been pleas'd to represent him as one who had not a sincere Affection for it In one place he has these words If to defend the Fatherless Orphans and Widows be so acceptable to God how noblc an Act must it be accounted to vindicate a whole Nation from Injuâ—…tice and Oppression to defend and maintain the Cause of the Church of God In aâ—…ther place these It is undeniable that the Profession of the true Religion is maintain'd in this Nation under the happy Government of Their Majesties as well as it was of old among the Jews in the Reign of Hezekiah In another place he speaks thus which are most remarkable But that other part of the Promise for my Servant David 's sake never had any People greater reason to apply to themselves than we of this Nation at this time have God hath Blessed us with Princes of eminent Vertue and Piety who not content to employ their Authority in the support and defence of Religion endeavour to retrieve the Power of it in the Lives of their Subjects by the Lustre of their own Example who have delivered this National Church from the Oppression of her professed Enemies and the apparent Dauger of sudden Ruin and have thereby become to us what Constantine was to the whole Catholick Church in the early Ages of Christianity and what Queen Elizabeth of Blessed Memory was to this particular Church in the last Age. God hath Blessed us with a King who to complete the Deliverance which he wrought for us and to settle us in Peace and Tranquility hath spared no Pains and continually hazarded his own Royal Person and is at this day acting with unwearied Vigour and Courage against the Common Enemy of our Nation and the Oppressor of the Christian World for the Vindication of Justice the relief of afflicted Innocence the Security of this Church and Nation But among his Manuscripts there is one especially which ought by no means to be past by in silence as giving such an instance of his wonderful diligence as cannot easily be parallell'd which is his Account of the Manuscripts in Lambeth Library Wherein besides giving a most exact Catalogue of them he has under every Book transcrib'd all those Treatises contain'd in them which are not yet published And what are he has compar'd with that exactness as to take notice of the words that are otherwise spell'd in the Original than in the Print That Catalogue purchased by the present Archbishop together with many other of his Manuscripts may when occasion shall serve see the Light Among the Printed Books towards a new and more Correct Edition of which whenever it shall be thought convenient he hath considerably contributed are these following Histoâ—…ia Matth. Parker Archiepiscopi Cantuar. De Antiquitate Britannicae Ecclesiae c. enlarg'd with Notes Collections and Additions partly made by the most Reverend Author himself and partly by others and several by Mr. Wharton himself together with the Life of the said Archbishop as also that of St. Austin of Cant. written by George Acworth Franciscus Godwinus de Praesulibus Angliae with some Notes Florentius Wigorniensis and Matthaeus Westmonasteriensis both enlarged with many Notes Corrections and Additions He had likewise made Notes on several of his own Books already published by him which 't is like were design'd for Additions to those Books when ever they should receive a New Impression For these his Performances for the Cause of Religion and Learning as he was admirably fitted by the Excellency of his Natural Endowments a quick Apprehension solid Judgment and most Faithful Memory so were these rais'd to a great Perfection by his Industry An Industry never sufficiently to be commended though in this alas to be lamented that it too much hastened his Death and our Loss Nor were his Moral Accomplishments inferior to his Natural and acquired Perfections He was Modest Sober and Pious in all things sbewing himself to be acted by a truly Christian and Religious Spirit Of which those two Instances to name no more may not unfitly be given The one That he never undertook any Matter of moment without first imploring the Divine Assistance and Blessing thereupon The other That in all those Journeys which his Learned Designs engag'd him in he was ever wont so to order his Affairs as not once to omit being present at the Monthly Sacrament where ever he came And then of his Zeal for Religion and the Honour of God those excellent Discourses which he has published in defence of the best and purest part of the Christian Church now extant upon the face of the Earth in Opposition to the Corruptions of Popery those Scandals to Christian Religion so highly dishonourable to God and so injurious to the Blessed Author of it and an offence to all that truly love and fear him will always be a constant and standing Evidence It has not been thought convenient to add any instances of his Charity though many might be given because agreeable to his own Desire which always was to be as private therein as possibly he could This one only may its presum'd not improperly be mention'd viz. That by his Will whereof he appointed his Father the Reverend Mr. Edmund Wharton the Reverend and Learned Dr. Thorp one of the worthy Prebendaries of Canterbury and his dear Friend Mr. Charles Battely the Executors he has order'd the greatest part of that Small Estate which he left to be dispos'd of to a religious use in the Parish of Worstead in Norfolk where he was born As to his Person He was of a middle Stature of a brown Complexion and of a grave and comely Countenance His Constitution was vigorous and healthful In Confidence of the Strengh of which he was too little regardful of himself and too intent upon his Studies Insomuch that he did often deny himself the Refreshments of Nature because of them And sometimes in the coldest weather would sit so long at them and without a Fire as to have his hands and feet so Chill'd as not to be able to feel the use of them in a considerable time His too eager Prosecution of thâ—…se together with a weakness contracted in his Stomach by the too violent Operation of an unhappy Medicine which he had taken so farr broke the Excellency of his Constitution that no Art nor Skill of the most experienced Physicians could repair it The Summer before he died he went to the Bath in hopes to have retriev'd his decaying Nature by the help of those excellent Medicinal Waters Some benefit he found by them but at his return from thence to Canterbury falling again to his Studies immoderately and beyond what his Strength could bear he quite undid all that they had done So that after a long and lingring decay of Nature he was brought at length to the utmost extremity of weakness under which languishing for some time at last in the
whether Divine or Humane who never could equal the Excellency of their Laws by the spotless Sanctity of their Lives Even Moses who had this Testimony from God that he was faithful in all his House did not always preserve inviolate that intire reliance on the Divine Power which he so earnestly and so often recommended to his People but offended at the waters of strife and was provoked to speak unadvisedly with his lips As for other Lawgivers whose Pretences to Revelation were either none or feigned they were little sollicitous to recommend the Practice of their Laws by their example thereby giving just occasion to suspect that they intended them rather for Politick than Religious ends not so much to promote vertue as to secure their own Interest It is the peculiar advantage of the Christian Religion that all the Precepts of it were exactly performed in the person of its Founder who gave us not only a Rule but an Example of perfect Piety In him all Noble and Divine Vertues eminently shone forth and yet in such a manner as might rather attract our Imitation than dazle our Contemplation Justly did he say of himself John IX 5. that while he was in the world he was the light of the world directing all Persons the way to Happiness by his illustrious Example and in the highest degree practising all those Vertues which in other Persons were singly admired Insomuch as we may justly apply to him in respect of all the parts of our Duty to God our selves and others what he said of himself in respect of Humility For I have given you an example that ye should do as I have done to you Joh. XIII 15. For it is not sufficient for us his Disciples to admire the Greatness and Excellency of his example he requires farther of us to do as he hath done that we express our obedience to him by the constant Imitation of his Life and Practice that we continue the remembrance of his incomparable Vertue and Piety by proposing them as a Pattern of perfection in all our Actions That we manifest our selves to be his Followers by the similitude of our Conduct in a word that the same mind be in us which was also in Christ Jesus In treating of these words I shall divide my Discourse into three Heads I. I will shew that the Life of our Saviour was by God intended to be the Grand Example and Pattern of our Actions II. That it was the best and most compleat Example which could be proposed to us III. I will produce some Arguments inducing us to a careful Imitation of this Example I. That the Life of our Saviour Christ was intended to be the grand Pattern and Example of our Actions This appears not only from hence that it is the Duty of all Christians to live up to the Rules of Piety Temperance and Justice which the Gospel prescribeth and our Saviour in the most perfect manner practised and consequently to conform our Lives to his Example which however indirect is yet a most evident Argument but also from many other direct Arguments Of which I shall name some few 1. It appears from the whole Sequel and design of the four Gospels One great part of which is taken up in relating those Actions of our Saviour which serve only to demonstrate his admirable Vertue and Holiness In the whole Conduct of our Saviour and the History of it contained in the Gospels we may chiefly observe four Kinds of Matters which the Holy Ghost hath thought fit to convey to us by the writing of inspired Persons his Miracles the Conformity of his Life Death and all the Circumstances of them to the antient preceding Prophesies concerning the Messias his Doctrines and his Actions Of these the two first lead us to the knowledge of Christ the two latter direct us in it By his Miracles and the Conformity of his Life to the antient Prophesies of the Messias he abundantly proved himself to be a Divine Person the Son of God and the true Messias Who was to come into the world By his Doctrines and Practice he hath taught us the way to attain the same Happiness into which he is gone before us Now if we observe how great a part of the Gospels is taken up in relating Matters of the last sort if we consider that the Evangelists have taken no less care to acquaint us with these than with his Doctrines the immediate Rule of our Belief and Practice We cannot but conclude that they also were intended for a certain and infallible Rule of our Life and Conduct and proposed as the Object of our Imitation The Holy Ghost assureth us That all Scripture was written for our Instruction and although this is undoubtedly true of all parts of the Divine Scripture yet can it not with such evidence of Truth be affirmed of any part of it as of the Holy Gospels which contain the History of our Saviours Life and Actions These the Church in all Ages esteemed the most considerable part of that sacred Rule which was committed to her Care and given for her Direction It manifestly appears to have been the design of each Evangelist apart to deliver a compleat System of all things necessary to be known and done by all Christians and yet all conspired in nothing more than in giving a full Relation of the Vertues and Graces of our Blessed Saviour a plain Argument that the Holy Ghost which directed those sacred Pen-men and whose infallible Wisdom doth nothing in vain thought nothing more necessary than it to the knowledge of all Christians It becomes us as to adore the admirable Wisdom and Goodness of God in this Matter so to take Care least by neglecting to imitate the Example so studiously and fully proposed to us we defeat his most wise Contrivance 2. It is evidently manifest from the express Testimony of Scripture Our Saviour after he had performed that stupendious Act of Humility in washing his Disciples feet John XIII tells them ver 15. For I have given you an example that ye should do as I have done to you thereby intimating that by that Ceremony he designed nothing else than to teach them Humility that they should not presume to retain high Conceptions of their own worth and merit much less Pride and Ambition when they had seen him their Lord and Master condescend to execute the meanest Office of a Servant to them who were his domestick Servants And indeed the Action could be designed for no other end It had nothing miraculous in it tended not to the Completion of any antient Prophesie served not to demonstrate the Divinity of his Person and indeed had nothing excellent or admirable in it but as it conduced to this end And what greater Argument can we desire of the Life of Christ being proposed for our Imitation than that many of his Actions aimed at no other end than to draw us to the Practice of the most noble Vertues by the
