are apt to corrupt the practice of it And here had I the time to insist upon them I would not doubt to rank in the very first front those Atheistical conclusions which the brisk Disputers of our Age so much abound with Who not content with the Psalmist's Fool to say in their heart there is no God dare openly dispute against his Being and with their mouths deny that God whom yet in their hearts they acknowledg nay whom their fears and terrors into which every the least accident throws them even testifie to the world that for all their Gallantry they cannot disbelieve Or because this is the presumption only of a few desperate men I would beg leave rather to argue a little with some of our more refined Sceptics the great Assertors of Human Reason in opposition to the Sacred Authority of Divine Revelation Who allowing of a God nevertheless strengthen themselves in wickedness by their ungrounded Notions of his Goodness and Justice Whilst they conclude it to be inconsistent with either of those Attributes for him to punish a temporal and transient sin with everlasting Torments tho committed against an Infinite God and against the plain terms of a Covenant of Eternal Happiness if we do well and of Everlasting Punishment if we do ill entred into by us at our Baptism and at Confirmation made our own act by our own express consent to it Or lastly because such too there are amongst us I would reason with those who argue against the malignity even of Sin itâ— self and would by their disputes turn the greatest Vices into innocent and indifferent Actions Whilst from the strong inclinations which they find in themselves to evil they conclude that certainly it ought not to be esteemed so very great a fault to pursue the dictates of that Nature which God himself has implanted in us And that doubtless our Passions were never designed to be merely a snare and a torment to us as yet they conclude they must be unless we will allow it to be lawful for them as freely to indulge them as they unreasonably contend they ought to do But all these and a few others of the like kind how destructive soever they may be of true Piety are the Principles of Men not yet beginning to be religious and by consequence such as I ought to suppose are needless to be obviated in this Assembly Those I would now remark are of another nature Principles upon which even good Christians do sometimes flatter themselves in Wickedness or at least neglect to live up to that exactness of Christian Practice as they ought to do Now such I esteem first of all that popular mistake by which many persons too easily delude themselves of a good mind a desire and an intention to live well and which they hope shall attone for all their miscarriages which notwithstanding their good intention they still continue to commit This is a Principle which I fear deceives very many in the world They cannot deny but that they are indeed very great sinners but yet they are sorry for it and they desire to live better But alas What shall they do They are weak and impotent as others are exposed to a thousand Temptations every day and who is there that either does or can withstand them all And indeed where the Intention is so good as to make men careful and diligent in their duty if they sin only by surprize or incogitancy and when they do so repent them truly and watch themselves more diligently for the time to come I will not deny but that here their good Intention may find acceptance with God Almighty But otherwise to think that a weak desire and a vain resolution and a transient sorrow the usual Piety of those who rely upon this excuse shall find favour at the Great Day of Accounts This is that Device which the Devil I fear deceives many withal but for which there is not the least ground or colour in the Holy Scripture 2. And from this proceeds another mistake and that not at all less dangerous than the foregoing which is To reckon all those sins which after such a good intention they commit to be sins of Infirmity and which they perswade themselves may be consistent with a state of Grace now and with the hopes of Glory hereafter Thus if when they commit a sin their Conscience checks them and they parly with the Temptation and strive a little and then yield and then they are sorry and make some transient ineffectual resolutions of doing better for the time to come but which all vanish at the very next trial this they call Infirmity and so God knows it is but such an Infirmity as will by no means excuse the sins which they commit upon the account of it Sins of Infirmity are of another kind they are weak and imperfect sins when we are either surprized into the Commission of them or otherwise hurried on by some sudden fear or other the like powerful Passion or overbearing Temptation before we have time to consider what we do or to arm our selves with firmness and resolution against it But otherwise where the sin is known and the Will free and there was time for deliberation and yet we agreed to it this can by no means be called a sin of Infirmity And here the frequency of the Commission or the easiness of falling may serve to aggravate indeed but sure will by no means extenuate and much less excuse the guilt of it I might to these add 3 dly those Principles of the Church of Rome which I am persuaded have not a little contributed to mens neglect of true Piety viz. of being saved by others Performances of Purgatory and Indulgences Masses and Prayers for the Dead of the power of the Priest to absolve sins and of an imperfect ineffectual sorrow for sin sufficient to dispose a man to receive the Grace of Absolution of the efficacy of the Sacraments to obtain their ends tho the person be not otherwise in a condition to obtain the Grace of God without them and in which some of them have gone so far as to declare Contrition to be rather a hindrance than a benefit to the Sacrament of Penance and one adds plainly That the excellence of the Sacraments of the Gospel in general above those of the Law consists in this That they have freed us from the intolerable yoke of loving God and being truly sorry for our sins I need not after this say any thing of the extravagance of their late private Casuists remark'd and censured by many of their own Communion and not long since by the Pope himself yet still continuing notwithstanding both to be but too much applauded by very great numbers amongst them But these being Principles against which I hope I need not prepare any one of our Communion I will instead of all these mention only one Principle more 4 thly By which men often hinder
Justice and Continence had by the help of one Simon a Magician gain'd the Affections of Drusilla the Wife of Azis King of the Emisseni and lived in a state of Adultery with her Now this being the Case of Felix 't is plain that the Subject of St. Paul's Discourse was to remonstrate to him his Injustice and Intemperance and let him freely know That however he might carry it out by his Power and Authority now yet there was a time coming a future Day of Judgment when he should be called to a severe Account for all his Wickedness This was indeed an Address becoming the zeal of an Apostle and the Spirit of St. Paul And too plainly shews how little we have left in us of that Primitive warmth which inflamed this Holy Man by our different management on the like Occasions There can hardly be imagined any greater discouragement to such a freedom than what our Apostle here labour'd under To touch an Vnjust Governor in the point of his Violence and Injustice a lustful Adulterer in the business of his Incontinence this one would think should have been a pretty bold undertaking for any One But for Saint Paul a Prisoner one that was to appear as a Criminal before him for him instead of flattering this great Man as his Adversary Tertullus had done Verse 2. Instead of Applauding the great quietness which the people enjoy'd under his government and the very worthy deeds that had been done by his providence to call him to repent of his Rapine and Cruelty of his Intemperance and Adultery and this too in the presence of that very Woman whom he much loved and for whose sake he had done so many vile things this was an Honest freedom and plainness becoming an Apostolical Age but which I fear in these days of ours would be censur'd as rudeness and indiscretion any thing rather than a commendable Zeal for the Glory of God and the Salvation of Souls But alas St. Paul had not learnt that tender Application that is now a-days made to Great Persons He had no Interest of his own to pursue and therefore did not address himself after the manner of those who are more afraid of offending Men than of displeasing God and of disparaging their Character He knew the Doctrine to be seasonable to Felix and that if he pleased to make a good use of it it might be profitable too And he never stood to consider