the Mind and Divine Life of the Soul like the Life Health or Beauty of the Body must be made up of the regular 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Disposition and Symmetry of all the parts whereas one Fatal Wound or Mortal Disease may kill us as well as many and one great and Notorious Deformity will Disfigure a whole Face Vertue is like a straight line which must be every where even and regular but a crooked and irregular one may be so in a hundred parts Vice is infinite and knows no Bounds but Wanders and Roves through all the vast unlimited extent of Evil but Vertue confines us and keeps us within the narrow compass of what is Good and Righteous and made our Duty by a Divine Law These are from Religion its Terms Conditions and Constitutions there are two other Difficulties arising from our selves 7. A great Reason why Religion and Vertue are so strait and narrow a way is because our Natural Appetites and Inclinations which are necessary to our present state are so many and so hard to be all governed and kept within the bounds of Vertue and Religion these result from our Animal Nature and are a true part of us as Compounded of Flesh and Blood and are so much Gods Workmanship and Creation that we neither can nor ought to destroy them he allows us to gratify 'em within due bounds and did not put those strong Appetites in our Natures meerly to vex and torture and disatisfie us but we must Govern them with great care and not lay loose the Reins upon their Necks nor let them grow too Masterless and unruly at any time for Reason and Religion they are I confess the great Tryal and Instance of Human Vertue and they may become a snare to us and the great inlets into sin without due care and watchfullness and managery we must be therefore always upon our Guard lest this Flesh and Sense which we carry about us and are so fond of become a Traytor to us and Sin do not some way or other surprize us and enter at some of those weak places of Humane Nature we must stop and check the strongest Inclination when it would lead us into Sin and so far as it is Vitious Immoderate and Excessive destroy it tho' with never so much Pains and Violence we must pluck out a right Eye and cut off a right hand and destroy every Sinfull Inclination be it never so Natural to us and Crucifie the Flesh with the Affections and Lusts so that we may keep them always within the bounds of Wisdom and Vertue and suffer no Sin to Reign in our Mortal Bodies that we should obey it in the Lusts thereof Romans 6.12 8. Lastly the Difficulties of Religion and Vertue arise mainly from the Prejudices and ill Customs and Habits of Vice which get possession of most Men before they well Understand Religion and the true good and necessity of it our first years are a life of Sense before we grow up to Reason and Understanding and then other things make the first Impression upon our Minds and fill them with weak Images and Fancies and Foolish thoughts and thus when our Passions are strong and our Reason is weak Vice generally gets the start of Religion and without a very Happy and Virtuous Education we contract a great many Ill Habits and Vitious Customs that increase and grow up with us and 't is very hard to break and alter those when we grow Wiser by Time and Experience and come afterwards to have a better Sense of Religion and better Apprehensions about it tho' we are then convinced of the Folly and Danger of our Sins yet we are become such Slaves to 'em by long use that it is hard to break their Chains and get loose from them and here lies the great Difficulty of Religion and this makes it to be a strait Gate and a narrow way especially at the first entrance into it when old Customs and Habits must be changed and altered former liberties retrench'd and denied old Companions must be forsaken and former Temptations must be overcome and Repentance which is the hardest part of Religion must be the first duty of it and must cure the old Prejudices and the long habits of Sin and in the Scripture phrase bring in a New Nature a New Soul and make us New Creatures and New Men this is a great Difficulty indeed but it is brought upon our selves by our own fault and we cannot blame Religion for it any more than we can the Physician or the Physick that is to cure us of a Disease that we have let run so long upon us that 't is hard now to perform the cure and it cannot be done without going thro' a long and tedious course and using a strict Regimen and very great abstinence from what may be hurtfull to us The great Argument to perswade us to all this is that we must die if we do not if notwithstanding all these Difficulties and hard Things in Religion we will not comply with it we must be Miserable for ever we must lose all that life and happiness those Glorious rewards it promises to us in another World and we must suffer all the Dreadfull Amazing punishments it there threatens There is no reserve against this but either by perverting Religion or by denying it either corrupting its Principles and by false and mistaken Notions giving our selves hopes of happiness without living up to the Terms and Conditions of it or else utterly denying it as a Cheat and a Falshood the latter is more impudent and daring and what but few hardned wretches can come up to the other is more common and as Pernicious and Destructive More Souls are lost by false Principles and the horrid corrupting of the Doctrines of Religion than by downright Atheism and Insidelity by trusting to a late and Death-bed Repentance and thinking a little matter will do the business hereafter as well as a very strict and a very good life by relying upon the Mercies of God and the Merits of Christ for Salvation without Obedience to the Gospel and performing such things upon which alone those are promised by thinking to be saved or justified by Faith alone without Works or a good Life and making Faith to lie in a presumptuous Confidence of Gods Favour or having an Interest in Christ without regard to the plain Terms and Conditions of Christianity or by the other superstitious Doctrines of having sins pardoned by an Absolution or an Indulgence and the like such Doctrines as these which turn the Grace of God into Wantonness which make Religion an incouragement to Looseness and Licentiousness and give Men hopes to escape Misery tho' they live in their Sins and come not up to the strict and severe Terms in Religion but to go to Heaven by some other Imaginary and Unaccountable way and to be saved upon some account or other by Grace or Christ without entering this strait Gate and
speaks to his Disciples who already believ'd in him and St. Paul writes to those who were already Christians or Believers they then tell them not only of Faith which is the first Christian Vertue and the root of all the rest but of Obedience and all good works of living as becometh the Gospel and of adorning their profession with all manner of Vertues which they make as necessary to Salvation as Faith it self Thus if ye keep my Commandments saith Christ ye shall abide in my love John 15.10 and Ye are my Friends if ye do whatsoever I command you v. 14. and Not every one that saith unto me Lord Lord or that meerly believeth in me shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven but he that does the will of my Father which is in Heaven Mat. 7.21 So said St. Paul to the Corinthians Circumcision is nothing nor Vncircumcision but the keeping the Commandments of God 1 Cor. 7.19 and to the Galatians in Christ Jesus i. e. in the Christian Religion neither Circumcision availeth any thing nor Vncircumcision but a new Creature chap. 6. v. 15. that is a new temper of mind and habit of Life for by the Gospel the Wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of Men who hold the truth in unrighteousness Romans 1.19 and when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from Heaven with his mighty Angels he will take Vengeance on all them that obey not his Gospel who shall be punished with everlasting Destruction from the presence of the Lord 2. Thess 1.8 9. and those Christians who do any such works of the Flesh as are mentioned Gal. 5.19 21. shall not inherit the Kingdom of God but for the sake of those the Wrath of God cometh on the Children of disobedience Colos 3.6 tho' they do believe in Christ and have made profession of his Religion It is therefore as requisite for such to live according to all the Laws of the Gospel as it was at first to believe in Christ that they may be saved What a Christian therefore who already believes in Christ and owns his Religion to be true and what we who all do this should further do to be saved and to make sure of Heaven I shall in one general Advice direct to and that is this That we never allow our selves to live in any one known sin that we never willfully violate any Law of the Gospel nor suffer our selves in the Custom of any thing that we know is unlawfull he that does that is in a dangerous and desperate condition and is uncapable of being saved by the Terms of the Gospel for tho' that allows pardon for every sin we repent of yet it allows none to any one of those we do not repent of but live in and therefore as we value our Salvation let no darling Sin nor beloved Lust nor any the most profitable or pleasing Wickedness whatsoever be indulged or continued in by us it 's as much as our Souls are worth if we do for every willfull habit of sin does most certainly exclude and shut us out of the Kingdom of Heaven without timely Repentance and Amendment if we have therefore been ever guilty of any such and so have forfeited Heaven and our own Souls and made our selves liable to Eternal Wrath and Damnation let us endeavour with all speed to recover our selves out of that sad state and to snatch our Souls out of the Jaws of Hell and from the very brink of perdition and let us bless God that he affords us both time and means and power to do this and when we have Emerged out of that wretched Condition let us not throw our selves into it again by any new Sins but let us ever after avoid that rock where we were like to have split and let us spend all the remainder of our lives in perfecting our Repentance and in bringing forth fruits worthy of it and in a constant and unbroken and uninterrupted obedience to all the Laws of Christianity so shall we approve our selves to God and our own Consciences so shall we have good grounds of Peace and Comfort while we live and so shall we be certainly saved when we come to die which God of his infinite mercy grant unto us The Seventh Sermon JOB XXVIII 28. And unto Man he said Behold the fear of the Lord that is Wisdom and to depart from evil is Vnderstanding THE Fear of the Lord is a phrase often used in Scripture to express all Religion by and 't is indeed the true Principle and Foundation of it for whoever has an awfull sense and belief of a Being above him and a just dread of his Almighty Power upon his Mind will take care to avoid all those things that he knows are displeasing to him and to perform all those duties which shall procure his favour and be acceptable to him for all our Happiness depends upon his Pleasure and he can make us miserable when we anger and provoke him Every one tho' he may have lost the sense of love either of God or Religion and the desire of Spiritual and Heavenly Happiness and may be sunk into such a state as to have no great relish of those things yet may have the sense of fear strong upon him and may be greatly affected with what he thinks may destroy and ruin and make him miserable and therefore fear is the strongest and most powerfull passion and the most deeply rooted in humane nature for it arises from a Natural love of our selves and a care and desire of our own self-preservation and every Man has this in him tho' he has no higher or nobler principles of Vertue and Religion and therefore 't is the Character of the most deplorably wretched and wicked Creatures that they have no fear of God before their Eyes Ps 36.1 Sometimes the love of God sometimes the fear of God sometimes the knowledge of God the belief of God is made to express the whole of Religion and the sum of our duty because where one of these is there are all the rest in some degree or other and they cannot be separated or divided for he that believes a God and knows him to be as he is a Being of infinite Power and of infinite Goodness must fear him and love him too his power makes him an object of fear and keeps us from offending him and his Goodness makes him an object of love and so both those do the same thing and as different causes yet concur to the same effect and all Vertue and Religion is produced by them and owes its being and original to them for without respect to God there can be no such thing as Vertue and Religion and where there is a true fear of him there they will always be as necessarily conjoin'd as effects are to their causes and therefore by an usual Metonymy the one is put for the other And this Vertue and Religion which is thus founded in the
Monitors of it in our own Bodies then what a melancholy thing must it be for a Man to think of going down into the place of darkness and forgetfulness to become a cold heavy lump a stiff dead Corps to have all his brisk and vigorous Spirits put out and extinguish'd and an end put to all his Pleasures and Enjoyments if he have not some Hopes of an after Immortality and of a better Life after this No Man could enjoy himself or be easie in his thoughts if he thinks at all who knows he must die in a little time if he has not the fears of Death took off and moderated by the Hopes and Expectations of Religion He that considers says Plutarch 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the nature of his Soul and that Death Translates us into a better State or at least one that is not at all evil has made an excellent provision both for the Happiness of life and against the fear of death and he make this one of the great means of procuring this Tranquility of Mind thus to overcome the fears of Death for otherwise that will embitter all our present Enjoyments and spoil all our Mirth and Jollity and draw a dark Cloud over all our Cheerfullness and Gaity to have the thoughts of Death steal in now and then upon us as they unavoidably will if we have nothing to make them less terrible and frightfull than they will be to a wicked Man he must be sadly scared and amazed at any such thing and cannot think much less look on Death without sad Misgivings and Horrors of Mind and therefore can never have any setled Peace and Tranquility in himself but it will be all broke by one thought of Mortality by the hearing a Knell or seeing a Coffin for let him seem to put on never so much false Courage and to laugh at these things in the midst of his Company and his Vices yet he trembles at them when he is alone and a cold and clammy sweat feizes upon him whenever he thinks of dying in earnest nothing can prevent this Despondency and dying of Mind and arm even against the natural fear of bodily Death which will often come upon us and scatter all our other Comfortable thoughts but Religion which takes out the sting of Death which lessens and abates its terror and fortifies us against it by the Christian Hopes of being free from all Guilt and Punishment hereafter and of having a better Life and being in another World when we are to part with this here Death must be very terrible to the thoughts either of an Atheist by Depriving him of all Being and of all Enjoyment or of a wicked Christian by consigning him to Judgment and Punishment and Translating him to Eternal Death and Misery only Religion can take off its Terror and sweeten the bitter Cup with the Supports and Comforts the Aids and Assistances the Hopes and Expectations it affords to a good Man in his last Agonies and Extremities and at all other Times when he thinks of dying Lastly Religion infuses inward and unspeakable Comforts into our Minds from its present Privileges and future Hopes from God and his Spirit and their secret Communications Operations and Influences upon our Souls which are the highest improvement and the highest degrees of Peace and Tranquility of Mind Nature and Philosophy knew nothing of this but Revelation and especially the Christian give us the Knowledge and Assurance of it and many a Pious and good Christian has felt the Effects and Comforts of it in his Soul when he has had a Cheerfull and well grounded Sense that his sins are pardoned in and through Christ upon his true Repentance and that he is justified by the Grace of the Gospel upon the Terms and Conditions of it and that he has a Title to Heaven by God's promise upon his own sincerity and has reason to Hope that he shall partake of all the great and glorious things that belong to the Christian Salvation these will raise and inspire him as it did the Apostles and first Christians with a more than ordinary Comfort Peace and Cheerfullness of Soul and make him very Happy tho' in the greatest Sufferings and outward Afflictions 'T was this which made the Christians Rejoyce always in the Lord Rejoyce in Tribulations Sing and be Cheerfull in Prisons and be more than Conquerors over all their Troubles when they had these inward Comforts to support and raise and invigorate their Minds when tho' their Enemies were implacable and irreconcileable yet God they knew was reconciled to them and tho' the World hated thom yet he loved them tho' they had Tribulation from without yet they had Peace in themselves and Peace in Christ as he promised them Mat. 16.32 and tho' all things were very dark and dismal about them yet they had a clear prospect of Heaven and like St. Stephen could see that opened thro a shower of Stones and Christ sitting at the right hand of God One such view of Christ and Heaven tho' but by the Eye of Faith would give a Man a Pleasure and Courage of Mind above not only the Pains and Torments he endured but all other Pleasures he ever felt in his Life A great but ill Man could say That the Pleasures and Comforts of Religion even when they are Mistaken and Enthusiastick are greater than all the Pleasures of Sense and Carnality What are they then when they are true and well grounded how do they not only give Peace to a Mans Mind but even Rapture not only Calm and Quiet it but Transport it not only give it Rest and Tranquility but Extasie and Joy This is called in Scripture the Joy of the Holy Ghost Rom. 14.17 and the Peace of God which passeth all Vnderstanding Philip. 4.7 for we do not know how God who is a Spirit can Communicate inward Joy and Peace to our Spirits and convey a secret Sense of his Favour and Relish of his Kindness and make us taste and see how Gracious he is as the Psalmist speaks Psa 34.8 and lift up the light of his Countenance upon us There is more in all this not only in the extraordinary supports promised in particular Cases and Circumstances but in the ordinary Hopes and Comforts of Religion to a good Man than all the Pleasures of this World all the Charms and Enjoyments of Flesh and Blood can ever amount to and as we plainly feel Peace and Ease of Mind to be a greater good than any bodily Pleasure and know this from Sense and Experience as well as Religion so when this is heighten'd by those unspeakable Joys and that inconceiveable Peace which is derived from God and Religion and his Holy Spirit these give such an improvement to this Peace and Tranquility of Mind as nothing can equal but the Enjoyment of Heaven and which the wife Heathens and Philosophers knew nothing of in their Discourses on this Subject Religion and Christianity therefore out-doe
future Happiness is very consistent with our present and true Godliness may inherit the promises of this life as well as of another as the Scriptures assure us â— Tim. 4.8 It is not necessary to part with our present Happiness in order to the purchasing the Reversion of that in Heaven tho' if it were it would be great gain and advantage to us there is but one instance in Religion wherein this is to be done and that is in suffering persecution for Christ's sake and the Gospels in quitting all our Worldly Interests for the sake of Conscience and Religion and rather endure any evils here than to renounce Christ or any true part of Christianity this indeed is bearing the Cross and is the only hard part of Religion for which there shall be an abundant recompense hereafter and the hopes and expectations of that with the present Comfort and Satisfaction of Mind takes off from the burden and uneasiness of it and tho' without hopes of another life Christians might be of all Men most miserable in this when they fall under those Circumstances as the Apostle says 1 Cor. 15.19 yet with those hopes they are far from being so but with exception to that particular case which does not often happen Religion at the same time secures to us the greatest Happiness of this life as well as another and without losing any one Comfort or true Enjoyment of this World we may make sure of the next We may therefore put that question to our selves which is something like to that which Naaman's Servants put to him 2 Kings 5.13 Had God bid us do some great thing that we might be saved would we not have done it how much rather then when he bids us do nothing else in order to this but what is very reasonable and what tends to our Good here as well as our Salvation hereafter We must be therefore very bad judges of our own interest and very little understand that and so be very regardless of our selves as well as very ungratefull to the great God if we do not comply with whatever he has Wisely and Graciously appointed us in order to our Salvation What that is I shall now briefly consider and so give the true resolution to this question What shall I do to be saved And it is not very hard to resolve it God has not made it any difficult or abstruse thing to understand but the meanest Christian may easily comprehend it it 's not a Secret reserved only for the Wife and Learned but the poorest Soul if it be but sincere and honest may come to the true knowledge of it and there is hardly any without it tho' it may lie less clear and distinct in their thoughts Natural light teaches all men that such and such Actions are displeasing to God and that those who commit them shall be punished hereafter There is no Man who is guilty of any great wickedness but he finds some inward apprehensions of this in his own Mind and his own Conscience directs him in great measure what he must do to be faved but Revelation has made this so plain and evident that a Man must use great Art to deceive himself if he ever mistake it to believe the Gospel and live according to it is so plain a path-way to Heaven that there is no Christian but must see it and if he thinks of any other he cannot but know that he cheats himself and willfully puts a trick upon his own Soul St. Paul here told tho Jailor That he must believe on the Lord Jesu Christ and he should be saved v. 31. but this belief which is made the condition and means of Salvation must include all that which is consequent and ought to follow from such a belief all that Obedience to the Laws of Christ and that Repentance for past Sins and Newness and Holiness of life which is made as plain and indispensible a condition of Salvation as Faith it self and therefore St. Peter in answer to the same question to those who were greatly concern'd and prick'd in heart and said Men and Brethren what shall we do Acts. 2.37 answered Repent and be Baptized every one of you in the name of Christ for the remission of sins Believing and embracing Christianity was the only way for a Jew or a Heathen to be saved and to have remission of Sins and when St. Peter bids them Repent and St. Paul bids them Believe they mean the same thing Faith is the first great Principle and Foundation of Repentance and all Christian Vertues and therefore as including and containing all those it is made the condition of our being saved by a Metonymy whereby the cause comprehends also the effect Faith in Scripture is not taken only for an assent to another's Words or a trust in them but it denotes a principle that worketh by love and is manifest by good works without which the Scripture expresly says it is dead and then it must be a strange mistake to make a bare faith the condition of our Justification and Salvation It is to be observed and I think it may be a little usefull to clear that matter that when Faith and Believing is made the only condition of being saved and nothing else is mention'd this is always spoken to those who were not yet Christians or Believers as when Christ says John 3.15 Whosoever believeth on the Son of Man shall not perish but have everlasting Life This is spoken to Nicodemus who then exprest his dis-belief of Christ's words and was not brought fully to believe in him tho' he was disposed for it So John 6.40 when Christ saith This is the will of him that sent me that every one which seeth the Son and believeth on him may have everlasting Life This is spoken to the Jews who murmured at Christ and were far from believing in him and so Christ bid the Apostles preach this to the unbelieving World Whosoever believeth and is baptized shall be saved Mark 16.16 i.e. Believing and Professing Christianity puts them into a salvable state and if they live according to this faith they shall certainly be saved as if we should say to a person who desires to know how he may be a Scholar Go to School or to the University this would put him into a certain way to Learning but he must not only be entred and enrolled there but he must study and read and do such things as belong to a Scholar When St. Peter bid the Jews and St. Paul the Jailor to believe and they should be saved they were such as yet had not embrac'd Christianity and Faith was the only means to bring them to that and so put them into a salvable state which ordinarily they cou'd not be in without it but then they must do all those other things which belong to Christians after they are brought to believe or else they wou'd lose and forfeit this their good state and therefore when Christ