not fully to know it and it will be our Happiness if we both know and do it Secondly the imitation of our Saviours Example was most wisely proposed to all his Followers for this end that it might convince them that Christianity was not a meerly Speculative but a practical Religion Men would have been willing to have taken up with the bare Contemplation of those Divine Truths which were by Christ revealed to the world and imagined the bare knowledge of them to be sufficient had not our Saviour by his own Example confuted that Opinion and taught them that the most exalted knowledge was not sufficient without a correspondent Vertue If we view the state of the World at that time in which Christ published his Revelation we shall find nothing to have been more necessary to his design than this method All Mankind at that time seemed to conspire in this common Error that the knowledge of revealed Religions drew no Obligation of practice with them The Heathens indeed pretended to sacred Mysteries and imagined themselves to know the secrets of Heaven But this knowledge was so far from having any influence upon their Lives that they believed not it ought to have any The Jews possessed truly a Divine Religion yet in a great measure defeated the ends of it by the same false Opinion They contented themselves with the satisfaction of having Abraham to their Father and thought nothing else was required of them than to know the Prerogative of their Nation Even the Pharisees who sate in Moses's Chair and pretended to a more strict and perfect Holiness laboured indeed to know the Precepts and Punctilios of the Law but believed not themselves obliged to a Conscientious performance of it fondly imagining that the defect of that would be abundantly supplied by the merits of their Descent from Abraham So prone is Mankind to this fatal Error which flatters their ease and indulgeth them in the Exercise of their Lusts and Passions This our Saviour therefore unanswerably confuted by his own Practice giving us thereby to understand that his Religion was designed no less to reform the Wills than instruct the Understandings of his Followers And how necessary this Conduct was appears not only from the prevailing Errors of those times but also from the depraved Inclination of Mankind in all Ages Even in our Age there are not wanting unreasonable men who pretend that Christians are not obliged by the Law of Nature nor bound to the Practice of it An Error than which none can be more directly contrary to the Spirit of Christianity and the whole design of the Gospel Our Saviour more than once assureth us That he came not to destroy but to fulfil the Law which since it cannot be understood of the Mosaick must necessarily of the Moral Law This makes the chief Subject of all his Precepts and Exhortations and in urging this his famous Sermon upon the Mount consisting of three whole Chapters is almost intirely taken up Lastly That no Argument might be wanting to enforce the Practice of it he hath recommended it by his own Example He prescribed no Duty to us which he practised not invariably in his own Person and as his Religion includeth the whole Duty of Man so himself exercised it in the most eminent and perfect manner which bringeth me to the second Head proposed Namely II. That the Life of Christ was the best and most compleat Example which could be proposed to Mankind as the Object of their Imitation All other men were never able to live up exactly to the Rules of their Religion but in many things we offend all It was Christ alone who performed a constant and universal Righteousness Who did no sin neither was guile found in his mouth But to represent this Matter more fully to you I will consider the Exemplary Holiness of our Saviour in some of the more illustrious Branches of our Duty to God our Selves and the rest of Mankind First then in relation to God to whom as partaking of the humane Nature he owed the same Subjection that we do his Piety and Devotion was remarkable He often withdrew himself from his Disciples and retired into Solitary places that he might calmly enjoy the Contemplation of God and pour out his Soul in Prayers unto him Sometimes departing late in the Evening alone into a Mountain to pray Matth. XIV 23. John VI. 16. Other times rising up early in the Morning and withdrawing into a Solitary place to perform the same Office Mark I. 35. And more than once spending whole Nights in Prayer thereby teaching us that we ought to Dedicate sometime daily to the private Devotions of the Closet where we may converse with our God by Prayer and Meditation He oftimes denied to his Body its natural Rest and Sleep to enjoy his Father in private Contemplation and offer up his Petitions to him And shall not we set apart some of our vacant hours to the Exercise of the same Piety Our Subjection to the Divine Majesty surely is not less and our wants infinitely greater The subject of his Prayers could be no other than to offer up to God the Tribute of praise and thanksgiving and to intercede for others whereas we besides all this have many sins to bewail and to implore the Pardon of them Then as for the publick Acts of Religion which tend most directly to increase the Honour of God and procure to him due Adoration amongst men our Saviour manifested by his constant performance of them how dear the Glory of God was to him He frequented all the publick and solemn Festivals of the Jewish Religion and that whether of Divine as the Passover or humane Institution as the Feast of Dedication omitting no ocsion whereby he might advance the Divine Honour by joyning in all the usual Solemnities of Divine Worship Even in his private State before he entred upon the Execution of his Ministerial Office however silent the sacred History be as to his other Actions yet this we are assured That he used to attend the publick Worship of God in the Synagogues every Sabbath day For so St. Luke relateth Chap. IV. 16. where describing his entrance upon his Ministerial Office he tells us And he came to Nazareth where he had been brought up and as his Custom was he went into the Synagogue on the Sabbath day What can be now wanting to render this Example of Piety most compleat and worthy our Imitation He frequented the publick Acts of Worship lest we should imagine private Devotion to be sufficient and intermitted not the pious Exercises of the Closet least we should rest content with having joyned in the publick Prayers and proceed no farther If we view the other Characters of Piety and Religion we shall find them all to have been eminently united in this illustrious Example With what profound Humility did he profess himself to come into the world to perform his Fathers Will How constantly did he ascribe the
we may do it those first and chief Disciples have enabled us by giving us large Accounts of the Actions and Life of our Saviour in the Holy Gospels Himself tell us John XV. 8. If ye bear much fruit so shall ye be my Disciples and then Ver. 10. explains their bearing much Fruit by imitating his obedience to the Divine Commands If ye keep my commandments ye shall abide in my love even as I have kept my Fathers commandments and abide in his love So that if we desire to retain the name of a Disciple and thereby preserve our Relation to Christ we must perform the Duty of a Disciple by religiously following the Example of our Lord and Master But then in the next place to imitate the Life and Actions of our Saviour is not only our Duty but our Happiness We may be sure that while the Blessed Jesus lived on Earth he pursued the true ends of Happiness and cultivated those Vertues which were most conducive to the perfection of his Nature and the Dignity of his Office What Honour then must it needs be to us mortal Men to be made like unto the Son of God in the Practice of the same Vertues in pursuing the same Methods of Happiness and in an intire Conformity of Actions It was the highest Ambition of the more generous among the Heathens to imitate the Lives of their antient Heroes and be thought like unto them And shall not we ardently desire to resemble our most Blessed Redeemer by a similitude of Holiness and Vertue Their Ambition was misplac't and therefore the occasion of their Unhappiness ours is directed to the right Object and therefore cannot be too great It must needs be an infinite Satisfaction to every pious Soul to be employed about the same Duties wherein the Blessed Jesus spent his Life to exercise the same Offices of Piety Charity and Devotion to be inspired with the same Principles of Humility Meekness and Patience This Consideration will dispel all weariness will add Vigour to our Souls and remove the fear of all temporal Evils which may attend the performance of our Duty This will support us under all outward Calamities alleviate our Sorrows and calm our Tempests to remember That our Lord endured the same Afflictions upon the same account If he was content to undergo the Malice of men and fury of Devils shall we hope to be exempted from the Attempts of the same Enemies If the world hate you ye know that it hated me before it hated you John XV. 18. And shall we refuse to undergo the same Fortunes with our Lord and Master No surely Only let us take care that the Hatred and Persecution of Men be brought upon us for no other Cause than they were on him that is not through any fault of ours but only for the sake of God and our obedience to his Commands So shall we imitate him as well in the most happy tranquility of Mind under all Afflictons as in the Afflictions themselves and the Causes of them Lastly The constant imitation of our Lords Example will be our Comfort and Satisfaction in the whole course of our Lives which will remove all Doubts and Difficulties and give us the best assurance that we have performed the whole Duty of Man If only Precepts of a good Life had been given to us we might have been daily distracted with Doubts and Scruples concerning the meaning extent and Application of them they might have been perverted by the errour and craft of Men and rendred useless by false Glosses and Interpretations whereas the Example of our Saviour hath taken away all these Scruples and placed every Precept in its full light If we truly imitate his Example we are infallibly assured That we have in all things done our Duty even as he performed the whole Will of God and more than once obtained that Testimony from Heaven This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased So much greater assurance may we have by following his Example than by respecting his Precepts only And therefore St. Paul after so many Rules and Precepts given to his Converts still adviseth them to be Followers of him but then no farther than he followed Christ. Be ye followers of me even as I also am of Christ. r Cor. XI 1. By this also we shall be inabled to give a satisfactory Reason of all our Actions and put to silence the Gainsaying of foolish Men without the assistance of any profound knowledge or deep Speculation If they deride our Christian Vertues and scoffe at the Duties of Humility Self-denial and Mortification it will be sufficient to answer That in practising them we imitate the Example of the Son of God the eternal Wisdom of the Father Let them please themselves with their Mirth and false supposal of a more refined knowledge We follow an infallible Guide and Pattern who if he hath not placed the Wisdom of his Precepts in so clear a light as the Sun in Heaven hath at least recommended them by his Practice and can assert them by his Power Such are the Obligations of all Christians to imitate the Example of their Saviour and such are the Benefits which result from it Let us by an earnest endeavour to follow this most excellent Example fullfil the Obligations and obtain the Benefits that as we have been on Earth made like unto him in Vertue and Holiness so we may hereafter in Heaven be made yet more like unto him in Glory and Immortality The Third SERMON PREACH'D October 1688. At LAMBETH CHAPEL 1 Pet. III. 15. Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear THE most Wise God hath so contrived that most Holy and excellent Religion which he intended as the most perfect and ultimate Revelation of his Will to the World that it tendeth equally to manifest his own infinite Wisdom and Goodness and to procure the Salvation of Mankind His Wisdom appeareth in the Excellency and Simplicity of those Rules which it proposeth in its immediate tendency to beget and establish due Notions and Apprehensions of the Deity in the reasonableness of its Constitution and admirable Congruity to the nature of Mankind His Goodness is conspicuous not only in those infinite Rewards which he hath affixed to the performance of it in the Free Pardon of rebellious Sinners and liberal distribution of his Graces but which more directly comes under our present Consideration in adapting that Religion which he intended for the benefit of all to the Capacity of all and thereby rendring it no less easie than advantageous And in this the Christian Religion infinitely exceeds all other Systems of Religion whether true or false Among the Heathens many great and learned Persons had imployed their Wits in refining the Superstitions of their Countrey and assigning Reasons for that way of Worship which obtained among them But their Notions were abstruse and mystical their