whether Felix would like it or no or whether it might not perhaps provoke him to run to any Extremities against him for his freedom In short He had an Vnjust Adulterous Man to preach to and he knew nothing so fit to reason of before him as of Righteousness Temperance and the Judgment to come And had we but the same honest Courage and Indifference that he had we should speak not only with the same freedom that he did but by the Grace of God with the same efficacy too And poor and despicable as we are thought by many yet in the power of that Divine Truth which we are sent to preach to the World make the greatest Sinners tremble to think That for all these things God will bring them to judgment And that this is the Case is the first thing I am to shew I st That the Doctrine of a Judgment to come is so highly reasonable that the greatest Infidel cannot but acknowledge the probability of it In pursuance of which Point it is not my Design to shew what Grounds the Holy Scriptures give us for the belief of a future Judgment which we all of us every day profess as an Article of our Faith and therefore cannot be supposed any of us to doubt of it What else do we meet with almost throughout the New Testament but Exhortations to live well upon this Ground That God has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness Acts xvii 31 That we must all stand before the Judgment-seat of Christ Rom. xiv 10 That we must All appear before the Judgment-seat of Christ Every one to receive the things done in his Body according to what he hath done whether it be Good or Evil 2 Cor. v. 10 What Revelation has there ever been more clearly made I do not say than this That there shall be a final Judgment but of the manner and Circumstances of it How the Trumpets shall sound and the dead arise and those that are alive be changed How the just shall be caught up into the air and the sinners lie groveling below in vain crying out to the Mountains to fall upon them and to the Hills to cover them How the Judgment shall be set and the Books open'd and every man judged out of the things contained in those Books according to his works Then shall the Son of Man come in his Glory and sit down upon the Throne of his Glory And before him shall be gathered all Nations and he shall separate them the one from the other as a Shepherd divideth his Sheep from the Goats and he shall set his Sheep on his right hand and the Goats on his left And he shall say to them on his right hand Come ye Blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the World But to those on the left Depart from me ye Cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels And these shall go away into Everlasting Punishment but the Righteous into Life Eternal In a word So particular is the Account which we here find of all the Circumstances of this great Audit that I scarce know any thing left unrevealed to us but only the Day and Hour when this Judgment shall be And which indeed God has in Mercy kept up from us that so we might always live in Apprehension of that which we can never tell how soon it may arrive But this is not that which my Text leads me to consider And indeed however it may be useful enough to call upon the most faithful Christians to think sometimes on this future Judgment yet it would certainly be a very needless undertaking to reason with such Persons concerning it and use any long Arguments to convince them of the futurity of it That which I have now to do is of a quite different nature 'T is to offer such Reasons for the belief of a Judgment to come as may convince the Greatest Infidel of the probability of it And shew them that whether they will believe us in other things or no yet here at least they cannot with any reason doubt of the Truth of our Doctrine but must resolve to become Good Men if they will not be persuaded to become Faithful Christians And indeed in this Sceptical Age in which we now live it may not for ought I know be altogether unseasonable to argue sometimes with Men upon their own Principles To shew them that Religion is not a
is I cannot but think that such Persons as these who not only continue in the Commissions of sin but project and contrive for the continuing in it and therefore put off the Time of their Repentance as a work that may be well enough done hereafter do in effect despise the Holy Spirit of God and trample under foot that Grace which should have led them to Repentance And it must certainly be a most daring Presumption in any Sinner to think that notwithstanding such a provocation God will yet attend his leisure and continue to afford him the Assistance of his Grace for his Salvation at the last though he has so often wilfully and designedly rejected all the Offers of it I am sufficiently persuaded that there is none of us whom God does not call most truly and sincerely to Salvation and by consequence that there is none of us to whom he has not offer'd such a measure of his Grace as might enable him to fulfil his Duty in order thereunto and perfect his Repentance But I must confess I cannot without some concern think what an unworthy use we have the most of us made of it and how justly we have deserved that God should at last leave us to our selves and no longer in vain attend our Amendment And O! that we would therefore be persuaded seriously to reflect upon all these things and no longer go on to expose our immortal souls to such desperate hazards as 't is plain from all these Considerations we do every day that we neglect to provide for Eternity Be it enough that we are not already made the fatal Monuments of Abused Mercy That we are yet on this side Hell and may if we please by our speedy Repentance still prevent those Judgments which our former Impenitence has but too justly deserved Let us begin in this our day to see and to pursue the things that make for our peace bâ—fore they be hid from our eyes Let us exhort one another daily while it is called to day lest any of us be hardned through the deceitfulness of sin Let us fear lest a promise being left us of entring into his rest any of us should seem to come short of it Let us give glory to God before darkness come and our feet stumble upon the dark mountains I conclude all with the words of the Prophet Isaiah Chap. LV. Vers. 6 7. Seek the Lord while he may be found call upon him while he is near Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him and unto our God for he will abundantly pardon OF THE DANGER OF Mens Delaying their Repentance A SERMON Preached before the QUEEN AT WHITE-HALL ACTS XXIV 25 Felix trembled and answer'd Go thy way for this time when I have a convenient season I will call for thee AMong all the Aggravations of sin there is none greater than to continue it not only against the checks of Conscience and the motions of God's Holy Spirit to the contrary but after many admonitions in vain sent us by his merciful Providence to bring us to Repentance There are I believe but few if any in the World so lost to all the Hopes of Heaven and Eternity who have not some time or other been put in mind of their Duty and invited by God's Grace to Pardon and Salvation And if notwithstanding all this men will nevertheless continue still incorrigible and harden themselves against all the means that can be made use of to reclaim them we ought not to wonder if they are at last given up to the Dominion of Sin and reserved as monuments of the just Judgment of God at the day of his glorious appearing I will not now enter on any Enquiry what the cause should be why we who are all of us sufficiently convinced of the necessity of Repenting and the deplorable State in which we must expect to be if we do not some time or other effectually set about it should yet still for the most part be so very unwilling to Repent But because this is one of the most fatal delusions men are apt to cheat themselves withall that with Felix here in my Text they put off this business to a more convenient Season and by their unseasonable Procrastinations in an Affair that of all others ought the least to be defer'd too often die without ever performing it at all I will make it my endeavour so to lay before you the Danger of such a Delay as if it shall please God to convince you not so much of the Necessity of Repenting some time or other which I take it for granted without my speaking you are all of you already resolved to do as of the great concern we have immediately to set about it and do that presently which we must some time or other do and can never do so Well as now And this I shall make appear from these two Considerations I st Of the great Danger we run by delaying our Repentance II dly Of the Comfort and Satisfaction that will arise to us from the Conscience of having duly Perform'd it as we ought to do I begin with the former of these Considerations I st Of the great Danger we run by delaying our