DISCOURSES Upon several Practical Subjects By the late Reverend WILLIAM PAYNE D. D. WITH A PREFACE Giving some Account of his Life Writings and Death LONDON Printed by J. O. for R. Wilkin at the Kings-Head in St. Paul's Church-Yard MDCXCVIII THE PREFACE THE Limits of a Preface will not allow the writing the Life of the Author of the following Discourses neither have I materials by me for such a work My first acquaintance with him was sometime after his settlement in London I was the more inclined to a Correspondence with him because he had his Education in Cambridge under and was much esteemed by Dr. H. P. a person never to be nam'd by me without paying a very particular honour and respect to his memory Antoninus begins his admirable Instructions of life with an account of his several Benefactors from whom he had learnt this and that piece of usefull and practical knowledge instead of many I am obliged to instance in this excellent Man alone to whom I am more indebted than to all the Teachers I ever had and I take this opportunity to give publick Thanks to God for the happy opportunities I enjoy'd of his wise Instructions and Counsels from him I learnt rightly to understand Religion the Idea's of which had been so confounded by false Teachings and the notion of it set forth in so frightfull a manner that there is reason to conclude that it was the superstition of the former which has laid the Foundation of the too visible Scepticism and Infidelity of the present Age. From him I learnt that the Laws of Religion were intrinsically good and infinitely for the benesit and advantage of reasonable Creatures which is the only true notion of it which can secure the Faith and keep up the practice of it among Men who must and ever will be sway'd by what they are once thoroughly perswaded is their chief Interest and highest Benefit He was a Man of clear thoughts which he always freely communicated and of so universal a Benevolence and took such delight in doing good that he obtain'd the name of Pamphilus among his Friends My acquaintance was never large and I have staid a little of the longest in the World to outlive most of those few Friends I once had but so far as my small experience has reacht I cannot but say I never knew a better Man a wiser Christian or a truer Friend The Reader if he be good natur'd will pardon me for stepping a little out of my way to pay a debt of Gratitude To return to our Author of whom I have undertaken to give some account from the time of my first acquaintance with him He had not been long in Town before he was taken notice of by some of the best Judges of Learning who soon discerned his Abilities and how fit he was for those undertakings in which the Service of the Church afterwards required him to engage I mean in those perillous times when both our Religion and our Civil Rights were so visibly endanger'd that many despair'd and gave them up for lost The Members of the Church of England stood in this breach which they maintain'd with that Courage that the Enemy gave back and a space was gain'd for our deliverance The behaviour of the Divines of this Church will be remember'd by Posterity and a Collection of their writings at a time when others were so silent and complying will remain a standing Armory against Popery whenever it shall renew its attempts upon us Then it was that he show'd both his Courage and his Skill in defending our established Religion The former in contemning those numerous threatning Letters some sent him by the Penny-Post and others thrown over his Garden-Wall and one night a Divine of about his bulk and a Friend of his coming late thorough Harrow-Alley into Goodman's fields which was his usual walk home two Men with drawn Swords came up to him and staring him in the face said the one to the other 't is not he and so went off which had no other effect upon him but to give him a caution not to stay out in the Evenings His abilities I need not say any thing of they are sufficiently seen in those Learned Treatises published by him on this occasion The Adoration of the Host the Sacrifice of the Mass and that extraordinary discourse in answer to the Bishop of Meaux's Book of Communion in one kind not to mention his lesser pieces of the sixth Note of the Church and his Examination of the Texts of Scripture produced by the Papists for the Celibacy of Priests whoever carefully reads over those Treatises will find the subject exhausted and that he needs not to search any further into those Arguments and by those concessions so Ingeniously made to his Adversaries which show'd that he sought Truth only and not Victory the possibility of a reply seems to me to be prevented and the Learned French Prelate who has show'd himself to have dexterity enough for most undertakings would yet I believe be loth to be put upon the uneasie task of defending his Book against that answer to it When the fear of Popery was over it was the general expectation that our little disputes and controversies would be thrown up and to prevent any future danger we should be at perfect Peace and Vnion among our selves The behaviour of the Clergy in circumstances when they expected nothing but ruin to themselves and their Families it was hop'd had removed all the Jealousies of our Dissenting Brethren and disposed them to such a temper that there seemed nothing wanting to gain the wisest and best part of them to our Communion but to let them be assured that we would receive them kindly nothing could so effectually secure us from the like dangers from Popery for the future nor keep up the practice of Religion and good Morals as putting a final end to the Schism and uniting us in one Communion Some were of Opinion that this was not possible to be done but by a Comprehension they said that an opportunity for this had been slipt within their memories and that now they had another very fair one which it would be unpardonable to let pass besides they saw that without it a general Toleration would pass in Parliament the ill consequences of which were easily foreseen Others apprehended that no Condescention would unite us that our Dissenting Brethren would not be satisfyed unless they could carry all before them and that were they takn into our Communion they would make no other use of the Privilege than to over-turn our Constitution as soon as they had an opportunity for it and therefore they thought it was better we should continue as we were till we could have assurance that we should not be ridiculed for making alterations unrequested and without any likelihood of answering the end thereby propos'd This was wholly a matter of Prudence and who was in the right could not presently be determined
our natural faculties or infinite goodness has not been pleas'd to reveal to us proposes it as a Compendious method to all usefull knowledge not to trouble our selves or others with what God has reveal'd because we do not understand all that belongs to its nature or manner of existence and yet after all this concession of the imperfection of our knowledge and that there are some things we cannot comprehend affirms that God and Eternity are no Mysteries for want of an Adaequate and compleat Idea of them and that Infinity and Eternity are as little Mysterious as that two and three make five these are certainly at present great difficulties but he has promis'd to solve them all only he refers this to a second Book but he is so cautious as not to limit himself to any time for the publishing it that depending upon health and leisure which he very wisely says are things in no Mans power to command at his pleasure and yet are much more so than what he has so very vainly made a shew of undertaking The Socinians may take it ill to be ranked with those who speak and write against Religion but 't is too apparent that they joyn with them in their attempts upon revealed Religion and with them carry those on with such Arguments as will at last bear very hard upon Natural which is not wholly without its Mysteries and God himself the belief of whose existence is the foundation of all Religion is as incomprehensible as any the objects of the Christian Faith These men were once strenuous asserters of the Authority of the Scriptures but being press'd hard with the unreasonableness of that Principle not to believe any thing tho' confest to be plainly and expressy revealed unless they saw how the thing could be they have bethought themselves rather to lessen the Authority of those Books than to insist longer on such a sense of 'em as no other Man and 't is hard to think they themselves can judge to be their meaning Is that great principle of the Reformation That the Scriptures are the sole rule of Faith come to this They deserve to be sent to the Island of Anticyra if they have any thoughts of utterly running down revealed Religion but they may prepare the way for that Church which by so many Arts and Stratagems has attempted to overthrow the Reformation and 't is an excess of Charity not to believe that some of 'em are employed to that purpose and designedly write to serve that cause Socinus himself did vigorously maintain the worship of Christ how agreeably with his principles may be seen in his dispute with F. D. but his Followers have given it up and take it ill that any should charge them with honouring the Son as they honour the Father will any man deny this to be a proper season to contend earnestly for the Faith once deliver'd and can a Christian not call to mind on this occasion those words of our Blessed Saviour whosoever shall confess me before men him will I confess before my Father which is in Heaven These considerations awakened the zeal of this excellent Man I am speaking of to stand betwixt the living and the dead and to try to stop the plague that was begun to this purpose he first drew up a discourse of Mysteries in Religion which not publishing at that time he afterwards contracted into two of those discourses that were in the Press at his death After this he applyed himself to examine the Socinian Controversie as it relates to the Doctrines of the ever Blessed and Adorable Trinity about which he spent much time and many thoughts he was fully perswaded that herein lay Christianity as distinct from natural Religion and that upon the Socinian principles it was impossible to clear the Scriptures from being purposely wrote to lead mankind into the grossest Errors and plain Idolatry and that take Christianity at the best it could amount to no more than an Institution of Morals that Mysterious Method of the Redemption of mankind by the Incarnation Obedience and Passion of the Son of God and all the hopes of sinners from a Covenant of Grace being hereby entirely given up These thoughts were enough to startle any one who had a concern for the honour or being of Christianity He first set himself carefully to examine the Sacred Records which speak so plainly of the Son and the Holy Ghost as distinct Persons from the Father and so expresly assert their Divinity that it was just matter of wonder to him how this could be overlook'd or mistaken we are indeed amused with Eastern phrases and proper Idioms of speech long ago out of use which if understood we are told would make that sence easie to us which some are pleas'd to put upon the Sacred Oracles but if the memory of these be perfectly lost how comes it to be known that there were ever any such in use and yet unless they know what they were how can they pronounce them serviceable to their cause but if any remain why are they not produc'd or some other Book instanc'd in wherein any footsteps of 'em remain The notion which the ancient Jews had of the Messias is That he was God who should become incarnate Of this there are sufficient intimations in the Prophets and it was the received sence of the ancient Jewish Church the Conception of him as a meer Man was an error which sprung from that gross expectation they had of him as a Prince and a mighty Conqueror who should advance the Jewish Nation above all the Kingdoms of the Earth And this ancient notion of the Messias is doubtless a better rule to follow in interpreting what is said of him in the writings of the new Testament than to confound these by putting a sence upon them contrary to what the words import and referring us to phrases that no body knows any thing of to make it out But whatever those Eastern Idioms of speech were the Primitive Church could not be ignorant of them and their Faith and Worship must be allow'd to be a full evidence of the sense in which they understood these Sacred Writings 't is true there were some whose Memory can be no credit to any Party who in the very age of the Apostles impugned our Saviour's Divinity but against these St. John wrote his Gospel beginning it with as full and express assertions of our Saviour's Divinity as can be imagined and in his Epistles he calls these Hereticks the Anti-Christ that were already come Afterwards arose Praxeas Noetus and after both about the middle of the third age Sabellius these prest with the Authority of Scripture which so expresly declares the Son and the Holy Ghost to be God asserted only one Person trinominem which was owning a Trinity only of names against these the Church declared the Christian Faith as it was written and as it had received and kept it that the Father is not the Son nor
receiv'd by his constant Preaching both in helping them rightly to understand and engaging them in a serious practice of Religion and by his Writings they are more generally known The visiting a whole Parish from House to House I cannot say to be a necessary part of the Pastoral care I rather lay it in faithfully and constantly discharging the publick Offices It would be a sad thing to be accountable for the neglect of what in great Parishes is confess'd to be impracticable this therefore can only be an occasional duty in which a Minister must be left to his own prudence who is best able to judge what good is likely to be done in this way and when I have heard our Friend say more than once that if he could see the necessity of it or those wonderfull ends it would serve he would throw up all his own concerns and apply himself wholly to it however he supply'd the want of that in the best manner he could and by ways he thought much more usefull to such as were dispos'd to mind the concerns of their Souls For the use of his Parishioners he first compos'd and afterwards by Printing it offer'd to their closer consideration his admirable Practical Discourse of Repentance wherein he has rectify'd many mistakes and loose notions about this Doctrine such as have had a very fatal influence upon the lives of many who all the while looked upon themselves in a safe state they are chiefly owing as I apprehend to their not distinguishing betwixt baptismal Repentance and the Repentance for willful sins many and long continued in after Men have covenanted with God for a constant course of obedience Two days before he died he thank'd God that he had lived to publish that Discourse Not said he That it is Wrote with that care and exactness it might have been for it was compos'd in parts and at several distant times but I think it may be serviceable which is the only end I proposed in it to teach the right knowledge and practice of that duty I am sensible that some have taken exceptions at what he affirmed of the invalidity of a Death-bed Repentance but 't is no more than is said by many others and as far as I see must be own'd by all who throughly examine that subject The Question is not what God may do or sometimes does by an extraordinary act of Grace but what he has covenanted for or what are the plain and indispensible conditions of Salvation required by the Gospel A Malefactor upon whom the Law has pronounc'd death may be pardoned by special favour and if a sinner who never repents till he comes to die be sav'd this is showing him more mercy than is covenanted for in the Gospel-Law of Life and in what instances God will abate of those Terms no Man can tell and 't is the highest folly and madness to trust to it without a particular Revelation That God will make allowance for Mens Circumstances in this World and judge their several cases with the greatest equity and proportion their rewards and punishments accordingly come within the Terms of covenanted Grace and Mercy but the Question is whethe a Minister of the Gospel who visits an habitually wicked Man in his last sickness can assure him he shall be saved on such a Repentance if it comes up to the Terms of the Gospel he may give him this assurance and then this Doctrine may be Preach'd yea and ought to be for all the Gospel-condititions of life and Salvation are to be published to all Such Preaching would be very comfortable to those who would be glad to save their Souls and yet are very loth to forego their sins and are not like to be perswaded to this as long as they have any hopes of securing them by repenting when they come to die These seem to be very plain consequences of allowing the sufficiency of a death-bed Repentance by the terms of the Gospel For his Parishioners he likewise drew up a Manual of Devotion to be used daily in their families and put a great number of them into the hands of the Collecter of his Tythes to be distributed among them he apprehended the decay of Piety and coruption of manners to be in great measure owing to the neglect of family Religion which be therefore took the opportunity after this to recommend in a Sermon preach'd before the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen whose example was like to give the best Encouragement to it which they so well approv'd of as to desire him to publish it His thoughts were that the true cause of the general neglect of Family Devotion is the wrong notion Men have entertained of Forms of Prayer which is a thing so past all dispute that it must lie upon the Consciences of those who have denied 'em if now that the effects of that error are found so evidently ruinous to Piety and good Morals they do not in some publick way retract it and advise to the use of Forms without which the use of constant Family Prayer can never be retriev'd He was so intent upon doing good among his people that he was often proposing to himself and asking his Friends to think of something wherein he might be most usefull to them he endeavour'd to free the minds of other Men as he has done his own from false and loose principles in Religion the effects of which will in a short time appear in the Life and Practice His Religion did not lie in shows and meer forms of Godliness which we need not an Apostles Testimony to assure us may be separated from the power of it I take him to have been in that state described by St. John when he says he that is born of God doth not commit sin for his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God He would not I dare say for all the World have committed a known willfull and deliberate sin and I am sure would have been horribly afraid of himself if he had fallen into one such sin I could here give in evidence for what I say if it were necessary a signal instance of a vigorous sence of Religion and a resolved and confirm'd vertue such an one as is not very common I herein say no more of him than what in Justice is due and what by long experience and many proofs I know to be true of him he did not indeed discover those signs of Grace which some Men expect to find in the face he had not that affected gravity and down-look and dull humour which a Pharisee would perhaps have sought for as a visible mark of it He was always cheerfull and gay himself and would suffer none to be otherwise where-ever he came This I confess if any thing was an excess in him because it must be own'd that he would be sometimes merry at other Mens cost who could not bear up against the sharpness of his wit which I