Eucharist whereby we are initiated and enter into Covenant with God profess our belief of it and adherence to it intitle our Selves to the Benefits of it and continue to receive the influence of the Divine Grace Such Foederal Rites are absolutely necessary to all instituted and revealed Religions and so little derogate from the spiritual Nature of our Worship that they were intended on purpose to oblige us to it Thus the Christian Religion proposeth a Divine Worship most agreeable to the Nature of God and not only that but also most effectually secures his Honour and Majesty For it seems to have been the Principal design of Christianity to root Idolatry out of the world and introduce the sole Worship of the true God And how admirably it was fitted for this purpose appears as well from the Precepts as the Constitution of it which hath provided most excellent Remedies for those prejudices and imperfections of Mankind which before the coming of Christ betrayed it to an universal Idolatry The two great Motives and Causes of Idolatry seem to have been First That men inured to sensual and corporeal Objects either lost all Notions of an immaterial God and then betook themselves to the worship of their fellow Creatures or retaining the knowledge of the true God desired to worship him by some visible Representations which might strike their Senses Or Secondly that from a Sense of their sins and having deserved the Divine Displeasure they formed to themselves the Notion of an inexorable Deity who would not receive any Prayers from their polluted hands nor be intreated any otherwise than as earthly Princes by the Mediation of Friends and Favourites Hence they set up innumerable Intercessours with God either Angels whom they termed Demons or the Souls of departed Heroes whom they imagined dear to God solicited their Mediation directed their Prayers unto them and by them transmitted them to the Supreme God These Prejudices and false perswasions laid the Foundation of Idolatry in all Ages and are excellently provided for in the Christian Religion wherein God forbidding us to worship him by any corporeal Representations upon Earth hath invested his own Son The brightness of his Glory and express image of his Person with our Flesh and commanded us through him to worship himself And then to cure the Fondness of Mankind desiring to address themselves to God by Intercessours he hath constituted him our only Intercessour and promised to hear our Prayers directed to him in his Name and through his Merits and at his Mediation to be propitious to us Thus the wise Constitution of Christianity hath most admirably secured the Honour of God and indeed most successfully For hereby Idolatry was rooted out the constant Worship of one only God introduced and while the Church continued uncorrupted preserved inviolate In the antient Church not the least resemblance of Idolatry could be discovered the very Heathen Philosophers were forced to confess their Worship to be purely spiritual and most worthy the Nature of God No Images were used by them nor any Prayers offered up but by the alone Mediation of Jesus Christ. It was the ignorance and unhappiness of latter Ages which admitted corporeal Representations of God and set up new Intercessours in the Court of Heaven Saints and Angels who might receive and manage their Requests That so palpable a Corruption of the Christian Religion which intirely defeats the great Ends and Designs of it before mentioned should be still defended as lawful and continued in any part of the Church after so manifest Conviction of the unlawfulness of it may justly be admired But the maintenance of their pretence to Infallibility hath enforced them to do this which nothing but the defence of a desperate Cause could perswade Men to do It is our Happiness to be Members of a Church wherein no such Corruptions are practised nor any Acts of Worship taught which are not even by the Confession of our Adversaries undoubtedly lawful And it will be our Condemnation if after so plain Conviction we depart from a rational and truly Divine Worship to embrace one corrupted with so gross a Superstition which if it be not downright I dolatry hath at least all the resemblance of it Secondly Christianity doth not only direct the natural religious Inclination of Man into the right Channel the Worship of the true and only God but also promoteth the real perfection of Man by prescribing to him the most excellent Rules of Life and Conduct Which is no small Argument of the Divinity of it in that it beareth so manifest resemblance of the perfect Holiness of God And indeed what can be imagined more Excellent and Holy more conducing to Piety Justice and Temperance than the Rules and Precepts of the Christian Religion So admirably fitted to the Nature of Man that it would be his Happiness to Practice them although enforced with no Command nor crowned with any Reward For what can be more worthy a rational Soul than to entertain noble and reverent Conceptions of its Creatour to express an unlimited Devotion and Gratitude to him by all imaginable Actions of Respect and Honour to subdue our carnal Affections to the Government of Reason conquer our Lusts and trample under foot all Considerations of Interest and Prosperity when standing in Competition with Vertue and Holiness to maintain an exact Justice to all Mankind seek the good of others and delight in Acts of Charity Such a Conduct of Life even the more wise of the antient Heathens directed by the Light of Reason esteemed the utmost degree of humane Perfection and believed thofe Persons who possess it already enstated in the Supreme Happiness And that they might manifest themselves fully convinced of the truth of this Opinion there were not wanting some generous Souls who chose to foregoe all temporal Conveniences and even Life it self rather than violate any part of their Duty And is not the Exercise of all the aforementioned Vertues the very design of Christianity Are not those the very Precepts of our Religion With this only difference that we are taught to practice them in a more eminent and perfect manner and to refer all to God performing them from a Principle of Love to him and Obedience to his Commands Our Saviour hath obliged us to guard our thoughts with the same Care and Vigilance with which we do our outward Actions and possess those Vertues in our Soul which others are content to do in appearance The Jewish Religion required no more than the performance of the several Rites and Observances of the Law And whosoever performed them although without any inward Sense of Piety Had fulfilled all legal righteousness and was no longer a debter to the law But the Evangelical righteousness Soars higher and scorning to stoop at such mean and beggerly Elements primarily respects the Affections of the heart A manifest Argument that the Author of it was a Divine Person and could discover the most secret Recesses
most Holy Reform'd Religion of our Church which is indeed no other than the pure and genuine Christianity by decrying it as Heretical and Damnable To obviate the Designs of these men nothing can be more effectual than to apply our selves diligently to the study of Christianity to enquire in the Holy Scriptures what Christ hath revealed to us and to search the Design and Mysteries of his Religion This is become the Duty of every private Christian at this time that so his Ignorance may not lay him open to the Attempts of designing Men who lay in wait to deceive and betray him to be a prey to Errour and Superstition To this pursuance and encrease of knowledge our Church encourageth and earnestly intreats us She taketh no refuge in the Ignorance of her Communicants nor discourageth them from examining her Doctrines and Opinions as well knowing that this Examination will end in a full Conviction of the truth of them and that the Improvement of our knowledge in Divine Matters and an impartial study of them will infallibly secure us from the delusions of her Enemies And this is the first Reason why every private Christian ought to be fully instructed concerning the Reasons of his Faith that so he may answer the Objections and escape the Assaults of those who endeavour to withdraw us from the truth or seduceus to the belief of any Enrour II. It is a strict Enquiry into the Reasons and Arguments of our Religion and full Comprehension of them which properly maketh Faith to be praise worthy in it self acceptable to God and capable of reward An assent to Christianity without respect to the Arguments of its truth may be a Happiness to ignorant Persons in as much as they enjoy those opportunities which lead to such an assent such as are Education in a Christian Countrey or under Christian Parents or Masters whereby through custom or respect to the Authority of those Persons they embrace Christianity and are led thereby to the knowledge of God the Practice of their Duty and dependence upon the Merits of a Crucified Saviour But surely we cannot imagine this to be an Act deserving the Favour of God or even comparable to the meanest of moral Vertues Before all which a true Divine Faith is so frequently and so eminently preferred in Scripture For since such a Disposition of Mind I mean an inclination to follow the Example and Authority of our Countrey Parents or Masters in assenting to the Religion received by them may and doth equally dispose Men to the embracing of Errour as of Truth it is to be accounted a thing wholly indifferent and if it proceeds from a a willful Negligence of examining the Grounds of any Religion when means and ability are not wanting to us is extremely vicious but no otherwise laudable than in the happy consequences of it and opportunities it may possibly minister of coming to the Truth Indeed Christianity is so admirably fitted to the perfection and Salvation of Mankind that it cannot be assented to upon any Grounds whatsoever even by the most ignorant Persons without a precedent habit of Mind which is truly vertuous and excellent and in an extraordinary manner testifying a profound obedience to the Commands of God in the Person assenting may not unfitly be thought to qualifie him for the Divine Favour For Christianity proposing such Rules as restrain the corrupt Lusts and Passions of men teaching a strict Sobriety and Abstinence from unlawful Pleasures forbiding the satisfaction of the most darling Lusts and commanding men to deny to themselves what they are apt to imagine an extreme Happiness the unlimited Fruition of all sensual Pleasures and even upon occasion to forforsake the Conveniences of Life it self Choosing rather to suffer affliction than enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season None can assent to a Religion of this Nature without first overcoming his Lusts and Passions and being thoroughly convinced that all these ought to give place to the Command and Will of God which he believes to be proposed to him in the Christian Religion Such a Disposition is truly excellent and in them who want means of attaining a more perfect knowledge is rewarded by God as a true and perfect Act of Faith who condescends to the imperfection of Mankind and requiring of none more than he hath given to him supplyeth by his Mercy what is wanting to the perfection of our Faith But then such a Disposition of Mind is so far from being a true and proper Faith that it may consist without it and be joyned with Errour Neither can we imagine that Faith which hath all those glorious