Repentance Now that in one Word is this That whilst we go on continually to put off our Duty and the business of Repentance to a more convenient Season and like Felix in the Text think it still too soon to set presently about it we run the hazard of never doing it at all and like Felix too often die in our Sins and our Impenitence So that whatsoever danger there is of dying without ever Repenting the same is the danger which we run by delaying our Repentance And this I shall make appear 1 st From the great Shortness and Vncertainty of our present State 2 dly From the Nature and Difficulty of Repentance And 3 dly From the Method of God's proceeding in the Dispensation of his Grace as set forth to us in the Holy Scripture And 1 st That the Shortness and Vncertainty of our Present State ought to convince us how great a danger we run by Delaying our Repentance For Proof whereof I shall not think it necessary to entertain you with any Common-place-Argument of the Infirmities of our Nature and the many Casualties to which our Lives here are perpetually exposed and against which we can never say we are secure for the next moment How many Persons have been struck with Sudden Death What accidents have befallen others to render them wholly unfit for their Duty so that though they have had a longer warning of their Approaching End yet either by the Intollerable Sharpness of their Pain or its influence upon their understanding Faculties so as many times to deprive them of all the use of their Reason and render them utterly uncapable either to reflect upon their lives
he comes to this Holy Table But now what or how great those Sufferings were which the Blessed Jesus underwent for us it is not for me to pretend to declare unto you Great and terrible are the Accounts which the Scriptures every where give us of them How doth Isaiah set forth to us in his Prophecy the Type and Shadow of them He tells us That he should be a Man of sorrow and acquainted with grief without form or comeliness or beauty that we should desire him He represents him as labouring under all the Miseries and Afflictions that were due to the Sins of a wicked and incorrigible world Surely says he he hath born our griefs and carried our sorrows We esteemed him stricken smitten of God and afflicted But he was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities the chastisement of our peace was upon him and by his stripes we are healed All we like Sheep have gone astray and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquities of us all Thus did Isaiah speak of the Sufferings of Christ when he foresaw his Death and prophesied of his Passion And if we look into the Accounts which the Holy Evangelists give us of the Accomplishment of it we shall find those exceeding whatever we are able to comprehend of it 1. If we consider the Circumstances of his Suffering it was accompanied with all the bitter Aggravations of Misery that can well be imagined For indeed what else can we say of the Mockeries and the Insults of the Scorns and Reproaches that appeared in all the parts of his Passion Of the Baseness and Treachery of his Disciples and of the barbarous Malice and Cruelty of his Enemies How was he betray'd by one of his own Apostles deny'd by another forsaken by all condemn'd at one of those Feasts that brought together all the Nation of the Jews to Jerusalem And that for two of the most grievous Crimes that could be laid to the Charge of an innocent Soul Blasphemy against God and Sedition among the People Set at nought by the Soldiers Execrated and Abjured by his own Countrymen Adorn'd as a mock King that he might be the more derided by them and then finally to compleat the Tragedy Executed by a Death not only the most scandalous but the most painful of any in the World 2. Which therefore brings us to a Second Consideration of his Passion namely of the Pains and Torments of it And here I shall not enter upon any long Account of the Cruelty of that Death which has been thought sufficient by those whose kind of Punishment it was to give a general Name to the greatest Torments by derivation from this one as the highest and chiefest of all The Wounds of the Hands and Feet which the Nails made when he was fastned to the Cross the Agonies and Convulsions of his whole Body when he hung upon it the slowness of dying not to say any thing of those Furrows which in the Psalmist's Speech they had before made with their Scourges upon his Back All these sufficiently declare to us an extraordinary Suffering and may warrant us to cry out with the Prophet in the Reflection on it Is it nothing to you all ye that pass by behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto this sorrow wherewith the Lord afflicted his own Son in that day of his fierce anger 3. And yet still all this was but the least part of his Passion and the anguish of his Soul those unknown Sufferings he underwent within far exceed whatever Torments his Enemies were able to put him to They were these that made him sweat great drops of blood in the Garden before ever the Officers had seiz'd him or begun to inflict the least Punishment upon him They were these that made him not only declare to his Disciples That his Soul was exceeding sorrowful even unto death but carried him farther in the bitterness of his Grief to pray three several times to his Father with the greatest importunity That if it were possible this Cup might pass from him And when at last it could not be but that he must drink off the very dregs of it forced that vehement Expostulation from him My God My God why hast thou forsaken me It has been the rashness of some from all these Expressions of his Grief but especially from the last to conclude That our Saviour in his Passion underwent all the Punishment that all the Elect of God should have suffered for all their Sins and in short That he bore in his mind the very pains and torments of the Damn'd But it is not necessary nor indeed agreeable to a right Belief to run to any such Extremity His Sufferings were indeed great but they were not such as either excluded him from the love and favour of God in the midst of them nor accompanied with any despair which is always one and that not the least part of the Sinner's torment in another World He died and went down into the Grave but his Soul was not left in the regions of the dead nor did his flesh see corruption His Punishment was short in the duration and the intenseness of it though very grievous yet no more than was agreeable to the Nature of a Man to bear And we must not so speak of the Sufferings of Christ as to forget that though he was God when he underwent them yet that he died and suffered as he was Man Thus therefore must we call to mind the Passion of our Blessed Lord We must go through all the stages of it with care and exactness and neither diminish the Horrour of what he endured by an imperfect Memorial of it nor do violence at once both to the Nature and Innocence of Christ by straining it up to a greater heighth than either the Authority of Holy Scripture or the Honour of our Saviour or his Humane Nature in which he suffered will permit us to do This is the Second thing we are to remember when we come to the Holy Table The Third and last thing here required of us is Having called to mind the Sufferings of Christ and the Evils from whence we are delivered by them to consider finally what the Benefits are that accrue to us thereby It is not to be doubted but that there must be somewhat very extraordinary for which the Son of God should Himself come down from Heaven and not only humble himself so far as to take upon him the form of a Servant but being made in the similitude of a Man expose himself to all those vile and cruel Sufferings I but just now recounted And indeed the Benefits which he purchased for us by his Death were not at all inferior to the Punishment he underwent for the obtaining of them And to speak them all in one general Conclusion he purchased the Redemption of a lost miserable sinful World we were all before dead