by it it being the only ground why God was more gracious to them than the rest of the World and that he still allows some Persons and Countries much greater means of Grace than others tho' there are none who want what is sufficient for them 2. That God as absolute Lord Proprietor and Creator of the World has so vast a Right over his Creatures as to put 'em into what condition he pleases that is not worse than the having no Being for that is but giving 'em a lesser good But to put them into such a state as it were desirable rather to be annihilated than to be so miserable to do this without some fault of theirs that shall deserve this as a punishment is against the plainest Axioms and Rules of Right and Justice and is to take more from a Creature than he gives it and so make himself as it were a debtor to it There cannot be any such thing as unlimited Right no not in God over his Creatures for all Right supposes some Rules to bound and limit it the transgressing of which may be supposed and therefore may be wrong and injury and here is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Predestinarians but to dispose of Kingdoms in this World and tranfer 'em from the Canaanites to the Jews to give others an express command to make the Jewels of the Egyptians their own to command the life of a Child at the hand of its Parents as a Sacrifice to him that gave it and the like this is a right belongs to the absolute Lord Proprietor and Creator of the whole World and as such he may give Jacob a more fruitfull Land and greater Kingdom and show his love to him rather than to Esau that way 3. That punishment and severity upon sinners which is necessary for publick good and for the Ends of Government is not to be called Unrighteous be it never so great and I can never believe that God does ever inflict more no not in the Eternal torments of Hell nor has any other end in that or any other punishment and severity than to give a sufficient sanction to his Laws than wisely to Govern and keep the world in order and procure with the best Advantage the Welfare and Happiness of all the Beings that are in it and whatsoever punishments are necessary to that end are upon that account Just and Righteous since that is the only true measure by which a Just proportion can be assigned between the fault and the punishment I know not what they mean who talk of any sort of Vindictive Justice in God different from this as if there were any revengefull Passion in him to be satisfied by the miseries of his Creatures or he took any other pleasure in the punishment of them but meerly the pleasure of doing Justice ' ris this is a further assurance to us of Gods Righteousness that a Being so great and powerfull and self sufficient can have no such passions as spring up in weak and impotent minds nor be tempted to do any injustice because that proceeds always from weakness and imbecillity But I must enlarge no further on these particulars I hope what has been said already will give some satisfaction to our minds that there is no Unrighteousness in the great God But he that is infinitely Great is therefore infinitely Just and Righteous because he can have no Mean and Unrighteous designs either for himself or against others so that Justice and Righteousness is necessarily joined with Almighty Power and it must be a thought full of dread and horror that can conceive it possible to have them parted and separated but in Truth where there is any one infinite Perfection there must be all and therefore we have the same Evidence from reason of Gods being Righteous as of his being Almighty or of his being at all and they who from some mistaken places of Scripture and Revelation endeavour to Represent God under another Notion and Character destroy that true natural Notion and Conception of a God upon which all Revelation is built and which must be previous and antecedent to it and make Religion and the thoughts of a God which is the most cheerfull and comfortable thing in the World to be an hideously black and melancholy Superstition and as this may reasonably be the cause of a great many's becoming Atheists who had rather believe there was no such Being as a God than that he was such an Unrighteous being as some would represent him so it would tempt any Man to wish to be so if he could and if it were in his Power But what shall we say then is there Vnrighteousness with God God forbid The Second Sermon MATTH XI 29. last Part. And ye shall find rest unto your Souls OUR Blessed Saviour in the foregoing verses was exhorting all Persons to embrace his Religion who were under any load and Burthen Trouble and uneasiness of Mind and he promises to give them ease and refreshment Come unto me allye that Labour and are heavy Laden and I will give you rest This is a great Undertaking and Proposal and very desirable and inviting to Mankind The Diseases and Disorders and Uneasinesses of the Mind are a great many more than those of the Body and it is a more Divine thing and more owing to the Gods as Tully speaks to find out proper Physick and Remedies to Cure them than the other Our Saviour proposes his Religion and his Example as the means to do this Take my Yoke upon you and learn of me There were a great many Sects of Philosophers of old in which the wisest Men always aimed at this Tranquility and ease of Mind and proposed their Doctrine as the way to attain it and gave admirable Rules of living up to such heights of Vertue as should make Men casie and happy in all conditions even the worst that could befall them and a great many of them it must be confessed were as great Examples as Teachers of these such as Pythagoras Socrates Plato Zeno and others who were the natural Prophets and Apostles of the Heathen World and taught 'em the best Wisdom and Vertue and the best Directions how to attain the truest and perfectest happiness they knew humane Nature to be capable of Revelation and especially the Religion of Christ has done the same with much greater advantage hath shown us a right Notion of Happiness and all that conduces to it and has both enlarged the view and prospect of it in another World and improved the Method of acquiring and obtaining it and confirmed that good old Notion that it lies only in Vertue that nothing else can make a Man happy and this alone can do it Our Saviour as well as most of the Philosophers were to all appearance none of the happiest men in the World they were poor and mean and despised and contemned and had very little or none of those things in which the World places
Happiness Riches and Honours and Pleasures which we so fondly admire and esteem and pursue after as the happiest things that are to be enjoyed and think those are not in earnest or only envious and ill-natur'd because they cannot attain them who speak otherwise of them Our Saviour proposes no Worldly advantages to his followers but rather the quite contrary and yet he Preaches happiness to them even at present and joyns the Beatitudes and the Christian Vertues together in his Sermon as inseparable Companions and tho' he left his Apostles in a World full of afflictions and seeming miseries yet he tells them he leaves his Peace with them John 14.27 Such a Peace as was proper for him to give and them to receive not as the World giveth but such an one as should have this effect upon them as that their hearts should not be troubled nor be afraid that no evils should disturb or take away this Peace of mind that in him they might have Peace tho' in the World they had tribulation John 16.33 and that they might always be of good cheer because he had overcome the World 'T is a great thing which he here offers to Mankind be they never so weary and oppress'd with cares and troubles labour under never so many seeming evils and afflictions here have never such great loads and oppressions upon their Minds and Spirits that make them uneasie to themselves and very miserable within that if they come to his Religion and take his Yoke upon them follow the Rules and precepts of his Doctrine and become of such a temper and spirit as he was that they shall certainly meet with ease and comfort relief and refreshment And ye shall sind rest to your Souls This Rest and Tranquility of Mind is the greatest Happiness in the World what Philosophy aimed and pursued after what we should endeavour to attain above every thing and what if we once perfectly reach nothing could ever make us the least miserable what alone is worth seeking after by all the Rules of Philosophy and Religion and without which nothing is worth aiming or seeking after and lastly what Christ and Christianity propose and can bring us to How and by what ways they do it or what is the best means to attain it shall be my chief business to shew as to what it is or wherein it consists that we know better by inward sensation or preception than by any description or Ideas of it we feel what ease is both in Mind and Body and we have a quick Sense of pain and uneasiness in both Indolency of Body and Tranquility of Mind are known by all to be great and desirable things The pleasures of our compounded nature and such as have a near Analogy and Resemblance with one another however we are forced to express and describe one by the other they are not meer Negatives such as suppose only no Sense of pain or evil which may belong to one that is asleep or stupified or to a Stock or a Stone but a positive Sense of what is agreeble to its Nature and the right use of its powers and faculties and an Enjoyment or Perception of a good or Pleasure suitable to them with an intire freedom at the same time from what is contrary and unagreeable painfull and troublesome and uneasie The very absence of what is painfull and uneasie brings a great pleasure because Nature then enjoys it self and has its own suitable perceptions without any disturbance What Diseases and Pains and Tortures are to the Body the same are disorders and troubles to the mind from tormenting passions and uneasie Thoughts from Fear and Guilt and Sorrow the apprehension of evil as present or coming upon it we want words to express what we know and conceive of this and Peace of mind is opposed to all things that weary and disease and disquiet and disturb it whatever they are whether the Evils and Troubles and Afflictions of this World or Passions and Disorders from within inordinate and irregular Desires and inward Commotions contrary to right Reason or the more dreadfull terrors and horrors of some greater evil than any in this World The mind it is certain has a quicker and more smart and cutting sense oâ— Pain by these than the Body from any Disease The Diseases and Maladies Disorders and Pains of the mind are greater and harder to be cured than those of the Body Wisdom and Philosophy Virtue and Religion are the proper Physick the true Cure and Remedy of them the only things that can bring the mind to that Good Sound and Healthfull State that it shall be well and rightly disposed in it due Frame and Crasis sitted to perform its proper Operations and enjoy its agreeable Pleasures the Pleasure and Enjoyment of its self and its own Wife and Vertuous and good Thoughts the pleasant Hopes and Expectations of Religion and all the superadded Enjoyments from thence that Revelation assures us of besides what are natural to it from the right Exercise of its own Powers such as Peace of Conscience upon Pardon of Sin inward Sense of God's Favour or his lifting up the light of his Countenance upon us Joy in the Holy Ghost and rejoycing in hope of the Glory that shall be revealed These are such Pleasures and Enjoyments of Mind as are beyond Nature but within Christianity which raise and exalt the Soul to something beyond that Tranquility and Calmness and Serenity of Mind which Philosophy so talkt of This improves it higher and raises a more noble structure of Happiness to our Souls but upon the same Foundation having the same Bottom to build upon the inward Ease and Peace and rest of the Mind which is the greatest thing we can desire or is worth our attaining To be very easy always within to have Peace and Quiet in our own Breasts to be disturbed with no uneasie Thoughts no tumultuous Passions no Fear Grief or Sorrow no carking Care or corroding Trouble to be rufled with no discomposure have no dark Clouds hanging over our Thoughts no Storms or Tempests raging within our Breasts this is Tranquility of Mind an inward Calm and Serenity of Thoughts contrary to that Temper of mind Which is like the troubled Sea which cannot rest to which the Scripture compares it Isa 57.20 neither apt to be much raised or too much depressed Nec attollens se unquam nec deprimens as Seneca speaks Sed semper aequali placido statu always even and in a placid state propitius sibi sua laetus aspiciens pleased with its self and its own thoughts and having nothing to sowre and disorder it self or infuse a poysonous bitterness into it This is that good state of Soul that rest which is a greater Happiness than all the World can afford which he that has will be Happy in whatever Circumstances or Condition he is and which we might certainly find by Religion and Christianity if we lived up to the Principles
Miseries and Evils that sin brought upon it 'T is the great and proper business of Religion to save the Soul or make it Happy which is done by making it Wise and Vertuous by raising it to its truest Perfection by improving it with Vertuous Habits and Dispositions and bringing it to a Godlike Heavenly Frame and Disposition and so cultivating and fitting it for the greatest Enjoyment of God and Eternal Happiness Religion puts us upon this one thing needfull and its whole Scope and Design is to Cure and Mend to Perfect and Improve the Soul to Convert and Sanctifie and Regenerate and Inlighten the Mind which are words that import the making it wise and good because in this lies our true and proper Happiness in the Moral state and Gracious temper and Disposition of the Mind and in such a Perfection and Enjoyment of it as is attained by Religion They who think Happiness lies in bodily Pleasures or outward Enjoyments do at the same time leave Religion and mistake Happiness Religion bids us moderate all Carnal and Worldly Enjoyments and mortifie all the Excesses and Immoderate desires and degrees of them and takes off as far as may be our natural Love and Affections to them and will by no means allow us to place our Happiness in them as being poor and empty short and transient things in respect of the more true and greater and inward Happiness of our own Minds Religion bids us mind that and those things in which it consists take care of our Souls and the means of improving them in Grace and Vertue and the freeing them from those Vices and ill Tempers and Habits that will Destroy and make them Miseiable A Mans Happiness or Misery even his Eternal one is founded in his own Mind and depends upon the good or bad Temper and Disposition of it for the Happiness of the Soul is like the Health of the Body something within it self and consists in the Vigour and right Operations of all its Faculties and its own inward Powers and as Plutarch observes a Gouty Foot is not cured by a rich Shoe nor the Head-ach took off by a Crown or Diadem nor an ill Mind made Happy by any thing without it while it is sick and uneasie within it will be Miserable tho' it hath every thing else for Happiness lies in our Minds and within our selves and Religion by teaching us this and being concerned wholly to better and improve our Minds and applying it self wholly to them is very helpfull to bring us to it for it thereby directs us where it lies and takes us off from all false scents and pursuits of it and from all vain opinions and imaginations about it To know the true seat of Happiness and where it lies in what it is placed and wherein it consists is one of the best means to attain it and necessary to prevent all mistakes and wandring Quests and unprofitable Searches after it which almost all Men are guilty of by Imagining it lies in other things and in things without 'em and not as it truly does in their own Minds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Plutarch says wherefore since the Fountain of this Rest and Tranquility of Mind is in our selves let us take care to keep clean and purifie that 2. Religion teaches us the truest and best Wisdom which is the Foundation of this Tranquility of Mind for 't is some Folly or other some weak Thought or Passion vain Fancy or Opinion and the want of a true Understanding and the rightly using our Reason or making true Judgment of things that is always the cause of the Disorder and Disturbance and Indisposition of Mind Says Tully The Fountain of all perturbations is a Defection from right Reason something which does excite turbid motions contrary and opposite to Reason and therefore in his Excellent Discourse on this Subject he calls Wisdom Sanitas animi insipientia autem est quasi insanitas quaedam quae est insania eademque dementia Wisdom is the Health and Sanity of Mind and Folly is its Unsoundness and what puts it out of order And he calls this good state we are speaking of sanitatem animorum positam in tranquillitate quadam constantiaque Now Religion teaches the Mind the truest Wisdom and cures it of the greatest Follies that are incident to it it directs it to have right Thoughts and to make Judgment of things proposes to it the best end and the surest means to attain it shows it what is its chief Happiness and its Principal Interest and puts a right value and estimate upon things according to their worth and desert and thereby frees the Mind from all wrong Opinions and Imaginations which are apt to make it Vitious as well as Disorderly for all Vice is founded upon false Reasonings and want of right Judging of the Nature of things whereby they imagine such Actions to be good and agreeable and that they shall be Happy in having such Pleasures and Enjoyments and gratifying such Lusts and Desires but they and themselves Mistaken and Deceived and therefore vext and troubled and repent of their own Folly one time or other and so plainly confess and accuse themselves of having done a weak and silly thing what their wiser thoughts cannot but condemn and what appears now to be contrary to right Reason would Men live up to that which should be the design of a Wise Man and what his Reason was given him for and what makes him live above Brutes and Animals of meer Sense and lower Passions we should never be uneasie or disturbed or unquiet in our Minds we should always approve of what we do and be satisfied from our selves as the Wise Man speaks we should live by Principles that would always support and bear us up and let nothing sink or deject us we should never do a Weak a Rash or a Foolish thing that we repented of and were sorry for afterwards we should act steadily and constantly by the certain Rules of Wisdom and Vertue and not be so uncertain and mutable in our Thoughts and Actings which causes great disquietude and unevenness and disorder in our Minds Were we but as wise as Religion would make us we should have very little to disturb us Religion is what teaches us the best Wisdom and if rightly understood preserves us from the greatest follies and weaknesses of humane nature and true Wisdom is the Foundation of Peace and Tranquility of Mind which is always lost and destroyed by some folly or other contrary to right Reason and true Wisdom 3. Religion teaches us not to place our Happiness in any outward things of this World for if we do we shall find Happiness is not in our power and that we cannot always reach or attain it for things here will often fall out cross and contrary to our desires and wishes and there are a thousand Accidents to hinder and disappoint us of our Worldly aims and we must be often very uneasie
and very miserable if our meer missing of them makes us so and if we could attain them and become masters of them we should yet find our selves disappointed and should not meet with that Happiness that we expected from them Had we all we could wish for or desire in this World yet we should not find that satisfaction and compleat Enjoyment we imagined before-hand in any condition for thus Experience convinces us and convinces all Mankind that there is still something wanting to make us Happy whatsoever we enjoy of this World and how much soever we have of it there is so much emptiness in all the things of it so much mixture and allay of evil with good it is so unagreeable to the larger capacities of our Souls and so short of filling and satisfying them that Solomon pronounced of all Worldly things that they were Vanity and Vexation of Spirit Eccles 1.14 and this is not a Philosophical rant or a discontented Reflection or an Hyperbolical saying but a strict and certain truth founded upon the best Experience and the wisest Observation of things for no Man whoever set his Heart upon the things of this World found that contentment and full satisfaction in them that he expected but met with more cares and troubles in the pursuing them than they were worth and pierced himself through with a great many sorrows and anxieties by being over desirous of them and if he gained them with all his labour and toil yet was as far from true Happiness as before for as the Prophet elegantly expresses it The Bed is shorter than that a Man can stretch himself on it and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it Isa 28.20 Worldly things are too narrow short and imperfect and are no way fitted to make us compleatly happy something will still be wanting that we call good and some evil will be present and mixed with what we enjoy that will allay and embitter it To seek for Happiness in this World is to seek for the living among the dead It is not here it is risen it is above it is only in Heaven and in God and Religion and to be enjoyed no where else Religion raises our Minds to a nobler and truer Happiness than any in this World and it helps us to as good degrees of it as we are capable of at present by taking off our hopes and desires and expectations of it as to Worldly things and curing us of too much concern and anxiety about them and making us indifferent and casie and contented whatever our present Circumstances are in this World Which is the 4. Fourth thing by which it procures and affords this ease and tranquility of Mind that we are speaking of Most of the uneasinesses of life are caused by a sollicitude about Worldly things proceeding from an immoderate love and an over great Opinion of them as if our Happiness lay in possessing a great abundance of them This is the root of that Covetousness and Ambition which make us inordinately desire Riches and Honours which two are very restless and uneasy Vices and fill our lives with infinite Trouble and Disquietude and make our Minds always Uneasie and Discontented He is a very Happy Man who is easie and satisfied in his present Circumstances and has learnt with St. Paul in whatsoever state he is therewith to be content Phil. 4.11 who hath made such true Judgment of Worldly things that he has no great Opinion of them nor does admire or think there is very much in them but having the Conveniences and Accommodations of life can eat of his own little morsel and drink out of his own Brook with as much Pleasure and Satisfaction as if he were to take from the greatest Heap or drink of the greatest River or be Entertained with all the Luxurious Plenty and Ambitious State of the Rich and Great ones who with all their Enjoyments have a Thousand times more trouble and uneasinesses than the other in a more moderate condition For 't is certain the way to Contentment and Happiness is rather to abate our desires than to fill 'em and the more we raise and heighten these the more uneasie we shall always be Vain Opinion and weak Imagination set a false value and estimate upon the outward differences amongst Men but I doubt not but they may be all equally Happy and that Previdence has distributed good and evil with a more equal and impartial hand than we imagine and that those of low condition enjoy as much Happiness in this World as those of the highest The difference is not made by Circumstances but by temper of Mind and by keeping our desires within moderate bounds and not being anxious or sollicitous or uneasie for what we do not enjoy but in being contented and well pleased with whatever Providence allots to us when we bring our selves to this we shall be easie and happy and free our selves from those immoderate desires carking cares and anxious sollicitudes about the things of this World which pierce us through with a Thousand sorrows and destroy the Ease and Tranquility of our Minds Now to do this we must be taught and convinced by Religion that Happiness lies not in outward things and be cured of the contrary weak Fancy and Opinion that makes us so immoderately desire 'em and be so anxiously concerned about 'em to the loss even of that Rest and Peace of Mind that we might otherwise have without them 5. Religion teaches us to govern our Passions and lower Inclinations and so to keep them from disturbing us and breaking the Peace and Tranquility of our Minds One of the greatest causes of uneasiness to us and what is most contrary to this Rest and Tranquility we are seeking after is the Disorder of our Passions and the Disturbance and Disquiet they give us Anger ruffles us and puts us into a storm and destroys that smooth calm and sedate Temper that meekness puts us in Envy preys upon it self and is inwardly corroded with its own sharp and sowre humours Pride swells its self with its own inward poyson and is blown up with an inward Vapour that Pains and Distends it and makes it very uneasie even whilst 't is very conceited of its self Till these inward Diseases and Indispositions and Commotions of Mind are cured in great measure by the Prescriptions and Directions of Religion a Man can have no ease and quiet in his own Breast for while he is under the power of any of these or indeed of any lower or bodily Inclination such as Lust Anger brutal Rage or brutal Concupiscence and has not mastered those natural Corruptions nor brought those Boisterous and Head-strong Passions under some Government and Subjection to the Laws of Wisdom and Decency Vertue and Religion they will run him into a Thousand Mischiefs Follies and Inconveniencies and he will never have true Peace and Tranquility in his own Mind 'T is the great business therefore