and particular Pro rises of Reward annexed to it in the Holy Scripture consists only in assenting to and firmly believing what we are assured God hath revealed to us For that we cannot but do None ever that believed the Existence of a God dis-believed what he was perswaded to have been revealed by him To do that were to suppose that God could err or lye and consequently were not God Such an assent therefore being necessary and unavoidable is not capable of a Reward and hath nothing excellent in it No Man can be an Infidel in this Sense And therefore none can be esteemed faithful from it And hence it appears that to have only moral and not demonstrative Proofs is so far from prejudicing the truth of Christianity that it is both necessary and advantageous to it For if the Truths of Christianity had been self evident or placed in as clear a Light as the Sun in Heaven Assent to them had been necessary and no Act of Choice and therefore incapable of reward Whereas now God hath so wisely contrived it that a rational Afsent to it and perfect Comprehension of it will exercise the diligence obedience and reason of Mankind in enquiring into whatsoever carrieth the stamp of Divine Authority in submitting to whatsoever justly appears to bear that sacred Character in using aright our Faculties of Reason and Understanding and employing them to the Glory of God All these Acts and Habits are in themselves praise worthy and rewarded by God with the Reward of Faith that is with infinite and eternal Happiness For 't is in a rational and just Assent to the Christian Religion for the sake of those Arguments which perswade it to have proceeded from the Divine Authority and a due use of our Reason in discovering its Divine Original that a true and perfect Faith consists For upon Conviction of its having been revealed by God we cannot but yield to the truth of it and if we desire or expect to attain the Rewards proposed by it betake our selves to a serious obedience to the Precepts of it For as a due use of our Understanding is no less difficult in it self and advantageous to us than of our Will so we ought to suppose that God will no less favourably accept it and no less highly reward it Certainly a right use of our Reason
that inestimable Sacrifice which was offered on the Cross may confess and firmly believe that Jesus Christ died for the sins of Mankind was buried and rose again But then I fear this remembrance will without the use of those Commemorative Rites which God ordained for our Instruction and the compleat Manifestation of those infinite Benefits become purely Historical and have little influence upon our Practice and contribute much less to excite that Sense of Gratitude which might induce us to resign up our selves to his Will and Direction who had done and suffered so great things for us This is best procured by the use of those most Holy Mysteries where the Death and Passion of our Saviour is in the most lively and significant manner represented to us where the benefit of it is in particular applied to every one of us where every single Communicant may behold the Body of Christ broken and his Bloodshed for him and by descending into a serious Consideration of it form a right Judgment of the greatness of that Benefit which will then only appear infinite and transcendent to him when he is convinced that it reacheth to himself in particular and may be productive of his eternal Happiness This cannot but raise the utmost affections of his Soul and create such a Sense of Gratitude as shall not easily expire but endeavour to exert it self in all those Actions which shall be judged acceptable to so great a Benefactor while the lively Memory of those Benefits continue which shall ever continue if often repaired renewed and increased by a frequent Participation in that solemn Act of their Commemoration How great therefore was the prudence of the Apostolick and Primitive Times which repeated that Commemoration every day and when the increase of their number permitted not that at least every Sunday and esteemed every baptized Person who being come to years of Discretion omitted constantly to bear a part in it to have by that Intermission fallen from the Faith and cut himself off from the Church of Christ This produced and secured that lasting Gratitude which served for the grand Motive and Spring of all Christian Vertues permitted not their Zeal to grow cold and continued the same heat of Devotion among them as if their Saviour had been yet present with them And shall we deplore the decay of Religion in our Age and the degeneracy from the Spirit of those antient Times and yet neglect to make use of those means whereby they raised and fomented a just Sense of their Obligation to God and therein laid the Foundation of their so much celebrated Piety We are equally convinced of the truth of those Benefits we no less firmly believe that Christ died for us than they did we no less passionately desire eternal Happiness and have all other means of Instruction equally afforded to us We enjoy the same Faculties of Soul and Body and believe our selves to have the same innate generous Inclinations of mind the Grace of God doth no lefs abound to us and the same Rewards do yet attend us How then comes it to pass that we cannot equal their Piety and Holiness that we fall short of their Zeal and Devotion and come so far beneath the Example of those Holy Persons that we seem to be the Followers of a different Religion and the Disciples of another Master This can rationally be ascribed to no other cause than to the willful neglect of those Assistances in the performance of our Duty which our Saviour bequeathed to us of which the chief and infinitely greatest is the frequent Celebration of the Holy Eucharist whereby that great Principle of Obedience in revealed Religion I mean Gratitude might be produced kept alive and receive continual Accession in the Minds of Christians This to the no less scandal than prejudice of Christianity hath in latter Ages been fatally neglected and discontinued reduced to some few Seasons and Festivals of the year and then performed by a very inconsiderable part of the Church in her several Congregations An abuse which perhaps cannot be equalled in any System of Religion which ever obtained in the World that the Primary and Essential Rite of it should be generally omitted by those who pretend to be Disciples of it Justly therefore doth it turn to the Honour of the Reformation in general that it hath in some measure removed this abuse and given occasion to more frequent and numerous Celebrations of the Holy Eucharist over all Christendom which before that time in the Church of Rome were by long disuse almost become unknown For as for their constant private Masses whatsoever may be pretended for their being a Propitiatory Sacrifice for the quick and dead most certainly they do not in the least conduce to Commemorate and set forth the Death of Christ. Justly also to the Honour of the Church of England in particular which after a lamentable and universal disuse of these Holy Mysteries introduced in the late times of Confusion both of Church and State hath happily restored the use of them renewed frequent Communions and enjoys numerous Communicants May Pastors and People conspire to make this excellent Custom become universal that so at last we may have the Happiness to see this Church equal the Apostolick times in Zeal and Piety as it doth in Purity of Doctrine But I return to the prosecution of my Text although even this conduceth mightily to the Illustration of the Argument now in hand and having sufficiently manifested that Gratitude or a right Sense of our Obligation arising from the Considerations of the infinite Benefits of God was intended by him to be to us the grand Motive of Obedience to his Laws I proceed in the Second place to shew that II. This is the best and most effectual Motive which could be employed for that Purpose Which however it cannot be called in question since as we have already shewed this Motive was before all others chosen by the infallible Wisdom of God to lead us to Repentance and thereby to Salvation yet I will proceed to demonstrate the truth of it by these following Considerations First then if we respect the force of Goodness in general and how prevalent the Obligation of Benefits is in its own Nature we cannot but conclude it to be the most effectual of all Arguments Nothing is so amiable and perswasive as this Vertue of Beneficence which carrieth invincible Charms along with it and maketh greater Conquests in the hearts of Men than all the force and terrour of the World Other Vertues may create a Veneration some a fear and others an admiration of the Persections of the Person endued with them but this alone produceth Love the most active Principle of our mind In God there are many Attributes which may confound the apprehension of Mankind as the infinity of his Nature his Eternity and Omnipresence others which may create awful Apprehensions of him as his Omnipotence and Omniscience and some which may produce
Gratitude by their direct Tendency to the benefit of Mankind For among all the Miracles of Christ not above three or four can be found which do not immediately respect the Cure of the Infirmities the relief of the Wants or in general the good of Mankind And thus it appears both from the Nature of the thing and the Example of the Divine Oeconomy that a right Sense of the Divine Beneficence is the most effectual Motive of Obedience to the Laws of God But then Secondly This will appear more manifestly if we consider the Nature of the Divine Benefits how much greater influence they deservedly Challenge than any others Benefits so truly infinite and exceeding our comprehension that God might justly make that appeal to the whole world which he doth in the Prophet Isaiah Chap. V. Ver. 3 4. And now O Inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah judge I pray you betwixt me and my Vineyard What could have been done more to my Vineyard that I have not done in it So studiously hathGod endeavoured to procure the Happiness os Mankind by all thoseObligations which are wont to make impression on it Every one of the Divine Benefits may Challenge the most exalted Gratitude of our Soul and affords us Entertainment for Admiration as well as Love For to omit the common Benefits of Creation Preservation and the ordinary Acts of Providence and the peculiar ones of Redemption and Sanctification The means of grace and the hopes of gloâ—…y I will consider only that mentioned in the words immediately preceding my Text which the Apostle expresseth by the riches of his Goodness forbearance and long suffering whereby he winks at the sins of Mankind while there are any hopes or possiblity of Reformation left prolongeth the Execution of his Judgment giveth â—…s space for Repentance and gently leads us to it A Mercy which might justly alone incline us to conquer the Temptations of the world and depraved Inclinations of our mind and henceforward devote our Lives to the Service of God which having been so often forfeited to his Justice have been as often remitted by his Mercy A Vertue which hath been always wont beyond others to win the hearts of Men and hath antiently procured to the most admired Princes the Titles of Fathers of their Countrey and the delight of Mankind In them it was esteemed the highest degree of Perfection and to deserve from Posterity the most grateful Acknowledgements to pardon their conquered Enemies remit the offences of their Subjects and deferr the execution of Justice until the Criminal should appear incorrigible But alas how mean and inconsiderable are these Acts of Clemency if compared to the Divine Forbearance and Long-suffering where the Person offended is of infinite Worth and Dignity and Author of the most illustrious Benefits who is able to strike the Sinner dead in a moment and vindicate the Honour of his Name by a single nod where the offence is repeated not once or twice but very often perhaps every day and moment and that by inconsiderable Creatures who are the work of his hands the dependants of his Power and unable to render any Service to him which may tend to his Interest or augment his Greatness We are not ignorant with what transports of Joy and Resolutions of extreme gratitude a condemned Person would receive his Princes Pardon And if the same affection doth not seize us as often as we view the sins of our Life and consider the offers of Pardon made to us upon condition of Repentance if we do not with equal Gratitude resent the remission of every single sin we must acknowledge it to be no other than the product of a brutish stupidity which can be convinced by Sense that hainous