commanded to Remember the Day in which they came out of Egypt and to keep the feast of unleavened bread seven daies And then and there solemnly to declare to their Children the Cause of it namely That they did this because of that which the Lord their God had done for them when they came forth out of Egypt To which end it was the Custome of the Jews at this Solemnity to have their Children propose to them the Question What the meaning of this Solemnity was And thereupon the Master of the House gave a full Account to them of the History of their Deliverance and which from thence they called the Haggadah the Annunciation or Remembrance Because of their using it at this Time to commemorate or shew forth that wonderful Deliverance which God had wrought for them Such was the Nature of that Remembrance which God commanded the Jews to continue in their Paschal Supper of His bringing them out of Egypt And the same is the Remembrance which our Saviour here commands us by this new Feast to continue in his Church of his dying for us We are to celebrate it as a solemn and Publick Memorial of that great Deliverance which our Blessed Lord has wrought for us and to declare to all the World thereby what a Sense we have of his infinite Love and Mercy to us Nay but this is not yet all we are to do if we will answer the full extent of the Duty here required of us We must not only make in this Holy Sacrament our Publick and solemn Recognition of Christ's Death and Passion but we must do it with that Affection that Joy those Resentments that become so great and excellent a Memorial So these kind of Expressions in Holy Scripture are for the most part to be understood and so it is plain we must take the Word in this Place And this is the other thing remaining to be considered for the full understanding of the Text. viz. II. With what Affections we ought to come to this Holy Table and Do this in Remembrance of Him It were too much for me here in the close of my Discourse to resume the whole Consideration of this great Sacrament and enter again upon a particular View of it and shew what kind of Affections we ought to raise in our Souls proportionable to the several Parts and Respects of it If we are indeed so sensible as we ought to be of our Saviour's Love to us in thus giving himself to the Death for us If we have so seriously weighed as becomes those who are called to this Feast the mighty Benefits and Advantages which are derived to us thereby what Miseries we have escaped to what Blessings we are entituled by his Sufferings the Sense of all this will soon teach us what Motions and Affections ought to fill our Souls that may be suitable to so great and blessed a Memorial For indeed who can be so ignorant as not to know without my Remark when he comes to the Holy Table and there beholds the Minister of God setting forth as S. Paul speaks evidently before his eyes Christ crucified for Him when both his Words and his Actions call upon Him to consider How the Son of God humbled himself even to the death for our Redemption and submitted his Body to be broken his Blood to be spilt as He there sees the Bread broken the Wine poured out in this Celebration that here certainly he ought with the greatest Ecstasie of Love to contemplate this Love of his Saviour to Him and break forth into the highest Expressions of a grateful Thanksgiving for this mighty Demonstration of his Favour and Affection to Him When from this He begins to reflect on that wretched Condition in which we all of us must have been had not the blessed Jesus thus graciously undertook the great Work of our Redemption and by dying for us delivered us from that Death to which we were condemned and raised us up to the Hopes of Eternal Glory Where is the Soul so dull so un-affected with the Contemplation of such a glorious Change as to be able to keep in his joyful Resentments of so wonderful a Deliverance and not rather burst forth into new Songs of Praise and Gladness for all the Benefits which God and his Redeemer have been so wonderfully pleased to do unto Him But above all who can think on that Value which the Blessed Jesus has put upon our Souls that he thought the Salvation of them to be a Price worthy his own Death and Sufferings to redeem them and then consider That even these very Souls for which Christ died will yet be exposed to the hazard of a greater and worser Damnation than that from which they have been delivered if we shall still go on impenitent in our Sins And not presently resolve here to sacrifice all his Passions at this Altar to lay down all his Lusts at the Pedestal of the Cross and vow Himself entirely to the Obedience of that Saviour who as S. Paul tells us for this very End gave himself for us that He might redeem us from all Iniquity and purchase to himself a peculiar people zealous of good Works Such Resentments as these will naturally arise in every pious Soul when he comes to this Sacred Feast and therefore I shall not need to give any particular Directions concerning them Only I would take occasion from this last Import of the Remembrance to which our Text calls us To exhort you when you come to this Holy Institution that you would take Care to raise up all these Affections and Resentments to as great a Heighth as you are able and having done this that you would then cherish and improve them that being not only warm and vigorous upon your Souls at the present but also rooted and engrafted into them they may not easily cool again but become operative upon your Lives may encrease your Love and confirm your Faith and enflame your Devotion and keep you firm and steady to your Duty till some new Occasion shall again call you to a new exciting of them This will be indeed to render your Remembrance such as your Saviour here requires of you And the frequent Returns which by the Blessing of God you here enjoy of this Memorial beyond most Christians in the World shall not only put you in a Capacity of coming still with better and more affectionate Resentments to this Holy Sacrament but shall by the Blessing of God prove a most useful and excellent Assistance to the promoting of all the other Parts of your Duty you shall live as becomes those who know what mighty Engagements their Saviour has laid upon them to what Hopes they are called and by what means their Redemption was purchased for them And as this Exercise will be the best means to prepare you to come worthily to this Remembrance so will it be also the most powerful Motive to engage you to
Lights in the Primitive Church and Reason according to the common Condition of Mankind and from which they themselves cannot produce us any Authority of Holy Scripture to exempt her And if some among us have with St. Chrysostom freely supposed That in some cases she did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet in the very Instances to which they refer they have at least probable grounds for what they say And for the most part we are contented with St. Austin to suspend our selves and for the honour of our Saviour not to enter into any question at all concerning her as to this matter whether she ever did actually sin or no Or now that God has taken her up into Glory Have we not all that high and worthy Opinion of her Exaltation that we ought to have because indeed we freely profess we cannot believe such extravagant Romances as all sober Men even of their own Church are ashamed of We doubt not but she is at this time in Heaven Do we ever the more debase her because we will not entertain a shameless Legend of her Assumption thither We are persuaded that she is adorn'd with one of the brightest Aureola's in God's Kingdom That her Crown is more Illustrious than any among the Daughters of Eve Is not this sufficient unless we will undertake to tell you what her Crown was made of how many Stars went into her Atchievement what Badges her Servants wore and what Speeches and Complements were made to her upon the occasion and to compleat all set forth in perspective all the Holy Trinity concurring in this Ceremony and all the Powers of Heaven and Earth singing Praises to Her and adoring of Her We make no question but that as she was very highly favour'd by God on Earth so is she now no less beloved by him in Heaven But should we therefore set her up as another Mediatrix that as both Sexes concurr'd to our Ruin so might both concur to our Reparation and so tye up the Hands of God as not to allow any to be saved but according to Her Will Nay make her so far the Queen of Heaven and Earth as to give her a Power of all the Grace that is to be bestowed on Mankind Of saving her Votaries if they do but sufficiently love and worship Her whatever their Affections or their Service be to God Almighty Of fetching Souls not only out of Purgatory but even from Hell it self by her Authority Of ordering all the Events of the Fortunes of Men and Kingdoms insomuch that not a Battel can be fought or a Victory obtain'd but by the favour of this Pallas to whom the Success is due and to whom the Praise and Honour therefore ought to be return'd These indeed are the Extravagancies of some of our Adversaries but God forbid they should ever be the Practice or Opinions of any among us To conclude It is impossible for any to entertain more honourable Sentiments of the Blessed Virgin than we do who will not run out into Blasphemy and Fanaticism and believe such things as neither Scripture nor Antiquity have deliver'd nor will either Piety or common Sense suffer us to receive Let us see Secondly Whether our Actions be not every way suitable to our Opinions Now for this I must observe according to my Foundation before laid down That the Holy Virgin however highly exalted by God being yet still but a