these and Discover new Springs to feed and maintain this and to raise it higher and tho' they run into the same Channel namely the Happiness of the Mind yet 't is with a fuller Current and a stronger Stream and they do more perfectly promote that Rest and Peace and Tranquility of Mind which tho' it be various in degrees yet is the greatest Happiness Perfection or Pleasure it is capable of in general either in this or the other World Whoever attains to this is the Happy Man whatever his outward Condition be for while he is easie within himself and has an inward Rest Peace and Tranquility in his own Soul all outward things signifie very little to him Our Saviour did not Promise his Disciples or Followers any good Circumstances or Happy outward Condition in this World but he promised them Peace in him and Peace in themselves and that if they followed his Example and learnt his Temper and lived up to his Religion they should find Rest and Ease to their Souls and be freed from those heavy Loads and Burdens that oppress our Minds and are the causes of Misery to us Religion and Christianity are the true cure for the Uneasiness and Indispositions and Diseases of the Mind and if we could live up to its wise Rules and bring our selves to that Frame and Temper of Mind it would beget in us we should be always Easy and always Happy as Happy as we could be in this World in spite of all the evils of it and Eternally and Compleatly Happy in the next The Third Sermon MAT. VII 13 14. Enter ye in at the strait Gate for wide is the Gate and broad is the way that leadeth to Destruction and many there be which go in thereat Because strait is the Ga'e and narrow is the way which leadeth unto Life and few there be that find it OUR Saviour did not think fit to give the World a set Code of Laws as Moses did the Jews or a Methodical System of Ethicks as other Writers have done since no more did the other wise Teachers of Virtue and Morality Pythagoras Socrates Epictetus Antoninus and other Heathens the Patriarchs of old who were Preachers of Righteousness Solomon or the Prophets afterwards but with greater simplicity and inartificial plainness they dropt their excellent Precepts and sage Directions without any formal Method and thus Christ taught us the best and most perfect Rules of Virtue in his occasional Discourses and Particularly in this his excellent Sermon upon the Mount which is such a Discourse that it carries an internal Evidence and a Heavenly Authority along with it enough to satisfie any Wise and Good Man that the Doctrine is true and that it comes from God tho' it had no Miracles nor other Evidence to prove it for the Soul if it be not vitiated Tastes and Relishes such Congenial truths that are agreeable and natural to it as the Palate does its food and Judges of their inward truth and goodness by an internal Sensation and Perception and an immediate Congruity to its Faculties When our Saviour comes towards the Conclusion of this his Sermon upon the Mount which was an Epitome of Christianity and the Sum of all those Virtuous Precepts which were to make his Followers the best Men in the World to make them exceed all the Righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees and out-doe all the Examples and all the Characters of Heathen Vertue he tells 'em there would be great Difficulty to rise to these Attainments that Religion and Vertue in such a pitch as he had set them and as was necessary to make a good Christian and to fit him for Heaven were not such slight and easie things but that they must use great Care and Pains and Labour in the Attaining and Performing of them that it was very easie to be vitious and wicked and therefore most Men were so but that to be Virtuous as a Christian ought to be in all those Instances and Degrees he had taught them was a more Hard and Difficult matter and that few would come up to it but yet this was a thing absolutely necessary to their Eternal Happiness and they must either take the Pains to do this to come up to these strict Terms or else they must Perish and be undone for ever by falling short of them Enter ye in at the strait Gate From which words I shall consider I. What are the Difficulties of Religion and Vertue or upon what account they are a strait Gate and a narrow Way and Vice a wide Gate and a broad Way II. Press the Duty and propose the Motives for our entering in at this strait Gate and narrow way notwithstanding that it is so 1. What are the Difficulties of Religion and Vertue c. 1. Then our Saviour's words might perhaps have some regard to the hard Circumstances Dangers and Persecutions that Christianity was exposed to at that time in those first ages of it and is liable to afterwards then indeed it was a strait Gate when they who enter'd into it were bound to leave all they had in this World all their Temporal Interests and Possessions for Christ's sake and the Gospel's and all that would live Godly in Christ Jesus must suffer Persecution 2 Tim. 3.12 then it was hard for a Rich Man who had great Possessions and was loath to part with them to follow Christ tho he had a great Desire and Inclination to do so as in the Instance of the young Man Mat. 19.21 so that our Saviour said thereupon it was easier for a Camel to go thro' the Eye of a Needle than for a Rich Man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven i. e. to become a Christian at that time Then the way to Heaven was strait and narrow when it was beset with so many Dangers fill'd with Crosses and Gibbets and a Man must venture his Life as well as Estate whenever he entered into it but this was but a particular and accidental case tho every good Christian ought to come to such a Perfection in Religion as to be prepared and disposed for this whenever God shall think fit to put this hard Tryal and Difficulty upon him But 2. Christianity is thus strait and narrow upon other accounts viz. The standing Terms and Conditions of it as it forbids every sin and every wilfull wickedness upon the Pain of Damnation This is very hard indeed to the generality of Men and makes it a very strait and narrow way when it leaves no room for any one darling Lust undue Liberty or beloved Sin to go along with us for according to the Gospel he that will not part with every willful sin however Pleasant or Profitable it be to him must part with Heaven for it tho' the Temptation to it be never so Great and the Charms of it never so powerfull yet if Religion do not conquer and overcome it we must for the short Pleasures of Sin be Miserable for ever
going in this narrow way these deceive Millions of Souls who tho they believe Religion yet do not live up to it but corrupt and pervert it so as to take off its Force and Influence upon their Lives and make them never the better by it The other reserve which is a most desperate one is that of Atheism and Infidelity or an utter dis-believing all Religion or at least a comfortable Doubt and Suspicion that it may not be true and this I am afraid lies in too many Minds but then all Mankind have been out of their Wits in believing it for there have been very few either in the most Wise or most Barbarous Parts and Ages of the World but what have done so unless then we have been all Cheated with Books of Revelation and Histories of Miracles done by the Prophets of Old and by Christ and his Apostles afterwards which are better attested than any Actions or any Books besides that ever were in the World 1600 Years ago so that we may as well call in Question all the Greek and the Roman story as the Jewish and the Christian and when we have run into such a Frenzy of Scepticism as to do that and without having any positive proof against Religion and the Being of God and another World for it is impossible to have that and the greatest Atheist will not pretend to have any Evidence Certainty and Demonstration but that they may be true notwithstanding all his doubts after all this the whole Frame of Nature and the Wise contrivance of the World of the Heavens above and the Earth and Animals below is a standing Evidence as great as can be given of the truth of Religion in general and a Man's Reason must be wretchedly blinded with his Vices who doth not see it or who winks so hard that he will not discern it these wretched Reserves being therefore taken away I shall proceed to press the duty of entering in at the strait Gate and narrow way and propose the motives to engage us to this notwithstanding all the Difficulties I mentioned 1. Religion is a business of such importance that whatever straits and hardships there be in it we must not stick at those but resolve however to go through with it for our Life our Happiness our All our Eternal state lies at stake and depends upon it Our Saviour only tells us strait is the Gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto Life and wide is the Gate and broad is the way which leadeth to Destruction And this is sufficient if Life and Death be set before us whatever be the way to them we should look at the great Ends Issues and Consequences of things which are the mark a Wise Man always aims at and whatever means are in our Power to attain the one and avoid the other we should make use of without any long Counsel or Deliberation for no Man demurrs and considers whether he shall choose happiness and escape Misery Nature and Instinct prevent our Reason here and we are made with an inward spring which runs of it self to the one and flies from the other whenever we truly apprehend them and therefore did we consider what that Life is that Eternal Life of Happiness which Vertue leads to which is to live in the perfect Enjoyment of the greatest good and the purest Pleasures free from all Alloys and all Approach of the least Evil and Trouble to live for ever with God and Angels in rapturous Bliss and Heavenly Delights and Joy unspeakable to be Possest of a Crown a Kingdom of substantial Glory and all such Good and Desirable things that this World affords but a faint Shadow and imperfect Resemblance of we should find this is a Life worth being fond of and seeking after compared to which this our present short life mixt with so much real Care and Trouble and so little imaginary Pleasure is but a sort of Death but walking in a vain Shadow and Dreaming of Happiness and hardly worth a Wise Man's choosing were it not for a better Life which is only worth the name of Living where we are born into another World and Vertue shall give us a Glorious Immortality this is a Reward that will sufficiently Recompense our short Labours here and were Religion never so Difficult yet the worth and greatness of that were our Hopes and Desires of it proportionable to it would inspire us with new Vigour and Resolution and convey Strength and Power enough to carry us through them all for what will not a great reward make Men do whither will they not Travel where will they not fight what danger will they Flinch from what Labour will they Refuse when a certain and great reward is offered to ' em And had we but as good thoughts of Heaven as the Soldier has of Honour and Victory the Merchant of Gold and Gain and the Husbandman of a good Harvest we should never think much of all the Pains and Difficulties that are in Religion were they a great many more than they are as on the other side if Men had but a due sense of that Destruction to which the wide Gate and the broad way of wickedness leads 'em and the Sad and Dreadfull Condition their Vices will bring 'em to in another World did they consider what exquisite and amazing Misery both of Soul and Body is wrapt up in those Words of Hell and Damnation no Vice tho' never so Charming would make 'em endure it for one day no Pleasure of Sin for a Season would make 'em bear it for so long a time as this Life is and nothing would ever tempt 'em not only not to suffer it for ever but to run the hazard and venture of it were there not a thousand times the reason to fear it that we have by Religion and were it but meerly probable or but just possible which Atheism it self can never deny yet no Wise man would expose himself to such a Dreadfull and Irretrievable danger for the Poor and Pitifull Temptations that are in the greatest Sin But 2. Besides the Consideration of another World Religion with all its straitness and hardship does not abridge us of any Comfortable Enjoyments of this World nor Deprive us of any of the true Pleasures and good things here which a Wise Man would Desire or which our Nature was made for for they may be all enjoyed within the compass of Vertue and allowances of Religion and that with more Convenience and Advantage than in a Course of Vice and Wickedness Religion does not Deprive us of any good proper to our State and Nature nor tye us up from any of the Comforts or Pleasures of Life with a peevish severity and moroseness with a touch not tast not handle not but only restrains us from what would be Evil and Pernicious to us if it were allowed us keeps us from the forbidden Fruit and from those excesses and extravagancies that are Destructive to
our selves and Mischievous to the World it does not destroy any of our Natural Pleasures but refines and purifies them and draws them off from the filth and Sediments which lies always at the bottom of those that are sinfull and so it makes them clearer and sweeter and frees them from all that Nauseousness and Bitterness that Vice generally mixes with them Virtue does neither Decay nor Disease our Bodies Trouble or Torment our Minds Consume or Squander away our Estates nor Ruin and Shipwrack our Fortunes nor bring any such Mischiefs upon us in this World as Mens Sins often do but as keeping the bounds of it will lead us to Eternal Life so it will generally promote and improve the greatest happiness we are capable of in this 3. Religion is as easie as God could possibly make it and none of its Straitnesses and Severities are Arbitrarily imposed upon us but from the Reason and Necessity of things and the absolute Fitness Goodness and Wisdom of whatever it Commands and its real Tendency to our greatest Perfection and Happiness for Religion is not an Arbitrary and Positive thing made so by the mere Will and Pleasure of God which might have lessened our Burthen and abated of our Duty in many Cases had he pleased and not imposed such hard Tasks and such strait and severe Vertues upon us but have left us more loose and not tyed us up so strictly as he has done this is a great Mistake and a wretched Mis-understanding of Religion for that as to the moral part of it is founded in the Nature and Perfections of God which are Eternal and Unalterable and in the as Eternal and Unalterable Reasons of things and those Respects and Relations which they necessarily have to one another so that as God cannot alter the Nature of a Circle or a Triangle nor make two and two not to be four so neither can he the Nature of Vice and Vertue nor make Good to be Evil or Evil Good Moral Vertues are as much founded in the Nature of things as Mathematical Truths or Metaphysical Verities and the Properties of them are as certain and fixt as those of Lines or Numbers Such Actions are as necessary to the good of the World and the Happiness of Societies and particular Persons as such Offices and Operations of the Body are to maintain its Life and Health so that breathing is not more necessary to the preservation of the one than Justice Fidelity and other Vertues are to the other and should God have let us loose from any of those Virtues even the strictest of them which the Libertines are most apt to complain against such as those which restrain their Natural Passions of Lust and Anger he would have let in a Thousand Mischiefs and Evils into the World and have roade us as Brutish and Uncivilized and as miserable as the very Beasts themselves and as uncapable of Society and the benefits of good Order and Goverment But 4. As all the Laws of God are good and as easie as he could make them so they are made more easie by that Divine Grace and Assistance whereby he enables us to perform them and whereby the Difficulties of Religion are much lightened and abated for every thing is said to be light or heavy in proportion to the strength and power of another and according as our strength is encreased by the Divine Grace and Holy Spirit so is Religion and Vertue made more easie to us so much then of inward strength and power as is conveyed to our Minds by Gods Grace which is a Physical and Secret Energy like that of inward life Strengthening us mightily in the inward Man regenerating quickning renewing raising enlivening us as the Scripture speaks so much lighter is the Burden of Religion that God lays upon us for it is the same thing to take off so much from that or to add so much new strength to him that is to bear it and therefore however hard and difficult Religion be to the weakness and imperfection of Human Nature to our single power which would of it self fall and sink under it yet when we have the Assistance of Heaven and the Aids and Supplies of Gods Grace to help and cooperate with us then we can do all things through Christ which strengthens us and thro' his Grace which is sufficient for us and we cannot in reason complain for want of Power when we may have it and God is ready to give us whatever power we want even to Conquer the strongest Propensities and most irresistable Temptations and this will take greatly off from the badness of the way which leads to Life when we have the Spirit of God like a good Angel to lead us thro' it always to Comfort and Help and Incourage us in it so that it would be much more tolerable tho' it were thro' never so Dark and Unpleasant a Wilderness when like the Jews we have the presence of God and his power to Conduct us all along to the Happy Land 5. Tho' we are apt to complain of the Difficulties in Religion yet there is no great End whatever which we can attain without as much Pains and Labour and going thro' as many Difficulties and Hardships as we do in Religion No Man can arrive to Learning or to any Liberal Art or Science in any Perfection no Man can rise to Honour and Preserment can get an Estate or the like without using as much Diligence as much Care and Watchfullness as in the business of Religion without denying himself as many Liberties spending as much Time and keeping himself to as strict Rules and Measures as are in Religion Nay I dare say many a Man takes more Pains and meets with more Difficulties to get a sorry livelihood in this World than would ordinarily carry a Man to Heaven and make him live Happily for ever what shall we then charge God so Foolishly as if he had used us hardly in Religion and make the way to Happiness strait and narrow and difficult when we as ordinarily and more willingly take as much Pains and go through as many Difficulties in all other things 't is because we have not such a value and Esteem of the Ends and Designs of Religion as we have of other Worldly ones that we complain of the Hardness and Difficulty of that above the other did we think Heaven as Desirable as an Estate and Vertue as great a Good as Honour which is but the shadow of it we should pursue it as vigorously and overlook and contemn all the Difficulties that lie in the way to it and there is this advantage in seeking and pursuing the Ends and Designs of Religion above any of those in this World not only as they are far greater and infinitely more valuable and important but that the one is certainly to be attained if we use our utmost Care and Diligence whereas we may sail and be Disappointed of the other after using all means in order
and blemish'd his Baptismal Purity nor fell into nor wallowed in any great sin and so needeth not to be washed and cleansed and purisied as a sinner in a higher sense needeth and this is the Happy the Blessed Person whom I prefer to the best Penitent and the truest Convert as the Parable here does 3. This shows the good of early Obedience and the great Happiness and Advantage of a Vertuous and Religious Education and the great Obligation there is for Parents to take care of this and the great thankfullness which those owe to God and their Parents who have had the benefit of it for nothing makes Virtue and Religion so easie or so acceptable to us as to have them taught and instill'd into us in our tender yearâ— when like soft Wax we are capable of any impressions and yet grow hard and retain them afterwards When the Seeds of Virtue are early Planted in our hearts before Vitious Habits or Inclinations are grown up in them and a sense of Religion takes the first possession of us and anticipates and prevents the power of our own Lusts or of evil Examples then Virtue becomes natural to us and Custom makes it both very easie to be practis'd and hard to be overcome for let the Habit and Custom be equal and I doubt not but there is as much difficulty for a Vertuous Person to become Vitious as for a Vitious Person to be made Vertuous It must be with great violence and reluctancy that such an one is brought to commit a wilfull Sin as well as the other to forsake it and therefore Scripture represents both the one and the other as if they were morally impossible As they who are accustomed to do Evil can as hardly learn to do Good as the Aethiopian can change his Skin or the Leopard his Spots so he that is born of God cannot Sin 1 John 3.9 I doubt not therefore but most of the good men that are or ever were in the World are such as have been Vertuously and Religiously Educated and brought up and but few of those in proportion who have been otherwise have been reclaim'd and brought off from the Lewdness and Debauchery they contracted when they were young T is a very hard and difficult thing to make a bad Man a good one the hardest thing in the World what the powerfull Operation of God's Grace is necessary to and what it often cannot effect thro' the stubbornness of the Will and indisposition of the Subject hence those complaints and expostulations I would have healed them but they would not be healed Jerem. 51.9 Turn ye turn ye why will ye die Oh that my people would have hearkned unto me and of Sinners resisting grieving and quenching the Holy Ghost and that God's Spirit shall not always strive with them and the like which shows the strength and power of ill habits and how hard 't is even by all means to get rid of them and how much happier it is to be engaged in an early Obedience and determined by a Vertuous Education than to be afterwards struggling with them 4. This prevents the common and dangerous mistakes about Repentance whereby Men make it a reserve to themselves to excuse them from a Religious and Vertuous and Holy life and think that by means of that they shall avoid all the mischief of their sins at last and be as safe and as secure of Heaven and their eternal Salvation tho' they live never so loosely and carelesly as if their whole lives had been spent in a course of Vertue and Religion 'T is but Repenting before they die and that as little before as they can if they can nick it right and are not cut off suddenly and unexpectedly which is but an accident that happens only to few and the great work and business is done by a true Sorrow and some sincere Resolutions and an Instantaneous change of mind as well as by the most intire Vertue and constant Obedience of a Man's whole life If so most Men's Sins and Lusts will perswade 'em to indulge and gratify 'em the greatest part of their lives if they cannot wholly bring 'em off from a sense and belief of Religion they will thus corrupt Religion and make it thereby comply with them and by these false notions of Repentance raise hopes to themselves of escaping all the mischief of their Sins and their ill lives and saving themselves by virtue of this Repentance at the last without leading a good life which they will therefore be glad to excuse themselves from as not absolutely necessary and so wholly trust and depend and venture upon the other way Now this is putting a trick upon God and Religion and being too hard for 'em upon their own Terms as they think tho' it is indeed putting a trick upon themselves and miserably deluding themselves into destruction by thus abusing this privilege of Repentance and making this Grant and Concession of the Gospel to destroy the Gospel it self and all the design of it which was to make men live well and bring them off from their Sins and not at all encourage them in 'em whereas by thus perverting the Grace of the Gospel and by wrong notions and wretched mistakes about Repentance the Obligations to actual Holiness and Obedienâ—â— are taken off and a Man may secure Heaven and his own Salvation without those by another and much shorter and easier way which is by Repentance at the last which shall be as safe to our selves and as acceptable to God and as well rewarded by him as the other Now I know but one way of saving a Man's Soul and going to Heaven and that is by a good life and by actual Holiness and Obedience Repentance is the bringing a sinner to these and if he do not do this tho' the Sorrow be never so great it is not true Repentance nor will be effectual to his Salvation 't is the Obedience and Holiness that he performs after his Disobedience and Wickedness which constitutes and compleats his Repentance and entitles him to the Divine favour and acceptance and to the rewards of Heaven and another World and the greater and perfecter and more entire this Obedience hath been the more it will be accepted and the more rewarded by a Righteous and Just God who will be Mercifull to Sinners when they Repent and turn to their Duty and Obedience and will accept and reward their broken and imperfect Obedience but not in so high a degree as the constant and unbroken and early and entire Obedience of Vertuous and Good men all their lives Lastly this Notion of an early Virtue and constant Obedience being prefertable to the truest Repentance stands upon the plainest principles of Religion and secures those evident Doctrines upon which all Practical Religion and the obligations of it are built such as these that God will reward every one at the last day according to their works and therefore in proportion to them and