Offences may forfeit their Lives to the Laws of their Countrey but will not be convinced by Reason that more hainous sins do forfeit them to the Divine Justice But I speak to those who are convinced of the Truth of the Christian Religion who believe they were created for no other end than to honour God by Obedience to his Laws that even by the Law of Nature the Commission of sin renders us obnoxious to undergo the Divine Vengeance in whatsoever way that may be inflicted on us but that by the revealed Law of Christianity every single sin in its own Nature subjects us to the Divine Wrath and in that to eternal Punishment How infinitely therefore are we bound to celebrate the Mercy of God in that he doth not immâ—…diately pour out his Wrath upon us but patiently awaits our Repentance and is not only ready to re-admit us to his Favour but by an extraordinary Act of loving kindness not to be parallelled in the Actions of Mankind passionately wisheth that by our Repentance we would capacitate our selves to receive his Favour For thus Psalm LXXXI 14 15. he testifieth how delightful it would have been to him to continue his Favours to the Children of Israel if their obstinate perseverance in sin had not rendred it incongruous to the Holiness of his Nature to do it O that my people would have hearkened unto me for if Israel had walked in my ways I should soon have put down their enemies and turned my hand against their adversaries And in like manner Esai XLVIII 17 18. Thus saith the Lord thy Redeemer the Holy one of Israel I am the Lord thy God which teacheth thee to profit which leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest go O that thou hadst hearkned to my commandments then peace had been as a river and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea To name no more Passages of this Nature how passionate is that Protestation of God Ezek. XXXIII 11. As I live saith the Lord God I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that the wicked turn from his way and live turn ye turn ye from your evil ways for why will ye die O ye house of Israel This carnest desire of God that by Repentance we would qualifie our selves to receive his Mercy can proceed from no other Principle than the utmost perfection of Clemency and Goodness to Mankind and beyond all other Arguments demonstrates to us the Greatness of it since the execution of Justice tendeth no less to manifest the Divine Glory than Acts of Mercy do And thus it again appears that a right Sense of our Obligation arising srom the Divine Benefits is the most effectual Motive of Obedience since his Benefits being infinite and transcendent may reasonably be expected to produce a sutable and not inferiour degree of Gratitude But then farther in Relation to the Divine Benefits it is to be considered that they are not only great in their own Nature but also wholly undeserved by us which contributeth very much to raise the esteem of their Excellency in our Minds and amplifie the riches of the Divine Beneficence The Psalmist made excellent use of this Consideration when comparing the unworthiness of Man to the
Nature and Religion to perform our Duty to God rather out of the Sense of our Obligations to him than the fear of Punishment or the hope of Reward In the first Case the chief Principle of all our Actions will be the Love of God in the latter the Love of our selves By this we may become the Clients but by that the Friends of God Lastly Let us remember that this Forbearance and Long-suffering of God will not endure for ever that if despised it shall be withdrawn from us and that God hath set a time for Repentance beyond which he will not a wait nor suffer his Goodness to be abused For we must not ascribe to God such an unlimited Exercise of Mercy as may destroy his Justice and include the highest Contradictions of Sinners and pardon Offences committed against plain Conviction of Conscience and in open Contempt of all means of Repentance afforded to them To pass by such enormous Sins would favour of a Childish Fondness debase the Majesty of God and by making him irrational destroy his Nature How shall I pardon thee for this saith God in the Prophet Jeremy V. 7 9. Shall not I visit for these things and shall not my Soul be avenged on such a Nation as this God hath appointed his Mercy as a refuge to Mankind for Sins of ignorance Passion and Inadvertency not as a Sanctuary to prophane and incorrigible Sinners He winked indeed at the times of ignorance but now commandeth all men every where to repent If a man will not turn he will whet his sword Psal. VII 13. And then the dreadful consequence of his anger himself tells us Deut. XXXII 40 41. For I lift up my hand to heaven and say I live for ever If I wheâ—… my glittering sword and mine hand take hold of judgment I will render vengeaâ—…te to mine enemies and will reward them that hatâ—… me Let us therefore perfect our Repentance while a space is yet open for us before Mercy return to Judgment and the Door be shut upon us that so we also may partake of the goodness forbearance and long-suffering of God and not fall into their Condemnation who despise the riches of them Wâ—…oso is wise will pâ—…nder these things and they shall understand the loving kindness of the Lord. The Sixth SERMON PREACH'D December 30. 1688. At LAMBETH CHAPEL 1 Cor. I. 23. We preach Christ crucified unto the Jews a stumbling block and unto the Greeks foolishness THE coming of the Messias into the world and therewith the Manifestation of the Divine Mercy to lost Mankind which we at this time Commemorate was so signal a Benefit and in all respects so infinite that it cannot but administer Matter of Admiration to us to see it rejected derided and opposed by the greatest part of Mankind It may justly seem strange to us that that which was proposed by God to rescue Men from that fatal Ignorance wherein they were involved should be treated with Scorn become a Stumbling-block and be accounted Folly That the glad tidings of great joy to Men should be made a Matter of Derision and be received not with Thankfulness as it deserved but with Scofts and Contumelies But such is the unhappiness of Mankind ever since the Fall of Adam that their Understandings being darkned with Ignorance as well as their Wills corrupted with Passions and inordinate Desires it hath been equally difficult without the Assistance of Revelation to find out the Truth as to pursue the Dictates of it when once discovered Such is the natural consequence of that unhappy Fall and such have been the Effects of it in all Ages But then whereas the Corruptions of the Will could not be denied or dissembled the Sense of which induced Men to seek Remedies for them the failings of the Understanding were so far from being perceived and acknowledged that a great part of Mankind had flattered themselves into an Opinion of a perfect knowledge and believed the Truth not only to be possessed by them but their own Understandings to be the rule and measure of it They had framed to themselves a System of Religion either from their own vain Imaginations or some precedent mistaken Revelation and being pre-possessed with Notions derived from thence refused to hearken to any Doctrine different from them They falsely imagined their own Conceptions to be infallible and thereby treated the Christian Religion which opposed them as an erroneous and ridiculous Doctrine especially being proposed with that unaffected Simplicity to which themselves were so much strangers as believing every Opinion to be so much Divine by how much more it was more refined and placed beyond the common Apprehensions of Men. Whereas the Christian Doctrine was more humane and easie lay level with the Capacity of the meanest Persons and excluded not the most illiterate from a perfect knowledge of it being an Enemy to Pride and Ostentation devoid of Subtilties and unuseful Niceties and resembling the Nakedness as well as the Purity of Paradise withal teaching such Mysteries as might directly contribute to destroy the Pride of such men not only by opposing their Opinions but also teaching the Mystery of God incarnate therein humbling himself to take upon him an humane State living a mean and obscure Life and at last undergoing the shame of the Cross a Mystery which at once intirely ruined both the carnal and spiritual Pride of the World The Simplicity of the Christian Religion its want of all those external pompous Arguments of Subtilty and mistaken Learning which recommended other Systems together with its opposition to the received false Opinions of men had induced some Christians at Corinth who lived among the learned Philosophers of the Heathens and Doctors of the Jewish Law to doubt of the Truth of it others to refine it into a System of mysterious and subtil Niceties and so hindred many from becoming Christians The Apostle therefore in this Chapter argueth against all these Men and in the 17th Verse opposeth to these new Refiners of Christianity his own Example who had preached the Gospel among them without any affected shew of Eloquence with a Simplicity becoming the Majesty and agreeable to the intention of the Lawgiver Not with Wisdom of words least the Cross of Christ should be made of none effect and fail of its Design as it would most certainly do if proposed according to the Fancies of those men who turned it into a System of difficult and elaborate Contemplation For hereby it would exceed the reach and capacity of the greater part of Mankind whereas it was indifferently intended for the benefit of all And it would want that powerful Confirmation of the truth of it that being proposed in a plain and familiar way by mean and unlearned Persons It notwithstanding surmounted the pompous Learning of the Schools and Synagogue and gained a more universal Reception in the world That therefore as God had chose to contrive the Redemption of Mankind in a way very different
from their Conceptions so he had chose to reveal the Mystery of it in a method contrary to that which they used in the Propagation of their several Sects which occafroned the preaching of the Cross to be accounted foolishness Verse 18. Although if Men would have laid aside their unjust Prejudices they had sufficient reason to be convinced of the Reasonableness of this proceeding The truth of this the Apostle manifesteth not only by appealing to the Conscience of those who were perswaded of it and the secret Effects of that perswasion in the minds of Men but unto us which are saved it is the power of God but also by other external Arguments which by any considering Man cannot be rejected As that it was foretold by the antient Prophets particularly by Isaiah in XXIX Chapter Verse 4. For it is there written I will destroy the wisdom of the Wise and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent that it is abundantly justified by its admirable Success in the world to have been the best and most wise manner of proceeding being entertained by great numbers of Persons and going on apace in procuring its designed end the Reformation and instruction of Mankind whereas the Philosophy of the Gentiles and the elaborate Interpretations of the Mosaick Law made by the great Doctors of it gained no considerable Progress in the world and being confined to some small number of Sectaries and Disciples only manifested by their Unsuccessfulness that they were never designed by the infallible Wisdom of God for the universal Discipline or Religion of Mankind Where therefore is the Wise as the Apostle triumphantly upbraids them Ver. 20. Wheâ—…e is the scribe where is the disputer of this world who after all their laborious Searches missed of the Truth and could never propagate their Doctrines with Success Hath not God made foolish the Wisdom of this world Baffling all the elaborate Schemes of these opinionated Men and confounding their glorious Pretences of Wisdom in appointing a quite different method for procuring the Happiness of Mankind from what they had imagined and proposing it Successfully by means in their Esteem Contemptible by Persons illiterate and devoid of all Philosophy and curious Learning And that we may not conceive this way of procedure to be either unjust or unreasonable the Apostle proceeds in the 21. Verse to declare the Reason and Occasion of it For after that in the Wisdom of God the world by Wisdom knew not God it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe Since these Persons who had conceived so great an Opinion of their own Wisdom had apparently failed of discovering by the light of Reason the true God and the natural Duties of Religion owing to him however very easie and possible to them no wonder that the Mysteries of a revealed Religion should appear