meer Creature our Actions towards her must be no other than what a Creature that is at such a vast distance from us and out of all compass of Civil Communication is capable of receiving And so the summ of what may warrantably be paid to her will fall under these Three Generals First To celebrate the Memory of those Blessings and Favours which it has pleased God to bestow upon her Secondly To return Praises to God on the account of them And Thirdly To endeavour what in us lies to imitate her Excellencies This is all the Honour she is capable of receiving from us and it cannot be doubted but that we are as careful as any to fulfil the Prophecy of our Text in every one of these Particulars First We celebrate the Memory of those Blessings and Favours which it has pleased God to bestow upon her Let this day and the other Solemn Festivals we observe to the same End be our Witness how careful we are as to this particular We mark it out in our Rituals as a Day Holy unto the Lord We assemble in our Sacred places solemnly to recount what the Holy Scriptures have recorded of God's Mercies to Her And annually as at this time we encourage one another to bless and praise Him upon the account of them But here the Objection made in the beginning will rise against us 'T is true indeed we do observe some of her Festivals but yet we pass by the greater part of them And for the main thing of all we quite omit it in that we say not AVE MARIA so often and so impertinently as they do nor other Anthems of our Lady as they call her by a new and phantastical Title never given her either in Scripture or by any of the ancient Fathers This we confess is in some measure true We say no AVE MARIE'S i. e. after the manner that they do nor can we imagin what Honour is done to the Blessed Virgin by the nauseous tautologie of a Salutation pertinent in its season when the Angel spoke to her upon her Conception but now as unseasonable in the Application as it is vain and absurd in the Repetition But yet when we recite the History and celebrate the Memory of that surprising Salutation then we read it in our Assemblies that is we do say Ave Maria as often as 't is either pious or to the purpose to do it And if for not doing it as they do we are to be excluded out of the Number of those of whom our Text speaks yet God be thanked we shall run but the same Fortune that the Apostles and the primitive Ages of the Church did before it was first as they tell us revealed to St. Dominick and by him to the Church how they were to recite the Rosary But now for the other Instances objected against us viz. The Feasts and Anthems of our Lady in these we may venture to justifie our selves We celebrate the Memory of all the great Particulars that we know of her Life And if upon the meer Authority of Fables confess'd to be uncertain and disputed by many among themselves as not fit to be credited we cannot be induced to observe more yet in this we hope all sober Christians will acquit us and esteem us to be very excusable in what we do It being certainly to mock not honour both God and Her solemnly to commemorate and seriously to thank God for such Blessings as at the same time we are sure He never bestowed upon Her nor She ever receiv'd
well what is it else but to maintain a Paradox and shew a great deal of Skill only to demonstrate how much may be said for the most incredible things Heaven is a place which cannot raise his desires who has not thoughts purified enough to be in love with innocent and spiritual delights The pleasures of those happy Regions are not suited to the sensual apprehensions of such men as know no attractives but those of a Mahumetan Paradise And Hell it self tho the most formidable consideration of any yet such as for that very reason he will be sure to put as far from him as he can and either fancy that perhaps there is no such place or if there be yet hoâ—e it will be time enough hereafter to pâ—ovide for the escaping of it 3. And then lastly for that which is the great end of all religious instructions the Practice of Piety and without which all our knowledg in the Mystery of Godliness will be in vain this is what such a one is yet more indisposed to than all the rest There are many in the world who can be content to applaud the reasonableness of Piety and Virtue and will allow of all that we can say in praise of it that yet when it comes to the trial cannot endure to put it in practice Like the Ground over-run with Thorns in the Parable they receive the Word with gladness but the Cares of the world and the Pleasures of life choak the seed so that they seldom bring forth any Fruit unto perfection It is therefore absolutely necessary that he who will be a fit Disciple for the school of Christ should first dispose himself by a Probity and Integrity of mind to be willing to follow his Instructions That he labour sincerely to have a Conscience void of offence both towards God and towards man That he come to our Religious Exercises with a Pious Mind not to please his Fancy or gratifie his Curiosity but to learn true Wisdom and that in order to Practice Instead of considering how the Discourse is managed whether the Preacher performs his part as he expected he should he must employ his Thoughts on more substantial Meditations In what particular especially the Discâ—urse came up to his own condition and how he may best apply it thereunto If any Vice were reproved whether his own Sin be not concerned in it If any Duty explain'd or encouraged whether that were not directed by God to inform his Knowledg or to reprove his remissness If it set forth any of the great Mysteries of our Redemption or the Glories of Heaven and what we must do to attain to them to remember that in all these things God calls upon us to acknowledg his Power and to celebrate his Goodness who has sent so wonderful and gracious a salvation to us This is the true way whereby the Pious Christian may profit himself even by the meanest of our Discourses but without such a disposition to receive Instruction the best seed will in vain be cast away upon us 2 dly The next qualification required in a Christian Auditor as well as in all others is That he be Docile By which I do not mean Endued with quick Parts and Abilities to learn that is the Gift of God and which sometimes may do more harm than good but I mean that he be desirous of Instruction and to that end prepared with such a temper and disposition of mind as to be willing and ready to pursue the means of it And to this end more particularly 1 st That he be Humble i. e. neither vainly conceited of himself as if he had no need of instruction nor esteeming himself to be too great to receive it even from the meanest Preacher There is nothing in the world so great an Enemy to our Proficiency in any thing as Pride When men look upon themselves as too great to learn and as such neglect and despise the means of Instruction Indeed I am not so vain as to think that we are not many times called to speak to those who are much fitter to become our Teachers But yet neither can I so far undervalue the Gospel of Christ which we deliver unto you as to believe there is ordinarily any Sermon so mean and despicable but that an humble mind might have profited by it and have found somewhat at least to exercise his Charity and his Patience if not to excite his Zeal and improve his Knowledg 2. A second thing required to this Docility is That a man be free from Passion This disturbs the mind and blinds the reason and hinders many times the best Doctrine from producing any suitable effects upon us Those who are subject to the command of their own affections judg more according to the inclinations of them than to the dictates of right reason He that espouses a Party or Interest that loves an Opinion and desires it should be true easily approves of whatsoever does but seem to make for it and rejects almost at all adventures whatsoever appears against it How does the Hope and Desire of Honour or Favour or Fortune in the World carry men away to the vilest things for the prosecution of it And so all the other Passions of the mind whether it be fear or pleasure or whatever else be the affection that rules us they hinder the reason from judging aright and weighing impartially what is delivered to us and 't is great odds but such an Auditor receives or condemns the Doctrine of Christ not according as the Authority of Holy Sripture and the Evidence of right reason require he should but as his own Passions and Inclinations prompt him to do 3. A Third thing required to Docility is That a man be free from Prejudice He that will advance any thing in the finding out of Truth must bring to it that Travellers indifference which the Heathen so long since recommended to the World He must not desire it should lie on the one side rather than the other lest his desire that it should prompt him without just reason to believe that it does And so in Religion too He that will make a right judgment what to believe or what to Practice must first throw off all prejudice in favour of his own Opinion or against any others And resolve never to be so tied up to any Point or Party as not to be at all times ready impartially to examine whatsoever can reasonably be objected against either How far the want of this does at this day divide the Church of Christ I would to God we had not too great reason on all sides to complain There are many among us so strangely engaged by false principles to an ill cause that 't is in vain to offer them the clearest Arguments to convince them If you bring them Scripture 't is true that must be heard but then be it never so plain they are not competent Judges of the Meaning of it and they durst