fear of God is the greatest and truest Wisdom in the World he is the Wisest man who is the most Vertuous and Religious and he is the greatest Fool who lives Vitiously and Irreligiously and without the fear of God the fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom or the first and chief Wisdom and the Foundation of all other a good understanding have all they that do his Commands i. e. they are the truly wise Men who live Vertuously and Religiously and they Fools who live Vitiously and Wickedly Behold the fear of the Lord that is Wisdom and to depart from evil is Vnderstanding There is no greater blemish contempt or imputation upon any Man than that he is a Fool and that he acts as such in whatever he does for it supposes the utmost decay and depravation of his Nature the loss of his Reason and that he wants that which makes us to be Men and is the proper perfection of our Being which is Wisdom and Understanding It will therefore greatly recommend and be for the honour of Religion if that appears to be the greatest and only Wisdom and it will justly reproach and expose Vice and Wickedness if that be made out to be nothing else but folly in the highest degree which I shall therefore endeavour at this time 1. First then Religion proposes and attains and secures the greatest End the chief Good and utmost Happiness that we can desire or are capable of and this is the truest part of Wisdom whereas Vice has but low and mean Ends such as are below the excellency of our Nature and are so far from promoting our Happiness that they defeat and destroy it all beings indeed aim at their own Happiness and have a blind and general design to compass and attain it self-preservation is a principle lies at the root of our Beings and we cannot chuse open and bare-fac'd misery but Vice and Wickedness takes down the poyson that is a little Guilded over and swallows the fatal hook that is baited with an appearing pleasure or profit and Men are led away in the dark and deluded with a shadow till they are brought into the deepest misery Vice proposes either bodily and sensual pleasure or worldly gain or some such present End and Design to be its greatest Happiness but alas it often loses those and Vertue and Religion picks up what the other drops and le ts go and secures those by ends a thousand times better than Vice does whilst it looks yet further and still aims at greater ends and a more true and compleat Happiness than any of those can yield to it for what is the most gustfull and luscious sensuality of body to an unquiet and uneasie and disturbed Mind Is not that worm of Conscience that gnaws it within and is bred from the filth and putrefaction of its own sins a greater torment than all the pleasures of sense can make amends for And what could a Man hope for if by his wickedness he could gain the whole world which yet many have even lost by it if thereby he loses his Soul the peace and quiet of it here and its Eternal felicity hereafter All the ends we can aim at and all the objects we can wish and desire are very little and inconsiderable without Religion and such are all the things and enjoyments of this World but Religion has great and noble aims and designs to make our Minds as well as our Bodies pleased and easie and to give a pleasure and satisfaction infinitely above the highest bodily delights which the Brutes are capable of as well as we to perfect and improve and fit our Souls for the greatest pleasure and happiness here and for that which is endless and unspeakable hereafter and to see this more particularly let 's consider 2. Secondly that all Ends and Designs but those of Religion are consined only to this World whereas those of Religion reach beyond this to a never ending Eternity how little and short and narrow are all the poor designs we can have here when in the compass of a few years they all cease and perish and come to an end when but a small time hence they shall be as useless and insignificant as if we had never been or ne'er had any of them Death which we all expect and which will certainly come in a little time whether we expect it of no puts a speedy end and conclusion to all other projects and designs but those of Virtue and Religion it covers all worldly Pomp and Grandeur with a cloud of night and darkness and draws a sable mantle over all it's glistering and shining vanity its honours lie here buried in the dust it's riches take leave of it at the Grave and all its bodily pleasures are exchanged for stench and noy fomness and its greatest strength and beauty is turned into weakness and gastliness This mortifying consideration should one would think make this World and every thing in it be very contemptible and all ends and designs but those of Virtue and Religion which teach beyond this World to be very poor and little and inconfiderable for like a Dream they are all quickly past and gone and when we awake into another World into a better and more substantial life all these images and shadows and fancies of happiness will then vanish and disappear and we shall be no more affected with them than with a last nights dream or the past visions of slumber and imagination but then Religion and Vertue will stand us in stead then they and a good Conscience will stick by us and attend and bear us Company into the other World and there we shall meet with those Ends and Designs which Religion has proposed to us and our greatest hopes and wishes shall be turned into greater fruition and enjoyment then a long Eternity shall reward and recompense our short Labours here and we shall never lose or be depriv'd of that great End and compleat Happiness which Religion recommended and directed us to Vice with all its delights is but for a very little time and the pleasures of sin are enjoy'd but for a Season Heb. 11.25 Men not only lose those and be for ever depriv'd of the End it aimed at but shall receive its sad and miserable portion laid up for it and be eternally tormented with unexpressible misery And what extream Folly will it then be found to have pursued no other End nor aimed at no other Happiness but that of this World which is so soon gone and at an end and for the sake of that to have exposed it self to a misery that shall never have end to have preferr'd a present moment before an endless Eternity and to gain some poor and little Ends here which yet are often lost rather than attain'd by Mens Vices to lose Heaven and everlasting Happiness 3. Religion and Virtue secure the Comfort and Happiness of this life as well as of another much better than Vice
and Irreligion so that here is the extream folly of Wickedness that whilst its dosigns are confined to this World and 〈◊〉 aims at the present pleasure 〈…〉 and good things of this life it loses even those and misses of that present Comfort and Happiness which is a thousand times more likely to be met with in the ways of Virtue and Religion than in a life of Vice and Wickedness for as the one deprives us of no real pleasure or proper enjoyment fit for a wise Man but rather sweetens them and enhances their relish by keeping them Pure and Innocent and free from the filth and bitterness that Vice mixes with them so wickedness brings a great many evils and mischiefs upon it self here and most Mens Vices make them miserable in this life as well as in another Godliness says Saint Paul is profitable unto all things having the promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come 1 Tim. 4.8 and it was the wise Mans observation long before that the most desirable blessings of this life belong to Wisdom and Religion Length of days is in her right hand and in her left hand riches and honour Prov. 3.16 whereas nothing does more generally shorten Men's days than Vice and Debauchery and though those Men value nothing so much as life yet they prodigally squander it away and spend it too fast and consume it upon their Lust and their Lewdness and these make shipwrack of their Estates as well as of their Consciences and bring Poverty and Beggery very often along with them so that the ruined Fortunes of most Men are owing to their vitious and ill Courses and they are undone by their Vices here as well as hereafter an indelible Character of shame and reproach is hereby fixed to their Name and Memory which stains and blemishes their Repute and Credit among Men and their mind reproaches and smites them from within and they feel most of the outward and inward evils which are the most grievous and uneasie to us in this life So that besides the misery in Reversion which is due to them and unavoidable there is a present one which they seldom escape but generally befalls them so foolish are they whose fondness to their Sins makes them hug and embrace them though they at the same time Wound and Poyson them so infatuated are they and almost fascinated by them that they stick to them though to their manifest ruin and against their plainest interest and make themselves such Martyrs and Confessors to their Vices that as they wear their scars always about them so they will endure any thing for their sakes and make their way to Hell through the greatest sufferings and evils that their sins bring upon them here 4. Roligion is the truest Wisdom as it best provides against all the Accidents and Contingencies of this uncertain world and against all the infirmities of our present state and nature A good man may not be secure here that he shall not come into the same misfortune and be plagued like other Men either with some Affliction or Sickness or other common Calamity which the greatest Vertue and Religion may be no protection against but the same chance may happen both to the Sinner and to the Righteous and without respect either to their Vice or to their Virtue a Disease or a Misfortune a Loss or a Trouble may come upon either of them which nothing can keep off or prevent in this uncertain state but here Religion gives us the best relief and stands us in the greatest stead and is the most usefull to us it takes care as we may say of the main chance and makes the best provision for whatever may or can befall us it supports and revives our drooping Spirits under any afflictions of this world with the cheering thoughts of a Heaven above us and a Providence over us and the gladsom reflections of a good Conscience within us and a Comfortable trust in a good God without us whereas when any of the troubles and misfortunes of life fall on a wicked Man he has nothing to keep up his mind under them but they sink and crush him into the utmost despair and disconsolateness and he has no whither to fly for ease and comfort sad and miserable must be his case who when his body is sick and uneasie has his mind so too and feels as much anguish and anxiety in the one as he does pain in the other when his body is under the strugglings and agonies of death has his Mind and Conscience under greater and when he sees death come up behind him sees Hell open before him as ready to devour and swallow him up Tho' nothing can secure us against one of these yet Religion does against the other which is ten times the greatest and so in all other the unavoidable accidents and misfortunes of this worldly state Religion does wisely prepare and provide against them and make the best defence and security for us against all the dangers that may in this hazardous world come upon us and without this a man lies always open to every uncertain accident and shall be miserable at every turn of Fortune and shall have no Happiness but what shall be at the will and pleasure of outward Contingencies and shall have no soundation or root of Happiness within himself which nothing but Religion and Vertue can ever give him 5. Religion makes us wise for our selves and for things of the greatest importance and concern to us makes us wise unto Salvation which is the only true Wisdom that deserves so to be called or accounted for 't is a Wisdom salsely so called and no other than great folly to be wise about all other things wise in our Notions and Apprehensions and Judgments of things wise in the Managery and Conduct of all our outward Affairs wise in searching the policies and fathoming the most cunning Intrigues wise in the greatest Mysteries of Knowledge and researches of Learning so that both our selves and others applaud us for our great Wisdom and yet be a Fool in what is more valuable and more concerning to us a thousand times which is the everlasting Salvation of our immortal Souls He that is not so wise as to take care of that is with all his other Wisdom the worst of Fools and Mad Men and more void of common Prudence and Discretion than he that while he pretends to understand the great secret of being Rich and turning all into Gold yet is Poor and a Beggar or like him in a Frenzy who thought himself an Emperor and to have the greatest Territories and Dominions when he had only a Chain and a little Straw or him who while he was viewing the Stars and observing the Heavens above him did not mind his way but fell into a Pit 6. I shall show the Wisdom of Religion from the two causes of sin and wickedness which are only two sorts of folly and
weakness of mind The first is heedlesness rashness and inconsideration the other is infidelity and ignorance or inapprehensiveness of the truth of things All Irreligion is owing to these two Causes for either Men do not mind and consider as they ought to do those principles of Religion which they own and believe as that there is a Heaven and a Hell and an Eternal state of Bliss and Misery after this Life so as to let these have that full force and influence which they ought to have upon their minds or else they do not really believe and apprehend those to be true which are both high degrees of Folly and proceed from a great defect of Understanding and want of Wisdom As to the first of these what can be a grosser folly than to act contrary to those principles which we own and allow to believe that there is a God and that the Soul is immortal and yet to live as if there were no God and as if there were no other Life but this This is certainly the most desperate folly and madness to run upon the greatest danger that we see evidently before us and to leap into Hell with our eyes open when Men do really believe they shall be damn'd for a wicked and ill life and yet still continue in their sins 'T is folly one would think even to the height of distraction to live thus contrary to their belief and let their principles and their actions thus disagree and to condemn themselves in their acting contrary to their own knowledge belief and understanding in a matter which is of so great moment and concern as they must acknowledge this to be Of the two the other one would think were more excusable who do not believe these things tho' that is great ignorance and folly for 't is dis-believing that which all mankind have in all Ages believed in some degree or other and which we have as much reason to believe as we can have if the thing were never so true and certain and which it is impossible we should ever know or have any reason to believe to be false and which if it were only doubtfull and but meerly probable or indeed possible yet a wise Man would not run a great hazard or venture upon it but would take care to save and secure himself against the worst and utmost possibilities that might happen I shall not now consider the great weakness and folly of infidelity against the clearest reason and evidence and the utmost demonstration the thing is capable of and requiring more than a thing of that nature can have nor how Religion is Wisdom as being established upon the greatest foundations of truth and certainty 'T is the other folly that of inconsideration by which most men perish by not attending to the power and force of those truths which they do believe but rashly and inconsiderately following the career of their Lusts and violence of their Inclinations against the reason and belief of their Minds and the conviction of their Judgment and Understanding for could any Man that seriously consider'd and believ'd an everlasting state of rewards and punishments and let his mind duly attend and be affected with those considerations which he really believes to be true could he be wicked without the greatest folly and madness and can it appear to be any other than the most foolish and unreasonable thing in the World to believe all those great and important things which Religion teaches us and yet to live as if we believed none of them This is such unaccountable folly as wants a name and can have nothing to palliate or excuse it Indeed a wicked life is the greatest folly in the World and appears to all to be so upon reflection and a little serious consideration no body but repents of it afterwards and is sorry for it one time or other tho' perhaps it be too late and when he cannot retrieve or amend it unless he be stupified and hardned and have lost the use of his Judgment and Understanding which is a plain owning it to be Folly and Unadvisedness even upon Tryal and Experience and a wishing they had done better and that they had been much wiser No Man Repents of his having done Vertuously and lived Religiously but is pleased and satisfied in himself upon his reflecting upon it which shows that he acted wisely and prudently but the direfull agonies and sad reflections and horrors and disquiets that a Man feels in his mind upon his having liv'd wickedly shows the height of his folly and how he is forc'd to condemn himself for it and to bewail and lament his extream weakness and madness and this is truly Hell when he must do so to all Eternity then I am sure it will appear whatever it does now that Vice and Wickedness is the greatest folly and that Vertue and Religion are the true and only Wisdom and that what the Psalmist says is true The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom The Eighth Sermon ROM XII 21. Be not overcome of Evil but overcome Evil with Good IT is a question with some whether Christ have added any thing to the law of nature or requir'd any higher and more perfect Vertues than are founded in that As for the Law of Moses he has taken away the Ritual and Ceremonial part of it and as to the Moral he has cleared it from the false glosses and corruptions and errors of the Scribes and Pharisees who had expounded it into a meaning contrary to the true sense and intention of the Law for that to be sure coming from God cou'd have nothing immoral in it and therefore whatever corrections were made by our Saviour were only of the perverse and corrupt interpretations of others and not of the Law it self But whether he has not added any new and more perfect Laws both to the Law of Moses and that of Nature and required higher instances of Vertue of us Christians than of the rest of mankind is a great question On the one side it seems more for the honour of Christ and his Religion in which there are some nobler precepts that excell any that are to be met with in any other Moralist as against Lust and Revenge for loving Enemies and not retaliating injuries and the like On the other side if Christ has added any new Laws not founded in nature they must be meerly positive and alterable and not have any natural or intrinsick good in them but be owing to the mere Arbitrary will of God and not to the original settlement and constitution of things for if they have a foundation either in the nature of God or the nature of things they cannot be new and so added to those of nature but I think this Controversie may be thus compounded and resolved that those Laws though they were founded in nature and had a natural and intrinsick and eternal Goodness in them as all moral Vertues have yet
good for sinners as to send his own Son Christ into the World to die for us even when we were Enemies to him and to God that made us We then that had perished for ever had it not been for this Vertue how should we love and value it and endeavour to imitate it and deal with our Brethren as God dealt with us What an example of this our Savlour has left appears by his whole life which was a perpetual suffering of injuries and doing of good and especially at his death when he pray'd for his Enemies and being reviled he reviled not again but as a sheep led to the slaughter he was dumb and opened not his mouth unless to pray for those who barbarously used and murdered him and in this he left us an example that we should follow his steps But Fifthly and Lastly This is not a mere Christian perfection and a Noble Heroical degree of Virtue which it's matter of advice to attain but it 's a necessary Christian duty without which we shall not go to Heaven nor be capable of Pardon and Salvation at the hands of God If we revenge the injuries that are done to us God will not forgive us the sins we commit against him he has expresly told us so Matth. 6.15 Mark 11.26 Luke 6.37 and that with the same measure we mete to others it shall be measured to us again even by God in another World who will show himself mercifull to those that are mercifull and froward to those who are froward and to those who are revengefull and inexorable to their Brethren he will be so too when they stand in more need of mercy and forgiveness than any of their Brethren can at any time do of them What are the degrees and measures of exercising this Virtue I cannot now exactly show you but in general to forgive an injury and not return it by another to overcome it not with evil but with good is so much a duty to every Christian that he shall not come to Heaven who does not in some measure perform it and who notoriously and plainly acts contrary to it Let us therefore for the present Peace of our Lives for the quiet of our Minds and for the everlasting Peace and Happiness of our Souls endeavour to learn this Virtue and not be overcome of evil but overcome evil with good The Ninth Sermon LUKE XVI 31. And he said unto him If they hear not Moses and the Prophets neither will they be perswaded tho' one rose from the dead AMongst all the many Arguments that there are for Religion and to perswade men to a good life there are none so strong and so forcible if well consider'd as those which are drawn from another World and from a future state of rewards and punishments There are indeed a great many that lie near and arise from several other considerations from the tendency of Religion to make us happy in this World from the miserable effects that most Vices have upon Men's Fortunes and Enjoyments from the natural and intrinsick Goodness and Amiableness that is in Virtue and Religion whereby it recommends it self to our minds and the abominable filthiness and ugliness that is in Vice and it's contrariety to right reason as well as our true interest by these and many other considerations Religion is strengthened on every side and planted round with such Arguments as are enough to defend it from most of the assaults that Vice and Wickedness can make upon it But its strongest Hold its main Fort wherein lies its greatest and impregnable strength is the thoughts of another World of a Heaven and a Hell hereafter this will hold out if all the other should fail and if Vice should be never so Fortunate and Happy as it sometimes is in this World if Wickedness should have as many Prizes as Virtue in this Lottery of things that is here below yet there it would be sure to be the loser and could have no pretences to vye and contend with Religion there the account between 'em appears manifestly and notoriously different without adjusting it by particulars and making such abatements as we must often in this World This is a plain and obvious an universal and undoubted and one would think an irresistible Argument for Religion that depends not upon long reasonings and many observations as some others do but may be easily understood and will strongly work upon all mankind and therefore the Scripture does chiefly make use of it and every where presses and suggests it to us as the strongest sanction of the Divine Law and that which is the likeliest to prevail upon us when 't is fully believed and considered The Rich Man here in the Parable thought there was so much strength in it now that he selt it that he question'd not but it would prevail even upon his wicked Brethren if it were offered with all its advantage to 'em if one went from the dead and told 'em what he suffered and what they would certainly do if they took not care in time not to come into that place of torment and therefore he seems to have picht upon the likeliest way for this when he requested Abraham that a Messenger might be sent from the dead to 'em if that might be granted by the Laws and Polity of the other World there was no doubt sure but it would attain the effect and bring 'em to Repentance such a Message as he would send 'em such an account of things in the other World as he would give them should surely work strangely upon 'em and make 'em amend their lives This he made no question of for had it been his own case were he to have lived again after he knew so much as he did now he would have been quite another man and so should his Brethren one would think by such a way as this was but Abraham tells him the quite contrary If they hear not Moses and the Prophets neither will they be perswaded tho' one rise from the dead This seems very strange and will do much more so when we consider particularly what Arguments a Messenger from the dead would bring along with him to perswade a man to Repentarce such as it is impossible sure not to be overcome by them such as if they will not do nothing else will I shall offer some of them to you and then endeavour to give you an account of what Abraham here says If they hear not Moses and the Prophets neither will they be perswaded tho' one rose from the dead And First let us consider what strong and powerfull Arguments a Messenger from the dead would bring along with him to perswade a wicked man to Repentance and in the 1. First place he would satisfie him of the truth and certainty of such a place that there is really a future state that there is not an end of us when we go off from this Worldly Stage and Theatre but that there is