Foolishness to them and that God should as it were by way of Punishment confound their Arrogance and mortifie their Self-conceit by instructing and saving Mankind by a way directly contrary to their Suppositions namely by Preaching that is by supernatural Revelation not by their own proper Industry and Wit and by the foolishness of preaching and that considered in the matter of the Revelations which having nothing of extraordinary Abstraction or difficult Contemplation in them were in their Judgment accounted foolish or in the manner of proposing these Revelations which being different from their fond Conceptions appeared foolish and absurd to them the Jews requiring a sign that is the constant performance of glorious and pompous Miracles which might secure to them the Fruition and increase of that temporal Felicity which they vainly hoped to receive from the Messias And the Greeks seeking after Wisdom despising all Doctrines which were not recommended with the specious shew of Philosophical Subtilty and Mysterious Niceties or not proposed by Persons in the Opinion of the world Learned or Eloquent After all these preliminary Arguments the Apostle having thereby cleared the way and removed all Objections lays down this Conclusion in the words of my Text But we preach Christ crucified unto the Jews a stumbling block and unto the Gentiles foolishness That is we justly and we boldly do it neither valuing the Derision of the world nor distrusting the Justice of our Cause So then the words thus opened naturally and easily offer to us these two Considerations of which I shall in order Discourse I. The Reasonableness or just cause of believing and professing the Christian Faith notwithstanding its being a stumbling block to the Jews and to the Gentiles foolishness II. Our Obligation to Preach and openly profess this Faith without being offended with the Contradiction and Opposition of the Jews and Gentiles or being led away with the same Prejudices I. That we have reasonable and just Cause to believe and adhere to the Christian Faith or the Mystery of Christ Crucified notwithstanding the derision of the Gentiles and scandal of the Jews For that by the phrase of Christ Crucified is not so much meant the particular Mystery of the Death and Passion of our Saviour as the whole System of Faith revealed by Christ is manifest from the Context although the Crucifixion of our Lord as it is the grand Mystery of our Faith so was it of all others to the Jews most scandalous and to the Gentiles most ridiculous But the design of the Apostle being to vindicate the Christian Religion in general not this Mystery in particular I shall close with his Design and consider only the more general Prejudices and Objections upon account of which the Faith became a scandal to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles that so by manifesting the unreasonableness and inconclusiveness of them I may manifest the Justice and Reasonableness of our Belief notwithstanding their Opposition These Prejudices and Objections we before observed from the Apostles Discourse preceding my Text and they concern either 1. The matter of those Revelations which are the Object of the Christian Faith Or 2. The manner of revealing them and proposing them to the World In Relation to the first the Spirituality of the Christian Religion was a mighty Objection to the Jews which they could not easily overcome they being inured to gross and corporeal Conceptions of Divine Matters trained up in carnal Ceremonies and Ordinances expecting no other than temporal Rewards and vainly expecting the glorious appearance of a temporal Messias Then as to the manner of the Revelation nothing could be more surprizing to the Jews than to see it performed in an humble and gentle manner not with the voice of Thunder and Lightnings as the Law of Old at Mount Sina not by force of Arms or victorious Success of the Messias not by stupendious Miracles performed as often as the petulancy of a Stiff-necked People should require it nor yet by the Learning and Cunning of their great Doctors and Rabbies but by a few mean inconfiderable disarmed and unlearned Persons
Promises of Reward annexed to Repentance because these ought so much the more to affect us by how much the more they concern us The Reward proposed to the Jews was no more than the temporary Possession of a fruitful Countrey to which perhaps some Men would not value their Title that they might gratifie their Lusts. Yet it is recorded as a heinous Aggravation of the impiety of the Jews That they thought scorn of that pleasant land and gave no credence unto his words In the Christian Religion more noble Rewards are proposed Rewards with which nothing in this World can stand in Competition and yet all bestowed upon this single Condition of Repentance which if it be neglected may we not reasonably conclude that the Reward it self is despised How then shall God oblige Men to his Service if this be ineffectual He propofeth eternal Felicity they preferr temporal Satisfaction a Satisfaction so far beneath true Happiness that it carrieth no Contentment along with it and in a short time becometh nauseous He grants this upon easie Conditions and yet Men think it not worth the while to bestow that easie Labour he bestows it upon sinful Men who are thereby his professed Enemies and yet they think not themselves obliged by the Gift of it They harden their Hearts against these powerful Impressions and suffer not themselves to be mollified by the most endearing kindness Men may perhaps imagine that it will never be too late to undertake the Acquisition of this Reward that it may be securely neglected till the last Scene of Life But surely it cannot but be highly unreasonable even to endanger the hopes of so great a Purchase for the sake of any worldly Pleasure which so infinitely transcends all the Satisfaction which this Life can afford Not to say that it is impossible to preserve any true Satisfaction in this Life without a probable assurance of the Fruition of the next Men may for a while stifle the natural Desires and Notions of their Souls and cloud the Dictates of Conscience Yet the Soul cannot but sometimes free it self from this affected Stupidity and being by the Light of Reason assured of its own immortal Nature look forward into the Ages to come and be folicitous of its future State It will then perceive that that future state is an Abyss of time in comparison to this present Life and remember the distinction of Bliss and Misery appointed by God to the departed Souls of good or wicked Men. What a dismal Prospect will it then be to a Soul employed in these Meditations to consider that the distinction of these States is most certain but the Application of either of them to themselves most uncertain unless the hopes of Happiness be secured by a timely Repentance Not to say that that Soul cannot appear before God without extream Astonishment which God by all his glorious Promises could not induce to Repentance and Obedience to his Laws when the Devil could tempt it by petty Lusts and foolish Pleasures to its own destruction If then the Propositions made by God to penitent Christians be infinitely more perswasive than all the Temptations to Sin and Disobedience surely to stand out against them and refuse to embrace them till we can Sin no more is a most foolish and deplorable Obduration Further the impenitent Sinner manifests the hardness of his Heart by contemning the dreadful Punishments denounced by God against him And in this beyond other Arguments consists that execrable Obduration which is charged upon Impenitence And upon this account Pharaoh is chiefly said to have hardned his Heart that when he had felt the most terrible Punishments inflicted upon himself and his Nation and saw others yet more grievous ready to be executed upon him after so many Plagues and Threats employed for his Correction he continued yet obstinate and as it were defied God Or that I may come nearer to my Text The most wicked Aggravation of the Obduration of the Jews in the wilderness was their contempt of the Divine Punishments To them the highest Punishment was a temporal Death And although by natural Reason they might conclude that a Judgment and more impartial Execution attended Sinners in another Life yet that was not revealed to them to whom as no more than temporal Rewards were promised so no other than temporal Punishments were threatned God had given frequent and terrible Instances of his Justice in this kind by destroying the most notorious Delinquents among them by Sword Pestilence Earthquake Fire from Heaven and many other ways yet far from being terrified by these and discouraged from displeasing God when their foolish Desires were not gratified in opposition to the Divine Pleasure they feared not openly to declare their Contempt of his punishments and themselves rather willing to undergo them than submit to his Commands As when they cryed out Numb XIV 2. Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt or would God we had died in this wilderness and more remarkably Numb XX. 3. Would God that we had died when our brethren That is Core Dathan and Abiram died before the Lord. A sober Man might perhaps imagine it impossible to parallel so enormous an Obstinacy did not the daily Experience of Christians confute his Supposition who dare withstand the Threats of eternal Fire and harden their Hearts against any impression from them It may perhaps not be unaccountable that resolute and desperate Persons should despise a temporal Death when not affrighted with any succeeding Judgment but to slight a Punishment extream in its sharpness and perpetual in its Duration is such a hardness of Heart as although acccompanied with no other Crimes might justly deserve to undergo the utmost Extremity of the Punishment For the most wise contrivance of God provided the Torments of Hell not only for the Punishment of the wicked after Death but also for the Correction of all in this Life that by the Fears of them they might be affrighted from the Commission of Sin and even enforced to Repentance if a most stupid Obduration of mind did not intervene To all these Aggravations of impenitence I should be unwilling to add that none of the least or less usual Causes of it is a perfect unbelief of the Revelations Promises or Threats of God all Professors of Christianity being unwilling that the sincerity of their Belief should be called in question did not the Apostle ascribe it to this cause who citing the words of my Text Hebr. III. and exaggerating the Obstinacy of the Jews ascribes it chiefly to their unbelief in the last Verse having before warned all Christians least there be in any of them an evil Heart of unbelief And surely not without reason For it cannot well be conceived that the Belief of these things should consist with a willful continuance in Impenitence that any Man should really believe that there are Rewards and Punishments prepared for Men in another Life both infinite and inexpressible