obstinate but he cannot be wisely stedfast in the Faith A good Christian must be able to give some more reasonable account of his Faith than this if ever he means to be securely firm in the Profession of it His Creed must be founded on some better Authority than a bare Credulity And 't will be a very useless Plea at the last day that a man believed as his Church believed when he might have had the opportunity of a better information should he chance by so doing to live and dye in a damnable Heresie unless he can render some tolerable account either wherefore his Church believed so or at least wherefore it was that he submitted himself so servilely to her Authority But he that believes with knowledg because he is clearly and evidently perswaded that it is the Truth need never fear either the danger or imputation of such an Obstinacy for his firmness in adhering to his Faith If for instance a Member of the Church of England reads in his Bible those express words of the Second Commandment Thou shalt not make to thy self any graven Image nor the likeness of any thing that is in Heaven above c. Thou shalt not Bow down to it nor Worship it If he looks forward to the History of the New Testament and there in the Institution of the Blessed Eucharist sees those words Drink ye ALL of this in as plain and legible Characters as those others Take and Eat and thereupon resolves never to be prevailed upon either to Bow down himself before an Image or to give up his Right to the Cup as well as to the Bread in that Holy Sacrament whatever glosses may be made or pretences be used to induce him to either 'T is evident that such a Firmness as this cannot be called Obstinacy unless these Scriptures be no longer the Word of God or that no longer a Principle of Scripture that in matters of plain and undoubted Command we are to obey God rather than man And in these and the like instances where the matter is clear even to demonstration there is no doubt to be made but that such Knowledg will certainly secure us against the charge and danger of Obstinacy But because all points in debate are not thus Evident but on the contrary many are not a little obscure therefore for the securing our selves from danger in our adherence to these too we must to our Knowledg add 2 dly A sincere zeal to discover the truth with an affectionate Charity to those that differ from us In such Cases as this thô we must believe and profess according to what appears to us at present to be the Truth yet since the Evidence is not such as to exclude all possibility of our being mistaken our adherence to it must be qualified with this reserve neither rashly to censure those who are otherwise minded nor obstinately to resolve never to change our Opinion if we should perhaps be hereafter convinced that we ought to do so Now in order hereunto it is not necessary that a Man should either fluctuate in his present Faith or not be firmly persuaded that he shall never see any reason to forsake it It is sufficient to take off the imputation of obstinacy that our stedfastness be such as not to exclude either a readiness of being better informed if that be possible or of making upon all occasions a strict and impartial enquiry into the Grounds and Reason of our Faith or even of hearing freely whatever objections can fairly be brought against it And all this with a sincere desire and stedfast resolution to discover and embrace the Truth wheresoever it lies Whether it be that which we now suppose to be so or whether it shall be found to be on the contrary side He who is thus disposed in his mind at all times to receive instruction and never presumes rashly to condemn any one that is thus in like manner disposed however otherwise disagreeing in Opinion from Him need never fear that his firmness is any other than that Wise and Christian stedfastness which our Text requires not such an obstinacy as both that and we most justly detest and condemn But here then we must look to the other extreme and take heed lest for fear of being perversly constant to our Faith we fall into a weak and criminal Instability To prevent this these three things may be consider'd 1 st That we carefully avoid all Vnworthy Motives of changing our Religion 2 dly That we be not too apt to entertain an ill Opinion of it 3 dly That if any Arguments shall at any time be brought against it that may deserve our considering we then be sure to give Them that due and diligent Examination that we ought to do I st He that will be stedfast in the Faith must above all things take heed to arm himself against all unworthy Motives of changing his Religion It is very sad to consider what unchristian means are made use of by some persons to propagate their Religion And a Man need almost no other assurance that it cannot be from God than to see the Professors of it pursue such methods for the promoting of its Interest as most certainly never came down from above Thus if a Man's fortunes be mean or his ambition great If Religion has not taken so deep root in his Soul as to enable him to overcome the flatteries and temptations of a present Interest and Advantage then there shall not be wanting a seducer presently to shew him that he must needs be out of the right way because it is not that which leads to preferment And 't is great odds but a good Place or an Honourable Title will quickly appear a more infallible mark of the true Church than any that Scripture or Antiquity can furnish to the contrary If this will not do and Interest cannot prevail then the other governing passion of our Minds mens fears are tried Instead of these allurements the False Teacher now thunders out Hell and Damnation against us Nothing but Curses and Anathema's to be expected by us if we continue firm in our Faith And it shall be none of the Prophets nor his Churches fault if all the Horrors and Miseries of this present life be not employ'd against us in charity to prevent our falling into the Everlasting Punishments of the next The Truth is I am ashamed to recount what unworthy means some have not been ashamed to make use of to promote their Religion and draw us away from our stedfastness France and Savoy Hungary and Germany The Old World and the New have all and that but very lately been witnesses what ways it is that Popery has and does and if ever it means effectually to prevail must take to propagate its interest Animus meminisse horret luctúque refugit Now he that shall be so unhappy as to suffer himself by any of these motives which a constant Man might and ought to have overcome
to be seduced from the right Faith he may deserve indeed to be pitied now but I fear he will hardly be hereafter excused But it is not sufficient to secure our selves against this danger He that will be constant in his Religion as he ought to be must see 2 dly That he be not too apt to entertain an ill Opinion of it For if it be Obstinacy on the one hand not to admit of any Conviction thò never so clear and reasonable it is certainly a great Weakness on the other to be affrighted at every shadow of an Argument and to put it in the power of every little Disputer to prejudice us against our Religion because one who is its professed Enemy rails against it and pretends it is a very ill One He would I believe be thought a very credulous person indeed who should begin to stagger and fall into a trembling thô he saw himself upon plain and even Ground because a bold and fanciful man is very positive that 't is a precipice And doubtless that Man is no less to be pitied that is frighted for fear he should be in the wrong thô he has the undoubted Authority of Scripture and Antiquity nay and even of Sense and Reason too on his side as often as every Common-place Trifler shall think fit to run over his division upon the Church the Antiquity Succession Infallibility of it and without either Modesty or Proof call us Hereticks If Men have Reason on their side if they have Scripture for what they say let them on God's Name produce it We are always ready to consider and to submit to such convictions But otherwise