truth of who thought them if not meer Bugbears and Fables yet things a great way off and at a great distance that they should not much trouble themselves withall when now they find all these are true and are put in mind of 'em by such a way as this is and they so nearly concern them and are like in a little while to be their own Case Surely by all these they will be perswaded and brought to Repentance I believe there is no sinner but thinks he himself should be perswaded by these means and if God should use such an extraordinary way to convert him this he questions not but would do it tho' now he is of another mind and has no thoughts of leaving his sins yet that he thinks would certainly work upon him He I doubt may be as much mistaken of himself as Dives was of his Brethren of whom Abraham assures him that if they heard not Moses and the Prophets neither would they be perswaded tho' one rose from the dead And that I may give you some account of the likelihood of this and of the truth of what Abraham here says I shall offer you these five considerations 1. All the Arguments which a Messenger from the dead would bring along with him and which are indeed so strong that when one seriously considers them one would think it impossible to resist them these we have already and they have been offered to us with their full strength and advantage we have been made acquainted with the immortality of our Souls and a future state with the Joys of Heaven and the torments of Hell these can be no new discoveries to us that we never heard of before God in the Scripture had laid open the other World before us and shown us the two vast and different parts of it he had given a general notice of this to all Men by the light of Nature by that they could discern that there was another Country that lay off from this another state after this life wherein good men would be happy and wicked men miserable This was known to all the old unskillfull World before ever there was any Revelation any pixis nautica or any such Map or Chart as we have now of the other World they had not only a kind of guess or probable conjecture of it like Columbus of America but something more that made it a received Article of the Heathen Religion but this is made plainer to us by the Scriptures and Gospel Revelation by which Life and Immortality is brought more clearly to light so that all those Arguments are set before us and that with the same strength and advantage that they could have been by a Messenger from the dead He could bring us no more nor any new ones but only what we have already God has informed us of what belongs to another World so far as it is of any concern to us and so much as is sufficient to make us take care about it we cannot have better and fairer warning about those things and we can have no stronger or more powerful Arguments than we have already 2. We have so much reason to believe the truth of those things that they who will not be satisfied with that neither would they be perswaded tho' they had a particular Messenger to certifie 'em about them we have a Divine Revelation added to natural light and the universal suffrage of mankind we have had a number of Miracles and extraordinary Effects of Divine power to assure us of the truth of that Religion that delivers us the belief of those things We have had many Prophets sent from God and with sufficient Credentials to satissie us that they were so to Preach these things to us We have had one come from Heaven and after he was dead rise again and so become even a Messenger from the dead to us and testisi'd all these things to be true And if we will be such Scepticks as still to entertain doubts and disbelieve all these we should be the same I fear tho' we had one come from the dead to us we should be apt to think it but a Spectre a meer Image of Air or of Fancy a Melancholy Mormo or a waking Dream and be inclined to think that we were impos'd upon by our own active Imaginations and the many reports and stories we have heard of such things running in our minds he that can disbelieve all the undoubted Arguments for the truth of Scripture and reveal'd Religion may run so far into Scepticism as to dis-believe his senses and to think every thing that appears to him to be fantastick and imaginary 3. If he did believe it at that time and were never so much startled and affrighted at the surprizing apparition yet in a little time the sense of it might wear off and he be never the better for it it might put him into a sit of horror and consternation as the hand on the Wall did Belshazzer Dan. 5.6 so that his Countenance should change and the joints of his loins be loosed and his knees smite one against another but the sright might work upon his Body more than his Mind and when that is over they might both return to their former and natural temper Is it not usual for a great many who by a dangerous sit of lickness are brought so near the other World that they can almost see into it and have at that time as firm a belief and as strong a sense of it as if not only a Messenger from the dead came to them but they were there themselves yet these when they rise as it were from the dead and return from the borders of another World when they have recovered their health and are come into their old Company their former Circumstances and course of Life how do they lose the sense of what they had in their sickness tho' it were never so strong and become the same Men they were before Like persons in a shipwrack when the next Wave is likely to be their Sepulchre and they think themselves every moment sinking into the deep below then they are greatly concerned and make a great many Vows and Resolutions which at that time they question not to keep but when the storm and the fright is over they forget all their good Intentions and their Religious Temper goes off and they return to their former Temper of Mind It must be a calm and gentle a sedate and composed method that generally works upon a Man's mind and brings by degrees new Thoughts and Dispositions into it rather than a sudden and hasty fright that only startles and amazes it and 't is that is more agreeable to the nature of a free and reasonable Creature which is to be dealt withal by such a suitable and kindly procedure rather than that which has nothing in it but force and violence 4. As God does seldom humour Men by doing any thing that is Miraculous or
Extraordinary when they have sufficient ordinary means so if he would do it it would hardly cure their perverse obstinacy and infidelity God is not willing to gratifie the wantonness or infidelity of mankind and prostitute his Almighty power to their Lusts and Follies by doing extraordinary things when there is no need of them he will not work Miracles as fast and as often as the Atheist is pleas'd to call for 'em when he has given him other sufficient demonstrations of a Divine power he will not send an Angel to Preach his Laws over all the Earth or to speak to men every day with a voice of Thunder when he has otherwise sufficiently made known his will to them Our Saviour would not come down from the Cross to satisfie the Cavils and unreasonable Request of an unbelieving Jew when he had done sufficient Miracles before to convince him he would not give such a sign as was desired by an Evil and Adulterous Generatition Mat. 12.39 when they had other signs enough As this would make his Almighty power Cheap and Contemptible to let it be at the pleasure and call of every unreasonable and humoursome person so if he should exert it never so often it would not have that effect we imagine upon them for he who is so unreasonable an Infidel and so obstinately unsatissied as to shut his Eyes against full Evidence and just Conviction will never be wrought upon in all likelihood by any thing that shall be done farther though Heaven should be at a farther expence and tire it self as it were to do Miracles without End or Number yet it would be still the same Of this we have a very great instance in the Old Testament Pharaoh who had so many Miracles wrought before him and as many Plagues as Miracles to make him Obedient to one Command of God when he saw the Rivers and all the Water in his Country turn'd into Blood Exod. 7.19 when all his Land was covered with Frogs and they came into his presence Chamber when the dust of the Earth was become Lice and he could not but confess that this was the singer of God when a great many more Miracles of which he could not but have a very great sense were done before his Eyes yet still his obstinacy was too hard for 'em and a Miracle beyond all the rest Indeed when he was under the present smart of a Judgment it would awaken him for a moment Exod. 8.28 but as soon as it was removed and he had respite he was immediately hardned And thus probably would an obstinate and hardned sinner when a Messenger from the dead was talking with him he would melt and soften and cry out as Pharaoh did I have sinned Exod. 9.27 and resolve at that time to let his sins go but yet in a little time he would harden again and resolve not to part with ' em Of this there is an instance as great and strange also in the New Testament and that is not in a single Person but in a whole Nation The Jews in our Saviour's time tho they saw him do such works as never man did such as out-did all that were recorded of any of their own Prophets tho' they saw him raise the dead and cure the sick and were Eye-Witnesses of the daily Miracles he wrought amongst them yet all this would not cure 'em of their obstinate Infidelity nor could the Son of God use any remedy for their perverseness and wilfull incredulity which plainly shows that men may arrive at such Stubbornness and Infidelity that even Miracles and the most extraordinary means will not work upon them Where there is not such an obstinacy of the Will but only a more innocent Ignorance caused by want of the same means that others have enjoyed there those extraordinary Miracles would have another effect as if the works which our Saviour did in Galilee had been done in Tyre and Sidon they had long ago repented in sack-cloath and ashes as he tells 'em Mat. 11.21 and so if a Messenger had come from the dead to those that had never heard of Moses or the Prophets or never had any Revelation or Means of knowing those things another way they would probably have been perswaded by him but when Men have once stood out against the ordinary means that God has afforded them there extraordinary ones will seldom prevail upon them if God should think fit to make use of 'em and that 5. As another reason why if they heard not Moses and the Prophets neither would they be perswaded tho' one rose from the dead because the mind is so blinded by the love of its sins and the Will so depraved and corrupted by them especially by a long custom and habit continued in against all the ordinary means of Grace and all the powerfull considerations of Religion that it becomes utterly incurable The love of Vice darkens a Mans mind and blinds his reason and judgment it bars up his Understanding against the plainest Truths and makes him resolve not to believe that to be true which it is his interest should be false and from hence it is that a great many who would be glad that there were no Heaven or Hell hereafter are brought to question the truth of them and pretend not to be satisfi'd with that Account and Evidence that the Scripture gives of them and if they had more and the same that they do now require to see one from the dead yet the love of wickedness would still make 'em very unwilling to believe it and their corrupted Wills would be too hard for their understandings it would be very hard to convince them that that was true which they had so great an inclination and so great a desire should be false And from hence it is that Men's Infidelity springs in matters of Religion not from want of sufficient Conviction to their understandings but from a corruption and pravity of their Wills by which means their understanding has a cloud and a film drawn over it so that it is quite darkned to the clearest and most evident light they grow senseless and stupified and their intellectuals are besotted and their reason depraved and the whole mind sunk into such a miserable state and condition that they are become such of whom the Scripture speaks John 12.40 He hath blinded their eyes and hardned their hearts that they should not see with their eyes nor understand with their heart and be converted so that God should heal them and that neither with all the ordinary nor the extraordinary methods which he can use towards them Let us therefore take care not to fall into such a sad state and condition by indulging our selves in the love or the practice of any wilfull sin which may by degrees so strangely harden and deceive us so fascinate and bewitch us that when it has baffled and overcome all the ordinary remedies of the Divine Grace and Providence it shall be past
avoid it I. By giving a general definition c. Now I would thus define superstition 'T is such a mistaken apprehension of God and Religion as makes us worship him in an undue manner and place Religion in those things in which it does not really consist 1. 'T is an apprehension of God The superstitious have a great sense upon their minds of a powerfull being above 'em that there is a God who is the invisible Lord of the World This is the common belief of the religious and the superstitious The Atheist who thinks there is no such Being no spiritual and invisible Powers above him but that these are all the Spectres of fear and fancy and the melancholy Images of our own scared Thoughts and Imaginations he calls all Religion Superstition and thinks it the best way to free Mens minds from the slavish fears of a Being above them to deny either him or his Providence and clear his mind if he can from all the thoughts of Religion that so horribly oppress it and keep it in bondage This is a mad and an extravagant project and what he was encourag'd to from the folly and wildness of superstition and the mischief that it had done in the World and from laying all the scelerosa atque impia facta all the Villanies which that had committed to the charge of Religion This is very dis-ingenuous and unjust and the other is a very false extravagance to expell the thoughts of a God in order to the quiet and ease of our minds There is no such reason for fear and melancholy in the belief of a God if we have true and right Conceptions of him 't is matter of the greatest Comfort to us to think there is an Almighty Being to take care of us and to do us good to keep the World orderly and to govern all things below We have all reason to rejoyce in our having such a common Father to provide for us and such a Governor to protect us who is wise and good as well as powerfull which is the Notion of a God sad would be our Condition if there were not such a being and I know no such melancholy consideration as that which the Atheist supposes to be the remedy for all his fears and disquietudes the believing there is no God for then we take away all true hope and comfortable trust and have nothing at all to support our sinking minds nor to relieve the necessities of mankind so that tho' superstition believe a God yet the belief does not make Men superstitious but 2. 'T is a wrong and mistaken apprehension of this God the believing him to be a severe and cruel Being arm'd indeed with irresistible power but arbitrary and wilfull in the use of it and that may probably do infinite mischief and only ruin and destroy his innocent Creatures with it that may make them only to be the pastime of his rage and the sport and entertainment of his Almighty revenge and may damn the greatest part of 'em to Eternal flames only to show his Groatness and incontrolable Power over them or if he be not thus Cruel and Tyrannical yet that he is froward and pettish hard to be pleased and easily provoked that it is next to impossible to please him and utterly so to be reconcil'd to him when be is angry such thoughts as these of God may very well produce a superstitious and uncomfortable dread of him and sill the mind with nothing but terror and astonishment and a dismal uncertainty and perplexity and in these black colours superstition always draws him with gastly look and terrible visage with a brow always threatning and a hand Armed with Thunder and ready to strike without any regard to the merit or behaviour of those that are under him And were God such a Being as this without natural Justice or essential Righteousness were not his goodness as infinite as his power and were not one as much his nature as the other then indeed we might live as miserably under the thoughts of him as the most timorous Slave does under his merciless Patron or the poorest Prisoner under his insolent Keeper and what will not such fearfull wretches do to appease the anger of such a God as they think is over them what is so mean and base what so foolish and silly what so cruel and barbarous that they will not perform to satisfie this devouring Moloch It is very strange that ever Men should think the burning their Children alive should be an acceptable duty in Religion or that cutting their own throats should please their Gods but when they have had such dreadfull apprehensions of them no wonder that these cruel things were made the offices of their Religion which were so suited to the conceptions of their Gods For in the 3. Third place these mistaken apprehensions of God will put Men upon worshipping him in an undue manner the acts of worship and offices of Religion will be suitable to the conceptions we have of the Divine nature if we think God is a severe and a cruel being we shall think he delights in nothing so much as in bloody Sacrifices and in having his Altars reek with Human gore which was become a very general custom and a common office of the Gentile Religion and the Devil without doubt endeavoured to bring mankind into this abominable superstition by representing God to be such an one as himself and by making his own Diabolical temper to be the Image and Character of the Divine nature by thus setting up himself as the Idol of God this horrid worship did terminate in him and what the Gentiles thus offered they Sacrificed to Devils and not to God 1 Cor. 10.20 But if we have other conceptions of God very unsuitable to his nature if we think he is not a wise and righteous but a vain being that will be pleased with little and outward things with affected Formalities and studied Compliments with officious Addresses and appearing shows with adorning Images and pompous Processions then all our Religion quickly runs into those trifling things and to be sure it will some way be defective if it have not a very right Foundation a true conception of God and his Nature 4. This will necessarily bring Men to wrong apprehensions of Religion and to place it in those things in which it does not consist it will make them think God is pleased with what is no way agreeable to his nature or else displeased with what is no way contrary to it God's Love or Hatred to any thing is founded in his Nature and if we mistake in that we shall do so in his Will too which is always Regulated and Conducted by the essential rectitude and perfections of his Nature and this as 't is the truest Original so 't is the best Interpreter of the Will of God but superstition that knows not God aright as it is afraid of him as of a Friend in the dark so