our constant Duty to watch over them to prevent them and if possible at last wholly to remove them Otherwise if the hopes of obtaining Pardon for them betrays us into a neglect or perhaps a voluntary Admission of them they lose their Plea of Infirmity and become Sins of Presumption Sins of a much deeper Contagion To cure therefore and prevent even thofe Sins which alone can take place in a true and real Christian we must endeavour by an assiduous diligence and circumspect Carriage to form Habits of Vertue and Piety For this end the Observation of Lent was wisely instituted by the Church wherein by a more than ordinary vigilance over our Actions by frequent Meditation Prayer and other pious Exercises and if it were necessary by Bodily Austerities and Mortifications also we might seek Remedies to the diseases of our Soul and begin to form Habits of Holiness and Sobriety which should not expire with the Solemnity of the holy Season but be continued and improved through the whole year and even the whole Course of our Lives If then we be indeed convinced that Repentance is a necessary Duty that it ought to be undertaken upon the first Conviction and that to deferr it after That is an unpardonable Obduration let us from this moment resolve to do it let us confirm our Resolutions by a more than ordinary vigilance and attention in this Holy Season and so by making these pious Resolutions become Habits continue the happy Effects of them to our Lives end So shall we not fail of that infinite Reward which is annexed to true Repentance and the consequent of it unfeigned Obedience To which Reward God of his infinite Mercy bring us all for the Sake and Merits of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The Tenth SERMON PREACH'D March 16th 1689 90. At LAMBETH CHAPEL Luke XIII 5. Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish IT is an ancient and most prudent Constitution of the Church to set a part solemn Times for the exercise of Repentance and a more serious application to the duties of Religion founded upon the example of our Lord himself who though he committed no Sins whereof to repent yet before he entred upon his Office prepared himself for the execution by it by an extraordinary abstinence for forty days together and continued by the Church in all Ages although the remissness and degeneracy of latter times hath almost defeated the use of it The design of it was that Men who are always willing to put off their Repentance from day to day and contriving reasons of their delay being loth to fix the time of an unwelcom Duty might be obliged by the Constitution of the Church by the example of their fellow Christians and by the admonition of their Guides to enter upon it at this time to apply themselves in a particular manner to search their Consciences enquire into the condition of their Souls discover their Diseases and seek the remedies of them by confessing their sins to God acknowledging the guilt of them begging pardon of God who is offended by them removing them from the Soul introducing contrary habits of Piety and Religion taming the unruly pafsions of the Body by a serious attention to the Commands of God to his precepts to his Promises and his Threats to the deformity and unhappy Consequences of Sin by inuring the mind to Acts of Religion and Devotion by a constant Meditation both of the Duty prescribed and the Arguments enforcing it and if all this be not sufficient to check and overrule the violent motions of the Body to depress them by abstinence and Fasting in a word to subdue the Body to the Government of the Soul and the Soul to the Obedience of God We are indeed always obliged to watch over our Actions to repent of our Sins as soon as we discover them and to strive against them yet it will be necessary to fix some certain times wherein a more severe examination is to be made the state of the Soul to be exactly searched the imperfections and corruptions of it to be discovered a stricter Course of Piety to be undergone whereby it may make deep impressions in the Mind and as it were take Root in it This time the Church hath most wifely determined and not left her Sons to their own direction who might possibly deferr their Repentance till either it were prevented by Death or Sin had taken such deep root that it could not be removed And such was the excellent discipline of the Church herein in former Ages so Solemn and Devout their Observation of Lent I mean not in abstaining from this or that sort of Meat for that even when rightly used is but â—…ubservient to the great Design but in the Forming an Exercise of a strict Repentance of a more careful Obedience and more constant Devotion that it could not fail to have great effect upon the Minds of all sorts of Christians They were not content to exercise in secret all theâ—…e Acts of Mortification for so I call whatsoever tends to destroy Sin in Man which is the true notion of mortification but did it in publick in the Face of the whole Church and in many external Acts of Life Those who had committed more hainous sins voluntarily underwent a publick Penance fequestred themselves from the â—…ank of the Faithful placed themselves in a particular part of the Church appointed for the Penitents there publickly confessed their sins implored the mercy of God and desired the Intercession of the whole Church for them Not only those but all other Christians who were not conscious to themselves of any flagrant Crimes still applyed themselves during all that holy Season to an extraordinary exercise of all the Acts of Religion denied themselves many of the ordinary and Innocent pleasures of Life that they might without interruption attend to the forming of a true Repentance to the mortifying of their Lusts and to the improving of their good Resolutions into habits of Piety I mean not that they macerated themselves with Hair-cloth or Whippings or unreasonable Fastings those were the Follies of latter and more Ignorant Ages but they afflicted their Souls with the continual thoughts of having offended God by their Sins they endeavoured to Form a hatred of sin by taking the shame of it upon themselves in a publick confession they daily implored the Mercy of God with all the ardent expressions and real signs of Repentance which Pious Souls could invent They fitted themselves for the receiving of that Mercy by raising and fixing steady Notions and Resolutions of their Duty to God and their obligation to all the Precepts of Religion by generous Acts of Charity by a vigilant strugling with all sinful Motions and even rooting them out by maceration if no other means could prevail that so they might present themselves pure and unspotted to their Lord at the ensuing solemnity of Easter when whosoever did not Communicate and had not prepared himself
not the part of a Rational Being considers not what distinguisheth him from a Beast the existence of his Soul after death and the capacity of receiving Rewards or Punishments from his Supreme Judge after the dissolution of the Body Beasts are capable of a good or bad Condition while Life is continued to them and if a Man imagins that nothing attends him beyond this Life he doth therein compare or level him-self with the Beasts that perish Yet perhaps it may be imagined that this mistake was pardonable in the Jews to whom our Saviour spoke whose Religion taught them not to expect any Rewards or Punishments beyond the extent of this Life whose Arguments of Obedience were an Earthly Canaan a fruitful Land a long Life and abundance of Temporal Blessings their punishments no other than the loss of these by Captivity Oppression Calamities or sudden Death Their Fathers received no other promises their Law taught no other and therefore it was but natural for them to believe that signal Calamities were the Indications of the Divine displeasure arising from Sin and freedom from Misfortunes Arguments of the continuance of the Divine Favour to particular Persons Thus the Apostles seeing a blind Man presently asked their Lord whether for his own sin or for the sin of his Parents that Calamity was inflicted on him And in this Chapter the Jews not partaking with the Galileans in their miserable end immediately concluded that neither had they partaken with them in the guilt which they supposed drew that end upon them Yet notwithstanding all this the Error of the Jews was not excusable Their Religion did not warrant them to make any such conclusions which proposed indeed no other than Temporal Rewards or Punishents to them yet did not Teach that no other were to be expected by them The cause of their mistake was that what God had only promised to the whole Nation of the Jews together they applyed to all the Members of it in particular He engaged by his promise to bestow upon that Nation a Fruitful Land to continue the possession of it to them while his Worship and Obedience to his Laws was publickly and generally maintained to make them fruitful to multiply them and bless them by giving them Fruitful Seasons secure Peace or at least Victory over the disturbers of their Peace He threatned to deprive them of their Possessions to afflict thém with the Sword and Pestilence to deliver them up to the Will of their Enemies and deny the kind influences of Heaven to them if they sorsook his Worship or generally violated his Laws In this general Prosperity and Calamity of the whole Nation the promised Rewards or threatned Punishments of every particular Man were included and no otherwise God no where promiseth to them that he would by an extraordinary interposition preserve the Possessions the Peace and Plenty of a few good Men when the prevailing and almost Universal Apostacy of the Nation did require a general Punishment In that case those few good Men were to share in the common Calamity and retain no advantage beyond the others besides the peace of their own Conscience and the hopes of receiving from God hereafter a Reward of their Obedience Neither did he threaten that he would extraordinarily punish the wickedness of a few Men when the generality of the Nation should continue in Obedience to him They shared in the common Benefits of their Nation and for the punishment of their particular Sins were reserved to a future Judgment We find indeed in the History of the Old Testament that God did oft-times rescue good Men from a general Calamity as Caleb and Josh'ua in the Wilderness Jeremy in the Captivity of Babylon and many others On the other side he sometimes inflicted exemplary punishments upon private Sinners while the whole Body of the Nation preserved intire their Obedience and therefore still enjoyed their Peace as in the case of Achan and Uzziah But these are to be esteemed so many extraordinary Acts of Providence exercised for the vindication of his Justice and Government not in vertue of the Covenant which he made with that People which we find chiefly in the Book of Deuteronomy and therein can discover no other than general threats or promises made not to particular Persons but to the whole Nation taken in Society That the Covenant of God included no more is manisest from the practice of following Times For far be it from us to imagine that God violated his Covenant yet we find that in after Ages the Good were involved in the general Calamities of the Nation and the Bad often escaped unpunished in this World An undeniable proof that the contrary practice was never any part of the Covenant made by God with that People Thus Mordecai and Daniel were carried away in the Captivity thus Jeroboam and Ahab reigned securely The Psalmist complains that the Wicked enjoyed all the satisfactions of Life and came in no misfortunes like other Men while the Good were Persecuted Afflicted and Killed all Day long Whereas if God had promised external Happiness to every good Man of that Church in particular or denounced visible Punishments upon the hainous Sins of every single Sinner it is no more possible any such Conduct should have followed than that God should lye It was therefore no other than a falsé perswasion of the Jews that such sensible Rewards or Punishments were entailed upon every one of them in particular That terrible Calamities were certain Arguments of every hainous Crimes though unknown to Men and that eminent prosperity was a certain mark of the Favour of God was the Opinion of the Jews whom our Saviour here opposeth and before them of the Friends of Job whose Arguments do all proceed upon this Principle and which occasioned all those querulous expostulations with God in the Book of Psalms concerning the prosperity of the Wicked and the afflictions of the Pious Rather the Jews ought to have concluded that since God distinguished not always the Good and Bad by visible Marks of his Favour or Disfavour since he suffered his Prophets and Devout Worshippers to be Stoned to be Sawn asunder to Wander about in misery and suffer all those afflictions which the Author to the Hebrews Elegantly describeth since he permitted the most notorious Sinners to go on still in their wickedness to live in Plenty and dye in Peace themselves had grosly mistaken the Intent of his Promise and the Nature of his Covenant and that a visible Impunity in this Life was no more an Argument of their own Innocence than it was of those prosperous Sinners at whose continued Happiness they murmured and whose impiety at the same time they could not deny A right Notion concerning the manner of the Divine Conduct and distribution of Justice under the Jewish dispensation will contribute much to remove a like prejudice from our Minds with what they entertained For if under the Jewish Law which confined it self wholly