to think to perswade us that we are in utter darkness when we see the Sun shining in our faces That we must be damned for not believing that what we see and tast and know to be but a bit of Bread is not the Body of a Man That they are not Infallible who are actually involved in the grossest Errors In a word That our Church had no being before Luther every Article of whose Faith is founded upon the Authority of the Holy Scriptures and has been professed in all Ages of the Church from the Apostles to this day this is certainly one of the most unreasonable things in the whole World and what ought not by any means to stagger our stedfastness And now having secured our selves on both these sides it only remains to preserve our Constancy 3 dly That if at any time any Arguments should be offer'd to us that may deserve our regard we then be sure to give them that due and wise Examination that we ought to do It is a very great Weakness and indeed a very great fault in many persons that if at any time they begin to doubt in their belief of any part of their Faith which they have been taught to profess they presently abandon their own Guides and run for satisfaction to those who are the professed Enemies of their Religion From henceforth they hear nothing but what is ill of their Church they are taught more and more to suspect the way that they are in and then 't is odds but a very little examination suffices to make them leave it This is certainly a very great fault and will one day prove of very dangerous consequence What such persons may think of changing their Religion I cannot tell but sure I am our greatest Charity will hardly enable us to entertain any very comfortable Opinion of them Nor are they such as those that we either say or believe may be saved notwithstanding the errors and corruptions of that Church with which they Communicate He that will make a safe change from one Religion to another must not think it enough to enquire into one or two points and having received a satisfaction in them embrace all the rest at a venture for their sakes but he must pass distinctly through every Article in debate He must enquire not only whether the Church of which he is at present a Member be not mistaken in some points it may be there is no Church in the World that is absolutely free from all kind of Error But whether those mistakes be of such a consequence that he cannot communicate any longer with it on the account of them When this is done the greatest difficulty will still remain to examine with the same diligence every Article of that other Church to which he is tempted For else thô he should have reason to forsake his own Church he will yet be but little advantaged if he goes to another that is as bad or it may be worse than that If there he should find the most part well yet so that there are but any One or Two things so Erroneous as to oblige him to profess what he thinks to be false or to practice what is unlawful even this will be sufficient to hinder him from reconciling himself to it And in all this there must be a serious and diligent and impartial search There must be no prejudice in favour of the One or against the Other no desire that the Truth should be on this side rather than on that In short nothing must be omitted whereby he might reasonably have got a better Information And to all this Care there must be added fervent Prayer to God for his assistance He who falls away from his first Faith on any lesser convicton than this can never excuse himself from a criminal lightness in a matter of such concern And for him that sincerely does this I shall for my part be content that he should leave the Church of England whenever he can be thus convinced that any other but especially that the Church of Rome is a safer way to Salvation And this may suffice to have been said to the first particular What that stedfastness in Religion is to which our Text exhorts us I go on 2 dly to shew II. Upon what Motives it was that the Apostle here stirred up the Christians to whom he wrote and that I am now in like manner to exhort you to such a stedfastness Now these our Text reduces to this One General Consideration That they both understood their danger and were expresly forewarn'd by his Epistle how careful it would behove them to be to arm themselves against it Ye therefore Beloved seeing ye know these things before Beware And doubtless it is not only a great security but ought to be also a great engagement to such a vigilance to be thus expresly forewarned of our danger And he who either neglecting or despising the Admonition suffers himself to be seduced from his own stedfastness must certainly be utterly inexcusable both in the sight of God and Man for his Inconstancy But that which will aggravate this neglect yet much more is the consideration of those Motives by which the Apostle here cautions them to Beware and which therefore I must lay a little more distinctly before you Now such
convenient season I will call for thee Such was the effect of St. Paul's reasoning at this time before Felix and I would to God we had no cause to complain that such is too often the consequence of our Preaching to you That the Knowledg which we have and the belief which we profess of a Judgment to come were so efficacious to our amendment that we none of us needed to be called upon no longer to defer it but to begin in good earnest to consider how to make our Peace with God and to provide for Eternity But alas I fear I have here pitch'd upon a subject never like to be out-dated And tho it be certainly one of the greatest Contradictions in the world not only to Scripture and Reason but to our own Interests too and to which we are not apt to be so blind to pretend to believe a judgment to come and yet nevertheless to neglect to provide for it yet I know not how such is the power of our lusts that they stop our ears against all Arguments though never so clear and forcible that would induce us to forsake them we tremble to think what shall be the consequence of our sins yet still we go on in the commission of them And now what Argument can I take up more seasonable to the present time or indeed more fit at all times for our Consideration than to reason a while of this great and dangerous neglect To enquire into the Causes which move so many thus to delay their Repentance and to offer some effectual Arguments that may convince you of the unreasonableness of it In a word to stir up such an Auditory as this both from the example of this wretched man in the Text and from the just cause we may have to fear lest if we continue with him to put off still the time of our Repentance we finally perish with him in his Impenitence to hasten with all the speed we can to return to our duty that our Iniquity may not be our ruin And this is the design of my present Discourse wherein I shall First Enquire into the Causes that move so many to delay their Repentance and be still putting off their provision for another World to some more convenient season And Secondly shall shew the Danger of so doing And by both endeavour what I can to engage every one that now hears Me to a timely a speedy or rather to speak more properly to a present Repentance And I st Of the Causes that move so many to delay their Repentance and be still putting off their provision for another World to some more Convenient Season Now those I presume may well be reduced to these four General Considerations Either 1 st They do not think at all or not to any purpose of their Future State and therefore neglect to provide for it Or 2 dly They do not believe there is so great a necessity of Repenting in order thereunto as we say there is Or 3 dly They suppose they may do this hereafter as well as now Or 4 thly Tho' they are convinced both of the necessity of their Repenting and of the Reasonableness of setting presently about it yet for all that they cannot so soon resolve to part with their Sins and enter on a course of Piety and Religion These are some of the Principal Causes that I presume may be likely to prompt Men to put off their Concern for another World and I shall make it my Endeavour with all the plainness that I can to shew the folly and unreasonableness of every one of them And 1 st There are many in the World who do not think at all or not to any purpose of their Future State and therefore neglect to provide for it It is a matter of sad Consideration to see how very Careless and Secure most men seem to be as to the Business of another World They Live if not as those who believe nothing at all of it yet in such a manner as if they were not in the least danger of miscarrying in their way to it They think and contrive how to manage their Affairs in this present Life To Establish their Health and to Improve their Fortunes and add still new degrees to their Honours and Dignities Only the Happiness of the other World