in other things it fears where no fear is and yet thinks to oblige by such pitifull things as would hardly please a wise Man and much less a wise God it will keep off from some very innocent things as if all the bane of the seven deadly sins were in them and yet will swallow down many a Camel whilst it strains so hard at a single Gnat it will be as punctual and zealous in some little performances as if they were the sum and substance of Christianity tho' they are perhaps hardly the shell and outside of it and what is the main and the substantial part of it that it shall think of little worth in Comparison to the other it shall fall short of the plain and moral duties of Religion and over-do it in the positive ones to make amends or commute for the other it shall seem in some things to be an excess of Religion as some have defined superstition but 't is but as the Rickets is an excess of Nourishment in some parts that want it not whilst the others do consume and pine away 't is really the defect of Religion It shall seem to court God and flatter him but not love him for superstition is often a sort of religious flattery that make more than ordinary pretences and gives greater shows of kindness to Heaven but yet fails in performing that true and honest service which it ought it is for offering something of its own and thinks to please God with its little Inventions whilst it denies him that which he requires of his but these are but general Characters and Descriptions of superstition I proceed in the 2. Second place to consider some particular instances of it and to examine a few of those that are accounted such and are not so And 1. I account all the Heathen Polytheism and Worship of many Deities Heroes and Daemons and their Inferior Gods to be the first and truest part of superstition this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the strictest sence of that word and was such as the Athenians were greatly guilty of and charged with it here by St. Paul for all Idolatry tho' it be a breach of the second command yet is truly superstition which is said to be a breach of the first it arises from a very mistaken notion of the true God and from an immoderate fear of all those other beings that it supposes under him and next to him in power and other perfection it thinks them worthy of Divine Honour and Veneration and that they are the Authors of very great blessings and favours to mankind and that they ought to have addresses made to them to be pray'd to in sickness and in danger and under any affliction or extremity and so makes it self a Pensioner to them and lives not only under the fear and awe of those but under expectations from and dependencies upon those as well as the supreme and the great God This was the true ground of the Heathen Polytheism and Idolatry They took the inferior Deities to be the Ministers of State and Governors of the World under the Supreme and they Worshipt them as their immediate and particular Patrons and as is plain from Maximus Tyrius they accounted them their Mediators by whom they made their addresses to the greatest God this was thought by them to be an humble deference to him who was too great to have immediate worship or prayers offer'd to him by persons so much below him and therefore they made use of others and so in time forgot the supreme and paid no Religious offices to him at all but gave away that honour and worship that was due only to him to the meanest and to the worst of his Creatures and even to the wicked Angels and to the Devils themselves and how sad was the superstition of the Heathen World and how the knowledge of the true God was almost quite lost among 'em before the coming of our Saviour who came to destroy all false worship and superstition both the Scriptures and the Heathens themselves sufficiently inform us 2. The next instance of superstition to the Heathen Polytheism and very near of kin to it is that of worshipping Saints and Angels Images and Reliques which is too notoriously practis'd in the Church of Rome This is so rank and open a superstition that it comes up to the truest Etymology of the Greek and Latin word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which if good Beings are Angels and the Souls that are departed being the superstites that they suppose now living in Heaven which agrees with the account that Tully and Lactantius give of it This worship of Angels was a very ancient superstition of some Heretical Christians which St. Paul cautions against Colos 2.18 Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of Angels This it seems was supposed to be a point of humility upon some account I suppose upon the principle of the Gentiles that they thought it too great a thing to address to the Majesty of God without the Angels as Mediators but besides that this is an Encroachment upon the Office of Christ who is the only Mediator between God and Man 1 Tim. 2.5 to choose other Mediators for our selves It is the putting the Angels upon an Office they were never appointed to by God and a superstitious trust and confidence placed in them without any manner of ground and intruding into those things which we have not seen Col. 2.18 and a new sort of worship which the Scripture hath no where Commanded or Countenanc'd but expresly forbidden Rev. 19.10 And such is the superstitious reverence given to Images and Reliques as if there were any thing Sacred in them or any Vertue to be expected by them or the relation they had to the Person or Prototype were a sufficient ground of giving religious Honour and Worship to them I know not whether the folly of this superstition or the sin be greater 't is as low in many cases as any almost among the Heathens and the Egyptians worshipping the spots upon the Apis the Ibis and the Herbs of their Garden as thinking a Divine Vertue resided in them is very near as innocent and defensible 3. Another instance of superstition is to think to please God with greater acts of severity and mortification than he has required and to place a higher perfection in those things than in all the other parts of Religion which God himself has commanded This was a very early superstition in the very beginning of Christianity when some of the Hereticks were not contented with the plain and excellent duties of Faith and Love and Meekness and the like but they must be for something more singular and extraordinary that made a greater show of more abstinence and severity and self-denial and had as the Apostle says a show of wisdom in will worship and humility and neglecting of the body Col. 2.23 and they would deny themselves
true sanctity on one side or any real sin on the other in the use of them To say that no Indifferencies and Ceremonies must be used in the worship of God but what he has commanded is to condemn the Jewish and the Christian Church and even all Parties in Religion who can never worship God without some such and therefore 't is true superstition to think there is a sin in those and that God will be displeased at what is no way sinfull and unlawfull in it self and is confess'd not to be so before it is imposed when it is imposed for mere order and decency so on the other side 't is superstition to think there is any real sanctity in those or that they are true parts and not meerly Circumstances of worship that there is a real Goodness in the things themselves and that they are a means to please God and procure his favour and that there is such a Vertue in them to do this meerly for themselves tho' there were no human authority required them of us As the Jews thought of the Traditions of their Elders But the charge of superstition is brought nearer to us and laid to our own Church and it concerns us rather to vindicate our selves than to lay it upon others We blame the Papists for placing Religion in such things as God has not commanded and for a superstitious use of several Rites and Ceremonies no where prescribed in the Gospel but do not we our selves commit the same fault in using a great many Rites and Ceremonies in our worship which are no where commanded of God and are only human inventions and impositions and therefore superstitious This therefore I design to enquire into which is a great stumbling block to many who do not well understand superstition and are superstitiously afraid of it where there is no such thing nor are well acquainted with the nature and design of those Rites which are used in the Church of England and what it self teaches concerning them I shall therefore in this place examine whether to use any thing in the worship of God which he himself has not commanded be superstition and to vindicate our Rites and Ceremonies from such an imputation and particularly those bodily acts of worship which are most suspected to be so kneeling at the Sacrament and the like and that I may do this to the satisfaction of all persons who do not resolve that they will never be satisfied I shall offer these several things about this matter 1. If it be superstition to use any thing in the worship of God which he himself has not commanded and which is not prescribed by a Divine Law then the Dissenters themselves be they of what Party or Denomination soever are very guilty of superstition for they all of them use a great many things in their worshipping of God for which there is no Divine Law or Command as for Example where is it Commanded that they shall use a conceived prayer of their own and not pray by a form Where is it Commanded that they should receive the Sacrament sitting and not kneeling Where is it Commanded that the Minister shall be cloathed in black and shall not wear a Surplice when he Officiates those things that are in use among them are no more Commanded by a Law of God than those among us 2. If it be superstitious to use any thing in the worship of God that God himself has not prescribed then what shall we think of several things that the Jews used in their worship which God had not Commanded and yet both our Saviour and his Apostles complied with them in 'em as for Example in all their Synagogue-worship whither our Saviour and his Apostles often resorted and yet they had no Command for it in their Law but only for their worship at the Temple or Tabernacle They had no Command in their Law for Reading and Preaching Moses there every Sabbath day as was accustomed Acts 15.21 nor for that form of Prayer and Liturgy which they used there and in which no doubt but our Saviour and his Apostles joyned with them Nay there was no express Law for all their Temple worship nor for building their Temple nor for their Prayers and their Hymns there which were a great many of them appointed by David and their other Governors there was no precept for their hours of Prayer which were observed by the Apostles Acts 3.1 there was no Divine Command for the Feast of the Dedication at which our Saviour was present John 10.22 and yet he never in the least reproved those unappointed usages as having any thing of superstition in them but complied with them and countenanc'd them by his own Example So in the Passover which is a very considerable rite and part of Jewish worship our Saviour used the posture of lying and discumbency in the eating of it tho' that was not the posture Commanded in the Law and at the first institution of it Exodus 12.11 but taken up afterwards by the Jewish Church when they were settled with ease and liberty in the Land of Canaan and the Cup of Charity also that was not of Divine institution yet this our Saviour used also after the manner of the Jews Luke 22.17 and was pleased to conform to many innocent and inoffensive rites of the Jewish Church in their Divine worship though they were not all of them expresly Commanded or Prescribed by God 3. The whole Christian Church did use some things in their worship which were no way Commanded by Christ The Holy kiss or the kiss of Charity which is mention'd Romans 16.16 1 Pet. 5.14 was an outward symbol of Love and Charity which the Christians used at their meeting at Prayers and the Sacrament and such were their Love Feasts or Feasts of Charity which were Celebrated together with the Lords Supper 1 Cor. 11. â—0 Jude 12. These were only such rites as the Christians without any Command of Christ thought fit to join with the most solemn parts of the Christian worship and yet they were of so indifferent and alterable a nature that the Christian Church has thought it matter of prudence to lay them aside And whoever is acquainted with the state of the Christian Church in its purest times and immediately after the Apostles knows there were several Ecclesiastical rites appointed by the Governors of it and several Canons made in their Synods and Councils concerning indifferent things as there was before by the Apostles in the Council of Hierusalem Acts 15.29 prudential rules and orders concerning blood and things strangled which they then impos'd upon the Gentiles for that time but yet the obligation of them does not continue And he that will defend that Doctrine that nothing is Lawfull in the worship of God that is not prescribed by himself must not only condemn all the Reform'd Churches abroad who both practice and teach otherwise in all their Confessions but the whole Catholick Church ever
since Christ and his Apostles which has found it necessary to appoint many external rites in their religious service 4. It is impossible in the nature of the thing to perform Divine worship without some rites and usages that God has now here Commanded nor is it possible to make Laws concerning these to reach all places for they must alter according to the several Manners and Customs of different People and Countries We must worship God with all signs of Honour and Reverence with respect and decency becoming so great a Majesty but the marks and outward signs of Honour alter and change according to Customs and Places and People that 't is impossible particularly to determine them As for Example pulling off the Shoe is a sign of Honour and Reverence in the Eastern Countries as pulling off the Hat with us and to this it is thought the precepts of the wise man alludes Eccles 5.1 Keep thy foot when thou goest into the house of God i. e. be carefull to show all manner of Reverence in his presence as the Jews did who always went barefoot into God's house as the Mahometans I think do still into their religious places but this would be a very odd and irreverent thing with us It was no irreverence among the Jews to have their heads covered in Divine worship at their Prayers and Sacrifices when the Priests constantly wore their Caps and Bonnets and sometimes Veils and other coverings and so Plutarch says it was accounted comely among the Romans to be covered at their worship but among the Graecians it was quite otherwise and at Corinth where St. Paul declares it to be an act of irreverence for the Men to Pray or Prophesie having the head covered 1. Cor. 11.4 tho' it was otherwise for the Women And therefore since matter of decency and order depends upon particular Customs and Places and Circumstances and is in it self variable and mutable there cannot be a Law given to determine it in all places nor is it possible to have all the little Rites and Circumstances of religious worship be comprehended in a Divine Law and therefore in the 5. Fifth place God has left those to be determined by particular Churches and Governors and has only commanded the substantials of his worship and given general Rules for all things to be done decently and in order 1 Cor. 14.40 and for mutual edification and the lesser circumstances and adjuncts that belong to Divine worship those he has lest undetermined and indifferent and those to whom he has committed the Government of the Church they are to settle those for prevention of confusion and disorder according to the rules of Prudence and those general measures which God has given in the Gospel It is plain he has no where Commanded them himself nor can there be any particular directory for them produced out of the Scriptures and as plain it is that there would be perpetual confusion and disorder in the Church if these were not appointed in several places by those who are Governors of it and when they are so they are to be obeyed and observed when there is nothing in them that is contrary to a Law of God they cannot be unlawfull when no Law forbids them but they may become necessary in their use when they were indifferent in their nature by a Lawfull Authority 's commanding them and surely there can be no sin or superstition in them upon that account Which that I may then clear the particular Ceremonies and Impositions of our Church from I shall very freely and openly give you my thoughts in some farther particulars about the lawfull and the superstitious use of these things in the worship of God 1. I own that there ought to be no new parts of worship other than what God himself has appointed there may be new circumstances and adjuncts appointed but no real and substantial parts of Divine worship As for Example no human Authority can institute new Sacraments as the Church of Rome does or more Sacramental parts of worship than those two which Christ himself has appointed to wit Baptism and the Lord's Supper but whether Baptism shall be performed by sprinkling or by dipping that is but a circumstance which the Church may determine according to the difference of the Climate or the strength of the Child or the season of the year and is left to every Minister's discretion in his own Church and so also whether it shall be by single or a trine immersion this as not being an essential of Baptism has been variously determined So in the other Sacrament none can add or take away from an essential part of Christ's own Institution as the Papists do in depriving the Laity of the Cup but whether we shall take this in a posture of sitting or kneeling or which is very ancient standing is not essential to it but what the Church may appoint as it thinks most becoming so solemn a Duty and most suiting the Prayers and Devotions that are joyn'd with it which no doubt kneeling is So farther to use Adoration and Invocation to God alone and not to Angels or Saints is a necessary duty but whether we should pray to God with a form or without it this is not necessary tho' the former be much more convenient in publick to prevent the many faults and undecencies of extemporary effusions so whether we adore God by bowing or by prostration or by kneeling or by standing as the ancient Church did between Easter and Pentecost is only a new manner or circumstance of adoration not a new act or part of it And this I have the more carefully illustrated that we may see the difference between parts of worship and only accidents and appendages and circumstances of worship The Church of England appoints only the latter not any substantial worship or any parts of it but what God himself has appointed as will appear farther 2. That which is in it self very Lawfull and Innocent may become superstitious by the opinion which he that uses it has of it as if he thinks it is a means to please God and procure his favour and that it has such a vertue in it self to do this as that God would be pleased with us for the doing this and displeased with us if we should not do it meerly for it self tho' there were no human Authority that required it of us as the Jews thought that their washing of their hands would please God and that it was a defilement of their Consciences to eat with unwashen hands which was the mistake our Saviour reproves them for Mat. 15.20 their superstitious opinion of that Ceremony and the Tradition of their Elders to think that it was a piece of Sanctity and Religion to wash their hands and that it was a sin and real defilement of their Consciences not to do it to ascribe a true spiritual Vertue to an outward Ceremony as that it expiated inward guilt and was not a meer
deportment so does the superstitious make shows and appearances of courtship to Heaven but he is out in all of them and does not what is proper what is really obliging and acceptable to it The Devil not being able to destroy the religious sense that is in our minds not being able to root out that which Nature has planted in every man's breast a sense of a God and a Divine Being above us he endeavours to spoil and corrupt that as much as he can and to sow such cockle and tares among the good and natural seed of religion as may quite choke it and make it unfruitfull as may alter its kind and make it produce such fruit as is not true and genuine but quite of another nature as looks like religion and like the Apples of Sodom seem more fair outwardly but is another thing within because he cannot hinder men from being Religious but there is something within themselves will make them so in spite of all his attempts and designs to the contrary therefore he will make 'em superstitious because he cannot stop the religious instinct and inclination of their minds he will determine and set it wrong because he cannot dry up that natural spring of Religion that rises up in every ones breast he will poyson and corrupt it and because Religion is so deeply and strongly rooted in human nature that it can never be wholly pluck'd up by him therefore he will graft upon it such false and superstitious principles as shall quite alter it's nature and tho' they are fed and nourish'd by a religious sense at the bottom yet this vine shall bring forth Thorns and this Fig-tree Thistles and from this sweet Fountain shall come forth Salt and bitter Waters by a superstitious mixture Religion shall be changed and perverted both in its nature and its effects This is the saddest mischief to true Religion that it should be thus made to destroy it self that its force and power should be turned upon its self and it should be consumed like some Animals by what grows out of it self 'T is thus the Devil most successfully countermines God and destroys Religion by turning it into superstition which how it is done and by what means effected I shall endeavour to show you in three prrticulars 1. By making Men vitious and wicked for tho' superstition may often grow up in weak and silly minds that may be innocent and far from being guilty of very great and notorious vices yet I believe the first and most general cause of superstition in the World is Vice and Wickedness the Devil has first drawn Men to that and then has led them into all manner of errors and falshoods he has first debauch'd their morals and then their understandings he has first wrought upon their Wills and Affections by abominable Lusts and Vices and then he has quickly corrupted their Judgments and led 'em into all manner of mistakes in Religion The superstition of the Heathen World arose I doubt not from that horrible corruption of manners that was among them they would never have set up such a Religion as they did made up of nothing almost but obscenity and filthiness cruelty and blood apishness and folly had not they been as the Apostle represents the Heathen World Rom. 1. Vain in their imaginations and fill'd with all manner of unrighteousness implacable and unmercifull in their own tempers and given up to the most beastly Lusts and unnatural Lewdnesses these Vices in themselves naturally lead them to such a false Religion and such superstitious abominations as they were guilty of But as their manners decay'd so did the true Religion and the right worship of God and as vice got ground so did superstition and they always grew up and encreased and like Hippocrates his Twins lived and died together What hidden cause thus linked them together and how they came to be such inseparable Companions may seem strange when superstition owns and acknowledges a God has a great sense of him upon the mind but if we consider that this sense of a God when it has not had such a due effect as it ought upon it so as to preserve it vertuous and Innocent but Lust and Wickedness and the Temptations of the Devil have overcome it this sense of its own Wickedness joyned with the sense of a God does very naturally and easily bring it to superstition If it had no sense of a God nor no belief of such a being at all if it could get rid of that which it never can then indeed there would be no ground of superstition and this way the Atheist would free himself from all superstitious fears or if it were not vicious and so not sensible of its own horrid guilt and wickedness and its obnoxiousness to this God above neither then would it be superstitious but when it is thus sensible of a great and just God which is the avenger of such crimes as it knows it has been highly guilty of this is the first thing that brings it to superstition because in the 2. Second place this causes a dreadfull fear and terrible apprehension of God upon it it s own guilt scares and affrights it and draws terrible Ideas and Images of God upon its mind so that it looks upon him only as a Malefactor does upon his severe Judge his Jailor or his Executioner it sees nothing but frowns in his face and anger in his eyes and Thunder and Lightning in his hand and fancies all the Instrumenes of Torture and Punishment ready to be applied to it And in such a case as this is what would it not do to pacifie and appease this Deity that it thus dreads what a dreadfull fright and passion must it be in when it can think of nothing that will do it how will it be trying every thing it can think of Come before his altars and bring thousands of rams and ten thousand rivers of oyl if it were rich enough and give its first born for its transgression and part with the fruit of its own body for the sin of its soul Micah 6.7 and shed its own blood for to make some expiation for its guilt Nothing is so mean and servile nothing so cruel and bloody so shamefull and scandalous but a Soul overwhelmed with a superstitious fear will be attempting and trying be it never so unagreeable to the Divine Nature and never so unfit and unsuitable to please him there is just ground of being afraid of God when we are sensible of our guilt and 't is not this is superstition but when this fear puts Men upon foolish and undue and abominable ways to appease him and gives us such a dreadfull Idea and Apprehension of him as quite excludes all the thoughts of his Goodness and Mercy and puts the mind only into an excessive fright and fit of horror then it is so I cannot think that ever mankind would have formed such a conception of God had not their