fitted to receive the favour of God Other Sins there are which may consist with such a pious Habit of Soul as is required namely Sins of Ignorance and Infirmity The first sort arise from an Errour of the understanding when a Man offends against his Duty because he knows it not The second Spring from the disorder of the sensual Appetite as when a Man through a sudden fear or Passion is hurried on rashly to commit a Sin before he well considers what he doth before he hath time to reflect upon his Duty or to consider with himself what he should or should not do But a willful Sin or Sin of Presumption ariseth from a corruption of Will and proceeds upon deliberate Choice and advised Resolution I will illustrate all these by Examples St. Paul persecuted the Church of God not knowing it to be his Church although he was all the while ready to receive and obey the Truth as soon as it should be manifested to him This was a Sin of Ignorance for which he saith of himself that he received Mercy because he did it in unbelief If this Ignorance should be affected because Men will not inquire after Truth or will not attend to it the mis-carriages founded upon it cease to be Sins of Ignorance and become willful Sins Of sins of Infirmity St. Peter is a great Example who through a sudden fear of Death or Punishment was betrayed to deny his Master Although he had before fully resolved against it and as soon as the violence of his Fear was over and his Mind returned to the former Freedom as soon as he thought of it He wept bitterly Of willful Sins that of David against Uriah is an eminent Instance where the Sin of Adultery and Murder was after long Deliberation and a Contrivance of many days together at last put in Execution by him And for this it was that Nathan told him he had deserved to die this created to him that lasting and vehement Sorrow which we often find described in the Book of Psalms and this stuck as an indelible blot to his Memory when lesser offences were passed by And therefore it is said of them 1 King XV. 5. That David did that which was right in the sight of the Lord and turned not aside from any thing which he commanded him all the days of his life save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite We read of many Sins of Infirmity which he committed but these were easily pardoned that stuck close to him and could not be wiped off but by a long and strict Repentance and patient enduring of terrible Calamities inflicted on him Other Sins alter not the Constitution of the Soul of Man and if a good Man should suddenly die even in the Commission of one of them we might still hope for Mercy but for a willful Sin no Mercy is to be expected till the habit of the Mind be intirely changed by Repentance This Distinction of Sins may instruct you in the necessary manner of forming your Repentance For Sins of Ignorance and Infirmity a general Repentance may suffice a hearty Sorrow for having offended God in Thought Word or Deed an humble Supplication of Pardon a sincere Resolution of endeavouring to avoid any such for the future But for every willful Sin a particular Repentance is required a sad reflection of the Mind upon it an earnest and continued Supplication for pardon of it a diligent strugling with the corrupt Inclinations of the Will a long Preparation of it by Prayer by Resolution by Meditation by all necessary Acts of Mortification which may intirely change the Bent and remove the Corruptions of it and subdue it to the Obedience of God Then and not till then may the willful Sinner presume of Pardon believe himself reconciled to God and to have escaped the Sentence of Destruction pronounced in the Text which God of his infinite Mercy Grant that by a true and perfect Repentance we may all avoid for the Sake c. The Twelfth SERMON PREACH'D April 21st 1689. At LAMBETH CHAPEL Acts. X. 34 35. Then Peter opened his Mouth and said Of a Truth I perceive that God is no respecter of Persons But in every Nation he that feaâ—…eth him and worketh Righteousness is accepted with him THE Christian Religion being the ultimate ought also to be the most perfect Revelation of the Will of God And that it is so cannot better be discovered than from its most perfect agreement with the Divine Attributes and subservience to them The end of all Religion is first the Honour and Service of God and then the good of Men. The first is promoted by noble conceptions of God and his infinite perfections the latter is inhanced by the extent of it The primary attribute of God in relation to us is his Goverment of the World and the excellency of that consists in the Justice of it This Justice appears most conspicuously in the Universal diffusion of his Benefits in dispensing his Rewards as well as punishments impartially to all Orders and Ranks of Men in excluding none from his Favour but for Reasons common to them with all Mankind This all Men conceive to be a perfection in God and as such it must be an eternal Attribute of the Divine Nature although the influences and effects of it may be more manifest in some Ages and under some dispensations than in others As his Mercy his Goodness and his Power were from all Ages equal and uniform but more openly declared to the World by external Actions relating to us His Justice was always impartial and universal yet clouded in a great measure under the Mosaick Law while the Divine Mercies were in appearance appropriated to a small division of Mankind not clouded indeed directly and by necessary consequence but by reason of the fond Opinion of Men who from the peculiar Favours of God would take occasion to fancy him partial in their behalf and exclude the rest of the World from the participation of the same Happiness This the Jews in a most gross manner did who imagined themselves to be the only Members of Mankind for whom God had any care or respect fancied themselves dear to God not upon the common account of Piety and Obedience but for peculiar Reasons as their descent from Abraham their separation from the rest of the World by Circumcision and other Typical Rites Upon this account they Treated all other Persons as Prophane and Unclean allowed no share of the Divine Favour to them and believed them to be utterly unregarded by God in his Government of the World A prejudice which the Jews had so far imbibed that the Apostles retained it many years even after the descent of the Holy Ghost and would not receive the Gentiles to their Company or Conversation much less to the hopes and fellowship of the same blessed Calling until God by an extraordinary Vision and by the example of Cornelius taught St. Peter not to call any Man
â—…elicity God may bestow or deny to any one for the fake of another without any â—…minution of his Justice and Impartiality which requireth no more than that â—…f â—…e punisheth Man for neglecting to oâ—…tain his Supream Happiness he should â—…ut it into his power to obtain it This 〈◊〉 be done either with or without â—…nporal Benefits or Calamities which â—…ly contribute nothing to that suâ—… end and are purely accidental to 〈◊〉 God may dispose them in this World either for the vindication of his Providence the encouragement or trial of the Faithful the punishment or correction of the Wicked But while they impose not on any a necessity of doing Well or Ill nor render any Man truly Happy or Miserable they may not be always Rewards or Punishments and so do not necessarily attend the Obedience or Disobedience of Men. Upon these unalterable principles the Divine Justice doth proceed and although we cannot deny any of these without denying God at the same time to be Just and Impartial yet Men have still continued to frame different Notions to themselves and to Act upon them It is so pleasing a delusion to fancy themselves dear to God in an extraordinary manner and for unaccountable Reasons that no wonder many have been always tempted to entertain such a charming Errour which flatters their Ambition gratifies their Self-love sets them above the ordinary Rank of Men and even exempts them from the obligation of pursuing the Ordinary means of Salvation Righteousness and Holiness Purity and Obedience This seduced the Jews to grow secure and confident and to found their Title to the Favour of God not in the diligent performance of his Commands but in their Relation to their Father Abraham for whose sake they imagined themselves so dear to God that he would certainly conferr Happiness upon them without any further consideration This prejudice hath also corrupted great numbers of Christians especially in this last Age of the Church who place their hopes of Salvation not upon the general grounds of Piety and Obedience but upon secret Decrees of Election and Predestination which may set them above the Rank of their Fellow-Servants and exempt them from the Obligation which is common to all Sober Christians of a diligent pursuit of Salvation by its proper means observation of the Divine Precepts and performance of the Conditions prescribed by God Hence also the fond pretensions of Men have proceeded so far as to perswade themselves that all of such an Order shall be saved or that whosoever are of this or that Confraternity or Congregation shall not be Damned and then the natural Consequence will be to change the ordinary Methods of Salvation and either to reject all care of it or place that care upon trifling and fond Observations Thus Men have forsaken the Well of Life and hewed Cisterns to themselves Cisterns which will hold no water not considering that if things were so all Religion would be vain and foolish but above all that God would be in a most gross manner unjust and a partial respecter of Persons against the express Declaration of the Apostle in my Text. I need not now confute the Erroneous pretensions of these deluded Christians but it may not be unseasonable to clear the Divine Impartiality in relation to the Jews For it may be imagined that can not consist with his Conduct to them Could God interpose by Miracles so often in their behalf feed them with Bread from Heaven and destroy whole Nations to make room for them and not be partial Could he choose them out of all the Families of the Earth declare himself to be in a particular manner their God and them to be his People who far from excelling other Men in Holiness and Obedience continued always to be a stifnecked and stubborn Generation a Generation that set not their hearts aright Could he profess all this Favour to be shewed to them as he often doth not for their own Righteousness but for personal respects for the sake of their Father Abraham and their Descent from him Could God perform all these apparent signs of partiality and yet not be partial Yes surely Justice and Impartiality are eternal Attributes in God which began not with the Revelation of the Christian Religion but are Essential Properties in him and inseparable from his Nature which however St. Peter discovered not till now as being blinded with preconceived Prejudices taken up in his Education among the Jews a little reflection will clearly shew it unto us First then This Favour of God to the Jews for the sake of their Father Abraham consisted not in bestowing on them Eternal Happiness but only Temporal Blessings which we before shewed to be consistent with the strictest Rules of Justice and even those he dispensed to them not merely for the sake of their Fore-father but in conjunction with their own Obedience whom he required to distinguish themselves from the rest of Mankind by a careful observation of their Duty and extraordinary Precepts not incumbent upon other Men nor enjoyned by the Law of Nature When these Conditions were neglected or violated he inflicted punishments upon them no less extraordinary than his Benefits and severely revenged in them what he oversaw in others He admitteth them indeed to the hopes of Eternal Felicity but that was no part of their particular Covenant nor in consequence of any private Promise The hopes of this were common to them with all Mankind and not to be obtained but upon Conditions common to all In that no respect is had to their descent from Abraham they are therein Judged by such Universal Rules as admit no exceptions And then even those Temporal Blessings were not appropriated to them but equally laid open to all the Members of Mankind who if they obliged themselves to the observation of the Mosaick Law and confirmed their engagement by the Seal of Circumcision were no less Heirs of the Promises made unto Abraham than were his immediate Descendents Lastly These Temporal Benefits were at first conferred as a Reward to extraordinary and wonderful Acts of Obedience and Piety in Abraham and entailed with Conditions of the same Obedience to his Posterity as well to encourage him to continue his Obedience by the prospect of the Happiness of his whole Posterity depending on it as to excite them to the same practice by the visible example of his Reward Thus the Divine Justice in relation to the Jews alone is unexceptionable but then what shall we say if we consider boâ—…h Jews and Christians as partakers of the Promises of Eternal Salvation and compare them with the Gentiles who are Strangers to the Covenant of Grace and never knew either the promises or conditions of Salvation Is God the God of the Jews and the Christians only Is he not God of the Gentiles also Are not his Attributes always unalterable and the influences of them equally derived down to all his Creatures We believe that the Jews under the