that they seem to look upon as hardly worth their Care They leave it as a thing that it will be time enough to provide for when they begin to come nearer to it and 't is no longer worth their while to trouble themselves about the good things of this And now what can be more unreasonable than such an Incogitancy To spend all our thoughts and our endeavours upon a few Temporal pursuits that have neither worth nor duration to recommend them to our desires and in the mean time never to think at all or at least not to any purpose of those Joys and Glories that shall continue to all Eternity Indeed had we either never heard of any such thing as a Judgment to Come or did we not believe that there is such a State as our Religion has revealed to us A State of Everlasting Happiness if we do Well but of Eternal Punishment if we continue to do Ill there might then be some Excuse for such a neglect And yet even in this Case too we ought to be very sure there was no such thing as another World before we could reasonably give over the thoughts of it He that lives well and denies himself some part of that Liberty he would otherwise indulge himself now out of the fear and apprehension of another Life that is to come does at the most run but the little hazard of living a more Reserved and Innocent sort of Life than he needed to have done if it shall hereafter appear that he was mistaken Whereas he that confidently presumes there is no such thing as a Future State and so neglects to provide for it should it chance to be otherwise must be for ever Miserable without all possible means to reform his Error But for men to know and believe that God will bring them to Judgment and they cannot tell how soon he may do it That if they chance to be caught away in the midst of their sins as they see thousands are every day before their eyes they shall then be doom'd to the wretched sentence of Everlasting Fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels and yet still to continue careless and unconcern'd and not so much as spend a thought how they are prepared to stand before the great Tribunal This is doubtless such a piece of Indiscretion as may well deserve our pity and our wonder but certainly will not need that I should say any thing to expose the desperate folly and unreasonableness of it 2 dly Another cause of mens delaying their Repentance is That they do not believe there is so great a Necessity of Repenting as we say there is
reveal them unto her yet since he has no where promised that he will do this nor encouraged us to call upon her to this End we think we cannot in this manner pray to her without either great Folly or great Impiety Without great Folly if not believing that she do's certainly some way or other understand our Requests we yet neverless address to her Without great Impiety if in confidence that she has such an Ability we ascribe the most peculiar Prerogatives of God to her viz. Immensity Omniscience Omnipresence and so make her every way equal with God But were she now upon Earth where we could either speak to her our selves or otherwise entertain any certain Correspondence with her we should be far from discouraging any to beg the Benefit of her Prayers or thinking them worthy of Censure for so doing When we stand at our Altars and celebrate the blessed Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ and set forth the Lord's death until his coming We cannot indeed allow our selves to do this to the Honour and Veneration of any other than of him only whose Death and Passion we commemorate But even here also we do the utmost that we can to Honour her We name her at the Holy Table we recite there the History of God's Favour to her and magnifie him with her upon the account of it In a Word when we confess our Sins and absolve our Penitents if we commend either our selves or others to God's Mercy In these and the like Cases we think it an Impiety to joyn the Daughter of Anna with the great God the Lord of Heaven and Earth If we give Thanks for any Blessings we have receved we chuse rather to follow her Example and cry out with her My Soul doth magnifie the Lord and my spirit rejoyceth in God my Saviour than with others to divide the Glory between God and her and say Glory be to JESVS and MARY If we vow a Vow unto the Lord or swear by his Name we neither think it fitting nor lawful to joyn God and the Blessed Virgin together lest we should thereby seem to make her the Searcher of Hearts as well as him and a powerful Avenger of such secret Sins If we speak of Her we readily give her any Attribute that either the holy Scripture warrants or her Nature allows of But to call her a Goddess and our selves her Suppliants to style her Queen of Heaven and Mother of Divine Grace the Refuge of Sinners and the Ark of the Covenant the Sovereign Lady of Angels Archangels Patriarchs Prophets Apostles Martyrs Confessors and all Saints and as such beseech her That she and her Son would bless us this we think is to carry the Complement too far and a Strain much fitter for some poetical Heathen Goddess than for a Christian Saint But let these and the like Superstitions be laid aside and which a Virgin so humble on Earth cannot sure be supposed to be so much altered for the worse as to aspire after in Heaven let Religion and the Worship of that be exempted as the peculiar Due of that God who made both her and us and whom alone both she and all of us therefore ought to adore and then what farther remains to proclaim her Blessed shall as freely be allowed and paid her by us as it can be justly claimed of us Now the sum of all such Honour may be referred by us to these two general Considerations 1. Of that just Esteem and Value and Opinion we have of her And 2. Of Actions suitable to such Opinions As for the former of these 1. That Esteem and Value and Opinion we have of her It is certainly as great as any sober Christian can desire it should be We believe her to have been a most pure and holy and vertuous Creature That her virgin Mind was clean and spotless as her Body Chast and immaculate and that she was upon the Account of both the most fit of any of all her Race or Sex for the Holy Ghost to overshadow and for the Son of the most Highest to inhabit When we consider the firmness of her Faith the fervour of her Devotion the excellency of her Humility we cannot but acknowledge a Grace extraordinary in her working all those eminent and Divine Qualities And tho' we are not so curious as to enter on those nicer Speculations in which so many have in vain exercised themselves Whether she was Conceived in Sin And if she was How far it was restrained in her at first and at what instant totally extinct in her afterwards Whether she was Sanctified in the Womb of her Mother And to what degree And at what time Whether before she was Animated or after And Whether this Sanctification was such as to keep her from ever committing any so much as Venial Sin Yet as the common condition of Mankind does not permit us without all warrant from Holy Scripture which they confess is here wanting to them to exempt her from all Sin so neither do we pretend to accuse her of any And for her present state we do not at all question but that God who shewed her such favour on Earth hath also very highly exalted her in Heaven So that among all the Race of Adam next unto him who was God as well as Man we think it very probable that she has obtain'd the chiefest place in God's Kingdom who brought forth the Son of God into the World And here then let these our Accusers who say that we are not of the number of those of whom the Blessed Virgin in my Text prophesied That Behold from thenceforth all Generations should call her Blessed tell us if they can Wherein is it that we are defective in our Opinion concerning the Mother of our Lord Is it that we deny her Immaculate Conception and suppose her to have in this been submitted to the common condition of all others since the Fall of our first Parents Christ only excepted But then they must not forget that this is no more than what their own Brethren of their own Infallible Church deny as stifly as we do And if there have been Saints and Popes and Visions and Miracles for it yet we know there have been also Saints and Popes and Visions and Miracles against it too And at this day there is Order against Order School against School about it And as if the Spirit of Infallibility had in this Matter forsaken their Church it could never yet be finally determined either by Council or Pope which Side is in the right Is it that we suspend our selves as to the Point of her Actual Sins And see no cause to conclude why the Blessed Virgin though a most pure and holy Creature yet should not have been as capable of committing Sins as well as all others Christ only excepted here also we think must be allowed to be But yet in this we do but follow some of the greatest