guilt been the medium thro' which they beheld him there is nothing in the Divine Nature should cause this superstitious dread of him nor draw him in such black and ghastly features as these are but no wonder that God looks very terrible to a very wicked and a very guilty mind especially in the 3. Third place when it is ignorant of any true and certain way to please or appease God to procure his favour or avert his anger which is the other cause of superstition the superstitious are a sort of timerous persons that are always in the dark where they have frightfull Images always before them and black and ghastly apparitions rise up in their fancies and they know not which way to turn themselves nor how to avoid the furies and spectres of their own thoughts They cannot tell how to deliver themselves from this sad state and thus anxious and perplexed they apply themselves to any Saint or any Daemon be it good or bad that they are told can help them they run to the altar and throw on any thing that may free 'em from punishment like persons in a Tempest they 'll part with their richest goods to save themselves they 'll perform every Rite and go through every Mystery and undergo any kind of Pennance they 'll whip themselves and walk bare-foot and run to the shrines of any Saint and whatever superstitious ignorance shall advise 'em to this they 'll comply withal and all out of great fear and silly ignorance and not knowing what it is that will truly recommend 'em to Heaven and procure the Divine favour And therefore as to the Cure of superstition which is the last thing I am to speak to I account a right knowledge of Religion and a true conception of the Divine Nature to be the cure and remedy for superstition and by this way our blessed Saviour who came to destroy all superstition and false worship out of the World has most effectually accomplish'd his design by assuring us that God is a Being of infinite Goodness and Compassion to his Creatures who is not apt to be angry nor provoked with little matters and who is very placable and willing to be reconciled whenever we have done a great fault that truly offends him who is not a peevish and angry Master whom it is impossible to please but a kind and gentle Father whom nothing but willfull disobedience and impudent undutifullness will anger and displease who tho' he is not a soft and easie Being who is to be flattered with shows and imposed upon by little tricks and sorry performances yet we may be sure to oblige him by being honest and sincere and doing what lies in our power who tho' we have a great many imperfections and a great many frailties yet will accept whatever we offer him in the integrity of our hearts and will not be extreme or severe to mark what is done amiss or take advantage of the unavoidable failures of Human Nature who is so far from that that he has provided a certain remedy for our most wilfull miscarriages and declared himself ready to pardon the most hainous offences of the greatest sinners upon the most equitable and gracious terms that can be desired Such a representation of God and the Divine nature as this is which Christianity has given us is enough to banish all superstitious fear and unreasonable dread of him this will remove all that anxious and perplexing astonishment which we might otherwise be opprest withal when we look'd up to an Almighty power above us and were uncertain how he would deal with us and would not tell by what ways we should either purchase his good will or avoid his displeasure Now we know very certainly how we may do that by living vertuously and observing the eternal Laws of Goodness and Righteousness by a hearty penitence for all our past faults and a sincere obedience for the time to come by living up to the excellent rules of the Gospel and the excellent Example of our Blessed Master By a true understanding and an honest practice of the Christian Religion we shall be delivered from all the fears and uncertainties from all the darkness and ignorance of superstition and that we may be so I shall add further two Rules or Advices to this purpose 1. Let us bring our minds truly to love God This the superstitious person does not he is afraid of God and trembles at the thoughts of him as a Slave does at the sight of his merciless Patron but he wishes there were no such being as he fansios God to be and it would be the most joyfull thing in the World if he could get out of his irresistible power He finds indeed that is impossible and so he crouches to him as a Captive does to his Insolent Conqueror that has him in Chains and leads him in Triumph tyed to his Chariot Wheels but he hates him in his heart even while he prays to him and when he bows the most submissively before him his heart within rises up against him and there he curses him whilst he flatters him with his lips Such a black and dismal apprehension the superstitious person has of God whom he fansies to be a cruel severe angry touchy Being an Almighty power without goodness which is to make him an infinite evil instead of a good and an Almighty Tyrant instead of a Righteous God This makes it impossible for him to love him he may worship him but 't is as Plutarch says some saluted those Tyrants and built Statues to them whom they would have killed and dethroned had it been in their power he may come to the Temple but as he says 't is as if it were to the nests of Dragons or the Caves of wild Beasts for he imagines the God that dwells there to be as hurtfull and mischievous as any of those only more powerfull and he has just such a conception of him as the Indians of the Devil whom yet they worship I know no greater blasphemy to the Divine Nature than to conceive thus of it as the superstitious person doth nor no worse Idolatry than to set up such an Idol of fear and terror in our Souls instead of the great and good God I will not say as some do that Atheism is better than this to deny a God than to think thus ill of him but this is certain that the superstitious would be an Atheist if he durst and 't is much against his Will his Wishes and his Inclinations to believe there is a God and therefore to prevent all superstitious and undue fear of God let us avoid all such false notions and misapprehensions of him as will make it impossible for us to love him 2. Let us love and practice Vertue and Goodness and only by that means hope to commend our selves to God and fit our selves for Heaven and so we shall avoid most of the little tricks the cheats and devices of
superstition the design of those is to supersede honest Vertue and inward Goodness and by some other ways to think to purchase the Divine Favour and the Happiness of Heaven 'T is very hard and difficult to men to be inwardly good and exactly vertuous to drive out every known sin and live in the practice of every duty which is the plain and the honest path-way to Heaven and therefore superstition would find out other by-roads and easier passages and would have Religion lie in more easie and outward performances and would relieve it self against that strait and narrow way which the Gospel directs us to and would have it suffice to be sent to Heaven by an Absolution or an Indulgence Thus by a Pass as it were by the Priest or Pope to the other World by making a short Confession and being a little contrite and absolved and anointed on the Death-Bed the work is quickly done and as well he thinks as if the Man had lived a Saint or died a Martyr or if he had been so Religious in his life time as to tell over his Beads every day and carry a Crucifix always about him and perform the Pennance of his Confessor and gone a few Pilgrimages to a few Saints then he has done such works as are very meritorious tho' his Saviour never Commanded one of them and he must be thought to be very Religious tho' 't is such a Religion as the Gospel is a perfect stranger to But Superstition is for placing Religion in some other things than the Gospel does in some inventions of its own in some little and easie and trifling performances in some of the externals and shadows of Religion in a strict observance of some lesser duties and a zealous concern for inconsiderable matters in being over forward for the little adjuncts and appendages of Religion but very negligent of that which is the true life and substance of it and in vainly believing to please God by some other things than by a righteous and good mind and the practice of universal Holiness Thus did the Jews think that often washing their Hands would make their Souls clean that to observe the lesser duties of the Law and the Rites and Traditions of their Elders was the way to render them extraordinary Holy and Religious though they foully neglected the weightier duties of Judgment Mercy and Truth Superstition will often overdo in some parts of Religion and therefore puts on the face of greater sanctity and is a kind of excess in Religion but 't is at the bottom a great defect a want of true and inward goodness and it would supply that defect by other shows and appearances and a mighty zeal in little things it would compound as it were with Heaven and commute its sorry and worthless performances for actions of true and substantial goodness It always lays too much value upon the little things of Religion and does but little esteem and not heartily love Morality and inward Goodness and therefore the truest principle to free us from all superstitious follies and mistakes in Religion is this That nothing will please God but being truly and inwardly good that nothing will commend us to his favour but a Vertuous Mind and a Holy Life and the sincere practice of all the moral substantial duties of Religion and that without those all other little things in Religion will be vain and idle and insignificant which is the truest principle in the World and the best preservative against Superstition The Eleventh Sermon ACTS XXVI 8. Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that God should raise the dead THe Resurrection of the dead is an Article of our Faith of that weight and importance that as it confirms and strengthens all natural Religion for if Mens bodies rise most undoubtedly there is a future State so it is the very Basis and Foundation of Christianity without which our Faith in Christ is as the Apostle says vain and ungrounded It seems not so necessary indeed for the truth of Religion in general to believe the Resurrection of the flesh or body since the Soul without that may be capable of Happiness or Misery in another state and the belief of this alone may be sufficient to the designs of Vertue and Religion But Christianity lays a very great stress upon it makes the Resurrection of the body as necessary and fundamental an Article upon some accounts as the immortality of the soul and this because of the Resurrection of our Blessed Saviour which as 't is the great demonstration of the truth of our Religion so it is an Argument of the Resurrection of all other Humane Bodies for if he be risen again with the same Body with which he lived and with that is gone into the Heavens it 's fit we should follow him thither with our bodies too with our whole Humane Nature which he was pleased not only to assume upon Earth but to carry up to be an Inhabitant of the mansions above if he our head be raised we his Members must be raised with him he the first fruits from the dead has by his Resurrection Consecrated our Bodies to Life and Immortality It would be very strange if he should carry his Humane Body into Heaven were there no others of the same nature to follow him so that as the Apostle argues 1 Cor. 15.13 If there be no Resurrection of the dead then is Christ not risen It does therefore highly concern us to maintain and defend this main post and strongest hold of our Religion by which our Christianity must either stand or fall and that the more because Infidelity and Irreligion is most apt to be making its attempts and assaults upon it in this place the weakest as is supposed which belongs to it and to represent this article above all others as an impossible and incredible thing There were found not only among the Athenians some of the Sect of Epicurus probably who when they heard of the Resurrection mocked at it Acts 17.32 and Pliny I remember reckons it among one of the things that exceed the power of God revocare defunctos but even amongst the Jews there were some known to St. Paul who thought it a thing unreasonable and unfit to be believed to whom he directs himself in this his defence of Christianity the Sadduces were a numerous and prevailing Sect among them who say there is no Resurrection neither Angel nor Spirit Acts 23.8 There are too many of their mind in our days who cannot believe or conceive any spiritual or immaterial substances and who cannot think that a body after it has been dead and lain rotting so many hundred or thousand years and been dispersed into ten thousand atoms and scattered into as many different places and had a thousand other bodies made out of it that this should be brought together again and rise the same body it was before Against these modern Sadduces and Unbelievers these pretenders to Reason
in relation to our selves as well as to the World that is the prime and general cause of Mens being deceived into sin and the first part of its deceitfulness is by the immoderate and salse Opinion of those little Goods or present Enjoyments we may obtain by them Thus when our Fancies and vain Imaginations represent Riches and a great Estate as the greatest Good as the greatest Security Credit and Comfort and what will afford and bring in all other good things of this World this makes a Man make Riches his God and put his trust in 'em and Sacrifice every thing to Mammon and use any means to attain 'em because he thinks nothing so evil as to be without them and nothing else so good as having abundance of them So another fancies no happiness like that of being Great and above others of having the knee and the head and the outward marks and acknowledgments of superiority given him or to appear in State and Grandeur with a rich Train and splendid Equipage always attending him and he despises poor and contemptible Vertue in respect of all this and thinks as meanly of the greatest Wisdom without those as that does of him and therefore rather than part with those he will part with his Conscience and change his Religion rather than his place and will stick at nothing either to keep or gain his ambitious Ends and Designs Another who is a Voluptuary and thinks Pleasure the summum bonum the chiefest good he can taste or feel he hunts after it thro' all the Scents and Paths of Sensuality Luxury Lewdness and Debauchery and either Bacchus or Venus is the Deity he worships and the greatest Good and Enjoyment he fancies and imagines and has an Idea of is the Wine sparkling in the Glass or the Charms of Beauty or the other objects of sensual Pleasure and by heating his thoughts and inflaming his fancy his desires of those things grow impatient excessive and ungovernable Now if a man had used himself to consider seriously how little there is in all those things how very little in respect of the greater pleasures of a wise and easie Mind a good Conscience and the hopes of Religion and that all the true Pleasures of Life that are desirable to a Wise Man may be otherwise enjoyed within the bounds of Vertue and that the going beyond those is an unavoidable mischief to himself and to the World and that all those little sensual and temporary goods he is so fond of are at best but short and transitory empty and unsatisfying things but poor trisling satisfactions and mere gilded decaying Vanities that will all quickly perish and pass away so that our proper happiness cannot lie in them This would give us such true Opinions and right Apprehensions of all carnal and Worldly things in which the whole strength and temptations of sin are placed as would disarm and weaken it of all its power strip it of all its fine dress and false attire wash off all its paint spoil all its beauty and shining lustre whereby it imposes upon our vain fancies and weak imaginations and deceives us with a false Opinion of those small Goods Profits or Pleasures it can afford us 2. We do not at the same time compare with those the great evil that is in them and so do not judge rightly and impartially on both sides but determine hastily on one and so are deceived whereas to make a true Judgment and Estimate we should set the evil against the good and so weigh the matter and set the balance right between them but Alass Men are in too much haste to do this when they are so hotly and eagerly pursuing their Lusts when having the fancied good Pleasure and Enjoyment of their sins only in their Eye they never think or consider or take into their accounts the much greater and more numerous and more certain evils that belong to them and are inseparably annext to the commission of them if they did no Man would swallow the thin bait when he saw the satal hook under it None would eat the forbidden fruit tho' never so fair and pleasant to the Eye if he knew and certainly believed that Death was its bittter sauce and in the day he eat thereof he should die No Man would drink the sweetest draught or take down the most delicious morsel if he thought it would kill him Nature without any great deliberation refuses immediately and abhors what it apprehends to be evil as it is extreamly fond and desirous of what appears good and agreeable to it and the fear of the one is perhaps more strong and affecting than the love of the other as the sense of pain is greater and quicker than that of pleasure and therefore did it spy the Snake in the Grass the Serpent hid under the Bed of Roses and Violets it would not be invited by all their beauty and sweetness to lie down upon them and it would be quickly frighted and run from the tempter tho' he appear'd as an Angel of light if it saw his Cloven Foot Vice therefore always uses art to conceal its worst side hides its deformity and rottenness under a false paint and counterfeit colour and varnishes over its real evil with the fucus of some seeming good so the unwary sinner is drawn into its deadly embraces with its meritricious Looks and false Charms The venomous sting lies covered under the sweet hony and the sinner perceives not the Dagger of the Treacherous Assassin till he is stabb'd with it to the heart But a little Wisdom and Observation and looking about us would plainly discern the innumerable evils that sin carries in its bowels and is big and productive of which grow out of it as fruit from its proper root and are inseparably annexed to it as effects to their causes that can no more be divorced or rescinded from it than light clipt from the Sun and are unalterably setled upon it by the nature and constitution of things and the will and appointment of the first cause and Author of them How do many not only shipwrack their Consciences but their Fortunes too by their Vices in this world where we see abundance of those broken Vessels who have split themselves upon Laziness or Luxury Lewdness or Prodigality or some other wickedness by which they have ruined themselves here as well as hereafter How have others wasted their Bodies by the same courses as they have done their Estates And have sinn'd particularly against those as the Scripture speaks as well as against their Souls and been a kind of Martyrs in the service of the Devil and their own Lusts and endured more pains in their bodies to go to Hell than other Martyrs have done to go to Heaven How do they whose hopes and designs are only in this Life and who fear nothing so much as Death and think nothing so happy as to live long yet shorten their lives by their Vices and by
spoiling and corrupting all its Life and bringing to this fad state and condition and now it is desperate and irrecoverable and because it has lost the only opportunities of improving and sitting it for happiness it must now necessarily be miserable with it as long as its duration lasts that is for ever God grant that we may avoid all those sins which will thus spoil our minds and bring this hardness and this misery upon us FINIS ERRATA besides some false Pointings PAge 2. L. 11. r. there p. 4. l. 18. r. Principle p. 9. l. 9. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 21. l. 7. r. distractions p. 22. l. 2. for the r. any p. 33. l. 5. r. perception p. 49. l. 15. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 50. l. 16. r. true Judgment p. 51. l. 7. r. Reason Would men p. 58. l. 6. r. only are p. 91. l. 27. r. Sediment p. 100. l. 16. r. Dying the. p. 106. l. 8. r. hid p. 143. l. 17. r. leave them p. 158. l. 12. r. ever p. 214. l. 31. r. take p. 219. l. 1. r. better not p. 246. l. 8. r. as it was of p. 270. l. 28. r. no where p. 289. l. 5. r. could ADVERTISEMENT THe Mystery of the Christian Faith and of the Blessed Trinity Vindicated and the Divinity of Christ proved In three Sermons Preached at Westminster-Abbey upon Trinity-Sunday June the 7th and September 21. 1696. By the late Reverend William Payne D. D. In the Press before his Death and by himself order'd to be Published And also a Letter from the Author to the Bishop of Rochester in Vindication of them THE CONTENTS Sermon I. Rom. IX 14. WHat shall we say then Is there Vnrighteousness with God God forbid P. 1. Sermon II. Matth. XI 29. last Part. And ye shall find rest unto your Souls p. 29. Sermon III. Matth. VII 13 14. Enter ye in at the strait gate for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction and many there be which go in thereat Because strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life and few there he that find it p. 71. Sermon IV. Matth. VI. 19 20. Lay not up for your selves Treasures upon Earth where Moth and Rust doth corrupt and where Thieves break through and steal But lay up for your selves Treasures in Heaven where neither Moth nor Rust doth corrupt and where Thieves do not break through and steal p. 103. Sermon V. Luke XV. 31. And he said unto him Son thou art ever with me and all that I have is thine p 131. Sermon VI. Acts XVI 30 latter part Sins what must I do to be saved p. 167. Sermon VII Job XXVIII 28. And unto man he said Behold the fear of the Lord that is Wisdom and to depart from Evil is Vnderstanding p. 185. Sermon VIII Rom. XII 21. Be not overcome of Evil but overcome Evil with Good p. 203. Sermon IX Luke XVI 31. And he said unto him if they hear not Moses and the Prophets neither will they be perswaded tho' one rose from the dead p. 223. Sermon X. Acts XVII 22. latter part I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious p. 245. Sermon XI Acts XXVI 8. Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that God should raise the dead p. 295. Sermon XII Heb. III. 13. latter part Lest any of you be hardned through the deceitfullness of sin p. 325. Books Printed for Ri. Wilkin at the King's-Head in St. Paul's-Church-Yard Immorality and Pride the great Causes of Atheism The Atheist's Objection that we can have no Idea of God refuted The notion of a God neither from Fear nor Policy Three Sermons Preach'd at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul Jan. 3. Feb. 7. and Mar. 7. 169◠being the First Second and Third of the Lecture for that year founded by the Honourable Robert Boyle Esq By John Harris M. A. and Fellow of the Royal Society 4vo Remarks on some late Papers relating to the Universal Deluge and to the Natural History of the Earth by the same Author 8vo Dr. Woodward's Natural History of the Earth 8vo Dr. Abbadies Vindication of the Truth of the Christian Religion against the Objections of all Modern Opposers In 2. Vol. 8vo A serious Proposal to the Ladies for the Advancement of their true and greatest interest By a Lover of her Sex The Third Edition 12o. A serious Proposal to the Ladies Part II. wherein a Method is offer'd for the Improvement of their Minds By the Author of the First Part 12o. Letters concerning the Love of God between the Author of the Proposal to the Ladies and Mr. John Norris 8vo An Answer to W. P.'s Key about the Quakers Light within and Oaths with an Appendix of the Sacraments 8vo A Letter to the Honourable Sir Robert Howard To gether with some Animadversions on a Book entituled Christianity not Mysterious 8vo